Girls Gone Canon Cast - ASOIAF Episode 212 — ASOS Arya V
Episode Date: December 22, 2023Arya listens to disco legend Anita Ward while at a tavern full of girls with her BFF Gendry who is one of many people with black hair. She learns about her dad's history during the rebellion when some...one brings a stray dog. WOW, END OF THE YEAR. LAST EPISODE OF 2023—SEE YOU IN 2024 AKA TWENTY-TWENTY-SANDFOUR CLEGANE (I really tried there) Image created by Chloe re: Bullratheon: Credits: Attribution 3.0 GoodListener's Stable Noises at https://freesound.org/people/GoodListener/sounds/322443/All other sounds used via Commons 0 ---- 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: liesandarborgold.com Intro by Anton Langhage
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Hello, and welcome to Girls Gone Canon Reads A Song Of Ice And Fire, Episode 212, Aria 5, A Storm of Swords.
I'm one of your hosts, Chloe.
And I'm another one of your hosts, Eliana.
And are you ready for the final Aria episode of the year slash Girls Gone Canon episode of the year?
It's not the final Aria episode.
She has a chapter in every single book.
Yeah, this bitch is popular.
Don't worry.
I love her for that.
She's so real.
This is our last episode of 2023.
The last time you'll hear us
on your feed with a new
episode in 2023.
For the historians.
Yeah, for the
historians listening, all those maesters
at the Citadel.
We'll be back.
Don't worry, can't get rid of us that
easily, unfortunately. We'll be back. Don't worry. Can't get rid of us that easily.
Unfortunately, we'll be back next year, 2024.
There will be no episode on the 29th of December.
Go party.
But we will return.
Yeah, go party.
Take a shot in our honor.
Take two.
One for Chloe, one for me.
You're drinking for three, everyone.
Oh my god.
Whether it's a...
Yeah, we expect that you will be with family friends kissing smooching
go kiss and smooch your family and friends be safe kisses yeah yeah be safe but we'll be back
on january 5th with a special episode that is being sponsored by our patrons because patrons
over in the stranger tier and up get bonus episodes.
Every month they get a brand new bonus episode based on what management has chosen for them.
Surprise, we're management.
And they're releasing two eps from the vault for you.
So January 5th, 2024, you will be listening to us talk about A Song for Leah by George R.R. Martin,
a novella that,
I don't know, I really loved this one. I think you did too.
Yeah, I love the jelly people.
Yeah.
It's just like the mind jelly, the giant Neopets jelly.
It's funny because it does have two characters leading the story that have names you might
remember, right?
Rob and Leah.
But of course, they are not our Rob and Leah.
So give that a read.
If you don't have Dream Songs by George R. R. Martin, go get it.
It's so good.
Part one and part two are great.
We are reading some of the stories from part one.
And, you know, eventually we'll collect them all
we'll move on to part two actually yeah i do think we'll eventually move on to part two we are really
enjoying these short stories and we are going to continue reading more of them so you know our
biggest announcement in 2024 is that we're starting wild cards i'm just kidding it It is not yet April 4th. But for January 12th, the week after that, we'll be releasing another one from the vault.
And it will also have Rob in it.
A Song of Ice and Fires Rob, that is.
We'll be releasing our Robisode POV for your listening pleasure.
Where we do an episode based on Rob Stark.
And if, you know, if he had his his own pov what it would look like what we'd learn from him the things we want to learn from him the things
you might want to learn from his pov yeah we really look at you know what his the story from
his perspective would look like as well as what sorts of challenges his specific character would
face his conflicts of the heart etc thought
it'd be nice with these aria episodes yeah i think it goes perfectly i do and honestly i mean there's
so much now that two years later this is what 2021 when we recorded this so like there's so much oh
my god for 2024 yeah yeah way different and some of the questions and how we're reading
aria right now right some of these questions we have and some of these discussions we've been
having i could see them really applying to some of these bits from rob too so it'll be a big
difference right to hear about rob stark in 21 versus rob in a song for Leah in 2023. And after the 12th, the next episode, we'll be right back on track with Aria 6.
And that's not the only thing to look forward to for next year, right?
We're going to finish Aria.
We're going to go to a big new POV for the summer.
So stay tuned, all of those of you that are trying to figure out
how those last POVs come out in order.
And I don't know.
What else?
Part two of Eternal Sailor Moon.
We're going to be back with Magical Girls Gone Canon, the hit series.
I'm also hearing that Unleash the D,
the other series that top critics everywhere have been rating
as 10 out of 10, bold, adventurous, witty, and also a little cutting.
Maybe drunk. The critics that are saying this you know they there's a rumor that unleash the d is coming back for season two
of hot d there is a rumor and i mean we'll just have to everyone will have to stay tuned to see
if the rumors are true if unleash the d will you know unleash if it'll be unleashed. It'll be even more unleashed, even more
D than before.
Uncut.
Bigger D. Oh my god!
Uncut.
Uncut. Bigger.
Stronger.
Hell yeah.
So, you guys,
we'll be back. Don't worry.
You've got a lot to look forward to for 2024.
And hey, December's not over yet for 2023, right?
If you're a patron over at patreon.com slash girlsgonecanon,
we're patrons in the stranger tier.
As I mentioned, get those bonus episodes.
You are still getting a bonus episode in 2023.
This does not have to be the last time you listen to us.
And this is so exciting.
You're getting episode one of our brand new Stranger Tearin' Up patron-only series on The Hunger Games.
We will be covering the first novel by Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games, talking about it, the broad themes in it, and really getting into it.
And I think it's going to be a recurring series, guys.
I do feel it is going to be. I'm always surprised when you it and i think it's gonna be a recurring series guys i do
feel it is going to be i'm always surprised when you make it sound like it might not be i went into
this assuming we were doing the whole series all the books and i mean like as for this being a
series not only do we hope to cover all three of the main books as well as the prequel that has recently gotten a movie.
I mean, it's a pretty, it's a pretty chunky story.
Like, who knows how many each book individually could even be its own series.
Who knows?
Yeah, we're going to find out together this month.
So get ready.
It is a journey.
Discovery.
And of course, for January, we'll let you know what's coming in the front of the year
for your patreon bonus episode in january 2024 but mom's the word for now while our last discord
brunch slash happy hour of the year for our thunder tier and above patrons at ten dollar
and up tier uh that just happened front of the month in December 2023, but January's date has been already decided.
Get excited. We hope to see you next year.
We'll be joining up from 2 to 4 p.m. on January 21st, that's a Sunday, to hang out, and that's Eastern Time, E.T., to hang out, chat, brunch, gossip, gab, giveaway, whatever.
There'll be some fun shit going on we'd love to see you there
absolutely come ring the new year in with us
we'll sing I don't know
old lang syne and by that I mean we're not doing that
I don't know those words
we'll sing something
Mary and Gay
yeah
and it goes without saying but a huge thank you
for listening to us this year
and every year as we get through these crazy published novels by George R.R. Martin.
It has been a pleasure.
It's been a privilege.
And do it again next year.
Roll it back.
Let's do it again.
Every single year until the Winds of Winter comes out.
When T.W.O. comes out, we get to quit.
And then we get to do it again when a dream of spring
comes out forever forever and ever there's a lot of things that seem like they're coming out soon
though in 2024 isn't new hades coming out 24 i think so 24 24 hades 2 excited i'm i am looking
forward to 2024 again there's hades thereades, there's bigger, harder D.
Oh my god.
Okay.
Wow.
Maybe even Sailor Moon Cosmos.
Hopefully.
Fingers crossed.
I think that actually is going to happen.
T-Wow?
What do you think about T-Wow?
Call it in the air.
So thank you everyone for being with us every single year.
And for your continued patience and love.
We appreciate you.
With that,
we'll jump into our emails and tweets of note.
We did get a great email.
This is really fun.
I am excited about this one as a Philly girl.
We got an email from our friend Fox who said,
I came across your podcast way too late in the game.
I've been a pro A Song
of Ice and Fire subreddit lurker and meme farmer for years, real, and never got into podcasts. But
now here they are. I found use this year. Yes, use is important. That is a yes, I found use this year,
right before I started dealing with some issues that took me down for the count.
It was great, like two friends cheering me up. Aw.
They love our takes on Sansa because they say it's very refreshing and they say Littlefinger
needs to get a damn job. That's so true. They love your bear voice, Eliana and my John voice.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Chloe's got new voices. Yeah, I've really... She's been expanding her range. More voices in 2024 to come, too.
I mean, my God.
Oh my gosh, yes.
Think of all the voices we can do.
Anyways, our hot takes have been a bright spot for them.
They're excited to see what's in store.
And we've earned their Patreon subscription.
Oh my God, we've earned their sword.
Thank you so much.
Fox has also posted a picture of their pepperoni which is buffy very cute y'all don't
get to see it but we do very cute dog that's just one of the bonuses the perks of this job
you know what i mean is dogs more dogs yeah but she is very cute and she says that she likes to
call her the queen of love and duty which is very fun amazing oh my god oh i feel that
when it comes to dogs thanks sometimes they're like that yeah thank you so much fox and thank
you for this photo love this picture of buffy our queen our new queen yeah please send your dogs
your cats all those those animal photos to us we love it yeah Makes our day. Makes our day. I mean, I'm
not actually kidding, too. Like, how many times
do I stop you and be like, oh my god, did you see the
dog that someone just emailed us?
Or sometimes people send
birds. We get a lot of animals.
We will take whatever animal you want to send
us that you know and are
personally acquainted with.
Sometimes, I mean, I'm open to animals
you're not personally acquainted with, but sometimes it's your connection with the animal that also truly makes us smile. Yeah. Ghermasi is the neologism I never knew I needed and I'm happy we could do that for you
yes yes that was honestly big day big day for the cast boy pussy our friend egg aka egg on the six
was saying that this was like the most unhinged episode it opens with you telling everyone that the podcast is over.
And then right after that, we go straight into explaining boy pussy to people.
You know, honestly, what's really weird is it was like one of the most fun episodes in the entire fucking universe.
We had a blast.
Yeah.
I'm sure you cut out laughter.
I've had a blast in these Arya episodes.
No, I think I leave a lot of our laughter in.
I think sometimes they just get caught by Noisegate too.
But whatever.
Speaking of things that are fun,
we also got another Patreon comment from Barbara,
whose sentiments are echoed by our friend Rowan in Discord.
But essentially, you know, everyone loves,
they love the idea of a barrack
don darian as an influencer uh idea that you propose chloe and and this get ready with me
grwm series every time i see grrm i think grwm so it tracks yeah we are we've been getting ready with George for years. GRWM, GRRM.
George, get ready, Martin.
George, get ready, Martin.
I have to also comment that Barbara not only laughed at it,
Barbara laughed in Eliana speak at this
because Eliana tends to say la mau
as we've discussed on the podcast
and Barbara commented that she was la mau-ing.
So have to point that out.
Love that.
La mau.
Love everything happening there.
Especially because I just have listened to you say it for like six, seven years now.
So like other people saying la mau, please do.
Please.
Be like Eliana.
I don't think I, I don't even think about it.
I'm convinced other people have said it
and i must have gotten it from them but i just am convinced that this is a normal thing people say
well now you're convincing others no it's not oh god there's gonna be more of her
i don't know if i can do more of her well let's talk more about our girl aria and the other people in this story around her
yeah let's jump into our lightning round with what we missed between aria 4 and aria 5 starting with
daenerys 2 daenerys ponders purchasing a slave army her advisors won't shut up about what her
brother would have done in her place brand 2 brand listens to a tale from mira about a dragon prince
and a wolf maid
Chloe you've been talking about this a lot
these episodes
I don't know what you're talking about
Robert's Rebellion
Davos 3
Davos is imprisoned beneath Dragonstone
but gets a new roommate who fucked up way harder
than he did
that's actually true
John 3
John parts with ghosts the night before the free folk
climb the wall
Daenerys 3
Drogon Dracarys
Sansa 3
Sansa Stark is forced to marry Tyrion Lannister
that brings us to
Arya 5
another happy episode in this series
Arya shows mercy to caged men at Stoney Sept
Arya learns about the
Battle of the Bells. We open up at the Stony Sept, the biggest place that Arya's been since King's
Landing. She learns her father's history with the town. Aerys was hunting Robert, trying to catch
him before he could join up with Lord Eddard. Robert was being hidden and tended to by friends, and Lord
Connington tore apart the townhouse by house, looking for him. Lord Eddard and Lord Hoster
came down on the town, storming the walls, battling in streets and alleys, and the septons
rang the bells, telling the small folk to lock their doors. But Robert joined the fight when
the bells began to ring, slaying six men. One, Miles Mutant, Rhaegar's personal squire.
We have a line of,
he would have slain the hand too,
but the battle never brought them together.
And I do want to say I love the language, right?
That you have the hands against the hands, basically.
Oh my gosh, you're right.
They're throwing hands.
Yeah, because he,
but going back to our first book
right that he if one hand can die then why not another and i think that that language harkens
right back here with the hand versus hand like pity i never had the hands face off george is
being kind of cute here i don't even think about that yeah it might have been i wonder if it's like
a thing that he's thinking about that and also also, I mean, as we know, there were a couple of other things that were changed that would have happened at this point in the story.
Like, I think what Jamie wasn't the one who's going to lose a hand.
It was going to be like Joffrey or something.
Things like that.
And yeah, a lot of hand stuff happening at this point in the books.
I appreciate the John Connington mentions.
lot of hand stuff happening at this point in the books i appreciate the john connington mentions interestingly even though like the idea of him is referenced i think in some of the previous books
it's only in book three that he actually starts getting named and mentioned by name which really
shows how george is now starting to think ahead more of like how he's building the story and
foreshadowing what his role is going to be you know in book five where
he does finally appear yeah and you start to get all the different things of like ronit for example
and building up ronit connington too which is great yeah yeah really fun stuff i also i love
the john conn chapters so excited about those one day yeah i mean you even have what in tyrian one in clash other
chapters i'm excited to get to someday i'm like john con tyrian we have so much left to go uh
where tyrian is telling balish connington died landless and penniless in exile so bit by bit
now we're in storm and here he comes starts to really flesh out the roosts there.
The griffin's roost.
Yeah.
So, of course, Connington didn't just go away with his tail between his legs fully, right?
He got a few digs in.
He killed Dennis Aaron, who was the darling of the Vale.
And because of that death, obviously, the Vale's kind of weak right now, since they just got Sweet Robert.
Sweet Robbie.
Robbie Sweet.
Oh, that's like a DJ name.
Robbie Sweet.
Yeah.
It sounds like a 90s boy band.
He also wounded Hoster Tully, but when the day was lost, he fled.
They called it the Battle of the Bells, and Robert always said Ned had won the battle himself.
The stony sep doesn't look like it's seen anything but battle.
Arya reflects outside of the town, stacked with charred planks.
I have to comment that in our rebellion musical, which we are making,
it's going to be an in answer to the play that's being made.
And if we can finish it in time, everyone at home that's listening,
maybe we could sell the musical instead of the screenplay they're already adapting
going on there or not screenplay sorry instead of the play they're already adapting but
i'm gonna give you this teaser that our battle of the bells is going to have a handbell choir
in the background uh it's gonna be amazing i want you just all to get ready to experience it, because I've really been hearing it in my head.
Just like John Connington, actually.
Yeah, just like all of you, absolutely.
And I just want to say, like, how do they know that the upcoming play is not, in fact...
Our musical.
Our musical? I'm just saying, you don't know that the names of what are their
fucking names well dominic and whatever it's not the dominic and duncan or is it actually secretly
chloe and eliana and those are our pseudonyms and i mean i'm gonna be honest you know mean girls
is coming out to Paramount
and it's going to be a musical but
they're also concealing from the public that it's
going to be a musical by only putting
trailers out of
mediocre acting
and weird angles and
they're not telling anyone it's a musical
so I mean maybe they're just downplaying it just like
Mean Girls the musical is
and by they we mean we.
Dominic and Duncan.
More like dumb Eric and Duncan.
Jesus, we're ridiculous.
Real talk.
Real talk.
Off of our musical.
Nothing against them.
Nothing against them.
We're just better as musical leaders.
No, I'm just kidding.
No, real talk in real life life not in musical fantasy land i was kind of rereading the world
of ice and fire and just looking over some of the details which to be fair the world of ice and fire
is propaganda written for joffrey right and it's it is propaganda like a lot of the a lot of stories
are very grandiose and not true so this was
obviously angling to show the world robert your father was so good joffrey he already knows that
shit ain't true that said it does have a slant toward robert so eddie um you know anti-rebel
leaders in the house you know people that are just antis of that whole faction, bootlicker sympathizers, please don't listen. No, I'm just kidding. The Conqueror, this is
something interesting. So like, there's a history here, not just of Robert's conquering with the
Stony Sept that I thought stood out really crazily, but also like Agin Visenya Rhaenys,
the Conqueror OT3. They also had kind of a setup at Stoney Sept. When they were
making moves to go battle between Gardner and Lannister, Rhaenys and Vesenya joined Aegon.
They brought their forces from Storm's End and Cracklaw at the Stoney Sept and like gathered
their strength there before they went off to the Field of Fire. I thought that was, I never,
I didn't remember that happening. And'm like oh so the stony sept is
kind of an interesting place where the conquerors have their big stands right and I know that's odd
to put Robert in the shoes of Agin and the OT3 there but interesting to think about it is
interesting and I mean it seems like it's the the focal point for a lot of stuff. And that might partially be because of geography, where it's located.
But I forgot also, as you said, that it played a role in the OG conquering.
Yeah, which obviously from like a meta standpoint, it's the opposite, right?
George obviously probably thought the same thing.
He thought, oh, that's interesting.
They could go there because it's a good gathering point for armies
as we've seen from Robert.
But that's not it. It's actually
also a very holy place, right?
Hundreds of the poor fellows during
Maegor's reign came from
the chapter at Stonisept.
So Stonisept could have been,
like Arya says, it's huge. It could have been
another little old town.
You know? Oh, as in like, yeah, like a central location where's huge it could have been another little old town you know oh as in
like you know yeah like a central location that where people keep coming in and out yeah absolutely
it's an interesting point i guess it didn't because maybe it didn't become affluent enough
in terms of trade like a port i mean even in our real world you'll see a lot of cities but i don't
know it's close enough it could have's close enough. It could have been something.
It's interesting when you think of the people in Old Town that they became affluent and they attached themselves to the Targaryens as well, although they were already affluent.
And they kind of took some of that commercial control of the real estate, of religion, of culture.
And it's like Stony Sept could have been a miniaturized version of that
yeah but only yeah only until later much later on in the targaryen reigns that they started being
like you know what we really like religion well but that's the thing right they think yeah anything
associated with maegor's reign besides the high towers but you know the the stuff that went on
with maegor's reign it turns out soured a, but, you know, the stuff that went on with Maegor's reign, it turns out, soured a lot
of people, I think, on
that kind of control, that kind of
cultural and religious control.
There's not really a house mentioned
associated, right? We learn there's a knight
named Wilbert in this chapter
that's described as kind of being in charge,
but there's no lord
of Stonisept.
It's just Stonisept, you know?
There's nobody keeps this place.
It seems that, I mean, Wilbert is what?
He's a knight, so he's Sir Wilbert,
but there's no house associated.
We don't have banners hanging,
even though obviously it's being used as the refuge
and hideout for the king's men.
Yeah, they're sworn to, you know, House Tully,
but I do like the term
and by term i do like the name wilbert wilbert that's it i just like it of course this battle
that we get in the world of ice and fire is really well outlined we have this line rightly famed
is robert's grand victory at stony sept also called the Battle of the Bells, where he slew the famous Sir Miles Mouton, once Rhaegar's squire, and other men besides,
and might as well have killed the new hand. Lord Connington had battle brought them together.
The victory sealed the entry of the Riverlands into the conflict following the marriage
of Lord Tully's daughters to Lord Arryn and Stark, because this was, of course, crucial.
After this came the marriage of mom and dad.
There's also the line about the bells ringing for a day and night at Stony Sept,
and singers and begging brothers going from town to town to proclaim men of the Trident were their own masters once again.
It's something that we see, yeah, John Connington even like reflect upon, right?
Like in his chapters.
Yeah, so this comes back.
It's interesting that we get it in Arya's chapters,
and that she ends up over in Essos, which is where Jon's story...
Not that Jon, this Jon.
Where Jon Connington's story is picking up.
And then I feel like there's some ways that her storyline is going to intersect
with john cons in some way like at least the golden company maybe it's through like illyrio's
stuff so yeah i feel like it's interesting that she's getting this they both have that draw to
king's landing which we'll talk about later too that king's landing is like a a location on their
map that they have a quest at that they need
to fulfill yeah maybe they could cross paths it's kind of fun that we got to the kids right of two
of the guys who fought this war here right now on their little road trip through here only one of
them doesn't know that their dad was in it but aria sure does it's probably cool learning about
i don't know nobody really thinks of ned as like this
war hero in that way right like they think of him as being part of the rebellion and being
instrumental and instrumental to spending the new reign but nobody really thinks of him as like a
warrior and i think i i don't think he thinks of himself as one so yeah it's just interesting
we talked a lot about it i think way back in the front of the podcast when we first covered the ned chapters yeah i know i'm bringing back the deep fucking
lore which uh wow end of year i know looking back in time an r retrospective rr retrospective
pronounced like the vvvvitch retrospective uh no I think we did talk about it a little bit back then, too, because, I mean, obviously, even George has stated, you know, no, Ned's not a warrior.
Ned was busy doing a fuckload of things during the rebellion.
It's echoed a little bit in Davos, right, where Davos goes north and gets to Sisterton and, yes, grieving.
But also, you know, he was doing a few things behind the scenes but
Battle of the Bells was Ned's battle
this was the battle that
he kind of was known
for when his harder battle was really in Dorne
God
I feel bad for Ned
that man went through a lot
that man went through so much
so much
well the gates of the Stoney Sept are pretty tightly closed but they open up for
the brotherhood who shows up checks up on their food stores it turns out they're being raided
pretty often wolves one day mummers the next and everyone's on lookout for the kingslayer who
escaped from lord edmure someone says the talk of course, that Hoster is dead or dying, true,
and everyone thinks that Jaime is making to get by his father's side. We're told of a new character,
the Huntsman, who helps bring sheep to the Stoney Sept. He shepherds them. The Huntsman lost more
than just family in the war to the Westermen. They burned his crops, ate half his sheep,
killed the other half for spite, killed his dogs,
raped his wife, and his sister. Arya rides between Harwin and Angai down the street,
spotting a sept on a hill in a very small stone holdfast, much too small for the size of the town.
But every third house they pass is burnt, and she sees no people. She asks if they're dead,
but Angai points out that some of them are on roofs, some hiding
in the rubble, and he says
they're only shy.
More people come out of hiding. They're just shy.
Yeah, they're just shy. They're just, you know, they don't take
well the new people. Yeah, they're just introverts.
Me too.
More people begin to come out of hiding
and Stony Sept comes to life.
At the market square, they find
a fountain with a leaping trout
and woman filling pails and flagons at it.
Yeah, then you have these crow cages that are hanging from the wooden posts,
but the crows are perched on the bars or splashing in the waters.
They are not inside of the cages,
because inside the cages are people really squished in there.
The men discuss the Northmen and how the mummers are raiding the village,
but Arya, she's horrified.
She's watching the cages.
And they're not just any men.
They are Northmen, caught by the bad huntsmen,
stuck inside the cages that allow no room for turning or moving.
Carrion crows had eaten out the eyes of the first three cages.
And so there are these empty sockets that created an optical illusion,
so it feels like they're following Arya. Really fun in the next cage there's one man stirring he's begging for
water and it really really has some like opening of the sworn sword short story vibes oh yeah
absolutely and she's egg as hell here egg as hell fat girl egg as hell
very eggy
I don't know
so another dead man who has been
castrated
and also has maggots crawling out of the
hole that I guess used to be
his genitals
is in the next cage
there's also later on a fat man and the iron bars
are digging painfully into him he's also very red from the sun and as he turns you can like see the
stripes of the sunburn on him it's kind of terrible awful really grotesque looking and
aria's seen a lot of this stuff obviously on the road so far as a prisoner of war at Harrenhal. She's seen some pretty gross stuff, but this is some pretty sad conditions. Like, I just, the way that the cages are described and how tall they are and how you really can barely even be in them, it ain't right. Not good.
No, it's not. It's, it's like, literally torturous. And what it's meant to be a prolonged death sentence, maybe. I mean, I think to some extent, it is a prison, right? They're just holding the captives there. But for some of them, it is doing, when it comes to Hunger Games and other series and good old dystopia, it doesn't make it look like the people here that are in charge want justice.
It doesn't make it look like they're seeking retribution for the crimes that were committed.
It looks like torture.
It looks like control. It doesn't look good.
That's all.
Not great.
Yeah. it looks like control it doesn't look good that's all not great yeah or i mean you're starting to really see since like they're not following any the will necessarily of like
a lord or whatever it's as you said it's not necessarily justice it's a it's hunger for
vengeance right that's kind of what's happening here our hunger it's like the
five minute hates in in 1984 it doesn't make anyone feel better that's for sure i do want
to point out something fun we have the huntsman right the mad huntsman that's introduced here as
a newcomer to the cast and it makes me think of the huntsman in Snow White and I know this is maybe
like a silly obvious connection but the huntsman is named as one of Beric's followers not Lady
Stoneheart's later when the schism occurs in the brotherhood so when they separate he's named as
someone that follows Beric we read in the appendix, not Lady Stoneheart.
So he follows the queen, or he doesn't follow the queen, sorry.
He chooses not to follow the queen, where the huntsman in Snow White goes against the queen's wishes and lets Snow White go in the woods, which I think is kind of fun.
Yeah.
And I think if I recall the last time we see him, he's south of the Mander.
I think, did he go with Greenbeard, maybe? But he goes south of the Mander with the money they steal from Sandor in this book. So that's the last place he went. And we'll come back to his role later against Sandor, right? I think there's something interesting going on with him and Sandor, because Sandor also very much has a huntsman Snow White kind of plot, right? He shows up at Sansa's room, puts a knife to her neck, but then doesn't kill her.
Tries to ransom Arya, but then ends up letting her go in the end.
Sure, he's bleeding out.
But, you know, he changes his mind on Arya as well, where he should be gunning to turn her in or make money off her or whatever.
So I thought that was kind of fun.
Kind of a little huntsman plot going on for both of them.
Yeah, I like that you've tied it into the Snow White story.
And as you said, Sandor's storyline kind of feels a lot like that fairy tale.
And I don't know if this is Brothers Grimm,
but I'm going to say, you know, the Brothers Grimm cinematic universe,
I think I sometimes also associate the Huntsman.
Chloe was like, what the fuck?
There for a minute. Bgcu the ggcu ggc cu the i associate the huntsman to an extent with like the story of little red riding hood
he might be a different huntsman but he's also some sort of hunter, right? And like, he is kind of helping with the
wolf issue. And these people feel like they have a wolf issue right now. Yeah, they do. I think they
have some other issues too, but that is one of them. There's a lot of things going on. I like
that. Yeah, the wolf issue. Speaking of the wolf issue, right? She's like, whose men are these?
And a townsman tells her and, you know, calls her a boy.
But to pay no mind that they put people to the sword at Tumbler's Falls while looking for the Kingslayer.
And that these guys didn't find him.
So instead, they just did some murdering and raping.
And that this was their punishment for that
then the heavy man calls down begging for water again and then for mercy for a swallow for water
and i mean there it is you know the begging for mercy and you know you kind of think about or i
just think about this obviously hindsight's 2020 but like if rob hadn't put on this farce about like oh jamie escaped i have to tell them jamie escaped because otherwise no one will respect me
as king because as we know kat freed him because she wanted to save her daughters and shit
like would all of this have happened like would these guys have felt like oh we gotta go find the
kingslayer and then felt entitled to go around like murdering and raping and i mean they probably
would have right like i think it's pointed for ari to ask who these guys were and for them to
not answer because the point is they're broken men and people see them as on the side of the wolves. And she's learning that, as we discussed a few chapters ago,
yes, real-life wolves do hurt people.
That is why they are perceived as dangerous.
And they probably would, in fact, eat babies.
But they don't tell her whose side these guys are really on.
It really, again, hammers home that Broken Men idea
that they don't care what side they're fighting for. don't care about the games that the high lords are playing
they're just there to get theirs it's interesting too that you know harwin stands in as a mentor for
a couple of these chapters of like giving aria answers to some of these questions but here they
don't tell her whether out of protection or whether there just isn't time right now and it's a silly question that they don't want to
answer for her but it's interesting they protect her because a lot of aria's issue with like
understanding black and white gray politics in the beginning and what's been happening in the
front of this story is like no one explained it to her well i don't think most people explain it to nine-year-olds
in general right you only learn later on this idea of nuance greenness that yeah there were bad people
like on the on all the sides and she's learning that now she's like wait i'm sorry we're not
the good guys but she's like we're also not the bad guys we're just the guys we're just the guys we're just the guys and i don't know
it's also interesting that some of these townspeople think oh those wolves and like rob's
camp they're all just like fattening themselves up over in the westerlands i'm like we've been
in those chapters with cat that is not what's happening but and it's uh see it's an interesting echo because it's the same schism that happens to them.
Like the Brotherhood has a schism later, and this is the schism for Rob's team.
Yeah, that's a great point.
So, yeah, they they feel that the Northmen have not been taking care of the Riverlanders who threw in with them because they were tied by I mean you were talking about
Sony Sept and the marriage alliance
they're tied again by these marriage
alliances hell it's
what I said last week with Karm remember
that okay well he's supposed
to be the king of the river
and of the north so
this is
your kingdom buddy welcome to being
a king Robbie boy
he's not
doing great at it but that's why he dies
Jesus
anyways
he dies because it was
underhanded
another fever dream I had
was where I forgot about this entire
scene and Arya giving the water to him
and I realized
D&D gave that to Dany
in Astapor
they're happening around the same time
it's not the show the water's not
in the show Dany
goes and gives the slaves water
that are up and crucified
where I thought it was book
I'm like damn D&D interesting
interesting that they moved it around.
Oh, yeah, I vaguely remember this now.
Not that Dany wouldn't do that, right?
I look back to Dorea's death.
She stays with Dorea the entire time,
gives her water from her own skin,
cools her brow,
holds her hand until she fucking dies.
It's pretty awful.
But I just was like, oh, interesting.
That's where that plot point went. I was really like, in my head, I was like, this didn't happen in the show. Wow. I do
think this would have been a great scene for the show to help illustrate what was going on with
the Karstarks. Now that I look back, I'm like, I don't know why they didn't think of it before
George did. I think this is so interesting too because there's
that moment where she almost sees amory lorch as a human right like just for a moment and i think
that this adds to that for her and to the lesson she's learning and sandor is the next step of that
right at the end of the chapter and later throughout the book like was he a bad person yes amory was a bad person but yes but she's also understanding and realizing like the people that
do what they have to to stay alive to take orders to survive right like she's so close to realizing
the systemic pressures that cause all of this here and i don't know her internal understanding is really
important that this man despite his crimes is thirsty and a human and someone should give him
water anyone should give these men water water is a very fundamental human right
yeah it's it's also like kind of goes together with theon's storyline right theon who was very
close to their family. Theon, who
does very bad things. Not as bad as, I think,
Amory... I don't know. Actually, Theon
does a lot of really bad things. I don't think
it makes sense to equivocate. You can
all moralize about that.
All of the things that...
A lot of the characters do bad things.
But anyways, is it justice
what happens to Theon
in his storyline versus, as you pointed out, right?
Like, is what's happening to these men here, like, necessarily justice?
Or is this just prolonging circles of pain?
Is it justice or is it just us, you know?
Wow.
What is that from again?
I know that's a meme.
Is it?
I just made it up. Oh, I thought it, oh. I thought it was. Wow. It is that from again? I know that's a meme. Is it? I just made it up.
Oh, I thought it was. Wow. It was so catchy.
Thank you.
We have a passage where Arya's thinking.
Wolves, she thought again. Like me. Was this her pack? How could they be Rob's men?
She wanted to hit them. She wanted to hit them.
She wanted to hurt them.
She wanted to cry.
They all seemed to be looking at her, the living and the dead alike.
Arya swings down from her horse and brings a cup to the fish's mouth,
filling it with water, moving toward the cages. I love that she's taking water from the fish's mouth,
which is interesting with her Tully imagery.
The townsmen try to stop her, with her Tully imagery. The townsmen
try to stop her, but Harwin and Lem tell the townsmen, leave her be. Beric doesn't cage men
to die of thirst. The townsmen growls that their crimes don't deserve decency, but Arya gives them
water all the same, Gendry helping to give her a leg up. The townsman threatens that the huntsman
won't like this when he returns. Angai then strings his longbow and gives mercy to the caged men.
Valar Morghulis, Arya thought.
I did think that was really interesting.
We're starting to get some foreshadowing about where Arya's storyline is going to go
and the lessons she's going to learn.
Because again, earlier that man was begging for mercy.
And honestly, like, that can be interpreted in a lot of different ways
apparently right here he's acting asking for some comfort reprieve and therefore she offers him
water which is life-giving whereas in guy does a different kind of mercy which is life-taking
an end to his suffering and i mean even kind of parallels in the action right because
he uses a bow and arrow john giving an act of mercy to rattlemance at the beginning of dance
well then it's a perfect mirror to storm chapter 13 right for aria herself because that's where
she gives mercy to the squire almost exactly they give him something
to drink and then she kills him for the first time as her like final test and then sandor
but she doesn't give him brilliant mercy it's a perfect mirror yeah it is it is actually literally
a perfect mirror so wonderful that we're getting this arc like all together in a storm of swords
my god i love 2024 i can't wait for more sand bob
it's the year it's the year sandor we're starting you know is it the year of the dog what is hold
on must be the season of the dog 2024 chinese zodiac oh it's the dragon sorry everyone oh
mom that's more signs for unleash the d to come back oh my gosh
i really am excited about this next passage uh we have to keep it i love everything about the peach
so here we are we're introduced to the peach it's a modest inn with whitewashed walls and
broken windows and a sign above the door a shingle painted as a peach with a bite taken out of it. They get off at the stables where Greenbeard yells for a groom and a buxom,
red-headed innkeep comes to meet them. This is Tansy that we've talked about before.
Not that Tansy. And we get this back and forth, rowdy,
raucous exchange as it's just like the perfect intro to you're going to a hole in the wall in
green beard is it or gray beard mother take mercy when'd you get so old
Len is that you still wearing the same ratty cloak, are ya?
I know why you never wash it, I do.
You're afraid all the piss'll wash out
and we'll see you're really a knight of the Kingsguard.
And Thomas Evans, you randy old goat.
You come to see that son of yours?
Well, you're too late.
He's off riding with that bloody huntsman.
And don't tell me he's not yours.
He hasn't got my voice.
Tom protested weakly. And don't tell me he's not yours. He hasn't got my voice.
Tom protested weakly.
He's got your nose, though.
I and the other pods as well, to hear the girls talk.
She spied Gendry then, and pinched him on the cheek.
Look at this fine young ox.
Wait till Alice sees those arms.
Oh, and he blushes like a maid, too.
Well, Alice will fix that for you. Boy, see if she don't.
Aria had never seen Gentry turn so red.
Tansy, you leave the bull alone. He's a good lad, said Tom Sevenstrings.
All we need from you is safe beds for a night.
Speak for yourself, singer.
And Guy slid his arm around a strapping young servant girl as freckly as he was. Beds we got. There's never been no lack of beds at the Peach, but you'll all climb
in the bathtub first. Last time you lot stayed under my roof, you left your fleas behind. it's like Paris and their bed bugs
we we
we we
that's this place
so
fun scene Gendry also again everyone is always describing him as like the
bull he's really he's really taking that on with his like fun armor but apparently everyone feels
that way about him too being as strong as an ox i mean oxes and bulls are like they're basically
the same creature uh and perhaps slash it's likely I think that he'll start his own house or will change the Baratheon sigil in some way.
Because I think if his uncle Stannis can do it, so can he.
And I like Gendry more than Stannis.
And unlike those dainty deers of the Baratheons that end up being prey, the ox
slash bull is a hard-working
animal, alright? And you know
what? So is Gendry. He's a hard-working
man of the people, but
he really is, again,
paragon of positive masculinity
except for his slight blips in this
chapter. But he's not, like, doing anything
bad. He's just
being a teenage boy who's
frustrated at life yeah ox and bull are basically synonymous except um oxes are male or female
bulls are always male and oxes are larger than bulls on average bulls are smaller and oxes are
usually castrated for the most part where bulls aren't for
breeding is the big difference so yeah um i don't know i think also it comes to like what they're
bred for like ox are usually bred for work where bulls are bred for breeding uh which is kind of
an interesting distinction for gundry right bull versus ox like being bred for breeding which is
what would have happened if he was a prince.
If he was Robert's true-born son,
he would have been bred for breeding
instead of bred for work.
So because he was not more of an ox, I guess,
he's bred for work.
And I don't know, I think it's really fun
for like bastard sigils too.
I love what you brought up that I definitely think
he'll start his own cadet branch, you know baratheon oh my god his bulrathian branch and we've seen a couple other
bastard sigils right i think of like bitter steel did his mom's sigil where the bracken sigil is
like the brown plate or brown shield with like yellow with the horse on it a red horse on yellow with i don't know whatever
like red brown yellow is the bracken sigil with that horse and he did the horse and then he did
his dad's sigil black wings off of the horse so red dragon wings would have been the targaryen
sigil right red on black but he did black. So reverse to show he's a bastard.
So that's kind of cool. Like a very special little thing. And Walder Rivers, who we see in this book
actually a bit, he did a little more modern take the phrase sigil being gray with blue towers on
it. Instead, it's a gray tower set on a blue shield and there's a red bend or like a big
sinister red bend through it across through it. So Eliana eliana i'm showing you maybe we'll put it in the episode for those listening but i made a sigil
for you of what gendry sigil could be so maybe the opposite of the baratheon sigil a yellow or gold
bowl um like a black plate with a gold border or with like a gold uh sinister on it with a gold
slash through it that could be
interesting that could be cool yeah that'd be interesting and yeah i like the little gold
accents for him especially i mean he's probably going to play a role in the long night so yeah
it'd be good for him to have like much more of that like sort of black field on it and and if
john did similar it would be kind of a cool contrast too right if john did like a
inverse stark instead of the the white on gray it would be gray on white so kind of yeah contrasting
gendry and i mean i love the walder rivers shout out i think he's a very interesting oh yeah ray
walder rivers bastard walder he's he's not like fun in that like he's a fun dude
but like he's a i just he's i think one of the more interesting phrase so there's also talk of
someone right being of someone's kid slash bastard one of tom's kids slash bastards right
but this discussion of bastardy and the discussion
of gendry follows like right after and then this idea of well he might not got your voice but he
has all these other things that look just like you those inherited traits and i'm like hmm
interesting interesting that we would discuss inherited traits right before gendry but i will
say like reading the text of the innkeep
and how she's characterized it reminds me of like i don't know if you know this like
comedian on on instagram and tiktok delaney rowe she does like a bunch of those little sketches of
like you know a girl who's convinced you're in love with her she does one of the female bartender
in every movie written by a man and it is i love like the
the girl next door friend it's so funny yes yes i like her series i love all of her series she's
so funny she cracks me up there's a couple of them like oh you know just very like relaxed and
chill and not like other girls but exactly like other girls very funny very good stuff highly recommend watching her tiktok or instagrams yeah she does have some really funny parodies of i mean tropes that you're
all familiar with tropes that might embody us once in a while my god wow wow uh self-reflection so
tansy the innkeep asks if they want food, which of course they do. So she tells her girls Cass, Lana, and Jyzeen to chip in and get food, water, and clothing all started for everyone.
I thought this was interesting that Lana, I'm not saying it's not a popular name.
It is a popular name.
There's lots of girls named Lana, especially from the Westerlands.
Everyone wants to name them after the Lannisters.
Or like Lan the Clever, but Lana is
also a girl at the Happyport brothel
out in Essos
so Arya gets two Lanas for the price
of none
yeah, and again
that's something that I do like in George's World
building, people were bringing up us talking
about Pate a few episodes ago and
I like that there's repetition of names it probably
makes it very confusing but it feels real yeah what's also real is that aria wants to skip
bathing because she's like i don't understand i already bathed twice and it hasn't even been like
two weeks it's not even been a fortnight and tansy though will not let that pass will not relent so they steal the clothes off of
her that lady smallwood gave her and then dress her up like one of sansa's dolls gowning her in
linen and lace which is really sad considering you know the the way that last chapter ended
with lady smallwood recognizing i think these clothes would suit you better and then aria eats
dinner in her stupid girl clothes but remembers something
that siru told her which is the trick of looking and seeing what was there and so when she looks
she sees more serving wenches than any inn needs most are young and comely and in the even fall
she notices that the men are coming and going and that none of them linger long in the living area she whispers
to gendry that it must be a brothel he tells her do you even know what a brothel is and she's like
it does it's an inn with girls and she's not wrong frustrated she's not wrong i mean she's
literally not wrong kendra gets a little frustrated and angry during all of this
and tells her that well wait you shouldn't even be here because the brothel is no place for a
high-born lady and then one of the girls comes over and she's like who's high-born and then
laughs when she learns it's Arya so the girl says I'm a king's daughter myself and Arya's like okay
so you're mocking me that's cool and she's like no you're
not and the girl's like whatever she shrugs and her gown's slipping from one shoulder and she
says yeah king robert used to fuck my mom all the time said he was you know that's that was his
favorite his favorite one here and aria's like yeah she's like she fucked all the other girls
too but yeah she's like robert fucked her her her but didn't fuck her
as much as he fucked my mom look here i am and aria thinks well the girl does have black hair
like the kings black as coal but this couldn't possibly mean anything because gendry has the
same black hair and you know people can just have black hair uh great mirror, though, to Sansa, right?
Who was like, Joffrey's nothing like that drunk old king.
Both were so close, out of the mouths of babes, you know?
Out of the mouths of babes, my god.
It's kind of fucked up that, like, so this is all correct, you know?
There's a joke she's making there that we are in on as a reader of like, people
can just have black hair, right?
And then George is out here being like, I don't know, you guys, people can just have
eyes that are similar colors and similar coloring.
And it's like, everyone's thinking too deeply into it when he gives people like similar
like coloring or whatever.
But it's like, I understand George's point because it's true.
coloring or whatever but it's like i understand george's point because it's true i share black hair with many people in this world but also george you did this you did this to yourself
you just know he's winking at the camera right now he's like get it wink anyone could have black
hair but it is also fun because gendry is like another shadow of the liana and rhaegar plot
right he's a boy when i think of like children born around the rebellion there you go he was
born because of sex at the rebellion rob was also conceived very soon after this right which means
all these people's parents were fucking right around the battle at Stoney Sept.
So not only them, but then you have Liana was fucking Rhaegar literally at that same time as Robert was fucking Bella's mom.
So I just thought that was kind of fun, too.
Like, this is also a nod at Liana and Jon, right?
Interesting, because Jon has the same hair as Liana, same eyes as liana the same face is there yeah everyone was just really fertile at this time i guess and uh everyone's
period synced so oh my god everyone's just like those are synced yeah uh so are you again not
wrong about what a brothel is and apparently there are some places so first of
all in virginia apparently you cannot have more than like what is it four or five single women
all living in a house together oh until it's a brothel it's yeah it's considered like legally
a brothel or something mood so anyways aria is not wrong but also i think it's like really interesting having aria learning
about what sex work is here especially because as you said like she goes to some other brothels
and then she actually spends a lot of time around sex workers in bravos and i mean she
she's a highborn lady but she's also like i don't i don't get it what's the big deal
everyone's just chill people hanging out right and it's also like i don't i don't get it what's the big deal everyone's just
chill people hanging out right and it's also a good place to get intel as as we'll see yeah i
want to add to it's interesting because even though her it's just an in with girls comment
is like obviously very young like oh aria you don't know what goes on at brothels it's also
you can see it is that like they have a normal life like they're all sitting around all day
braiding each other's hair doing chores sometimes they make food and then they have visitors come
who pay them gifts and are sweet to them and they have little fun flirts with them and then they
eventually do you know generally fuck but i'm like that's not
i mean a lot of us do it for free is all i'm gonna say yeah like i said aria's not wrong and
as you said like she just finds out i don't know it's just chill at brothels and it does depend on
the establishment and the brothel we see that this one is nicely run and treats their workers
well it seems and you know it's a good
place to get intel ultimately
but also turns out Bella
actually is kind of highborn
I don't know if like I don't know I still sometimes don't understand
like the bastard rules of like
are they highborn are they not when they're a bastard
depending whatever and then some of them get to
have a fun last name some of them don't
anyway but
having bella there i mean gendry's all like highborn ladies shouldn't be in brothels but
that's not true as we see throughout a song of ice and fire history right like you have characters
such as the black swan and then the black pearl who like is i don't know not really highborn but
kind of highborn because again i don't really understand these rules. And then you have another quote-unquote highborn lady, a.k.a. quote-unquote Arya, a.k.a. Jane Poole, who is also, as we find out, like, she's probably in a brothel at mean she's being sex trafficked by little finger and forced to be there
for her to learn to eventually play the role of highborn lady aria which is i don't know just
kind of interesting to think about and then also you know this is something that i think we brought
up during the catalan stark chapters the idea of like gendry feeling that highborn ladies should not be in brothels or whatever and then this dichotomy
between highborn ladies and like the lowborn ones and like how bodies become commodified right like
the people feel that you know the lowborn bodies are there to satiate our lust whereas we must put
all these highborn ladies on a pedestal and that's a different kind of objectification where they're only for procreation and uh sealing alliances and shit
yeah all the rules that are placed on these bodies right and you look at aria really gets a full span
of understanding of sex work in essos and in westeros. Oh, true. When you're comparing them, right?
Like women in brothels in Essos.
Well, I mean, Essos is systemic.
Where there's slavery, there's always going to be exploitation.
Obviously, it's kind of within the entire bounds of it.
And Essos was founded on slavery.
And you see a lot of these families, some of the girls like Lana at Happyport,
she's born into a family that her mother is also a sex worker, right?
Mary.
So, you know, Westeros, it's interesting because not only is it what value that they're putting commodifying on these women and these sex workers, but also that they're putting shame and that they're told people are told that sex workers and brothels are a low rung of society
that we do not care what happens to them stony sept is an outlaw town right now you know west
rose doesn't care what happens to the people in this brothel you think about like you were saying
with bella that she technically is could be highborn she wasn't recognized by Robert, right, necessarily. So
she didn't necessarily get Rivers, Bella Rivers as her name. So she kind of unfortunately didn't
get any benefit of having her baby daddy there, Bella's dad be, you know, give her anything.
But you think of like, the women that are born to the sex work in Essos and even how the sex work is framed there.
There's no way to say one place like Essos is better than the other and vice versa.
There's always going to be exploitation.
But the shame that's involved in that like only low born scum go to brothels in Westeros is how it's framed by the faith, how it's framed by culture and society.
And that high born men shouldn't be going to those establishments highborn ladies shouldn't be seen in an establishment like that these are you know
that's the gutter you shouldn't be going there but everyone does it yeah everyone does it and also
even robert what you said just now actually like unlocked another memory right from the
ned chapters in which you know you're saying hi people think that highborn men should not be going to brothels but we know they're going there all the time right
it's part of like tywin's shame around tyrian even though it turns out tywin does the same thing it's
it's this sort of like puritanical culture around around sex and sex work in in westeros but you
have that moment where they're like highborn ladies should not be in brothels yet. Remember, Ned visits a brothel and turns out highborn lady Catelyn Stark is being hidden in it. So another fun little parallel between Arya and her mother.
you go oh i love god damn aliana i fucking love you well no it's because uh it's because of you you you've been unlocking you've been earlier today in this chapter you were like remember
those ned chapters and i was like oh my gosh we did do those no i don't interesting too because
ned has that little judgmental somehow he didn't think rhaegar would go to brothel's line you know
um that's a good point he threatens Littlefinger
for it too he's like how dare you say that my wife is in the brothel and we know that Ned is you know
socially conservative fiscally liberal no I'm just kidding but also I think
maybe we should beat up no I'm sure maybe we should beat up Peter Baelish no I do think we
should beat him up no but that's why how we ended up in
this mess in the first place that's true yeah there's something interesting in westeros looking
down on sex workers and condemning those that frequent these establishments but also condemning
other opportunities for them it's interesting because i know people like sometimes they'll do
like these fun threads of what would you be if
you lived in Westeros and there aren't very many options available it sounds like when you're
a woman which is also not necessarily true this is a medievalism right a lot of skilled workers like
smiths people crafting leather things like that occupations such as that were made up of
women so absolutely you could choose to work at an inn with many with many girls or you could
choose to help build the inn there are many options for you available but this one's a perfectly
respectable one and again like I just think it's so
interesting that they have their own community. They have their own resources. Yeah. They aren't
like sitting around, like, I don't know, like they have their own way that their world works,
right? Like these girls are every day, they do their housework. They have a town full of people
that they talk to, you know, like they're not strangers um it's just interesting
how ostracized westerosi society culture religion tries to make it seem when it's not and you get
the difference in that when aria goes to essos and how free and out and about all the women are and
i find it very interesting now i'm just worried now i'm worried about these people because
you said all these wonderful things about them and what a great life that they fucking have right now.
And now I'm worried we're going to come back here in another book and it's going to be like, well, everyone's having a bad time.
I don't know that I'd say, I mean, I don't know that I'd say like a great life.
I will say that they're definitely like they make it work, you know, like they took their pocket of Westeros and they've made it work for them.
But yeah, I'd absolutely say that John Connington would probably love to come back here and destroy the town for real this time.
I'm worried for them.
I'm worried for these people.
All right.
Well, we're going to worry for a lot of the people in the story.
So this happens every week.
Bella introduces herself she was named for the
bells during battle at stony sept and says to gendry do you want to ring my bell uh she runs
a hand down his arm saying for friends of the lightning lord i'm free but gendry says no twice
and he angrily stalks away bella's a little shocked and asks aria does he like girls and
aria's like oh yeah
absolutely he's just stupid he likes to polish helmets and beat swords with hammers she tells
her not to take it personally and bella decides to go stake her luck with jack be lucky for the
night hope he's nimble and quick as well instead and the men kind of all start to dissipate with different women throughout the night.
Yeah, so there's a lot of like, oh no, stuff going on when you think of Gendry and Bella's interactions here.
But I will say, you know, if it did, if there was an interaction, I mean, the Baratheons do have Targaryen blood after all.
That's for fucking sure.
More than once. One if, like,
Ori's Baratheon was an offshoot of, or, like, a bastard brother of Aegon.
And the other, with their grandma.
Or, I guess it would be Gendry's great-grandma.
Mm-hmm. Rey.
Yeah. Rey.
Our friend.
Rey. A Rey of song.
Tom sits at the campfire
singing and strumming to a song.
The maids that bloom in spring.
While Arya sips watered down wine and listens in.
Everyone's jolly in the peach.
But yet across the square, the dead men rot in cages.
She thinks that inside, some of these people are laughing too hard.
And how easy it could be to steal a horse, aka they're drunk, drunk and run away but the captain at the gates wouldn't let her pass and harwin would come after her or
the huntsman with his dogs or some other dogs like sandor yeah i like that that's still like on her
mind she's like we can steal a horse or we can steal the boat you know she's always just like
what vehicle can i steal today all girls want to do is steal horse and eat hot chip.
And lie.
She does like doing that.
Eat worm and lie.
Eat worm and lie.
A worm.
A worst.
I have to say the songs that are being played by Tom.
Here first we get The Maids that bloom in spring and
we'll move on after that to two hearts that beat as one uh abel also sings this one man sings this
one at the wedding in winterfell so i thought that was interesting to bring together those
chapters of jane's marriage and i do want to shout out there's a concept album by Alex Ratner called Tyrell, and they do their own version of this with some guest singers.
And it's very fun.
I really rather like it.
I'll leave you a link below.
You guys got to check it out.
It's just like a fun little concept album.
And it's only a minute and a half long.
The song is.
But the entire album is basically a concept album called Tyrell,
where I'm just going to read this description to you guys word for word,
because I think you're going to like it.
Welcome to Highgarden, oasis of female leadership and sexual tolerance
within a not too distant medieval patriarchy.
A musical parody prequel to HBO's Game of Thrones,
this one-act chamber piece tells the untold
backstory of House Tyrell before the series begins. Of all the great houses of Westeros,
House Tyrell is the only one led by a woman, Olenna Tyrell, who's busy grooming her grandchildren,
Loras and Margaery, for greatness. Commenting on Margaery's objectification, Loras' double life as
a closeted knight of flowers, and Ol olena's role as resident battleaxe
grandma tyrell imagines what the secondary characters were thinking all along it's very
fun oh yeah that is fun that is fun and yeah coming coming to you uh alongside our also
we have a prequel to ishmael's reached out to join
Alex Ratner in bringing
the musical. No, we haven't.
No, we haven't. It is us,
Dominic and Duncan.
But Alex Ratner, if you're listening and you want to
join on in musical creative department,
please let us know.
There's also something interesting.
Two Hearts That Beat It was one.
It is also sung by Abel at the Arya wedding in Winterfell.
So we get the same songs mirrored back to us
in A Dance With Dragons.
And we do hear about this one in The Mystery Knight as well.
Lord Ambrose Butterwell marries a Frey daughter
and the Frey daughter's sister sings this song as well.
But the question I bring to you today about Two Hearts That Beat
Is One is, was George inspired by U2's 1983 hit Two Hearts Beat Is One? I think so. I'm going to
read you guys the lyrics, you know, some slam poetry. I'm not going to sing it right now.
I'm not feeling it. Last week I sang, you got my singing last week and that was off the cuff. Okay.
I'm not feeling it last week. I sang you got my singing last week and that was off the cuff. Okay, so
Saving it for the musical but
This is off the album war in 1983. I don't know which side I'm on I don't know my right from left or my right from wrong say I'm a fool say I'm nothing
But if I'm a fool for you, oh, that's something two hearts beat as one two hearts beat as one two hearts
I can't stop the dance, honey. This is my as one two hearts i can't stop the dance honey
this is my last chance i said can't stop the dance maybe this is my last chance i do think that he
was probably inspired by this song i do think that i do think that i think especially after reading a
couple of george's short stories we're really getting a sense of i mean music plays a big role in his inspiration
and honestly a lot of the stuff that you two was like reacting to in their music is very political
in nature and like i would not be surprised if uh george did find some kinship in in what what
they were singing about yeah i thought it was fun i fun. I listened to it today. I was jamming
and I was like, yeah, he had to have been.
He had to have been.
Yeah.
Well, Tom,
that old scoundrel, begins
two hearts that beat as one and kisses a
different girl after each verse
while Lem and Harwin
sit under the window with Tansy. I'm sorry, I'm
struggling about
this in a post-covid world
speaking in low voices
she's able to make out bits and pieces
of the story which seems to be about Catelyn
and Brienne freeing the
Kinslayer but also told
in a very scandalous way
um and then we have this line
of her going it's not true
she never would
she felt sad and angry and lonely all at once.
I'm sorry, that line perfectly encapsulates, I don't know if you remember this Twitter account back then, like, something YA author or like, why someone would parody it.
And then it was like, how can somebody feel two things at once or something like that was one of the lines and
well aria
oh god poor aria what a betrayal this is such a feeling such a mood like hearing a rumor about
your parent that seems like a lie and just like how we talked about aria not knowing about the
sides and the schism in her brother's armies she doesn't
know what happened and it comes back to Ned and his treason right Arya and Sansa with the same
reaction he would never he would never do that Kat and her treason now is what this is seen as
right without the details the gray in between and it kind of makes me think of john's bastardy as well like
that ned brought home john and said it was his bastard when it obviously wasn't which is fitting
considering we're at stony sept where robert knocked someone up had a bastard you know uh but
john's bastard yeah where hasn't that happened especially in westeros john's bastardy is
probably a little secret like that for Ned too
right that's a quote-unquote treason and then also probably what the girls will think about
when they hear Jon's been killed right like Jon would never he would never commit treason.
I really like how you've called this out because I mean that is what childhood is right like being
like oh I don't know my parents would never do that if your parents were you know
paragons of virtue like the way that ned and catelyn seem to do and speaks to why aria is
like i don't know is my family gonna accept me after all these mistakes i've made but they've
done some pretty big mistakes as well and i don't know some of it is like kind of untrue the way
that these rumors are going and i like that the lines that Arya
hears are like that Catelyn set
Jaime loose for love they're not saying like
it was because she loved
Jaime even though obviously
that's what they're saying in their gossip
because it is true Catelyn
did set Jaime loose
for love but for love of her daughters
and her sons that she thinks are dead but she did
it for you aria she did she actually legitimately did and and for sansa and it's i don't know of
course she wants you back aria oh she wants you back your mom killed people too it's fine
it happens to the best of us it It happens. Your mom did it a lot
later on in this book. It happens.
She's still
killing today.
Yeah, like, that's what the whole story is
about this place that they visited. Think of all the
people your dad killed, Arya.
And now you're gonna kill that many too.
Yeah, you've killed, like,
such a small amount of people compared to that.
But I mean, it also is, like, what Karn was saying last week, right, of, you've killed, like, such a small amount of people compared to that. But I mean, it also is like what Karn was saying last week, right, of, you know, the gendered aspect of like, it's okay for some people, for some bodies to be allowed violence and-
Others not.
Yeah, so, big sad.
Yeah, so, big sad.
So an old man pulls on up next to Arya and starts to hit on her, thinking that she's free game.
She is not.
Gendry's like, he shows up, best timing.
He's like, that's my sister, get the fuck away from her.
And he's like, you shouldn't bring your sister to the peach, man.
What's up with that?
The man thinks about fighting him, and Gendry's like, I'm bigger, basically. He just he just stands and he's like i'm not gonna take my luck there yeah i i like how gendry's also again an example of
uh you don't inherit certain traits from your parents but anyways this scene isn't like about
this but it does focus on how aria's forgetting who she is like with this lecherous
man when he's like who are you and this man is like way too old for her because she is a baby
get away from her you creep get a job get a job get it but i don't know there's an aspect of like
aria forgetting who she is and it plays into this idea
i think of dehumanization because of how this old man is coming at her i don't know just something i
think about every now and then when um being dehumanized but also it's interesting when you
think about it in contrast to sansa right who is often put into these sorts of situations when it
comes to for example serdantos who's supposed to be protecting her or marillion right who also does weird creepy
shit at her and little finger and like these different kinds of survival that these two girls
learn to survive in the world i think aria we can see her throughout the story survive these much
more overtly dangerous ones right like when it comes to i mean the brotherhood
and being like uh no but maybe don't shoot me with the arrows or surviving heron hall and then
there are these other subtle ones that like the many women and like people who are assigned female
at birth know about when you have to be careful when you're turning down someone's advances
if you do it the wrong way and you don't
like have protection it can be dangerous yeah you can get murdered you can be assaulted and like
sanza unfortunately has had to learn to maneuver those kinds of things for her she would not
necessarily i mean she freezes a little but like she knows a little more how to react than aria does who's she's like i don't know who i am and and then you have these lines of uh her telling
gedry like that he's not her brother which you know it is good in fact he's like why would you
say i'm not your brother i'm like this is good for you dude um because starks don't sibling
letter yeah i've read the 93 letter and like this is not an insult sir
uh yeah i like what you've called out because aria also isn't at the age where you're constantly
looking around expecting to be assaulted as a young woman uh you still get a couple years but
she's getting to it yeah she
still have like one or two years usually in the real world sometimes less yeah sometimes sometimes
it'll start at 10 yeah sometimes 10 yeah mine was probably 11 ish 10 ish somewhere in there
but you know you think you'd have just a little bit of uh innocence still left before you have
to start dodging all that but this is that time and to gendry's point
and credit right like highborn ladies shouldn't be in this place getting hit on by old geezers
but here she is here she is yeah i mean as far as i can tell no one as young as aria is employed
here which is again good, speaks to the greatness
of this establishment.
Alright, Arya
asks why Gendry called her
his brother, and she gets pissed. She's like,
you're not my brother. And Gendry
gets mad back. He's like, yeah, I'm too
fucking lowborn to be your brother, huh?
She's like, that is not at all
how I meant it. You are putting words in my mouth,
Gendry. And he sits down on the bench with his wine. He's like, that is not at all how I meant it. You are putting words in my mouth, Gendry.
And he sits down on the bench with his wine.
He's like, why don't you go away so I can drink in peace?
Go find that black haired girl and I can ring her bell maybe.
And you shouldn't do that.
I'm just coming to you as an expert. I'm going to let you know, maybe hold off, you know,
until you get the DNA test.
But Arya, I'm telling you, it's rising up incest-y aria whirls around and leaves
him there she's super mad she in her head she's calling him a stupid bullheaded bastard boy she
says that's all he is wow throwing the b word around interesting aria canceled oh my god i i will say again gentry it is not bad that she's not letting you call her
her brother and also dang where did that come from gentry holy shit ultimate like whoa i did
not say that um i was talking about pancakes why are we talking about waffles? And Arya, I don't know, I think she kind of reacts that way to an extent because she's feeling raw.
And Gendry not being her brother doesn't have anything to do with his status so much as like,
Sir, Arya actually has brothers, alright?
She has brothers that she knew and grew up with.
And this is a vulnerable time for her in that she thinks that maybe two of them
are dead. One of them is at war
and she's worried about him all the time
and the other one that she loves
a lot is really, really, really far, far
away and he's the only one who supported her and she can't
contact him. So
she's just having a really bad time
and I don't know
it makes me also think of like that scene
in Never Have I Ever where Davy says to like Kamala, she it makes me also think of like that scene in never have i ever where davy
says to like kamala she's like i think of you as a sister and i was like uh i actually have sisters
so i think of you as a cousin and which i relate to as an only child i'm like is this person do i
feel like siblings with them and they're like i have siblings eliana no and that's that's what this is gendry chill
there's also something here that like aria obviously like we just said she's being forced
to age faster than and differently than what she would have been like at home with her family if
they had just stayed in winterfell uh her life is going very differently than it was supposed to
possibly not going to plan.
And Gendry's too, right?
For Gendry's age, I mean, I don't think that he saw himself on the road with a band of outlaws also protecting a great lord's daughter that he didn't ask for.
And he cares about her a lot.
He cares about her like family.
You can see that.
He wouldn't have stepped in here.
Or not family. Yeah, he wouldn't have stepped in had he not.
you can see that he wouldn't have stepped in here.
Or not family.
Yeah, he wouldn't have stepped in had he not.
But that said, I think also it's that time that, like,
he's, you know, 15, 16.
He wants to get drunk and fuck a pretty girl here at the brothel.
Like, why shouldn't he?
He's had nothing but shit his whole life.
Why shouldn't he want to do something?
But there's something tugging him to protect Arya, to take take care of her and he feels a little bit of resentment at that a little bit of resentment at not having his freedom because he's never had his freedom and now he's like well this
is the most free i've ever fucking been and i still can't have that freedom i think it's kind
of interesting like it comes out of resentment and also out of love in a way yeah yeah george wanted his five-year
gap and i think this is one of the reasons so yeah if there was a five-year gap it would be
easier for me to right now say to you gendry's frustrated because aria is younger and a high
born lady and he probably wants to fuck her but unfortunately there's no five-year gap so this
is in layman's terms yes so this is
yeah i mean it's very weird and i'd be like uh maybe you should also get a job country
yeah anyway aria finds a mattress upstairs one for the whole group because i think we discussed
this was it in the brienne or caitlin chapters that's the way that ends work you know people
just all stay in the same room.
They've only got so many beds.
And it's probably cheaper.
One for the whole group grabs her real clothes that are hanging on the wall, getting out of the linen lace that she was forced into and puts herself into her tunic.
And then she says her nighttime prayers.
And we have a line of, she liked to mix up the order of the names sometimes.
It helped her remember
who they were and what they'd done maybe some of them are dead she thought maybe they're in iron
cages someplace and the crows are picking out their eyes sleep came as quick as she closed her
eyes and just a random thought that i had when i was reading that i'm like thinking of doran martell
doing the exact same thing as Arya with
like maybe he has a little vengeance prayer too oh I love that I've uh I was just I love that for
him I do I love like secret vengeful zaddy Doran Martell I actually really love Doran he makes me
very sad and gotta shout out and recommend learned hands just put out a Doran Martell episode and at
the time of this recording at the front of
december i am only one hour in it's about a two and a half hour episode but it's good i'm like we
can't say anything last week's episode was long but long episode but very good and i've gotten
two workouts out of it so far so i'm hoping to get a third or fourth you know i think i'm really
milking this episode but take a listen to it. It's pretty good so far.
I actually wanted to poke some fun
at what George put in here,
because it's a little meta,
that he has Arya say that sometimes
she liked to mix up the order
to help her remember who they are and what they did.
Arya's prayer is a really cool framing device.
I think back to when you pointed out
the moon in Bran's plot
and how it was kind
of like showed a lot for passage of time or different things. I thought that was such a
great anchoring point in his chapters. And Arya's prayer is actually a really great anchor point
for a couple of things. So one, passage of time. So if it's given more than once in a chapter,
you can kind of figure out the chapter is not just a one day chapter that you're covering several
different days or several different prayers. I think of a storm of swords one you get the prayer twice in
that and then later in a feast for crow in the second chapter for a feast for crows will come to
she says her prayers three times that day very interesting it tells us death of characters
right characters get removed from the list when they die it tells us a change of heart that arias
had removal from the list like sandor hell had amory not died maybe she would have removed him
eventually and then i think there's something interesting about prominence and this is kind
of like a very young thing that when news is very prominent so for example uh this chapter
cersei and joffrey come to the front of the list
while Sandor and Gregor go to the bottom of the list. And that might be due to the war, right?
She's been very centrally located in Gregor in the last handful of chapters. And here she's finally
hearing a little bit about King's Landing on and off in this chapter. So I don't know, just some
food for thought. She's been very cut off from society and has been very close to the soldiers on the ground so they've kind of had her her priority in her kill list
and I will say I made a spreadsheet as I was going through this I don't want to talk about it
uh just I have a whole spreadsheet now of the different changes to the prayer and the different
order and there were some interesting moments that I kind of saw while using it for research.
Like a Clash of Kings 7, Whis comes in.
That was when she started hating Whis.
He gets added as number one because she hates his ass.
And he's such a dick in her everyday life.
How could you forget about Whis?
Clash of Kings 8, Chizik dies.
He gets taken off the list.
Clash of Kings 10, Whis dies.
Amory dies.
They get removed from the list. Storm of Swords 1, Arya falls asleep before finishing her list.
I don't think it's that important, but I just thought it was kind of interesting that she
doesn't finish saying people on her list. She doesn't say Ilyn, Meryn, Joffrey, or Cersei.
In this chapter, we have Cersei and Joffrey move to the front of the list, Hound and Gregor
at the end of the list. The irony, of course, being the hound
is moved to the end of this chapter.
And Storm of Swords 8,
she doesn't do her full prayer,
but there's an observation of her prayer in passing
saying that she prayed it,
but we don't get to hear the order.
And then Storm of Swords 13,
Poliver and Tickler die
and she leaves the hound off of her list
because she's with him now.
A Feast for Crows 1,
hound's been removed permanently.
There's a spoiler I'm not going to give you,
but something happens in Mercy
in the Winds of Winter.
If you haven't read it, you should.
And I don't know.
We will be covering it as a Patreon episode
at some point.
Yeah, it's coming for you, patrons.
Get ready.
At the end of Aria, we will come back to that. And
I don't know, I think the, uh, it makes
me think about the Order and the Winds of Winter and what it
might be like with what's left, right?
Especially because
I think there is something about her prayer
that we need to think about.
In the Winds of Winter, here's who's left.
Gregor,
Dunsin, Raff,
Ellen Payne, Meryn Trant, and Cersei cersei right so gregor we know he's dead but
i mean he's undead and he's in king's landing right interesting dunson might be on his way
to king's landing we haven't seen him in a long time on the ground. However, in the World of Ice and Fire
app, it's semi-canon,
but I think it kind of counts. It seems
like it's a little tidbit that
George had in his notes.
Dunson is following Ronit Connington
from Maidenpool to King's Landing.
Dunson is heading towards
King's Landing.
We don't really know where Raph is, so I guess that
doesn't count. Spoilers.
And
Ilan Payne
King's Landing.
Well, he's running around the Riverlands.
He's got a
bro trip now. He might be going
back to King's Landing. We'll see.
That he's been forced to go on.
Yeah, but
I mean, Jamie's off on his own now we'll see
he's loose for love yeah uh marin is in king's landing and cersei's in king's landing so all
signs in her prayer kind of are pointing towards king's landing so it'll be interesting to see
if she i don't think she'll go to king's landing before going
home to winterfell i think she'll hit the riverlands and go north i'm wondering if she
chooses not to go which is going to be a big step against her prayer but all signs point to king's
landing at some point i also think like it's possible that cersei goes to casterly rock at
some point too so i think that her plans are going to get ruined to go to king's landing arias i think that everything's there yeah and one way or another she's not going to
be able to complete her list yeah and which also happened to doran right like the list gets
completed for him just not in the way that he wanted he wanted it he wanted to have a little
more of an active role aria would love to have more of an active role, I think, in the making her prayers come true. But we'll see how it goes. We'll see how it goes. I mean, Gregor is at least easier probably to kill than he used to be. Or is he harder to kill now? I don't know. I don't really understand the mechanics sometimes of undeadness.
We'll find out.
find out yeah we will find out and i really love um how you've pointed out like that it does serve as as like you said an anchor and it's kind of like a little check-in of like here's what's
happening in aria's story but also here's what's happening in the story overall and but also
showing like you said like how her character is changing when it comes to each person who is on or off the list
yeah
hmm well aria has a wolf dream the smell of blood rain and rod is in the air and she's swift fierce
and her pack is around her her brothers and sisters help her take down a frightened horse and they feast and when the moon breaks she howls oh one day comes aria wakes to the barking of dogs
she's pressed between gendry and lem in the bed and it sounds like at least half a hundred dogs
are out there which i know that feeling and and she like goes to the window of this bedroom and decides to open and she's like oh
it's wet and cold and i'm like that's kind of like an asshole move aria why are you opening
the cold wet window while everyone is sleeping very rude letting in the sound of the dogs
yeah well that's also kind of an asshole thing to do too why would you wake up
everyone else in the fucking room well i mean they gotta get up look we fundamentally disagree on
this okay i just i just think let them sleep all right uh let them sleep in well out in the square
these dogs have barked and run in circles. They're great black mastiffs.
And there's also some lean wolfhounds, black and white sheep dogs, and some dogs that Arya
doesn't even know. Well, definitely one dog that she does know, but more to come on that.
A dozen riders sit astride their horses, watching the townsmen open a cage, letting a corpse within
fall and become dog food very quickly.
Interesting to compare over to,
uh,
Jane and what she's dealing with in a dance with dragons.
Uh,
prisoner sits solely beside the townsmen and people are throwing poop at him.
That's so cruel.
Um,
he's being told he'll rot in these cages while they spend all of his Lannister
gold.
Damn.
They also, like, tell him that they're going to send his remains to his brother, which is, like, another little hint about who this is.
And I think it's kind of interesting because it's his brother's remains that maybe, maybe his brother's remains get sent around the country.
Oh, I love that.
Passing them around.
I love that.
My God. We do love that that happened
to him this is so learned at hands doran martell wow this is just like their episode coming all in
at the same time um yeah because his head question mark maybe might be there might not maybe question
mark question mark question mark prophet nothing's better than the fact that like doran you know how
doran parties they're so petty they're like oh we're gonna have sugar skulls to accept the skull her question mark prophet nothing's better than the fact that like dorn you know how dorn parties
they're so petty they're like oh we're gonna have sugar skulls to accept the skull so good actually
that was that was actually a really good move yeah i love a theme you know me love a theme
the brotherhood wakes up asking everyone well what's going on eliana's over here aria opened
the window that's what's going on uh tom tells them the
huntsman has returned with a prisoner aria comments it's a lannister and gendry's like
is it the kingslayer now the poop has transformed from being poop being thrown to being rocks
and stones being thrown at the man and then aa confirms this man is not the Kingslayer.
Then we close the chapter with,
Not the Kingslayer, Arya thought when she saw his face.
The gods had heard her prayers after all.
Wow.
Who is it?
Oh my God.
Who is it, Chloe?
It's my mans.
There he is.
Who's the good boy?
You know, we haven't seen Sandy since Blackwater Baby.
Oh my god.
Yeah, Sandor Theond before Theon Theond.
Sandor disappears after Blackwater, and this is his first reappearance into the plot here.
I'm so glad to see him.
I really hate that he's getting hit with piles of shit and stones.
That's kind of cruel
don't throw poop and rocks at dogs that's not nice but yeah i also love the way it ends it's very
like it's such a storm of swords chapter ending and what i mean by that is like i think of tyrian
chapters in storm and how they always end with these big like notes of da da da da and this one
also ended with the da da da da you know like i think of the trial and i think of all these big notes of da-da-da-da-da. And this one also ended with the da-da-da-da-da.
You know, like, I think of the trial,
and I think of all these big chapters happening
and the way George writes them.
And the gods had heard her prayers after all.
And if you didn't figure it out,
you have to wait till the next chapter to figure it out.
I think that's clever.
It's cute.
George is doing a thing.
I love when he does the thing.
Do it all the time, George.
Please.
It feels like
we're about to go to a commercial
break, right? What's gonna
where are we gonna find out after the commercial?
I think like sometimes these endings
of these chapters, it either feels
like the end of a commercial or the end of like an
episode of, you know, a TV series
that's coming out. You really
get to see his TV writer chops shine.
Yeah, it is very, it would copy to the screen for sure. that's coming out. You really get to see his TV writer chops shine. Yeah.
It is very,
it would copy to the screen for sure.
Like just dramatic.
I mean,
I think of how they did the Tyrion trial,
you know,
the I demand trial by combat.
Like that is the most,
it's very epic.
It's very,
yeah.
George was absolutely feeling himself in this book. i think a lot of people say that storm
is their favorite and it is a good book it's not my favorite i still love it i mean it's in my five
favorite a-swath books probably of the top five just kidding but um there's more than that now
i guess i guess there's like seven or eight oh god fire and blood did i miss something oh yeah
look under your chair.
Oh.
I don't know, it's something, like, you can see he's showing off a little bit in this book, and I think it's well-deserved.
It's very well-deserved.
He's flossing a little.
He's like, I'm George R.R. Martin, and I have snappy, flashy chapter endings.
Yeah, I mean, he's pretty jazzed about this book, right?
He gets to, like, close up some of the plots to move into a new phase of the story.
Yeah. He gets to close up one act of
the story. Not necessarily plots. He just
reopens a bunch of plots. But
anyway, so, I don't know.
I like Storm.
I think I'm Beast first, Storm
second. Hell yeah. But I did used to be
Storm first because I'm a basic bitch, too.
That's okay to be basic. Yeah. That's okay to be basic.
Yeah, it is okay to be basic.
Storm enjoyers
who became Feast enjoyers are
you know, they're number one. That's all.
It's true. I am number one. No, I'm joking.
Oh my god.
Well, that's it. I mean
what a strong place for us to end on.
Oh yeah. What a strong place for us
to start 2024 on, for Chloe especially.
Oh, my God.
I'd like to thank the Academy.
I'd like to thank Eliana.
I'd like to thank all of you listening at home.
Thank you so much.
I feel like I've won an award today.
So, thank you.
2024, the first half will be dedicated to Sandor Clegane.
It's her year.
I mean, I'm going to be honest. Most of my years are dedicated to Sandor Clegane. It's her year. I mean, I'm going to be honest.
Most of my years are dedicated to Sandor Clegane.
But.
Yep, that's true.
I'm telling you all a secret here.
It's been a great year of Arya and a bunch of other POVs, right?
Bran, Arryn, Mel.
Victarion.
Victarion.
Oh my God.
We had a crazy fucking year.
Finished a lot. I look forward to
next year. I don't know,
I think we might be able to get
a few POVs in next year, now that
I say it. Yeah, I mean, it's honestly
a better start to the year. I mean, like,
granted, you know, while I loved starting the year
with the His Dark Materials
TV show finale,
what a fucking bummer, am I right?
Yeah.
Sorry about God.
Well, now we got Sand Bob.
Yes, now we will have Sand Dog.
Hello, God, it's Dog.
Hello, Dog.
Hello, yes, this is Dog.
Yes.
Thank you for listening in 2023.
We have had a blast with you this year.
We look forward to several more years.
Several more years.
Four more years.
Many more years.
Wow, honestly, that's pretty optimistic for these last two books.
Anyways, we do.
We do.
Thank you for being on this journey with us.
Wow.
New year.
Same old us probably
but even more us than ever
when with this Sandor
chapters
see you all
on the flip side
if you want to keep up with all of that
though
you can follow us on social media
at twitter.com slash girls gone canon
c-a-n-o-n or on blue sky at girls gone canon.
Or you can send us an email with, I don't know, just fun stuff.
Also pictures of your animals at girls gone canon at gmail.com.
And a huge thank you again to our patrons who honestly sponsor the shit out of us.
These episodes could not happen would not happen
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And by joining the Discord, you get access to a bunch of great channels,
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Respectful Thirsting, because there's a channel for that.
Come by, join the community.
It's a lot of fun and you won't regret it.
It's been a great year and you won't regret it.
It's been a great year. Look forward to more. Thanks so much for
listening. As always,
I have been one of
your hosts, Chloe.
And I have been another one
of your hosts, Dominic
and Duncan. Oh my god.
These people are gonna be like,
who are these girls? why do they keep claiming to
be us sorry women women who are these ladies my little and why should we hire them to do our
musical adaptation why should we completely pivot we're gonna fucking all over put them
the strumming and air ukulele
right now but none of you
can hear it or see it but just
know it's being strummed
it's being strummed
the queen took off her sandal
oh are we not? alright goodbye everyone
goodbye
I don't know the words
I don't know the tune
happy new year everyone
see you later
happy new year goodbye