Support @ patreon.com/radiowesteros Yolkboy and Lady Gwynhyfvar host podcasts about George RR Martin's 'A Song of Ice and Fire' novels. Original analysis and theories, readings, pseudo adverts from Westeros, guests, trivia quizzes, livestreams and more ... this is Radio Westeros, the only radio station this side of Asshai.
Georges subtly makes us understand that the faceless men know the status of Arya's skin change. The abandoned kid shares her diaper for a while when the text tells us that the little screams in his sleep.
Somewhere in ACOK somebody notes that a lord with two sons has placed them on opposite sides of the war, one with Stark and one with Lannister. I wonder if it's meant to mirror Butterwell. edit: It was Lord Gulias Swann and his sons.
Dorne as a whole has running through its culture a nascent awareness that House Martell knows a secret way to kill dragons. Tanselle is dornish. One surprise D&E has in store for readers is that Tanselle's puppet show was indeed intended to inspire rebellion against House Targaryen. That will recontextualize Aerion's reaction to the show, allowing us to see that Aerion, while still a jerk, was not entirely wrong. Similar to how ASOIAF injected uncomfortable validity into the viewpoints of its other villains like Jaime and Tyrion. This recontextualization will also render Dunk the true knight as a fool as well as a true knight, because his infatuation with a woman blinded him to the possibility that her intentions were not entirely innocent. Therein lies the explanation for why that line about knights and fools has to qualify itself concerning women. ASOIAF is pointing to man's desire for woman as a premiere flaw in the institution and tradition of knighthood. It's a critique of White Knights - men who rescue women not only from danger but from having to take accountability for their misdeeds (for the chance of sexual reward). It's a conflict of interest. I deeply suspect that whatever tragedy befell House Targaryen at Summerhall, the tragedy was set into motion when Dunk in his infatuation bailed Tanselle Too Tall out of her crime. In that way, D&E's "Revelations" (Summerhall) will be causally linked to its "Genesis". There is also an implicit commentary about symbolism in there, because Dunk was either blind to or dismissive of the symbolic meaning in the puppet show of having a dragon slain by a knight. The message it conveys is 'Fell the tyrant by revitalizing your knightly tradition.' As somebody somewhere in this series says, it takes a knight to kill a dragon. Thus, knighthood's fixation on protecting women to a fault receives an upgrade from weakness to feature. What better to motivate men to be knightly and stand down the tyrant than the promise of a woman? This recognition that sex is ultimately what motivates human beings is the key insight that allows mankind to devise social arrangements that can stand the test of time. This insight is the titular song of ice and fire.
This episode is full of great parallel catches that I missed on my second read. The first and third stories in particular are paralleling each other in well over a hundred ways. The Sworn Sword is the odd duckling inbetween and I don't know what to make of it yet. One thing I'm sure about is that the Butterwell tournament was orchestrated by Bloodraven as a false flag Blackfyre gathering to lure out the last Blackfyre supporters and Daemon II Blackyre. Daemon will tell anybody about his dream of a white castle, as we see when he tells Dunk, so Bloodraven got wind of the dream and then chose "Whitewalls" as the location to raise the false flag, knowing Daemon's trust in his dreams would bring him to it once the tourney was announced. One punchline being set up for the reader to enjoy is that Daemon's dream of a white castle was true, but it wasn't Whitewalls. It will probably be Winterfell covered in snow, because Dunk is bound for Winterfell and Daemon compares the white of the castle in his dream to snow, suggesting that snow cover can explain the castle's color just as well as stone color can. The dragonfly is Bloodraven searching for his runaway nephew Egg. The dragonfly in Dunk's nature base in Story 1 is mirrored by the Targaryen in Dunk's nature base in Story 3 through the principle 'fake identity dragon.' As Dunk's thoughts highlight, a dragonfly occupies the fake identity of dragon. It's an inversion of Brynden "Rivers" Targaryen occupying the fake identity of Maynard Plumm. Be more careful with the Summerhall letter. As with many ASOIAF passages that are riddled with ellipses, it's crafted as a survivorship bias puzzle. Martin is relying on readers to overestimate the value of the information that survived and underestimate the value of the information that died. The information that survived caused you to assume the life that was saved was not Dunk's when it very well might have been Dunk's. In other words the surviving information is almost infinitely modifiable by the unsurviving information. Therefore the safe conclusions that can be drawn from the letter are likely incredibly minor on the surface and incredibly powerful in their second and third order implications after long consideration. The challenge of a survivorship bias puzzle is about intellectual restraint. To be able to take an inch when you're given a mile. And to meditate deeply on that inch. IE. 'Dunk was at Summerhall' is likely a better lead than 'Dunk saved someone at Summerhall.' Just a friendly suggestion. Thank you for these shows. They're an island of sense and genuine love for the story in this ASOIAF era of nonsense and malice disguised as constructive criticism.
2:44:03 George's comment does object to the questioner's assertion that Joffrey hired the catspaw, because George is answering in the context of the catspaw mystery, and he's reminding the questioner that it's important (to the catspaw mystery) to remember that Littlefinger was not at Winterfell and could not have influenced Joffrey to kill Bran. The point being that if Joffrey is the one who hired the catspaw, George would not have felt compelled to remind the questioner that Littlefinger's absence is important to remember. On first principle, George's comment strongly implies that Joffrey is the wrong answer. I love the catspaw mystery because of how thoroughly it exposes the audience's vulnerability to lying narcissistic women. Cersei and Jaime have the strongest motive to kill Bran, and in ASOS Jaime IX we can see Cersei spinning her innocence to none other than Jaime. This isolates Cersei as the one who hired the catspaw. Did you notice that every person Cersei quotes or cites to support her innocence is not present to speak for themselves? Robert, Tommen, Myrcella and Joffrey are conveniently dead or away when Cersei spins her denial to Jaime, while conspicuously neglecting to answer his question, and distracting him with the promise of sex by shaking out her hair on the bed. Being Robert's wife, Cersei had better access to Robert's daggers than even Joffrey did. By selecting that dagger, the two people who were framed for the crime were two people Cersei hates - Robert and Tyrion. As George said, ASOS resolved the question of Bran and the dagger, because Tyrion's monologue "resolves" it for us, breaking the practically inviolable rule of storytelling that a character will never correctly solve the reader's mystery because it's meant for the reader. Call George a liar if you want, but we severely underestimate how slippery he's willing to be with his words when answering questions that he resents being asked in the first place because he wants the readers to want to answer them for themselves. Additionally, Cersei's lying explains why the catspaw thought Bran would be alone. To both the catspaw and Jaime, Cersei said whatever she knew the man wanted to hear in order to get hm to agree to do what she wants. We who are fooled by Cersei's lies are the same people who still believe Cersei is emotionally affected by Robert's love for Lyanna 12 years and 3 bastards after she began cucking him. Narcissists lie as easy as they breathe. Feigning emotions comes more quickly and naturally to them than you'd ever imagine. They will employ a truth to serve a lie without the slightest hesitation, guilt or remorse. Cersei's quotes of Robert regarding cripples may or may not be real, but they can still be real without Joffrey having heard it. Real or fake, the first thing it must be is a persuasion meant to keep Jaime's trust and her control over Jaime.
Loved y’all’s commentary. You guys seemed to hint at it a few times but I would love for y’all to talk more about things that disappointed you in the show. Overall I thought this season was a good experience, but I didn’t necessarily like some of the creative decisions they made.
What a great discussion that lent important context to what we just saw this season! I especially enjoyed Lady Gwyn's explanation for why merging Nettles with Rhaena makes narrative and practical sense for the show.
Sometimes what makes sense from a production standpoint makes no sense to book lovers! I hope bookNettles’ fans (of whom I am one!) will transfer that love to Rhaena and her mud brown dragon in S3 ☺️
@@dunny_420 As David Lightbringer has often said, we gotta separate the books from the shows. Elsewise, we're setting ourselves up for disappointment.
@@RadioWesteros You're right, sometimes you have to make creative decisions based on time and budget. If there are overlapping or repetitive narratives they should be merged and conflated into one. But, I think this does back door answer the question whether nettles was a daughter or a lover.
I absolutely LOVED all the nods and winks to book readers throughout the entire season. The Greenman? I freaked out when I saw him! You can tell that Brian Condal really does love this series. A lot more so than D&D for GoT
Oh man! This one should be exciting. I love your podcast. I just read the books last year but I've listened to more than half your back episodes. Evergreen! Just launched my channel with a revolutionary take on Stannis (and more) which according to the comments you may never have heard before.
"Spoilers All Books!" is still the best intro. Good show to add to the excitement with the HotD show. Now here me out, since you guys already do a "spoiler" podcast, is it possible to add your thoughts on episodes likeness or "How we got here and what it leads to" (like Houses and events) based on your book knowledge?
A new episode, and such an important topic! 🎉 Thank you for making these, I can’t express how much they help clear the fog in my head. I haven’t had time for rereads, but I listen to you at work and it's even better than reading, since you do all the work basically. 😅 Everything is neat and in its place on the timeline, all clues & details are addressed and investigated, love it! ❤
Y’all’s podcast is just like the books. I’ll set it down for a few years, but I always end up coming back to it eventually. Thank you both for your years of hard work.
Whenever I watch one of your vids, I am floored about how much detail I missed or glossed over, ha. Question for you: I know there is no shortage of what-ifs, etc. in ASOIAF, have you ever heard of the Order of Assassins from the Crusades? It was a Muslim "special-ops" organization during the time of Saladin. Their tasks included infiltrating European royal courts (hiding in plain sight) and assassinating uppity-ups to weaken resolve. The group was headed at one point by a man named Hasan-i-Sabbah who was nicknamed, "Old Man of the Mountain." Could this be where GRRM found inspiration for the Faceless Men and the Kindly Old Man?
Unfortunately not due to a number of family commitments that conflicted with the first month or so of the season. LG will be dropping in with a couple of friends casts later in the season once our schedule frees up!
I just wanted to say thank you. I’ve been listening since the beginning, which is probably over 10 years now. (Just heard the part that we are now at 10 years right after typing this 😂 oh how time flys!) I quit the show after season 5 and to have you still making content and book only at that means more than I can say. Your intro has brought great comfort to me over all these years. I love that little chime. Your work and dedication to this series is very much appreciated.
Very happy to hear that! We enjoyed doing it ☺️ Unfortunately timing is everything and this season was released in a period where we had a number of prior work & family commitments, so it’s not going to work out for us this year. LG is hoping to guest on some friends show towards the end of the season though. Keep an eye on our socials for updates :)
Congratulation on your ten years anniversary, allthough it is a rather depressing thought that a winds of winter sample chapter is already ten years old.
