Listen in for the season one finale of the Westerosi Primer as we wrap up an incredible journey through the world of Westeros. Liz shares important housekeeping updates. This includes the upcoming hiatus and the news that Season 2 will launch on October 2nd. You, the listeners, are encouraged to participate in a poll to help decide the theme of the next season. The poll has intriguing options such as fan theories, real-world history and culture, and a thorough exploration of House Targaryen. Don't miss out on the chance to shape the future of the podcast!
In this episode, we also explore some key storylines and character developments. Laugh at the comedic and symbolic elements of Tyland's negotations with the Triarchy pirates. Criston Cole reflects on his decisions and regrets. Liz also touches on the conversation between Corlys and his son Alyn. We delve into Aemond Targaryen's struggles in the war. Helaena's prophetic abilities are an important part of this episode.
Liz discusses the significant visions and theories from the series, including the roles of the three-eyed raven and Bloodraven, and their implications for future seasons. Examine the political and personal dynamics between Rhaenyra, and Alicent. The conversations in this week's episode set the stage for major confrontations and declarations of loyalty.
As we look ahead to Season 3, Liz reflects on the pacing and action of Season 2. Sher shares her hopes for more battles and exciting developments. Be sure to submit your questions for a potential Q&A in the season opener and share your thoughts on social media or via email.
Thank you for being part of this journey. Can't wait to continue exploring Westeros with you!
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Thanks for listening to this episode of The Westerosi Primer.
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For full show notes and more about all things Westeros, head to thewesterosiprimer.com.
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Before I start playing the intro music, check out this friend of the show.
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you
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Welcome, fellow acolytes, to the season one finale of the Westerosi Primer.
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My name is Liz.
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As I mentioned in the previous episode,
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I will be going on a hiatus,
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and then I'll be back recording the next season of this podcast.
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Mark your calendars for Season 2 to be released on October 2nd.
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As I've been doing recently, here's just some housekeeping before I discuss this week's episode.
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If you want to keep up with any new developments about this podcast,
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and even all things about Westeros,
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I have set up an X account and Instagram if you use those.
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If you don't use social media, you can periodically check the blog on the website as well.
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But the best way to keep up to date is the newsletter.
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I do periodic posts and I don't spam you with unrelated content.
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Check out thewesteroseyprimer.com for all the links to those things.
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As I've been doing in the past few episodes,
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I have kept you guys up to date with the results of the poll I've been running.
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I've been asking all of you listeners what general topic you'd like me to cover for Season 2.
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As I record this episode,
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there is still a three-way tie between fan theories,
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real-world history and culture in the saga,
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and a deep dive history of House Targaryen.
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If you haven't voted in this poll yet, please do so.
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You have until August 14th, 11 p.m.
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Eastern Standard Time to do it.
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By that time,
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I will deactivate the link on the website and I'll make an announcement of the
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results on August 15th.
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If there is a tie, I will be the tie-breaking vote.
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I have to confess,
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I'm actually considering between the fan theories and House Targaryen deep dive for
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my tie-breaking vote,
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if it comes down to it.
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The culture and history idea does involve a lot of researching and planning.
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I'll do it if enough people vote for this choice.
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The fan theories are a lot of fun to discuss.
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Some of the fan theories you guys already know about,
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some are probably unknown to you because they're related to the novels,
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and some of you are TV watchers only.
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If I do that topic,
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there will be spoilers to the novels,
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but that's a given if you're listening to this show.
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A deep dive discussion about House Targaryen will spoil the hell out of House of the Dragon.
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However, it is the easiest for me to plan because it would be one king in the dynasty per episode.
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And then I just talk about said king,
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what they did,
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what Westeros was like during that time period,
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etc.,
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Finally,
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I mentioned last week that I'm open to doing a Q&A for the season opening episode,
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which will be released on October 2nd.
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If you guys are interested,
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I have the email address and an email form you can use to submit your questions.
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You have until September 28th to send me something because I will be waiting for
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the weekend before the release to record and edit that episode.
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So with all that said, let's begin this week's episode discussion.
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So the first thing I will talk about is Tyland and the Triarchy.
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This particular storyline has to be one of the sillier things that they included in
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the TV show,
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but the purpose is to establish that the Triarchy are going to be involved with the
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Dance of the Dragons.
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And to be fair,
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a little bit of comedy does provide a little bit of an emotional break in the
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things that have been happening in the show.
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I will also acknowledge that they do make a couple of interesting references to things.
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For one thing, Tyland's name keeps being mispronounced throughout his scenes.
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Now, I could be making a mistake, but it did sound like they kept calling him Tywin.
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And of course, all of you are pretty aware of who the heck Tywin actually is.
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And it's very amusing because even though Tyland and Tywin are Lannisters,
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they are the complete opposites of each other in terms of personality.
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And also the other interesting thing that did get referenced in one of the scenes
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of Tyland with the Triarchy is the whole concept of guest right.
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Guest right is a very important custom in Westeros and in many parts of this particular universe.
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And of course, we know why that is the case.
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In particular, as a reminder, the Red Wedding is a pretty good example of why this is such a huge deal.
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We will have to wait for Season 3 to find out what impact the Triarchy actually makes to events.
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Next, I'm going to talk about Criston Cole and Sir Gwayne.
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As you're aware, Criston Cole is not one of my favorite characters at all.
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He is not the favorite character of most people.
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I will say that there is actually a purpose to the scene we got to him first.
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It's basically a scene where he finally admits to himself,
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at least openly,
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that he does have a lot of regrets about how all of this came about.
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He went into this whole thing as a vengeful man who is bitter at the fact he struck
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out at love and he stained his honor along the way.
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And he thought that by backing someone who he thinks is the rightful king,
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he can reclaim his honor,
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get what he wants,
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and get his revenge satisfied.
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He's finally come to this very stark realization that nothing ever goes right when
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you have dragons involved.
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And he got that slap in the face in the Battle of Rook's Rest.
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And he's very aware that as this war continues, more people are going to die.
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And it's not going to be by the sword, which is how he was trained as a knight, but by dragon fire.
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A bit late to regret things now, Criston Cole.
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A bit too late.
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Another interesting little scene we get is Corlys and his son, Alyn.
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Similar to how in one of the earlier episodes we had a very serious heart-to-heart
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conversation where Jace confronts Rhaenyra about her choices,
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we have Alyn doing the same thing to Corlys about his choices.
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And to be fair to Alyn, he has every right to say what he said.
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Because he and his brother were fully aware of who their biological father was.
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And their biological father didn't pay either of them much mind.
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But all of a sudden, because some of his family members are gone, he's paying attention to his two sons.
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Alyn has every right to call him out for it.
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You finally care and acknowledge our existence.
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It does feel like you're way too late for that.
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And now we're all about to go to war and any of us could die.
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So Alyn is quite right when he says that maybe if any of us actually survive this war,
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then we can deal with the aftermath and pick up the conversation.
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And it's a very bittersweet feeling for Corlys, I have no doubt.
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Because it is true.
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He is a man who had his grand plans burn up to ash, figuratively and literally speaking.
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And now that he's forced to realize what has become of his ambitions,
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he has to deal with the consequences of his choices.
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And the consequences of his choices thus far has been death and alienation with
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some of his remaining family members.
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Next, I will talk about Aemond and Helaena.
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So similar to how Rhaenyra had to deal with a very difficult position in the war,
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Aemond has now been placed in a difficult position.
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His dragon is the largest dragon and the strongest weapon the Green Faction has.
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He's now dealing with a numbers game.
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His one giant dragon may be a fearsome weapon,
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but it is not going to help them when now Rhaenyra has way more dragons on her side.
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Plus,
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some of these additional dragons are large and experienced in battle,
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which is why,
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as a collective,
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they are a sufficient,
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if not really strong,
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match against him with Vhagar.
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Of course,
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his youngest brother is arriving,
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and hopefully we will finally find out who the heck got cast as Daeron for the next season.
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But just the same,
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he is,
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of course,
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desperate to find additional dragon riders,
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and his only solution left,
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aside from his youngest brother,
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is Helaena.
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Helaena is actually a dragon rider, even though we never see her actually ride a dragon.
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She has claimed Dreamfyre.
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If you are curious about Dreamfyre and a bit more about the other dragons that have
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been mentioned in the show thus far...
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you are going to have to vote on the poll for me to do a deep dive discussion of House Targaryen.
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Of course,
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anybody who has actually been watching this show this entire time is aware that
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Helaena is not...
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fighter she has no interest in fighting she has no experience or skill at fighting
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and like I said we haven't even seen her actually ride her dragon before we can't
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really say she would actually be able to fight in this war even if she was willing
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to fight we can't say how effective she would actually be in the battlefield as a
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dragon rider and
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Which is why I have to admit,
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when I was watching the show,
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I was actually thinking to myself,
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for crying out loud,
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Aemond,
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just stop it.
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It's never going to work.
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You basically screwed yourself when you attacked your brother.
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This is what you get for being a hothead and not thinking.
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But we do get that one very fascinating scene of the two of them alone together.
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And I have to say that Helaena Targaryen has got to be the Cassandra of Westeros.
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It's already been implied on a few occasions in the TV show that she is probably a dreamer.
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similar to Daenys the Dreamer,
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who was the Targaryen ancestor who was responsible for bringing House Targaryen to
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Dragonstone because Daenys was apparently the Targaryen who had visions and
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prophetic dreams that would warn her of events to come.
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So it seems that Helaena may have inherited this skill.
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And of course, nobody ever believes her because they think she's just a rambling weirdo.
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And I just had to smile a bit when she made a reference to something.
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She specifically told Aemond that he will drown in the god's eye.
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And shall I say that's heavy foreshadowing?
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Yeah.
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And in case any of you guys are confused as to what the heck is the Gods Eye,
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if you're new to this podcast and you have not listened to the previous episodes,
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you should check out episode nine where I talk about the Riverlands.
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And the Gods Eye is not some metaphorical thing that Helaena is talking about.
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The Gods Eye is a literal place in the Riverlands.
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If you didn't already listen to episode nine of this podcast,
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you really should because I do briefly talk about what the Gods Eye is.
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But yeah,
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that is all I'm going to say,
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because unless you guys vote for me to do a deep dive discussion of House Targaryen,
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you're going to have to wait until season three of House of the Dragon to find out
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what that's all about.
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And speaking of Aegon, we also got another scene where we had Aegon and Larys.
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Of course,
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we see how Larys is trying to maintain a position of potential power by backing
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Aegon and providing support to him.
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After all,
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Aemond has already rejected Larys as a member of his small council,
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and of course,
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Aemond is also aware of what Larys' game is about.
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And to be fair,
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it's pretty clear that Aemond is pretty hot-headed and is on the impulsive side,
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whereas Aegon has the potential of being more malleable towards advice.
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So it does make a lot of sense why Larys would put more effort into helping Aegon,
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even though Aegon is injured and in a literally weak position.
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In a very sad way,
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Larys is the only support Aegon has at this point because nobody in his family
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cares about him anymore.
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Aemond tried to kill him.
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Helaena and him have never particularly gotten along well at all their entire lives,
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so there's no reason why she would do anything for him.
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And his own mother does the bare minimum.
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And as we see towards the end of the episode,
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she appears to be willing and prepared to sacrifice her own son to end a war that
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she caused.
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And she caused this war by encouraging her son to sit on the throne that he was not
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originally supposed to sit on.
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It's going to be interesting to see what happens with these two in Season 3 because,
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of course,
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they will certainly be back.
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We also briefly get some screen time for the new Dragon Riders on Team Black.
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And with this one dining scene,
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we get a pretty good feel for how these three new Dragon Riders will be for the
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upcoming seasons.
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First up, we have Addam.
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I personally feel like out of the three of them is probably going to be the most
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reliable Dragon Rider for Rhaenyra.
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We
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I already have a pretty good impression of Addam since his first appearance earlier in this season.
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And we can tell that he seems to be a very earnest young man who is willing to do
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whatever is asked of him.
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And he's very loyal, as far as we can tell.
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Yeah.
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Of course,
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with Corlys Velaryon as his biological father,
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we get the impression that he would be more reliable just because Corlys would be
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able to vouch for him.
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And to be fair, even if Addam was not his illegitimate son, he was still a shipwright employed by Corlys.
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Out of the three, he would be considered a more known element in comparison.
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Hugh seems to be someone willing to also do what's asked of him.
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We did get some glimpses of this throughout the season with his scenes dealing with his wife.
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He does express some ambition.
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And he does have his own axes to grind,
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although not quite as much as,
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say,
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Aemond,
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but he does seem to have something to prove and he is prepared to prove it.
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Ulf is a braggart,
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and he wants to be somebody as well in the world,
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because he comes from nothing,
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really.
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And let's just be honest, he's a complete and utter ass.
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And I can very quickly picture things going off the rails with this guy,
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but we just have to see how things turn out.
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You just never know.
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Maybe him actually having to ride into battle and almost getting killed in battle
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may give him the necessary wake-up call to get his act together.
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We can be optimistic about that, right?
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Yeah.
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And yes,
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I'm trying to not spoil things for you,
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but again,
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if you guys wind up voting for me to do a deep dive of House Targaryen,
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I am going to end up revealing everything and all there is to know about the
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upcoming seasons of the show.
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Because even though there will be some adaptational changes and reinterpretation of
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some events,
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there are some inevitable events that will come up and happen later.
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But yeah,
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that is all...
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It is very interesting to see that our last view of our three new dragon riders is
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the three of them getting suited up for battle.
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So I have a sneaking suspicion based off of how the episode ended that...
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The season opener for number three will probably be a huge battle.
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We can only hope, but again, we'll have to see.
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Most likely, we are going to have to wait until 2026 because as I record this episode,
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Earlier today,
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they made an official announcement revealing that House of the Dragon will end with
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season four and that filming will officially begin in the beginning of twenty five.
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Most likely we're going to have to wait until 26 to get to season three.
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But in the meantime,
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we do have a new show airing next year that should tide us over if you guys are
(00:21:36):
missing the world of Westeros.
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And of course,
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depending on when the release date of A Night of the Seven Kingdoms is,
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I may also do a reaction discussion of that show,
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just like I've been doing with House of the Dragon.
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But we will see.
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Sprinkled throughout this episode, we do get a couple of scenes where we see what happened to Rhaena.
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As we saw in the previous episode,
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she was supposed to follow Joffrey and her two younger half-brothers as they head
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off to catch a boat to Essos for their safety.
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But she winds up leaving their group and goes to try to claim the mysterious wild dragon.
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Now,
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as I briefly mentioned in the previous episode,
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this is a divergence from Fire and Blood because Rhaena actually hatched an egg in
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the book.
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However,
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a different character actually claims this dragon that we can infer is the wild
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dragon sheep stealer.
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So in the book, actually...
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a different character claimed this dragon, and the person in question is named Nettles.
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Nettles was supposed to have claimed this dragon in the books,
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but apparently we are getting a major divergence where instead of having Nettles'
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character in the show,
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Rhaena is going to take over that character role.
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It's disappointing to some book readers.
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For me personally...
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I think it's okay,
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although it does make me question how things are going to work out towards the end
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because the fate of Nettles and Sheepstealer in the book is the way it is,
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and Rhaena's fate in the book was the way it is,
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but we're doing things differently in this show.
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It's hard to say what is going to happen.
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But we'll have to see what happens in season three.
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The other thing that I feel is a bit of a dropped plot point is that she left the
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three boys to head off without her.
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I am going to be curious to see if they address this in season three because it is
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another plot point to make note of,
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in my opinion.
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And I hope they don't ignore it or drop it because it was a pretty big deal in the book.
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I'll say that much.
(00:24:31):
So then the next scene that I'm going to talk about is Daemon and Alys.
(00:24:39):
So we finally get a resolution of the weird happenings at Harrenhal for Daemon.
(00:24:47):
And we get it through a visit to the Weirwood Tree.
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If you guys are not overly familiar with the weirwood trees,
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this is a bit of a callback to Game of Thrones,
(00:24:59):
actually.
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But it has come up with worship of the old gods is the belief that the old gods
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basically use weirwood trees that have the faces carved into them as the conduits
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for them to see into the world to be able to see what's going on.
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And also it's through these heart trees that people who worship the old gods can
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tap into some of the powers through the old gods.
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We see this very heavily in Bran's storyline in Game of Thrones.
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And we also get it again through this vision that Daemon experiences.
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So he touches the sap that weeps from the eyes of the face on the heart tree.
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And he gets his little vision quest.
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Now this may be a little confusing for some people,
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especially if you're not familiar with the books,
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but I can provide a little bit of an explanation for some of you.
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So as Daemon approaches the heart tree,
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if you notice very carefully,
(00:26:20):
there is a figure with antlers running in the background very subtly and very quickly.
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If you noticed this, and you may have to rewatch the scene a couple times, but pay attention to that.
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Now, there has been a question as to what that is because it's a very curious detail.
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And I know that, for instance, watch Mojo when they did their own recap video of this episode.
(00:26:53):
They said it's a reference to House Baratheon, which is, of course, completely wrong.
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The truth is that it's quite possibly a green man.
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And you may be wondering, well, Liz, what the heck is a green man?
(00:27:09):
But just as people who worship the Faith of the Seven have priests who are,
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of course,
(00:27:16):
known as septons in that religion,
(00:27:20):
the closest equivalent for the old gods are green men.
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And the green men are an order of people who basically act as guards and protectors
(00:27:35):
of the weirwood trees.
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And it's speculated that green men also have supernatural abilities that they
(00:27:45):
develop through their connection with the weirwood trees.
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This would be something similar to what children of the forest were doing before
(00:27:56):
humans arrived in Westeros.
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And one of the telltale signs of the green men is that they sometimes wear antlers
(00:28:08):
as part of the clothing they wear in their duties.
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The other really interesting thing was that apparently the face that was used for
(00:28:21):
this particular heart tree at Harrenhal was based off of George R.R.
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Martin, which is a little interesting tidbit I found out.
(00:28:29):
Now I have to get to the vision quest that Daemon goes on.
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So we have a handful of really important details that I would like to mention.
(00:28:40):
So one of the very first things that we see in the Vision Quest, of course, is we see a three-eyed raven.
(00:28:48):
If you watch the sequence very carefully,
(00:28:50):
you get a very quick glimpse of a person's face with a reddish blotch on the face.
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And in case,
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again,
(00:29:02):
you are somebody who only watched the TV show and is not familiar with the books,
(00:29:07):
that face is actually that of a person known as Bloodraven.
(00:29:16):
And again,
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if you listened to episode nine of this podcast,
(00:29:22):
you would know exactly who Bloodraven is because I talked about him in that episode.
(00:29:30):
But just as a very quick explanation,
(00:29:33):
Bloodraven is actually a figure in the Targaryen family tree that comes up in the future,
(00:29:42):
right?
(00:29:42):
So, of course, he would have absolutely no idea who this person is.
(00:29:46):
But this person does have some distant relation to Daemon.
(00:29:52):
And again, you would have to listen to episode nine of this podcast to find out why and how.
(00:29:59):
The other interesting thing I will mention as well is that Bloodraven is the same
(00:30:06):
person who was training Bran beyond the Wall in Game of Thrones.
(00:30:12):
Which is why,
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in hindsight,
(00:30:14):
it's a disappointment that the creators of Game of Thrones did not include this
(00:30:20):
little detail there.
(00:30:22):
when they were doing the costuming and makeup work on Max von Sydow,
(00:30:27):
that they didn't give him the red blotch on his face because it is the same person
(00:30:33):
that I'm talking about.
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And I would go even further about this character if you vote in the poll for me to
(00:30:41):
do a deep dive of House Targaryen.
(00:30:43):
We also get some other interesting little details.
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Another interesting detail we get is we also see Daemon in water and he's apparently drowning.
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Could that be a vision of the future?
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Could it be a warning?
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Of course, I know the answer, but of course, I can't say for sure one way or another.
(00:31:05):
I just cannot tell you because we will certainly find out in season three or possibly season four.
(00:31:12):
Another interesting little detail we also, of course, get is he sees the White Walkers.
(00:31:19):
It is the vision of the White Walkers that probably convinces him that there is
(00:31:24):
something more than just sitting on this stupid iron chair that he should be
(00:31:29):
concerned about,
(00:31:31):
which is good for him to be aware of this.
(00:31:33):
Then we also see bodies in clearly what is the aftermath of a battle.
(00:31:39):
Of course, we can't really say for sure what is that a reference to.
(00:31:43):
Could it be one of the upcoming battles in this civil war?
(00:31:48):
Could it be a reference to future battles in the Dance of the Dragons?
(00:31:53):
Again, we don't know.
(00:31:54):
We may not really know until season three, perhaps, or four.
(00:31:59):
But then we get another part of the vision where we see three eggs in a fire and
(00:32:05):
then a mysterious figure with three baby dragons climbing all over her.
(00:32:11):
Which,
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of course,
(00:32:12):
as all of you are aware,
(00:32:14):
that is,
(00:32:14):
of course,
(00:32:15):
a reference to Daenerys Targaryen hatching three dragon eggs at the end of season
(00:32:23):
one of Game of Thrones.
(00:32:24):
And to close out the vision quest,
(00:32:26):
he sees somebody sitting on the Iron Throne,
(00:32:29):
and as he gets a clearer look,
(00:32:32):
we see that it is Rhaenyra herself sitting on it,
(00:32:35):
which makes him realize that he is not meant to sit on the Iron Throne himself.
(00:32:41):
He is meant to help his wife-slash-niece finally take her place on the throne.
(00:32:48):
And that, of course, leads to some final scenes with Rhaenyra.
(00:32:54):
So,
(00:32:55):
of course,
(00:32:55):
Rhaenyra heads off to Harrenhal after she receives a message warning her of the
(00:33:01):
potential of her own husband trying to usurp her as well as her brother.
(00:33:09):
She arrives at Harrenhal to do one last confrontation with her husband,
(00:33:14):
and Daemon finally makes a public declaration and makes it very clear that he will
(00:33:21):
do whatever it takes to place Rhaenyra on the throne.
(00:33:25):
He makes it very clear and swears loyalty to his wife.
(00:33:31):
Then,
(00:33:31):
of course,
(00:33:32):
one of the final scenes of the episode,
(00:33:34):
we have one last conversation between Rhaenyra and Alicent.
(00:33:39):
She has tried to end things peacefully before things go even further.
(00:33:45):
Even up to this point, she still has her doubts because she knows that even more people are going to die.
(00:33:53):
And yet she has a purpose.
(00:33:56):
She has a goal she is aiming for.
(00:33:58):
She realizes that there is no turning back.
(00:34:01):
If she is to do what she is supposed to do,
(00:34:04):
what she is apparently meant to do,
(00:34:07):
she's going to have to see through it to the very end,
(00:34:10):
even if it does involve killing a lot of people.
(00:34:14):
We have Alicent doing the reverse of what Rhaenyra did in an earlier episode where
(00:34:22):
Alicent sneaks over to Dragonstone to see her.
(00:34:26):
And like I mentioned earlier in this episode,
(00:34:29):
she essentially is prepared to sacrifice her son to finally end the war.
(00:34:36):
Whether or not the war actually is going to end that way, we will have to see in season three.
(00:34:43):
And of course,
(00:34:44):
we get this ending sequence where we see all the different armies and factions
(00:34:50):
heading south,
(00:34:51):
heading towards the Riverlands and even to King's Landing,
(00:34:54):
where we will get some explosive action happening in season three,
(00:35:00):
I have no doubt.
(00:35:01):
So my final thoughts of season two as a whole.
(00:35:06):
I will say that I was a little surprised that we didn't get as many battles as I
(00:35:12):
thought we would be getting.
(00:35:14):
We did have Rook's Rest.
(00:35:17):
We did get a lot of dragons flying around.
(00:35:20):
We did get an interesting chase scene.
(00:35:22):
We even got a very brief glimpse of Rhaena about to get a dragon sheep stealer.
(00:35:31):
Yeah, I will say this season didn't have as much action as I would have thought there would be.
(00:35:37):
I imagine they are planning to save up a lot of money and feature a lot of battles
(00:35:45):
because I can tell you right now that there are at least a couple of major battles
(00:35:51):
that I have very little doubt that they will film because they make such a huge
(00:35:57):
impact in the war.
(00:36:00):
And it's hard to imagine that they won't film those because of how big and epic they are.
(00:36:07):
But that's all I will say about that.
(00:36:09):
Because again,
(00:36:10):
unless you guys vote for me to do a deep dive discussion of House Targaryen for the
(00:36:17):
next season of this podcast,
(00:36:19):
I cannot discuss it before season three airs because I'm not going to spoil things
(00:36:25):
potentially if you guys are not interested in hearing that.
(00:36:30):
I'm not going to say I was disappointed with this season.
(00:36:33):
I'm just surprised that it wasn't quite as action-packed as I would have expected.
(00:36:38):
But here's hoping that season three kind of makes up for that,
(00:36:42):
because I know there have been quite a few people who have complained about how
(00:36:46):
season two was like an extended trailer for season three,
(00:36:52):
which I see why people say that,
(00:36:53):
but it's not completely accurate either.
(00:36:56):
But yeah,
(00:36:57):
if you enjoyed this episode,
(00:36:58):
feel free to reach out on social media,
(00:37:01):
send me an email,
(00:37:02):
or leave reviews where you can.
(00:37:04):
For the last time until this coming October, Valar Morghulis.
(00:37:48):
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(00:37:50):
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(00:37:56):
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