Girls Gone Canon Cast - ASOIAF Episode 156 — AFFC Samwell I

Episode Date: March 11, 2022

This chapter feels... familiar... like we've covered it before... ?? Well, anyway, Sam is having a great time at Castle Black before Jon—who is not having a great time—decides to fuck it all up by sending him on the worst, longest business trip ever.    Sound effect from SFXBuzz — https://www.sfxbuzz.com/summary/9-cartoon-sound-effects/134-record-scratch-sound-effect   --- Eliana's twitter: https://twitter.com/arhythmetric Eliana's reddit account: https://www.reddit.com/user/glass_table_girl Eliana's blog: https://themanyfacedblog.wordpress.com/ Chloe's twitter: https://twitter.com/liesandarbor Chloe's blog: www.liesandarborgold.com Intro by Anton Langhage

Hello, and welcome to Girls Gone Canon Reads A Song of Ice and Fire, episode 156 of Feast for Crows, Samwell 1. I'm one of your hosts, Chloe. And I am another one of your hosts, Eliana. A Feast for Crows. We're back to the best book. It is. It really is.

Even the first five chapters are good, good. Like, this is good. Yeah. It's good. It is good yeah it's good it is it is and like even the way it starts like you can see it being like oh we're back with a new season everyone that you waited i don't know i guess people waited like what five years for this i have no comment i am withholding my entire comment. But it is, I think, I understand how it could have been disappointing at that time because you might not have seen your favorite character in the book that you waited five years for. But as a person who read it after Dance Is Out, strong title, strong book.

Strong. Very strong. A very strong boy. Very strong. Harwin Strong. Harwin Strong book. Well, I'm excited to jump into A Feast for Crows again, as it is my favorite of the books. I'm also a Clash truther.

I feel like Clash doesn't get enough love. I don't know if that's just because I'm a contrarian bitch, but I don't know. You like to throw in a little tension in our relationship, and that's fine. I'm a Clash truther. It keeps things sexy, you know? Oh my god. I'm pretty excited for our Patreon special episode this month. Yeah, speaking of keeping things sexy, you know?

It's... Look, when your wife comes to you, and she's like, Baby, we gotta do something for March to spice it up. Technically, she said May. Technically, it was for May, but I said no. Well, you said we gotta do something for March to spice it up. Technically, she said May. Technically, it was for May, but I said, well, not that way. We gotta do something for March. We have to do something. I was like, what was our idea for May again?

Maybe because I remember we had an idea for May, which was why I could not do this other idea for May. But it does work for March. So it does. Eliana, do you want to tell them what your theme is? So what was originally once going to be Mayshroom in the month of May, it's now going to be a Marchshroom episode for March. Are you happy? Actually, I'm happy with me. I'm happy with us.

I'm actually kind of really excited about this so if you haven't read fire and blood if you're into our princess and the queen our alicent and renera you gotta love those girls gorgeous gorgeous girls alicent and renera cat fighting on the pages with dragons boys mushroom is the guy though right if you've read this you know of mushroom who is in pretty good with queen ramira he's in pretty good and he's always saying some body things i think this is gonna be like an ultimate what if kind of episode like shit mushroom says we'll kick back with a drink or seven or twelve and i don't drink that much we'll go through basically mushrooms account of things in fire and blood and what they could mean right and probably get a pretty

pretty body ourselves probably make some innuendos and i think mushrooms of an interesting character right i initially went into my readings of the princess and the queen right the short story and i was like i mean some of the stuff mushroom says for sure true some of it maybe maybe but i think what's interesting is also like just his relationship his proximity to the royal family we don't see very many gestures right with the sort of clarity that Mushroom provides within the main story. And, or fools, whatever. And I guess they call them fools.

He never uses the term jester, I think. And yeah, and like, he also brings, I think, a really sympathetic lens to some of the characters too. Like he's like, he actually liked Rhaenyra, you know? So bring some of that humanity there too. But besides that,, I, he actually liked Rhaenyra, you know, so bring some of that humanity there, too. But besides that, we're also going to provide some like, I think, potentially useful information. Like I have some mushroom recipes that I would like to share with folks. I'm excited. We're going to choose our favorite mushroom. You know, not just this mushroom, which I do like this mushroom. I do i i like a lot of different

mushrooms so this is going to be hard i'm going to be thinking really hard about this throughout this month um mushrooms testimony that's uh i would love to get my hands my little grubby hands on that it's filled of plots murders tryst debaucheries salacious claims we're gonna break down everything we know of it yeah the mushroom pov if you will or you won't the march shroom march shroom madness and if you're if you're not already on twitter following davos fingers is march madness you gotta get over there and check that out every year on twitter people lose friends, family, lovers, brothers to this madness. They do polls where characters are against each other.

But this is going to be the follow-up to that. You know, the end of March, this is going to come out. You can kick back, listen to March Shroom Madness. And they've done the fun thing. I think that the Mystery Night mechanic

has been kind of fun. Yeah, before it was kind of normal seed kind of ranking whatever things you know i don't do the sports ball but i get it i get the whole rankings and uh the march madness idea so they seed them against each other pretty fun some of them came into conflict makes you mad but now they're doing a mystery night where you get to vote for a character or a mystery night who gets revealed if one of the characters wins or loses right the next day when results are in so that's kind of fun that's uh uh people have gotten pretty there's the the big upset was the dark star one today yeah that's right i was pretty big i just like trying to guess what the next one is that's it i'm just

like what is it? I don't know. And then I give up. I put it on my mind and wait for it to be revealed. I'm like, how interesting. This is the real Wordle right now for me, right? Is the Mystery Night. Davos Fingers Mystery Night is Wordle for me.

I was actually literally thinking of it in the context of Wordle, which I finally started a bit ago. Maybe like 15 days ago. I'm not great at that. Yeah yeah today was my first six guest day so that was sad that's sad i'm sorry i'm not good at that i don't know that i've won uh i don't know i don't like that one i like hurdle have you seen that one warren our friend over at our patron discord he's been posting that one and i'm into that one i Gotta check out Hurdle. I got past two days, which is only as long as we have all been playing. It is only as long as we've been aware of this game.

Oh no. It didn't work on my desktop, interestingly. Only on mobile. To be fair, you have a Mac, right? That's true. Speaking of games, I'm playing Elden Ring, and that's it. I feel like there'd be too much to say, but I haven't gotten to play that long yet. You've been playing Elden Ring with a bunch of our other friends over at the Discord.

I've been watching you all posting your findings. I came to Pokemon to Arceus a couple days later than you all, and you all have moved on to Elden Ring and left me behind in the dust. You could literally play Elden Ring. I could. I have a ps4 i could play i could i'm playing other things too we're talking about video games all the time over at the discord we talk about other stuff too you know we have a patron discord for patrons in the thunder tier and above ten dollars and above where you get to hang out play play games, chat with each other. We do a monthly brunch slash happy hour.

This month will be March 20th from 1 to 3 Eastern Time. Come hang out with us, patreon.com slash girlsgonecanon. And if you're in the stranger tier or above, you get those bonus episodes we were talking about at the front of the episode. Yeah, that's our Patreon. It's good times, fun times. And besides the Song of Ice and Fire things and March Shroom, part of the reason why we are not doing May Shroom is we do also do His Dark

Materials content. So at the end of every month, we do not do an A Song of Ice and Fire episode, but instead cover some chapters from His Dark Materials. And we are getting close to the end of the original trilogy. I know, we close to the end of the original trilogy. I know. We're at the end of the Amber Spyglass. The last couple months, the hits just keep on rolling. It's a great book, an emotional book, and we've covered a lot of the books surrounding it, right?

We've covered the novellas, almost all of them, considering there will be a brand new one coming out in April, just in time for us to talk about it in May. We owe the HDM crowd a little bonus episode. So we'll be talking about that in May. More details on that to come. But if you're into His Dark Materials, the original trilogy from Philip Pullman,

or the companion trilogy, the sequel slash prequel-y couple of books that have come out so far, check it out. Well, back to A Song of books that have come out so far. Check it out. Yeah. Well, back to A Song of Ice and Fire. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Back to, well, well, well, well, well.

Let's rewind for one second. Let's backtrack. Let's backpedal. We have to cover what we've missed between the last Sam chapter, which was so much fun with our friend James. That was great. Thanks again, James, for coming and hanging out. last sam chapter which was so much fun with our friend james that was great thanks again james for coming and hanging out but we covered our last sam chapter in a storm of swords and we still had

just a few chapters left to talk about indeed and some of them are a consequence of sam's chapter for example john 11 a storm of swords john snow who invented eating girls out yes or whatever and has a wolf doggo and a big sword is elected the 998th commander of the Night's Watch which seems like a very scary thought

but yet even scarier than that is now he has to go reject Stannis oh chilling Sansa 7 what starts off as a beautiful scene scarier than that is now he has to go reject Stannis. Ooh, chilling. Sansa 7. What starts off as a beautiful scene of innocence and snow and dreams and shit ends with Sansa's aunt basically

getting murder trained out of the Eyrie. And yet it's still one of the greatest chapters of all times. I don't know. I don't know. Definitely is. Definitely is. Hits on hits. And finally, this last hit, Epilogue, A Storm of Swords. She don't speak, but she remembers.

It's not me. I have a podcast. I have to speak. And she never remembers. That's so true. It's definitely not me. I'm like, what? what lady soft lung oh my god next up is a feast for crows which we launch off with the prologue where we start in old town

a student of the citadel pate the pig boy is in love with a girl named rosie who works in the nearby tavern he's also in love with impressing her or power or whatever dudes like which leads to his untimely betrayal at the hands of a certain faceless man who becomes him but most importantly we get to see Alaris. I feel like that is

overall. It's pretty big. Pretty important. Pretty big. Big if true. Big if true. And then we have the prophet aaron grayjoy holds baptism rights at great wick but he sure can't drown out the drama on the iron islands he declares a king's boot on naga's bones to take place the captain of guards the people of doran call for vengeance from their prince and the sand snakes call for it very loudly stirring the people's passions even more doran must act but not in the way that you would think

cersei won after tywin's death it feels even more like the walls of King's Landing are filled with Cersei's enemies and closing in on her. Brienne I. Brienne meets companions and travelers in her journey, but slips out in the middle of the night from the inn, swearing that she cannot and will not fail Jaime. Aww. And that brings us to samuel one you're probably wondering how he got back to john two in a dance with dragons god right that that's all i could think of as i looked at this i was like right we've been here before wow same path same tracks and i did revisit kind of our episode notes and it's funny because we say every week we change right we're like oh we're different but at the same time there are like three of the same

references in john 2 that i realized were peppered throughout this chapter as we were discussing before the episode like there's definitely a if you give a mouse a cookie reference in this chapter as well and maybe we don't change you you know, is all I'm saying. Maybe there are some parts of us that don't change. That's the core. That's our core selves, you know. We did that episode with Hannah from Game of Owns, actually. Oh.

I know. I was like, oh, that's right, Hannah. Yeah. Yeah. It was a long time ago. You might see someone else around these parts eventually from that their podcast game of owns. You never know. Keep your eyes peeled. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. through Sam's eyes, there are so many similar themes and kind of different things in John's plot that are being played off of.

You know, killing the boy, conquering your inner fears, let the man through. But what does that mean? What defines man in that quote? Well, we'll talk about it in this chapter. It's about going down on your sexual partners. Oh my god. A real man in the caves of the north gives all right so generous generous stepping powerful sam had been reading about the others for hours in the dust-filled

room puffs are filling his red eyes every page he turned and a mouse appeared sounds like he's having allergic reactions i want to remind a lot of people that we are coming up on spring season i have to start taking my allergy medicines again don't forget he has no clue when he last slept but kept telling himself one more page book folio we've all been here right before he knows that he's halfway through and like legitimately like this scene this like season opening right this is all of us being like oh yeah i'm just gonna go through one more thing this is my secret to to reading fast and this is also george yes that's how i read too i like binge i'm very bingeable when i read right like saturday mornings are best for me uh my partner usually sleeps a little later than i do on

saturdays and i wake up bright and early and I just lay there and I just like read for hours and I love that there's kind of a tone change from the last book with Sam where we started the book with him last book it was one more step and now it's actually one more page one more one more tome yeah fun i didn't catch that that's good a little lighter tone wise right yeah and like he's having a great time here he was not having a great time sam won a store of swords definition of bad time but yeah i mean sam hadn't really eaten in a while either just bread and cheese as a snack which is pretty impressive sounds good but when he looked to his platter he saw the mouse black-eyed gray fur nibbling at his crumbs he knows that he should kill it because mice also unfortunately eat paper when there is

no food also this mouse is so small he said it's like half the length of his pinky i've never seen a mouse that small i've seen a lot of rodents oh he's the runt yeah i guess so oh yeah he's the ghost he's the ghost of the mice uh and sam has found plenty of the droppings from the mice in their shelves terrible but he's also like oh it's such a little thing and it's hungry how could sam begrudge it crumbs sam is reading a rather boring account the annals of the black centaur by septon horken is how i decided to pronounce this name and sam uses his boring account sam uses this boring account to squash the mouse but by the time he tries the mouse has run away and sam's actually quite relieved because and then he tells the mouse not to eat the books though and he thinks

maybe i should bring more cheese next time for the mice and i'm like no sam don't don't do that right because if you give a mouse anyways the the mouse as a metaphor for sam i feel like the mouse is like very much so kind of sam in this moment of just like who who sam is for existing between those lines of kill the boy the big theme in john 2 and in this chapter and then also when john is literally killing the boy right by taking and switching out gilly's son and mance's son and also killing the boy with Sam killing kind of this fantastical little life Sam has at the moment and reminding him it's wartime Sam but the mouse is like small and weak right and probably should be killed for eating the books procreating doing

nothing the Night's Watch is like what are you doing in the cellar just making bigger family and eating our books not like a real animal right not like a real masculine animal it's an animal though that can also literally exist on nothing right he could eat pieces of paper and garbage and still exist but maybe this mouse couldn't necessarily hunt to uh you know hunt its way to life so like sam whose house's sigil is the huntsman right and letting letting the mouse live letting it escape i don't know that that's interesting that there's a way for that mouse to live in society another day and at the same time in that same token it does kind of remind me of john too Somehow living between those lines and getting to escape crimes. Yeah, I love the way that you've really shown like how this mouse applies to Sam's story.

And absolutely in terms of killing the boy, it also shows this little, you know, Sam's compassion, right? He's someone who doesn't like killing, which is part of his mousishness. But yeah, I don don't know i feel like john took this wrong lesson maybe don't kill the boy instead let the mouse live heal your inner child don't kill it but also having a mouse infestation is pretty bad if we're talking literally it's bad it's so hard because like one of them is very cute and everyone's gotta fucking live, but it's one of those animals where there's one. It's bad. There's likely more.

There's always likely more. Oh yeah. Well, now that we've talked about mice and mice droppings, let's talk about the bean and bacon soup that Sam had eaten. He's like, yeah, I had that today. eaten he's like yeah i had that today and he's like that wasn't today that was a few days that was like the other day yesterday whoops he's like oh maybe everyone's wondering where he is but it's fine maester amen would totally understand because he relates that books are magical and you can disappear in a good one haha like this one and sam gets to his feet thinking that the next time he's gonna

bring a cushion and he wishes that he could stay down here with the books but unfortunately he can't leave amon alone like that amon is needing help more and more especially when it comes to the ravens and all of this right it's just it's just a strong setup for this chapter by really establishing like hey sam's got plans to stay here he has come he's comfortable right he's like i'm gonna come back i'm gonna bring a cushion i'm having the time of my life reading and that's why it's so painful when john's like you know what you should leave yeah he finally almost is feeling like he belongs, right, to the brotherhood here. Pip and Gren, as we're about to see, are closer with him, arguably, than with Jon right now.

Yeah. He's got, like, friends. He's got a life. Him and Gilly are protected there. Yeah, it's way better than, as you saidwell won a storm of swords vastly vastly better circumstances well to be fair it has to get worse before it gets better at castle black and that is part of why john knows they gotta go sam emerges from the steps puffing out to a white snowy sky which makes him a little uneasy right because it means the cold

is coming and it reminds him of the fist of the first men he reminds himself not to be craven with his sworn brothers and stannis and his armies all around him he would totally be safe around him are the dense buildings of the wall they're being repaired day in and day out which some of the builders had been complaining about at dinner, insisting J.R. never worked them this hard. Uh oh, John, strike one. Sam watches the winch, which he hates, and he thinks about how dragons once had been at the wall. 200 years ago, they would have just flown to the top of the wall. We see how the chain is really, the idea of chains is really traumatic for Sam later on. But I think we get a hint of where this chapter is going here

when Sam's like, I really hate being in this winch. Not only because he's like, he prefers the stairs because it's not like that, but I think part of it is the caged-ness of it because Sam was literally caged a lot as a child. So step one of Sam reliving his trauma but before then let's have a history moment queen allison had visited castle black on her dragon and jahari's her king had come after her on his own could silver wing have left an egg behind or had stannis found one egg on dragonstone? Even if he has an egg, how can he hope to quicken it? Baelor the Blessed had prayed over his eggs, and other Targaryens had sought to hatch theirs with sorcery. All they got for it was farce and tragedy.

to Adabada, we kind of get a closer look at that same kind of what had happened. And earlier in A Storm of Swords, I want to say like John 5 or something, there's some sort of reference where he remembers old Nan telling him the story of that and Queen's Crown. I love that there's almost a misunderstanding for Sam here that he thinks that the dragon being woken would be from a from an actual egg where for melisandre that's not really something she has to worry about right she can just necromance shit out of the shadows she has some skill when it comes to that i think she doesn't really know she's just like i don't know a dragon's gonna happen somehow somewhere somewhere i don't i don't know i don't know what she thinks i and here's the deal unlike kind of the meta storytelling level i don't think there's gonna be other dragons in the story right i think danny's are it i think a detracts from her story which we could talk

about all day long uh but b i I just, something about it's so gaudy, right? Like, it's something, I don't know, you have all those theories of all these dead characters coming back from the dead, secretly alive, to join the war for the dawn and fight the others, and everybody wins, and the day is saved, and Daenerys and her dragons and Jon have a boat baby. Some people, like, believe that shit. I don't, for for the record i only believe the good part of it the correct part of it which is ashara's alive i'm very tasteful okay jot that one down but i don't think george is that gaudy i don't think he's looking to have all of a sudden everybody come up as like dragon seeds and there's gonna be new dragon riders but at the same time it's been 11

years maybe we don't know him anymore el Eliana. Do you think George has changed? I definitely think George has changed. Oh my god. Well, that's for sure. I don't know, he's like writing this for fun. Like, what's gonna happen? And maybe the bigger hint is that this is showing it's not out of line that there were still dragon eggs to be acquired to give to Dany. Maybe that's really the truth of the matter but

what does it mean eliana is what i'm asking you what does it mean i i do agree i don't think that we're gonna see more dragons within like this timeline of the series right within these the main books and i feel like he part of why he was so interested in writing fire and blood and in writing the dance right those were like some of the first short stories we got besides duncan egg is because he wanted to explore a world where there were a shit ton of dragons right i mean it's cool shit but i think the scarcity of the dragons in the main story is part of not only what makes them very special, but what makes the stakes so high. Right. You've got three. Currently they're with one person. But as that gets distributed, it changes the power dynamics and how like, you know, things will happen within the plot.

So it's too easy to just call on them for plot device so that's why i'm like i don't think we're just gonna have i mean they can't be this rare magical thing that hasn't been seen in westeros for a bajillion years for like 80 of them to be born i don't see that happening and even if if more were born it would have to be like a whole thing that happens like right at the very end right like a it's a new age of dragons or something because even if some were born yeah in the last two books they'd still be like real small like what are we gonna do like i don't know mushu all this stuff i mean mushu was with no time jump right no time jump means no yeah well his thoughts like ours are interrupted by Dolor's Ed, who has come to fetch him for the Lord Commander.

Jon wishes to speak with Sam. As soon as Jon was done speaking with Gilly, Pip and Gran emerge around the corner, longbows and quiver in hand, asking where the Slayer had been at dinner. Because the roast ox went uneaten. That actually is pretty sad to me. I'm sad, but you didn't have to put it that way you guys i know right i'm like oh the roast ox uh sam says not to call him slayer ignoring the roast ox comment because he's like i don't know these are my friends whatever they can call me whatever he says that he had been eating telling them about the mouse they ask okay but sam like

why are you not practicing your bow because Because Jon has decided, Lord Commander Jon, Lord Snow, it's like everyone has been putting too much emphasis on sword play at the wall, and now he's having everyone drilled by Omer on bow and arrow. And I will say, Jon has a good point, especially when you have the advantage of being on a 600-foot wall and range. Range. He's got range all day, baby. baby if you have it you gotta use it yeah and sam does get that right like sam does think that that is sensible but he still hates longbow practice because it's hard it's dangerous it's painful he tells them i forgot about practice uh which is a big lie because we know that fucking nerd was downstairs reading books, which is exactly where I would have been.

Okay, I feel like this is so personal to me because I skipped so much gym. I went like half the day to a trade school, the other half to high school, and gym was my second class the day. So I like would leave early and say I had to do something or had to like drive early and skip that shit and somehow i got out because the teacher liked me and i'd just be eating taco bell doing my makeup vibing smoking cloves texting twittering and uh getting to my destination but like gym class in a penal colony that's that's even worse i wouldn't want gym class in a penal colony, that's even worse. I wouldn't want gym class in a penal colony. That doesn't sound fun to me.

Yeah, it doesn't. I didn't love gym class either. I think I skipped a lot. It was so early in the morning. Why was I going to school that early, right? Yeah. It was so early. That's not how teenager circadian rhythms like work and

yeah i just like wrote myself notes i i tweeted about this recently if you know cursive and you are a youth listening to this podcast you didn't learn it from me but adults will believe that an adult wrote your note from home if it's in cursive. If it's nice enough and, like, illegible, they'll be like, yeah, totally, that's so legit. You're free. Those were the days. Those were the days. We could get away with so much more then. I don't think that they, A, have as many opportunities anymore.

B, not that they don't get away. I'm sure they get away with things nowadays still, but we had it so easy. They've tightened down on a lot of those loopholes with technology i photoshopped a report card in fourth grade in ms paint i don't know i don't think i did that but i don't think i didn't do something like that for someone just as guilty just as guilty i don't know if i did that for myself but i think i did something like

that for someone a true friend eliana's the true friend yeah right there our passion is graphic design oh my god but there is actually a lot of emphasis on archery i think this chapter right in for sam feels significant for sam especially with his house sigil. Maybe we'll come back to this another time. Yes, yes. Ooh, interesting. You know, those Westerosi, they all think themselves their sigil, Eliana. Not Sam, though. Sam really relates to...

Sam's not like other boys. And I like that about him. Yeah, actually. Val had taken to watching the men practice from her tower window, and Pip jokes to Sam that, you know, you broke her heart not showing up at practice. She was looking for you. Sam tells him to knock it off,

that he often finds himself stammering in her presence. This was too classic. I couldn't not include this. She wants to have your children. Maybe we should call you Sam the Seducer. Sam reddened. King Stannis had plans for Val, he knew. She was the mortar with which he meant to seal the peace

between the Northmen and the Free Folk. Sam declares he must go see john the lord commander they joke the great lord snow sam kind of defends him he's like hey john has duties and his friends are like yeah but we his electors think he has duties to us and then again though sam is like look janos would have sent him ranging naked on a mule had he won. You know, Sam, we just we deserve more from John. Yeah, they're just like, we deserve shots with John. We deserve parties.

And we have this line of, we saved him from that, but now he has too many duties to drink a cup of mulled wine by the fire. Yeah, get him, Pip. Get him. saved him from that but now he has too many duties to drink a cup of mulled wine by the fire yeah get him pip get him gren agreed his duties don't keep him from the yard more days than not he's out there fighting someone i feel this and sam is of course i i feel like as we see in this chapter as it goes on he's the last to see how much john has changed, for obvious reasons. I mean, Sam's been busy with Gilly, helping Aemon, and also just kind of being in the library all the time. And Pip

and Gren, I think they've been more involved in the day-to-day, all the workings of Castle Black, and therefore would see Jon more and interact with him kind of normally, and they get to really see how much Jon has changed and withdrawn. And it's in this chapter that we really start to see more how john is trying to emulate maybe subconsciously right like ned's lord face you know being someone who is worthy

of a sword like ice and that's probably why everyone calls him lord snow and finally sam faces him and i think there's an aspect that is kind of true of what john says to sam it's a little unfair but it's a little true of like you did this to me that is part of it that makes me like hesitate you know like i i get it i get being mad at your friend boys but you also did this to him and he's also gonna die for it you don't know that yet but y'all motherfuckers are killing him and you don't even know well he's also doing it a little to himself he should have sent away all his friends well i wasn't a great politician at 15 so you live you learn you laugh you love you die then you live again you only live twice you only live twice yeah i mean it is the funniest it's like we saved him from that but yeah and i'm like yeah you also

put him into a higher ranking job than what he was doing with twice the work. It's more than twice the work. It's like eight times the work. Before he was like an intern delivering wine. Now he's the boss. This is the worst nepotism hire. When everyone else in your department

gets eaten by fucking zombies. Oh my god. So it's true, right? it was once true sam thinks like oh that's true john is always playing with his sword once he came to talk to amen and sam was like why are you playing with your sword so much john sam also says jay or never spent that much time at sword play so why are you and instead of telling him why john gives him this great cryptic moment where he presses long claw into sam's hand and he's like valerian steel spell forge and razor sharp nigh on indestructible a swordsman should be as good as his sword sam long claws valerian steel but i'm not the-hand could have killed me as easy as you swat a bug.

Chloe said she put a lot of John quotes in this for me. Thank you, Chloe. I did. I almost lost it. I kind of forgot for a minute what I was doing. I was like, oh, who am I? John Snow? So, yeah, we get a little glimpse of John's trauma here. I don't know what John's told folks about his time

north of the Wall, like, or Sam specifically. I kind of forgot. But this feels like pretty close to an admission of, like, you know, him going out and being like, yeah, Khorne Halfhand told me to kill him. Intentionally. And I think that's the intimacy with him and Sam, that he can kind of imply it.

And I think they probably know i mean pip and gret have no fucking clue pip and gret live in a different world but i think they're they're in their own world with each other they're so funny they are they're just like your body's a wonderland my body's a wonderland we live in zombie times let's hang out uh it's my favorite sexuality in the whole story it is you're so beautiful i love them there's also something interesting these like the half hand could have killed me as easy as you swat a bug and we open the chapter with sam failing to kill the mouse. So maybe this is really saying that that's not,

you know, that's complex. The situation's much more complex than that. Shit's hard. Yeah, it does. It's not easy to do, John. Well, Sam had handed the sword back, joking that it hurts even when he smacks his own arm to rid

a fly let alone use a sword yeah i'm not freaking swatting flies with a sword on my arm anyways he leaves his friends clutching his books to his chest wondering what men would say if they knew that their realm was being guarded by him and his friends stanis had claimed the king's tower i'm sorry it's really funny because it's true as fuck it's cute it's cute but yeah it's problematic we're fine it's fine they're like 16 and stupid as fuck it's fine they're doing fine

it's fine we're fine they're actually probably even better off now that jano slint is dead fuck. It's fine. They're doing fine. It's fine. We're fine. They're actually probably even better off now that Janos Lint is dead. You know, he brought everyone down and now he's been approved. Morale is a little down right now, but you know. Whatever. Bring in a ping pong table. What is this?

A startup? That's basically how they've been reduced at the moment, know everyone's been furloughed and by that i mean killed um so stannis had claimed the king's tower for himself and john had to put himself up in the armory in noise modest quarters gilly's leaving his armory wrapped up in his cloak sam's cloak as sam arrives stops her, and her voice is kind of raw, and she's shivering, and her face looks frightened and won, and he's like, What's wrong? And how are the babies?

And she says, They're good, they're good, pulling loose from him. We have this exchange between them. Between the two of them, it's a wonder you can sleep. Which one was it that I heard crying last night? I thought he'd never stop. Dallas boy, he cries when he wants the tea. Mine, mine hardly ever cries. Sometimes he gurgles, but her eyes filled with tears. I have to go. It's past time that I fed them. I'll be leaking all over myself if I don't go. She rushed across the yard, leaving Sam perplexed behind her.

We think that she's talking about her boobies. Maybe a little, but it's really her eyes that are leaking. Oh my god. True. It is true. He's so oblivious. It's something so special to me. Sam said pleasantly. Gilly, um,

I gotta go. Thanks for your crappy courtesy, you southerner it's true though that is there like Sam does have some of those courtesies where he he's blunt with John he's able to be more blunt than usual with John but he does have some of those courtesies that are like you stupid

turn around and ask her what the fuck's wrong well he's also like has no idea how to talk to of those courtesies that are like you stupid turn around and ask her what the fuck's wrong well he's also like has no idea how to talk to gilly right like he stammers with val and i like that distinction right between like how he acts with feels about val and how he feels with gilly with val he's like she's so pretty but with gilly he's like i feel things yeah you do what is this feeling Yeah, you do, boy. What is this feeling? Well, he gathers the books that he dropped, brushing dirt off the jade compendium,

a volume of tales and legends from the east that Aemond commanded Sam to find. Maester Tomix's dragonkin being a history of House Targaryen from exile to apotheosis with the consideration of the life and death of dragons. Had not been so lucky falling in the mud. Sam curses himself, smoothing and brushing the pages. Uh, I actually love all the book content we get in these Sam chapters, and I know it's only gonna get better as we get to the actual Citadel, right? Someday we're gonna have such good book content. we get to the actual Citadel, right?

Someday we're going to have such good book content. Can't wait. Can't wait. But, that said, these books are so interesting. So, Dragonkin being a history of House Targaryen from exile to apotheosis with a consideration of the life and death of dragons. First of all,

maybe streamline the title. That's all I'm saying, Maester Thomax. It's just a thought. You don't have to, but workshop it a little. I would be interested to read that because Apotheosis is like godhood, right? When somebody ascends to godhood. So maybe it would be the exile, the outing of them from Valyria, but then also doom to then conquering. Conquering maybe is the ascension would be my guess the life of death of

dragons being the the ones that have died during the dance etc i'd be interested to read that sounds like fire and blood i also kind of love that amen is very yes night's watch vows but also really embracing the dragon like as his last dying wish's like, I'm going to embrace the dragon within myself, because I think that my family could still do great things. So he still thinks, you know, he's still deep down, he may just be a maester Aemon, but in his heart of hearts, he wants to help Daenerys and he wants to have books out there to help those that have to fight the long night to come. He's asking for all of these books to be grabbed, and not just to be grabbed for himself,

but also to be grabbed to take to the Citadel, right? To donate to higher education. To give to those that will come to try to learn the mysteries of their world after. Also, it's like a long trip and boring. I love taking books on trips. That's true. That's true. They're just like important books i feel like maybe not to these guys right now but in the future they could be yeah definitely definitely wonder if danny has any matches of these books in her pile actually now that i say

that in her books i don't think so right i remember yeah i don't remember their names drawer doesn't seem like great book chooser you know the the jade compendium's importance we talked a little more about it in our john chapters but the passage in question that amon lays out for him tells of azor ahai of lightbringer being his sword tempered with his wife's blood, and that thereafter it was never cold, but always warm like Nisa Nisa, and burned hot in battle. And it also told of Azor Ahai fighting a monster, and when he struck his sword into it, it smoked,

right, and steamed, and it melted and dribbled. Its body burst into flame. So, interesting couple different thoughts there that Aemon obviously thinks Stannis is a fake and wants Jon to know that as well. But also, another thought I'm having is this exact passage highlighted in the Jade Compendium. It makes me wonder if this is what he corresponded with Rhaegar about and if this is the passage that made Rhaegar want to pick up his sword and become a warrior I don't know I don't remember um I know

that our friend Joe Magician has written and done quite a bit of work on you know what was likely the relationship between Maester Aemon and Rhaegar and how they likely might have corresponded and worked together in regards to the prince that was promised prophecy. And I don't know if he... I forgot. We actually talked about it in Jon VIII in the Game of Thrones when he was on about this being

that Rhaegar and him had corresponded. Yes. When Joe Magician was on actually during our Game of Thrones coverage for Jon, we did talk a little bit about this uh but this passage specifically is what i think was likely yeah probably what rhaegar picked up his sword over uh but there is some pretty definite like he and rhaegar corresponded yeah that was like what? Yes, it was. Or it might have been 2019. Oh, no, you're right.

It's 2019. I'm messing it up. It's 2019. Yeah. Still a while ago. I'm losing track of time. Gilly's presence always flusters Sam in ways that he should not generally be flustered, especially when she was talking about titties.

Jon Snow waits within for him. Ghosts stretched out beneath an anvil, eating anies john snow waits within for him ghost stretched out beneath an anvil eating an ox bone love that for him john is reading a parchment mormon's raven is on his shoulder and is flapping corn corn corn when the bird sees sam and even gouges sam's hand a little sam is slightly bleeding from the raven but john says we all we all shed blood for the watch sam which is like yeah true not helpful though just like the bird just fucking broke your friend's hand we can show some sympathy anyways john hands him a parchment it's a letter to king tommen from amen a paper shield allegedly And then Jon reminisces about Tommen and Bran fighting each other in Winterfell, like not really like fighting, fighting, you know, sparring and thinking that, you know, now

Bran's dead and pudgy pink face Tommen is sitting on the Iron Throne with a crown nestled amongst his golden curls. It's funny because I went and looked back at our John 2 notes and I did comment on this. Of course I did. Haven't changed. Same thoughts. Head empty. Total foreshadowing.

Right? There's gotta be some foreshadowing and they're like, oh no, they fought each other and now Bran's dead. But Bran is not dead. Obviously. And possibly might sit the Iron Th jury's out we'll find out probably i did get very strongly reminded during this read through of doran vibes uh and it's not something that i've thought about too deeply until the last few weeks of just reading some of these chapters but doran and Jon have very,

very, very similar plots running during these two books. I think of Doran, yet they are gone, and here I sit thinking about his dead, lost family. And Doran knows his whole entire family's dead beyond his children. And he thinks that there's hope in Aegon, right? And finding out that his sister's son is alive. And Jon also thinks his whole family's dead, but actually they're alive and he's Aegon, you know? Like he's the lost princeling. That's kind of the big twist there, I think, Johnny boy. And I don't know, you have these similar plot threads

running of Arya, right? As fake Aegon fake Arya you have Jane in Winterfell as his sister and even his demise is brought about because of that not unlike what I'm sure Doran's demise will be brought about with everything with Aegon but the Arya line of him thinking of her with her hair as tangled as a bird's nest and him just going, I think we had better change the plan. And then of course, you have the actual fake Aegon, right? Being brought about as this big moniker, this dragon that people will rally beneath, not unlike what we're seeing for Stannis right now, or sorry, I should say what we saw for Renly,

a true green. Before, a dragon has returned to Westeros to claim his birthright and seek vengeance for his father, and for the princess Elia, his mother, in her name I turn to Dorne, do not forsake us. It feels like, especially with a lot of these just very personal, obviously, like, you should not be making this choice, it does not behoove the Night's Watch, and yet here you are, Jon Snow, making this choice it does not behoove the night's watch and yet here you are john snow making this choice that does not behoove the night's watch this very stark choice yeah a lot of that coming up and doran's uh i mean even to the point that he just locked up the sand snakes which isn't really the reaction you usually have to lock up your kin and imprison them well john is sending his away and in a way holding his brother's lover book wife whatever

you want to call her gilly and her kid you know difficult decisions from men that you would otherwise think are very good and level-headed and sturdy dudes yeah i mean and a lot of people like you said turning against him just like in doran where they're all like yeah i don't know about doran's decisions they all want vengeance yeah but we talked about this also like i think in think, in some of the Arya chapters, and maybe the Arion ones. I don't remember. I think more of in the Arya ones. But, you that's part of what makes him so similar to john in that right john is very much like a second ned all this loss and trauma and this is kind of really tying them together also like you know john has seen these systems that were in place completely fail him and his family as well uh all of these betrayals, they led to, of course, Ned's death and the alleged deaths of his family. Most of them are alive, Jon. Chill out. And even the Night's Watch betraying Jon and, earlier on, right, Jair Mormont.

So he's like, yeah, anyone can betray anyone. Rules are fucking shit. So he sees the paper shield for what it is, as opposed to all the faith that ned put into his but in regards to also like i think comparisons with doran i'm also thinking in a way doran he's learned to live with himself not matching you know some of those like ideas of what is peak masculinity in westeros especially as a lord right he's much more bookish and studious like he's someone who's really come to accept that in himself which Sam is not there yet right but there's some of that overlap also with Sam's character I think there's a lot of that magical

overlap too when you think of like Doran uh and him coming to kind of accept those things about himself and then look at Bran right obviously who found a new outlet and i think that's a lot of sam right like finding a different outlet for those energies within yourself since they can't be channeled into the normal masculinity of westeros of banging things with steel yeah which i i guess makes it really great that sam and bran storylines crossed right which is part of why sam wants to be like bran's not dead but the words catch in his throat because he swore he would not tell so instead he goes you haven't signed the letter and joe says that no letter will make the lannisters love them especially not when they hear that they've been helping stannis and sam

reads the letter now and says that, well, I feel like a distinction has been made. You know, Stannis rode to the wall to help while Tywin and the boy kings stayed south. Right? Like, maybe enough to bring scorn, some shame, Tywin into

some action, and Jon's like, I want death and destruction upon House Lannister, not scorned and in regards to sam's later storyline i kind of wonder if something similar will happen to house charlie in terms of losing key members of the family but as we see here i mean sam's family circumstances are so different from john's so it's gonna be a really i think more complex reaction it almost does make me wonder like is sam's role is he actually going to get a little bit of that amen plot too right of them coming and saying will you come and be lord of the house and forsake your vows because house tarly is dead yeah i don't know

his own winterfell moment right yeah yeah i don't know, I don't know. His own Winterfell moment, right? Yeah, yeah. I don't know, yeah. I don't know how it'll go. We'll see. Listen, Westeros just wants to destroy families and I'm here for all types of families, even if it's your free folk bride

that you freed from beyond the wall with her child from her father. But this wall with her child from her father but this is not the child from her father and a free folk prince like even if that's who it is like i yeah that's a great sometimes that's a family and that's fucking beautiful i agree i agree and maybe he could be an archmaester of the fucking night's watch whatever i don't care or of the world maybe by then sam tarly will just rule the world yeah maybe they won't have need for a night's watch by then yeah burn that wall down i don't know i don't know interesting well i do know that john lifts the letter once more and reads through it and he kind of calls out some problematic phrases and moments.

He's like, see, this right here. Our oaths are sworn to the realm, and the realm now stands in dire peril. Stannis Baratheon aids us against our foes from beyond the wall, though we are not his men. Well, we're not. Are we? It's a tough call right john says john's like well we gave stannis food shelter the night for and leave to settle some free folk in the gift tywin will say it's too much but stannis would say it's not enough if you give a king a muffin he's gonna want to lick the

bull you guys is what we're trying to say he's gonna want to lick the bull you guys is what are trying to say he's gonna want to cash the bull pleasing one king is hard pleasing two impossible sam reasons with john saying if the lannisters prevail and tywin decides we betrayed the realm it could mean the end of the night's watch tywin does kind of have over half the realm on his side right now john tries to reason. The Blackwater was only one battle. If Stannis could raise the North... The good news is Tywin has nothing soon.

Sam can see Jon trying to convince even himself of it, but the truth lied in all of the birds Sam had helped send out, requesting the North bend the knee to Stannis. Only the bird they had sent to Karhol returned, elsewise the silence had been thunderous. The Lannisters had their own Northmen, Lord Bolton and his bastard. Jon argues that, well, I guess Stannis has the Karstarks, so if he, so if he could win White Harbor. And Sam stresses that if, and says that, well, if not, even a paper shield is better

than none. And that is, of course, to be fair, exactly where Stannis is attacking, right? Like he is hoping for White Harbor with Davos on the run right now. And I do really appreciate Sam, I mean, through all of this, understanding warfare, even though he detests it right like he is still randall's son it's also painfully obvious john's not able to stay impartial even here when it comes to things in the realm all he can think about is how rob beat tywin many times and the north is the best and the lannisters are evil and if stannis has northmen on his side, we could win. And Sam's like, dude, the North is over, dude. Like, it's, bro, the North is fucking over, Jon. Do you not get that?

It's all over for us. Oh, God. That boy, that Jon, he is a Stark boy through and through, right? Like, he just wants to ruin the Lannisters. But Sam's politics are impressive here, that he's so apt, and he actually sees this much more clearly than Jon does, which, to be fair, John isn't letting on everything. Because as we noted during John 2, A Dance with Dragons, he also has that case of the hammer and anvil, right? That he knows that he is stuck between the rock and the hard place getting fucked.

He knows he's fucked. in the hard place getting fucked he knows he's fucked so i guess for him with with sam i think the bigger part of it is that he probably underestimates sam's ability to understand some of this yeah definitely and i think as you said sam's great at seeing this overall strategy of like i mean this is the best course of action that we have right now right i mean just because you can't fight doesn't mean you can't be a good strategist and we said earlier i think in the last episode that septon barthish role kind of coming in but as we find out from dance like obviously and no one knows this right sam doesn't know that much about like the northern politics turns out they have like secret plans and shit but they can't all know that and they can't know that much about the northern politics turns out they have secret plans and shit but they can't all know that and they can't know that the Karstarks actually

are going to completely screw them but they will soon, Jon will know soon so good thing that girl's running away Jon commands that Sam get the sealing wax then that he take the letter to Aemon when he leaves and dispatch a bird to King's Landing Sam hesitates and asks,

well, what's up with Gilly leaving and crying? And then Sam lies, saying that, oh, Val sent her to plead for man's again, and Jon told her that he would speak to Spandis, though he doubts that he can really sway him. A king's first duty is to defend the realm, and Mance attacked it. His grace is not like to forget that. My father used to say that Stannis Baratheon was a just man. No one has ever said he was forgiving. Jon pauses. He says he'd sooner give the gift to Mance himself, that he was a man of the Night's Watch, and by rights, his life belongs to the Wall. Yeah.

So, earlier I was talking about, you know, Sam doesn't really know what happened between Jon and Khororn Halfhand, even though John kind of hints at it. But this goes to show even more how that gap between two best friends has widened. Right. Which is why all this like Lord Snow stuff really catches Sam by surprise in a bit. Because I mean, I think Sam sort of takes John suggesting the execution of Mance a little bit in stride, right? He's just like, yeah, I guess. I don't know. That's what people do. But we, the readers, know what executing Mance and Jon suggesting it, what that really means for Jon emotionally. But that's not something that Sam can see because Jon never shared that with him. Yeah. The withholding is kind of obvious this chapter now that i look at it and seeing the other side you just see how much john is really holding

back i mean even sam holds back this chapter too because he's like afraid so afraid to say things it's friendship friendship being teenagers is hard during an apocalypse man it so is and so sam also relays some of the gossip from their friends he's like you know pip said mel wants to give him to the flames and work sorcery and john's like pip should learn to hold his tongue of course he says king's blood to wake a dragon sam thinks where melisandre thinks to find a sleeping dragon, no one is quite sure. It's nonsense. Mance's blood is no more royal than mine own. He has never worn a crown nor set a throne.

He's a brigand, nothing more. There's no power in brigand's blood. Under the snow, Ned. Snow. This line, dude, really? and brigand's blood under the snow nad snow this line dude really his blood is no more royal than mine own he's never worn a crown nor sat a throne he has no power interesting i i think we i don't remember we probably talked about this in the Jon chapters, but I mean, yeah, Mance was a king. No throne, no crown, but clearly he has power, right? He was able to unite a shit ton of people in Stannis despite having a crown. No throne.

Was not able to. I was about to say and a throne, and I was like, that's not true he did not have the throne my bad you don't gotta do him like that but i mean john's in denial mance is clearly a king people wanted to follow him and what what is a king if not a leader so anyway finally john drops the big bomb he's sending gillian the boy away and that they'll need to find another wet nurse for the brother. Sam mentions goat milk for the meantime, and that he had read about it somewhere, and then tells John what he had read while looking through the annals this week. 400 years- sorry, pretend it's like an HBO, like, you know, trailer of- 400 years before the conquest, there was another boy commander, Osric Stark. 10 when he was chosen, but served for

sixty years. He's like, that's four so far. John, you are only the fifth youngest Lord Commander. And also, wouldn't it, isn't it interesting that the other younger four were all sons, brothers, or bastards of a king in the north? And I'm just like, Sam.

Sam's just saying, like, you might have forgotten how much the meritocracy at the Night's Watch was a sham, John. But let me remind you about how much of a sham it is. And also that it's part of how I got you elected. I love that, too, because it's like, it's in your blood, John. Bastards used to get this job all the time. Don't worry, John john you're perfectly qualified we've always had shit management at the wall this is the worst nepotism hire john would have i mean in like i don't know if john had like at least another 10 years of interning you know or being and then becoming a steward you know actually like

really doing it sure if only here he is god 6 15 my gosh well when you're 15 somebody doesn't your lord commander john finally asks about their true enemy, the Others. Sam says, they're mentioned, but not as much as I'd have thought. There's more I haven't read yet. I need more time to read more of the books. He explains the Oldest are all crumbled away or buried elsewhere and falling apart. And also, some of these might just not exist. The Oldest histories that were left were runes on rocks from the first men, right? So everything that we know in this world comes from Septons, thousands of years later.

Their translations and interpretations. Now the Archmaesters at the Citadel question it all. Brandon the Builder, Simeon Star-Eyes, Night's King. You know, they're now calling Jon the 998th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, but the oldest list Sam's able to find shows 674 commanders, and it kind of looks like it was written

a very long time ago. Jon's like, shut up, nerd. I mean, he kind of essentially says it because, I mean, sam going on like 20 different tangents before coming back to the actual thing that he was asked about that is a big mood right if that's not what we do on this podcast then i don't know but you know blah blah blah the histories and the stories lenses of stories they're inaccurate as they get told over the years right and you find out that your heroes are not the way or the songs were not the way you thought and i mean i think it kind of fits in all systematically with what we're gonna see of

the family histories and how people see their childhood heroes like i think obviously john's gonna be like wait so ned's not my biological father and all this other stuff about my parentage so that's one way that it's gonna show up but i think it kind of does for sam too right like i everyone else in westeros has really bought into this mythology of randall charlie like amazing military leader great fighter and like the lords you know all these manly men fighters in westworld are like all about it stand is like you know you're really not like your dad last chapter and there we see that disconnect right same as we do with like what they're talking about with the legends and stories right you got the randall the battlefield real respected lord and then you've got like how that disconnects with this honorable Randall right really nothing like the private

Randall of Sam's life who is pretty terrible and also the Randall that we see for Brienne right who defies all of those norms that uphold this image of Randall yeah

yeah absolutely and there is something in that i was thinking about that with brienne that like that's how you know he's such a shit person because it's one thing to hate your kid which is already fucked up okay cal jacobs yeah cal jacobs in here it's one thing to fucking hate your kid but then like he also is a total fuck to brienne and it's like oh so you just hate everyone okay cool yeah cool you hate all of society cool cool yeah what a fucker yeah he's pretty terrible pretty heinous i don't like him aliana i don't like him sam has been able to find talk of dragonglass in all of these books. Maybe not purely of the others, but definitely dragonglass.

And he's actually found out the children used to give the Night's Watch 100 daggers, obsidian, annually during the Age of Heroes. What he has learned about the others is nothing new. They come when it's cold, or the cold comes when they do. They emerge at night, or night falls when they emerge. They ride the corpses of dead animals, Sam had seen that one for himself, and some accounts even talk about giant ice spiders. Yes, big as hounds. Men who fall to the others must be burnt, or they rise again as their thralls. Faster? Stronger? No one knows. one knows john knows all this though and he's like okay but how do we end them sam and sam's like fire dismays them they're vulnerable to

obsidian he even found an account of the long night that spoke of the last hero slaying others with the blade of dragon steel which gives john pause dragon. Is that Valyrian steel? Sam agrees. He's like, yes, I think it's Valyrian steel. So if we could just get the Lords of Westeros to give up their favored familial ancestral Valyrian steel swords that they fought very hard and killed many other people just to keep and obtain. That should be easy. Yeah, no, NBD. It's gonna go great. Wonderful plan.

Okay, in regards to how we have changed since John 2, all right, I have finally decided reading this chapter, like, okay, okay, fine. I can see Dragonsteel being Valyrian valyrian steel before i was like no it's too obvious and easy how can it just be right there but now i get it i see it all right the point is yes it's right there but it's very difficult because of the human element it's not about having finding what dragon steel is it's about getting the people to cooperate and come together. I see it now. We got there, folks. We got there.

I don't know. I think it makes just a lot of sense. I mean... It just felt too easy. But maybe it's just been a long time. It's been like 11 years. But like you just said, talking about history and how it

gets condensed so easily it makes a lot of sense to me that dragon steel valyrian steel would have two names same thing just like how you have the ifa quevron as the eastern name for the children of the forest yeah yeah or sometimes they're crocodiles right and sometimes they're crocodiles, right? And sometimes they're lizard lions. Exactly. Exactly. Brilliant. Brilliant.

Or wait, is it alligator? I don't know. Sometimes it's pronounced Gianna. Sometimes it's pronounced Ashara. I mean. Exactly. Exactly. So they haven't really figured out any of the other motives for the others beyond what we already know.

Sam's like, I need more time to read more. And John like there is no time you'll be leaving tonight to old town which yes is very close to horn hill and amen will be going with you as well all right so we're gonna start with the horse the dead horse that i'm gonna beat throughout this chapter because it is so telling that even before john tells sam that amon is gonna go and then he means to enroll sam in the citadel all of which like are very traumatic for sam sam's first immediate like immediate first reaction about going to old town he's like that's really close to horn hill and his trauma is just like so sudden and at the forefront of like how he immediately responds and that only deepens throughout the chapter which becomes more and more about you know defying brandle and as opposed to like he doesn't even want to risk being near his dad that's like how bad it is and again the beginning of the chapter really highlights how

like despite the wall being so close to like all of these attacks and death it's a crumbling place it's also a safe place to him compared to home because sam is just like literally more afraid of his father than he is of dealing with the scary knights watch leaders fighting the free folk the whites and the Others. All of these things are less scary to him than Randall Tarly. Right. Like, even Darren. Darren is, by all accounts, an annoying-ass person.

Right? I can't wait till we get to do some Darren chapters here upcoming, because he's just like, you know the motherfucker vapes. You know that he has probably a sound cloud with maybe not so consistent music on it he's just one of those motherfuckers and it's not even like he's not a menacing person sam even recognizes he's like oh fuck this guy i could beat this dude up if i had to this guy's ob obnoxious. Sam is so confident now when it comes to knowing the watch, the wall, the people,

how to deal with them. Even just that John didn't lead with his plan, maybe that's what I would have requested. Because instead, he gave him the three dots on Messenger. You know what I'm saying?

He was like, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, like typing for eight years. Maybe lead with it, because that is very close to Horn Hill. He buries the lead each time. He's like, oh, I'm sending Gilly. I'm sending Eamon. By the way, you're going to the Citadel. We're going to get to all that. It comes with that withholding. He just like each time right it's not just one explosion

it's just like a series of like punch to the face it's that guilt and that withholding and like trying to circumvent it and get away around it and like it's very frustrating because honestly had you told him earlier and been up front with it he probably could have helped you find a way out of it but that's the other part of it right that's the token john thinks this is the only way that he needs to kill the boy and he needs to do all this to save everyone and if he can just do it and take care of it everyone will be safe and everyone will turn out okay and he can't ask for anyone's help because he has to just do it on his own yeah that's not how like i feel management works early day that is not what the night's watch is about you know i mean literally you can't do it like on

your own that's not how that's the whole point of the night that's why there are teams dying teams but they're there yeah they are so i don't i don't even know if it's like guilt like john like legitimately doesn't like the guilt is like sending sam he doesn't even like consider all the other parts you know like yeah he's just like i don't know whatever compartmentalizing he's flailing oh my god. And Sam kind of immediately lashes back. He's like, Eamon can't survive this. Who's gonna be marrying our duties? And Jon's like, Clytus has it covered.

And he's like, are you sure? That Clytus? You sure? So he still argues. Can you imagine that during the five year gap, does that mean like, Clytus would have been would Clytus have had to do this for five years years there would be three people left at the night's watch no messages no internet oh my god john explains the risk for amon to stay is greater than him leaving he's's a king. Stannis knows that. The Red Woman knows that. Soon it

could become important. Jon will be sending Daeron with them, joining up at Eastwatch, maybe winning some men in the south with his songs for them. They would first be delivered to Braavos, where they would need to arrange passage to Oldtown. If he still means to claim Gilly's child as his bastard, he could do so there, sending them on to Horn Hill. Otherwise, Eamon can help her find a servant's place at the Citadel. Sam begins to break it all down in his head that he'd need to send a letter to his mother and sisters that, well, I wouldn't actually have to go to Horn Hill, but what if he drowned on the ship?

Ships sink all the time. What a great jump. I wouldn't have to jump to my dad. Hey, what if I drowned? That could work out what if i drowned oh i mean and that's the thing right like it's so sad because like interspersed in all this you see like sam's interiority and he cannot get it out to tell john you know like what his fear is he just keeps being like he's gonna take care of the watch but what about this thing but what about this thing and john just like refuses to see it and like as you said right i mean okay ships are terrifying very dangerous stanis lost his parents in the shipwreck anna and elsa lost their parents

in a shipwreck and as you said right that job from sam he's like i could die i could drown and that would be a great way to not have to see my dad he's like this could really work out for me i could just die in the middle of the ocean uh until he remembers like oh yeah what about gilly and the child he's like oh fine i guess i guess the ship will have to survive fuck and i mean yeah you really see the difference between earlier sam who as you said providing great advice to john very smooth very confident saying a lot of things complete sentences going about history and then here he can't even like form full sentences he's stuttering can't even get two words out and yeah i mean him failing to be able to voice his fears it's it's a lot like john hiding his reasons um first of all like hiding what he went through on the other

side of the wall but also when he met up with man's right he hid his real reasons for joining man's but unfortunately none of these tricks that sam is pulling work on john um we're just gonna come back to more there's a lot of sam's trauma to impact here we'll come back to it it does remind me of the beginning of storm right when he's just in the snow and he's like oh just let me die yeah that's such a mood it is that's him he's like on the he's like oh let me die on the ship he's even like finally how you know he's so traumatized right now is because he then says well darren could just take gilly you know to old town i don't have to and totally like that i mean that's the person that's made him brave again right like that's the person he's

relying on to help keep him bold and confident and able to be brave so it's like wow you just straight up are like what if i just didn't go and gilly and darren went instead uh you know he's not in his perfect state of mind with that right uh and he's like i've been i've been practicing at longbow you know i don't know and john like, you're not important to me here. He's like, Longbow practice will keep me here. Oh, Sam, you have not been practicing at Longbow is the first thing. Like, that's a fucking lie. And John's like, I have plenty of men here.

And the Citadel has plenty of parchment as well as Longbows that you could practice with. And I need you to read and write. And I need you to become the new maester, which again, could have led with that, then you could have gotten the panic attack out of the way. Right? But that's not how the book works for cohesive tension. And I do have to say, this is a perfect plot point, because on rereadad just the flow of a feast for crows uh the introduction to the citadel and the prologue and its eerie mystery pate the key all of it and the politics at play and some of the new players that we'll probably see in the winds of winter much more closely aaron's first chapter where you have baptisms at the beach kyburn's introduction in cersei's

chapter uh the holy men on the road in brienz and now here we are we've arrived to take sam to old town as someone who didn't exactly finish their higher education after high school let it be a little too high if you know what i mean i was supposed to complete due to a variety of reasons anyways but this whole idea of like sam's character growth and the next destination for his character and what he needs to move his character to the next step in the story sam pursuing that higher education and what he wanted to pursue and that his father obviously as we're about to read would not let him pursue uh any means whatsoever. Like you said, healing that childhood trauma, instead of just shoving it down, putting it in a bin,

closing the bin, sending it off to Essos, might be the safer way, right? Like, this is how you prevent making complete broken man. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm sure Sam would prefer to go to essos also i don't know not so much we're seeing not so much he's like that's pretty far from hornhill but absolutely um

poor sam and here's here's what it looks like for him, you know freaking out the word made him flinch no father, please, I won't speak of it again I swear by the seven, let me out please let me out my lord, I my work is here, the books

we'll be here when you return to us Sam put a hand to his throat. He could almost feel the chain there, choking him. My lord, the Citadel, they make you cut up corpses there? They make you wear a chain about your neck. If it is chains you want, come with me. For three days and three nights, Sam had sobbed himself to sleep,

manacled hand and foot to a wall. The chain around his throat was so tight it broke the skin, and whenever he rolled the wrong way in his sleep, it would cut off his breath. I cannot wear a chain. You can't. You will. Maester Aemon is old and blind. his strength is leaving him who will take his place when he dies john is puzzled by sam's reaction he thought that this would be like everything he wanted right a golden ticket to wonka factory for sam but while sam loves books

he's also very afraid of blood and healing others and his hands are shaking and he shows John he's Sam the scared not Sam the slayer John lets him have it he says what are you scared of and he's like the chidings of old men you fought others you killed an other Sam it's so sad, right? Because, like, again, that's the point. That's how afraid Sam is of Randall. Like, an other is, again, literally preferable to dealing with Randall for Sam. And I love, like, that this passage shows before Sam even responds.

He's talking about the corpses, right? He's saying he's scared of the corpses, but his body's not saying that. Because immediately his reaction is his hand goes to his throat right he's just remembering that physical sensation yeah like now he's full in and he just has to lie his way out because he's so fucking dramatized yeah john keeps going in on him right he's like you lied and schemed and plotted to make me lord commander and now you will obey John says he'll forge a chain and if he has to cut up corpses so be it at least in old town the corpses don't object fuck so you have the exchange of john i cannot disobey my father john he'd said but john was

gone it was lord snow who faced him now gray eyes as hard as ice you have no father only brothers only us your life belongs to the night's watch so go and stuff your small clothes into a sack along with anything else you care to take to Old Town. You leave an hour before sunrise, and here's another order. From this day forth, you will not call yourself a Craven. You've faced more things this past year than most men face in a lifetime. You can face the Citadel, but you'll face it as a sworn brother at the Night's Watch. I can't command you to be brave, but I can command you to hide your fears. You said the words, Sam. Remember?

I am the sword in the darkness. But he was wretched, but the sword in the darkness scared him. I... I'll try. You won't try. You will obey. Obey. Obey. obey John's doing a really bad job of passing on

the career advice of fake it till you make it Sam I feel like that's what John's trying to share because he's doing it just don't let them see you're afraid fake it Sam's like I I can't. Talking about Anna and Elsa, damn.

Oh, true, true, true. Actually, though. Don't let it show. So, I feel like Jon's taking on this kind of, as he becomes more like his father Ned, right, and having this lord's face, he ends up taking, I think, that paternal role in sam's life by forcing him to obey right because again that's what randall wanted sam to do obey right making him go into harm and like again sam's just like so traumatized that he cannot say why he doesn't want to go to the citadel and i'm like yeah sam is now part of the night's watch but again randall's abuse was so deep that sam's just having like panic attacks thinking about this and like his father just physically tortured him so much

and he just like has a negative pavlovian response to even like the thought of becoming a maester or even stepping foot in the citadel and i kind of think it's a little super shitty i get why because john's also got trauma but he's Sam, you don't have a family anymore and they can no longer emotionally impact you. When Jon is over here being like, but what if I wrist it all with this paper shield because I want the Lannisters to rot forever because of what they did to Jon's family

that he's supposed to not care about. And also how John ends up dying. Anyway, unfortunately, again, these two boys are not communicating well with one another because of their pain. But I mean, you know, for John, right? It's a lot of different things. Like the weight of being pushed

into this very, very high management leadership position with absolutely no experience at all. And he's also, as we see from that John chapter, lashing out from the emotional weight of his discussion with Gilly. And I do kind of get a little bit of where John's coming from in that because, but I also think it's a little unfair to compare like oh Gilly didn't cry right or stammer the way that Sam is right Gilly's very steeled in accepting what John asks of her and taking this other baby and leaving

hers and she has a really reserved reaction but that's because Gilly doing that is also her own like that comes from her own trauma like that's a practice like survival response in order to minimize the abuse that she and her mother sister aunts there's hyphens between all those words because they're all kind of the same thing uh would receive from her father from

like their father husband sorry collective um and i mean yeah gilly had a lot of bravery in defying her father for the sake of her child but i mean sam doesn't have something like that means as much to him yet as gilly did in that circumstance right to do something like that is this emotionally intense intensive and also like this huge traumatic thing like when it came to her father and that doesn't mean that just because gilly did that sam or anyone else should have to like confront their abusers ever again either but this is like a fabricated story and you're supposed to i guess throw your characters into adversity but whatever right i mean that's part of the tension for sure and the plot it's the strongest character i mean the pure fucking irony of all of it right

of john snow making decisions about someone's child for a secret king is just out of control fucking hysterical uh a bastard how could george resist it is very how could he resist it's a bastard versus a secret king george you're so cheeky so cheeky cheeky but i can also see like the trauma for john on that too of like knowing what he's doing to these children and separating them from what family they have left each and what that does to a person of not getting to know or be with your family possibly because like right now the hope is that maybe they can come back if the weather's clear you know but like the weather's not going to get clear because we still have two books so yeah and uh i don't know if you speaking of the citadel john did you get your like white like your white pigeon because winter is here bitch or white ravens sorry they're

not pigeons yeah i keep i i cycled through a lot of birds there but yeah you tried also it doesn't matter you know i mean john's dead so sam submits to all this and he's like as my lord commands and he's like did amon know and john's like fuck yeah amon knew of course he knew it was half his idea oh my god it's kind of funny uh John opens the door and he's like there will be no farewells the fewer that see you leave the better so the next thing Sam knows he's stumbling up to Eamon thinking about how he could hide he could hide in the vaults he could sneak up food for himself at night he could go beyond the wall but that would make no matter he would get eaten and murdered within moments by free folk is what he thinks uh this made me laugh because it kind of

made me think of some of the lore we've talked about in the john chapters right of arson ice axe and him trying to cross the wall by digging through its base getting walled in alive or gendel and gorn hiding under the place and getting killed on the other side. Yeah. They couldn't do it. Yeah, they couldn't do it. But I think Sam and Gilly could do it if they wanted,

except now they've got the others, so that kind of sucks. I noticed at the beginning of the chapter, they said that they called the tunnels in the nights watch the wormways too. So interesting. Yes, the wormways.

Yeah. Well, when Sam finally reaches Eamon, he gives him Jon's letter and blurts out all of his fears at once to this man, saying Jon doesn't understand. And Eamon shows a little more empathy, saying that, you know, his own father had the same objections.

It was his father's father who had sent him to the Citadel, eventually. And King Darren had sired four sons, and three had sons of their own. Too many dragons are as dangerous as too few, I heard his grace tell my lord father the day they sent me off.

Eamon raised a spotted hand to the chain of many metals that dangled loose about his thin neck. The chain is heavy, Sam, but my grandsire had the right of it. So does your lord Snow. The ravens echo, Snow! in the background.

Sam had taught them that word. I love this. Adorable. I love it so much. Very cute. He's very proud, very pleased, but I also love that in the very first chapter in the prologue for a feast for crows we get this little passage in the apple tree beside the water a nightingale began to sing it was a sweet sound a welcome respite from harsh screams and endless quirking of ravens he attended all day long the white ravens knew his name and would mutter to

each other whenever they caught sight of him pate pate pate until he wanted to scream the big white birds were archmaester walgrave's pride he wanted them to eat him when he died but pate half suspected they meant to eat him too i love that rereading the prologue i love some of these little parallels that like pate and walgrave are another universe sam and amen right other sam if they were at the citadel and instead of being here in the north and you know we also actually get this line kind of talking about the theme of the mission right where aleris brings up the beggar king had a sister and they argue i thought her head was smashed against a wall no it was prince rhaegar's young son aegon whose head was dashed we speak of rhaegar's sister

daenerys interesting interesting stuff they're good chapters to kind of put next to each other they are if we were that kind of podcast i would but we're not we're not those kind of girls we wouldn't be on feast if we were that's true we wouldn't be back at feast you would still like i don't know where we would be but not here yet uh i do think it's kind of unfair of amen to compare his situation to sam's but again like no one really knows that well what Sam underwent with all this because Eamon's all like

oh yeah my dad also did not be going to the Citadel but Grandpa King said I should go, King Grandpa but I'm just like I don't know Eamon, your dad like was actually pretty nice to you like I read The Hedge Knight so I know I've met him, don't fucking lie to me

and also i feel like your dad did not physically abuse and torture you to not go and also again grandpa king backed you up and sam has just been like i don't know he was alone and isolated when all this happened and like randall also very much made sure of that so it's pretty different amen that's the other thing like also amen you didn't have your relationship with your brothers ruined because of it or your siblings and your family ruined over this yeah you know like amen still had correspondence with his siblings even though he went to the wall after etc like he he literally still had to keep his family in some ways he still lost them as well and suffered the loss of seeing his family die and that that's why he's so open to this journey right now he's like fuck

it let's do it you only live once unless you're john snow. But Sam, I think it's I think they're both like complex situations obviously, but it is unfair in some aspects. Jon got a very deeper talk in a Game of Thrones than what Sam is getting from this now. But that's okay because he's going to get deeper talks

over the next couple chapters. Yeah, he's going to get to see Aemon's trauma. It's fun. We're having fun. We're going to, exactly. That's kind of the bigger thing is like, this does feel unfair in the moment, but it gets unraveled, I feel like,

over the next couple chapters. Just like his life. And then Eamon dies in front of Sam. It's fun. It's a whole new trauma. Sign up for more for next week. So in his heart of hearts, Sam knows Eamon won't survive this journey. Good eye, Sam.

And he worries Gilly's son might die too because he's so small and he's not as strong as Dallas boy. Haha, don't worry. Good thing. He thinks, does John mean to kill us all? The next morning, he saddles the mayor that he rode in from horn hill so the horse that he rode in on when he first came to the wall he saddles her up her saddlebags are filled with cheese sausage and hard-cooked eggs as well as half a salted ham that hobb gave him on his birthday hobb had said you're a good man who appreciates cook and slayer. We need more of your sort.

That's so sweet to me. That's so sweet. That's so sweet. He gave him a salted ham on his birthday. If a cook gives you personal food, you know it's real. You know, like, that's a big step in a relationship. I know. Damn.

I had a sushi chef like that. Like, I don't know what it was, but they liked me. They were always like, try this. Boom. Yeah. But then you end up, you end up the test the guinea pig you're like uh I am happy usually it's good I would love to be Hobbes guinea pig all the time oh oh you're right I don't know that really touched me it is touching especially because we know that Sam has looked to food for comfort, right? I feel that.

Because food, yeah, I can't wait to hang up with your bitch ass and go eat tonight. Like, I want to eat more. A pair of two-wheeled wains await Sam in the lickyard, since Eamon is too weak to ride a horse, and Gilly and her child could ride with him. The second wain would take their possessions, as well as a chest of old rare books that Eamon thought the Citadel may want." That's so, so cute. Sam had only found one fourth of the super rare books, though at this point, the wain is so overloaded, so that might be a good thing. And speaking of cute things, Maester Eamon, in a bearskin, three times his size. But it's like,

he almost falls over, so Sam has to keep hold of him. Ugh, this is all too sad. I can't. I can't read these. These are all too sad. Okay, well, you have to. I know. The blind man nodded as the wind pushed back their hoods. It is always warm in Old Town. There is an inn

on an island in the Honeywine where I used to go when I was a young novice. It will be pleasant to sit there once again sipping cider. What the fuck? What the fuck, George? Why did you include this?

But he's the one writing it. This isn't my fault. Don't at me. This is fucked up. Once they get the maester in the wane gilly and the child appear her eyes are red from crying and john turns up at the same time maester amen calls out to john saying i left you a book the jade compendium written by the valentine adventurer colloquio votar there's a passage marked for you that i think you'll find interesting he tells him knowledge is a weapon arm yourself for battle and john says he will john turns to blackjack bulwer

telling him to make good time but take no foolish risks he's an he has an old man and a suckling babe aboard he tells jack to keep them warm and fed and and Gilly pipes up, telling him to do the same, to find another wet nurse, like he promised. He says she has his word, and she tells him he better not name him, not till he's passed two years, that it's ill luck whether the crows know that or not. He says, as you command, my lady, and that, of course, sets Gilly off, and she says, don't you call me that. I'm a mother, not a lady. I'm Craster's wife and Craster's daughter and a mother.

I guess we talked about this in John 2, but you know what? Let's do it again. All right. Because it's great. This is a great moment. I love it. It's like a great moment i love it it's like legitimately the more i think about it i think one of the most surprising lines in the series to me right because her denying that ladyship but especially claiming right as though it's like

a badge of honor uh that she's craster's wife and craster's daughter and then yeah she follows it with like anna mother i it's just i think it's so striking it's not something you would think she would be proud of and that makes it i think really well written yeah she's taking strength from her weakness right and this weakness is kind of a fatal flaw in the eyes of almost everyone else especially in westeros right you show up and say that that to someone else in westeros to a normal human being that doesn't know the situation in the south right she's gonna show up in the south and maybe say this to someone and they might turn their nose up at her uh this this weakness her embracing it and having to let go of her son and what he means to

her and what she suffered and also what he means to her and what she suffered and also what he means to her like in the birth of that suffering and like the the after you know the world after she finally escapes from the life she lived at craster's keep yeah and i mean like what you're saying right about people judging her i mean we see stannis do it he's like yeah she's an abomination her kid abomination abominations in general and it's like whoa chill homie and you can't just go dropping the a-bomb everywhere you can't just be calling people abominations or things that they didn't choose but like that's the thing right she didn't choose it and it's just so so interesting and like it she's doing what tyrian told john that he should do but gilly's

actually way better at it because she's she's owning this moment and she's taking pride in it like you know this is unfortunate like a really like devastating part of like her specific like mini culture up there that doesn't fit into westeros and yeah I mean she's finding strength in it in a way like I feel like Tyrion would preempt people and like oh and you know oh you know he's a dwarf but use it to like bludgeon himself whereas Gilly is like no I have lived through this like and it's not you can't pigeonhole me into being a lady and there's almost something in it that's the prime example of something we spoke a lot about during john's chapters with kind of the free folk coming through the wall them having to give up their riches and pieces of their culture right memories jewelry

weaponry to pay for passage at the wall into the realm gilly is making that ultimate sacrifice for a better life beyond the wall not just for herself but for her people right she's giving up her child choosing to sacrifice so that dala and mance's child might have a future and be able to lead their people the free folk into having a better life here across the wall and you know maybe gilly's child will grow up at the watch under the guise of being mance's son right under the guise of being uh a prince a fake prince basically an agon unless he's slaughtered right by stanis and melisandre sub note sub note but at that same time gilly will be somewhere raising mance's son pretending he's her own craster's bastard secretly king to a people who suffered immensely to get relief from

the others as we know like royalty doesn't work the same way amongst the free folk but regardless like mance was so well esteemed right the child might not necessarily be a prince because that's not how kingship works but it's kind of like you know edrick storm speaking so proudly of his father robert baratheon right and when you contrast that with like how gilly is claiming being descended and then wedded to craster like that pride is i think it's really interesting how you know she's found meaning and strength despite despite what she's been through and you know whatever like everyone has been through at the watch gilly's motherhood meant that she also faced ice demons right just like a lot of them did i guess but she also kind of in a way i would say did it on like a more regular basis throughout her life because we all know now a little bit about what

craster was doing with those sons and also she like sam right they they both face their monsters at home in within their own home right not just the others in a very physical way in a very like sexually abusive way um for both of them in different ways like that not many of these other people understand like for gilly though it was you know more directly rape and she knows that it's unfair right she raises mance's son and she did briefly plea for mance's life and she's like i don't understand like why mance has to die uh when he was like a way better man than my dad like that's pretty fucked up that you're gonna execute him and you let craster live this whole time and almost didn't rescue me john

so he's also so like i mean there's an aspect of her denying that title of being a lady of being like don't bother pretending that there's order or nobility in the world by calling me a lady i know that there isn't i don't fit within that confine yeah she's also like quickly much more astute to realize all of it's bullshit you all are big fat fucking feathered hypocrites dude absolutely like she went through all this shit to save her son and they're like you know what your reward is for doing that you have to do it again for someone else's kid serve obey bitch like that yeah that's kind of how it feels i swore no oaths she was just like guilted heavily into this and she does it with grace i mean yeah she does it with grace. I mean, yeah, she does it with grace.

Ed takes the babe from her while she gets settled in with some pelts around her. And then he hands him back. And Sam is busy gazing at Castle Black thinking, this could be the last time I even see it. As much as he once hated it, now he's sad. He says farewell to Ed and then it's time for a farewell with John. Hold on, I have to sit up for this. She's like, I gotta do a lot of John voicing. Yeah, I kind of lost it a little on the last one.

Sorry, guys. I gotta be better this time. Just close it out. The first time I saw Gilly, she was pressed back against the wall of Craster's Keep. This skinny, dark-haired girl with her big belly, cringing away from Ghost. The first time I saw Gilly, she was pressed back against the wall of Craster's keep, this skinny, dog-haired girl with her big belly, cringing away from Ghost. He had gotten in among her rabbits, and I think she was frightened he would tear her open and devour the babe. But it was not the wolf she should have been afraid of, was it? No, Sam thought. Craster was the danger, her own father.

She has more courage than she knows. So do you, Sam. Have a swift, safe voyage, and take care of her, and Eamon, and the child. John smiled a strange, sad smile. And pull up your hood. The snowflakes are melting in your hair. Don't touch me. First of all,

Sam still hasn't gotten it, but John kind of just tried to nudge him, right? He was like, that wasn't the only wolf she should have been afraid of, huh? He's like, it's almost like you, Sam. He betrayed his own brother with snowflakes melting in their hair yeah this is him saying but

not saying i love you bro i'm sorry bro forgive me bro i love you and like you said right i i do see what sam is i do see what john is getting at I really do and like you said Gilly does it all with grace she's very brave she's very resourceful and she can spirit a child away again she has proven it once and has been rewarded for her great job of doing this by having to do it again because John is like

clearly they both make a very good team when it comes to kidnapping so I believe in their success doing it again but i mean with gilly right again she's more no oaths she's she's again like that embodiment of someone i don't know can someone do something and unfortunately this time that someone is gilly right if not her, Jon's like, then who? You know what Gilly and Sam have vibe-wise also? In some aspects, some parallels? There's many, but what else?

Real Hashara vibes. Interesting. Just the idea of spiriting a child away. Howland and Ned obviously had to kind of, you know, bring baby Jon all the way back from Dorne all the way up. But something about, like, Sam as the nerdy but also mystical BFF of Ned 2.0. Yeah, yeah.

And the baby swapping and lying about the children and towers, whether they're of joy or sadness. And getting bullied. Yeah, and the bullying. Yeah, exactly. No, I'm serious. Yes, you're right. Yeah. of joy or sadness yeah and the bullying yeah exactly no i'm serious yes you're right yeah

that's yeah i feel like gilly and sam have some big howland and ashara vibes going on i hope they get to go be in a bog together that'd be cool i mean it could be fine if they were like i don't know old town seems like it has great weather yeah when it's not about fucking burning down because of you're on yeah exactly you, we've heard great, great talk about the cider from Eamon, from Maester Eamon. We've heard great talk about the fruits from Maester Pycelle to Ned. He's like, you know

what was great? The fruits over in Oldtown. I was like, okay, Pycelle. Everyone seems to like it, even Renly speaks of it, you know? Sounds like a great time. Fruit from the arbor. When it's not burning. While everyone book your

vacation soon, because I hear that once the winds of winter come out, it's over for us. Euron Greyjoy's gonna fuck that land up. Mm-hmm. But we might, it seems like we have a lot of time until then well

I think that's it for this chapter yeah that's it for Sam 1 and A Feast for Crows we'll be back next week with Sam 2 and A Feast for Crows we're cruising on through and my gosh we'll have to, we'll have to announce a we'll have to announce a new POV sooner or later, so keep an

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to send us an email. You can at girlsgonecanon at gmail.com. Yeah, and if you haven't already subscribed to us on a podcast streaming platform near you, please do so. Whichever your fave is, press the follow, whether it is Spotify, Stitcher, Acast,

Google Play, iTunes, Audible, Amazon Podcasts. Pick one. They're all there. And hey, if you have a second, please leave us a review. Hopefully it's five stars. Feel free to talk about, I don't know, something Eliana likes or something I like or something you like. Eliana likes the reviews.

Please do it. Please do it. I have no opinions. I think Chloe likes the review and she it please do it i have no opinions i think chloe likes the review and she just wants to project it on me nope this is a you thing i don't like reading um we also have a patreon uh patrons in the stranger tier and above will get access to this month's special episode mushroom itroom. It's gonna be fun. It's gonna be great. Yeah, Stranger tier and above get bonus episodes like that. And if you're in the Thunder tier or above, you get access to our private Discord server where we chat with friends about everything

and anything, whether it's shows, games, books, whatever we're doing currently listening to. And we also do a monthly brunch, which this month will be on March 20th, 1-3pm Eastern Time, Eliana time. So we would love to see you there. As always, I have been one of your hosts, Chloe. And I have been another one of your hosts,

Eliana. There's snowflakes melting in our hair. Sobbingbing one more page oh that is kind of how it goes though isn't it you know what the reading has always been the hardest wait that's not the line sobbing another episode see you next week