‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ Episode 6 Deep Dive

Summary

‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ Episode 6 Deep Dive – House of R

Hosts: Mallory Rubin & Joanna Robinson | Date: February 25, 2026

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Overview

Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson return for House of R’s deep dive into the season one finale of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms ("The Morrow"). With their trademark blend of encyclopedic knowledge, warmth, and wry humor, they break down the episode’s emotional closing, dissect character arcs, pore over adaptation choices, and chart the significance of Dunk and Egg’s journey for Westeros and beyond. Throughout, they build on listener questions and insights, tie the series back to thrones lore, and speculate about the future direction of the show. The conversation is, as ever, as much about the resonance of fantasy stories and tropes as it is about the specifics of Westeros.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Opening Impressions & Season Reflections

• Both Mallory and Joanna loved the finale and the season overall, praising its spirit, the quality of the adaptation, and the revitalization of communal Thrones fandom ("It just feels like Thrones is, like, extremely fun again, which it's been a minute, so. Yeah." – Jo, 07:47).
• They note that unlike House of the Dragon, Dunk & Egg's tales provide closure within each story—no major cliffhangers—while still leaving room for more.
• Excitement builds for future seasons and “mailbag” episodes, with a sense of ongoing fan engagement due to the abundance of listener emails: "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms has done exactly what we wanted, which was animate the masses." (08:12).

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Adaptation Choices & Spoiler Dynamics

• Spoiler Boundaries: The episode is open for spoilers up through The Hedge Knight and all of A Song of Ice and Fire, but future Dunk & Egg novellas are reserved for later in the pod (04:04).
• The hosts highlight their careful approach to "book canon vs. adaptation," especially regarding the ambiguity around whether Dunk was ever actually knighted ("it's preposterous that it's ambiguous, but I'm not upset about that" – Jo, 64:56).
• Listener Insights: Notable correspondence from listeners—like Mackenzie on Valyrian language (10:00), Chris on Dan Romer’s score (20:58), and many about adaptation fidelity—shape and deepen the analysis.

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Deep Scene-by-Scene Analysis

A. The Laughing Storm & Music Cues (17:32–22:35)

• The music sets the tone for the episode—a whimsical, almost Detectorists/British TV vibe, juxtaposing the previous episode’s horror. The scoring is widely praised, particularly the blend of classic Thrones themes and Dan Romer’s new motifs: “the music in this season was incredible...” (Jo, 18:55).
• The opening scene’s visual comedy and use of silent film tropes receive special mention.
• Quote: “It always feels special to have something back in your life you thought you may have lost for good.” – Listener Chris, 21:00

B. Lionel Baratheon’s Offer & Anti-Targaryen Discourse (26:13–47:19)

• Lionel tries to recruit Dunk to Storm’s End. The offer, once unimaginable for Dunk, is now kindly refused as Dunk grows into self-confidence and chooses the uncertain life of a hedge knight ("...to go from having Egg say, like, why do you treat these royal lap dogs as if they’re your betters, to Dunk just internally... realizing I’m the best..." – Jo, 31:27).
• The Baratheon-Targaryen relationship is dissected through the lens of Lionel’s overtly anti-Targ statements, including “the only good dragon is a dead dragon” (39:05).
• Memorable Lionel quote: “Harding Beesbury, the fucking Apple Boy.” (39:14)
• Discussion moves to the recurring theme of brotherhood and chosen family in the episode.
• Parallels are drawn with Robert Baratheon’s “there’s a war coming, Ned,” painting Lionel as a Baratheon always yearning for glory or conflict.

C. Baelor’s Funeral & the Aftermath (52:06–61:37)

• The funeral scene’s small attendance is dissected for its symbolic implications of Targaryen ‘flop era’ and eroded prestige: “...it’s a great reminder of where they are. Flop era.” (55:35)
• The absence of dragons—“here they’re, like, torch to wood”—drives home the house’s diminished state.
• The funeral launches Dunk into a guilt-ridden pilgrimage for closure: “the world made no sense when a great prince died so a hedge knight might live.” (62:54 quoting the book).
• Valar’s grief (“He died in my armor... He was still young. He had it in him to be a great king... Why would the gods take him and leave you?” – 61:16) and reversal of heirship are discussed, highlighting the randomness and cold cruelty of fate in Westeros.

D. Green Apples, Found Family, and the Smallfolk Ascend (66:24–73:51)

• Raymond Fossoway and Rowan (“Red”)’s marriage and romantic arc—new for the show—are given plenty of airtime, with high praise for the empowerment of female characters.
• The branding and birth of the Green Apple Fossoways is celebrated (“New Barrel is excellent branding.” – 69:09) and the apple motif is spun out for comedic and thematic effect.
• The “post-tourney” camaraderie between Dunk and Raymond cements the centrality of found family to the series: “the love and loyalty that Dunk inspires...” (Jo, 92:14).
• Quote: “My poor sweet warrior. All that fighting’s turned your brains to apples.” – Lady Rowan/Red (122:46)

E. Maekar, Dunk, and Generational Trauma (74:04–91:07)

• Maekar’s grief, bitterness, and guilt are explored (“...a grieving brother and sad dad thinking about what I love that” – Jo, 80:11).
• The classic “foot for a prince” dilemma is broken down as a metaphor for the absurd calculus of worth in feudal society: “...part means the whole. And it’s such an interesting way to talk about a thing—the foot of Ser Duncan for the life of Baelor Breakspear...” (Jo, 86:53).
• Themes of legacy, trauma, and cyclical violence run through the Penny Tree flashback and Arlen’s final story. The Penny Tree becomes a symbol of all the nameless boys sent off to war.
• Dunk’s final choice—to walk away from Maekar’s offer, refuse Summerhall, and instead head back to the hedge knight’s life with Egg—marks a significant evolution of both their characters.

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Egg’s Ordeal & Critical Turning Point (129:07–139:43)

• Egg’s horror at his own blood—his fear that he is “one knife thrust away” from becoming a monster like Aerion—is brilliantly dramatized: “He’s just sitting on his bed and he looks so small and so sad.” (Jo, 131:00)
• Dunk’s refusal of Maekar’s offer is mirrored by Egg’s desperate need for someone to choose him over family. “If you don’t choose me back... where would that leave me?” (Mallory, 100:20)
• Joanna and Mallory highlight the adaptive change of Egg lying (“my father said I could go”)—a departure from the book, viewed as complicated since it denies Dunk the chance to actively influence Maekar and puts both Dunk and Egg on the run. (“Has he learned nothing?” – Jo, 140:54)
• The episode’s emotional heart is Egg clutching the knife, nearly ready to kill Aerion, but collapsing into Maekar’s embrace—the terror of what he could become, and Dunk’s potential to save him from that fate.

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Finale: The Road Ahead & Enduring Tales (142:22–154:32)

• Dunk hammers Arlen’s penny into the tree, passing on the symbolic torch and choosing the path of a true knight—the one his foster-father showed him.
• Sweetfoot the horse is returned (with debate about red vs. green apples for horse diets!).
• Dunk and Egg set off, not on a grand quest but in search of “dragonflies or dragons”—a future open with possibility and danger.
• The closing moments—Dunk and Egg riding west, ghostly Arlen and Sweetfoot peeling away—evoke a sense of cyclical storytelling (“don’t the great stories never end?” – Mallory, 105:12).
• The motif of story as immortality is underlined: “Dunk is part of the storytelling tradition now…” (113:22)
• Music: The scoring as the pair ride off is praised as poignant and full of hope (154:32).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the magic of the show’s success:
  “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms has done exactly what we wanted, which was animate the masses. A zeitgeist animating show. Delightful stuff.” – Mallory, 08:12
• Joanna on adaptation:
  “I’m so glad that so many people have fallen in love with the show, have fallen in love with these characters, and it just feels like Thrones is, like, extremely fun again, which it’s been a minute, so. Yeah.” – 07:47
• Lionel’s candor:
  “The only good dragon is a dead dragon.” – Lionel, quoted at 39:05
  “Harding Beesbury, the fucking Apple Boy.” – Lionel, 39:14
• Egg’s emotional turning point:
  “If you don’t choose me back... where would that leave me?” – Mallory, 100:20
• Dunk’s growth:
  “To come from... oh please, can someone, like, someone senpai notice me and like, take me under your wing... to being like, so self confident. I mean, he’s not a hugely self-confident person in general, but Duncan, be assured.” – Jo, 31:27
• Penny Tree as metaphor:
  “What is my life compared to his? Compared to his? But the foot stands in for the whole, and I just love that little bit of.. beautiful figurative language from George.” – Jo, 88:10
• Lady Rowan/Red’s wit:
  “My poor sweet warrior. All that fighting’s turned your brains to apples.” – Lady Rowan, 122:46

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• 00:54 — Episode/season purpose and programming reminders
• 07:00 — Immediate finale reactions
• 11:02 — Listener letters: Valyrian language, fandom engagement
• 17:32 — Opening with The Laughing Storm & music analysis
• 26:13 — Lionel Baratheon's offer and anti-Targ sentiment
• 52:06 — Baelor’s funeral, aftermath, and symbolism
• 62:54 — Dunk grieves with Valar
• 66:24 — Green apples & the Fossoways’ found family
• 74:04 — Maekar & Dunk: trauma, legacy, and Maekar’s offer
• 91:07 — Egg’s ordeal, the dangers of family, and the knighting flashback
• 113:01 — Passing the torch: penny tree, storytelling, and legacy
• 122:46 — Bee coffin & macabre comedy
• 129:07 — Egg’s mirror moment and closeness to darkness
• 139:36 — Egg’s desperate lie and the adaptive choice
• 142:22 — Farewells: horses, apples, destiny
• 154:32 — Season wrap, book spoilers, and looking ahead

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Tone, Language, and Delivery

• Richly referential and deeply invested in lore, fan theory, and adaptation minutiae.
• Humor and warmth abound (“Have you thought about puppets?”; “Eat shit, Sarah.”), balancing pathos with levity.
• Frequent direct quotes from text and show, with hosts alternating serious dramatic readings and deadpan delivery.
• Active listener involvement—emails and comments, in-jokes, and shout-outs—underscore the podcast’s community spirit.

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Looking Ahead / Book Spoiler Section

• Key differences in adaptation choices, especially Maekar’s “approval” of Egg leaving, are flagged as potentially significant butterfly effects for future seasons (143:25).
• Extensive speculation about how The Sworn Sword (season 2 source) will adapt, whether recurring characters like Lionel or Raymond/Rowan will return, and how showrunners will handle the growing political stakes (158:47).
• The tragic arc of Egg—his fate as “the peasant king,” the weight of prophecy, and whether Dunc’s mentorship can truly save him—remains at the core of future narrative intrigue (165:59+).

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Conclusion

The episode delivers both a touching farewell to A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ triumphant first season and sets up the long road ahead for Dunk, Egg, and Westeros. Mallory and Joanna’s blend of scholarship, humor, and empathy once again turns a TV finale recap into a deeply human—and highly entertaining—exploration of story, legacy, and the lasting power of fantasy.

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For More

• Mailbag episode coming next week—questions to [e-mail]
• Stay tuned for House of the Dragon season 3 trailer breakdown and future Deep Dives
• Don’t forget to watch the video version for the podcast’s incredible new (very nerdy) set!

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(End of House of R episode summary: “The Morrow” / A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms S1 finale)

Transcript

[A]

Greetings and welcome to House of R in our beautiful stonen new studio.

[B]

It hasn't always looked like this.

[A]

It has not always looked like this. We're House of R. We're a Ringer verse podcast on the Ringer podcast network. I'm Mallory Rubin joining me today. My poor sweet warrior. All that potting's turned her brain to applesauce. It's Joanna Robinson. It had to be a Foss Way reference for you, right?

[B]

Of course, of course. Thank you so much. Not a bees. You know, rest in bees for me.

[A]

Plenty of Beesbury references coming today. We have a lot of coffin design discourse awaiting us. We are here, in case you can't tell, to discuss the morrow, which is the season one finale of a Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, episode six.

[B]

Can I just say really quickly, yeah. You are allowed to consume this podcast any way you want, but I would really recommend that you at least check out the video for a bit of this podcast, if not the entirety, because the new studio is wild and exciting.

[A]

The team crushed it. The Ringer Squad, the Spotify Squad.

[B]

Our cloaks are here.

[A]

We have cloaks. I mean, Preston has tripped here. It's great. You will get to see all of the little nooks and crannies of our beautiful new space. You will get to hear us talk about the Knight of the Seven Kingdoms season one finale.

[B]

Correct?

[A]

Right after this. This episode is brought to you by Walt Disney World Resort, the most magical place on earth where you can go into hyperspace in the Millennium Falcon, ride past hitchhiking ghosts in the Haunted Mansion, and shrink to the size of Andy's toys in Toy Story Land. There are infinite worlds that you can experience, and it's all in one place. Walt Disney world Resort. Visit disneyworld.com to learn more and discover a world of magic this summer across all four theme parks.

[B]

This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. You know, with just one trip to Whole Foods, you can travel the world. First stop, discover the taste of the Mediterranean with big sales on brands like Deco, Oreos and San Pellegrino. With Whole Foods prepared foods. Dinner is solved. You can roam the world with empanadas, burritos, soups, and more. Maybe expand your snack repertoire to South America with colorful and crunchy Peruvian potato chips. Then straight to Mexico. For dessert, you can pick up a Tres Leches family pack cake for only $10 every Friday. All aboard. Save on regional flavors at Whole Foods Market.

[A]

Okay, we're back. Programming reminders. You will all see it in your feeds and hear it in your feeds tomorrow. We're recording it later today. House of the Dragon Season 3 teaser trailer.

[B]

I was like, should we bring outfit changes? We're wearing the same clothes. Don't worry about it. If we look beleaguered, don't worry about it. It will just be our fifth hour of podcasting. It's fine.

[A]

I can't wait. We're going to do that because there's a.

[B]

There's a trailer.

[A]

That television show is coming this summer, June. So we already have our first little glimpse. A minute and a half ish. A minute ish of footage. We're gonna dive into that and then next week we will be back.

[B]

We're doing a mailbag.

[A]

Mailbag. No, Sunday. We're not with you on Sunday. No more Talk of the Thrones. I mean, we'll be back for Talk of Thrones this summer, but we're gonna have a seasonal mailbag coming at the top of next week. So send your questions. Joanna, where should everybody send their questions?

[B]

So glad you asked. Hobbitsanddragonsmail.com is the place you wanna send them. You've already started. We got a few already. Just. Cause I think we mentioned we might do this. But if you have specific. If there's anything that then in the next nine hours of us podcasting, we do not cover about neither Seven Kingdoms or House of the Dragon. You have questions about hobbits and [e-mail], we're happy to answer them for you.

[A]

Fantastic. Great. How about the spoiler warning for today's Night of the Seven Kingdoms season one finale, Deep Dive. How do we handle things?

[B]

So I would say everything up through the end of Hedge Night is on the table.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

Anything in A Song of Ice and Fire is on the table.

[A]

Always.

[B]

Game of Thrones spoilers go. But future novellas. Duncan Egg novellas. We've got a spoiler section for that, so we'll get there.

[A]

You know, I wonder, will we be able, in our fancy new space to hear the alarming sirens that terrify the masses? The heart stopping, Send them running for cover like a dragon shriek from above? I don't know. You'll hear it at home even if we don't hear it here.

[B]

Tune in to find out.

[A]

How can everyone follow along?

[B]

So glad you asked. Okay, listen, why don't you subscribe to the podcast wherever you get podcasts. Great idea. But really, you should be watching it today and every day because the set is amazing. It's so incredible. I'm so Grateful to be here. And then follow us on social.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

Gosh, yeah. TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, all the places. Why not? And then of course, hobbitsandragodsgmallen.com, which I already mentioned.

[A]

Keep the emails coming.

[B]

Keep them coming. We got a lot of great emails today.

[A]

Inbox is always open.

[B]

Yeah, we got a lot. And it's not even like the tip of the email berg that we got based on this finale. People had a lot of thoughts and feelings about it.

[A]

A Night of the Seven Kingdoms has done exactly what we wanted, which was animate the masses. A zeitgeist animating show. Delightful stuff. Okay, we've got a lot to coverage,

[B]

like a post tourney. Raymond Fossoway.

[A]

Yes, he's doing great. He's very rapidly moved into the next phase of his life and I have, I would say some. Some notes for him, words of caution, but mostly just joy in my heart.

[B]

I actually have no notes for him.

[A]

Mostly just joy in my heart.

[B]

Did you see the tweet about how like, Florida coded he is?

[A]

Oh, interesting, huh?

[B]

They were. It was like, Raymond Fossoway gets in a fight in a parking lot, throws in with a guy that he just met. You know, fights his own cousin, gets

[A]

brags about breaking a rib, gets shotgun.

[B]

Married to, you know, a stripper who docked up with someone else's baby.

[A]

Super. Well, yeah, I. I say that with

[B]

love and respect to all Florida. I didn't write the tweet. I just poorly communicated.

[A]

Yeah, you just consumed it. Well, we will shortly talk about some more social media gems. Did you see Dexter's Instagram reel? Wigwatch Corner? He put on a wig and he went and pretended that he was a makeup artist. Great stuff.

[B]

A little mustache.

[A]

This is wonder. Absolutely wonderful.

[B]

It was so charming.

[A]

So much to get to. We're not here just to talk about social media, but it might come up again today. It just might. It might. Let's get to the opening snapshot.

[B]

Let's do it.

[A]

Joanna. If anybody did not watch Talk to Thrones first of all, do that. We had a blast. Cr. I miss him already.

[B]

I know. Chris. Sheesh.

[A]

We're back in June for his single favorite thing in the world, Kristen Cole. It's January.

[B]

Crispy Cole.

[A]

Crispy Cole. What did you think of episode six, the Morrow? Give us your table setting taste before we dive into the entire episode.

[B]

I loved it.

[A]

Yeah, it was great.

[B]

I thought it was fantastic. I have a couple adaptation questions that we'll get to, but overall, I'M just so pleased with the season.

[A]

I know.

[B]

And so even the things that I have questions about, I'm willing to sort of ride it out and see what they have in mind for them as it ripples forward. So it's not, oh, this is different from the book. And I'm upset or nervous about it. It's just sort of like, huh, interesting. Yeah. I'm just so. I'm so glad that so many people have fallen in love with the show, have fallen in love with these characters, and it just feels like Thrones is, like, extremely fun again, which it's been a minute, so. Yeah.

[A]

Really agree. It's been such a joy not only to watch a truly, truly great adaptation and a truly great story and a truly great season of tv, to be able to share it together and feel that spark of excitement to be back in Westeros. I really miss that. That's just, like, kind of my favorite thing.

[B]

There's nothing better.

[A]

Yeah. So that's been awesome. And I'm, like, really grateful to this show for reigniting that shared experience. And I'm excited to talk about the finale. I am overjoyed beyond description that we get to be back with Dunkin Egg next year. Like, the fact that they're making this show every year, at least for.

[B]

For now, a little while, while they've got a couple things. Like, even if it takes us two years.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

We're not ending on a cliffhanger. So, you know, we will have, like, each story is meant to feel like it is wrapped up.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So you're not, you know, left.

[A]

You're not hot D in it.

[B]

That's what I did want to say.

[A]

Tune in for our trailer breakdown.

[B]

You're not left with a bunch of armies marching towards nothing.

[A]

So, yeah, you know, great stuff. Mailbag opening snapshot. Mailbag. Before we get into the deep dive, what do you got?

[B]

Here's the most important thing.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Sometimes I'm quite confidently wrong about things. And so last week when I said the Kings Road was the Giants Causeway in Ireland, that's a different beautiful location. This. This location is called the Dark Hedges. And here's the most important thing. Ireland you're naming.

[A]

Sheesh.

[B]

Is amazing. Dark hedges and the Giants Causeway. Anyway, I. I apologize to all of Ireland. What this means is I need to go to Ireland. I think maybe Spotify needs to send me for my own education. Who's this?

[A]

Have you ever been?

[B]

I've never been. It's my people. Ireland are my people, and I've never been.

[A]

Have you Been to Wales. Also your people.

[B]

Also my people.

[A]

No, your middle name is Scotland. Something I learned about you. I have been to Scotland. It's lovely there.

[B]

Edinburgh, anyway. And we're gonna go to Stratford this summer for the Mad King play. Right. I'm just putting that energy out in the universe that that's something we're gonna do. Yeah.

[A]

It's been four, three and a half weeks since we just said on a podcast that we were going to England. Just we're manifesting, you know, I think

[B]

we could do Oxford and Stratford in the same.

[A]

I really agree.

[B]

And Oxnard, if we really play our cards right. Also, our listener Mackenzie sent in this. Really? MacKenzie, who has a academic background in linguistics, sent her, I thought, a really interesting email about. She's like, one thing I find interesting in A Knight of Seven Kingdoms, particularly when you're thinking about Targaryens and their flop era tm. That TM goes to one of our listeners, by the way, is the lack of the use of Valyrian language. And I thought this was a really interesting email. I was wondering if you had any thoughts about this. She was pointing out that sort of in the history of cultures that have conquered other cultures, you often have these sort of transition periods into the local language, talking about, like, French into English after the Norman Conquest and all this sort of stuff like that. So I'm curious if you have any thoughts about, like, yes, this is from Dunk's pov, but occasionally we see Dunk sort of like eavesdropping on couple targ brothers talking and stuff like that. So what do you make of there being no High Valyrian in this?

[A]

Um, I certainly think that these targs speak High Valyrian, and maybe it's more of an adaptive choice from Ira and the team that it didn't feel like quite the vibe, given the really active decision, you know, connected to the source material, to root this in the. Like. Here's what I think. Small folk energy.

[B]

I think Aerion for sure.

[A]

Fluid, no question.

[B]

Darren.

[A]

Well, I'm not sure he's got a line or two, at least that he tosses out at a brothel, you know, for sure.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Arian, no question. You know, the fact that obviously, like, when we get to thrones proper, building toward a great moment, like Dany saying Velaryon is my mother tongue. Like, I think we should assume that all of the targ royals have this in their bag, and it's just not necessarily been on display in this show. Will we be treated in a future season to egg Teaching Dunk moving on from his geography lessons to teaching Dunk some High Valyrian. What do you think? No, you think Dunk will pick it up quickly?

[B]

He loves Duolingo, so I think he's gonna have a great time with it. I just. I do think it's interesting, like, as we're talking about, like, what makes a knight a knight? The question. And then what makes a Targaryen a Targaryen? We got another greedy mill about that, which we can read a little bit later on. But like, I think, thinking about these targs, could it be a political choice not to speak a lot of Valyrian if they're trying to out at a

[A]

place like Ashford, at least, you know,

[B]

if they're like, you know, there are fossilays running around calling us incestuous aliens. Should we not speak our alien language? You know? Yeah.

[A]

And at a moment where they're temporarily kind of putting the incestual marriage thing on hold, working to shore up the political alliances, marriages to families in Dorne and the Stormlands and the Dornish marches.

[B]

Kairoshi wife in this state.

[A]

Maybe not a moment necessarily to like. I like that. To flaunt something that is. Whereas in other stories. Hot D. We talked about this a lot, the forging of that bubble. Like, this is a thing that we share and nobody around us, Daemon Rhaenyra, et cetera, can access it wouldn't be the vibe out at Ashford Meadow. Are they speaking it in private?

[B]

Possibly.

[A]

Possibly.

[B]

But I think also, like, we talked about this a lot in terms of like, their shorter haircuts. You know, like styles will come and go in Westeros or they should probably a bit more than they have done on these shows. But. But I like this idea of like, we don't have the long, elaborately braided platinum Valyrian.

[A]

We have no dragons with whom to communicate in High Valyrian, no dragons to listen to our commands. Very sad.

[B]

Wouldn't it be funny if Aerion just like, shouted Dracarys at the puppet, at the puppet or like, at the people

[A]

who want to burn the puppet on

[B]

the back of his horns?

[A]

Always comes back to puppets.

[B]

Yeah, I'm thinking about them always anyway.

[A]

Always.

[B]

That's all I have to say about that. And then last but not least, I do want to say, this is not an email, but I want to say, do you remember when we were talking about. We hadn't seen the behind the scenes. They did like 4, 5 and 6 behind the scenes together. So you can watch Night in the making. 4 or 5 and 6 on YouTube or wherever you consume that content. And I told you my fondest wish was to see a helm perched on a camera so we could see that helm pov. And I got it and it was just like me at my computer doing the Leo pointing meme. And I was just like extremely thrilled. So if you want to see a little helmet on a camera and how they got their like dunk helm POV shot, that exists for you.

[A]

As a bit of a helmet enthusiast myself, you know, a lot of mini football helmets, a couple full size football helmets, a lot of Lego helmets as well.

[B]

A lot of Star wars helmets.

[A]

A lot of Star Wars Lego helmets. Some Marvel Lego helmets. Maybe it's something I'll try at home. Should I start making films?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Specifically through the slit in a LEGO helmet or a mini football helmet? What do you think?

[B]

It's the Legos or nothing. I think what you should do. And then we can talk about some television. But I think what you should do is you should build. You should do like influencer Lego building videos through the eye slit of a LEGO helmet.

[A]

This is the year that I.

[B]

It's like Lego ception.

[A]

I love that I'm going to build it. Feels right. Because it's a big Lord of the Rings anniversary. Not sure if we've mentioned that before. I think it's time for me to finally build my. My Rivendell set. Yeah. Because I have it. I've had it.

[B]

Let me know if I can come over and help.

[A]

That would be wonderful.

[B]

Is that something you would enjoy or you're like, this is a me project.

[A]

Well, here's. If I'm. So you go on yourself. I'm inclined to say, sounds great. You've got my husband's number. Text him and get his opinion on this. Because he's had some feedback from me before when we have tried to do

[B]

like, what if we did some parallel. Like, I got my own Riverdale set

[A]

and that's a better way to build our own.

[B]

Our own sets near each other.

[A]

That was my suggestion to him at the time, was build your own fucking lego.

[B]

Yep. That's how you said it. I believe that we've got all of these.

[A]

Just pick your own and build it. We can do it next to each other. So, yeah, it seems like we got there a little faster.

[B]

Yeah. Let's just.

[A]

Which is nice.

[B]

Let's preserve this friendship.

[A]

Should we dive deep, should we go scene by scene through this delightful finale of the Morrow?

[B]

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[A]

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[A]

Okay, everyone in the control room, we're going to need you guys to switch the cameras to a low vantage point and pump in some comedy jazz because we're opening with

[B]

the Laughing Storm and his memory serves. You sent an instructional video to the set that there should be no low camera angles.

[A]

That's true. That gently was an actual.

[B]

Be consistent in your messaging.

[A]

But in this particular case, it really, really would have paid off, you know, really would have paid off. I don't know that I really can match, frankly any of the energy that Lionel's bringing. Certainly not the eyeliner or the earrings.

[B]

But you can. You could.

[A]

But I could. The Baratheon Maester vibe and you could be Lionel. Works for me. I believe it because the jazz scoring and the musical accompaniment overall helps to contribute to the real tonal shift. You know, we've come out of the horror of the end of episode five and then boom, there's a different energy right away. We're resetting, we're recalibrating. Very true to the spirit of the show where we have kind of maintained a consistent sensibility but moved in and out of tones inside of that. The music was a big part of that here. Anything broadly on the scoring or. Or the musical accompaniments. You mentioned the needle drop that accompanied the end credits. Anything on the music front that since we're talking about music you want to hit here before we get to the

[B]

substance of this scene, I should say our mutual friend Kim Renfro, who does Cast of Kings podcast. You know, Kim, when she worked at Insider, used to do incredible interviews with composers that I was always really jealous of. Cause she can like really pick out themes. So she's just been sending me these like elaborate texts about like especially the. The score that played during Baelor's entrance when the Game of Thrones theme went into Dan Roemer's sort of Night of the Seven Kingdoms theme. And she had like all of these incredible piercing thoughts about that. I do not have that vocabulary, nor do I at the ready. I just think the music in this season was incredible. I still. I have some questions about 16 tons which closed out this episode. We got a lot of emails in defense of it. That's fine. Like it didn't bother me. It just. I still don't know that I fully am convinced that thematically it made perfect sense to me. But I loved the opening music of this episode and I think I dropped the BBC show. I think it was BBC. Maybe ITV or maybe Channel 4 show the Detectorists.

[A]

You can find out when we're in England this summer.

[B]

Sounds good. No way to check which features are great. Intro song by Johnny Flynn, sure. Jerome Flynn, of course, Bronn himself. But that sort of that up angle that comedy up angle that silent comedy of just sort of like regarding Dunk and Dunk just battered and bruised in the Ser Arlan dying pose against the tree looking up at them like that silent exchange with the. Everyone's calling it jazz. It did not register as jazz to me. But sure, the jazz that plays over the beginning of the episode. I just thought it was so funny. A great use of like visual silent comedy score all together just put me in a real like I'm watching, you know, a fun little like British show that I love. Is. Is. Is what it felt like to me. We did get an email about Dan. Dan Romer's work in general. But is there.

[A]

Fantastic. Let's hear it.

[B]

Is there anything you wanted to share?

[A]

Just think the music's great.

[B]

Okay. I love it. We got this email from Chris who like in addressing Dunk and Egg, called them my tall knight and fellow bald king. So I thought that was really sweet. It always feels special to have something back in your life you thought you may have Lost for good. This can be said both for Dunk's character, who lost one family but gained another, or for the Westeros world itself, which was clearly struggling after the Thrones collapsed. To have a show without major skepticism and critical angst. I was overcome with this feeling, as I suppose we could go anywhere. One of the tracks from this season which the track that closes out, which truly feels like a sister song to go find out for me, which is Dan Roemer wrote for Luca and Chris wrote earlier in this I love Luca. I know earlier in the email about how much he loved the music from Luca from Station 11. Like all of Dan Roemer's work. Right. So Chris describes blared those trembling strings as Dunk traveled to a wide open road with his new family. I sent this email to reflect on just how much Romer's scores have meant to me. Go to a park with someone you love and listen to his music. His songs make the world feel so open with endless possibilities on the horizon. And I think that is exactly what the Game of Thrones world needed. Maybe Roamer was the real prince who was promised. Oh my God.

[A]

What a lovely email.

[B]

I know. Go to a park and listen to Dan Romer's music. Listen to the Luca score. Listen to the station 11 score. Listen to the Night of the Seven Kings. And it's. I think they just dropped it out this week. The official score. So you can fire it up anytime you want.

[A]

I just might.

[B]

You should.

[A]

I love nature. You do? I do. I love the idea of nature. This is the year that I start actively communing with it.

[B]

Okay. You want to go on some hikes?

[A]

Do I want to go on some hikes? No. But do I think I'm at the point in my life where I should start going on some hikes?

[B]

Let's go on some hikes.

[A]

I've been getting served a lot of Instagram reels about the dangers of being sedentary.

[B]

Hobbits and dragons atgmail.com. as I'm moving to LA from Northern California where I know all the hikes, but I don't know the hikes in la. Sen me your hiking recommendations. Hobbits and dragons. I love. I love a forested hike. Forests are harder to find. La. But they do exist. So, you know.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. You've got.

[B]

You can send me a desert hike

[A]

around you up north.

[B]

It's true.

[A]

A desert hike is tough. A desert hike I'm not ready for.

[B]

Right. But there's trees here. There are.

[A]

Unless we get the holy water umbrella Hat that we.

[B]

Oh. From the Buffy pods.

[A]

Came up with and trademarked on the Buffy pods. And it could just be like a little mister to keep me. To keep me cool. Something to think about. I wonder what the Baratheon maester would recommend for a walk.

[B]

Do you think a Mr. Hat would have helped Baelor's head stay intact? Mmm. Probably couldn't have hurt.

[A]

Probably. Unfortunately, his brain fell to the floor. I still miss him. And because of that, he was not able to follow through on his pledge to send his maester to assist Dunk. The good news is Lionel's maester is also here at Ashford Meadow. The bad news is this guy is.

[B]

Dunk had some bandages on, so I

[A]

think he had, like, a piece of clothes.

[B]

I think the Targaryen. I think it's possible the royal maester was there.

[A]

You think someone went to get him and is like Baelor Dropped dead. But let's follow through on the.

[B]

On the.

[A]

On the pledge that after you finish with. With Maker.

[B]

I asked my bigger question.

[A]

Maybe it was Steely Pate. Maybe he's like, I heard. Not to do oil, to do wine.

[B]

Who drank out your goblet and then just left him there alone? That's my question.

[A]

I really love. You mentioned the Arlen imagery parallel. I loved the detail of Dunk sitting there in the bloody shirt still.

[B]

Both.

[A]

Because it is such a. Like. It is a great visual shorthand to just remind us of the horror that he just went through and how little time has passed. But also, it's like, Egg's not with them. He doesn't have a squire to, like, help clean up.

[B]

His horses aren't even around, you know?

[A]

I mean, Raymond had Red to help him out of that armor, but don't stealy paint.

[B]

Dragged him there. Just left him there and was like, it's best I be elsewhere, given how close I was. You know, I'm gonna follow Tanzel off to Dorne. Best I not be here.

[A]

I was interested in that. Don't use oil update. I'm gonna hit the books. They're available until Maekar goes to sit at the desk. I'm gonna see.

[B]

I just have a lot of questions about how Dunk got there and who left him there.

[A]

These are great questions.

[B]

Lycar showed up.

[A]

He did.

[B]

And Lynel, a capricious fellow. Not someone to rely upon. But who showed up for Dunk at the tree.

[A]

He's here for Dunk. And he's here with an offer. He's also got some choice language for his maester. Begone witch. Will this be incorporated immediately into your everyday. No vocabulary.

[B]

Moving forward. Be stay witch.

[A]

Be here.

[B]

Witch. Never be gone. Witch.

[A]

I love this about you. Witch stuff. Go always Lionel. There's a lot that he says that we need to parse. I do just feel compelled to note that he managed to get a few additional cunts in before the season ended,

[B]

and I respect that. I also respect the maester. Just sort of sage smudging. That's some very northern California hippie stuff. Some sage, maybe some palo santo. I don't know what he was smudging,

[A]

but it was unfortunately, no Dr. Robby esque Purell on the hands before prodding and sniffing the wound. That's worrying.

[B]

Snapped onto the wrist.

[A]

I like the lamp shading. You know, we had some fun talking about the sheer toll of the injuries the Dunk incurred last week, and everybody on the Internet really, really loved that.

[B]

Really agreed with us.

[A]

The lampshading, which is me, the person

[B]

who complimented our skincare routine.

[A]

No, I didn't.

[B]

On YouTube, I got a comment that was like, as if I'm gonna let

[A]

two chicks with power. You glowing like an angel.

[B]

As if I'm gonna let 2ch. I'm badly paraphrasing. As if I'm gonna let two chicks with a skincare routine tell me about medieval combat. And I was like, oh, you think we look nice? Thanks. There you go.

[A]

There you go. Would you let this Baratheon maester tend to your wounds? If you were at Ashford or really just anywhere, it's strictly a no for

[B]

the grubby fingers in the wound and then the smelling and the really gross. It's really tough.

[A]

I do like that we got from him the acknowledgement that Dunk was on death's door. You know, he's like, these are. The flesh is mortifying. These wounds are festering. This guy's gonna die. Thought that was great, but he's wrong. He's wrong, but it was great to acknowledge. It was great that someone inside of this show acknowledged that Dunk should not be alive. But he is, and we're thrilled. Good for him.

[B]

Good for him. Are you gonna respond to every single one of the comments that ridiculed us by saying, told ya? No.

[A]

Won't be responding to a single comment. No now or ever, Lionel. I got to say, he showed up, as you noted. I wouldn't say that he brought the most robust display of emotional intelligence that I've ever witnessed.

[B]

Was it placing his hand on the wounded side in order to stand up that really did it for You.

[A]

That was like number 17 on the power rankings of. I've got some notes for Lionel here. I think just in general, the level of obliviousness to Dunk's physical state, but more importantly, his emotional state as Lionel sits next to him, reclines, and says, man, I'm really wistful for that tourney. It was fucking great, and I loved it.

[B]

That was really. I mean, yes.

[A]

Wild. Doug is barely coaching. He shattered.

[B]

Not his most emotionally intelligent moment, I do think, though. I thought it was so interesting to. To hear him talk about how boring he finds Storm's End. He's like, I don't want to go back home. Sucks there.

[A]

And certainly this wasn't keeping with the way that he has spoken all season long about, you know, the longing for a foothold, a toehold in history. Right. The way that he's talked about glory hasn't been a trial of seven for 100 years or first ever joust. Ah, men could not have devised such a joy. Like, it makes sense that this is the state that he's in after not only participating in this, but surviving it on the winning side, which validates that, like, if they could do it, like, I could do it. Way that he talked about the Stormlanders and the salt in the air, like, this tracks for me completely as the perfect place to find Lyonel in terms of his just kind of like lust and longing for something that will become a part of songs. And I also think it's like, it felt to me we're gonna get to what he says about Balor here. When he makes this offer to Dunk and Baylor comes up. It felt to me like there's definitely a note of jealousy from Lyonel here too, because he's kind of like, I did this thing and I survived. Why aren't you talking about me? Baylor. Baylor, Baylor, Baylor.

[B]

Marcia, Marcia, Marcia, Marcia. But also, like, Dunk is getting, you know, the most famous person to come out of this tourney is Duncan the Tall.

[A]

No question. You know, And, I mean, Raymond's gonna get to raise Sir Manfred's bastard child, you know, without being any the wiser.

[B]

Honestly, if she's even pregnant at all, she might not even be pregnant.

[A]

Entirely possible. So you mentioned the home is dull. Come to Storm's end, this offer. Hunt, hawk, sail, we'll be merry. I'm gonna sharpen your iron. I bet I'm gonna sharpen your iron. It's overtly stated, you know, we'll have fun. We'll train, right? The offers Dunk rejects receives and rejects Multiple offers. That would have been the dream. Like the pinnacle heading into the events of Ashford. This Lionel offer and then later the Maekar offer both of them in some capacity, say that they'll finish Dunk's training.

[B]

I just, I'm like genuinely obsessed with this Maekar in the book. This is. Maekar is from the book. But this Lionel thing is additive. Right. And so to have two, you know, very well established houses offer him a position and offer to complete his training. And Maekar has that line that we talked about in Talks of Thrones where he's like, I'm sure you're Ser Arland did his best. But the way in which Dunk's whole journey this season ends with him, you know, determining that Arlyn did do best and he doesn't want to learn the lessons that these Targaryens and Baratheons have to teach him. Ser Arlan had the truth of what being a knight is, being a good person is. And the road is his teacher. And so to come from, I'm nobody from nowhere showing up with attorney and oh, please, can some, like someone senpai notice me and like, take me under your wing.

[A]

I must risk all and I will.

[B]

And. And then I'll be okay to being like so self confident. I mean, he's not a hugely self confident person in general, but Duncan, be assured, yeah, Dunk in this adaptation is more confident than Dunk in the book. In. In a number of interactions in this Maek, our interaction that we get inside of this episode as well, there are like tweaks they made to make him a bit more self assured. But to go from having egg say, like, why do you treat these royal lap dogs as if they're your betters? To Dunk just internally not saying the thing, but through his actions, realizing I'm the best that there is here to tell me what to do or the ghost of Ser Arlan that's in my head and not these other lor. And I just think that that journey for him is incredible because so many things went wrong. And there are plenty of people who would come out the other side of this particular adventure saying, like, I shouldn't have even tried. Look what I did. And he certainly here bruise and batter against the tree is like, I bring death and destruction wherever I go and harm. But that's not the total. Some total lesson that he took out of this.

[A]

Yeah, I think it's great too that we get a journey inside of just the finale that maps on and is an extension of and like A fulfillment of the journey across the entire season in that respect. Cause even inside of the finale, he has to move toward the point of after the Darren exchange, after the Arlen memory, to like the embrace for himself, but then to take it to that next degree of. And actually I should take Egg with me because that's gonna be better for him too. Is such a. A remarkable thing. Now, it does mean that he's not gonna go to Tarth with Lionel, at least not yet. How thrilled were you to get this Tarth mention squeaked? I mean, of all the. Like, sometimes we like to say this is here for me, but this is like really here for you. We've been talking about Brienne and Dunk. This is. This is Brienne's home. Mentioned Tarth.

[B]

I squeaked in a very cool way. It was totally fine. No, I loved this. And I also loved the, you know, he swears, right? He others geld me or whatever.

[A]

Yeah. Oh, the others fucking geld me.

[B]

And I loved that because that I read somewhere. I don't know if this is true, but I read somewhere that that's the first time we've heard the others called the others in a Game of Thrones on screen adaptation, right? Because, like, instead of White Walkers, but in the book starting with Game of Thrones, this other. The others take his eyes or all the. This is a thing that Rob says, or Old Nan will talk about the Others or Bran or et cetera, et cetera. And so that just felt like a real, like, ball noer moment from. From Ira inside of this episode.

[A]

I love it. Speaking of ball knower and Ira and his vision, we did get another piss or shit scene and I think we knew we would because Lionel and making this offer. Come with me to Storm's End and I will love you like a brother. And if not, well, fuck you, I'll hate you like a brother. We get the second part of that while he's dick out, dick in hand.

[B]

Were you upset that it was like a discreet sort of turn away? You didn't get to see what he was working with there?

[A]

I respect each individual performer's choice for how to navigate nudity on screen and. Or wearing a prosthetic on screen. And listen, in a show where we saw Arlen piss with the Long Night. Still think that was the best nominee of all the nominees we got. It almost wouldn't be fair to show anybody else taking a piss, you know, Does Lionel want Dunk to be his brother in the more Targaryen sense? You know, an intimate sense I'd say so. I think so. Shout out to you for inspiring with your cottage. He did rivalry bit on Talk the Thrones. One of the great reels in the history of the Ringerverse. Instagram. Just a delightful moment on the Internet. That was wonderful. Meetgar and Baelor Egg and Aerion Baelor employer employing egg in episode four, you know, the Septons say, we must love our brothers. This has been a through line of this season, this idea that these brotherly bonds exist on a knife's edge. And sometimes that is the person who you fear the most, hate the most, resent the most. Sometimes it is the person that you love the most. But often, and we love a found family story, the bond you choose, Dunk an egg. Lionel in his pitch here is like, that could be us, my guy. That found friendship can be stronger than the brotherly bond that you're born into.

[B]

And it's important to note that Lionel Baratheon is not the head of his house right now. And so, like, what are his family dynamics? That's, you know, that's not something George has, like, super fleshed out.

[A]

We got some, I think, therapy couch insights based on his comments about whether or not your mother loves you. Last week, though.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

He told us something, even though he hasn't actually told us anything.

[B]

But I think that the idea of, like, bringing an ally back to Storm's End, you know, for a 247 stag do, you know, sounds really fun.

[A]

Dunk is, you know, working toward the point that we were just discussing of really embracing the life of a hedge knight and the legacy of a hedge knight from Arlen. But right here, he's like, I shouldn't be around anyone. I shouldn't be around you, and I shouldn't be around anyone. All I do is bring pain and suffering to those around me. That line, that idea very much connected to what we've been discussing over the last couple weeks. Dunk as the stranger, right?

[B]

As we map the seven deities onto various characters. Something we were sort of holding back until Baelor's brain fell out of his head, was whether or not the Dunk himself was acting the role of the stranger who brings death.

[A]

And the way that he is navigating in this episode, subtly also through active conversations, like saying to Raymond, just, everyone blames me. The conversation with Maekar, obviously, which we're really excited to talk about, this guilt and the shame for what has happened. But something like this, just the fear here, right? There's the, oh, my God, I'm carrying a heavy Weight because of what happened and my role in it. And then there's the. I can't risk that. I can't risk harm befallowing people I care about just by being around me. And this was an area where I felt like hitting the finale off of. You know, we discussed a lot, the merits of the flashback and what we learned and maybe some of the things in the flashback that didn't work quite as well. This was a line that I think hit harder. Having understood a little bit more about the losses across Dunk's life and thinking about how something like Rafe, we still have some notes. How long has Dunk been maybe wondering about how his just proximity to people causes damage? Yeah, sad. Sad. Lionel's like, I got some other stuff for you to think about. I'm about to say some shocking shit. You thought it was astonishing to hear what Raymond said about the targs. Buckle up, bud. Buckle up.

[B]

I'm about to call funeral pyro a roast.

[A]

That was really funny. And I say that as, like, the president of Baylor's fan club, but that did the roast. Cut.

[B]

The roast and then the cut, too. And I was like, oh, genuinely, very good.

[A]

Quite rude, but very good. Oh, wild, wild thing to say. Okay, here are some of the highlights from what Bail. From what Lionel says here about Baylor

[B]

and the targs, he's been hitting the message board pretty hard.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

Some real reply guy energy from Lionel here. You've done the realm of kindness. You'll see that one day. The only good dragon is a dead dragon. Overt, outright treasonous statement. There's just no denying it. This is really bold, especially from a figure like Lionel.

[B]

Some targ racism.

[A]

Yeah, I fought for you. Harding Beesbury, the fucking Apple Boy. This is probably gonna be incorporated into the pod logo.

[B]

Harding. Harding Beesbury, the fucking Apple Boy.

[A]

That's just like the log line for the pod.

[B]

Now, it's funny because it's like, Beesbury, obviously, the fucking Apple Boy for sure. Our guy. Yeah. I'll say. R. For now. Raymond Fossaway.

[A]

I love Raymond.

[B]

And I was like, does Harding belong in the logo that I'm like, green fucking boy. One of my favorite lines of the season. So, yeah.

[A]

And again, we'd like to thank him for his dead body being so easy to spot among the carnage, thanks to his very thoughtful, very recognizable shield. We fought for you. Your prince fought for you. Against men sworn to protect him. He risked nothing. And the gods don't favor a fraud. I was like, how dare you, like, physically moving forward on my couch listening to this. But, you know, does he have some points. We'll talk about it. And then he says, there's a war coming. We could be a force, you and I. So let's hit the overt anti Targ sentiment here for a second. And just this evolution of the relationship between the Targaryens and the Baratheons over time. Cause it's certainly interesting, especially paired with this war. War omen, to think about that. What did you make of just hearing

[B]

the

[A]

direct, very blunt and naked nature of what Lionel said here?

[B]

Well, I think after incestuous aliens, like, we should be braced for anyone to say anything out of pocket about a Targaryen or to see children at a funeral, say dragon whore stuff.

[A]

Eat shit, Sarah. Possibly my favorite moment of the season in response to that. Absolutely iconic. That's just great. Yeah. Throwing rocks at Prince Aerion Targaryen's head out in the list fields.

[B]

It's just out there in the water, you know, flop era.

[A]

Flop era.

[B]

But the Baratheons, you know, you did such a good job on Talk of the Thrones. And if you want to run it back, I would eagerly hear it again, like tracking the Baratheon targ closeness and enmity across, you know, the centuries in Westeros. And what it pinged for me was Robert Baratheon talking to Ned Stark. And I think season one, Episode two. I read the line out on Talk of the Thrones, but just sort of like, there's a war coming, Ned. Right. And so it's just that same Baratheon energy. We talk about historical, but Robert just wants a war because a war makes him feel important and strong and young and however much trauma he's carrying about war and, you know, they don't tell you how they shit themselves and stuff like that. He also longs for the days of his Warhammer gods.

[A]

I was strong. Yeah.

[B]

Lyonel's spoiling for a fight, right? Like, he's not talking about a war that is for sure coming, though. There is anti Tark sentiment everywhere. So, like. And then, as I think you point out really beautifully on Talk Thrones, we saw Targ v. Targ in this very tourney. You know what I mean? So inside the house, outside the house, just a few years removed from the first Blackfyre rebellion, there's a lot going on here. But Lionel is eager for a conflict.

[A]

The bloodlust is upon him, no question. Yeah, yeah, no question. I, like, I'm curious. Like, it's interesting to think about how many other people who were at Ashford or just across the realm as word of what has happened here, word of Baylor's death and the nature of it spreads would, like, fall into the wow, what a noble, good and right thing camp. And how many people would come out more in this place of, like, the hubris and the entitlement to think that you could cheat the gods? I am always so interested in how characters in the world invoke that. And I think you're really right about Lyonel and the way that he seems. And again, very in keeping not only with this, like, Baratheon legacy and future legacy, it's fun for us as Thrones fans to be able to apply events from the future timeline to just thinking about, like, this house and its stature and how they think about, you know, the storm kings of old. We talked at that. We had a lot of fun talking at the beginning of the season about bros just wearing a crown and like, that's a brazen act.

[B]

It is.

[A]

You know, and it's one thing to incorporate the antlers into your helm of your armor, but to sit at your banquet in a crown is just a wild, wild thing.

[B]

Did you see Daniel Ings talking about how heavy the helmet was, the horn helmet? And it was just like dragging over head back. You got it constantly.

[A]

Got to do the F1 style training. You know, they do these, like, neck exercises because of the G force of driving, because the F1 car is open. I mean, I'm sure even if it were closed, the G force would be, I don't know. In Top Gun.

[B]

You know who I bet could handle the G force? Who? The Pilates moms who are really concerned about their neck exercises.

[A]

Love knowing this.

[B]

I would like to see Appaldi's mom take on the F1.

[A]

You gonna watch Drive to Survive this weekend?

[B]

No.

[A]

Okay. I'm gonna text you again and ask you tomorrow and then the next day and then I'm gonna keep asking, but

[B]

I will watch Survivor. And so you are an influence on me.

[A]

Great. That's all I need, honestly. Season 50. Here we go. So, yeah, you mentioned this. I think just the. If anyone didn't watch talk to Thrones, the leg. I think the robber point is the most crucial one because of the associations that we're bringing. It's interesting to think about, like, yeah, the history. Orys Baratheon, the founder of this house who slew Argilac, this famous moment in Aegon's conquest, and Orys as the bastard half brother rumor, but, like, kind of bastard half brother. Yeah, that's how we get to always think and talk about this drop of targ blood that makes its way into the Baratheon house, which is certainly also

[B]

a factor here, which legitimizes Robert's claim.

[A]

Well, we've got this fan, Fancy blood,

[B]

too,

[A]

firsthand to the king. So there's this real entrenchment in just the established order of how the kingdoms would be ruled, but also an affection and their best friends. Right. A depth of connection there. You have Robert all the way at the other end of this as the figure who, for all of these very meaningful and personal reasons, but also all of the reasons that you mention. Rhaegar, Lyanna, everything ended. Three centuries of rule, like, the Targaryen dynasty lasted three centuries. So that's no joke. But then it's like, what are the moments along the way? And, like, we're obviously not gonna spoil things that we have not gotten to in House of the Dragon yet. But we've already seen the Baratheons be deployed inside of two through two seasons of House of the Dragon as a house that. That's still. You're picking between targets, but still a shifting of allegiance, a controversial moment in choice that led to one of these seismic ripples in the dance.

[B]

I think that Lionel Baratheon would hate Boros and Boremund Baratheon.

[A]

Who doesn't? To be fair, who doesn't? People hate them. Lucerys Lynel.

[B]

We have some notes, but, like, as far as the Baratheons we've met, he's top of our list.

[A]

I love Lionel. One of the most entertaining characters in the history of television. I feel wounded by some of what he said here, but I love to watch him, and I would happily just spend every week with him on a television show. I can't decide if I want the Lionel spinoff or the Raymond Red spinoff. More like they both would be wonderful.

[B]

New barrel spinoff, please. But Daniel Ings has said, I've been in the wikis, so I know that I could come back in a future season of this show.

[A]

I am very excited to see how they figure out how quickly to get him back in the mix.

[B]

I would be shocked if we didn't see him soon.

[A]

And on the war omen front,

[B]

the

[A]

idea of the susceptibility of the Targaryens right now, Flop era, flop era. I mean, like you said, blackfire, just not that long ago. 13 years. So who from outside or inside is looking and saying, this is a moment. This is a moment to try to pounce? Fascinating. Stuff. What about this idea of the way that he's speaking about Baylor acting dishonorably? What do you make of this?

[B]

I don't want to offend you.

[A]

Tell me. No, no, no, not at all.

[B]

As queen bee of the Balor fan club. But let's hear it. I mean, he's not incorrect that Baylor was like, hey, man, if I fight on our side, then the kingsguard can't touch me. You know, that there. That there were some no question tactics going on, but in terms of like, definitely which Targaryen is. Is enacting an injustice, Baylor's way down the list, you know, so I don't think we should be like that worried about it.

[A]

Listen, I think the points are valid. I think it's a free exchange of ideas. And as we discussed, because we kind of talked about this last week, given the, like, prejudgment issued by a couple members of Baylor's side before the trial began, which was interesting. Hubert's on display, no question. Here's my take. You ready for this? Don't let the evil people win. They're not the only ones who get to look for a fucking edge when they go lower.

[B]

Come on.

[A]

Why? Is it shameful or an affront to the gods or dishonorable to say I'm gonna ensure or work hard to look for an edge and a way to say I'm gonna find the path to victory? Victory I am pursuing because it is what is right and what is noble and what is just and what is good.

[B]

Do you know how one should throw it to? A critique. I think you should give. Give it the old Daeron Targaryen shrugged. The old what are you doing here? You're responsible for these people's death, eh, Baelor? You're suggesting something that kind of flouts the rules of chivalry.

[A]

Here's what Baelor could have done if he were alive. But I'm gonna do it for him because his brain fell to the floor.

[B]

His brain is out of his head, baby.

[A]

Can I quote his own brother, Maekar? Have you heard of him? Lots. One of the things that he says is Mikar. Mika. I was sad that we didn't get any more plumber and we didn't get any more of Mika Harold guy.

[B]

I know.

[A]

I miss him.

[B]

Wow. I know.

[A]

He could have done something in the finale. Yeah, I don't know.

[B]

What.

[A]

Help Rowan and Raymond toss over their night soil piss pot? Why not?

[B]

Okay, great.

[A]

Something for everyone. It may be that the gods have a taste for cruel japes or Perhaps there are no gods. Perhaps none of this had any meaning, which again we talked about last week. But I do think this is always an interesting litmus test for characters in the world. And just in discussing it like are you inclined to see some sort of divine judgment or is part of the point as you perceive it that in George's world, as is often the case in the real world, horrible things happen all the time, even to good people who try to do the right thing, which is heavy shit to carry on the George Frump. You shared this on TTT Talk to Thrones. Yeah,

[B]

thanks for translating.

[A]

One thing that is undeniable is the consequence of this moment. The butterfly effect, the dragon wing effect, the ripples. This is from a Penguin Random house conversation in 2022. So recently.

[B]

Ish Q&A.

[A]

Q and A. And George was asked about moments that really radically impacted the history of Westeros, the history of the realm. There are a couple of them. He said, I think in the Hedge Night, the first Duncan Egg story, the death of Baelor Breakspear who was the heir next in line to the throne and I think would have been a very strong and very competent king who dies to defend the honor of an insignificant hedge knight. Ellipses. How is Westeros history different if Baelor does not die? That would be very significant. So I would just like to reread one line and I think would have been a very strong and very competent king. So Lionel can eat shit just like Sarah playing the game on the floor. You know who else is appalled by Lionel's words? Dunk. Right?

[B]

Oh yeah.

[A]

He's shaken by this. And of course Dunk.

[B]

Dunk has applied to be treasurer of your Baylor Fanco.

[A]

I don't know. I don't know if I want Dunk handling money. What would be a better cabinet position?

[B]

And I think you know that to be true.

[A]

Dunk can be like my minister of Defense. You spend it all on puppets. I do love a puppet show though. Secretary of the Arts. That could be egg.

[B]

You know, I think Duncan tends a meeting. He's like I brought you all these puppets. And you're like where are the coffers? He's like, coffers are empty. Empty.

[A]

They're fucking empty.

[B]

They're full of puppets.

[A]

Yeah. But then I would ask why are they empty? And he'd say I spent my last couple coppers on some oats and apples for Sweet Foot.

[B]

And I'd say okay, I also hammered a few into a tree. Don't worry about it.

[A]

Dunk swore to Be Baylor's man, right? And it was beautiful. And he grew up hearing these stories from Arlen about Baylor's chivalry. And then he got to see. And this is a rare thing in life, genuinely, he got to see the merit of those words. Right? And does that mean that every single thing Baylor did is pure? But no, as we've talked about. Would that be interesting? No.

[B]

Lionel, you started veering like real nurse Dana in that moment.

[A]

Literally the nicest thing anyone has ever sent to me. You're welcome. Thank you. Wow.

[B]

Yeah. Thank you.

[A]

She's my fucking queen. She's the best.

[B]

This isn't Philly. All right, let's. This is not Philly.

[A]

Dunk's not finished with his hard conversations, right? He's carrying a lot of guilt. He knows that he owes. Believes he owes something more than this to Baylor's memory. And so he is inclined to incline. Inclined to incline. Watching the funeral. And then he's gonna make a visit. So, as you noted, we cut from the word roast to the funeral pyre. Wild stuff. Small crowd. But we would be remiss if we did not know that among the assembled. Hot Roli. He's here. Got to see him once more with his helmet off. Now, were you gonna mention a more important character, maybe?

[B]

No, I was gonna say the Kingsguard are showing up. Crab Nepo Baby and Hot Rolly, as you call them, are at both funerals. And I think it's a bit audacious that they went to the Beesbury Harding funeral, given that they were directly involved in the death of the Humphreys.

[A]

Let me just throw this out there. That's just like a communal tent. That's just like a market tent, you know?

[B]

No, that was the funeral. That was a wake was opening in there.

[A]

Don't be awake in a public square. And they were like, we heard your wake in a public square.

[B]

They were like, we heard there was an open bar. So going to come to the funeral, the guys that we put in the

[A]

ground, plenty of space in Ashford Meadow for a more private accommodation.

[B]

There's only two of them, though, because good old Will and Wild had to be carried off the field.

[A]

So, yeah, he's nursing some injuries.

[B]

I don't know. I don't know what quality of mainstay is attending to him. I mean, he's not making it to the funerals.

[A]

How do you think his wounds smell?

[B]

This is a very small crowd. It was interesting to compare who's here in this shot versus the concept art that they put in behind the scenes. It was a much bigger crowd in that.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

So I don't know if it was budgetary or they made an artistic decision of, like. But, like, Lord Ashford isn't there. Like, there's a number of people who aren't there. Nor should he. Manfred Dondarrion is there because he's related to the Targaryens. But, like, where's everyone else putting in their respects? Yeah. I mean, like, it's very weird that Lord Ashford isn't there. It's weird that Leo Longthorn isn't there. Like, there's a number of conspicuous absences, and you can.

[A]

Then it leaves it to us to kind of, like, interpret that. Is it the choice of the family to make this a small and private affair, or is it a reflection of the flop era, the state of play? If it is fascinating.

[B]

Flop era or we're all uncomfortable that we were involved in this. Lord Ashford's like, they're gonna kill me if I go. I'm just gonna.

[A]

Yeah, but, Gwen, get out there. We need Anne Ashford to have a line in the finale. I was thinking of little baby Bailon Air for a Day. His funeral scene at the beginning of HOTD season one, where famously, Rhaenyra called forth Syrax and said, dracarys in a very fancy way.

[B]

Dracarys.

[A]

Yes. Just so.

[B]

Not so. Not quite, but sure.

[A]

And a dragon breathed flame down onto the pyre. And here they're, like, torched to wood. It's just a great reminder of where they are.

[B]

It is flop era. I would like you to. I would like to paint a picture for you, please. Okay, so Syrax is obviously not available. No. No living dragon is available. They're all dead.

[A]

Sad.

[B]

Sad. But there are puppets.

[A]

Oh, my God. You think they should have brought out the tattered and decimated puppet that sparked this ruinous affair? And then just the pollen.

[B]

Get the pollen ready.

[A]

Could have worked.

[B]

You're looking for drama. Have you thought about puppets? As you know, I'm always thinking about puppets.

[A]

It's a great idea. I wonder if, like, Arian would have been able to appreciate that from his sickbed, or if he just would have been offended to have the puppet invoked in any form.

[B]

The guy is on Mars, thanks to Milk of the Poppy. He is not paying attention.

[A]

A lot of Milk of the Poppy.

[B]

Can I read this quote that you have here in the notes here, which I love? Quote. Other great houses might choose to bury their dead in the dark earth or sink them in the cold green sea, but the Targaryens were the blood of the dragon and their ends were writ in flame.

[A]

Writ in flame is so good.

[B]

He had been the finest knight of his age.

[A]

Hell yeah.

[B]

And some argued that he should have gone to face the Dark clad in mail and plate a sword in his hand. In the end though, his royal father's wishes prevailed and Daeron II had a peaceable nature. So what is informed here is not just that like Targaryens puppet or no need fire, you know, they want to burn the bodies. Okay, great. But there was. The timeline's a little bit different in the novella in that there's time, I guess, to send a raven to Daeron II to say, hey, what should Baelor Brakespeare wear on his funeral pyre?

[A]

And he's like, well, how about just a little bit of gold plating around the king head?

[B]

Dude, a real decorative visor situation, please. So I thought that was interesting, right? Cause like there's some random.

[A]

So time has passed. Cause like Dunk's eyes, not more so, slightly less full, but it's still swollen shut and he's in his bloody shirt.

[B]

I would say like three days max. Yeah, there's some rando targs there, but I don't think they had time to like ship any targs in. All of those people had to have already been at Ashford Meadows.

[A]

So yeah, why not take Baelor all the way back?

[B]

Why do they take the ashes back and do some fun Targi stuff with the ashes?

[A]

Can't believe this guy got burned by a wooden torch at fucking Ashford Meadow

[B]

when it could have been a puppet.

[A]

Exactly what I meant. Exactly. After the funeral, Dunk goes over to Valar. Valar, the young prince who is now heir to the Iron Throne.

[B]

Okay, can I clarify something really quickly? We actually got a couple emails about this. People were confused why Maekar wasn't next in line. And so just some refresher on the family tree and just how the line of succession works. Right, so to use a modern example, if King Charles had died before Queen Elizabeth died, it would have been William next in line, not one. I think it would be Anne. Right? Like not one of Charles's siblings. It goes like directly down the firstborn. Firstborn. Firstborn. Firstborn, yes, I know you know this. I'm just saying, this people don't know. So if William died before Charles dies, it's not Harry, it's. It's George, like William's son. Right, so Baelor died, It's Valar. His son is next in line. And not only that, but there's a

[A]

couple other brothers before his brother.

[B]

Right. So Baelor and then his firstborn is next in line. And should Valar have a kid? It would be his firstborn, et cetera, et cetera. Probably firstborn male because we learned some things from the realm's not ready.

[A]

Yes, exactly. And right. So that. And that it's possible, especially so close to Hot D that that is part of what people are bumping on because Rhaenys is the qu. Who never was. She is the daughter of the original heir Aemon. So the reason that she like it's a little different in the text in the show. But that's because she was a woman and not because of the. That being the proper line. So yeah, through the. Through that Baylor line and then to the other brothers. Should it go that way? Aerys not make our. Make ours the fourth Bro.

[B]

Baby bro. Baby bro.

[A]

Baby bro. Serious question for you. The stripe. Because Valara is sitting kind of in profile. The stripe of gray hair, silver targ hair. We get to see the little. He's got Baelor's brown hair, but then he's got a little silver signature targ popping through. Who wore it better on the stripe of gray hair front. Valara, the young prince are yours truly.

[B]

You don't have that much gray in your. And should you. It would look. I've seen it. I know I stare at you all the time. I think it looks beautiful and distinguished. But you're not like Bonnie Raitt over there. Like, you don't have like a ton of. You'll get there. I'll let you know when you get there. Then we can do it. Who wore it better? But right now it's Valar who is like really rocking the silver.

[A]

I love it. I love it. He's in a mood. He's grieving. Obviously his father. And I would say he's not celebrating the fact that he is now the heir. He's struggling with the loss of his father, but also and the injustice of it. Certainly based on what he says to Dunk, but a little bit, I think based on what he says about the armor here. He died in my armor. Plenty of sons have died in their father's armor. How many fathers have died in their sons? Which is a nice way to remind us, the viewer, that this was not supposed to happen. Baelor wasn't supposed to fight. He didn't even have his own armor. He had to borrow. His kids got a little bit from Valar of the like. I am ashamed that he was out there in my Armor. And I did not go out there.

[B]

I should have fought perhaps.

[A]

Yeah. Which is a nice little element to get from him. Not a character we've spent a ton of time with. Correct. And then he says he was still young. He had it in him to be a great king. Preach. The greatest since Aegon the dragon. Why would the gods take him and leave you?

[B]

I don't want to build an entire strawman out of one Baratheon bloviating by a creek.

[A]

I just like outrageous.

[B]

Anyone out there in the listenership who's like what a joke.

[A]

Challenged Lionel. God damn it. So this sec. The second thing the Valar says, though why would the gods take him and leave you? Is heart wrenching. And Dunk says, I've wondered the same thing. Here is a beautiful passage from the book. He had no answer for Valar nor for the questions he asked himself. The maesters and the boiling wine had done their work and his wound was healing cleanly. Though there would be a deep puckered scar between his left arm and his nipple, he could not see the wound without thinking of Baelor. He saved me once with his sword and once with a word. Even though he was a dead man as he stood there, the world made no sense. When a great prince died so a hedge knight might live. Dunk sat beneath his elm and stared morosely at his foot. I always love that. Just this reflection. We will definitely come back to the foot. I think that it takes a lot of courage for Dunk to do what he does here and go and seek out Valar. It's on my mind. Based on what Dunk says to Daeron later. You know, because he basically gives Darren a version of what Valar gives him here, which is like, how dare you show your face. This is your fault. And it's not Dunk's fault. The way that Darren actually is complicit because of his lie which allowed Arryon to make the trial of seven pitch. To be fair, but it's like what is what? Maybe Daeron's there as part of his coping mechanism.

[B]

No. But to be fair to bees, Dunk is there like hobbling towards the crown prince, the heir to the throne, to offer his condolences. Yes. Darren's there to get a shit faced and to shrug.

[A]

And to shrug. Yeah.

[B]

To anesthetize the wound that he got from his own horse stepping on him.

[A]

Wild stuff.

[B]

The.

[A]

The just. He looks wonderful. It's a real glow up.

[B]

He's not there to make amends.

[A]

No, certainly not. I think it's interesting to think about his especially. Cause Dunk's like, having no shame. I think Darren has in some respects, no shame. And in other respects, he's really burdened by his shame.

[B]

He's marinating in shame.

[A]

Yeah. I think with Dunk, undeniably, he is not looking for. Not only is he not looking for absolution, he is. He's trying to express his regrets and his sympathies and he's trying to understand. He's trying to process how this could be the outcome. How this could be something that the gods or anyone else thought was just. I did like that. I really like that Lionel moment when, you know, after the gods don't favor a fraud, when Dunk's like, why do they favor me? And Lionel's like, that's not favory, that's mockery.

[B]

No, but like, I thought Peter Claffy's delivery of that of like, why the gods favor me. And we got several emails about, you know, I think I said on Talk. I'm sure I said on Talk of the Thrones, like, we get confirmation that Dunk was not knighted. That is not how the people who wrote that seem. Have decided it means. And that's fine. And I'm not upset if it's ambiguous. I think it's preposterous that it's ambiguous. But I'm not upset about that. But there's just so many moments because it's like a fraud. Then why would he considers himself a fraud? Why does he consider himself a fraud? Because he's not a knight. He is just so clearly not a night.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But if you guys want to keep the question mark in the air, then that's fine.

[A]

We love a healthy debate. I was very surprised by that framing. Very surprised.

[B]

Because they even like, they even confirmed that this is like the night he died. The storm is breaking. Yeah.

[A]

It's the setting from his wound. He's got the.

[B]

And then Ira Parker's like. But he could have got up right after he said that and knighted him.

[A]

Yeah. Listen, if he got up, here's what I hope genuinely. He used his final breath to say, dig that grave at least one foot deeper.

[B]

You've seen what I'm working with here. It's gonna take a lot of inches to bury me. Okay.

[A]

Oh, my God. Mr. And Mrs. Fossoway of the Green Apple Fossoways.

[B]

Thank you for that.

[A]

You're welcome.

[B]

I loved this sequence before he, you know, Raymond calls out to him Dunk

[A]

from his shitty little tent in the distance.

[B]

But, like, before that, we see all these people watching Duncan, and we've been talking all season about, like, what it means for someone to look at Dunk. Usually it's like a steely pate or a plumber or a red or just someone who's just, like, taking another look at this guy who's, like, quite unusual. But now he's just burdened with a much larger set of expectations and reputations and whispers and rumors that Maekar, of course, will talk to him about. And I just loved it, really. Ran ran the gamut of, like, how people were looking at him.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

But he does not have the luxury of moving through the world incognito anymore. He was always, like, quite tall, so it's not like he, like, cut a really sneaky figure through the world, but now it's just sort of like, that's. That's Duncan the tall. Like, he's already famous.

[A]

Good luck to him. And Egg being incognito on the road. I've got some questions. Yeah, I do. Yeah. I like that there are the people who seem to be looking at him through the eyes of, like. Like, you're a famous figure of myth now. And I got to see it. How cool. Look at this thing you did. And then there are definitely people who are like, yeah, I blame you for this. And you can feel it all very quickly. And then when these whispers are invoked by Maekar, we've already gotten to feel the truth of that in a very quick and effective way. And Dunk, you know, he's sensing that, too. He's feeling it. You can feel when people are looking at you as you walk past. He's already had this exchange with Valar. He's had this exchange with Lionel. He sat for how many days? We don't know, rotting against his elm. He's got a lot on his mind, a lot that he's working through. And he unburdens himself to Raymond. He says, everyone blames me for what happened here. And Raymond, good friend, ride or die, says, I don't, and then gives him one of the longest hugs that I've ever seen. And I say this as someone who loves a long hug. I once suffered a rib contusion hugging Sean Fennesee for too long.

[B]

I just heard that story very recently.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Last week, the day that the Ringer

[A]

website launched in 2016, Wrapped My Arms around him and hugged and hugged and hugged, and I just. Right here. Sometimes I still feel like a. It's like I'm like, I thought the

[B]

way you Told me it was like he hugged you too hard and broke you.

[A]

No, he very rigidly sat there.

[B]

Oh, you flung yourself at him and squoze him. And in the squeezing popped.

[A]

I had to go to urgent care the next day. I was in agony.

[B]

No, I just really like that Raymond is just committed to the bit and wants to keep hugging. And Doug's like, are we.

[A]

Are we done yet?

[B]

Are we done yet?

[A]

Are we done yet? Are we done yet? Well, Raymond, you know, very recently has learned the pleasures of physical contact.

[B]

And I squeezed. Yeah. So listen, Raymond introduces his new branding. He does the green apple.

[A]

Yeah. Thought that the sigil looked like a green pepper.

[B]

Nope. It looks beautiful.

[A]

Looked like a green pepper. A bell pepper, which I like a bell pepper better than a green apple. And

[B]

I think what's wild. I think we alluded to this, but, like, what's wild in the book is that he gets that painting done and he was carrying the shield in the tourney. But in the book he gets knighted and he's like, brb.

[A]

Got some arts and crafts to do.

[B]

Gets the new sigil painted. I don't know who did it for him because Tansel is already fucked off out of town, so I guess he did it himself. Who's to say? But the Green Apple fossilways are born here in this very moment.

[A]

It's wonderful. And they're gonna stick around, man.

[B]

The green apple fossilways of New Beryl. Yeah, they're a thing.

[A]

New Barrel is excellent branding. Cider hall also excellent.

[B]

Yeah. The red apple possibilities of cider hall suck. Stefan is the green apple possibilities of New Barrel.

[A]

I agree. Rule. I agree. And this doesn't mean a green apple tastes good. But I agree.

[B]

This red twist is so good. This is not in the book at all. Red is not even like a character in the novella we've already discussed because

[A]

there are almost no women.

[B]

Yep, Correct. And so think of how many lines we got from women in this episode. Red says Rowan, if you prefer. So this so much. Gwen has a line.

[A]

Gwen has a line.

[B]

We're really doing it here. Wolf 2.0 here at night of the Seven Kingdoms.

[A]

And Red, like the way that she's communicating to dunk with glances and little looks. Wonderful stuff like don't.

[B]

Class solidarity.

[A]

Yeah. Yes, exactly. She shout out to Red. She saw her opportunity here and she took it and she landed herself a love league. Good for them. Good for them.

[B]

I love this dynamic.

[A]

It's wonderful.

[B]

She's way smarter than him.

[A]

I mean, she was right to call out the apples.

[B]

She Is extremely hot. I think he's gonna be happy. He's, like, very nice, has a bunch of money. Yeah, she's married now. I think she's gonna treat him well. I think he's gonna treat her like a princess. And I think it's just gonna be

[A]

a great thrill for him.

[B]

I genuinely think this is gonna be a great marriage. And I think it's a victimless crime. I, like, don't think it's a problem

[A]

that I think that it is a little bit of a shame that sweet Raymond is the only person in the realm who knows less about sex than Dunk Ciderhall. Not strong on the sex ed front, does not understand how long it takes to really anything about the female anatomy 0. Or the process of impregnating a woman. So I feel a little bit bad for him that he's, I guess, raising Sir Manfred Dundarrians.

[B]

Possibly. If she's pregnant at all.

[A]

Spawn with his real estate, probably Manfred.

[B]

But, like, he's just gonna.

[A]

He'll be a great dad.

[B]

He's going to be a great dad.

[A]

He'll be a great dad and it won't matter. And the kid will be better off with Raymond than with Sir Manfred.

[B]

No. And listen, if it comes out of redhead, it's okay because she has red hair. And he never needs to know that it's from the Dondarian side.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Just for the sheer pleasure of it. Let's watch this exchange.

[B]

Love to. I had no squire to see to

[A]

my wounds, and she offered to help me out my armor.

[B]

And.

[A]

Anyway, she said, I've got a with child now, so I figured we ought to get married. Feels like a boy. It's just an instantly iconic scene.

[B]

Peter.

[A]

That's so good.

[B]

Peter's reaction is so funny. Dunk's reaction's so funny. Her being like, nice to meet you. Like, you've never met me. I'm Lady Rowan.

[A]

Quick on the uptake, Dunk.

[B]

Rowan's interesting. You mentioned that there's a. I am baffled by this.

[A]

I am.

[B]

The actress's name is Rowan.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Rowan Robinson. No relation. Wish there was because she's amazing. But Rowan Robinson is the actress, so they just gave her that name. But there is a prominent, very prominent character in season two who has a similar name.

[A]

Very similar. Spelled definitely, but very similar. It's odd. Could have gone with any other name.

[B]

But they didn't. Probably. But they didn't. Do you think that the implication is she when she's saying her name is Lady Rowan? Do you think the Implication is that she's from House Rowan. Like, that's what she's trying to pull one over. That's a bigger con job. That's an established house in the reach.

[A]

That also then is a connection to events to come.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

That would be interesting. It's entirely possible. But maybe Raymond just used the performer's name by mistake and they're like, let's just keep it. What if it's that?

[B]

Why try to do another.

[A]

What if it's that?

[B]

No secondary.

[A]

That was fucking perfect.

[B]

I just love this. I just, like, I'm so happy for them. I wish them well.

[A]

Absolutely wonderful. I also think green apple, red apple, apple wars eternal. But all of that aside, it is lovely to see the new sigil because it connects to Dunk and his device. And this idea we've been talking about all season of how something branding.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yes. Lean into the branding, but capture something about the path that you are gonna forge for yourself. Raymond having his version of that is just really cool.

[B]

Well, also, Red renaming herself Lady Rowan, like Duncan the tall. She's just sort of like, I've decided I'm Lady Rowan now. I'm Lady Fossil woman.

[A]

And Raymond doesn't fucking know any better or how to fact check. And frankly, if he did, he probably wouldn't care because time of his life. Time of his life can have a great life.

[B]

I feel like the cider empire is going to thrive under her. Like, I just. Yeah.

[A]

Entrepreneurial spirit. That's clear.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

That's clear.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I love a cider.

[B]

You make her treasurer of your bail

[A]

or breakthrough without hesitation. Yeah. Yeah. Again, Dunk is not right for that role. But I think Red would be sensational. Maybe Gwyn can come in and work on social media.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Maekar. Maekar summons Dunk. Dunk is pulled away from this beautiful moment with Rowan and Raymond. The soldiers. Maekar's riders emerge. And Raymond again, he's just like, ride or die till the end. He's like, you're not gonna take my guy. They could cut him down in the stomach.

[B]

Fight them. Oh, one last thing I want to say before we leave the fossil. And then we'll come back to them, obviously, but like, boy, won't we? She's like. She's wearing a shirt. It's so cute.

[A]

Shocking and bold of you to invoke the shirt that she's wearing, given that it is a red apple shirt.

[B]

Well, they're gonna burn it when they get back to New Barrel. But, like. But I just think that's so cute. She's just like, dressed in his tunic, like, you know, dumping some piss. Yep. Romance. Okay.

[A]

Make our coming together.

[B]

Make our ascending soldiers get done. This is a change I don't 1 million percent love from the book. Because in the book, Maekar comes to the tree where Dunk is like, you know, And I just. I like that. That's like a humbling gesture for Maekheart to, like, come out to the tree. Instead, he summons him. Duncan.

[A]

Do you think he's like, there's just been too much talk of itchy assholes by this here elm for me to.

[B]

He has no way to know it, but I have to say he disrespects trees later. And I just hope that Tolkien didn't hear him do it. He's like, what does your tree have to say about that, Dunk? And I'm like, don't disrespect the trees. The Lorax will have a problem. Tolkien Island's a problem. I have a problem.

[A]

The professor's always welcome, so he probably could sense it.

[B]

Mika Micah.

[A]

He's sitting at a desk, a desk made of wood. Wood that came from a tree.

[B]

Reading a book. A book made of wood. Wood that came from a tree.

[A]

Chris Ryan esque transition right there.

[B]

Learn from the best. He's reading a book. I don't know if they're Baylor's books or Lord Ashford's books.

[A]

Yeah. But do you think it's the same book that Balor was last reading? So that this is like. Cause I love the little. Kind of. Little subtle head shake. Almost like he's trying to understand why Balor did this thing.

[B]

Dumb Trial of Seven came from. From this stupid fucking book. What I really love that they talked about on the behind the scenes is that they wanted to. This is the same room. This is a Prince of the Blood and Dunk once again, et cetera. But instead of warm candlelight, we're in sort of cold gray dawn sort of light. And that it just should feel cold and bereft of light and life.

[A]

Because you can't say bereft on a Night of the Seven Kingdoms podcast without us thinking about Alice of three fingers. Three fingers born bereft of thumb. Sorry, it's just like Pavlovian for me now. Bereft of thumb.

[B]

We're just going to add it to your throne's tread. Just like, keep a list.

[A]

Fallen for ephdifum.

[B]

Just keep making a very emotional voice.

[A]

You are so. I was just like. I couldn't help but about the absence

[B]

of your guy at Baelor and how he took all the light with.

[A]

You know what I love about that especially is, like, toward the end of the scene, the framing changes and Dunk moves in front of the natural light. And so the shadow is all around him, but there's this little beam just on Dunk. Beautiful stuff, Maekar. We're gonna get to Baelor and we're gonna get to Egg. But he starts with Arryon. He says, I'm sending him to the East. A few years in the Free Cities may change him for the better. Dunk does not respond to this, because what would he say? But in the book, we're in his head and here's what he thinks. Dunk had never been to the Free Cities, so he did not know what to say to that. He was pleased that Arryon was gone from the Seven Kingdoms and hoped he never came back. But that was not a thing you told a father of his son. Love this line.

[B]

So this is like, you know, this speaks to sort of some, like, reticence and some, you know, mining his tongue from Dunk, which later, when he's telling Maekar about Aerion and Darren, like, in the book, he has to be. In the book, he has to be coerced into saying that.

[A]

Right?

[B]

Right. Maekar's like, go on, say it. What do you want to say? And in this show, he just comes out and say it. And that is that thing we've been seeing all season from Dunk, where he's just a little brasher and a little bolder.

[A]

And structurally, like, splitting their conversation over two scenes so that more can happen in between for Dunk allows that to feel like a really authentic journey for him.

[B]

Yeah. But it also just feels like all season they've been making him a bit more audacious. Also, I think it's like. So as someone who. And I don't look great in this story because I am the Arryon Targaryen of the situation, but when I was a problem teenager, my parents sent me to Italy for the summer to get my head on straight. Disgusting. But that was just sort of like, did it work? Sure. I was totally fixed. But that was punishment. I was punished by going to Italy when other 18 year olds would be dying to go. I was grateful and thrilled to be there, but it was just sort of like, when I talk to people about that is how my parents punished me for being a rotten teenager. They're like, that's gross. Right. And so for Maekar to say, I'm sending him to The Free Cities as punishment, when this was like, Rafe's fondest dream, to escape. They scrimped and they saved and they struggled. And all she wanted to do was go to the Free Cities. And this is a punishment for a rich fuckboy. The universe isn't fair.

[A]

No, it's not. But how do you think it'll go for Arian? Stay tuned. We'll talk about it in the spoiler section.

[B]

Our listener Michael said, a small moment, but I really loved Maekar getting up and limping in front of Duncan. It's one thing to see Lionel and Raymond limp, but to have. And Michael wrote crown Prince. He's not the crown Prince. But to have a prince of the Blood, show that weakness and share trauma with Duncan speaks a lot about his state of mind. He's not trying to embody power at that point. He's just a grieving brother and sad dad thinking about what I love that

[A]

I think in general. I mean, we talked on Talk of the Thrones about just this performance from Sam Sproul in this episode is really wonderful. I thought that all of the Maekar scenes were great and the thickness of the emotion, but he still has some sassy moments in these conversations, which we'll get to. But there is, especially here, this opening beat in place that we find him. It's like the sarcastic quality that has defined our time with him this season. The kind of caustic tone. It's just. It's the grief, but it's like the kind of quiet, disbelieving stillness that we find him in. Like, I lost my brother, who, despite everything I love and also, I am my role in this, my role because of my children, but my role in my hand directly. Like, it's such a human place to find him. And the things that he's about to say are so human.

[B]

And I like that.

[A]

Like, opening with this Arian information is for us as readers and viewers, so that we understand. But it feels too. Like, it's kind of like the closest he would ever deign to get to an apology. This is the closest he's gonna get to saying anything to dunk about, like, what his own kid did wrong. I'm sending him away. He's gonna think about what he did. This is the closest that he's gonna get to an apology.

[B]

A move you could have made. I don't know. When he rampaged through a puppet tent

[A]

smashing walnuts like a brat.

[B]

Before any of this started. Did you see in the behind the scenes that Sam Sproul and Finn Bennett were like in that walnut smashing scene. Sam Sproul's like, he has an allergy. You know, like Finn Bennett has a nut allergy. And then Finn Bennett's like, I just really wanted the job.

[A]

I mean, it's.

[B]

I hope that's true. I don't know if that was a joke, but I thought it was really funny.

[A]

Print the legend. If not, make Harper approaches Baelor. Some men will say, I meant to kill my brother. The gods know it is a lie, but I will hear the whispers till the day I die. And Dunk takes his share of the blame for this, says it was for me that Baelor died. And Maekar makes no effort to disabuse him of this notion and says, yeah, you're gonna hear the whispers too. Now. There's obviously the no man is as accursed as the kinslayer element of this with the targs and anyone in the realm. Brother killing a brother. This is a scandalous thing. I love the line in the novella when Dunk thinks to himself, perhaps he should have hated Maekar, but instead he felt a queer sympathy for the man. This link between them.

[B]

That's what I was thinking about that Dunk Red exchange that idea of. To go back to that Dunk and Egg scene in the prison cell when Dunk thinks in the book he knew what it was to tell a monstrous lie, right? So here's Red telling her monstrous lie of like, I'm pregnant from a one night stand, it's a boy, you know, like. But to get what she wants, which is a up security, upward mobility, which is what Duncan wanted was upward mobility, you know, and so that those moments of sympathy, the sympathy with Red and then the sympathy here with Maekar, like, he's an empathetic.

[A]

Hugely so.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Hugely so.

[B]

I love that. I love her. Of animals

[A]

quietly. One of my favorite moments of the season was still the little, like, petting the goat's head. Young Donk. This guy loves an animal.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I like this thinking about the empathy and the empathy born out of an unlikely tie and the ability to even have perspective with somebody else that, like, you wouldn't think you'd be able to have. You know, we've talked a lot with Egg and Dunk about chance meetings, but, like, this is another chance entwinement. The fact that Maekar and Dunk are now tied in the annals of Westerosi history and their own emotional experience. Obviously it's different for both of them, but, like, this is a thing that they share and it's Especially because, you know, over the course of these scenes and conversations, Maekar, even though he is very warm in certain points, like the Arlen. Invoking Arlen, like you mentioned, there are other moments where he's, you know, diminishing Dunk as a hedge knight yet again. Right. But he's. That actually makes this even richer to me because it's like he's acknowledging. Yeah, they're gonna whisper about you, too.

[B]

We are.

[A]

We are a part of this thing together. You, a person who live a life that. Like when we met Maekar and Baelor in episode two, it's like, how do you remember some hedge knight who, like, you know, chanced to unhorse.

[B]

He wanted to take my son where to eat. What?

[A]

Yeah. And so he's gotta be bound now to a person who he would have been inclined to really like, belittle and dismiss. It's just a fascinating thing, the idea that he doesn't know which blow was the fatal one. We talked about this a lot last week. It wasn't really a part of the finale, but it is a part of their conversation in the book. And we've always really loved it. Strange to say. Maekar says in the book, I do not recall the blow that broke his skull. Is that a mercy or a curse? Some of both, I think. I just always thought that was a great insight into, like, his state of mind and emotional state.

[B]

I love that. And I love the show. Addition of showing Maekar in that moment, the moment that we think it happened, being so desperate to get to Aerie and saying, my boy, my boy. So this idea that he, you know, he wasn't. He didn't have all his wits about him, and he's literally flailing around. And so the fact that Baelor was collateral damage, there's, like, you know, a better reason for that than even the book gives us.

[A]

Totally. Because there is an element of. Yeah, there is like, a part of it that's like, okay, well, you're swinging a metal. Like a steel mace at somebody's head.

[B]

Like, what?

[A]

Something bad could happen. You know, something bad could happen. There's a little bit of the Jorah. There's a beast in every man, and it stirs when you put a sword in his hand to just the fact that to some extent, when you're in that armor and you have that tool of war in your hand, like, what did you mean or not mean to do? Consciously, it's like something comes over you that leads to that possibility. But I agree, seeing those humanizing elements of Even his hideous, horrible kid. He's a dad who wants to protect his son. And I think especially given what we see between him and Egg in the finale, that's even richer now in hindsight. And it already was rich at the time. What did you make of how he spoke about Baelor? Kind of like looming as a presence even in death. The fools will say, baelor will not have let it happen, but the Hedge Knight killed him. When talking about how the king is old, and this idea that, like, Baelor always could have done a better job will just be the currency, the lingua franca of the realm moving forward.

[B]

It's almost like a dragon with, like, wings so large it casts a shadow across all of the meadow.

[A]

Darren, the drunken Darren, the dreamer with us always. I love this. I love that he is, like, so upset about what happened in his role, but also is like, I'm still diminished in everyone else's esteem of my brother, even though we've heard that not everybody feels that way about Baelor. Very, very, very rich. Dunk is like, did I make the right choice? How can a foot be worth a prince's life?

[B]

This is like, one of the most. One of the stickiest ideas that comes out of the Hedge Knight is the foot of Ser Duncan for the life of Baylor Breakspear. And this is for folks who did not study English literature. This is like a synecdoche idea, this figurative language concept that Shakespeare was fond of, but many people are fond of, where you take apart to mean the whole. Right? And so, friends, Roman countrymen, lend me your ears. You know, like, just like. And I think it is this especially potent idea when you use, like, one part of the body. Like, a more modern language example that people like to use is, like, when you say, I got a new set of wheels to mean I got a car, right? So, like, the part means the whole. And it's such an interesting way to talk about a thing the foot of. You know, when Dunk talks about, like, mayhap that foot, you know, might have something to do. He's not. You know, we've made some jokes in the spoiler section about what his literal foot could literally do.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And we'll stand by that we've had a blast. And we'll stand by that we've been

[A]

having a blast in the spoiler section.

[B]

But that's not what's meant here, Right. You know, what is my life compared to his. Compared to his. But the foot stands in for the hole, and I just love that little bit of that's beautiful figurative language from George.

[A]

I love that. And now in the outcome and in the wake of this, but also even in the initial choice, it's like, did Dunk really care about the foot and the hand and the teeth? Like, we talked about the Jaime Lannister. Like, I was that hand equivalent. And there is a literal aspect of, like, well, I'm a hedging knight. What would I do? But it's what that represented about the punishment and the sacrifice that I have to incur when I did the right thing. And so to trace that beautiful theme across the inciting incidents and events and now through the leg of this moment and what you carry from it. And like, you know, we talked about this a little bit on Talk to the Thrones, but I love, especially because this is where Dunk invokes the Arlen and the idea of the Morrow. Like, thinking about how characters respond to something that is that big and existential. What is the measure of my value compared to somebody like this? What are you gonna make it? You know, how are you gonna keep doing the thing? Cause Dunk is already impacting people and doing the right thing and saving lives. And now he can decide to continue to. Or he could wilt and say, I don't deserve it, or he could be angry. It's a choice he gets to make.

[B]

So he says, I'm done with princes. Right. Which is a show line that's not in the books and one that eavesdropping egg is roll bum to hear. Right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But this idea of, like, okay, what is my life? What is my foot, what is my whatever compared to the life of a prince?

[A]

Right?

[B]

But then, you know, as you mentioned earlier, over the course of this episode, deciding what I can offer is better than what any prince can offer.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You're offering all of the riches and, you know, resources of Summerhall. You want me to come to Balmoral Castle, you know what I mean, and, like, hunt with your son or whatever. But, like, But I have value. I have value greater than that. That's an incredible, incredible, incredible thing to watch. A character like Dunk. Dunk, who starts. Who, if you read the novella, his constant interior monologue is. Is like self hatred, Right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Dunk the lung, thick as a castle

[A]

wall, slows the marks.

[B]

Like, I'm so dumb. How did I get myself in this position? Why would anyone ever, you know, think I. Oh, how could I think I could do this? You know, like, to being like, I can do this. I can help this kid, and I'm better than the Targaryens.

[A]

The way I can do it is by getting him away from you. That realization will play out over a couple scenes here. When Maekar first makes the offer, it's to take Egg Esquire at Summerhall.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Before we get to the Summerhall part, though, here's what he says of Egg. My youngest son seems to have grown fond of you, sir. It is time he was the squire. But he tells me he will serve no knight but you, given the choice that Egg is gonna make at the end. Worth spending a second on this, obviously. Just the beauty of Egg's affection for dawn, you know, the depth of this bond forged so quickly, which is part of what's gonna be shattering for Egg as he eavesdrops and hears what he hears.

[B]

Right?

[A]

But Egg pushing for what he wants. Egg. It's the privilege of a prince.

[B]

Certainly.

[A]

Undeniably right. But there is something we're gonna talk a lot about. The choice that Ed makes at the end and the ramifications of that and the implications of it. But here, this, like. This is admirable to, like, stand up to his father and say, like, I'm only gonna do it with this guy. This is the guy I want to do it for. And I've learned something about myself, too. I could be happy, you know, I think I could be quite happy at a place like this. Like, I'm gonna be willing to do something that's unpopular or uncommon. It's the same spirit that led him to Dunk in the first place. And so I just love that little idea that he told his dad this is what he wanted.

[B]

It's the same spirit that has Raymond Fossoway, like, you know, stepping up in front of some Targaryen guards and being like, you gotta go through me if you wanna get to Dunk. You know, the. The love and loyalty that Dunk inspires and the people around him.

[A]

It's beautiful, genuinely. He's an unruly boy, as you will have noticed. He's a good lad, Dunk says. Just needs a stern hand, that's all. And then Maekar kind of like, moves toward Dunk and leans into him and says, the voice kind of cracking. The delivery of this really just shattered me. Will you have him? And this desire that Maekar has to do right by one kid. By one kid. And again, the same guy who scoffed at his brother, even remembering a Hedge knight now asking a Hedge Knight at Summerall on Maekar's terms. But still, to be the one to mentor and teach and Guide his.

[B]

I think some context is helpful here. And then again, thinking about Maekar's strong reaction to the idea of sending Egg away is, you know, his wife died. And so he was a grieving father for much of these boys childhood, Right?

[A]

Yes. So in the way in which dead mom not alive from Egg.

[B]

Right. And so like, how much was he able to show up for these kids as he's like mourning the loss of his wife. Okay, so there's that. And then also in terms of Aemon being at the Citadel, that was not his choice. He did not want that to happen. So he already had one son taken. His one non psychotic son. Darren's not a psycho, but Arian is. But like Aon was like bookish and whatever, but Daen sent him away because he's like, there's too many Targaryen heirs running around the place. We got to thin the herd.

[A]

So we've seen how that goes.

[B]

Yeah. So let's send this one off to the Citadel. And Maker's like, not my kid. Please don't. And then he loses him anyway. So to. To call when he says, I mean, this is later. But when he's like, it's my last son. Oh, my God.

[A]

Shattered me, Right? Yeah.

[B]

Because I already fucked up with Aryon and Daeron. There's really no fixing that. They took Aemon from me. You want to take Egg from me, Right. Then what do I have?

[A]

And you're doing it by telling me that you have to. Because the very prospect of him being with me, the way these other boys were being inside our family is what will doom him.

[B]

Am I the drama? Yeah.

[A]

I was interested in how. I can't remember if it was on the inside the episode or the official pod, but how Ira framed this pitch from Maekar. Obviously there's a lot of earnest emotion and just heartfelt aspects to what he's saying here, but that it's also like, you embarrassed me and you beat me, and now I'm gonna make you come to my home and like put you under my foot. I thought that was interesting as an additional element to consider here of like regaining control. Seeking to regain control, which obviously he will. Will not. But another element there. And you know, we talked about this a little bit with the Lionel offer earlier, but this one even more so because we literally heard Duncan Egg talk about this in. In this season. The dragon. Like, you think the Dragon House is hiring? This is the dream. This is the thing that he wanted. I could be more than a hedge knight. We've talked about that line so many times this season. The position above the salt to be offered the exact thing. There's a passage we were. I can't remember if we talked about this in. I guess we must have talked about it in the spoiler section at the beginning of the season. We were beside ourselves that the bugs around Dunk's elm were just actual flies, not dragonflies. Because it.

[B]

This line.

[A]

This line that. Because this Maekar Dunk exchange is one scene in the book instead of split over two. The thing that Dunk thinks to himself is, what shall it be? Dunk, he asked himself. Dragonflies or dragons? AKA the life of a hedge knight out among the wild things on the road. The exact kind of hedges and mud that he set earlier to himself, like, do great knights die by the side of the road? Buy the dragonflies? Yes, they do. After showing us their huge dick a few days. That's not part of the quote. It's just something we're saying here at

[B]

the House of Dark.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because George would have equally profound their. Their impressive pink mask.

[A]

He usually reserves pink masks for the tiny little bobbing ones. A few days ago, he would have answered at once. It was all he had ever dreamed. But now that the prospect was at hand, it frightened him. Frightened?

[B]

Yeah, frightened. It's scary after everything that Dunk has been through, after all the things that he's braved. Yeah. And this idea of getting involved with this family, with these people, with spending more time around these things that are dream destroyers.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Knowing Aerion and seeing what Aerion was capable of with the horse, not to mention with Tyndale, not to mention everything else. These things that. Just knowing more of these nobles and more of these knights, and the more it just makes the scales fall from his eyes. But he's like, if I go back on the road with the dragonflies, then I can just live in this space with Ser Arlan where I understood what right and wrong was.

[A]

And I could make that choice. I wouldn't have to just do what the lord I had sworn my sword to told me. Yeah. And it's like, obviously a lot of it is targ centric, but just thinking of the moments where he's appealing to the grandstand or all of the lords he went to to say, do you remember Sir Arlan who took a wound in your service and you don't fucking remember who?

[B]

The brute of fucking Bracken.

[A]

That guy ripped off a hell of a fart.

[B]

Remember that?

[A]

What a television show egg is listening through the door, as you noted. Should we Do a fit check on Egg for a second here. We haven't talked about on this very podcast.

[B]

I can't go Hutt. Who wore it better, Eric Tao or Prince Aegon?

[A]

Thank you for being the one to first bring up industry today. Boy, that most recent industry episode was really something.

[B]

That's what we say every week.

[A]

Man, what a season of tv. I think I wore it better. With respect to Eric. He's going through a lot. He doesn't need me to pile on.

[B]

Do you think that Mika had that hat made for the funeral?

[A]

That's a great question.

[B]

He's like, cover up that dumb shaved head of yours with this hat.

[A]

Yeah, that's interesting. Is Egg. Cause obviously we get the very intense mirror scene when he's looking at his hair. So maybe he was like, I want to cover this up. Or maybe. Yeah, Maekar was like, enough of this silly shaved head. Come on. Great question. Dunk asked Egg if he was listening in. Egg lies. He says, no, he was. He's a liar.

[B]

Not the last lie he'll tell in this episode.

[A]

Little Liar. I did just love the way they sit by this little. This window bench, and. And Dunk just says, I can't, Egg. I can't. I'm sorry.

[B]

Right. With this, like, assumption that Egg. He knows that Eggs knows, so he already knows that Egg knows what they were talking about, and he just can't do it. And, like, yeah, maybe you're not the knight I thought you were.

[A]

He didn't say, man.

[B]

He said knight has, like, nine different meanings to it. You know, Tough Egg.

[A]

I think his despair is so palpable here in real. And there's an element of this with, like, Egg, I think, obviously feeling very scared, as we will see in this Arryon scene, what it would mean to not get to go be with Dunk, to have to go back to his family. I was thinking, too, just about, like. I mean, Egg's a very young kid. Right. So how much of this is, like, active thought when you're 9 or 10?

[B]

I don't.

[A]

I don't know.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I think a lot is on your mind when you're at that age. And Egg, like, made the choice. On the one hand, their entire relationship is built on a lie. On the other hand, it's like he made the choice to reveal himself, to blow his cover, to stand up for Dunk. He sided with Dunk against his family in the trial of Seven. And there's definitely. It feels like there's a part of this where he's just like, man, I kept choosing you. Time and time again, I chose you. If you don't choose me back, choose

[B]

me, love me,

[A]

what would happen? Where would that leave me if you don't choose me back? And it's like, well, we're about to see. We're about to get a very harrowing glimpse of it.

[B]

But. And I think also, because, you know, when we get that harrowing. I described it like a horror movie, like, sort of glimpse in a little bit in the episode. It's like he's so horrified by his hair growing back and this, like, Targaryenness inside of him, this Arryenness inside of him. And like. Like how you can't. He can't remove it from himself. It's in his very blood. It's in his follicles, you know? And is that is what that is? I've had enough of princes, Right? Like is who he is. So unlovable, so repulsive, that Dunk, who is so kind and all these other things won't choose him.

[A]

And, man, what a great question. Because then there's also the element of like. Like. And will those thoughts and worries ever go away? Even if he does, before we can go into the future, we've got to go into the past. Arlen's final words to Dunk.

[B]

I have some questions about this for you.

[A]

Okay, tell me. Is it about how Arlen ceased to have any eye movement for, like, four and a half minutes, but was still alive, or. I'm not a doctor, so I don't know.

[B]

I had some questions about, like, how real does this feel to you? Do I believe that Sir Arlo de Penny Tree, whilst dying of wounds of an infection, told the story of the Penny Tree?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. Did Dunk sit there and ask him, like, really ask him, why did you never knight me? Or is this just something that, like, he's sort of asking his memory of Ser Arin? I don't know that I have a clear answer. I'm just asking questions. I also thought it was. It really broke my heart when he's. When he's telling this story of. These are his final moments. He's dying of this wound. The storm. We hear the rumble of the thunder. So the storm is coming. Storm is coming. Right?

[A]

Yeah. The horses are there.

[B]

Have you heard this story before? Many times. Etc. Tells the story of the Penny Tree, which you can talk about in a second.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

When he says, when a lord calls his banners and sends us, us boys off to war, that gave me real egg. I dreamed I was old. He's telling this story and he says, us boys, as if he was still a boy. Yeah.

[A]

In his final moments of life, of consciousness traveling back to the.

[B]

Traveling back in time to his youth of, you know, we can talk about penetrating why they were constantly going to war. But, like, I love that. That just like that. That hurt my feelings. I was thinking a lot about Aemon in that moment. Egg, I dreamed I was old. And the way in which your brain sort of becomes unstuck in time a bit. Maybe in your final moments.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And. And then for Dunk, you know, to be sitting there and saying, why did you never knight me? I don't know. I've seen a lot of people that I really admire the way that they talk about story, talk about how they think this is a fantasy.

[A]

He wishes he had gotten to actually

[B]

pose that question, actually ask that question. I don't mind that interpretation at all. I'm not convinced either way, but I don't mind. But I was more struck by sends us boys off to war.

[A]

Man, I love that. Jesus. The amen Ty is so good. I think, too. I invoked old Nan on Talk of the Thrones and her quotes about stories and a game of Thrones, the first book, are some of my favorite ever. And I think that when you get a throne's property invoking stories, it can go really wrong in a Tyrion series finale way or really right in the old Nan way or other examples. But the thing that. That makes me think of what you're just saying is the other. Not the quote I read on Talk of the Thrones, but the other one that I love so much, stories, Wait, my little lord. And when you come back to them, why, there they are. Which is like. I'm like, I might get that tattooed, you know, I just love that so much. It's one of my favorite George lines and ideas. And like what you're describing about Unstuck in time, the Slaughterhouse 5 quality of just like it makes me think of the end of this episode and the very deliberate choice. So there's like a almost like hallucinatory dream to seeing this shade of Arlen and Sweetfoot peel off, traveling alongside Dunk and Egg and then peeling off. And this idea of a true knight always finishes a story. And it's like, it's the tales of Dunk and Egg now, but also like, don't the great stories never end? Are we in the same tales still?

[B]

And like that moment we got earlier in the season when Dunk on the tourney Ground looks up and Ser Arlyn looks down at him. Right. There are these moments across time throughout the season that I think are really, really interesting.

[A]

I love that.

[B]

Can we talk about Pen?

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

So, first of all, you and I both sort of just like, looked up this idea of the penny tree, because this is not from the text, this isn't in this novella, nor when Penny Tree comes up in A Song of Ice and Fire. It's not described as part of the tradition there, though there are pennies on the tree. But this is like.

[A]

This is a.

[B]

This is a traditional thing that you find, you know, not just in England and Ireland, et cetera, but kind of around the world. And did you look at some of the photos of these trees? They look incredible. Oftentimes, the photos that I saw, oftentimes the coins are sort of hammered in from the side, so then they look like. And then they get. Then the copper sort of. What do you call it when it turns teal? You know what I mean?

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes.

[B]

There's a scientific word, but I'm not a scientist anyway.

[A]

I'm not a scientist at a talist.

[B]

But then it looks like dragon scales. Like, they look incredible, these trees. You should Google them if you have not. They look incredible. But this idea of the penny tree, which is a traditional sort of practice that they put into the text here, and then the idea of pennantry as a location that is in the middle of the Blackwood Bracken fight, it is like contested territory always chilled there in. In the. We've seen it in House of the Dragon. It is. It touches the Blackfyre rebellion. Like the. The Blackwood Bracken feud is a constant. And in the middle of that, out in the Riverlands is Penny Tree. So, you know, this idea of, like, we're. We're always going to war. Yeah, Right. Because there's always fighting around Penny Tree.

[A]

I love the specificity of that location and how it connects to the history, the violent, consistently violent history of the realm. And that, like, sin begets sin idea we love talking about in Hot D, the kind of inescapable nature of that perpetual violence and the people who are caught up and swept up in it. I also love, too, like, thinking. I loved the way Arlen talked about this and, like, if you. If you can kind of like pair the. The physical, specific thing that is real and does exist with almost the idea of, like, how fitting it feels for Arlen to talk about a concept as his home, you know, like, not like, even though it is an Actual, you could point to it on the map. Like, I just loved. It felt so fitting for this character who isn't, like, no famous name, no famous house, who has traveled across the land and. And been a participant in battle after battle. And the idea that his home, the representation of his home, would be, like, just taking up your sword in defense of others and all of the other people who, either because they had to or they wanted to at some point, made that choice. And I was. It's, like, so chilling when he says, you know, that there's. It's hard to find a spot, like, so many.

[B]

The number of boys.

[A]

The number of boys who were sent off to. To, like, fight. Maybe they cared about it, but maybe it was someone else's war, including Roger, perhaps.

[B]

And, like, I think that that's so funny because when I was, like, making sure I understood the concept of synecdoche, there's this adjacent idea, metonymy, which is the thing that stands in for the concept. So when you say the crown, but you mean, like, the royal family or whatever, but you have an object that stands in for a larger concept. So this idea of the penny tree standing in for, like, home or, you know, defending that shire or whatever the case may be, but this, like, image, this very evocative, lyrical image of the

[A]

penny tree, it's gorgeous. And then for Dunk to choose to carry it on, like, to. And, you know, this is obviously, I

[B]

was a little sad because I kind of, like.

[A]

I know the penny.

[B]

I wanted that penny still on the hilts. And I'm curious, like, what's going to. I had a theory, actually, about what could replace it.

[A]

Tell me.

[B]

Do you know that there are sapphires in tarmac?

[A]

I mean, that would be fucking great.

[B]

They have to put something in the. In the. You know, in the hilt, right?

[A]

Oh, man. Yeah. You got to put something in that pommel. It can't just be an empty penny. Maybe he'll just put another penny in it. Maybe he'll keep doing that. Like, I thought that the. It reminded me seeing him hammer the. The solitary after he pulled it out, the solitary copper. It made me think, because I had just recently watched this, the nailing in of the boots in Train Dreams. Like, it brought that. And that's beautiful. And then you see the kind of moss growing over them later.

[B]

Can we now spend two hours talking about train Dreams?

[A]

I would love to. I thought that was one of the best movies of the year.

[B]

That was such a Valerie movie.

[A]

Oh, God. I really loved it. It was funny. I Texted my dad right away, and I was like, you've got to. And he's like, I've already seen it. He's like, girl, we're on it.

[B]

We're on it. In terms of the Penny Tree and whether or not, you know, we're gonna go there. George R.R. martin has talked about two other novellas years ago that he was like, almost done with. One is called she Wolves of Winterfell, right? So at one point, we're going.

[A]

I mean, couldn't be more our shit.

[B]

Can't wait for she Wolves of Winterfell. So, like, at some point, in theory, we're going to Winterfell, we're going north. Great.

[A]

Can't wait.

[B]

But the other one is called Village Hero, and it's set in the Riverland. So, like, how can this not be about Dunk doing, like, a Seven Samurai thing in Pennytree or something like that? You know, he's never said that, but, like, that has to be true. So, you know, we believe in you,

[A]

George, despite your own adaptation, subtweeting you.

[B]

I heard that Drew Knight always. Well, one of our. So one of our listeners replied to me on Twitter. I hadn't been tweeting about that, but they sent a reply to me on Twitter about how, you know, how George showed up in the AMC show Dark Winds in a scene with Robert Redford and they're playing chess. The late, great Robert Redford, right? They're playing chess. And there's a line in that scene where Robert Redford's character says, go on, make your next move. Everybody's waiting. This very, like, we get it, you know, sort of moment that George, like, signed off on was like, okay with doing probably. Because if I'm like, you're gonna be in a scene with Robert Redford, I'm like, make fun of me. Go ahead, do whatever. Do what you will. Trust me. Go for it, Bob. But, like, if that line was in

[A]

there, it's with a loving approval and a wink from George. I agree.

[B]

I told you years ago, when we were at the. I think it was the first con of Thrones Game of Thrones convention we went to, they had this. This, like, plushy George R.R. martin doll that had like a. Like, you squeeze his hand and he says different phrases like fala margulis or like, whatever. And one of the phrases. And like, Dave Anil and I got extremely high and. And, like, spent, I think, an hour crying, laughing over this is one of the phrases was George just going, I'm working on it was like, part of the plushie Doll. So, like, he recorded the. That they put it in a doll. You have to cycle through all of them to, like, get back to him working on it. So we just, like, spend an hour cycling through all of it until we could just hear Jordan go, I'm working on it. So, like, he's obviously aware. I think he has. He is both tormented by it and has a good enough sense of humor about it.

[A]

I agree.

[B]

So, you know, I think the way

[A]

that he's been speaking about it recently in particular, it's. There's, like. I really admire it. I would just. It would be very easy to, like, just want to go hide, which would be tragic. He shouldn't feel that way. This is his. We're getting all of these things because of what was in George's mind. Like, that's incredible. And he should get to celebrate it. It would be really, really cool if we got a couple more novellas, though.

[B]

That would be nice. She Wolves of Winterfell. Sounds like it's almost that.

[A]

That is amazing. I mean, Dunk is. Listen, have you heard the story before? Many times. Dunk is part of the storytelling tradition now. So, like, we got what's, you know, we gotta know. We gotta know what happens. I think that's clear on the. Is it confirmation or is it not? Did it really even happen or not? Front with the knighting. Let's take a look at exactly how Dunk or Dunk's internal projection of himself asks Arlen this question. Why did you never knight me?

[B]

Did you think I'd leave you?

[A]

I wouldn't have.

[B]

It was something else. Sir. Sir. I got so emotional seeing the. This for a million different reasons, but one is like, we cut from Dunk and Egg Dunk's battered face and his broken heart and all of these things to, like, he's going through it in this scene, obviously, but it's just like a much younger, more innocent, you know, just. Just the beginning of the seasons ago. Like, don't.

[A]

He's about to have some really bad diarrhea, but other than that.

[B]

But his face. But his face is all, like, unbroken. He doesn't have the scars that he will, like, soon receive. And his, like, heart and his soul and all these things are still intact. So it's very sad.

[A]

And to go from the despair that Egg is feeling, like the sense of being let down, but also lonely, to then Dunk in this moment of loneliness is very powerful too, if this is real. But even if it isn't, you know, something we talked about earlier in the season, Is like you posed a question. Maybe a mid season mark of like. Well, why do we think Arlen and I was wondering if, given that now what we've seen across this season, I mean, we knew about Roger from the text, but you know, getting to see like Arlen sleeping at night by Roger's freshly dug grave site and stuff like that. Like, do you think that the.

[B]

But also talking about boys going off to war.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like the proximity of this to a story about boys coming off to war and never coming back and their pennies staying on the tree. Cause they die. Yeah.

[A]

Like, is he just afraid of Dunk dying or.

[B]

Yeah. Or just never wanting to put him in a more dangerous position than following around an old man on the road and eating salt beef and laughing in the rain or whatever. You know, like that this is. That this is a better life for him than it's not. Just like then the life of a hedge knight, but like the dangers of being a knight in the first place.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I choose to believe end of Stranger Things and I choose to believe.

[A]

I choose to believe

[B]

that if indeed Arla never knighted him, which he definitely didn't, it was out of some sort of misguided idea of protection.

[A]

I agree. That's where I am on it too. And obviously we've talked a lot over the season about the idea of does it matter? And it matters to Dunk, and that's important and I want to acknowledge that. But certainly as interesting as it's ever been, after what we've watched Dunk go through at Ashford Meadow, to think about how a character we so associate with virtue and honor, like what it means that he told this lie and you know, what it continues to mean. And all those knightings along the way which have been so wonderful to track and will continue to be wonderful to track, and that the thing that matters most is just how Dunk chooses to live the life of a knight and chooses to behave the way that a knight should. A knight who remembered his vows.

[B]

A very important line.

[A]

A very important line and a sacred idea. Yeah. It's still unconfirmed. Puzzling. I was puzzled to confront that Ira line. I love the way Ira talked about it.

[B]

I just wanna show you what Ira said.

[A]

So this was. Cause we talked about this on Talking Thrones. It's like this was confirmed. They confirmed it. It's never been confirmed in the text. Here we go. We got Dunk asking this question. It is confirmed because Arlen's about to kick the bucket. He's two seconds away from dying. He Definitively did not knight Dunk. We have assumed that was true. All the evidence pointed to that here is confirmed. On the official pot. Ira said it's still unconfirmed. It's possible that Dunk was knighted right after that moment, that Sir Arling grabbed a sword and did it. And it's possible that he died pretty immediately after it.

[B]

You said he's two seconds from kicking the bucket. How many, like in the name of the fathers can you get out in two seconds?

[A]

You know, I mean, I mean, is he allowed to take the. Basically, I just lost consciousness for 90 seconds nap between each line of the knighting vow in the name of the warrior. I need a minute. It's like when the studio gets too hot and I'm like, guys, I need a minute. You know, I need to.

[B]

How's the time going? Okay.

[A]

It's okay. It's okay. We're ticking up, but it's okay.

[B]

Can I read to you what it says next in my notes here, please? In all caps? It says bee coffin. Bee coffin. The fucking kingsguard are here. Bee coffin. Bee coffin. Bee coffin.

[A]

I think you summed up the scene well.

[B]

That's what it says in my notes. I highlighted in electric green.

[A]

Listen, you're. You're. You are the queen bee on the Beesbury front.

[B]

I am.

[A]

I gotta side with you. I mean, the bee coffin is the. Like your coffin at your wake. Being a giant, giant honeycomb is one of the most incredible things I've ever seen. This is amazing.

[B]

So much love and respect to Arryon Targaryen, who thinks he's a dragon. And to Lionel Baratheon, who has de antlered every antlered animal in the realm so that he could smear them across his tent and make a crutch out of one.

[A]

It's not practical for the crutch. Remember how Arlen fell asleep drunk and stabbed himself? Lionel's gonna do that with the crutches.

[B]

Oh, an armpit stab, for sure. That sounds horrible.

[A]

That's like an episode of the Pit. I stabbed myself with my antler crutch.

[B]

Who. Okay, I'll get back in. Who would you most want to be your doctor on the pit? And then I have a follow up question for you, Mel. That was my answer.

[A]

Pretty easy answer for me.

[B]

Honestly, I feel so close to you right now. That was my answer as well. I love this.

[A]

If I say maybe with Huckleberry assisting.

[B]

Sure. If I say the hot doctor on the Pit.

[A]

Yeah. I kind of think of all of them, but I.

[B]

But you have to pick one.

[A]

Well, I mean, Abbott back shirtless, shared a number of text messages with Juliette Lippman about it, so that's powerful. But I would think. I just. I would think of Dr. Robbie first. You know, I love a bearded man.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I love a bearded man.

[B]

Who is the hot doctor in the pit is, like, one of my new favorite litmus tests.

[A]

I mean, they're all hot.

[B]

Yeah. But, like, you have to pick one. If someone. Oh, you know, the hot doctor on the pit.

[A]

I'm going Dr. Robbie.

[B]

Yeah, you're going Dr. Robbie. What about you? Great. It's Dr. Ellis of the night shift fame. Oh.

[A]

I mean, that's a great pick as well.

[B]

That's my pick.

[A]

Fantastic pick. I really respect trying to sneak in a nap.

[B]

You have to do it with the eye mask.

[A]

Yeah, that's great.

[B]

Great shit.

[A]

That was a great touch. Also on the bee coffin front. It's a good way, it seems to me, to fend off grave robbers.

[B]

Oh, sure.

[A]

It's just occurring to me in real time. There's a practical security element to it.

[B]

But, like, I do have questions about, like, where we're putting this coffin. Yeah.

[A]

What do you think? Does it just stay here forever?

[B]

Like, before we bury it, should we. We should remove the queen?

[A]

Do they bury it? What if they keep, like, a. Like a. Maybe there's, like, a honey hole mausoleum kind of giant. Yeah. All the dead.

[B]

Would you eat the honey made from the dead body of Humphrey for this?

[A]

This is all you're trying to get me still, since the early yellow jackets days to say that I was engage in a cannibalistic act. And I, unlike you, I'm just gonna stick with. I simply would not need a piece of a friend. At least not in that way.

[B]

I just don't think that, like, honey made in close proximity to the body of your good friend Humphrey Beesbury is the same as eating.

[A]

You're right, ultimately, because it's just like fertilizer. Right. The dead are in the ground, and then they fertilize. They give us plants.

[B]

I want to be buried.

[A]

Trees that we can make, tables.

[B]

I want to be buried in one of those mushroom suits. Do you?

[A]

Even after watching the Last of us.

[B]

Yeah. Yearning tendrils forever.

[A]

I don't know what I want.

[B]

Because then you're like. If you get buried in, like, a mushroom suit or whatever it is.

[A]

I don't know if I want to be buried.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, you can be burned, but that's all like being buried in.

[A]

Burn me with a dragon Though not one of these sad little torches.

[B]

Puppet dragon. That's fine. Okay, well, get the puppet dragon and the pollen for your funeral book. For me.

[A]

That can be your second text to Adam. Is Mal chill. If we build a Lego together. And then this is. Do we have your agreement? Burial by dragon. Puppet Flame. So you want to be buried with a mushroom?

[B]

I'll present this video as evidence that it was your fondest wish to be buried, burned by puppet dragon. Because if you put all of your nutrients back into the soil with the mushroom suit, you're like feeding the earth.

[A]

I think that's lovely.

[B]

If you're a little jar of ashes, you're not doing anything for anyone except creating some, like, carbon emissions that hurt the environment.

[A]

Mm. They've got all sorts of new eco friendly tech.

[B]

Do they?

[A]

Yeah, it involves water. This is true. This is true.

[B]

Great.

[A]

I don't know if they do it for people. I've not looked into it.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Fucking bee magic. This is one of the lines of the season. My poor sweet warrior. All that fighting's turned your brains to apples. This was so funny.

[B]

My babe know, like this. This. This absolute babe knows how to fit in. And she's like, I know what the weight of your heart. It's an apple pun.

[A]

And I think, oh, my God. Absolutely incredible. Really? A quick study.

[B]

Oh, another thing I wanted to say.

[A]

Yes, tell me. Yeah, it wasn't. Eat shit, Sarah.

[B]

I don't want to be buried in a bee coffin.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

But.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Did you ever watch the Eddie Izzard stand up dressed to catch? No.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

One of the funniest things has ever

[A]

existed are bees involved.

[B]

He's got this whole joke about, I don't know, I can't remember the setup, but anyways about being covered in bees. And he's like, I like my women like my, like my coffee covered in bees. Anyway, Covered in Bees was my first screen name. Oh, and I got hired on. On a website when I wrote under Covered in Bees, I got hired out of the comment section. So Covered in bees is like my origin story. And right now, have you and Katie

[A]

Baker ever bonded over this?

[B]

Over Eddie Izzard?

[A]

No, over, like, your life as a influential Internet figure. Connecting to message board pseudonyms and, you know, blogging and comments and a shared tie.

[B]

Was Katie Baker plucked out of the comments as well?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Cool.

[A]

Yeah, she's a legend.

[B]

Great. Anyway, what was your first screen?

[A]

I don't want to say in case there's a digital record out there.

[B]

Still.

[A]

I'll tell you privately though.

[B]

Okay. I'll never tell anyone.

[A]

Darren.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Dunk hears the banging of the vessel, the beverage vessel, with Darren asking for.

[B]

I believe he's the tankard.

[A]

The tankard. Thank you, Tankard. Some booze. And as we noted, new hairstyle, dress to impress. Some fresh stitching and bruising and scars. One of his eyes looks, you know, like a horse kicked him in the head, which it did. Stepped on his foot.

[B]

Did you see the prosthetic of his ear?

[A]

That was wild. It didn't look that in the finished product. It didn't look that like.

[B]

But it is like he's got a third of his ear left.

[A]

I would say, conservatively wild stuff. We already talked about the exchange between Darren and Dunk in terms of the have you no shame coming here?

[B]

Part of.

[A]

But let's hit what he says about egg, because Dunk is gonna walk away and then. And Darren stops him, he brings up this idea of egg squiring. Are you gonna take him to Squire? And then he brings up Arian and he says, you know, my brother wasn't always such a little monster. Dunk thinks that he's talking about Egg. He says, egg is no monster. He's just a boy. And then Darren says, and we've been loving the Darren scenes all season. This performance right here, I thought was exquisite.

[B]

Italian sector.

[A]

I didn't mean egg, but no doubt we'll make a man of him, too. Perhaps the seeds of madness are sown in the womb, as the maesters say, but Arian was quite the glad child once. He liked fishing. This gave me chills.

[B]

The thing I want to say about Henry Ashton, who plays Daeron Targaryen, is that when in My Lady Jane, he plays like a hot dummy. So to go from playing like a. Like a. A medieval himbo.

[A]

Yeah. Incredible to.

[B]

This is just. It makes me so excited to see, like, what more is in store from him.

[A]

I believe, if I'm remembering correctly, possible this is apocryphal, but I believe I saw a Peter Calaffy Instagram story from a few days ago that said, make Henry Ashton James Bond.

[B]

Oh, Jacob Elordi's like, I'll fight him. I'll step on him.

[A]

I'll kick him in his three quarters of an ear. No, Jacob Elordi's too busy getting kisses and reading books on a beach. And one of the great quotes of our time. I stand with Dobbins on this. I'm Team Dobnob on this. It's one of the great, inspiring quotes of our time. Truly.

[B]

I thought you Were gonna say he's too busy hoisting women up by their corsets, but I don't think he's.

[A]

I've not seen Wuthering Heights yet. Should I go?

[B]

I haven't seen it either. We should go.

[A]

I mean, seems like it's one of the great cinematic events of our time. You know what I love a movie that inspires discussion. And hoisting and hoisting. This was an incredible, incredible idea and it's gonna take us into this Aegaryon moment. So the idea of this Aryan shaped harbinger here for Egg and the inevitability. You know, we love the gods flip a coin idea that we've talked about across Thrones stories over the years. And it's like maybe it's luck or fate or chance which side your coin comes down on. And maybe as this episode is really hammering, it's nurture. Maybe it's as much the nurture as the nature.

[B]

We have this incredible email from our listener Lauren about this. About the way the Targs are presented in general this season. Lauren wrote the way in which the show is deconstructing or challenging nearly every way the Targs are or have been seen as otherworldly or exceptional. The dragons are gone. The Targs are shown entering and leaving on horseback back or an eggs case lamb cart just like any other. Darren is a dreamer. But we're also shown a lowly fortune teller with the same ability. Demonstrating this is not an ability restricted or inherent to the Targs. Even the famous gods flip a coin mantra of the Targs is questioned by Darren when recounting that Aryan was a good kid. Implying his current fanaticism is a result not of some inherent mystical Targ madness ordained by the gods, but a lifetime of being told he and his family were meant to be exceptional. And the constant feeling of failure and isolation from humanity that has caused. I just loved that because again, we've been talking all season what makes a Targaryen a Targaryen. But this idea of just like they're on horses just like everyone else. The fortune teller bit was like really? I had not thought of that as like a.

[A]

Could be a dragon seed. Kidding.

[B]

Sure. But this nature versus nurture idea with Egg is incredibly good. Yeah.

[A]

Sarah Dina Smith, excellent director of three episodes this season set on Inside the episode. Had it not been for meeting Dunk, he Egg probably would have gone on to be a corrupted Targaryen. So it's such a moment of relief when he goes with Dunk.

[B]

And this is something that you were talking about beautifully and quite emotionally on Talk the Thrones. This there before the grave sort of idea. I do want to talk about it a little bit more in the spoilers section, but I have always felt that way about this story.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

That in reading it in the printed version that we've gotten from George R.R. martin, this idea of Dunk saving Egg from becoming his brothers has always been a really, really potent part of it.

[A]

Yeah, I love it. I'm excited to hit it again in the spoiler section. I think here we can. I love the scene we're about to get to, which is one of the rare non Dunk point of view scenes in the season. When we see Egg and this knife and Arian and Maekar Mika. Allowing us to glimpse something here that even Dunk does not see really heightens this clarity about how close Egg is to this. And it's a reminder and a reinforcement of what the life with Dunk can fend off. The other aspects that can be injected into Egg's perspective and experience. The people he could be around, the things he could do, let him live in that I could be quite happy in a place like this. But it's also interesting to think about, like, well, Dunk's not in that room. Maekar just moving in his chair. What if he hadn't been there? It's just like. It's a harrowing thing. On the heels of feeling the rejection of Dunk to see so quickly, like where Egg was inclined to go. Because we cut right from the. You liked fishing. You know, Darren describing young Arryon the way that we think of Egg. He liked fishing. Glad child to this rotting. It's not just the knife and the fish. It's like there are flies everywhere. This tableau of decay and rot, decay and rot.

[B]

But also like a dejected boy who has like not eaten his supper. Even though we know he loves to eat fish. And he's just sitting there and his little feet don't reach the floor. He's just like sitting on his bed and he looks so small and so sad.

[A]

What's this?

[B]

A lot. The fish, the rotted fish, the knife and the fish. And then the knife is gone from the fish. Like all of that is really like great visual storytelling. But like, what it tells us about his, like, state of mind and his isolation here is also really good.

[A]

I love that. Has a tummy ache because he's stressed. Relatable, content me before every pod. Truly, truly. We talked about this moment when Egg looks in the mirror and sees his hair growing in. And just there's a shudder, like a convulsion of terror that this Targaryen, undeniable Targaryen aspect of him. You know, we heard him say, I cut it off, brother. I didn't want to look like you in episode three. And it's like, here it is. It's always gonna grow back. It's always gonna grow back. Like you said earlier, I love you. The way you put it, like, you can't get rid of the follicles. Like, it's a part of who you are. You can decide that you want to be someone else, but there are always gonna be these reminders of this thing that's inside, which is, I think, the way that the thing you feel from Egg here so clearly is terror. Terror about this thing inside of him, like, kind of lying in wait, was just really chilling. And as you noted, the musical accompaniment here was Dan Robert. Astonishing.

[B]

But, like, this is why it's interesting that Valar has brown hair with one streak in it or that Darren has dirty blonde hair. You know what I mean? It's. This is Arion's hair color that's coming in on.

[A]

Yeah. Egg has the pure shit.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You read this passage on Talk to the Thrones. It's a great one, when Dunk is looking at this spot on Valar's head, and then he thinks of Egg, and, like, he's kind of making his version of that connection. Valar's hair was brown, but a bright streak of silver gold ran through it. The sight of it reminded Dunk of Aryon, but he knew that was not fair. Egg's hair was growing back as bright as his brothers. And Egg was a decent enough lack of for a prince. I love this idea that, like, for Dunk, Egg's hair could be a reminder that not every Targaryen has to be bad. Oh, you might have the silver hair and you're a targ, but, like, you could be my dude. You could be my bestie. And for Egg, it's like, I'm afraid of who I am.

[B]

But I was told by the sharpest political mind of our age that the only good dragon is a dead dragon. So I don't know how to reconcile those two concepts. The sharpest police.

[A]

When you say sharpest, you mean because everything that he carries has an antler tip on it. Is that what he does?

[B]

Jabbed up into his armpit? Sharpest.

[A]

What did it do to you to see AEG walk toward Aerion with a knife in his hand?

[B]

I mean, so Connecting that to the story that AEG told about the way in which he was tormented by Aerion. That Aerion would come into his bed at night with a knife and talk about cutting off his genitals and making him his sister and stuff like that so that he could marry him. Like, this is just horrific shit from Aerion. And so to watch him walk in there and there's a part, you know, we've seen plenty of people murder on Thrones that, you know, like, we watch Tyrion murder Shae. You know, like, we watch characters we care about and are invested in murder inside of Game of Thrones. But, like, you're always, at least for me, Aerion deserves to die. Like, I think he definitely deserves to die. I don't want this for Egg.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

[B]

I don't want Egg to have done this. Not just because no one is as accursed as a kinslayer.

[A]

Have you heard that? No one is as accursed as a kinslayer.

[B]

I have heard this. Everyone's saying it, but just sort of like, you know, you think about little Egg at the tourney being like, it's disgusting. So big, you know, like, it's like he's like, ooh, like his little, like, little boy ness that we've seen all season. And then, you know, little Targaryens do vicious things all the time. But, like, like, not Egg man.

[A]

Yeah, well, like, to have that, like that evil act seep into your soul in that way. Like, if Egg had done it, whether it was to threaten him and kind of an eye for an eye, this is what you did to me. Or actually to kill him, I would like, almost on reflex, expect Obi Wan to be edited into the episode and like, literally say, you have become the very thing you swore to destroy. Like, the idea that he despises Aryan so much, not only for how he's treated him, but now, in addition to that, he blames Aryon for maybe having cost him dunk. Like, I'm done with princes. The taint of Aryon as a blockade to, like, the one path that Egg sees for himself to a different kind of life. The resentment that he would feel and that in trying to rid himself of that, he would become that person, that he would travel down that same road of, like, allowing that evil into his heart. It would just be so, so, so, so tragic for like a little nine year old to do that for anyone.

[B]

But, yeah, you're saying, like, kill me, you become me, be.

[A]

Exactly. And that's exactly how I would have said it, too. That's how Obi Wan would say it

[B]

if you were edited in.

[A]

Perfect. Maekar, let's. Maek, our moment with Egg. This was exquisite.

[B]

Just the like. Again, there's no dialogue in this scene. Similar to a lot of other great moments this season. It's just, like, body language. Right. And. And it's Dex, who's just been incredible all season. But the tears on little Egg's face. You know, Sam Sproul's performance in this episode is exquisite. So his just sort of like, just shifting in the dark and then just sort of like, registering what's going on with his son and putting his hands on his shoulders and then watching. For me, it was the way in which Egg just, like, sinks back into sags, you know, into drops. That knife sags back. We got a. We got an email from our listener, her show, who said the way Egg sinks into him is something I've seen time and time again with my boys. A relinquishment of anger because, you know, you're safe. Which Egg clearly feels safe with his father. I don't know that I wholly agree with, like, the very last part, because Egg. I believe there's truth in Egg earlier this season when he told Dunk, I don't really know my father. Yeah.

[A]

And also when he told Thunder, he's mean to horses.

[B]

Right. I don't know that, like, Egg feels, like, super safe with Maekar in general, but I think in this moment, he's like, here's someone in the room who's here to stop me from doing the worst thing that I could do. And that's a relief to me that someone was here to stop me from this. Cause I don't know that I could have stopped myself.

[A]

Yeah. And the, like, the gratitude for acceptance in that moment, too. You know, he's not chastising him. Not maybe. Could have been a teachable moment. I will say, not to shift the vibe, but it could have been a teachable moment. But the fact that he, like, because he is feeling like, okay, I want to go with Dunk. He doesn't want me to. And to be able to sink into his father like that. And it makes me think of. It connects to what you were saying earlier with Maekar and his wife and Egg's mom and how present was he for his kids. And we can deduce, not vary based on what we've heard Egg say. But also something like hearing earlier in the season and in the novella, like, you know, when Raymond is the voice of this idea that Arryon wouldn't have done this thing with Humphrey Harding that he did if Maekar had been there. Like, that his children operate in fear around him, you know, and so you think, like I found myself thinking, footwhipped.

[B]

He footwhipped.

[A]

Right, Exactly. Like, is this the first moment that Egg has felt tenderness from his father?

[B]

Possibly.

[A]

You know, and, like, what a sad thing. But also, like, the gift of realizing that that might be available to him finally. Like, maybe it is a moment where Maekar has decided to change because he doesn't want to lose Egg the way that he has lost these other boys.

[B]

I mean, this takes us into this other scene, but, like, this is why the adaptive change that they decide to make that Egg is lying when he says, my father said I could go. Right. Which, according to Ira, came from a joke that they started in a group text and then just became the button for the season. And it's funny and it's fine. I'm not mad. I want to see how it all plays out.

[A]

I have some questions, as you know,

[B]

but it's a bummer to me because I think we got a great email about this, but, yes, we did.

[A]

I think the way in which we

[B]

got a number of emails about it, but, like, you know, the way in which, like, Dunk, of all people, who doesn't have the words, is able to convince Maekar to change his mind is so hugely important.

[A]

Yeah, I agree.

[B]

So to just be like, jk, he never gave his permission. And again, in the book, it's complicated because it's not like, there isn't, like, an explicit scene in the book where Maekar says with his words in his mouth, you have my permission to go. But there are things that happen later in the other novellas that, like, yeah, I don't want to get into. But this is an adaptive change for Maekar to be, like, for Egg to lie. And I know I'm skipping ahead, but.

[A]

No, no, no, we can edit, but,

[B]

like, I think it's a problem that Dunk doesn't get to convince Maekar that Maekar isn't so moved by what happened with his brother and what is happening with Aaron and all this sort of stuff to change his mind. That is, like, an important thing for Maekar to go through. And it is important, like, especially, like, how stern he is, how dismissive he is to sort of have his mind change and say, like, I will send my child with this hedge knight on the road. It's a beautiful part of this story. And Then what it forces you to confront on the Egg side of thing is that Egg, and we got several emails about this, is that like Egg is once again telling a lie that imperils Dunk. Dunk in danger. Yeah. So has learned nothing, like nothing from the lie he told before.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

We see him tell a lie inside this episode and he's like, no, I wasn't eavesdropping. That's like a more innocuous lie than like. Yep. My lord father said I could go with you. Yeah. And now we're fugitives on the road. Yeah.

[A]

It's.

[B]

I. That's tough. Yeah.

[A]

I do find this strange. I think that this finale was great and I think the season was incredible. I did bump on this. Like we talked about it. I think everything you just said really covers it. Well, I'm a little less fussed about the Egg part of it though. I am really compelled by that point. I think that it's. It feels true to Egg's character to me to continue maybe to make the same mistake. And like, I think he's so young. Yeah, exactly. So I have more grace because he's so young.

[B]

He's a child. But also he's like very smart and self possessed for his age.

[A]

He is.

[B]

And again, it's like it's not just a mistake. It's a mistake that imperils Dunk.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know.

[A]

Well, and that's. I mean, I know. I know I said this on Sunday, but I am just kind of mystified by the idea that. But like, how exactly are they gonna escape and fend off detection for what period of time?

[B]

Aegis put on a murder cloak. So everything's gonna be fine.

[A]

I think that what you're saying about Maekar really resonates with me. And like I again, I can talk myself into Maekar being that there is still. Even though he has made this offer and done this thing and said these things to Dunk and we'll talk about the second scene in a second. That he can't quite push himself to that final acknowledgement that the life at Summerhall would doom his own kid. I can talk myself into that. I'm ultimately with you though. That Dunk compelling him was always such a beautiful endnote for the story. And then cause the passage in the text, which we can. Since we're talking about this here, we can just hit here is. There's certainly enough room for ambiguity, but I think we've interpreted it a certain way. It's more like you're alluding to that at the top of Sworn Sword, there's just some, like. Just seems very. I mean, maybe even that you could make work. But in Hedge Knights, the passage is. Maekar Targaryen. Mika, Prince of Summerhall, regarded Dunk of Flea Bottom for a long time, his jaw working silently beneath his silvery beard. Finally, he turned and walked away, never speaking a word. Dunk heard him riding off with his men. When they were gone, there was no sound but the faint thrum of the dragonfly's wings as it skimmed across the wall. The boy came the next morning. So is it possible inside of that

[B]

there's like, an implication? Yeah, but there's room, as Ira Parker has said, like, there's just like room for them to wiggle in a little change. And surely approved by George because, you know, he's working very closely with George. He seems very invested in not taking George off. So, like. Yeah, but I don't know. I don't know that it's worth it for, like, what they. The reason the explanation they gave was we thought it was funny, and it is funny, but funny at a cost of a big character development.

[A]

He said on inside the episode, Iris said, on inside the episode, Maekar said, no, Egwen. Anyway, we'll deal with the repercussions of that down the line. Curious to see how right we got

[B]

a lot of emails from. There's a lot of screenshots of Sam Sproul's hands going around being like, his signet ring is missing, yada, yada, yada, which has to do with future book stuff. But, yeah, Ira Parker said it pretty cleanly where, like, in the version of the story they're telling, Maekar said, no, Aegwyn.

[A]

Anyway, yeah, fascinating, fascinating. Dunk is like, I'm gonna give it one more shot before this eventual outcome. Darren's words have kind of resonated. He's thought back to this stretch with Arlen that either happened or Dan. And he's got a counter. You know, you never say yes or no just to the first offer. You got a counter? I want to spare Egg from this Fate.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Is kind of the thrust of this. And he is going to have to say some things about his sons to a father. He has gotten to this moment of the full embrace of the life of a hedge knight. That it is better. I thought you were done with Princess. Maekar says Egg is no prince. Not. Yeah, yet might be he's better served away from castles and servants. End his family, make our cuts in. It's like, yes, exactly. Let's See the rest of this Aegon is blood of the dragon.

[B]

He cannot sleep in ditches and eat hard salt beef. Daeron never slept in a ditch.

[A]

All the beef Arion ever ate was

[B]

taken rare and and bloody. He's my last son. So good.

[A]

So good. Oh my God. We've talked about this a lot already. Do you want to get into for a moment and anybody who doesn't want to hear this could skip ahead like like couple three or four presses what Peter Klaffey said on Inside the Episode about this, which contains something that we have been begrudgingly and against our will compelled to not say all season long that then it's just a real and they just tweeted it out inside the episode.

[B]

We're going to allow ourselves to talk about it here, but you can skip ahead if you don't want to know.

[A]

Skip ahead. This will be like a minute. Go ahead.

[B]

Just wait until you hear us talking about sweet foot.

[A]

Exactly what did Peter Calaffy say?

[B]

Oh, what did Peter Calaffey say it? Peter Calaffey said to be anoint. No, I'm not gonna do the accent. It's about being true to the principles that you live and set upon yourself. And it's solidified when he speaks to Darren. And Dunk realizes that there's a little kid that looks up to him and now he has the opportunity to raise a future king. By the way Ser Arlan taught him because he's gonna be well rounded, knowledgeable, superior king of Westeros. Egg will be king. And Peter Claffey just said it and they left it inside the inside the empty room.

[A]

Wild, wild stuff. Now again, I think our belief shared is that the show could have been framed this way from the start. Egon the Unlikely. This is the story. You're watching the story.

[B]

George also just said it New York Comic Con.

[A]

So I would have had no issue with this just being the framing of the story we were watching the whole way. I think it's pretty weird that they deliberately did not talk about this all season long and then included it in the last Inside the episode.

[B]

Yeah, pretty strange.

[A]

I liked what Ira said on the official pod. What drives him back to Egg ultimately is the idea that Egg's lot is not part of the reason we allowed ourselves to go into eggs POV. While we don't ever tread in the POVs of the Lords and ladies, kings and queens, Egg's future is undecided what he's going to be. He's still multiple Clay. So Dunk is Feeling it too. And he's about to feel the sweet fur of a beautiful horse. Because Raymond has done one of the best things that any character.

[B]

Fur for a horse.

[A]

I don't know, but hair. Horse hair.

[B]

Coat.

[A]

Coat.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And they do.

[B]

And horse hair.

[A]

Horse hair.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. It's beautiful. Whatever. It is wonderful. I really like the way that he was like doing this, like with his nugget. It was so sweet. Every now and then, even in a story that we love, there's an injustice.

[B]

George forgot to give us an update on Sweet Foot.

[A]

We just have had no idea.

[B]

Dunk just traipses off without a backwards look for Sweetfoot, who he promised he would come buy back if he had the money to do so.

[A]

You cannot make dunk Mr. Animal Lover Horse guy all season and then just not show us that Sweet Foot is okay. So thank the gods Ira Parker righted her wrong here. That Ira righted this wrong. And Raymond came through yet again. He has bought Sweetfoot back for Dunk. But Dunk is like, she's not mine. It's a new phase. And so he sends her her to new barrel with Raymond, who immediately takes a huge bite of a green apple and feeds it to Sweet Foot, who did not seem thrilled.

[B]

She loved it. She loved the apple. Our listener Maddie said. As to whether sweet food would be better suited to a red or green apple. One thing you have to watch very closely with horses diets is their sugar intake. Too much sugar too quickly or too high sugar content in their food with not enough forage can lead to serious problems. A Granny Smith apple has considerably lower fructose and glucose glucose than a Fuji or a Gala or even a Pink Lady.

[A]

I never mention Fuji or Gala.

[B]

While you should only be giving high sugar treats like apples occasionally, if Sweet Foot is indeed going to retiring to the land of apples, it's probably better for her health long term that it be with the phosphoids of green apple. I've never met a horse that prefers one apple over another, though. I'm sure they're out there. But I feel like Sweet Foot belongs on team Green.

[A]

Let me say this. This is dirty pool and this is foul that you've done this because what am I going to say to this? Yes. I'm not gonna say give the animal. I love animals.

[B]

I'm not gonna say give the animal Fuck. Yeah.

[A]

Unhealthy amounts of sugar. Come on. Frankly, how dare you?

[B]

Most of the emails we got about this were like, please don't send a horse to an orchard. The Horse will die because. Is that true? Oh no.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Just because they should not be eating apples constantly.

[A]

Oh well, I was like. I thought you were gonna say like uneven ground with root. I don't know, I just want some.

[B]

This word came about. Is it founder? Founder. I don't know what that means, but it's a bad thing if you're a horse and if they have too many apples, it's a problem. So don't let sweet foot free graze in the orchard an occasional. But I really think this is gonna be great. Rowan's horse now.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Well, I think Lady Rowan Fossoway definitely.

[A]

Like we need Lady Rowan of the Green Fossoway. The Green Apple Fossow to take care of someone's trust. Do you think trusted.

[B]

This is just a question because this lady and this potential baby don't exist in the books. Do you think they're gonna name the baby Duncan?

[A]

I mean that would be absolutely beautiful. I love when that happens.

[B]

Here's what I want. I want every season someone to name their child Duncan.

[A]

That'd be great.

[B]

It'll be like when Rachel and friends had a baby and named it Emma and then there were just like a million baby Emma's because of it.

[A]

Yeah, I was thinking about this. Is there gonn be a real world uptick in Duncan?

[B]

Duncan, yeah.

[A]

Or Egg.

[B]

Yeah, probably Duncan.

[A]

Remember the Khaleesi boom.

[B]

Yeah. There's still people out there named Khaleesi.

[A]

Yeah, Duncan's a great name, I think.

[B]

Yeah, Daenerys is fine. Khaleesi. Really tough.

[A]

What's your favorite Thrones name for real world application? Like Tyr, Tyrion, Daeron, Daemon, but spelled in a Thrones way.

[B]

I think Arya's a really good name.

[A]

Oh, Arya's great. Yeah. I'm gonna go with Nymeria

[B]

to all the Khaleesi's out there. I'm sorry your parents did that to you. I hope you go by Khaleesi to the or Callie to the Daeneryses. Dany. Classic Dany.

[A]

If I ever have a kid, I'm

[B]

gonna name her Alice with three fingers. Yeah, bereft of them.

[A]

But I'll never be able to say bereft around her.

[B]

Great.

[A]

No, I can't. I couldn't name a kid Alice. That's Sean's kid's name. I have so many Alices lately in stories that I've read. There's a real Alice boom in. Yeah, that's just an observation from me to you. The tales of Dunkin Egg Professor Liddell.

[B]

Not always welcome, but sometimes. Sorry, no. It was Alice Liddell Dodgson. Charles Dodgson. Sometimes welcome.

[A]

Dunk has hammered Arlen's Penny into the trailer tree. And he's talking to his horses as he. As he is, as is Wonk. He's talking to Chestnut, talking to Thunder about where to go next.

[B]

Raymond talked to Sweetfoot. Remember when Raymond's like, talking to your horses? It's mad.

[A]

And then he did it weirdly. Waiting in the shadows and the rain by his elm.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Strange.

[B]

But Dung's talking to his horses again because he has no one to talk to. Yeah. Except here comes Egg, you know, on the.

[A]

On the horse. The horse. I love just getting to see the shield one more time. The shattered shield that he's like, it's there and it can be repaired. And this still is like. I just. Ugh. Little details. I love Sir Duncan. My lord father says I am to serve you. Don't fact check it. It's fine. Don't worry about what it means or how it happened or how it will impact us in the future. That's for next year.

[B]

Serve you, sir.

[A]

Loved it. They're right back into the rhythm that's

[B]

straight out of the book.

[A]

Yes. Of knight and squire. And they ride off and Egg wonders where they're going to go. And Dunk says, they could go anywhere in the Seven Kingdoms. And then Egg is right back into. You got a lot of shit to learn, man mode.

[B]

It's nine kingdoms before he gets into the. Well, actually.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Dunk's like, we could go anywhere. Like, duh. Like he's about to say Dorne. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Like, duh, yeah.

[B]

And then Egg's like, I have an idea. We should go to Dorne. They've got puppets there.

[A]

Yeah. And hot chicks who are not too tall for puppets. A number of things, including puppets.

[B]

Puppets.

[A]

Yeah. Crownlands, Westerlands, Stormlands, Riverlands, the Iron Islands, the North, the Reach, the Vale of Arryn. And Dawn. Great response from Dunkeys. Like, no, but what? As I mentioned on Talk of the Thrones, I thought the actual flashing and updating of the wordmark was not necessary. But I did enjoy this conversation. Thought that was cute. And they do settle on Dorne. And will we be treated to those adventures at some point? You think Dunk got to sheath the sword? What do you think?

[B]

We have some information. Do you want me to share it?

[A]

Let's do it.

[B]

They have said they are going to dorm in season two. How long they shall be there. Cause it's not in the book. So like if that's just like. If it's a flashback, like we flash back to the time we went to Dorne. Or it's like.

[A]

Which would be more in keeping with

[B]

just the beginning of episode one or something like that. I don't know. Love it.

[A]

The score here. Just gorgeous. Absolutely beautiful. And this is where they ride off. Arlen and Sweetfoot peel away.

[B]

Friend of the Pod. Aziz from History of Westeros likened this moment to one of our shared favorite movies, Field of Dreams, which I just rewatched recently when Ray Liotta Shoeless Jo peels off into the corn and then he disappears. But the camera keeps following where he was walking, which I'm already crying. And then we're getting all the phrase dad and catch and all that sort of stuff. But yeah, the following into the corn of this ghost. I was just like. A lot of people also think this is a Fast and Furious reference.

[A]

Why not both?

[B]

Sure. Paul Walker, you are with us the all time.

[A]

Why not both? Yeah, this was beautiful. I love the tales of Dunk and Egg. Last pages are for you, Sam aspect. But even just the little subtle touch of the way that Dunk just gallops. She's not really galloping. Moves trots. There we go. Just like slightly further over to the left after Arlen peels off. Like that's his position now. That's lovely.

[B]

Gorgeous.

[A]

We already hit the Stinger esque Makar moment. That means it's time for the book spoilers. The look ahead.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

If you don't wanna hear it.

[B]

One last thing I wanna say about the Maekar aspect.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Our listener Abby wrote in to say in terms of Maekar running around being like, where the fuck is egg? Right. Abby wrote. It reminds me of the iconic Tywin intro with Jaime talking about Tyrion's kidnapping. Jaime quote. I didn't realize you placed such a high value in my brother's life. Tywin quote. He's a Lannister. Might be the lowest of the Lannisters, but he's one of us. And every day that he remains a prisoner, the less our name commands respect. If another house can seize one of our own and hold him captive with impunity, we are no longer a house to be feared. If Maekar. So end quote. So Abby says if Maekar is yelling for the whole camp to hear that his son is missing, that means many people in other houses packing up are hearing that Targaryen is once again unaccounted for. Flopping.

[A]

Also part of why it didn't make sense flop, just to be frank. Era floparoo. All right, book spoilers. If you don't want to hear about events from the Sworn Sword, the Mystery Knight future canon events beyond the written

[B]

novellas, some season 2 info that I just put here just in case people don't want to hear it.

[A]

We'll see you, I mean hopefully next week for the mailbag, but certainly in June for hot D Season 3 tomorrow for that trailer break. Thanks for spending a night of the Seven Kingdoms with us. Season one. We'll see you for season two. And like 500 pods in between. All right, flash some sirens dragon screeches it is time for the book. Look ahead. Where should we begin?

[B]

Okay, so on on Dunk's like quote unquote resurrection. Yeah, sort of like in response to us being like this guy should not be alive. Right. Our listener Sam his the best wrote an email saying one of the hilarious running bits in these novellas is just how supremely fucked up Dunk gets by book's end. He passes out from his extensive wounds each time and is essentially quote, saved by maesters. At risk of comparing this to somewhat shaky later seasons throne plot Thrones plotline, I couldn't help but think of Beric Dondarrion miraculously being kept alive. Now obviously Thoros and r' Hollor maybe probably had a little something to do with that nine lives thing, but I kept ruminating on this idea of a knight being kept alive for a reason, even if that reason is one small act of grace and a rose ism to play in the end game like barracks keeping Arya alive just a little bit longer for her to fulfill her destiny. Perhaps Dunk's arc will play out similarly. Perhaps the gods give him strength through many trials and tribulations, only for his spared foot to punt a rhaegar out of harm's way down the road in 2:59 Academy or to playfully quote Sandor Clegane. Maybe it's just because he's a big fucker and tough to kill. I love it.

[A]

Still one too many stabilist vital organs in the show, but I thought it was great. Thought it was great. Great email Lynel Lyonel's words. Obviously there is a little bit of in the immediate canon with the second Blackfyre rebellion coming in the third novella third season of this show. Just the kind of tenor of where things stand in of the realm, but more about Lyonel's future rebellion Both yeah,

[B]

I mean that's where my mind went was like we're setting up A future season where, you know, Daniel Ings is like, I've read the wikis and I get to like come and fight dunk eventually. And that's what that stepping on the foot dance that we highlighted in the spoiler section that week and stuff like that. That being said, do you think they would involve Lyonel Baratheon in like any sort of Blackfyre business?

[A]

I think this gets to a larger question that we sort of hit. Started to hit. I mean, I guess we've talked about it a few times. We started to hit it really last week with the email we got about whether we had any concerns about just like the story of Sworn Sword as the second season of the show. And then we were talking a little bit about just how to kind of maybe incorporate more Blackfire history, et cetera. Yeah, Doran, I'm really curious to see. It feels like one of the things that has is so like one of the things people love so much about the novellas and one of the things that worked so well about this season as an adaptation was that it really was focused and contained. And so I think there is a little bit of risk if that kind of core organizing principle of like each of these stories, each of these novellas, each of these seasons will be like they went to a place and a thing happened. It's a moment in time that is worth showing us. I would worry a little bit about diluting that by having other characters who maybe would have no reason to be at at Sandfast or White Walls or wherever they go in the future, like appear there or too many little stops they make along the way. That said, if they're in the Reach, why not go visit Raymond and Red? Like it would be okay. I think so. As is always the case, I think it's about execution and probably calibration. Are there ways to get Lionel into the story sooner? Without question. Is it totally clear to me how he would be interacting with them given that the way that these novellas function is like we went to this castle and did this one.

[B]

I don't know, maybe he decides to go to Winterfell.

[A]

That would be great.

[B]

See about the she wolves of Winterfell there.

[A]

How do you incorporate antlers into your winter wear? I can't wait to find out.

[B]

Yeah, it's gonna be great.

[A]

I can't wait to find out. I did get more like we're on the just show verse front like setting near term Blackfyre bells vibes from this. Not that Lionel as a character is in any way thinking about the Blackfyre rebellion. But more just priming us for the fact that like we're two years, two seasons away from an attempted. Yeah, an attempted very short lived and badly botched but an attempted play for the throne. Valar's heir is not gonna be around to see it because he's about to die.

[B]

All of the memes and I think I've sent you some. Yeah, those are great of like strong words for someone who's unvaccinated or like whatever. But yeah. Valar's about to get the vid and he doesn't make it. So it's time.

[A]

Great. Spring sickness is coming to claim the king Daeron II Valar and his younger brother Matarys. And that's how we're gonna get Aerys Baelor's next youngest brother as King Maekar will eventually be king. But not quite yet.

[B]

We gotta plow through a lot of Targaryens to get there.

[A]

We do.

[B]

Kyra Tyrosh who was at the funeral with her pink hair. I've been excited about that since we saw a promo photo of her does go on to marry Daeron Targaryen. There've also been some incredible. The targs tweets about that about like a shot of Valar and a shot of Daeron from the finale and just people being like Kira of Tyrosh, your power. You know what I mean? Look at these two incredible hot Targaryens. Elander.

[A]

They both look great. They do both look great. All of the whispers about Bloodraven and what did he do with his dark magic. Obviously just a throughline of the canon. The whispers that Valar's heirs were killed in the womb by Bloodraven's magic. That's in the air as well. Aerion's stint in the Free City is solving everything, making him a better person and everything will go great from here. That's not the case. That's not the case. He's about to father some bastards fighting the Second Sons and Lys. He will be back in Westeros in time for the third Blackfyre rebellion though in 219ac. If they keep the general timeline of this in the show. He's gonna be back in the mix in a future season. Not that far into the future of the cats. And as we noted with the, you know the great moment where CR was like and Dunk cut his dick off. He's gonna have an actual. He's gonna have an heir. He's gonna father an heir who will be a claimant in the Great Council kind of going head to head with Egg and not winning the Maekar business. We got another email.

[B]

Oh, this is also from Sam. He's my last son is a touching beat and obviously in the novella he leaves without saying anything, so who knows what gets resolved in the intervening two years. But the power of that moment to me was always Dunk wielded the power to truly change Maker's mind and shift his perspective. They're going to need to do a lot of legwork in season two with the ring to explain how they're not just still fugitives, especially in a post spring sickness world where Egg bones from like 12 to 7. I sent you a tweet that suggested cutting the post credits. Thank you. And restructuring the episode so that Dunk's second pitch to take him came after the knife beat with Arian. Thereby Maekar is softened by seeing the resentment grow and ultimately realizing Egg must grow up differently than his brothers. This is all fairly troubling giving that Sproul has confirmed he will not appear in season two. Yeah, I'm trying to be optimistic, but this is a tough one. I went and like fact checked that and Sam Sproul has indeed said that he's not in season two of this show. So make there's not going to be a make our scene or flashback in season two where we see him catch up with them and give them the ring.

[A]

The signet ring.

[B]

So maybe Egg did steal the signet ring for all of the people who are freeze framing and zooming in on poor Sandsproul's hand to try to find the signet ring. Maybe he stole the signet ring. But that still doesn't mean that Maekar gave him his blessing.

[A]

Yeah. So these passages from Sworn Sword. What did your father tell you when he sent you off to squire me to keep my hair shaved or dyed and tell no man my true name? The boy said with obvious reluctance. Could still be a lie, I guess. Could just be a lie. Yeah, that's sort of. I don't love that. But you could say Egg is just lying again. So far as most folks are concerned, Aegon Targaryen went back to Summerhall with his brother Darren after the tourney at Ashford Meadow. Dunk reminded the boy your father did not want it known that you were wandering the Seven Kingdoms with some Hedge Knights. So let's he about your boot. The boot being the signet ring that Egg is always like. We could always use the boot. We could show them my boot. Cause he's hiding the ring. That proves who he is in the boot. I guess that Egg could have stolen it, like you're saying.

[B]

And it could be.

[A]

I don't know. Why did they do this? I'm puzzled by this and I just.

[B]

I have a lot of faith in Ira so much. This season was done so well. But the like a knight who remembered his vow and this moment just feel like, you know those butterflies that George is always worried about, you know.

[A]

Oh, God.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Egg's future. Yeah. Peasant king. I forbid him to live as a peasant. We loved the world of ice and fire quote we shared earlier this season elsewhere in the spoiler section. Egg is more than half a peasant. This idea that he's like the peasant king is something that a lot of other lords will use against him.

[B]

Ultimately, just as you and I are gearing up to talk about the House of the Dragon trailer, our listener Emily, basically, I'm paraphrasing saying, like, should we be thinking about Darren in that show being raised away from his family, like, with love and respect to Helaena, who's doing her best. Alicent has not raised some great children, but Darren kind of rules. And Darren was not raised with his family.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, I'm loathe to give the Hightowers any credit. Any credit. But Darren rules.

[B]

So Darren rules Summerhall.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

We also got a couple emails about that. Right? Like, we got this great. I thought this was really funny when Dunk says, are you mad? To Egg? And Egg said, is that relevant? Like, that's funny, right? But like the prophecy thing, which is like, which, you know, I kind of stumbled over trying to talk to you about this on Talk the Thrones. But like, it really puts a sour note on this whole idea of like, Dunk has saved Egg. If what they're setting up is for Egg to, yeah, maybe not descend into full madness, but to become so consumed by, you know, the pursuit of dragons, et cetera, that he doesn't wind up that much better than Aerion and Daeron in the first place. So then it's not that Dunk saved him for a while then, or Dunk, he did some great reforms for the people before he lost his marbles in pursuit of dragons or something like that. But like that prophecy, because we always knew that Egg died at the tragedy of Summerhall and that trying to bring the dragons back there was something sort of tragic and ill advised about where he landed, right? But this idea in that fortune teller's prophecy of and everyone who knew you will like rejoice makes it seem like it's gonna Be much darker than I expected. Which was like a kind of like a magical whoopsie, you know what I mean? And this is gonna be like much tougher and closer to Arian than we would want. And so Dunk saved Egg by getting him out of there. Well, did he though or did he just prolong the inevitable?

[A]

I mean, I guess that that'll be the interesting story to watch. And I think there's a. You know, there's. Obviously we've talked about this for days and weeks and months of our lives when totaled up together in terms of what went wrong. Not with the specific story choices with Dany, but the execution at the end of Thrones and so, so much of this, I. If it is presented as a tragedy and that Egg had opportunities to live a different way and it wasn't enough, or he could for a while, but not forever, that there was some inevitability as Darren frames it that was fended off but not ultimately stamped out. I think there's a way that. That could be so harrowing and. And really tragic and beautiful and painful. And I think what it would tell us about maybe our choices versus what feels almost predetermined could be almost a very existential and philosophical thing. So I'm very open to it. I think that for me right now. Cause the end is. I mean, who knows? God, will we get the novellas? Will we get the show? How many years will we wait? What will it look like? I think for now the idea that that Egg can actually. That it's not just be happy in

[B]

a place like this. For now. Yeah.

[A]

Cause it's like we have the summerhole knowledge. He doesn't. Obviously he has the exposure to this prophecy though, which maybe really heightens that sense of fear that he has now that he's been exposed to that. And I think the fact that right now he's like, I just wanna ride a. I don't want that hair coming out of my head and I don't wanna end up like the guy in that bed. I think that there's a better life that I could live and I. To be with the person who could help me live it is really interesting and like exciting to think about. And for Dunk to be a person who can maybe not only grant Egg that opportunity, but spare him from just one knife thrust. Being one knife thrust away right now. From falling into Falling. Yeah, from falling into that pit. And then like, what's the history of the realm of Egg is lost now instead of later. Also really interesting to think about. So. So, yeah, I like it. Certainly your words of caution about maybe the tipping points and the complexities of something feeling very clearly stated as a future circumstance. Who knows if that fortune teller got it right? You know, sure, Fair. Who knows?

[B]

And language is a tricky thing. Our listener Clinton, on that front. Our listener Clinton did write in, like, sort of talking about these moments of darkness that we see in Egg and bringing up Dany and saying it reminds me of thinking Dany is good and righteous despite there being plenty of evidence that she's violent and cruel. She locks Zaro in a vault, crucifies the masters, burns the Khals alive. Like, you know that there were stepstones along the way with Daenerys. It was just like not very well executed at the end of the day. And maybe they're trying to do a better version of that here with Egg.

[A]

Yeah, and it's interesting, like, you know, thinking of how, again, the end of Thrones could not be more imperfect. But like, Dany confirmed, we don't even talk about the end of Thrones. But like, you know, finally being on the precipice of this thing and then it's like, they prefer Jon Jorah. He's gone. You know, having those things ripped away and then feeling. Yeah, right.

[B]

The.

[A]

Like my mind starts to think of. Because we have seen these moments of darkness from Aegon. He knows that's there and we know that's. It's less like, are these things inherently in conflict with each other? And more, well, what then? Pulls him down so that he can't swim back out. And it's like, well, what if it's feeling that he lost Dunk at the end? You know? And that would be like. And what would Egg have to do for Dunk to say, like, you're not my Egg anymore. You're not the king I thought you were.

[B]

Know.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. You're not the king I thought you were.

[B]

Our listener, Ashley wrote him this really interesting conversation about Summerhall. I can't help but tie the conversation Dunk has with Darren this episode with an all time quote from our guy, Maester Aemon. Quote, my brothers dreamed dragons and the dragons killed them, everyone. End quote. These tragic little boys were sitting in Summerhall together talking about their dreams of dragons until Darren started coming true. Now it isn't a game anymore. And Aerion starts the process of, quote, killing the boy to let the dragon be born. Maybe puberty is when these dreams start really taking off. And Darren sees the writing on the wall for Egg. He's like, Quote, get this kid away from the constant dragon symbolism. End quote. With Summerhall being such a place of mystery, it makes me wonder if it's one of the quote hinges of the world where magic is strongest. Interesting. Or pause and say, we talked about this with Harrenhal with House of the Dragon last season. We're. We have a long track of dragon dreamers in the line, but was there ever a group so condensed they're the only ones at this point who have ever really lived at Summerhall for an extended period of time. Begging the Targaryens to write up a care and keeping of you book for dreamers. Always gorging on grief at Summerhall. So this idea that Summerhall itself is this place that sort of like super soldier serum enhanced, like the prophetic dreaming and dragon preoccupation of these, it's entirely possible.

[A]

I think it's also possible this is less poetic and compelling, that we just have more canon for this period of time and this stretch of the family. Like, you know, the fact that we didn't know until Hot D season one that Aegon the Conqueror was a dreamer, but he is, and everything we've learned about Viserys, et cetera. So I think it's also just possible that the more time we spend in other stretches of Targaryen history and other adaptations, the more dream that we'll see more dreamers. But I really do like the Especially because Egg in the third November in Mystery Night starts actively talking about Darren's dreams and about dragons, which is only a couple years away. This like, hey, it's about to really kick off. Yeah, I think there's. I think that's interesting.

[B]

Last but not least, can I do a sort of, like, roundup of season two information? Okay, so Nicole wrote in to say, have I missed something or have they still not announced the casting for Season 2 included, including Lady Rohan and more importantly, Bannis. I have seen. Not officially, but I've seen a cast list that seems pretty well corroborated.

[A]

It is David Tennant.

[B]

It's not David Tennant. It's not official though, so I don't want to cite it necessarily, but I will say all over the place, I've seen the rumor that the actress Lucy Boynton has been cast as Lady Rohana. And I love her Sing Street. If our producer Carlos is listening, which hopefully he is, he loves Sing Street. She's amazing. She would be incredible in the role. So I hope that that's true, but that's a rumor that has not been like Announced in the trades or anything like that, but they were already filming. So, like, I mean, yeah, it's bizarre. I believe they've cast these actors. Sam Sproul, as I mentioned, according to thr. Not in season two. That's a bummer in ign. For ign, Ira Parker said, if season one is really about fathers and son and what's passed on to the next generation, season two will explore the theme of, quote, loyalty and maybe a kid against blind loyalty. In Variety, Ira Parker said, they do go to Dorne. How much of that will cover? I'll leave up to people to tune in for season two. I don't know if I'm supposed to talk about it yet, but for the most part, we're following the book. So season one is the hedge knight, season two is the sworn sword. Ira Parker also said HBO. He said this about HBO's permission for season one, and this applies to season two that HBO said anywhere between 30 minutes and 60 minutes is fine for an hour episode length, which gives us a very large target to hit. We could let them be what they needed to be based on the source material. And then he said, one of the promises I made to George very early on is that I really wouldn't create story. We were adding to the character and the world. We're writing this TV show as if George had written a novel instead of a novella. So we're just filling out things that he naturally probably would have done, except for the Macar thing. So, yeah, I will send you the very unofficial cast list that I have seen floating down around. I will just say again, without committing anything because, like, it has not been officially announced. It's more. It's less the, like, slight stunt of, like, a David Tenant and more like, what we really like that Hot D does and this season did, which is, like, find great British actors who've been, you know, like Birdie, who's been, like, perfect, like, who has been working for years, who, like, people saw in Matilda and was in, like, Jonathan Strange and all this stuff and really highlighting the crown. So I think taking really hardworking character, British character actors and sort of giving

[A]

them time to shine, is Bannis and Eustace perfect for. Yeah, I mean, these characters are perfect for that. I'll be interested to see if Dorne is the beginning or. Because there are moments of thinking back, Chestnut, et cetera, that we could get sprinkled in as flashbacks.

[B]

I feel a little weird because, like, so what I'm hoping is that Dunk goes to Dorne, has sex. I would like, him to drop the V card for Tencel Too Tall. That sounds great.

[A]

No question. Yeah.

[B]

But should he be flashing back to that in a season where he is, like, pursuing another woman? Like, does that feel disrespectful to the very sweet Tencel Too Tall story? I don't know how I feel. It'll depend on how it's done.

[A]

It'll depend on how he yanks that braid. But I want to be.

[B]

I want to be, like, really in on the braid yanking. I am all for it. So, like, will Tanzell be a distraction from that? Do you know what I mean? So I don't know.

[A]

I'm excited. Just asking questions. I'm excited. I can't wait if you have questions.

[B]

Hobbitsanddragonsmail.com for our mailbag episode that we

[A]

will be coming out. Keep coming this week.

[B]

Keep doing it.

[A]

I'm gonna miss talking about the show.

[B]

I know. So good. And watching it and seeing all the, like, Sunday night, you know, like, memes and tweets and everyone just being really excited and really, really into it. I know. Bummer.

[A]

Sad it's over. Hopefully we won't have to wait beyond next winter or, like, spring. I guess they're gonna have a white lotus season.

[B]

I.

[A]

And, like, Harry, I'm hopeful it's the best of us.

[B]

I'm hopeful it comes a lot of stuff coming with, you know, the pit in, like, that we make, like, January.

[A]

Like, maybe they'll do Lotus in, like, the summer.

[B]

Yeah. Well, I mean, if it's supposed to be like a, you know, Mediterranean Lotus,

[A]

then sure, we will be covering it live from France.

[B]

Okay. After we go to Stratford and Oxford.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

Okay, great.

[A]

Yeah, we can location scout for pets.

[B]

Definitely do all of these things. To wrap it up.

[A]

Thank you to the whole team for a wonderful season of deep dives. Thank you as always to the BHAD babies for spending hours of your week with us. We never take it for granted. It's always just a joy. Hours and hours every week. You guys are the best. Thank you today to, of course, as always, Carlos Cheruboga.

[B]

Legend.

[A]

Our junior M.G.O. powell. Legend. Join me at dener on legend the team, but also CT is here with us today for our first day in this new studio and like the entire ringer Spotify team. Everyone's here. Kevin's here, Jack's here. Everybody's here. So thank you to everybody who helped us get in here today at the last minute and have you guys want

[B]

to say about this? Dude, it's design. Mm.

[A]

We'll probably put some murder cloaks on for the HOTD trailer. I feel like it would be appropriate. We probably should.

[B]

Oh, okay. Are they gonna fix the AC before we do that? That's a great question.

[A]

Join us for the House of the Dragon season 3 teaser trailer breakdown tomorrow for the mailbag next week. And then sometime next year in 2027. Is this 2026? This year? Is that. What year is it?

[B]

But also, just stay around. Cause we're doing, like, Project Hail Mary stuff.

[A]

Is it. Just stick around.

[B]

Don't leave for a year. We'll be back. Bye.