Girls Gone Canon Cast - ASOIAF Episode 219 — ASOS Arya XII

Episode Date: March 8, 2024

Arya and Nymeria go fishing. --- Background music credit: "Cryptic Sorrow" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ --- 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

Hello and welcome to Girls Gone Canon Reads A Song Of Ice And Fire, episode 219, Aria 12ria 12 in a storm of swords i'm one of your hosts chloe i'm another one of your hosts eliana are you ready for i don't know you said aria 12 and i was like thinking about me is she gonna say it i i can't i can't remember the the exact meme it's like i'm 11 or something like that. Shut the... For those of you that are going around saying, I'm 9, she's 9, I'm 10. So shut the fuck up, is how I think the vine goes, yes. Yeah, there's a vine.

I hear it whenever I think about her. RIP vine. Absolutely. Oh my god. Hello. Welcome back to the penultimate Aria in a Storm of Swords chapter. Can you believe it that's happening first of all this month for patrons in the stranger tier that's five dollars and above patrons at patreon.com slash girls gone canon will get a bonus episode like they do every month and this month will be the hunger games

this is getting a little outlandish elianaiana. Part two of our final The Book, The Hunger Games episode covering the second half of the last third of the book known as The Hunger Games, The Victor, part two. It was really dense. We had to split it up. We had to. It's a big boy. It's very big. We only got halfway through act three last time and it took us two hours. And so. These are are dense dense stories they are dense especially the ending of the hunger games which is book one as you all know and some of you might remember us telling you a few episodes ago

that like the march episode was going to be bravos and we just introduce a twist just like happens at the end of the 74th hunger games and we are going to do bravos but this is chloe and my passion project now the hunger games yeah we'll probably come back with bravos next month or uh at worst may i'm guessing but we definitely want to visit bravos as we start to finish up aria we don't have that many chapters left of aria we're getting very close and we actually have a couple chapters that we'll be doing right bravos for our project here with across the narrow sea the free cities but also we have to do the wins a winner mercy for aria that's coming up too for patrons yeah so that will be coming up you will get that episode as a patreon episode we'll see what happens first if we do mercy first or bravos it's anyone's game of thrones be fun to do it in may and you can call it instead of mercy mayor c nope i'm not i'm not even gonna engage with the behavior you know i'm just not gonna encourage it

not gonna encourage it what is the there's this meme we're in a we're in a dean mindset right now right there's this meme that i love that takes the litany of fear oh no and it says like i will not take bait bait is the mind killer bait is the little death that brings total obliteration i will face my bait i will permit it to pass over me and through me and the rest of the litany of fear and basically you all know it but that's i need that as a tattoo on my body i will not take my bait i will send this to you thanks thanks yeah so this month march oh my god march 2024 for the fucking historians we will be throwing out our second part of hunger games act three and then we'll be scooting around to bravos and aria in the next couple months for patrons so stay tuned for that of course that's not all that's happening in march for patrons for patrons so stay tuned for that of course that's not all that's happening in march

for patrons for patrons in the thunder tier and above the monthly brappy hour brunch slash happy hour is happening this month on march 24th i think it's 2 p.m et so come hang out with us for a couple hours enjoy uh enjoy the springtime with us before the best month, April. Oh, yes. April's an exciting month. It brings many things. Brings us our most beautiful flower. It's Chloe.

Me? What? Yes, April is the best month, and I'm sure we will have many shenanigans during April for you all, so stay tuned. Yeah. Alright, that said, we do have a tweet of note from our friend EA Champion, who is responding to one of our Aria chapters from before. Yeah, it says, listening to Girls Gone Canon on this Aria chapter talk about, what do dragons smell like? Reminds me of the first time I saw whales in the wild. I thought that the spray from their blowholes would smell

marshy and pleasant and I was so wrong. Oh no. Oh no. My parents are going on like a cruise to Alaska. They've never done a cruise and i should warn them i want to know what it smelled like um putrid probably there's a lot of human or not human well probably there's a lot of waste in there eliana a lot of uh also i feel like i've heard that their teeth grow a lot of bacteria because food gets stuck in there happens to us too i guess but they don't have a strong flossing regimen no they don't and they do have like a lot a lot of like teeth depending on the whale you know like that filtration system thing so you think about it so much surface area for all that bacteria

wow wow i just want to hug them just want to hug them but well maybe i guess like what while your your nose is plugged or i don't know i don't't know. Well, you just tell Eliana more, EA champion. She wants to know more. I think it sounds like she's curious. So please follow up. Please follow up. All right. It's time to announce who our guest for the final chapter of Aria in a Storm of Swords will be.

You know, if you weren't placing bets on this one, you should have been. I feel like you could have made some money off of it uh our friend warren who's been on before for his dark materials series is coming on in to hang out with us for aria 13 the hedge knight himself so i'm excited to have him he's the aria family he if you need to feel boosted about Arya Stark that's your guy that's him yeah you might have I mean we cannot cover Arya without having Warren on it is literally impossible he is a self-described Aryaholic and I mean yeah it's one of the I mean it's like a huge chapter right right? It's a huge turning point

for Arya's story. So I'm really excited to hear what Warren's got to say. I did give him like first pick too. You know, I gotta, I gotta be honest with you because I know that and I want him to have his fave and no spoilers for next week's app, but I have to tell you guys, absolutely. Like he already has pages of notes. He's already done the job for me. I don't even have to tell you guys, absolutely. Like he already has pages of notes. He's already done the job for me. I don't even have to think. It's amazing. I'm so hyped.

I'm so excited. He's got so much good shit to say about Arya. So looking forward to next week with Warren. See him then. Listen to him then. Whatever we do. Whatever. Sound.

Yeah. Sound. Indeed. Indeed. whatever we do whatever sound yeah sound indeed indeed well you're all gonna just have to stay tuned for that because we got to get through this episode first in which uh i mean aria's got to get through she's got to get through a lot of stuff this episode all this chapter too yeah but first up we're gonna get through the lightning round before we go to Aria to find out what we missed from last week with Aria 11 and this week, Aria 12. There's a lot in this lightning round because as you all know, George wanted to be like, is Aria dead?

Is she not dead? Shut the fuck up, George. Should we be telling George to shut the fuck up on this podcast? No, that's true. No, George, please continue writing. Please continue saying things. Huh. Wow.

Shut the fuck, George. Yeah, there's a lot of... You know, tone, lovingly. Affectionately, in parentheses. That's what it is, affectionately. We're friends. We're on a first name basis. I'm not even calling him anymore sandgerm

yeah there's a lot happening too because the story's peaking like crazy right like everyone has to get a couple chapters in during this stuff is popping off in a storm of swords and and it's like that in the next chapter too there's so many chapters before we get the aria and aria is just scattered very lightly little aria sprinkles uh for you to pick up those pieces and it's great because you can see like the motion and rhythm of the plot the rhythm of the song if you will because aria has kind of come back down slower paced but a lot of action packed into short bursts this chapter is slower paced next chapter obviously has a big a lot of action a lot of payoff for her

last chapter but we're getting to the end for a lot of these chapters i think like danny's chapter in the next chapter like the one in the next lightning round next week with warren is her last chapter in the book etc so we're getting to the very end of storm obviously for all these big plots yeah and honestly i'm i'm super excited about the Feast chapters. You should all be excited about me being excited about the Feast chapters for Arya. Yes. I'm hyped. I'm ready.

Yeah. I'm ready. Well, let's start off. We got Tyrion Six. Tywin reveals the truth about having Arya Stark and the Red Wedding. Davos Five five davos tries to save a child pylos helps him read a letter john seven chloe has a song here she would like to perform right now we're gonna break where we're gonna what no oh you want me to do it

you want me to do it um it goes egret dies beneath the wall, but Chloe has here crossed out, Shot through the heart, you're not to blame. John didn't kill Ygritte. I was thinking at one time when I wrote this to give you a little behind the scenes on the process. You know, what if we went with a more musical prompt? And then I was like, will Eliana want that if she accidentally has to say it? Which I did accidentally have to say it. You've done both. You've done both. Thank you.

Thank you. Brand 4. At the night fort, Sam and Gilly light the way. Daenerys 5. Daenerys is surrounded by men, most of them horrible. She's ready to banish two of them, but not Daario Naharis. Tyrion 7.

Tyrion tries to figure out what to do about Shae. He then has to lie next to his child bride with horrible knowledge about the Red Wedding and what his family did to her family. Speaking of the child bride, Sansa 4. No time for grief!

Sansa must attend a bachelor's brunch. It's terrible. Tyrion 8. Eliana, I love ya. Tyrion 8. Joffrey gets a reveal about his villainous antics against Bran, just in time, because then he dies. I love you too, Chloe. Thanks.

Sansa 5. Sansa flees King's Landing with Littlefinger. Ugh. Jaime 7. Jaime and Brienne reach the Red Keep. Cersei begs Jaime to kill Tyrion. Tywin tries to release Jaime from his vows. Jaime, uh,

what? I don't want any of this. Why did I come back here? Jaime to Brienne. They sure to stay in that cave. Davos 6. Davos frees Edric Storm and it almost costs him his life. Until he begins reading A Letter to Stannis. Good for him.

That took a lot of work to get to that reading. John 8. With Donald Noy dead and Mance's free folk at the wall, John must lead the Night's Watch. And that brings us here to Arya XII, where Arya drags her mom out of a river. Depression. No one wants Sandor and Arya.

More depression. I'm really going through something today with these lightning-rounded notes aren't i wow that told a story god welcome to aria 12 in a storm of swords everyone we open the chapter with she could feel the hole inside her every morning when she woke it wasn't hunger though sometimes there was that too it was a hollow place an emptiness where her heart had been, where her brothers had lived, and her parents. Her head hurt too, not as bad as it had at first, but still pretty bad. Arya was used to that though, and at least the lump was going down, but the hole inside her stayed the same.

The hole will never feel any better, she told herself when she went to sleep. I think there's so much connecting this chapter to a lot of both Catelyn's chapters and Sansa's chapters, especially right now Sansa is going through a lot of the same grief, finding out their family's fucking dead. But it really reminds me of Cat 7 in Clash of Kings where Catelyn thinks, I am become a sour woman. I take no joy in mead nor meat and song and laughter have become suspicious strangers to me I am a creature of grief and dust and bitter longings there is an empty place within me where my heart once was it's interesting how those arcs are really so closely connected especially with regards to like vengeance and justice and mercy for catalan's chapters but also grief despair and

kind of exploitation right and being helpless uh in sansa and aria's chapters at the same time yeah absolutely absolutely and i i think you can really see those like parallels stringing across the entire dark family if you think about it even like we should contextualize this with like probably how ned felt right years ago and he's been carrying that sort of hole himself all the way up until the recent series it's not like as as always friend of mine for him right the wounds aren't as fresh but it's there and i want to quickly call out you know aria talking about the lump on her head and i was like oh yes lumpy head and coming back to that that name's gonna resurface later on i was like oh there she is.

She's Lumpy Head. But you're talking about how it parallels with Sansa's grief, even in the beginning of like, or even right after Ned's death, right? Because Arya doesn't want to wake on some mornings and she tries to stay asleep dreaming. She loves the dreaming where she gets to dream of a great pack of wolves with her at its head and she's bigger and faster than any of them. But like, that's exactly the same descriptions as Sansa after Ned's death, right? She tries to stay asleep as much as possible, doesn't want to wake. And that's absolutely, that's real. Like, that's what grief fucking feels like. that's what grief fucking feels like i think especially having such a close proximity to this death and how sansa was obviously right there for ned's death there's a lot of guilt and that survivor's guilt of you know like why am i here and what could i have done and for aria she

was ready to just run in there and somehow save her mother and brother which is impossible obviously she would not have been able to do that they probably would have taken her down so it's kind of that horrible that horrific survivor's guilt yeah absolutely i mean like that seems to be probably what ned feels right like that's why he keeps replaying that idea of promise me promise me that's there too and then it segues beautifully into i think a feast for crows because of that and that as we start getting you know the dornish storyline which dorn's story is also colored with that yeah that grief and that guilt and that sorrow and yeah and all the actions born out of it for those that get left behind yeah and i think like that's if anything like i think that's such a big part of what characterizes

the starks like and their specific arcs that idea of like navigating grief and that as a theme within them and it's obviously there for the other families as well but it's such a big i think part of theirs i love that the stark children are like, we've all been depressed since 298 AC. Yeah, pretty much. 297. Yeah. Look what you did. You took perfectly good children and gave them anxiety disorders.

God. Yeah, there's a lot of that throughout this chapter. We have a passage here that I like. She shizzes her feelings, right? When she's warging, when she's within Numeria. When she bared her teeth, even men would run from her her belly was never empty long and her fur kept her warm even when the wind was blowing cold and her brothers and sisters were with her many and more of them fierce and terrible and hearse they would never leave her oh this actually does sound really fun though men would flee from her

men would run for her that's why i can play the sims for like 14 hours straight yeah real again like we're seeing so many things that tie the starks together emotionally like how aria warging here and the desire to stay asleep and be warging even though she doesn't know what that is mirrors bran and that desire to leave reality right that escapism and for bran a lot of it is to feel strong and powerful obviously that's how aria feels here too when she's felt so powerless a lot of her story and you know her life during this time being like shuffled around also being kind of like a hostage most recently but i think what's interesting is how despite that parallel with bran her motivations like her desires are different right for bran when he's working it's the exhilaration of movement something that has been taken from him

mobility running whereas for aria we see here that it's that desire for a family to never be abandoned and to not feel lonely and that goes really interestingly with the way that her arc flows because at the end of this book right aria is the one who learns to do the leaving she's like i, I don't know. Bye, Sandor. I love how you've likened it to Bran's plot too, right? Because he was given that leadership that he was reluctant to actually take part of due to his depression. And he actually kind of grew into a... Yeah, and he was a baby.

But he also grew really into it. He learned a lot in Clash and in Storm, even when he has his reads as his next guides and he's on this like learning journey with all these different characters i really like that you've likened it to that because i really thought that the clash of kings chapters were especially very there was a lot of that going on she's got the old worgen blues yeah as i call them the worgen blues she uh it's a thing i'm'm going to make it happen. She'd rather stay in her visions all day, right, than real life with the hound, of course.

And of course she would, because in her dreams, she has that family, like you said. She's big and strong, where in real life, she continues to go into situations where, because of her stature and age, she feels that she's seen as small and helpless. In her dreams, no one can withstand her. And just like how Bran is surrounded by the Freys

in those Clash chapters, Arya also is hunting Lannister and Freys in her dreams, right? Bringing something that feels like justice or maybe like vengeance to the North and to her dead family. It's like she's helpless to do anything and here she is doing those things. Yeah. and i didn't think about this until just now but you said that like brand is surrounded by the phrase you see that happen to robin catlin too and i think that's another

reason why aria the storyline doesn't let her go under the portcullis and get captured by them it would just be completely redundant of those other parts of the story. Yeah. It's great too, because you have her obviously with Bruce covering that side of the story for so long. That's good that he alternates, I think, because it could get really repetitive.

Yeah. Her days belong to the dog. However, Sandor wakes her each morning, yanking her to her feet or cursing at her once even dumped a helm of cold water on her and he'd commanded her to tend to the horses now they have a second horse craven who is a sorrel palfrey that they found riderless outside the twins the morning after the slaughter and this is something that i think is interesting like the way that sandor

really he's just a lot of his storyline is just trying to keep the Stark girls out of depression. With Sansa being like, well, what if you didn't kill yourself? Listen, thought, what if you didn't do that? And just showing her some compassion and kindness. And then here with Arya being like, you got to keep moving. You got to keep moving. You can't let the fucking like grief chemicals just take over your body yeah it does bring me back again to bran right when they are feeding him or trying to get

him to eat or drink a little bit of like honey or water or syrup whatever it is literally anything anything anything he'd take down and that's a lot of it right i love warging is almost this kind of look at depression because you get so involved in your dreams this better world and it's it's a lot of you have to try to establish a routine again instead of only living in your dreams and going through the motions and even little things feel exhausting and like they're taking your whole entire life up and that Sandor is giving them I mean he's giving them the epitome of tough love right yeah it's not really like honeyed sweetened love it's definitely vinegar it's catching fewer flies but you just something that you said just made

something click for me in terms of the way that the direwolves act in the story like as a you know mechanic for the characters and the way the dragons do both of these magical counterpart animals are wish fulfillment for characters right for the for the direwolves as you said it's this like escapism thing like not having to live in reality and that sort of wish fulfillment whereas for when it comes to dragons it's a wish fulfillment in terms of like that kind of power of having like the ability to make other people do things because you wield power over them because giant weapon which the direwolves are also yeah but yeah in a different it examines it in different ways well and even with danny's how she has the the three variants of wish fulfillment right you have drogon which is agon's power it's fire and blood it's her house it's her dynasty

it's what she's owed it's what she thinks that she was had taken from her right yeah her family and her blood you have the green representing rhaegar and you have viserys represented a little bit with visiserion I would say there's a lot of some there's a lot of symbolism I feel like tying to that wish fulfillment for Dany and the lives and the things that she felt that she wishes she could have that's a great point yeah the dragons and the direwolves both kind of standing in for family as yeah interesting um i also like that the palfrey aria's horse is named craven doesn't mean much but i just thought it was kind of interesting and cute because she runs into sam later and sam's like i'm a craven and i'm like no sam you are brave going back to her too it's sad because

it's what she sees herself as ah right true craven they found because he had run from battle and they found him in a field outside of the battle or whatever and she also feels that she had to run from battle she feels that she's a craven too interesting i mean you're just gonna die under the portcullis so you're not a craven um right but she feels that it is yeah but it's braver that's a that might be a lesson she has to learn you know that running from something can also be brave knowing how to survive in that way

and thinks that Kraven could probably outrun Stranger and like Arya who has noticed that Sandor is absolutely not guarding her as much as he used to and maybe just maybe she's like I guess I really could kill him in his sleep and run away except where would she go she's like Winterfell is gone my uncle Blackfish doesn't even know me

she wonders she's like maybe I could go to Acorn Hall and beg Lady Smallwood to take her she considers going to Sharna's Inn and being like an outlaw with Gendry, just like Wenda the White Fawn and learning the bow and arrow from Anguy. I love the Wenda the White Fawn references that keep popping up for her, right? During the Kingswood Brotherhood debacle, she was one of the Kingswood Brotherhood

who put her brand on Merit Frey. And we're going to visit with Merit Frey in the future, I'm sure, someday. But she was the one that branded him. So it's kind of funny because that's what Arya's kind of playing around with, right? Of hunting Freys in her dreams. Oh, yeah. Much like Wenda the White Fawn. And of course, she's not thought of very positively, right?

Merit Frey thinks that vile little bitch wenda had burned a fawn into the cheek of his arse while she had him captive but we also learned that like the brotherhood like olmer of the kingswood that's at the wall like they weren't bad people they were trying to help so again we're back to that great parallel of the brotherhood without banners and the kingswood brotherhood and Arya is likening herself to a famed member of it. Yeah. And the faun, right? Swift as a deer.

It's part of her little mantra. I love it. A wink, a nod to her killing Morpheraes. Yay! She thinks. But that was just stupid, like something Sansa might dream. Hot Pie and Gendry had left her just as soon as they could. And Lord Beric and the Outlaws only wanted to ransom her, just like the Hound.

None of them wanted her around. They were never my pack. Not even Hot Pie and Gendry. I was stupid to think so. Just a stupid little girl and no wolf at all. So she stayed with the hound. That's so sad. They like you, Arya. They just need paying jobs and money. We discussed this in a previous chapter, but it's also just kind of great to see how the sisters' storylines

really parallel each other, those emotional emotional beats and towards the beginning of a storm of swords are sansa actually is the one who gets rid of these kinds of dreams she's the one who's like i'm just gonna be alone no one's ever gonna fucking love me all anyone want from me is my claim right and aria is feeling something similar here but hers is more of this idea of abandonment as opposed to being tied to someone and having to be alone with other people yeah i think there's something too that's so guttural of like how often the money is brought up in front of aria where sansa's is covered cloaked in like niceties and lace and behind tourney walls and getting married off to harry harding where the high society deals are

like you don't talk about the money it's a large sum of money it's more than a large sum of money like it involves bringing a kingdom a mini kingdom together for a tournament to to see what happens at the winged knights tournament in Tiwau someday but for Arya you know it's like give me a bag of gold for Arya Stark and it's very rough and nothing pretty about it. No niceties sewn across it. It's loud and in every single chapter. It's like wealth versus money, you know? Mm-hmm.

Baelish is working with wealth. Yeah. Other people's wealth, which is kind of funny because, like, it brings that idea of scammers, like that idea of scammers inventing Anna. But no, all the big scammers and stuff. And I mean, that's what he is, really. He's risen up. He has everyone's money in his pocket. He could just bolt if he really wanted to.

He might have to. I mean, he's already gotten rid of a lot of it, right? You think of Ned being like, wait, where is all the money? We fought this war. There was shit we fought this war there was shit tons of money there was shit tons of jewels and treasure where is it he's like bye and little fingers like i squirreled it away haha yep so they ride daily avoiding villages towns and castles and once she asked sandor where they were going, and he just goes, away. Okay.

He's a little bitter, it seems, and maybe mad that she isn't grateful that he hit her with an axe to keep her from running into bloodshed, but all Arya can think about is that he should have let her go see her mom. He threatens to give her to the Silent Sisters all the same. This is one of those things, things like someday you'll get it

kid someday you're gonna get it not today as a nine-year-old but someday you're gonna get it right whole days pass where they don't speak Arya can feel the anger simmering on Xandor in his mouth the looks he gives her he goes into a cold rage whenever he has to chop wood for them chopping far too much going to bed without even lighting the fire at this point. Those are the days that Arya thinks about swinging the axe at him, but she ends up not doing it. I don't think she'd be very successful. I admire how much belief she has in herself. I wish I had that confidence. Arya is noticing this anger coming from Sandor and i'm like kind of curious about it you know i'm like it feels as though sandor we just know he's an angry dude in general but there's this

anger that's coming through that feels angry at the world and i kind of wonder if he's angry at himself too like he's probably annoyed at aria but i don't think he's angry at her and she doesn't understand that because she's nine like i think that he's angry that he lost a chance at a better life because it was all torn from him multiple times throughout you know the brotherhood and then this shit with the red wedding and the payout from delivering aria but i kind of wonder if there's a part of him that's a little angry that he didn't get there earlier to reunite aria with her family not for the money but just like you know there's some anger to some extent on aria's behalf just like this little girl who lost her family

yeah because he's been through it i mean he's lost his family he can't go back to his family like he's lived through it for you know about 20 years 19 years longer than she has unfortunately and he for him it hasn't gotten better and he wants a different life for her and there's even something interesting in that like he's definitely not mad at her oh yeah i agree there he's just mad at the whole entire situation that he's hungry he has to protect her he knows that he doesn't really want to sell her for money i mean less than what the brotherhood would want to you know the brotherhood obviously was reluctant but they needed their money but sandor really doesn't probably want to have to do any of this like i wouldn't want to hike this brat all over the country hoping to find somebody

to give him some money or maybe some food a job well it's like no one wants to beg you know what i mean like it's like we were talking about in that episode in with mira right like he didn't he doesn't have to sell aria for money like sandor is a perfectly capable of doing many jobs kind of person right and he was hoping for like i don't know something some sort of acceptance he's like i't know, maybe I could join your brother's employ. Right. And being able to serve something that he felt resonated maybe with his values or be accepted like that kind of hope. Because he's like, I don't know, the Starks seem like a legit family. Well, and it's that right. It's that crosssection of class like we were just talking and the idea of wealth right actual wealth not just tangible money and he's trying to invest he's trying to

be accepted as legitimate and no one sees him as legitimate which unfortunately comes with the stain of the westerlands yeah that's what happens when you're not his fault i mean it's a little it is but it isn't right and like we'll get to that later this chapter of the Joffrey's dog you gotta die to get out which actually is literally what he does

literally but you gotta die to get out at this job is all I'm saying like how many people leave the Lannisters employ of their own will and do not die can you make me that list I don't know I'd actually have to think about it someday you don't have to do it today yeah we could be here all day guys two hours later and now here's my huge list also did you notice that Arya really starts calling him Sandor instead of just the Hound this chapter? I didn't. I didn't.

But that is interesting. Pay attention this chapter and next. There's a little more of that. Oh, I thought you were telling me, like, pay attention, Eliana. God. Yeah. God. Read better, idiot. I'm just kidding. So from time to time, they would see other humans,

but they never speak to the other humans, and other humans never speak to them. Sometimes they would see other humans but they never speak to the other humans and other humans never speak to them sometimes they even see columns of fray men riding with their sigil overhead hunting for stray northerners sandor always comments i think it's ironic because aria describes like going through the riverlands is like i don't understand these people they feel very foreign to me even though you know this is still west rose and she does in the next book actually go to a foreign place and she has to talk a lot she talks to those people a lot it's kind of funny too because she fits in really well yeah and it turns out when

she's not like under extreme anxiety and pressure she's very outgoing and she's very you know interested like on the road on the way to king's Landing. Yeah. Which it's like me, I guess. That could be me, like when I'm not depressed. Yeah. Yeah. Real. Maybe we should do Braavos. Maybe we should go visit Braavos. Sounds like it could be, you know, let's go. Let's go to

Amsterdam or somewhere fun. Yeah, stuff you with some cockles, clams, and oysters. Actually, that's not a bad idea. So, they come face to face with one of Sir Mark Piper's men, a stray lone survivor.

His arm and shoulder are twisted from battle. He was hit by a Northman bearing the Bolton sigil. He has a little passage here. His badge was a bloody man, and he saw mine and made a jeep. Red man and pink maiden, maybe they should get together. I drank to his lord Bolton, he drank to Sir Mark, and we drank together to Lord Edmure and Lady Roslyn and the king in the north, and then he killed me. His eyes were fever bright when he said that, and Arya

could tell that it was true. His shoulder was swollen grotesquely, pus and blood stained his whole left side. There was a stink to him, too. He smelled like a corpse. The man begged them for a drink of wine. If I had any wine, I'd have drunk it myself,

the hound told him. I can give you water. I am the gift of mercy. Dang. Give her the award, everyone. Awards, awards. Australian, maybe. I don't know. I can't tell the accents apart.

Someone tell me where that boy was from. The Riverlands, obviously. Yeah, I mean, that could be a Riverlands accent. Yeah. That sounds like it to me. Felt it i was that was what i was feeling for this young young soldier how sad how awful that he's still here and not dead yet but definitely in route to death and that line how haunting and then he killed me it reminds me of barrack? Like a lot of that language with Lord Beric's deaths, being alive but being dead, etc. That's interesting. Yeah, absolutely.

And getting to see that betrayal kind of intimately, instead of from afar, and instead of from Catelyn and Rob, from there, just from the ground, right? Like seeing the actual up close, the soldiers being betrayed out at the feast up close and hearing the memory it's painful yeah betrayal and betrayal yeah as you said it is like barrick i mean that man he is also begging for the gift of mercy he's like please please please let me die soon barrick soon the man who realizes who sandor is though and calls him joffrey's dog sandor says i'm my own dog now i'm like oh cute the man asks for the water and the mercy and aria goes and brings him some water from the hound's home it's it's kind of cute they

describe like some of the water sloshed out of the eye holes but it held enough and it's enough to take him to the the grave yeah we have this passage of when the water was gone he clutched the helm and licked the steel good i wish it was wine though i wanted wine me too the hound eased his dagger into the man's chest almost tender, the weight of his body driving the point through his surcoat, ringmail, and the quilting beneath. As he slid the blade back out and wiped it on the dead man, he looked at Arya. That's where the heart is, girl. That's how you kill a man. Shadow the heart. Oh my god.

No, but good similarity, though. It's true. It is connected to Jon's chapter. I appreciate that I translated that, too. Yeah. We wouldn't have realized that parallel, actually, literally, I think, if you hadn't put that in there for the lightning round. The parallel being that you could also sing Bon Jovi to this chapter as well. Oh my gosh, wow. Maybe that is what this chapter is about that's

the song of ice and fire that's the podcast this another parallel though this act of giving water from Arya I think this is like pretty obvious for most people whatever um mirrors the giving of the drafts right at the house of black and white yes absolutely mercy is giving them the killing water and it reminds me a little bit because we're dune coded right now of the water of life and of course all of how water is treated in dune in arrakis itself and how people treat it and there's that line from sirio that comes to mind here all men are made of water do you know this if you pierce them the water leaks out and they die yeah i i put a line here because all i was gonna do is like when you read that i was just gonna

yell dune that's it that was my reaction dune dune yeah real dune we're real dune pilled right now everyone eliana's seeing it tonight i saw it last week yeah oh well i guess uh also i saw it the week before last if you're listening this in historical time yeah you guys this isn't out yet this isn't out yeah i'm seeing it tonight and yeah dude dune chloe's in it she's the lead sandworm and no no you'll find out i have a new role i have a new role um my my partner was telling me that he saw something that you did where i haven't seen this tweet i haven't been on twitter much lately oh no you apparently took the people from sex in the city and put them on arrakis and he was like it was brilliant thank you um it is from i want to say last summer when i watched sex in the city 2 where they go to

abu dhabi and it's the one that i told you that is absolutely the worst movie ever like oh it's probably my lowest rated move it's one of my lowest rated movies on my letterboxd okay dang but yes i had posted them they're in the desert and it says nothing but respect for the bene gesserit oh my god because they look pretty much exactly how you would expect the women of sex in the city to dress in the desert they disrespect like all sorts of the culture it's terrible like it's a terrible movie but everyone should watch it if you've watched sex in the city you may as well just watch it fascinating okay both of those movies one and two are terrible

movies and you have to watch them is my recommendation yeah wow with wine lots of wine streams you know and then we've got dune right one and two one and two enjoyable movies um i assume two is gonna be enjoyable i haven't seen it yet. It is. You're going to love that shit. I can't wait. I can't wait. Yeah, you had another thing. Before we did this episode where we were saying Sandworm and Sandor. That's it. Sandworm.

Sandgerm. Sandworm. Sandor. Wow. Wow. Okay. Arya asks Sandor, will we bury him? But they don't have a spade and they don't have time, says Sandor.

They'll rob him, though, and they take two silver stags, 30 coppers, and a dagger with a pretty pink stone in the hilt, which Sandor passes to Arya. He has a quiver of arrows, but no bow. They leave that. His shoes are too big for Arya, too small for Sandor, so they leave those, too. Arya takes his cattle helm, even though it's too big. Aww. I thought them not taking the boots is kind of interesting, considering how with Darion, right, they take that dead man's boots in

Braavos. But there's something kind of I don't know, poetic about it a little too, right? It's the one thing that they don't take of his. Yes, boots are useful and can be armor in a way but it isn't like very explicitly a weapon or armor like all the other things they take from him or the money right it's it's him it's his clothing it's the it's walking in someone's footsteps it's it's where he's been so that it feels like he's keeping a little of that identity

not really but and they can't go back with it aria can't go back to the riverlands like after all of this and after the next chapter she leaves so in a way yeah they can't walk those shoes they can't walk that same path yeah they really can't they all they could do was give him mercy and take his other shit yeah that too but he doesn't need that where he's going. He really doesn't. Hell. Like all of us. Anyways, they reach the foothills of the Mountains of the Moon, and Arya asks where they're going. Xandor says,

Surprise! I'm gonna sell you to your Aunt Lysa. Aunt Lysa? The thought left Arya feeling empty. It was her mother she wanted, not her mother's sister. She doesn't know Lysa, nor the Blackfish, and they don't even know that her mom's dead, or her brother Rob. Well, they're starting to get the news. Fuck, dude, I just, when you read that line, I was like, this is what Littlefinger thinks.

It was, it was Arya's mother he wanted, not her mother's sister. Ew, get out of here. Ugh. Ugh. Damn. Why would you bring that evil into the podcast? I don't know. My brain's fucking broken.

God. Someone free Chloe. Jesus. Yeah, right. Free Chloe. I'm just kidding. But really, don't bring that evil in here. What the fuck?

I know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Cleanse. Cleanse. Oh my god. Lighting sick. Yeah, right.

Aria here, she's all like, I don't know, my mom could be alive. Like, we didn't see them die. We didn't see them die. They could be alive for all we know because of that. We didn't, like, really see her die on screen. And I'm like, this is how all of you sound about Quentin Martell. I mean, you're right, but you shouldn't be right. That's the exception, not the rule, Arya.

And we saw her die on screen, so Arya, like... See, you proved that one wrong yeah just kidding she will come back very soon literally in moments but as we get there yeah maybe my family are captive she thinks she hopes in lord fray's dungeon or being taken to king's landing suddenly she decides we should go back you should not turn back uh and sandor growls that he thought her sister was the one with the head full of songs maybe her mom's alive as a ransom but going back to that castle means certain death which she was supposed to be yeah it's it's kind of like it's wild she just desperately wants her mom to be alive which speaks to you know her little

girlness like because obviously she i'm sure would love for her brother to be alive but she's not as concerned about that she's like we gotta save my mom i also thought it was that line stood out to me where sandra is the one saying that aria's head is the one that's full of songs and i mean both of the sisters heads are full of songs all the Stark kids their heads are full of songs like we see how Jon like models his life as well and you know it's just that their society and ours

just valorizes one kind of songs and not the other it comes to you know being masculine and feminine coded and it's interesting too because you would think Arya would prefer Rob in some ways because she's so afraid of her mother you know and how her mother feels about her and that shame she feels for her mommy issues is what i'm talking about and like you'd think that maybe

selfishly she would prefer rob but she feels also so just a girl she's just a girl oh my god she is she is and speaking of that you know that night she dreams of her mother she does she does it's not the way you would think and i'm gonna be honest we're including a very big passage here at my choice because this is like i I mean, this passage is metal. This is such a good passage. So we're going to read it, argue with the wall or with me. I won't hear it. Whatever.

When she closed her eyes, she saw her mother's face against the back of her eyelids. She's so close, I could almost smell her. And then she could smell her. The scent was faint beneath the other smells, beneath moss and mud and water, and the stench of rotting reeds and rotting men. She padded slowly through the soft ground to the river's edge, lapped up a drink, then lifted her head to sniff. The sky was gray and thick with cloud, the river green and full of floating things.

Dead men clogged the shallows, some still moving as the water pushed them, others washed up on the banks. Her brothers and sisters swarmed around them, tearing at the rich, ripe flesh. The crows were there too, screaming at the wolves and filling the air with feathers. Their blood was hotter and one of her sisters had snapped at one as it took flight and caught it by the wing. It made her want to crow herself. She wanted to taste the blood, to hear the bones crunch between her teeth, to fill her belly with warm flesh instead of cold. She was hungry and the meat was all around, but she knew she could not eat. The scent was stronger now. She put her ears up and listened to the grumbles of her pack, the shriek of angry crows, the whir of wings and sound of running water. Somewhere far off,

she could hear horses and the calls of living men. But they were not what mattered. Only the scent mattered. She sniffed the air again. There it was, and now she saw it too. Something pale and white drifting down the river, turning where it brushed against the snag. The reeds bowed down before it. She splashed noisily through the shallows and threw herself into the deeper water, her legs churning. The current was strong, but she was stronger. She swam, following her nose. The river smells were rich and wet, but those were not the smells that pulled her. She paddled after the sharp red whisper of cold blood, the sweet, cloying stench of death. She chased them as she had often chased a red deer through the trees, and, the sweet, cloying stench of death. She chased them as she had often chased

a red deer through the trees, and in the end, she ran them down, and her jaws closed around a pale, white arm. She shook it to make it move, but there was only death and blood in her mouth. By now she was tiring, and it was all she could do to pull the body back to shore. As she dragged it up the muddy bank, one of her little brothers came prowling, his tongue lulling from his mouth. She had the snarl to drive him off or else he would have fed. Only then did she stop to shake the water from her fur. The white thing lay face down in the mud, her dead flesh wrinkled and pale, cold blood trickling from her throat. Rise, she thought. Rise and eat and run with us. Whoa. Whoa. whoa whoa on the third day mother mother and said

um i i'm really like taken also by this like how much nemeria didn't want to do this how much the death was like revolting her that aria had to push like she was tiring now namaria is not tired namaria could probably go but it's more that aria's pushing her to go do this thing she doesn't want to go take a dead person out of the water like yeah it feels it feels very like like she's pushing the boundaries like brand with cold hands maybe that's so interesting yeah or brand with cold hands maybe that's so interesting yeah or brand with with hodor right like uh yeah yeah especially because she and nymeria they've got they've got a tense relationship it's not like aria threw rocks at her or anything but for her

own good but anyway yeah well it was otherwise she'd be dead instead of lady which also sucks um anyway yeah that's a great point because like i don't know like what's she gonna do go find this corpse to not fucking eat it go find the rotten flesh to not eat it like she doesn't want that and yeah oh the flesh oh yeah and like the thought being both of them right the rise rise and eat and run with us like i mean the eat and run with us is probably more of a nymeria thing to think than aria but it's still obviously aria that's kind of guiding and like influencing that desire and i'm also thinking like what would a dire wolf sound like when they talk would they said like rise rise and eat and run with us

oh that's just like yoda scooby-doo yeah oh no oh i love that though new insight i've really well and you know we talked about it with bran a lot right but there was all that really like you could tell young summer behavior where summer was like i smell trees do you so there's a lot of that or like the way he named things right like rock gate and door rock whatever he called like the man rock or some shit man rock yeah the old language that these animals kind of have and And it's interesting. And I know this is about mom, which mom, no. Mom, no.

Mom, no. Or mom, yes. Right, this is some more like mom, yes. Wow. Thought a lot of the crow imagery was interesting here. Like how she's like she wanted her own crow. A flock of angry crows. You know, it reminds me of the John chapter in The Wall a little bit.

Oh, yeah. You know, feast for crows. It it reminds me of the john chapter in the war the wall a little but oh yeah you know feast for crows it is the next book george didn't know that yet though he didn't he didn't know the next book was gonna be a feast for crows fuck dude i know hey we don't know actually that the next book will be t wow either anyway fuck dude all right so the sound of horses turns their head men are coming down wind they're almost here flapping with black and yellow and pink wings and shiny claws in hand as you were talking about right like the way that the the wolves have their own language for things like they don't fucking have wings those are fancy capes and she snaps at her younger brothers telling them to scatter and abandons the cold

white prize in the mud running in the morning sandor doesn't need to wake her she's been awake for a while me this morning she'd watered the horses even they break their fasted silence until sandor says this thing about your mother it doesn't matter i know she's dead i saw her in a dream the hound looked at her a long time then nodded no more was said of it i'm just thinking of a different meme i know some memes now does he know does he know does he know it's very um i'm glad you told me that because earlier i saw your note and i was like what the fuck does she mean it's a meme she's memeing it's a it's a does he know well also like does he know what it means for her to say like i saw her in a dream like does he know i don't think he knows i mean he probably thinks these kids are

weird as shit anyways but he's like the sister was kind of weird too but i don't think he gets that i think for him you know it's a he's trying to empathize with her on his own situation like his mother being dead his sister being dead right the queer death with the sister no one knows what happened so i think for him he's trying almost to come to her and say you know like i'm so sorry like i get it it's hard it's life but the words are things that he's never said ever like that's not in his, trying to empathize with someone like that and trying to open up the trauma chamber like that. So this was his version of coming to that.

But it's such an interesting, to your point, like little odd character sentiment, right? Of her just being like, whatever. I saw it in a dream. I know she's dead. It doesn't matter. And he's probably sitting there like, what the fuck does that mean does that mean yeah pretty much that's why he has to look at her a long time before he's like oh okay nodding it's uh that is not what i meant he says it very much evokes the the imagery of those movies that you were talking about a few chapters ago right like

the somber man trying to be like raising child girl child yeah what do that generational relationship with at odds with the asshole that has a secret heart of gold yeah yeah yeah absolutely this is very true grip coded for sure yeah they ride to the mountains but in the hills they learn it's too dangerous to head up the mountain from a village elder who mistakes aria as sandor's daughter much to her chagrin i'm not his daughter aria might have shouted if she hadn't felt so tired she was no one's daughter now she was no one not aria not weasel not nan nor ari nor squab not even lumpyhead she is Lumpyhead right now, though. She was only some girl who ran with a dog by day and dreamed of wolves by night. It was quiet

in the village. They had beds stuffed with straw and not too many lice. The food was plain but filling and the air smelled of pines. All the same, Arya soon decided that she hated it. That's so real. So real. I remember that as a kid. Like, I'm not gonna like it. that she hated it. That's so real. So real.

I remember that as a kid. Like, I'm not going to like it. I'm not going to like it. Great little no one nods in here from George. And then once more, I'm loving that we're parallel to Sansa right in the veil. Literally, like, here's Arya at the foot of the veil and Sansa's up in the veil. And she's saying the same thing to Littlefinger right being like you know I'm not your daughter right yeah I'm not actually your daughter right question mark right I mean he must know the way he sounded like that deserves a

kiss right and I'm like no no and there's that great great parallel to what she says in her chapter when she says in her pov chapter when sansa stark literally says to us i am not your daughter she thought i am sansa stark lord eddard's daughter and lady catalyn's the blood of winterfell she did not say it though if not for peter balish it would have been sansa who went spinning through a cold blue sky to stony death 600 feet below instead of liza Arryn. Yeah. Honestly, you know, yeah, we should be comparing the Stark sisters, but only to be like, look, they're sisters. Their stories parallel each other.

They're going to be family and support each other. The moon and the sun. They're right there. Exactly. The sword and the shield. And Pokemon. Wait, no, that was the last one I played. I couldn't do Scarlet and the shield. And Pokemon. Wait, no, that was the last one I played. I couldn't I couldn't do Scarlet and Violet. I think I might try again sometime. But I haven't finished yet. I'm working on it. I'm working. It was just so rough to go from playing Tears of the Kingdom, beautiful open world to

to whatever came out, whatever that other game was. I was like, what a rough transition. Anyway, I don't know all this identity stuff too it's making me think like dang theon really is an honorary stark right because like i think like the most stark thing he could have done was go have an identity crisis and take on a new name or have someone else force a new name on him like that was the most stark thing theon could have done yeah that's what all of them have done since they've left home. Then him grieving, but he grieves Rob more instead.

He is a bit wolfish. A little. Our boy. Our squidly boy. Yeah, he's also a squid, but you can be maybe both a squid and a wolf if you think about it. I mean, maybe we aren't one thing. Maybe we're all made of many things. We're all chimeras.

They stay at the village for a bit. One lady tries to make Arya do actual needlework, and a child starts following her around, the constant for Arya. The child is crying constantly. They're actually Arya's age. It's the village elder's daughter, and she carries a doll that's made up

to look like a man-at- away aria told her half a hundred times just leave me be she wouldn't though so finally aria took the doll away from her ripped it open and pulled the rag stuffing out of its belly with a finger now he really looks like a soldier she said before she threw the doll in a brook right back to the sansa Arya, right? This is a direct parallel to what happens with Sweet Robin as we get in Sansa 7 Asos. Sansa stuffing the head on the spike of the doll angrily. And then here, Arya throwing the doll into a brook.

Does that give you anything? Any imagery? You know, one gets their head on a spike. One gets their body in a river oh yeah it's netting cats deaths is what happens to these dolls and that's also like the death that they're chasing right aria chasing her mother in the riverlands sansa with little finger kind of in that meta location sense chasing her father and his youth and his eventual death i love that i love that i i didn't

even like catch the brook thing but yes absolutely it is both of them reenacting the deaths of their parents and also the looks like a soldier i don't know both of them it's kind of like reenacting their trauma too sansa being like my dad's my dad's head on a spike and aria being like here's all the death i saw in the riverlands and i I mean, for both of them, right? Like, there's an anger that they both show towards these children, Arya to this girl, and then Sansa to Robert Arryn. You know, when both Arya and Sansa, they're still young, they're of an age or close enough to an age that it wasn't that long ago that children of that age often play with dolls or pretend, you know, reenact the songs in some way, right? In whatever way. And so you can see that the girls are not just mad at this child pestering them. It's symbolizing, in a way, like an anger at their own inner child who hasn't been cared for. They're reenacting that trauma. And like, they don't have it in them to truly care for this other child. Not anymore when no one's been able to care for them.

Yeah, it's so it's they already are disregarding that little like degree of like what children should be doing because they haven't gotten to be a child in so long yeah there it's it's like that line from sansa's chapter like she hated them she envied them as she sees these other kids getting to have innocence and because once it's gone you can never have it back yeah you can never see the world the same again once you've had that great you really can't tragedy happen yeah after that aria spends her days grooming craven and stranger or walking in the woods playing with sticks sometimes she remembers the red wedding and she smashes the sticks into the trees after a fortnight Sandor says well we're never gonna reach the Eyrie we should rest up and get a letter to your aunt because it is it turns out really fucking difficult to get up and

I love seeing this like the times we've gone up to the eerie have been with full groups of people that get you there caravans and still it's dangerous right obviously when they have tyrian on the way out they get attacked and shit goes pretty poorly they lose people yeah so sandor and aria are not well equipped to make it up the mountain imagine though if sandor had delivered her to Littlefinger Littlefinger would then have both of them he would have both Boardwalk and no I'm just kidding and um it would be terrible like that would be horrible if he had both the Starks and also I bet Sandor wouldn't leave both of them there without staying and I'm sure that Littlefinger wouldn't want him there so that would be awkward and dramatic and so there would probably be a fight ensue and those girls would be leaving with Sandor.

Yeah. Or Littlefinger would be leaving out the moon door. Everyone applaud. I mean, pretty much Arya being like, you can't get in a fight with Sandor. Sandor's gonna win. It's gonna be that. Thank God. I also am like, it would have just resurfaced like the terrible i think

dynamic that people had foisted upon these sisters right where imagine how mean septimordain was to aria and like you know flattering sansa and like littlefinger would do that probably times a million because he'd be like look at sansa she looks like caitlin i love caitlin be like i hate you aria you look like a stark i hate starks they took my cat away from me like that's what the dynamic would have been which is interesting because it's kind of like somewhat liana-esque in nature with the liana ellia thing going on too yeah or something i don't know there's some sort of dynamic there. That's interesting.

It would be like, and I'm, I'm usually I'm not, I hate this shit. You know, I hate these alternate universe shit things, but I've been very CK3-ing lately. I've been Crusader Kings-ing

a Game of Thrones. Alternate universe with the Ruth. Yes. I'm in a very alternate universe right now playing as Queen Rhaenyra II Targaryen, the granddaughter of Aegon V. Oha the second targaryen the granddaughter of aegon v oh the second well yeah because we recognize that renera was a queen in my world yeah thank you very much she was crowned she was crowned she was anointed she was she coronated she coordinated she

coronated y'all yeah so there's a lot to learn about everyone else's ck3 runs on the discord that's what i'm learning uh our friend again egg in the six aka egg six uh go and kill that robust child what is what does this mean um robust is a trait your child i was just like what the fuck is going on here uh so or i should kill this robust child that's what it said um yeah so the next morning the village alder makes it clear that so you can't stay here not with winter coming and not with a man like sandor who brings blood because it turns out he's not very good at being in disguise Sandor offers his protection services but the village elder is like I don't know I hear that you lost your belly for fighting fucking negs this man so Sandor doesn't fight it and he's just like all right well pay me to leave and so they leave with a bunch of coppers, a skin of sour ale, and a new old sword, swapping it with the longaxe from the twins.

And once the beer's gone, all Sandor has is the sword, which he sharpens every night. He decides that, fuck it, we're just gonna make for Riverrun again and try to give Arya to the Blackfish. And, you know, maybe the Blackfish won't recognize me, but he also probably won't recognize aria it's also so sad because it's like the fighting is really bad over there right now so how do you really think you're getting there guys it's not gonna happen but good luck good luck i mean if

he ever made it there it would be like what very soon next book it's gonna be jamie lannister and that's not good for you sandor exactly though at the same time it'd be great for jamie to help fulfill part of his oath so with aria yeah but you know half she's gone she's across the sea there's this line she had been making for river run for years it seemed without ever getting there every time she made for river run she ended up someplace worse and then there's the he won't give you any ransom he'll probably just hang you he's free to try i like the way that the the riverlands are portrayed here as this like sort of purgatory that aria can never escape and how she's been like circling

trying to get to river run for years it feels very much like you know sort of promised land right thing like she can never get there wandering in the wilderness her goals are just always out of her grasp with all these people but also i'm just like aria it's also because you're bad at directions so lmao yeah because you're like five yeah shut the fuck up ten she's just got a lot of confidence she's like this is the right way and I'm like it's not Moss is not reliable yeah it's absolutely a purgatory

though like forever just set to wander back and forth yeah Arya's like new idea of where we should go north but even further north to the Night's Watch to Jon who would muss her hair and call her little sister and sandra says um we'd have to fight through the frays to reach the neck and we'd

also have to fight lizard lions and then there's also the ironborn up north who are gonna murder them too and i don't know john really would take her back though yeah absolutely he would have caused issues and have her there instead yeah so we have this passage are you scared of them have you lost your belly for fighting for a moment she thought he was going to hit her by then the hair was brown though skin crackling and grease popping as it dripped down into the cook fire sandra took it off the stick ripped it apart with his big hands and tossed half of it into aria's lap there's nothing wrong with my belly but i don't give a rat's ass for you or your brother i have a brother too and chapter end boom boom yeah i thought that you'd really enjoy picturing the skin crackling and the grease dripping from the rabbit.

Yeah. I did. Sounds yummy. It does sound good. Not really into rabbit, but it sounds good. It's all right. This is very just, you know, Hunger Games coded. Yeah. Yeah. You know, our passion project, everyone. Part two. Which you should listen to everyone on patreon so this ending we have a lot of

sandor talking about his family because this is a man who's never been to therapy so he's telling the nine-year-old kid instead and the way he ends this i think is kind of interesting for this chapter he's simultaneously right unable to understand aria's feelings towards her family but also deeply envious of it like i think part of his sullenness as aria was grieving is part of partly because of his inability to empathize right like his family as you said earlier like they don't fucking want to be reunited with him and he also does not want to be reunited with with them but there's also like i think a yearning on his part right like a desire to know what it feels like to have had a family that you'd be willing to die under a porcullis just to reach like what

does that feel like to have that kind of love for your family and the kind of family that you would cross the entire north all the lizard lions just to reach and i don't know part of me also thinks like maybe he won't do it he's like we're not going to the north hey it seems fucking seems really difficult but he just doesn't want to be captured and maybe doesn't want to risk being forced to reunite with his brother because of it. I don't know. But something that's coming through to me now on Sandor being like, well, all right, that's great that you fucking get along with your brother, but I also have a brother I don't get along with.

The familial struggles are prepping us for the way that the Lannister family is going to fall apart. But also even further down the line, the way that the wars and the conflicts arise between Targaryen factions where to them, family doesn't always mean comfort. Family can also very much mean enemy. And that's like part of the tension of their storyline. of their storyline. Dude, I'm really excited you said this because I was kind of thinking about it, but I nowhere near to the level

you brought it to my head of like, we have some big factions going to break apart of quote unquote Targaryens. And we've seen a little bit of that kind of in the formatting and shape of the relationship for Viserys and Dany, right? Yes. That was the first part,

but the Starks are the odd ones out they're the exception to the rule like the starks fucking love each other even sansa and aria like that's normal compared to this hatred that sandor has for his brother the things that his brother has done to him like that's that's like not normal in a family in fact that's how her and sansa were talking in a game of thrones right like why ned was like we should all have a little family chat yeah about the way that you're threatening to murder each other because that's not what the We're talking in a Game of Thrones, right? Like, why Ned was like, we should all have a little family chat. Yeah. About the way that you're threatening to murder each other, because that's not what the Starks do.

We don't do that in this household, where everybody else, in the last Jaime chapter, right? Cersei went to him and was like, please kill Tyrion. Please kill Tyrion. Kill our brother. Like, they're the weird normies, dude. That's a great point. I mean, like, the other family that we see this with, like, is the Martells. But even then they have like, as we see Ariane's like, I don't know, I feel threatened by my brother for no fucking reason. But like that, you're right. The Starks are, and I guess you have the Tyrells, but the Starks are like, not not the norm in that Ned's like, what if we didn't pit the children against each other what if we fostered camaraderie well you look at those families like the lannisters and uh the difference between them and the tyrells too and even in dorn where arianne is like she's the heir she's supposed to be raised

to be the heir like there's no question that she's the heir she's firstborn daughter in that succession in the dorn and you have all these other places like the Tyrells who have assigned who that heir is they're ready to rule they've been given you know their role in the family yeah but then you have the Lannisters where nobody has been given their clear role in the family they fucked their roles up they all they they also don't have access to love to to unconditional love. They've had to fight for that. Daenerys and Viserys never had access to unconditional love. They had to fight to find something, anything, food, each other, fight. The Baratheons, right?

Like, their parents died, and then no one was there to, like, show them all, I guess, equal love. They had to rely on love from outsiders and, like, try and create, like, found families. And some of them did, some of them them didn't and then look at what happens brother fighting brother brother sending shadow assassin against brother and of course it goes back to some of those dynamics that george has written for the house of the dragon right for the characters that star yes immaculate show that he uh based fire and blood on i hear so uh but i also think of like the dynamic with anies right and maegor a lot yeah um as as you know i've been very drawn to that dynamic and those characters more in my recent years than i would have in the beginning of my a song of ice Fire. Is it because of CK3? And ship. Maybe. I mean

Maybe. I didn't read I don't think I read Sons of the Dragon when it first like was able to get snagged. I think we've talked about this on Patreon before so sorry to patrons listening if you've heard this combo but like I didn't read it when it first came out. Then I went back I think like for me it was probably World

of Ice and Fire I read the most about them in for the first time. Then I went back i think like for me it was probably world of ice and fire i read the most about them in for the first time then i went back and read it and then fire and blood and just how they fit into the tapestry of targaryens in that era the pre jaharis pre alicean but like not pre they're still obviously they get born but you know that era of time that earlier era i find really fascinating in between the conqueror yeah i i don't know i didn't i and i did read sons of the dragon when it came out and i'm gonna give you all the same answer that i told my friends when they were like why don't you why will you never drink fireball again and i'm like you can go watch both me reading sons of the dragon and the reason why i won't drink fireball again all online it's

all there for you to witness and that's it and you think that's bad also the fire and ice johnny walker you know what that's also online but no one should watch that one again um yeah the sons of the dragon had like i don't know i think for a while there michael and matt and i held it together and then at the end you can see us be very tired and drunk and be like i don't know anymore yeah i think this is interesting with the in family fighting but taken you know all the way turned up to 11 chloe and i don't understand we don't got siblings not one bit but we try we sympathize we don't empathize i'm like oh yeah sandor you have a brother too interesting interesting

where aria finds herself slipping deeper into her depression and kind of relying on her dreams of her family it's interesting because sandor's depression is only overcome by his hatred of his brother and his drive and passion to murder him his lifelong passion yeah of killing the man that has done this to him and and so vengeance keeps you alive in a way even though it's horrible for you and it probably turns your soul poisons your soul it'll keep you alive long enough if you can get somewhere to peace but but vengeance doesn't feed you. We're talking about Doran Martell, specifically. Yeah, vengeance with Doran versus justice in the north,

really. Interesting. And how to achieve that without wasting your whole soul. Yeah. Hmm. So much. Well, that's definitely something for us to talk about with Warren next week, I'm sure. I'm sure we'll have tons to come talk about Arya and Sandor as we reach, oh my god, the end of their journey together.

Wow, actually, though. Dang. I'm gonna miss him. It feels like it was so short. Is this, like, it? For you, for now. Yeah. Until George releases his wings.

I guess we'll see him someday or maybe sooner in Tyrion chapters, right? But from afar, he really doesn't... We won't see him much. Barely. This is like bye for now to Sandbob Clegane. Sandworm Clegane.

Sandworm Clegane. Oh man, we'll have to make it good next week holy shit I'm gonna miss that guy I know you really will she really will thanks for listening as we talk about Arya 12 in a storm of swords

we'll be back with the final Arya storm of swords published chapter next week you never know George might edit the book no I'm just kidding and yeah we'll close out with our friend Warren, the Hedge Knight. And until then, Eliana, where can they find us online? Well, maybe you have thoughts. Maybe you want to tell us what whales smell like. You can tell us on Twitter at twitter.com slash girls gone canon, that's C-A-N-O-N. Or you can also tell us on Blue Sky, also at Girls Gone

Canon. Or maybe you have an email that you would like to send us with your in-depth thoughts on animal smells, what do mom corpses smell like, what do whales smell like. You can send it to us at girlsgonecanon

at gmail.com. Please don't send any photos on those emails thanks no unless they're fun photos what are you inviting them to do i don't know all right we're gonna work on eliana for next time there please follow i don't know social etiquette when sending us corpses. Yeah, no, no, no. Don't send us actual photos. Just tell us about, you know, just tell us about fucking whales. I don't know.

This is getting out of hand. Our patrons sponsor every episode we put out. We could not put out these episodes if it were not for them. They support us. They keep us going mentally, you know, like Sandor. So thank you to them. And they're now going to tell you where you can listen to us online. You can catch Girls Gone Canon on any of the following streamers on Podbean, iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Acast, Spotify, Overcast, Apple Podcast, iHeartRadio, Audible, and Amazon Podcasts. You get access to a bunch of great channels, including but not limited to memes and shitposting channel, Fashion Hour.

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Today. Go see Dune. Dune, where's my car? Go see Dune, everyone. Yeah. Goodbye. Bye.