Girls Gone Canon Cast - Game of Thrones S8E3 Q&A: The Longer, Uncensored, Uncut Night
Episode Date: May 5, 2019You asked, we answered: if the VIP Livestream wasn't enough Long Night for you, we made it even LONGER.  All The Colors by Dj Quads https://soundcloud.com/aka-dj-quadshttps://open.spotify.com/artis...t/2VZrdImbvB03VWApYtBRr3 Eliana's twitter: https://twitter.com/arhythmetric Eliana's reddit account: https://www.reddit.com/user/glass_table_girl Eliana's blog: https://themanyfacedblog.wordpress.com/ Chloe's twitter: https://twitter.com/liesandarbor Chloe's blog: www.liesandarborgold.com  Girls Gone Canon Patreon: https://patreon.com/girlsgonecanon
Transcript
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Hey, welcome to Girls Gone Canon.
This is a Season 8, Episode 3 Q&A and Predictions episode on The Long Night.
I am one of your hosts, Chloe.
You might know me as Liza and Arbor on the internet or at my blog, lizanarborgold.com.
And I am Eliana, another one of your hosts.
And you might know me as GlassTableGirl on the Song of Ice and Fire subreddit on the
Maester Monthly Podcast.
Maybe you know me as
arithmetric over on twitter hello hello so we obviously did not put out a normal episode three
recap review like we've been doing on tuesdays this week because we were at ice and fire god
we did our vip patron live stream right after the episode if you haven't checked it out
jump on youtube go to girls gone YouTube. It is our only video.
Brand new. We'll be using that
probably mostly for live streams, but
it is up there. There are some good
hot takes from right after the episode. We were
joined by a lot of fandom guests,
some friends from History of Westeros.
We had our friend Rebecca,
Lady of Waves. We were joined
by a lot of other people who went to the convention,
such as B-Word, who you Lady of Waves. We were joined by a lot of other people who went to the convention,
such as B-Word, who you might know as a person who does a lot of great riddles on Twitter.
You're also joined by, of course, Lady Gwynn and some of our other friends, like from the Drinks and Knows Things podcast. It was a great time. And, you know, you can actually hear our
answers. So I'm gonna say it was a success.
I think so, too.
I had a lot of fun doing it.
We had some technical difficulties getting it started.
But Ashea from History of Westeros, our girl, she was there for us.
She got us going.
We made it happen.
It took a village to have a live stream.
Yeah, as they say, Ashea is the best.
And truly, she is.
She is the magic that makes dreams happen
so we are taking a break from our normal book podcast next week uh usually on fridays you get
an episode we will not be releasing that this episode is going to be kind of in a mostly uncut
uncensored episode of us answering some questions from patreon from emails from twitter just from
different friends that sent us some insights
asking about Season 8, Episode 3. We kind
of felt like it was cheap to only do the
YouTube video, so why not give you a second
Season 8, Episode 3 episode?
Because why not? We are kind of benevolent goddesses
and also
you're probably going to be getting this
episode sometime Sunday
morning or Sunday
and just a flag, if you are listening to this right now,
we are doing a live stream, another live stream, right?
Like later today with the Knights cast.
Yes, yes.
At 5 p.m.
So if you're listening to this in the morning.
Yes, EST, jump on.
We're going to be hanging out with the Knights cast,
talking about season eight, episode three, season eight, episode four, some predictions, our thoughts. So you might hear some of this stuff tomorrow or today, whatever day you're listening to, but check it out.
For sure. And you know, cut us a break if you are listening to this after Sunday and like everything we say is wrong, because, you know, this is this is game of thrones this is a song of ice
and fire and sometimes the points don't matter you know oftentimes the plots are made up and
the story doesn't matter oh my god uh what a divisive episode i didn't realize it was gonna
be so divisive like after we watched came out of it That we have three more episodes and this is,
or yeah,
three more episodes. And this was divisive.
Oh no.
Oh no.
The timeline will be fire this week.
And it's so funny because we were all like,
we were all in it.
We were all together after episode two.
We're like,
Oh yes,
let's all cry together.
And then after that,
we're like,
let's all yell at each other.
Yeah.
I'm a little disappointed in some ways that,
uh,
I don't know. I'm a little disappointed in some ways.
I liked the episode in a lot of ways. There were a lot of really positive parts of the episode that we're going to talk about today, but there were some negatives.
There were definitely some negatives that could have dealt with some thematic resonance, you know?
Yeah.
Yeah, let's explore that more through some of these questions.
So I'm going gonna jump into them
yeah our first question comes from one of our friends on patreon ryan is that he said brand
seemed to make such a point about jamie returning to winterfell and even protected jamie so that he
didn't you know get executed for shoving children off of towers it seems jamie has to survive for
a bigger purpose but he didn't seem to play a pertinent role in the battle for Winterfell.
What do you think his purpose is going forward?
I mean, it feels like a lot of people didn't play a pertinent role in the Battle of Winterfell, but that doesn't mean that they didn't.
Does that make sense?
Like, what if Jamie stayed alive to protect Brienne?
What if it was that we need every single man there to help with the fighting?
We need all the strength we can get.
What if it's Nikolai has several episodes left on his contract?
What if it's that he has the best butt?
And we think that's an important purpose.
What if Brienne saw that?
I really hope that his purpose is, you know, the Valonqar and doing what we know is set up in the story and the books and a little bit in the show.
That would be interesting.
But I just don't know that it matters any of it anymore.
Exactly.
The points don't matter.
What matters anymore?
I don't know.
Does it matter?
I guess I hope he has a bigger purpose because otherwise that scene with Bran was silly.
Uh, there's a lot of stuff like that, right?
There's a lot of stuff that just feels undercut after the last episode was over, kind of cut
and dry and just done.
So I guess hopefully he has a big purpose in the war to come against the Lannisters
and reuniting kind of the realm together and defeating evil uh standing up against his family and against the wrongs they've done redeeming himself or
humanizing himself maybe yeah and I wonder to an extent like I don't think that's something that
Bran just said for the hell of it but I do wonder if it's something that was written in there just
to justify it a little because I think a big part of that scene between Bran and Jaime
is their exchange where they realize they are different
people now because of that incident
and while obviously Bran isn't
like probably super pleased about it
at the same time
bigger fish to fry
but it also feels
almost like a scene of
forgiveness like he has a scene of forgiveness
and we're going to get this
a little later on uh get to this a little later on with theon and bran as we've discussed in the
theon book episodes is very much set up as something like a godlike figure who can give
that forgiveness right just because of how he's been positioned in the stories of different
characters and he gives that to jamie yeah he
sees the repentance and he says you are forgiven and i think that's a really big part of jamie's
plot now jamie has that forgiveness now he can move on with his life and to be fair he did play
a big role i mean he was under brienne he was slashing left and right was he under brienne
yeah he was under brienne because he's a bottom bitch top and brian okay done we all know brian tops jamie and no he did play a role i mean to say
he didn't really play a pertinent role i guess that's not fair i guess yeah let me embody
everything i've read this week on the timeline that everybody played a role oh my god I'm sorry that's literally been the timeline
right I don't know I'm paying attention I'm talking about vanilla ice cream and chocolate
all right I think that's an important conversation that needs to be had as summer uh not the not the
wolf um not the season within game of thrones but actually in real life starts coming in and I'm
like I gotta think about all the ice cream I'm gonna eat.
You know the shocker there
that you like chocolate is that you know I'm a
vanilla bitch, so we complete
each other. You do! You're the ice
to my fire or vice versa.
If love and hate can mate. Then we
can have Neapolitan ice creams.
Who's the strawberry?
The dragon must have three heads.
The cat?
Alice Ann the cat my cat alice and the cat our producer so janey's gonna do stuff maybe it's i think his role has to specifically do with his
family uh that's obviously his family has pushed him to do some terrible shit in the past and he's
used that as his reasoning for doing such you know the things he does for love uh obviously he has to
overcome those things that he has done for love so i think his purpose definitely will be to aid against the lannister
armies in what faction i don't know i'm not gonna say he'll kill cersei because i think aria's
gonna kill cersei with his face because i i'm chaotic evil now i chaotic evil
don't even am i wrong i mean like i don't know like you hope so but am i i don't even know what
i hope anymore there is hope what is hope chloe i just feel like so much was done in this last
episode that undid everything we all thought so i don't know i i think that we will see jamie do
something maybe yeah he's gonna do something and especially with you know braun allegedly heading up there
with i don't know a thing um that's a plot that's a plot that's a plot braun matters it's because
he has a contract again jerome flynn has a contract yeah you have to remember again george
wrote these books because he wanted to write a story that was unconstrained by all of the thing
what the constraints are that we're dealing with yeah the constraints of like television shows
whether and you know we usually interpret that as being like budget and like literally what is
filmable but apparently that's also things like a contract so yeah i mean look at the way they
wrote around jerome scene with those sex workers. He's in King's Landing.
The only important people in King's Landing are Cersei, Qyburn, the Mountain, and Euron-ish, right?
And the Golden Company, I guess.
And apparently Bronn.
Yeah, and apparently Bronn.
And Bronn's scene couldn't be with Lena because him and Lena Headey have beef.
They dated, and I heard there was some abuse in the relationship, some crazy shit.
So they would not be in a scene together.
Lena Headey refuses to be in a scene with Jerome Flynn.
So obviously they had to write around that.
So again, constraints.
These are things we don't see on the page in the books.
Exactly.
So speaking of the books and differences between the show and the books,
we got a question from our good friend Warren.
Quick question for one of my hosts and our other hosts, please.
Yeah, Warren knows what's up.
Warren's been paying attention.
As an ex-show watcher,
oh, I didn't know ex-show watcher,
and strong book advocate,
I'd like to ask your thoughts
on how book and show aria are different.
In parentheses, Maisie is incredible though.
She is really, really great.
As a massive Arya fan, I have a thought.
Does anyone think they tried
to have Arya from Game of Thrones imitate
Eowyn from Lord of
the Rings? I love Aunt Zelda.
No,
Warren, you're onto something there.
If you know us, you know we're not
very big Lord of the Rings people. I haven't really read the books i know elliott i don't think you have as
well i have watched the movies they're there i i kind of remember them you know there's there's
hope for us yet it's just um not this day stars haven't aligned yeah yeah not today so but aria
does have that kind of duality not only does she kind of reflect Eowyn but she
has a little bit of Arwen in her as well right like Eowyn she's the daughter of a noble house
and she doesn't want to be a proper lady she wants to carry a sword she wants to fight with
her brothers but Arwen is the daughter of the heir's father or Jon's foster father and Arya
is loved by Jon just like Arwen was by her brother, and as a
sister and a romance in Aragorn's. And so it's interesting that George originally wanted there
to be an Arya love triangle, right, with Tyrion and Jon. I think we're seeing a lot of that move
around with characters from that original outline. So there's definitely some sort of resonance in
Arya as an Aeowyn or Arwen type character, especially with the name, right? Arya,
Aeowyn, Arwen, definitely something to be said there. But I would say there's a lot of differences
between the book and the show. Arya in the books has a really strong sense of empathy. We see it
with how she treats the small folk. Her story very much so revolves around common folk and small folk
as she goes through the Riverlands. And we also see her unable to give up her identity.
And the show really failed to grasp
some of those inner POV moments that Arya has
of her embracing her wolf identity,
her wooden teeth, her dire wolf identity.
They just kind of had her become an assassin.
And then she suddenly got a plot again this season,
which was really nice.
They've been really writing her well this season, her and Sansa both. I can't say enough about it
that they've been actually writing these characters. It's weird. Yeah, they actually
have been, which I think is good. Yeah, I agree with what you said that they've lost, I think,
a lot of that interiority. I think that, I guess the question is how they're different.
I think before I get to that,
I think that they are the same in,
we see how Arya in the books keeps Needle.
And that also happens in the show.
And I do think we will see her rejoin,
rejoin the pack because she does repeat those lines within her POV of like
about how the lone wolf dies but the pack
survives and she thinks to herself that was wrong I'm still here so I do think we're going to have
that sort of a lot of ways that growth happens in stories right is that someone starts out with one
point of view and then they have a different one at the end and I think we're gonna see her
rejoin that pack in in the books as well but i guess how it's different i don't know that
she necessarily clashes with sansa so so easily when she gets back i don't i this is this they've
both been like searching for each other all they can think about is how like oh but that was sansa
and sansa's dead and i'm alone and they both think you know like oh it would be so sweet just
to go home. They're two sides of the same coin
in different ways and
they need each other. Yeah I'm trying to
think of how it's different
and I don't know if I can articulate it better than you
I'm still stuck on the ways that I think it's the
same like how I think
some things that'll be different obviously Arya will be younger
I think there'll be a lot
of other parts of her journey before she gets back to westeros i don't think it'll be as quickly
resolved as it was in the show i do think she will rejoin gendry i don't know if they will
sleep together but i do wonder if some sort of romantic thing is something that george is going
to revisit because he does say that they
will probably meet each other again and says that they're both very young but we see that he's kept
some sexual elements in aria's storyline even though she's like real young she's like 11 in
the mercy chapter 11 12 yeah she was supposed to be older but he's kept those and i do think that
maybe i don't know if it's like a we've addressed this before but I don't know if it's a
sex scene but something like that was
in line so
I don't know if that really answers the question that well
but I think it
does I think there's a lot different but there's
also a lot similar they have captured the essence
and unfortunately in any
adaptation you're going to lose that translation from
an internal point of view
having characters have feelings and thoughts you're going to lose that it's hard to really you know perpetuate that in
only dialogue and as we know game of thrones really tends to lack in the dialogue that's
their weak spot their dialogue is not the best there are times when it's good and okay and there
are times when i'm like what the fuck was this but we have another question from lady bird one of our
good friends and followers
who was hanging out with us on the live stream.
So shout out to her.
She wants to know, oh God.
She wants to know,
what do you think of Tyrion and Sansa's relationship?
I heard a theory a long time ago.
It would be them in charge or ruling
at the end of A Song of Ice and Fire.
And after last week, it's possible,
especially if Jon or Dany or both die.
I did a rewatch of Game of Thrones before season 8,
and their relationship was quite warm when Sansa wasn't, you know,
being forced to marry him, or, you know, the death of her parents,
or her mother and brother.
Sansa has a moment with Tyrion where they joke, even.
At the Red Wedding, he puts his hand over hers when Joffrey brings out the Robb Dwarf,
and Sansa helps Tyrion by picking up the wine for him.
And she also wants to know, was their relationship warm in the books?
My theory at the beginning of the season was eventually Tyrion would leave Dany's service and support Sansa,
and so it would be Jon and Dany against them.
I'm not sure it will come to that, but their small dialogue in the crypts keep my theory kind of alive, at least.
Um... Um, so in the books, I feel that Sansa and Tyrion's relationship is very, it's more on the cold side of lukewarm.
It's not as terrible as it would be as if she were married to, like, Joffrey.
But, like, that's setting the bar real low, okay?
And it's not warm.
It's not freezing.
She's very much a child bride.
Yeah.
The thing is she's a child bride and she hates the Lannisters.
She doesn't want to be married to the Lannisters.
And I think that's something that I have never gotten out of my head when it comes to her marriage to Tyrion.
His family killed her family.
And I understand that they are allied now.
But just because you have set aside your differences now.
Doesn't erase all of the hurt.
That has been done in the past.
No matter how well I guess Tyrion.
Treated her in comparison to.
The rest of the Lannisters.
And again that bar is real fucking low.
But.
I don't know if it means that they rule together or not like i think that would
this is a personal opinion feel more bitter than bittersweet to me but yeah i think having them
paired up together ruling it is bitter than bittersweet it uh it removes sansa's agency
i think very much one of the biggest themes in the books is that, you know, Sansa needs to regain that agency. She has been abused. She has been forced to marry killers of
her family. She has had all this down, down, down. And by the end of The Wind's Winter,
we're going to see a lot of our heroes actually have some ups for once, right? We're going to see
like all of a sudden, like Sansa's coming home. Arya's coming home. Our heroes have okay things
happening. Dany returns to Dragonstone, maybe, just like in the show.
I think we're gonna see our heroes finally
have some ups, and for Sansa,
Tyrion as her husband isn't really an
up. I think it's interesting
what they did with the crypts and what they did
before it, when Sansa kind of gave
that bitter, almost Cersei-like
discussion with him where she says, our marriage would
never have lasted, and you
can't just use your wits right now. We't do shit down here and that's why we're down here and while i don't
know if i love that for sansa's characterization i would have loved her to be able to uh maybe
inspire some loyalty and like just inspire some just some comfort to her people down there in
the crypts that were scared i feel like that's something Sansa would have done a little more of.
But I'm highly of this opinion, if you've been listening the last couple episodes, that I think Tyrion is going to have some betraying to do.
It's gotten a little attitude, even.
We don't see the end of his Cersei scene.
All we know is that Cersei told him she's Prego, and now she has something worth fighting for, which is exactly what he discusses with Jaime in the yard at Winterfell in the last couple episodes uh that Cersei you know has something to fight for and it almost seems like he's hopeful that maybe she'll
change and the same way as in episode one he says Cersei's bringing her armies in episode two Jaime
shows up and says no she's not lol and everyone's like dumbass um and the biggest thing that stuck
out to me was when he was in the
crypts and he was complaining about how he was the hero of blackwater and he could be doing things
and you you'd be surprised the whole the whole time him being in the crypts felt like a punishment
to him from danny in my opinion like she was putting him there and he sat there bitterly
saying well i could have helped you know i've done great things and we also get that moment
with him and bran where they
obviously have some sort of discussion or talk or look and it trails off and you get nothing so i'm
wondering if there isn't some sort of card they want to pull on us here yeah i don't know if it's
going to be him betraying danny or him betraying like i don't know who like in the books i do think
he makes play for winterfell i've said that before and like through sansa and i don't think that their
relationship is as warm there in again in the books especially because tyrian's so different
in the books he's a very uh he's a much more malevolent character all right he's trying to
be like we should have poisoned all the wells and killed everyone in marine i'm like oh okay that's a take and he's just such a different character in the show
and uh like in the books you can see how much george is inspired by richard iii uh in the
shakespearean play uh and he said it explicitly at balticon and i think if you watch richard iii
uh basically you know i'm used to
these books and this show but when i was watching that play i was like when are the people gonna
stop dying people are just dying all the time i was like oh fuck that person died too and
part of this is my lack i guess of knowledge of history whatever but um
yeah i mean in the books he's whispering in danny's ear he's probably end up doing you know Um, yeah.
I mean, in the books, he's whispering in Dany's ear.
He's probably end up doing, you know, like he's going to end up meeting Dany and telling her this is what you should do.
This is how you should do it.
And he's already whispered in Aegon's ear.
Right.
We see that in the books that Aegon, fake Aegon, Blackfyre, whichever you want to call him.
We've seen him whispering in his ear and starting this next dance of the dragons almost, you know, like saying your aunt will never accept you.
You better just go take it.
Yeah.
She's not going to, you know, she's already fought for her life.
Why would she accept you little egg?
Yeah.
So I'm curious if he's going to be a proponent right now to kind of come between Danny and John and stir that shit up,
especially because I think that he really wants to be accepted by his family and he's
never been accepted by them you know and he just can't it's so like effed up abusive that he
he wants them to love him but he also despises them for never loving him
yeah but it's so different though because like yes i understand that that's a character motivation there
but it's less strong in the show because he still has jamie whereas in the books he's
completely cut off from the rest of them because of the reveal of taisha which very much isolates
him from jamie that's that's a huge betrayal to him, he feels, from Jamie. And
I think that
that desire for love is
still there, but it's just
less, um,
it nags you less, because
he does have Jamie.
Well, Lady Bird gave us lots
of questions, not just now, we have some later too,
but next question is,
do you think there will be a Night King type figure in the books?
So we talked about this a little bit in our live stream.
We had somebody here to say it a lot more eloquent.
Poor Quentin joined us.
But I think the biggest character that is anything similar
to what the Night King could be with that chaotic,
like neat thing of death and bringing that harbinger of death
is definitely Euron.
If you have read the Winds of Winter
chapter, The Forsaken, you can see that
Euron is up to some dastardly black
magic shit.
Sacrifices and all this craziness.
I think he's definitely the person
that could bring down the wall in the books.
Not the Night King. He's
interested in stealing a dragon.
He's been to a Shian back, you know,
just all these different little things.
He has Valyrian armor.
I think he is the closest thing to the Night King
that we're going to see in the books.
That's it.
I agree.
I agree with everything that you've said.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
You're a great wife.
Yep, I'm very supportive,
and I'm here to stand behind you so good next question from lady bird is what do you think circe has planned after kyburn
tells braun she's something else planned for the dragon queen it really got me thinking of her
possible plans recently reading fire and blood gave me the idea that she could send the golden
company to dragonstone to lay an ambush for Dany when her army returns. This would be similar to what
Aegon II does to Rhaenyra.
Dragonstone is Dany's base of operations, or
was, and it's logical that she
returned there to get ready to attack.
Before last week, I thought survivors might
be fleeing from the army of
the dead to the island, but guess what?
Or no, so
sorry, but guess that threat is
done. Yep. Apparently. Lol. or no so sorry but guess that threat is done yep apparently lol i know and ladybird does say i still
can't believe that's over there's got to be more to this i i dare dnd to surprise us i don't know
i don't think they'll surprise us a lot of people keep saying well what if the night king isn't over
and because he touched bran and blah blah blah it's over i just want everyone to know it's over
i think it's over and i'm like all right well that happened that happened cool blah it's over I just want everyone to know it's over I think it's over and I'm like alright
well that happened
cool it's been a good
few years everyone
good times I like that idea
with the Dance of the Dragons with that
what Aegon does to Rhaenyra that he
you know waits for and lays an
ambush I can see that happening especially
with their armies so depleted
that's the biggest issue here is
this long night was obviously kind of long and not really long.
It was just kind of long.
And it depleted their armies.
It killed off most of her Dothraki.
It killed off most of her Unsullied, which, by the way, rewatching that episode, I finally had time after Ice and Firecon to rewatch this episode.
That's why I'm so gung-ho about doing this episode tonight.
But I watched that episode and it was really sad.
The Unsullied.
Watching Grey Worm open the trench.
That look on his face, and he just has to leave his men.
Yeah.
Oh, that was heartbreaking.
When he just finally did it, and you pulled the thing, and the trench goes up.
My heart hurt.
That hurt.
That sucked.
That sucked bad.
You watch them all you watch the whites climbing over them and just devouring them down and that was it
there goes dandy's armies she's depleted they're gone really easy way to defeat all the brown
people i guess thanks dandy but i have i have i have questions got problems, but whatever. Yeah, me too. And we'll never get any sort of reprieve of those questions or those problems.
That is not a thing that will be addressed.
Nope. Sure won't. Never.
Anyway, yeah, I do really think this is an interesting idea.
And along with how Lady Bird raises the question of, yeah, she has the Golden Company, like, at the moment
Daenerys also
does not have a navy because
the navy is tied
to them through the Greyjoys,
but Yara,
lol, Yara, is over on
the Iron Islands, retaking them from
Euron on the other side of the
country, nation,
of the kingdom, from where Euron's forces are.
Yeah, I think the Golden Company is probably, that ambush might happen. I mean, we know they
go to Dragonstone. We've seen in the previews that image of Dany and Jon, that very first trailer we
actually got for season eight, we see Dany and Jon speaking in Dragonstone in front of that
fireplace. It's the same fireplace we've seen them have conversations at before at dragon stone
so we know they go to dragon stone probably at the end of the next episode or in the mid-end
uh these next three episodes are long they're all gonna be long all of them are gonna be the
long night so i feel like we're gonna have a lot of time to regroup i think next episode's gonna
be a lot of uh regroup deal with the dead be sad and then they go to dragon stone at the end so an ambush could
happen it's not out of the question it is not out of the question i think it's an interesting idea
it's anyone's game of thrones god damn it all right i'm just too predictable. All right. Next, we have a question from Marlena Morris, aka at X California Girl on Twitter.
No I in girl.
And says, if the White Walkers are really gone, what was the point of Mel, Stannis,
Shireen, Renly, Shadow Assassin resurrecting Jon Snow, Quaithe, Bran, the reads on the
show, make Cersei look like the smartest woman in the room when she's not?
Or is she?
Feels like the Night King was done dirty dirty I have no response to this question I'm just gonna stare
into the camera and we can move on yeah I mean I guess there are so should I not give an answer at
all there are people who say that uh a lot of it was I guess about uniting forces in order to fight the larger threat which like I guess that's
that's
an explanation it just
doesn't feel satisfying
it doesn't feel narratively I think
equivalent I don't know
I understand the question that Marlena
Morris is asking and I am
going to acknowledge the question and say
yeah that's all we can do.
Yes, that is a question.
And I agree with that question, and I would like answers.
I mean, there's obviously, like, reasons for it that don't have to do with this endgame, right?
Like, the entire Stannis and Melisandre, etc. plot, all of these are explorations of power between Stanngame, right? Like the entire Stannis and Melisandre, et cetera, plot, all of these are explorations of power
between Stannis, right, and Shireen
and what someone is willing to do
in order to gain the throne
if they're pursuing what they think is a higher calling.
These are all explorations of that in and of itself.
Yeah, it's an exploration of the many facets
of the Game of Thrones, I suppose.
And obviously we're never gonna get what we want from the book to show.
It's just, there's no time.
I get it.
I get that.
It's an adaptation, but it is hard because there's all this buildup and there's just
so much.
And actually, Steph Bell, one of our patrons, did just say she wants to know, what was Bran
doing?
You know, like, and also, what the fuck does the princess that was promised me
now or the prince uh I feel like there was a lot of stuff that got retconned just for a snazzy
moment while I loved Arya having her moment and I did like the episode I liked enough of it I like
75% of it I would say it just felt like there's a lot undone and a lot of build-up was undone for
shock value um you can try to justify it and give me all your opinions.
That's fine.
Whatever.
But I'm just not going to agree.
I just felt empty.
It didn't feel thematically resonant to me by the end of it.
It felt like all this buildup was for nothing.
I'm glad you have a catchphrase now.
Thematic resonance.
Yeah, absolutely.
I'm going to see every time I say thematic resonance, everyone should drink.
I'm happy you have this now um yeah yeah um i'm gonna point back to my previous answer where you know people
have been talking about how a lot of the prophecies are about different people that come together i
remember on our live stream ashea was saying that all of these prophecies
might have been different people.
They all came together to each play a role
in helping to defeat the existential threat.
Did they, though?
Did they each play a role?
In their own special way,
every single person out there played a role.
Whether, you know baker
again i don't know why i keep quoting this nowadays again i don't even like stanis that
much or small yeah i don't even like stanis that much but i keep fucking quoting him yeah greater
small we must all do our duty and that is how it i guess not all of it was a duty but people were
fucking out there and they were doing their thing and i i good for them i guess and uh
and their thing and i i good for them i guess and uh yeah i got questions you know steph bell just like you i liked enough the episode i'm not super upset like a lot of people but still have
questions i think i'm also like at the phase of you know the what what is it called
the whatever cycle you know dab, DABDA, denial,
anger,
bargaining,
depression,
and acceptance.
I think I'm at the acceptance phase.
I'm just like,
this is what it is.
The rewatch really helped.
I think we both watched it on a big projector screen with a hundred other nerds at Ice and Fire Con,
which was a blast.
I highly recommend coming to Ice and Fire Con if you haven't,
but it was fun.
But I also,
maybe it was the energy of the room
yeah when it all happened i just sat there and it was all a little anticlimactic and it was over
i was like what um it just leaves so many questions that i know we're never gonna get the answer to
yeah and we shouldn't have to ask those questions some source like i get it when you don't have the
main source material i get it when you don't have a lot of time but there are some questions from this episode that we shouldn't
have to answer or ask even you know yeah i don't know next question you know the uh you know that
gif of the guy that's like free real estate no you've never seen that will you send it to me i
mean i'll send it to you but there's a better edit and it's just him going it's bad writing
so we did get a question from one of our guys johnny guerrero much love to you my man here's
his question with so much emphasis on prophecies not being fulfilled in the last episode what are
your thoughts on prophecies within the series do you think viewers are misguided like characters
like melisandre and Cersei?
How often are they misinterpreted or self-fulfilled and none really playing out like they would think?
There's plenty to nitpick about.
I didn't think Azor Ahai was one of them.
I thought the difference in characters who believe things are out of their control and submit to higher power
versus characters who refuse to believe they don't have agency.
Jon and Dany was a major part of A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones, something that
mirrored the real world.
Yeah, so regarding prophecies in the show,
I think it's different
from prophecies in the book. I'm gonna give a
shout out to a guy I used to sleep with.
Sup, Trevor? I don't think you actually listened to this.
But he raised...
That is some big dick energy.
I'm out of here. Holy shit. I'm out of here.
He messaged me and was like um
so and he basically said that he doesn't think dnd like magic because it seems that a lot of
the things that were in the show that were cut out and he said that things that have been omitted
were things like the non-brand sterk working or lady Makaro, and the horn, and then goes not to mention
the potentially dope Lovecraftian shit with
regard to Euron there, and most importantly
hand-waved Bran training with
a three-eyed raven.
And he's like, there are more, but those were...
And my response
is I think that this
is all true, and I think it has a lot
to do with...
Not to be a huge show hater but i'm gonna like
say it i don't think that the way that the show goes and the show runners the producers themselves
like very understand the like i don't think david and dan understand the idea that magic can be a vehicle for deepening plot and character and and uh growth narrative
etc and not just be used for oh shit moments does that make sense not that it's not just like badass
moments but the way that prophecy operates in the series especially how you see it with cersei's
character is it shows you like similar to the way prophecy is working like some of stannis's stuff
like especially because he's drawn so much like a macbeth like character um and like the prophecies
are self-fulfilling because the characters fixate on them and it drives them and then it becomes a
part of them and then they it comes true because of who they are not because of magic yeah that's the thing is
like there is no azura high in the show people that are trying to fit aria to this azura high
mythos that's fine but it's not in the show they straight up said in the after thing which you
should never listen to if you care about this series about this show never listen listen to David and Dan after the show because it will just ruin your life.
They thought of this at the start of season seven.
They retconned it.
They also don't know that Sam is a POV.
So yeah, they literally do not.
I'm not trying to shit on them, but they don't know what they're doing with a lot of these characters.
They're just hoping for the best.
And Azor Ahai isn't a thing in the show show they talked about the prince or princess that was promised but at the
beginning of season seven they decided aria should kill the night king and that's fine and it does
work it really does work with all of her training and you know being silent as a shadow and fierce
as a wolverine and it works but they didn't build it up to work and that's my problem with it it's
not about azor Ahai for her.
It's about that she was trained and she was the one that could do it.
But they use magic as a shock value moment and they don't use magic properly.
Stannis, like you said, Stannis' plot wasn't about the magic.
It was about power.
It was about his power and him not being able to wield it properly and him not succeeding in wielding it.
I don't think the prophecies in the show matter.
You look at Maggie the Frog's prophecy to Cersei
and in the book, Cersei fixates on this.
This is what drives Cersei into a deep paranoia
that every single time one of her children dies,
the prophecy becomes worse and worse.
She's so embedded in this paranoia
that Tyrion is coming to kill her,
which is why when Jaime kills her, which is what I think will happen, I think a lot of people are
on that boat. If Jaime kills her in the books, it makes sense because she was never looking for that.
She never thought Jaime of all people, her younger brother, younger twin brother would betray her.
You know? Yeah. And like, just because, you know, Cersei is the one that is called out in this question, this question of how often they're misinterpreted or self-fulfilled, people take them literally because some of them are literal.
Cersei's prophecies of how many kids the fucking king has and how many kids she has, those are literal, but those are born of who she is. Like, for example, if you're familiar with the story
of Oedipus Rex,
the prophecy is important,
but the prophecy is the catalyst
that leads to everything else
in the story happening. The prophecy
says that Oedipus will
kill his father and marry his
mother in an attempt to prevent
that from happening.
The king does the exact thing that
leads to Oedipus growing up far away from him and leads to the entire series of events
happening and this whole downfall occurring.
Like, that's the whole thing.
And I think that this sort of dramatic, maybe like reconciliation, this sort of dramatic tying together is when it comes to prophecy
and it being a sword without a hilt
is just not important in the show.
Yeah, they haven't made it important
and it's not important.
And I think that's the big deal.
I think everybody that's trying to push this,
oh, so Arya's Azor Ahai thing,
it's obviously going to be different in the book. That doesn't mean that Arya's not thing it's obviously gonna be different in the book that
doesn't mean the aria is not going to kill a lot of others in the book i mean that is you know like
dark heart of course she is she's the dark sister she's gonna be out there with a valyrian sword
fucking shit up in the books uh maybe you know like she will take out a huge amount of them but
as it's been said the night king is not a character in the books he doesn't exist the knights king existed a very long time ago but there is no night king it's not a
thing so uh to say like oh this is something in the books blah blah it's just not a thing it's not
i don't know how else to say it yeah the prophecies i guess just don't matter uh johnny also asked if
we thought the episode would have been better if john made
it to the night king and defeated him in a duel and he says isn't that the most obvious trope of
the genre something that's not very george i don't agree with that uh i don't think it would
have been better i really don't i of all the times that john has faced off against the night king
no it it's fine that he doesn't kill the night king. I'm fine with Arya doing it in general.
Now that I think about it,
like the second rewatch,
I was like,
all right,
but it is built up that he's supposed to do it.
It is built up that Dany and Jon are the song of ice and fire that are
supposed to end the long night.
And my problem really comes with Jon didn't do that much in this episode.
He flew around on a dragon.
He came down and he did battle a handful of uh white of whites and
you know he he did his uh part in the war but he just didn't do anything my i wouldn't have a
problem with this episode if everybody had a part to play it didn't feel that way uh i'm gonna be
real i wouldn't have been surprised if like john fucking died to the blue dragon i've been like lol but i don't even know if it's built up that it should have been john
right because i understand that bran feels that is he's helpless but i think in many ways it is
built up that bran especially because we see it going that way with euron in the books euron
having been like a fallen student of Bloodraven,
and I have said this before, and I will say it again, my insightful commentary,
that the Bran-Bloodraven-Euron dynamic is like, in Kung Fu Panda, the Po-Shifuu, Tai Lung,
Dynamic.
Yes, I'm following.
Yes, and obviously Bran is Poe.
Okay, and
Shifu is
Blood Raven. Like, I don't even need to
explain this. Tai Lung is
Euron, right? The fallen
student.
And, again, Night King, is uh is a euron right the fallen the fallen student and again night king not in the books but probably a corollary to euron so it seems like it would have made sense to me if it had
to go away that it wasn't john for it to maybe be bran and they fight on the astral plane or some
shit and i i totally no i agree we uh we discuss as a
poor quentin during the live stream you know because that's one of his big pet theories that
he's made that you know danny is gonna fry uran with her dragons while bran fries him mentally
and that's something that i would have really liked to see was bran in his skin changing and
warging in this episode into those ravens i would have liked to see him
in my head bringing down viserion or helping to do that i think that would have at least been
i don't know compelling uh it would have given him something to do because him into the ravens was
it wasn't satisfactory to me it didn't satisfy me that bran just i don't know went into some
ravens etc i get it whatever it it just undercuts all the feeling yeah i mean i don't know, went into some ravens, etc. I get it. Whatever. It just undercuts all the feeling.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't know, dude.
Yeah.
Bran and the Night King obviously had beef in the show.
I mean, the Night King was literally coming to Bran in the Godswood.
I mean, the Night King was literally coming to kill Bran.
And Bran gave that throwaway line in episode two, which I really love that he said,
the Night King wants to take and erase knowledge.
I thought I was like, oh, okay, we're getting some Night King like stuff. We're gonna learn.
And I think my biggest fear of all of this is that they didn't give us any motivation of the
Night King in the end. And they just killed him off and the Long Night's over because they want
to save it for their Long Night show. That's what I think is happening here.
I think we got a lot of shit removed.
A lot of information was removed
and they made it happen in one long-ish night
because that's it.
They're going to do a whole show about it
so they can't give away their cards yet.
Because the show is actually the long night.
It's disappointing.
Yeah, it's really disappointing
that we're going to now go to a show,
watch the long night all over again when we just built up for eight seasons about The Long Night. It just pisses me off. I'm like, really? Y'all withholding? Is that what you're doing? Because that doesn't make me happy. And I get it. It's a cash cow. Game of Thrones is a cash cow and they got to keep it going. But it doesn't make me feel good about the future of the spinoffs. It doesn't. And I think that I will probably enjoy the spinoffs for what they are.
But I think that part of what I like about A Song of Ice and Fire and...
Granted, I know we have the world book and Fire and Blood and stuff, but it doesn't give us all of that information.
I like that ambiguity and I like that we get to learn things
as it becomes uncovered, right?
The uncovering of the story and realizing that, hey,
maybe the story didn't exactly go like that
is very much a part of A Song of Ways and Fire,
and you start getting that and seeing that, hey,
maybe the story isn't what you thought first.
I think Rhaegar is the best example of that
and and that rhaegar sort of um recipe applies to the rest of the way legends and stories are in the
stories because like we begin the story with robert saying that rhaegar abducted and raped
lyanna and like maybe he did maybe he didn't but as you hear the story of the night of the laughing
tree you begin to deepen it and like realize hey things are a little different like things start to um
come into more clarity and i think that's something that we will probably get more about
the others and therefore i was not i i like the idea of the show the long night i'm all but also
at the same time i'm like i don't i'm i would have been very satisfied with us getting resolution to all these things and not knowing exactly what happened 10,000 years ago.
Well, that's the thing is they're giving us the long night,
which is like the show version of the world of ice and fire,
but they're giving us all the answers in this,
when this, this series game of thrones is supposed to cover the main series,
which is supposed to give us these answers,
these big questions that George teases in these smaller smaller books the world of ice and fire right uh you're hearing about all these things
that are meant to enrich the main plot so the long night should enrich game of thrones right i mean
that's not in the name of it george keeps saying i'm not allowed to call it that and we're like
i'll see there but we're still doing it so this show about the age of heroes the long night shit
that's supposed to enrich the main show
in my mind because that's what george does with these novels these side novels but they're treating
it completely the opposite maybe that's my issue they're treating game of thrones like oh but guess
what if you listen to our next episode we're gonna put out from the long night with the successor
show you'll learn more about the others we waited eight seasons to learn more about the others there's no payoff yeah i think we should
call it um game of thrones first class yeah x-men first class game of thrones first class absolutely
yeah because i mean same showrunner etc anyways i'm gonna move on yes good idea and that brings
us to another question from one of our patrons cra Craig Mulvey. He wants us to do some roleplaying.
Are you ready to do some roleplaying?
I'm ready.
I'm ready.
All right.
All right.
Are you going to be the D&D master here?
I will be our dungeon master.
Okay.
Okay.
I'm ready.
Okay.
So you're a redshirt that somehow survived.
You've been through hell to fight for humans' ability to exist.
So what's next the dragon queen is going to come
ask you to turn right back around and fight cersei what the fuck uh craig goes on to say are you
kidding i survived this horrific fight and i'm supposed to turn around and risk my life fighting
living breathing humans yeah bitch i would stay in my keep i'd be like there's no more others
i'm gonna stay here i'm gonna'm gonna eat some bowl of brown.
Right? Yeah. I'm not going anywhere.
What the fuck? Which, okay, so here's
where Dany's sacrificing
for the North and her fighting in the last episode
and losing Jorah and losing all of her
armies. That's where this comes in.
I get it. I get it. I get what they're
going for. Dany
proved herself to the North, right? She fought
quote-unquote Jon's war. Yes, she fought war uh even though you know if she didn't fight they would
have just come south and killed everyone else yeah i was very confused about that wording too
but i assume it was an intentional characterization choice yeah well i guess that's all you can assume
these days you can assume things i guess that's all we have yeah it's uh not the best but I think uh
especially from the previews for the next episode
we see you know Dany
toasting the north and talking about how we're
gonna fight you know now that the great war is
done now we have to fight the final war
uh I think they'll follow her now because
they've seen her sacrifice for the
north they've seen her lose her commanders
her armies
so I guess that's just what it is
yeah i guess i did i'm the dungeon master so i'm gonna fucking role play shit
all right so next question elise shopper elise asks oh you know i'm about to go off i'm so
excited about this this is my shit you know this is my shit it's our baby boy it's our baby boy our baby uh our para larvae yeah our
para larvae yep yep yep elise asks do you think theon's death was a fitting end it seemed like
lazy writing to just have him charge the knight's king i do think it was a fitting end same uh even
the charging uh i get what you mean by lazy writing i think that there's a lot of lazy
writing elsewhere we can complain about that led us to this moment. So I don't know if I would say this exact moment was lazy. I think that his
death was perfectly fitting. He finally gets to protect the brother that he told everyone he
burned. He gets to redeem himself for burning down Winterfell and he gets to go out not only
as a Stark, which is how he went out. Bran told him, you know, you're a good man, Theon. Thank you.
He was home.
He was home in Winterfell in the Godswood with his family, with Bran.
And not only that, but he got to go out charging the Night King, dying like an ironborn, paying the iron price.
He was going to die anyways.
You know, that's kind of the problem here, like no matter what. So I'll give him that, that at least he got to go out with a spear in his hand, a sword in his hand.
He got to go out as Theon, not Reek.
And that's very much what he wanted, as we see in his chapters.
He's like, I want to die feeling like a man.
Not that manhood is determined by your ability to fight or anything,
but that's something that we see in his chapters,
that this is something that he wants, and chapters, that this is something that he wants.
And I think that it fulfills that for him.
And I also think it has maybe some thematic resonance.
Am I doing this right?
Take a drink, take a drink.
With other things that happened in the books.
We just had Joe Magician on for our john 8 chapter in a game of
thrones and he has written some really great awesome essays called killing of a ranger part
two came out recently and talking about like uh way more royce in the prologue and i think uh i
believe he says that he saw the night king in the show maybe going out you know that
that there would be some parallels with way more voice and i think you can see
that with the way theon takes that stand against the night king yeah absolutely uh i don't know
if it'll be exactly the same in the books however i see a lot of that plot of theon dying in the
godswood guarding bran i could see that happening absolutely I wouldn't
be surprised if this was pulled straight from the books if that was endgame for Theon Greyjoy him
going out and of course the biggest thing there that's thematic is him dying and his blood seeping
out into the godswood you know he's in the godswood where he falls to his knees and he cries and
all of a sudden he feels you know the gods would the heart tree saying to him, Theon.
And it's Bran.
Yeah.
Bran watching him through the gods.
Bran has been there watching Theon's arc in A Dance with Dragons for so long now that it felt right.
It felt right that that's what he did.
He died.
And part of him lives on now in the gods would with the old gods.
You know, Theon is a part of the old gods now.
And he's a part of Winterfell forever.
Yeah.
And was I sobbing when it happened? Maybe.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. I was a dumb bitch
during this episode.
There were a lot of,
I think, emotional changes for people in the room.
Like, I like how we were sobbing at this
moment and then, like, at the end of the episode, you were
just like, what the fuck did I just watch?
And that's really probably why I
felt that way, you know? Like, it was
so emotional.
But the other big problem is I also didn't feel emotional.
And then Jorah died and you were sad for Dany.
But I just couldn't feel anything because I was like, what?
What just happened?
I just said for Dany, she's just alone now, okay?
I know and I want to be sad for her, but I just didn't.
Even second watch, I was like, it was sad, but it wasn't that sad.
It wasn't Theon sad. That was was sad that was fuck me up fam that was like oh theon's dead so i don't know i think it was a good death i think it was the best death they could have given theon i don't
think you should expect a better death from david and dan for theon you know that was good it was
fine yeah it was probably one of the better parts of the episode, in my opinion. Yeah, I agree.
I agree.
So next we have a question from Jesse Wright who asks,
do you think Ghost is cool with the Raekal situation?
Hell no.
This dragon comes up in Ghost's house?
Yeah.
He comes up in Ghost's house and his dad's stream just like gets on him like that?
Like, okay.
Okay.
Maybe.
Who's been there? Who's been there who's been there
since the first episode ghost ghost has been there since the first ish episode sure he doesn't show
up that much else other than like the first handful of seasons because you know they forgot
about him or he was in the kennel sometimes you go on a vacation to go bang out your new girlfriend
and dragon stone and you gotta send your dog to the kennel man that's that's real life i guess
i mean
ghosts i think maybe they would get along if they just had them sit together you know they're
i don't know but the thing is i don't think dragons are pack animals i'm gonna say this
crazy thing that i heard it's very different actually but i'm gonna throw it out there
because it's still about pets and animals i have a colleague who's about to give birth
and someone owns cats and apparently what you're supposed to do is, like,
you take the blanket from the baby, right,
as soon as it's born or something,
and someone has to go home,
and they gotta rub, take said blanket,
rub it all over the cat
so that they get used to the baby scent.
And I don't know,
maybe that's what we gotta do
with either Ghost or Regal.
We take a blanket wrapped up in either Ghost or Regal
and take it to other pet
and wrap them, them like rub them all
over with a towel you know they really straight up they straight up are trying to pretend that
ghost wasn't missing for like two whole seasons and i think that's the funniest bullshit i've
ever seen yeah i mean he ghosted and now he's back we did get another uh question from lady
bird and it's a rant and i think it's worth reading i do uh i I think I'm going to. I'll read it, because it's a lot
of what we've said, too, and good for you, Lady Bird.
I understand. I totally understand. She says,
This is probably nothing you haven't heard
this past week, but I have to rant to someone.
That's us. We're the someone.
To me, the show has suffered from bad writing
since Season 2. Slowly at first,
blatantly obvious in Season 5. I'll give you that.
The past episode's flaws
don't surprise me in the least, but I still frustrated my biggest gripe is not that aria was the one to
kill the night king it does make sense it's what she's been training for totally agreed but at the
end of season seven we watch in horror as the night's king raises a dead dragon and uses it
to take down the wall i think we were prepared to see him lay waste to westeros with his undead
dragon for most of the season what they give us is one battle episode in which Night King and Dragon only appear briefly
and are taken out shortly.
That's it?
Where's the dread?
The horror?
I expected many of the big characters to die and the rest to flee at an overrun Winterfell.
I thought they'd continue to try to battle and one by one be taken out, and either Dany
or Jon sacrificing themselves and the dragons, and Arya could have somehow gotten through
and kill him and take him out once for all.
They compressed all that into one shorter night.
It makes no sense. I agree.
I do agree with that. It was built
up and then it was over. But
how Lady Bird does say
I'm done being negative though. Looking
past the flaws. Episode was great. It was
amazing to watch. Absolutely. Third
viewing was still tense even though I knew what happens.
The music and those visuals were amazing. Seeing D drogon covered in ice zombies was the most amazing
horrific sight i'd ever seen on tv it was the ultimate picture of horror fantasy i really hope
we get a book announcement this year i think we all need it yeah for sure totally and that's
i think that's a lot of what these fans what all of us fans feel like right now it was just a lot
of build-up for one night.
I don't like that.
I wish there was longer.
It is what it is, I guess.
And honestly, this was one of the most amazing productions ever.
I will give it that.
I was on the edge of my seat the whole entire time.
I was like, what's going to happen?
What's going to happen?
After a second rewatch, I really appreciate it.
I mean, they took 55 days to build this and everyone was exhausted and they were filming
nights on nights on nights
and it was very beautifully done. It was
that dance of the dragons. Oh my god,
that was great to see. Even if it's not what we
really wanted, it was
beautiful to see those dragons in the sky
just clashing together.
I think that the dragon fire in the field
was amazing. There was a lot of really beautiful stuff.
It was really eloquent. The music was great uh it was just really well done i just don't agree
obviously with the choice of it ending so fast but i understand i think the problem okay now now
that i'm gonna actually like sit and think about this for like a hot second this is the issue with
us not having a 10 episode season right because Because it does all get condensed down into one episode
and everything happens so fast.
And A Song of Ice and Fire has multiple narratives going on
and we've been building up the others
and the whites for such a long time.
And I agree, there's horror in some of these things,
but we don't get i think the actual
ramifications of that horror like the ice dragon the not ice the undead dragon is used only to
take down the wall which is great but it feels like it's underutilized right like if we had more
episodes you get to space out that horror we needed more things that were kind of like mini hard homes leading up to the big battle to create more of that sense of loss i think and that sense
of dread we already kind of had it but we needed to feel like this really was like the heroes like
at their last legs we needed to feel like oh there are old men going out there in the winter because
it's so bad and killing themselves and like being like oh shit that was a bad idea you know and yeah and
there was someone else who was it who was it they were responding to poor quentin and and to you
maybe and they were saying that aria killing the night king makes sense for aria's story
but it doesn't make sense for the Night King story.
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that was a good way to phrase, I think,
some of that incongruence that people felt when watching the episode.
And I think that's a fair critique, and I think that, I don't know.
Yeah, to have a villain, you have to have that villain make sense as well.
And he doesn't have to talk, that's fine. I'm not asking for him to suddenly have a soliloquy of why he's a villain
and give us a villain monologue but you do have to have it make sense for him as well and it's
hard when people like bran and john have been so built up with the night king and aria just
returned home last season and showed up yeah and i mean like going back to the thing where i think the longer season would have helped like a lot of the way that dramatic structure works like in terms of acts you know you have
the exposition you got the rising action you got the climax where shit turns and then you got the
falling action which actually isn't about like the action becoming less but it's where the two sides
clash right and one one side pulls, the other side pulls forward,
next the other one does.
And we didn't get if we were going to have
them win against the others.
And I think a few times
we've kind of had them suffer losses,
like in Hardhome,
but Hardhome was like fucking two seasons ago.
All right?
And like D&E lost one of her dragons
but the hero still escaped.
And I think that we're supposed to feel it that way.
But that, for the audience, feels like it was two years ago you needed something this season
that felt like the side again of the others and the white rockers really really advancing
and that tension just wasn't there you need to feel that build up you need you know you want
to be worried that your heroes aren't going to survive
right like for us watching this the stakes were just gone yeah where were the stakes they they
won against the night king the biggest the biggest problem in all of it and uh it just didn't feel
right it felt like they should have lost and retreated and there should have been one final
stand you have to have that moment of like oh no our heroes what are they gonna do yeah and now
Cersei Cersei is the problem that's what's weird because Cersei as we know in the books I mean I
think the biggest thing right now is she is taking a lot of Aegon's plot from the books but Cersei is
incompetent as hell she's paranoid everything she's doing is undoing her own work and she doesn't even
realize it yet she's completely incompetent and to have her be
the big bad is almost a slap in the face because you know the only reason cersei's still alive is
because lena heady is one of the best actors on the entire show send tweet and i mean i'm fine with
the existential like larger threat ending before they turn to the rest of the seven kingdoms and
i've and i said that immediately after the episode I said that in our live stream that, like, I think that makes sense to me that they're saying that the bigger threat is, you know, it's inside out of us because people deep down are terrible, etc.
And, like, that's something that they're addressing.
To have it be led by Cersei?
That's an interesting take.
Yeah.
But the problem is, you know, the Night King is now Euron.
But, like, if it were crazy, like, fucked up, forsaken Euron, I'd be like, yeah, that makes sense to me. Yeah, if it but the problem is, you know, the Night King is now Euron, but like if it were crazy like
fucked up, forsaken Euron, I'd
be like, yeah, that makes sense to me.
Like that is very much about how the
heart is desperately wicked. Yeah,
and like having Euron, having
Book Euron who's psycho and like raising
krakens from the sea and just like
murderous and tying bitches to the
prow of his ship and sacrificing them.
I'm fine with that that's
cut my tongue out yeah that oh my god but this this you're on is like hot topic and he's like
i'm here because i got kicked out of my band because i kept sleeping with underage girls oh
wow so i feel about this is that are we talking about are we talking about any specific bands
right now chloe anyways so moving on to predictions.
We did get some questions about some predictions for the next episode.
We won't go into a ton of it, but I do want to have a great couple questions from Dallas.
She was on the live stream with us.
She's great.
Look her up on Twitter, Dallas Lazarus.
She asked, are we going to get a Sansan reunion?
No. You really don't think so i mean probably not
but like the sansan queen of everything i'm telling you they will be in so many shots together
and if they speak i will be pooping myself i will be on the floor laughing because oh my god at this
point there's no way there's no way the only way we're gonna get this sansan reunion is if she holds him while he dies after he kills his brother that's it yeah i don't know if we're gonna get i don't know
i don't know all sand i can't wait till the show is all over only because you know i'm about to go
off about sandor i've kept my mouth shut for like eight, but there's a lot to talk about with what they've done
with him in the show. And unfortunately,
he's a chicken meme now, and he doesn't give a fuck
about the girl in King's Landing
that told him it was okay to fucking cry.
Yeah.
So if we get a Sansan reunion,
I don't know, I'll probably owe someone like 30 bucks.
I'm pretty sure me and Lady Gwyn were betting about this actually.
I don't remember. I was drunk.
I don't remember, but that's true. Yeah, I was too. But I'm pretty sure Lady Gwyn and I were betting about this actually i don't remember i was drunk i don't remember but that's true yeah i was too but i'm pretty sure lady gwynn and i were betting about
this was this on the stream or like not it might have been off the stream it might have been just
i don't even know okay weird so next question from dallas does sansa want to be queen i think
sansa wanted to be lady in the north yeah i don't know if she wants to be queen anymore,
but I don't know that she doesn't,
not,
that she's like opposed to the idea,
you know what I'm saying?
I think she would be a great ruler.
Yeah.
I don't know if she wants to be the queen of everything anymore.
I don't think that's a,
that's a thing she wants.
I think we've kind of seen that arc from when she
wanted to be queen in season one, two. She was like, yes, I'll be the best queen ever. But then
she in the end just wanted to go home. She just wanted to find home, find her family and keep her
family safe, which we're seeing a lot of as she asks Dany for Northern independence. And I think
that's going to come into play. I think definitely sansa might unite the riverlands the vale and the north together since she kind of has the keys to those places
but i don't think sansa wants to be queen yeah but i don't preclude that from happening to her
well john abdicate is another question dallas asks i don know. I don't know anything that's happening.
Who knows anymore?
This show doesn't make sense.
I think that there's heavy foreshadowing that's been laid down for Jon abdicating his claim to Dany.
I don't.
Jenny of Oldstones.
Jenny's song.
That's the biggest thing.
But I don't think it really matters if they get married.
It doesn't matter.
Just get married.
I mean, look at all the Targaryens that just got married to fix this problem and look at the ones who didn't
looking at you dance the dragons oh i'm also looking at uh granted like that picks itself
but i'm like okay jahari is not letting yeah i just i think it's silly because everybody, all of us, we all know they could just get married and it wouldn't fucking matter.
Yeah.
But at the same time, everybody's talking about that in the show.
Varys, Tyrion, Davos.
So to me, that says, will it not happen?
I don't even know.
Okay.
I don't know anymore.
There's literally no logic.
But like, not in like a cool, like, I don't know what's going to happen.
But like, I don't know. I i don't know what's gonna happen but like i don't know i literally don't know i just don't we all thought we had ideas
about the last episode and then they all didn't happen so it's like what's the point me smoking
a cigar what's the point game of thrones haven't heard that name in a long time i'm also gonna
quote dallas you know she has this great tweet i'm just gonna fucking quote her right here and
because of it fits into the
discussion that you and i are having right now like i don't fucking know dallas uh who on twitter
is d-a-l-y-c-e-l-a-z-a-r-i-s so dallas lazarus wrote did george rr martin write the red wedding
for shock value no he wrote the red wedding to show us how winning the war in the short term does not in and of itself bestow your family name with everlasting legacy.
Among other reasons that still have nothing to do with shock value.
Like, of course it was shocking because we weren't expecting it.
But that wasn't the core.
That wasn't the fulcrum that made it so impactful for the rest of the story and i
that's why i'm just like i don't fucking know it's gonna happen anymore because i don't know
there's no fulcrum anymore for things whatever uh dolls also asked will we see house glover
i hope they hang their asses i didn't think about it but i i until like she asked this question and
i'm like that'd be interesting if they did show up though and they're like um a lot of people are theorizing that they will show up with the lannisters and
fight for the lannisters and that's interesting to me i'd like to see that just uh just to see
that little turn and i hope that of course john gets to bring some justice to them for betraying
the north because they've been assholes since season six yeah like remember when sansa and
john go there and they're like nah fuck you we won't fight with you
and then in the finale they're like we'll never break
faith again and then all of a sudden in season 8
it's like what's the truth
yeah you flippy floppies
and then she goes what about the damned
riverlands the riverlands
I think we're gonna see them because
it's rumored that Edmure's
is coming back where is Edmure Tully
bring out our son Edmure Tully? Bring out our son, Edmure Tully.
Arya didn't free her uncle, sent me.
He's in the, he's somehow in there still.
He's still alive, but he is,
I've heard his actor's coming back.
So I think we'll get,
I think we'll at least get like a scene of him
or the Riverlands joining the fray.
Not the frays, just the fray.
Hashtag free Edmure.
He's free now, right? Free Edmure. I don't even know. She killed all the frays, the phrase just the fray hashtag free and near he's
free now right free on there i don't know she killed all the phrase so he must be i don't know
or he's just been there and here's the deal we're never gonna get an explanation you're not gonna
know what he's been doing just putting that out there why didn't he come north and bring his armies
if he's gonna show up in the show what i? I don't know. I don't know.
I'd imagine the Riverlands are the only place that really have food left and stuff, though.
But do they have much farms?
I wouldn't be surprised.
No, those are all gone.
I don't know.
Fuck it.
I don't know.
Fuck it.
Fuck it. I think the associate economy is going to see a huge boost in agriculture exports.
And we won't see any of that on the show nope nope none of that but so our final question comes to us from zach newman on
patreon and he asks what outcome over the next three episodes would be satisfying to you to
wrap up this whole dot dot dot experience just for it to be over
I guess don't
just fucking end it I don't know
I guess don't include my super pessimistic
a satisfying I know I'm going to
a satisfying way to end this for me
this whole experience would be that
we get the last three episodes and then
that weekend
George says
that the winds of Winter is coming out.
That would be satisfying to wrap up this whole dot dot dot experience.
I hope that like the ellipsis Zach put there is on purpose.
I think it is.
Oh, I think it is.
Love you, Zach.
Yeah, I think that in the end, I just want to see some sort of wrap up of how the kingdoms come together. And I don't
want it to be like Harry Potter epilogue, but I would at least like to know where everybody that's
alive ends up. And I'd like some like sad deaths. You know, I want some shit that makes me feel like
Theon dying. That was fucking great. This is the worst. I can't leave Theon's dead. I was like for
about a good seven minutes, I was having an emotional breakdown about it. Like, oh my God.
Oh my God.
Is this what's going to happen?
Oh my God.
And then like the rest of the episode happened.
So whatever.
But I was really emotionally in with Dion's death.
And I just really hope that they really hone in on the emotions and they really make me cry.
That's what I want.
We're in this to cry.
Yeah, I'm here to cry.
I'm here to get drunk and cry.
I'm all out of wine.
Yep.
That's it.
That's about it.
So, Eliana, big predictions. Anything you think will happen in the next three episodes?
Anything that you're like, this has to happen?
No.
Elephants?
Elephants?
Oh, no, that's definitely not happening. Yeah, that's true. They have the money now
yeah that's true
they have the money I mean come on
no white walkers
tell me you can't afford elephants now
I want Harry Strickland to be
flying back over to
the east and bringing back elephants
that's bullshit
I definitely think there's going to be something with Tyrion I think we're going to see Yeah.
I definitely think there's going to be something with Tyrion.
I think we're going to see what the end of the Cersei scene was eventually,
or at least hear or find out what it was.
I think that'll happen because it definitely cut that scene off in season seven for a reason.
Sansa in a leadership role.
Yeah, they have to figure out how to rebuild everything now that they're like, shit, everything's
falling apart. Maybe we'll
get a memorial. I hope we get a memorial.
It would be nice if they
do some sort of memorial, yeah.
Yeah, I hope we have a remembrance or something
moment.
I have a
40-page essay that I wrote about
Daenerys dying but like
I don't fucking know anymore
they did say that the next
episode would be Shakespearean but it seems like
she's there in episode 5 so I don't fucking
know
I guess we'll see
word
I don't
need to sound like such a downer
I'm really looking forward to
I think this next episode
and hoping that it
provides some sort of resolution
slash satisfaction for what happened
in episode 3 because I really loved
episode 2
yeah I did like episode 2 and I really
thought
I don't know I loved episode 2 and
I thought maybe episode 3 would
really keep a lot of
that thematic resonance that we saw in episode two but it was different it was definitely different
I was a little disappointed I think I got my hopes up a little too much because uh man I got my hopes
up episode two was so good yeah with the minor little things that I maybe wasn't like I was
willing to forgive so much minor stuff you heard me episode two I was yelling I love this episode I love this episode so it was great I was like
crying happy tears it was a disappointing and like we were just talking about it uh when we
were watching episode two at ice and fire cod people were like talking during Brienne's nighting
and I was like excuse me like this is a historical moment you guys you guys need to shut up I don't
care if this isn't the new episode like you don't just get to talk god it was history like we're watching history yeah
yeah anyway i don't know i have hopes that maybe they will continue uh continue on
but we'll see we'll see all right well thanks for tuning in everyone yeah thanks so much guys
if you sent in some uh questions we super super super appreciate it this has been a blast uh to
just get our air our grievances we didn't really do a real episode this week for this thanks for
giving us our space to be us and thanks for everyone thank you if you send in a question
yeah absolutely and of course we all have different opinions in the show
yeah it's not a bad show it's not okay what it is it's got a great this year it's beautiful it's
cinematic i'm gonna appreciate it for what it is of course there are gonna be things that bug me
and really we're just talking about them to give you guys like to listen to and argue about so
but that's fun yeah but and of, again, it's only going to last
the next few hours.
Let's see how it all plays out
in a bit, you know?
You know, in the end,
Game of Thrones was really
the friends we made along the way.
I thought we were doing
Linkin Park, but okay.
Nope, I was going to go this,
but that's fine.
That's fine, too.
Well, guys, as always,
I have been one of your hosts,
Chloe.
You know me from the internet as at Liza Narber on Twitter, Tumblr, and LizaAndArborGold.com.
And I'm another one of your hosts, Eliana, also known as GlassTableGirl.
Be sure to set your alarm clocks because we are going on with Night's Cast live at 5 p.m. ET.
Yes, so tune in for that.
Check it out. And we will see you guys on Tuesday.
For episode 4.
Season 8 episode 4.
Bye.