One Wheel Has the Dragon - Episode 1 Aegon's Conquest

Hello and welcome to the House of Fire and Blood, the podcast where we ask, what if George R. Martin's Fire and Blood were told more like HBO show House of the Dragon? Welcome everybody, my name is Gretchen and I am here with Caroline. Hi everyone and this is our official, official inaugural first episode where we are going to be looking at Fire and Blood. Wooo! Hi, right. Yay! Signing! We're like over here with like three pages of notes on a Google Doc wondering how this is going to be a short episode. So for you guys to follow along we have read the first, basically the first chapter of Fire and Blood. This is going to cover all of A-Gon's conquest. Allegedly, we're going to attempt to cover all of A-Gon's conquest in this episode. So if you want to read along we won't be going beyond that for this episode. And I did want to mention, I meant to mention this in the pilot episode. These are going to be like we're planning to do a lot of episodes of these so we are definitely looking for guests to come on. So if you're listening and there's a part of this history that you were just dying to talk about, I know some people who like really like Doran's stuff and they might be interested in some Doran's stuff and I know some people who really like Lotus and want to talk about Lotus. So but if anyone, anyone else who might want to come on just let us know and we'll definitely be looking for guests. But alas, not to bury the lead. A-Gon's conquest. A-Gon's conquest. Yes, he can he can he can question he conquered. He pretty much. He, uh-huh. He conquered. He, A-Gon. The drag. Yes, just A-Gon. It is A-Gon's conquest. Only A-Gon matters. Yep, exactly. I don't understand what what are you getting at, Greg. That's a problem. So one head has the dragon. Exactly. So the basic summary of A-Gon's conquest is chapter the dragon lords fled Valyria because of quote unquote magic and they come to dragon stone and they're chilling over there and then some there's some like kings fighting on the mainland that kind of get A-Gon involved, right? Yeah. So what exactly happens with them? They want A-Gon to come and take some land? Yeah, so it's the fighting is between the storm, the king of the storm lands. Our Galactic. Durant. Ourgant. Yes, our Galactic the arrogant. So this is before the Baratheans become the the legialords of the storm land. So it's the Durandan family is feeling threatened by Heron. I think it's Hoar. Hoar. Yeah, it's full. I don't know how to pronounce it. There's a bad way to pronounce it that I don't like. So you say Hoar, who is an ironborn of ironborn lineage and he is in the trident and his it's basically like Heron is stealing all of is starting to steal all of Argalax land and Argalax feels threatened especially because his only heir is his daughter and is like, hey, A-Gon, could you like take over these lands? Like could you take these lands back from Heron and I'll give you my daughter? Yeah, he's like what about a third wife? Yeah, I know you got two but have you considered? Have you considered a third one? Yeah, a secret third one. Yeah. A secret another secret Targaryen. Yes. And the text is really interesting about this and not to get too deep into analysis in our summary section of the podcast but one of the big questions that we have from watching House of the Dragon is why A-Gon invaded Westeros. So House of the Dragon introduced this little the the Prophecy Dagger and you know the Prophecy thing which is fine I suppose. But I don't know that that's really born out in the text. I don't know that the text really gives us a reason. Except that I have theories about our good girls, Vesendia and Reynas. Yes. So I think because basically the text basically he gets this offer and A-Gon decides, you know, I don't want your daughter or whatever but I will take this land by force. Right. And while I'm there, I might as well just take all of it. Right. Exactly. And he just starts the conquest without really any explanation. I don't know how you feel about this question. I think that probably that all those decisions were made by Vesendia and Reynas. Yeah. Particularly made by Vesendia because Vesendia is a smart cookie. She's presented in the text as being the smart one basically amongst them. And I imagine that to an extent it would be threatening to have another non-targetarian in the marriage mix could be concerning especially for these people that are all about their valerian blood, etc. But I think maybe they just got the idea like, you know, well they're offering this land. But we don't need it to be offered. We could just, we have dry it. We could just take it. Right. Why don't we take it? Like that's what I think might have happened here. Right. And potentially even that by being invited, like they're basically being like asked to participate in this society by, you know, in the way that lords know how to do it. Which is like, hey, come defeat my enemies for me and we can, you know, team up. And because prior to this point, like the targ's had just been like sitting on Dragonstone. Like, yeah, chilling. They were living their lives. Absolutely chilling. Perfectly happy. Had no interest in being in charge of Westeros. We're like, seems fairly content with basically just like earning money off of like the seafaring trade that came in and out of, like because Dragonstone is near the mouth of the river that goes up to what eventually becomes King's Landing. But there's like, basically it's like a primary port. Like that area is like a, is a shipping lane. And the targ area seems really happy to just make money off of all of the shipping that was coming in and out of Westeros. That it strikes me that like, you know, by being asked to like kind of, hey, come join our feudalism and do feudalism the way we do. Viseña and Orrraini's might have been like, hey, look, but if we get involved, then we have to deal with all these people fighting with each other. Like we've been sitting, you know, our family's been sitting here for 200 years and we can tell that like all of these lords are just kind of bickering with each other all the time. So like maybe instead of like joining in the fighting, we could just be in charge. Are you saying that maybe they said, let's break the wheel. Yeah. We'll break the real wheel with Marquis. But like take over the wheel. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, not quite break the wheel yet. But like we are the wheel. Yes, what if we are there is one wheel and it is us. One wheel has the dragon, okay? One head, one wheel. Yes, it's very weird dragon, but like whatever makes sense. Yes. So, but yes, exactly. I could pull the agree. I think I mean, I'm interested in the way house of the dragon introduced the prophecy aspect of it. It's not impossible. I kind of want to keep tabs on it as we read through to see if there's anything that gives that indication. But I think this is one of those things that, you know, is it magic or did we trick you? I think this is easily explainable by just like regular political ambition. Right. Without needing a magical destiny dagger. Yeah, I don't actually recall if there is any place in fire and blood where it's implied that the Targaryens came to save the world. I know that that was a fan theory. It's whether it started there or not. I do know that there has been a fan theory of like, no, no, the monarchy, the Targaryens are great and monarchy is great because they came to save the world. And that makes all the monarchy and the oppression and the dragon fire. That makes it all okay because like they're here to eventually save the world. Right. Exactly. I think this is something, Gretchen, you and I agree on that. We're certainly going to explore, which is how much magic is magic in the story. Yeah. And I almost always land on the side of it's less magic than we think. There is magic. I don't think we can deny that there is magic. But I do think there's less magic than we think going on. So, I'm not sure about this whole prophecy concept. I'm very interested in it. And I definitely want to follow it as we go along. Yeah, but it's a one to note that at this point in the story, the Maester gives absolutely no indication that there's any kind of prophecy that the Targaryens were doing anything other than just kind of like joining politics at this point. Right. And the Maester gives the credit as he will consistently do to Aegon for making these decisions. Right. And even though he doesn't have any proof that it was all Aegon's idea or Aegon's idea at all. Yeah. Right. So, yeah. And I think we'll get into more of that in the analysis section. So, yeah. There are various battles in this section. They conquer. There are seven kings at this, well, seven kings and queens. At this point, there's the stormlands. So, I'm just going to give a rundown of like the places that they go. There's the stormlands. There's the riverlands where Heron which is where the name Heron Hall would you will recognize if you've read the Song of Rice and Fire books, Heron Hall. This is the this is the King who built Heron Hall. In this chapter is how Heron Hall becomes the twisted burned monstrosity that we see both in House of the Dragon and in a Song of Rice and Fire. That story is here. There's the Vale, the North, the Kings in the West, the Lannisters, and then the Gardeners are the Kings of the Reach, which is the name you won't recognize because it only really appears here. The Gardeners. They get toasty. Get toasted and then the Tyrells are put into power in high garden. And this is why this is why 100 like this is like 300 years before like a Song of Rice and Fire proper. This is when the Tyrells take over and people still call them up jump stewards. Yeah still it's been 300 years. They're still like well they're just up jump stewards. And the thing is what strikes me as no one says that about the Baratheans and that's basically the same thing. Baratheans weren't even stewards. Like the Baratheans it was just that Orr's Barathean was like Aegon's best buddy and he was like, oh hey best friends they were roommates. They were just the bestest buds. They were comrades. They were comrades. So there's berries. Oh yeah go ahead sorry. Oh. So there's and then last but not least Dorn. The the place that's not conquered and yet Aegon is crowned King of the Seven Kingdoms. I know. I love it several times in the text several times. I was just looking at it in the book. Several times in the text the the the the Master references um how he conquered everything but like Dorn wasn't conquered and I'm like buddy. You didn't have Dorn. Right he'll be like the Seven Kingdoms. I mean minus Dorn but eventually Dorn. Yeah. Like it then it's not the Seven Kingdoms then. Right. You didn't do it. You didn't do it friends. You got six. Yeah. You're like brand the broken. You got six of the kingdoms. Come on. Yeah Dorn remained unconscored for like a hundred years. It's not even like five years. It's like a hundred years before Dorn is brought into the Seven Kingdoms. But they have seven kingdoms. I like to think it's for the symbolism that they were like. Well we have seven gods and we're the faith of the seven. So we have to have seven kingdoms even though it's not literally seven kingdoms. You know. It wasn't really it wasn't really exactly seven kingdoms and it's like how you divided the land is brand in many way. Right. Right. And they talk about old town submitting as if old town is its own thing. But like there's no king in old town but like it's got its own special section of like. I yes. Yeah. No, but it's the Seven Kingdoms. Very important. We have a motif. We're rolling with it. They really do. Yeah. We won't necessarily get into all of the details but I will just kind of gesture vaguely because it's my thing that there is actually a lot of symbolism when you start looking at like the battles and how Martin is describing them that there are you can pull out some symbols that are related to the various gods of the Seven. Oh interesting. Yeah. Like Dorn has a lot of Cron imagery because you know like Mary is this old woman. She's the Cron. Also she's the stranger because Dorn is not fully incorporated. So Dorn is kind of separate. But the North also has some stranger symbolism because it's all it's like way far up North and like separated from everybody else. You'll see some like father. Like of course like the warrior shows up all over the place. Especially with the kings because they're fighting. But like our black is called like an old warrior like multiple times. Like there's motifs being pulled in. You can see motifs of the Smith with hair in the black. Like the way how much fire is used. Oh I like that. And the stone burning. So like if you want to look for it if you can start looking for symbolism about the various gods and the way that they're associated with the various battles that show up. And I think Martin is like kind of intentionally pulling in that symbolism. I mean even like even like the mother in the veil. There's a submission of the veil. Oh I like it. Yes. I'm very much here for it. Arjella is the maiden who is Arjella is King Arglax like maiden daughter. She's called a maiden multiple times. She's though she gets married to or is Baratheon. Yes. And that's what starts the Baratheon house. Pretty bad ass. She's queen for like a hot second. Yeah. She's like a hot second. She's like just kidding. I'm the storm queen. Uh-huh. And then she's like her men like turn on her. Yeah. That was actually one thing I thought was interesting. And we could talk about it here because we're we know we're going to talk about the sexism in this world along with the lens of the sexism that's brought out for this maester. Um the men of the storm lands were willing to die for Arglax and they did a lot of them. No problem. Yeah. But his daughter had like less than 24 hours of of loyalty before they turned on her. And according to the maester. And this is where I think that might have been some sexism on the maester's part or in the story to bound her naked and brought her to oris Baratheon. Mm-hmm. And it's like, and it's like, and it's like, and it's like, and it's like, and it's like, and it's which is like if that was a man, he wouldn't have been bound naked. The fact that she was like the maiden daughter, like the nudity is important in that. And whether that actually happened or that was just the maester saying, but it's so it's very interesting how there are these continuous themes in Westeros before and after the conquest of people just not following queens except for Dorn. Yeah, except for Dorn. And technically she's not a queen. She's a princess. That's a good point actually. Yeah. Like Dorn does technically ever have kings or queens. They have princes and princesses. Yeah. Like throughout like the history. But here, yeah, she's not queen. She's princess Mary of Dorn. Interesting. I hadn't even thought about that. Yeah. Uh-huh. So basically, Egon and his sister's conquer all of Westeros and he gets crowned a couple different times. And he's such a great ruler and so wonderful. Yeah. And that's basically, and that's it. That's what happens in this chapter podcast Don, right? So what's officially entered our analysis phase? Uh-huh. 20 minutes into the podcast. Let's get to the analysis. So we have like several questions that we're probably going to be asking throughout as we do this podcast that you will see is coming back to. The first one is going to be a question about assumptions. So what was the Mastor thinking? What's in the Mastor's head as we're doing this? So this is where we're going to unpack some narrative POV bias. Another question that we're going to consistently ask is who gets shafted. Yes, it's probably going to be a lot of women. Um, yes. But um, you know, who the women are and there might be some men who get shafted too, but um, who gets shafted, um, then we'll, you know, we'll have some themes that we'll probably repeatedly come back to and we'll kind of point them out where we go. But those are kind of like our two big questions that we're going to be talking about analysis. So to kick things off, Caroline, uh, what was this Mastor thinking? Oh my god. What was this Mastor thinking? Uh, this Mastor was thinking that Aegon is the coolest guy and he says so great. And the the amount of times in the text that the Mastor talks about like how cool Aegon is. And like, for example, there's a one queen vassania placed at the Lerian Steel Circlid, studded with rubies on her brother's head and queen rena's heeled him Aegon. First of his name, King of all West Roast and shielded his people. The dragons roared and the lords and knights sent up a cheer, but the small folk, the fishermen and field hands and good wives shouted loudest of all. Right? Don't you love being conquered by a dragon lord? Yeah, super great. Don't you love it when like your fields are burned and all of your crops? Yeah. Like right when they're ready to harvest. And they're like, yeah, this is super great. Love having dragons in charge. Yeah, this is good. Don't you love when like lots and lots of people die in a horrible burning inferno? Yeah. Super fun. Or like when when you're like king that you've like followed your whole life is like burned alive in his castle and like the stone melted so hot. Yeah. What's the, I don't see the film. Yeah, no problems. This is great. I think that so one of the biggest biggest point of views that we're dealing with is this maester is very pro-targarium and this is going to be an issue throughout fire and blood that he just cannot stop praising the the Targaryens and how great they are. And and then it's also in a form by sexism, right? So I was saying before Aegon and his sisters this drives me insane. I have this text. Yeah. Aegon almost every time Aegon is mentioned he is named specifically. He's either Lord Aegon or eventually King Aegon or Aegon the dragon, Aegon the conqueror. Look, he's Aegon something, right? Or something Aegon. Rain is a viseña. Their names only come up when when they are separated. If they are together with Aegon, it's always the sisters. Yeah. That's a really good point. They're just like they're like a unit that's attached to him that's like almost nonexistent but it makes them in the text seem lower than him, right? He seems like he's the king and they're his sister queen so they're kind of woke whatever. But if you think about it factually, you have Aegon who's a Targaryen with a dragon, viseña who's a Targaryen with a dragon and Rain is who's a Targaryen with a dragon. They are equals. There is nothing about that relationship that is on equals. They have all the same agency or they they should have all the same agency and from what we see them do They do have all the same agency because Aegon is involved in winning battles and so is Viseña and so is Rhaenis They all are involved in important dragon battles during the conquest big battles with our maize and stuff Right that and the three of them are needed for the field of fire to kind of wrap the whole thing up So just like factually, they're not unequal. Right, right and like Each of them even has their own I would say kind of victory a battle that represents like that like each one of them individually has their own Kind of place where they go and either conquer or at least sent as an emissary Aegon is most important for Heron Hall for defeating heron hall Aegon is the one that like burns heron hall Viseña goes to the veil so like the veil is kind of her victory She single handedly wins the veil No violence. That is another thing to point out about is that like both of the times that this that that Viseña and Rhaena are sent or Rhaenis are sent as like emissaries like there's no violence No violence happens. They're completely bloodless They are also both sent to the place where women are ruling and There is a preference for talking Over just burning everything This doesn't happen when they're all together and it also doesn't happen when it's just Aegon by himself I don't know if that means anything. It's just a thing I noticed Well actually Aegon at Heron Hall does try to talk to Argalach first. Yes, you're right. Yeah, he does. He does actually does make that attempt But then yeah, I'll ask no bueno, but I mean Maryam Arthelsa no bueno and Rhaenis didn't burn down Yeah, yeah, Rhaenis doesn't feel the need to like destroy a door Which is an interesting question that we can come back to you. So why she did that? She didn't have to show how big her dick was yes, right So yeah that like when they are Individually they are depicted as having age like when when the when Viseña Rhaenis appear by themselves They're depicted as having agency what it feels like is like they're agently their agency magically disappears as soon as Aegon is in the room Because the maester cannot imagine that they would have more agency than Aegon Aegon must have the most agency because he's a man because he's king So everyone around him cannot have any agency if he's in the room therefore his sisters are demoted to the sisters Sisters I got in the sisters the new band coming to town. Uh-huh Right. Yeah, like at the very end of this chapter There's a quote that says that's where the seven kingdoms of Westeros hammered into one great realm by the will of Aegon the Conqueror I have that highlighted And I wrote next to it lies. Yeah I put down a or vice versa Yes, by the will of Rainies and Viseña and their and their brother husband exactly Part of it is like getting into this question of the characterization of these three Mm-hmm And I think that's fascinating because they are they are kind of bland, but like there's a quote That that reads like it reads like a horoscope written in a newspaper. It means nothing It's a description of Aegon Aegon Targaryen himself strangely was as much an enigma to his contemporaries as to us Armed with a valerian steel blade black fire. He was counted amongst the greatest warriors of his age Yet he took no pleasure in feet of arms and never wrote in turny or melee His mount was belayering the black dread, but he flew only to battle to travel swiftly across land and sea His commanding presence drew men to his banners yet he had no course close friends except for Ors Baratheon Women were drawn to him, but Aegon remained faithful to his sisters as King He put great trust in his small council and his sisters leaving much of day-to-day governance to them But he did not hesitate to take command when he found it necessary He dealt harshly with rebels, but was open handed with former foes But it sounds like a horoscope, you know, it's like you're a person who's very trusting But you can be suspicious sometimes when you feel like and you're kind often But if someone pushes you then you could like you know how horoscopes are written. Yeah, yeah like opposites It's the same exact thing. It's like you're telling me he's a great warrior. How do you know? Like he like You're telling me things like women swooned over him went Yeah, show me show me give me a citation anything please one example Like and it's just like you know people were drawn to him whatever it's like I don't know if people were drawn to him Buddy or if he had a dragon right this is one of those things where like Kind of like when you're analyzing television shows and you're like tell me Give me a characterization characterization of this character that doesn't involve what they do right And it's like you can't actually really do that with Aegon. He's like an empty vessel like The only thing you can say about him are the things he does except maybe he's really close friends with or is Baratheon For which we have potential theories right Right and my question is is it gay? Um, I was a guy bisexual. I Wanted to be gay. Here's the thing about Aegon. I there is one detail that for me Characterizes Aegon perfectly and puts everything makes everything makes sense. Uh-huh. That's the Aegon fort This man that's grown man. Uh-huh land in a king's landing Built like like a little wooden palisade and it's like boom the Aegon fort welcome to my fortress And it's it's like I did that as a kid like in the woods We'd make forts out of logs, you know like it's such the kind of thing that like a silly young man does yes that That for me put makes everything else make sense and I looked up I looked up this word because I didn't quite know how to use it It's a it's a British like slang term to call someone kind of like silly kind of silly stupid is kind of And for me Aegon's like a muppet. That's what he's like. Yeah, he's like he's just like goofy and it's like he's like look at my Aegon fort I have a dragon and his sisters are in the background like We have to take care of this we have to go do this thing like let's do this like they're the brains of the operation Uh-huh, and he is like he's like okay sure like whatever look at my fort. Yeah, and like what castle Do you want to rule from and he's like? I want to go back to where my fort is and play for my fort like where else? That's for me. That's it the fort is the is the thing that kind of close me into the rest of what Aegon is like Yep, I agree. Yeah, and like for me it was like that the so the section that you read from comes after a couple of paragraphs where the maester is describing Viseña and Rainies and there's like these detailed descriptions of like how they enjoy spending their time and what they're interested in like there's some sexism because the maester seems to imagine that like women can only be like Stern and scary and maybe a sorceress or sexy. Yeah, this is a thing Those are the two kinds of women though. I don't understand the problem those are the two kinds of women. That's all that exists right And so we have these like fairly vivid descriptions of these of these female characters and then it's like and Aegon wasn't a Nigma and I'm like maybe because there was nothing to him Right, maybe he was kind of like our boy Viseiris and house the dry in right like a like a nice guy But you know not all that ambitious or whatever and being more or less pushed around by the women around him right Right, yes, okay, so I love that I think it's right in that section, so I'm gonna find it Oh, yes, he says as King he put great trust in his small council and his sisters leaving much of the day-to-day governance of the realm to them Yep, and it's like okay, so he didn't even want to be in charge right exactly. He was a figurehead and They and they were running the show. Yeah, basically right makes sense which makes sense because there's There's like indications and again thin indications here and there that they were the smarter ones particularly Viseña was the smarter ones So like for example, there's a few pagas before that during At dusk and deal There was a question of whether or not to sack the city or like to burn it or whatever so Viseña Targaryen did not allow the town to be sacked But she did not hesitate to claim its riches greatly slowing the coffers of the conquerors So instead of destroying this important place where like people lived and making everyone hate them She took the gold and she got some riches out of it, but she didn't you know do unnecessary violence It's actually kind of gets back to what you talk about grouching with like liberatory violence and stuff like that Like she's not she didn't choose to be unnecessarily violent right So I do think we get Better characterization of the sisters than we do of the sisters of piseña and rena's Then we do of Aegon right Right, and I think that's because there's more to them like I I am fully with you that like I think of Aegon as kind of a Himbo is just kind of yeah, that's a good way to describe it. Yeah, yeah He's like maybe not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but like he can write a dragon in swing a sword pretty good Yeah, and every now and again He has thoughts about some things that he wants to do and the sisters are like okay honey like Okay, Pat like a gun for it sure. Yeah, that's nice dear like I'm gonna go three hills. That's that's convenient Okay, right three hills like there's three of us. Oh my god. That's so cute What's your symbolism buddy? Like a good job. Oh you notice something look at that? - Yeah, wow. And I know that like, so we can get into talking about the sisters now, like how are they actually characterized? I feel like we know, I feel like there is some sexism for both of them that shows up in slightly different ways. Like I said, there's that dichotomy between like Stirner Sexy. Are you the Stirner or are you the Sexy one? - Right. Are you a sorceress or are you pretty? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. Are you available for like male consumption in a sexy way or are you dangerous? - What I think is interesting about that is that I had a false memory about this story that I didn't realize until this review. I was certain that it was renaissance who went to the veil because the image is of a Targaryen queen with a boy on her lap like laughing and being like, please, like a child being comforted by a strange woman, right? And like getting to ride on a dragon, like that's a nice thing with a kid. And if you would ask me before I reread this, who that was, I was like, that was Rani's. It has to have been. And I'm like, it wasn't. It was Viseña. - Yeah. - It was Viseña, the allegedly like evil Stirner and sorceress who's like, you know, whatever and bad, like the bad sister. - Yeah. And it's like, you just make a shit up at this point, Master like this is just, - Right, this is like folklore kind of stuff. - Uh-huh. - Right. - Yeah. - Right, one of the things that I want a question was the way that like they describe, you know, oh, he married his older sister out of obligation, but his younger sister out of love. - Yes. - So, my question was who decided, who decided on those marriages? - Right. - Yeah. - Was that a gun who decided on those marriages? Or was it Viseña and Rani's who decided on those marriages? - Yes. Right. And even about like the amount of knights that he spends, they're always like, everyone noticed that he spent, you know, 10 knights with Rani's for one night with Viseña. He must be shutting Viseña and I'm like, why, why are we assuming that a gun is shutting Viseña? And why are we not assuming that Viseña might have been like, look, you know, you're just like, you're a little too dumb for me. - Yeah. - Freely, like, you're fine. - Right. - And we're married because like, this is what we're doing a thing here, but that doesn't mean that I enjoy having sex with you all the time. - Right, exactly. How did the women feel about sex said no, Master Ever? - Did no, Master Ever. - But like, they assume that like, well, of course he wants to have sex with Rani's because she's the pretty one. And of course he wouldn't want to have sex with Viseña because she's the one who has a sword and she's dangerous. And maybe not as pretty. - Mm-hmm. I do also think there's an aspect of it that's the age thing is kind of interesting because this Master is writing this knowing that part of this history is the dance. - Yes. - And there's a question about legitimacy in succession. And here you have a king and two queens ruling equally. Arguably the queen's ruling more. One of whom is older than the king. - Mm-hmm. - And I do think there, for the Master's point of view, to work, there needed to be a demonization of Viseña to make her less legitimate. - Yeah, I agree. - Yeah. - Yeah, that makes a lot of sense that she has to be dangerous because she has to be seen as some kind of threat. - Right, it's a good thing she wasn't ruling. It's a good thing we have this male inheritance thing because Viseña, you wouldn't want her. She's ugly and a sorceress and has a sword. - Right. - Yeah. - Right, except that I love this story about the veil about how they bring the veil in because it's so smart. It's so smart. So she goes to the veil and like the queen of the veil, Shara, Shara Erin, who is a single mom, no husband to be seen, whether or not there ever was one up for debate, I don't know. I think that if I were telling this story, or I think if House of the Dragon, like the creators of House of the Dragon when we're telling this story, it would be interesting to tell a story in which she never got married. Like it wasn't like her husband died. - Yeah, she just had a child. - She just had a child. But we know nothing about, you know, whatever about Ronald's father. - Right. - We just have Shara and Ronald. So like Viseña goes, I, tiny point of thing that I love so much about, like it shows up again and again is like the Lords of Westeros are like, I am in my fear strong castle, you can't get me. And they're like, I have a dragon, I can just boop. Like, yeah, exactly, like, but do you know how flying works? - Right. - Have you seen it? Have you seen a bird before? - Dragon's fly. - So like Shara, like walls are so up in the veil and like prepares all of her garrisons and is like, they can't get me. And Viseña's like, lands in the courtyard. - Me. - Like me, lands in the courtyard. It's like, hi. Like I'm gonna take your son to fly, you know, like and Shara sees Viseña just like holding Ronald and Ronald's just like wide-eyed about the dragons and Viseña, I imagine going like, would you like to go for a ride? And that's all it takes is for Shara to be like, okay, so my son could just, you know, fall off of the dragon, the dragons could eat us. Like all it takes is like the visible recognition that the dragons are a threat in order for Shara to say, right. - But also, I should not-- - It takes the visible recognition of the dragons, but also it takes a ruler who like has their priorities straight. And I think this also brings the North into this conversation. So Shara is in a position where capitulating isn't, I can't know the word capitulating isn't something that will like hurt her masculinity. - Right. - You know, like it doesn't like damage her honor that she capitulated. No one's ever like, Shara, the queen who knelt. - Right. - But in the North, and if you think about the North men, oh my God, what's the name of the king who knelt, Torrin? - Yes, that was my mind, Torrin. Okay, I get the North men very confused with their names. Torrin made the absolute right decision. - Yes. - None of his people died. He, you know, they continued to get to live their lives. It was peaceful. You're talking about like obliteration of houses in other areas, the gardeners, architect the arrogant, Harren Hall. You know, these things where people suffer it and die, these horrible ways because of like arrogance, yeah, basically. And because these men couldn't, they like couldn't capitulate when it was a parent, what was going to happen? It was obvious. But that they were never gonna win. They chose to die instead. And I think it takes a ruler who understands that the importance is not you and your feelings. The importance is the practical effects on your people. And the only, there's the only people who recognize that are the women. - And Torrin Stark. - Yep. - And a couple of small, they're actually, that's unfair for me to say, 'cause there are a few small lords here and there that like the Tarels, for example, after the field of fire. But that's like after a lot of violence, I guess to do it before the violence is sort of interesting to look at. - Right, and it reminds me of Rainier in House of the Dragon that like, she walks this path between like, Damon, who's like, burn, burn, burn all the motherfuckers, just like, burn 'em all. I have dragons, why not use them to enact violence? And Viserys, who's like, I have power, but it makes me feel really weird when I use it. So I wanna pretend like I don't have power and pretend that the dragons aren't real and don't exist. And so refuses to use the power that he has in ways that, you know, forget that the dragons are still there. Like, you can't do that. He wants to like pretend that he doesn't have absolute power, but like, still kind of wield it in some ways and that's part of why he's not a great ruler. And Rainier walks this path of like, okay, well, I have to recognize that I have this power, but I don't actually just have to use it if I have it. Like, I can just show up on a dragon and people will capitulate. Like, that's usually her solution is this kind of like, middle path of like, the threat of violence is more effective than the actual use of violence. Like, everyone knows what a dragon can do. So I just need to burn everybody. - Right, she does what Viserys and Rainier do. - Yes, exactly. - Yeah, as opposed to what, you know, I mean, the Igon did try to talk to - Yes. - Or go like that one time. - Yeah. - If the maesters are correct. - If the ma-- Oh, did you wanna talk about that? Like, whether we were questioning, we're talking about what was the maester thinking? - Uh-huh. I don't know if we want to finish. In terms of Viserna and Rainess, I mean, then their characterizations. The only other thing I could say about Rainess, is she seems like a little bit more of the fuck up sibling. - Mm-hmm. - Like, she like, doesn't get thorn to capitulate and like when she's involved in that one battle on the storm, the last storm at the storm lands. - It's in the middle of like Rain, like in the middle of an actual storm. And like a lot of dudes died before she like, pulls up with her dragon and like, does stuff. - Uh-huh. - Orosporaphy and his host is like, physically in front of where her dragon is. And I'm like, maybe you should have like, gotten in there a little earlier. - Yeah. - So she seems like maybe a little bit less competent, but, or maybe Viserna is just very competent, you know? - Right. Or I think, I think that if I were telling this story when, 'cause I love the interaction in Dorn, and I'm so fascinated by like, I mean, one, that true resistance to Targaryen rule is located in a female ruler whose solution is to neither capitulate under dress nor to fight, but to basically just like disappear, to hide. Like they go into Dorn and all of the people are like, Rainy's just has these series of like empty houses. - Because everyone has like, like, disappeared into like the deserts. - Yeah, well, but what Marya doesn't hide herself. - No, she has the only one there. - She has her people hide exactly. That's what I'm saying, is like these leaders like Tor and Stark, like her who understand, they get their role. - Yeah, she, like Marya understands the best that like the people who are most threatened by the conquests are actually like, not the lords. It's actually like the small folk. It's, you know, everybody else who lives there, it's hundreds, if not thousands of people who are not in charge of the country, that are the most threatened by this. They're the most vulnerable to conquest and death, whereas like the, you know, the male kings and a lot of Westeros are just willing to throw bodies at the problem. - Right. - As a way to assuage their own, you know, patriarchy and prove that they're not cowards, cowards, quote unquote. - Yeah. - And then Marya basically just says like, yeah, no. Like you sell not past, she has like an, the Gandalf moment of just like, no thank you, sorry. You can't rule here. - Like, not be good. - And it fascinates me that Rainey's says, okay. And that is interesting. I would love to see that adapt. - Right. And I, like, I feel like if I were adopting this, the story that I would want to see told is one where Rainey's respects Marya, that it's not a matter of like cowardice or she fucked up, but she's like, you, I respect you. I respect all of your choices. - Mm-hmm. - And I'll leave you alone. I will leave you. I have, I can't say anything about my progeny or about anyone who will come next. But I can tell you that I respect what you're doing. I see your point. I'm, we're chill, you and I, we're good. Like, that would be fascinating. Like if it was a scene of like them meeting, I imagine the meeting and like it just a totally empty, kind of sandy, dusty, like big hall that has nobody else in it. And just like the recognition that they're equals. - Yeah. - You know, even though Rainey's has a dragon. - Yeah. - They're still equals. - Yes. - You know, Mary is the princess of Doran and she, that's worse, and she's a, she's a ruling, I mean, for, as she doesn't call herself queen, but she's a ruling queen in, in practicality. - Mm-hmm. - And she is equal to raindness. - Right. - And she's a queen that way. I think that's great. I would love to see. - Yeah. Can they adapt to this, please? - Yes. - Yeah. - So that, I mean, that's, and that I think, I mean, again, it's head cannon, but I feel like that, there are multiple ways to characterize that interaction in terms of what it means about who Rainey says as a person. To my mind, the best possible version of what that means is that Rainey's respected Marya. That this was about equality and respect and even potentially looking at Marya as like a very old woman, like a ruling old woman and going, that could be me. What kind of queen do I want to be? What kind of ruler do I want to be? I want to be someone like her. And in order to do that, that means recognizing, like, you know, developing that kind of mutual respect and leaving her alone. - And there's nothing in the text to indicate that any of the Targaryens didn't value their small folk. You know, any of these Targaryens are all these specific Aegon of Asena and Rainey's. - Right. - That they, you know, I actually, I think there's indications that they do value their small folk fact that Rainey's doesn't just burn every little Dornish town she encounters. The fact that, you know, Asena stopped sacking the various places that they don't just do violence right away. So I could see that respect being between them. Yeah. We have, like, even the way that they use the dragons frequently is about strategic strikes. Like the burning of Heron Hall. I think it's a really good example of, like, Aegon and the sister, like, whoever makes the decision, Aegon is the one that we know is present, makes the decision to, like, it is better to just burn this one keep than set the entire Riverlands on fire. - Right. - That, like, they're using the dragons strategically in so many ways. And a lot of that is minimizing casualties on their own side. And as much as they can, I think, minimizing casualties on the other side as well. Like, when they can use the dragons for strategic strike, strike, they will do that, rather than just default to burn everything. - You know what's interesting. I was, 'cause I'm also in the middle of a reread of the Aslan Abyssin Firebooks proper. And that's the same tactic Daenerys uses in, like, at Astapore and Yunkai and the Marine. Yunkai, I was the chapter of just reading. She very specifically instructs her guys, like, you know, anyone who will come over to me show them mercy, like, spare them. - Yep. - If they will come over to me and join me, no killing them, they're cool. - Uh-huh. - And that's how she swells her numbers. - Yeah. - You know, you can't conquer a field of corpses. Congratulations, you have a field of corpses. But if you kill some people and you have your scary dragon and then 100,000 of them join you, right? - There you go. - Right, and I'm glad you brought that up because it's interesting to see that, like, that's brought up multiple times in this chapter as like a sign that Aegon is merciful. - Mm-hmm. - You know, like the Macer will be like, you know, he conquered, but, you know, he was willing to let people join his side. And he freely pardoned the people who joined him. And I'm like, I mean, that, I don't know what it means, it's merciful, that actually just seems smart. - Right, it's beneficial. What's interesting to me is how much that, that that is deemed as like a valuable thing in male rulers and yet, sometimes in the fandom, Danny gets criticized for the exact same behavior. It's almost like it's misogyny. - It's almost like it's misogyny. Oh man, wait a minute. I think I might have discovered a theme. - Ooh. - Ooh. - Found one, catch it. - There it is. - Yeah. - No, I think I think I'd be absolutely right because that is, that is, that is when it comes to frequently with Aegon being merciful, but no one's like, Miss Anya was merciful to the veil by not burning them. - Right. - She was. - She could have. - Yeah. - We've seen Vigar. Vigar could have done stuff to the veil, but. - Right, yeah. - Right. And also in the ways that like, so that's like a level of misogyny that like, she's not getting credit for the same kinds of positive features that Aegon is. And then the last thing I want to say about Rainy's is like, was she just like into feasts and frolics or is she just like politically minded and understand how court life works? - So is she Sansa? Is what you're asking? - Yes. - I think, I mean, that's a really good question. - Yeah. Now that you bring up Sansa, there's a bit of an Arya Sansa divide happening with Vesena and Rainy's. - Yeah, there is. There is a really good panel. I mean, the ages are reversed, but yeah. - Yeah, ages are reversed, but yeah. - Yeah, it's that same kind of thing. - Yeah. - But yeah, I think maybe I completely agree with you, I think it's so easy for the point of view of a sexist maester within this society to be like, "Oh, the feasts and the frolics and the singers, "you know, the silly women things "without realizing the importance "of those things in the society." - Right. - In the same way the fandom treats Sansa as like, "Oh, she's so annoying." Or she, this is all she cares about. These like the little girly things, like not understanding like, that's politics, my friends. - Yeah, yeah, that's it. - Right, politics. - It's not just about having a sword and being the one with the biggest sword and the biggest dragon, that actually what you get, your sword is huge. We know you've got all the swords. Look at all the swords you have. - You're very, very powerful. - But yeah, it is also about the daily running of court life and that requires an interest in, you know, singers and dancers and arts and pre-gowns and people. - The people, the fact that your people aren't just like, shadow subjects that exist to serve you. They're like human beings who need stuff. That you know, if you're trying to rule, I mean, you're trying, you've got to feed 'em, you've got to make sure they're happy. You've got to give 'em stuff to do. - Right, you know, if they're yours, you've got to take care of 'em, that kind of thing. - Right, yeah. - And I think ultimately we could make the point that like, we could draw out the theme that like a part of what Martin is doing here is that like, you can't actually have one person be in charge of all of these things. - Yeah. - That's a good point. - The job of being a ruler is actually bigger than like no one person can do all of the things that like you need someone who's like a strategist, like you need someone who is strategically minded, which I think is Viseña. She's the most strategic out of all of them. You need someone who is politically minded, who is more interested in like, you know, like the daily running of the court. And that would be Rainey's, like she would be the like, ideally placed for that. And then you need, I mean, you don't need it, but like it doesn't, like it helps to have someone who can just stand for like the symbol of power that people can be like, yay, woo! - Yay! - Yeah, you'd need, like, that's an interesting idea. We should try to remember that when we get to Jeharris, now, listen. - Uh-huh. - Because why were they so successful? - Uh-huh. - During their rule. - Right. - And I mean, they were the next most equal Targaryen couple after these three, in my opinion. - Yeah. - So that's a really interesting point. I like that. - Yeah, that like, you can't actually really have one person in charge, 'cause no one person can do all of the jobs. - Right, exactly. - And as it dwindles over time, it gets weaker and weaker. - Yes, yep. - Uh-huh. - As more and more people expect one person to do all the things like the worse it gets. - Yes. So that was us talking about the things that Mastra was assuming. What else do we want to ask? Who gets shafted? We kind of covered a little bit how the Westeros C small folk, you know, except for the late, the release. - Yes, all the small folk. - Yeah. - We talked about Lady Argella. - Mm-hmm, poor Lady Argella. She just like gets the worst. She didn't want to marry Oris Berat. Like, what did Lady Argella want? And who did she want to marry? Ask nobody. - Ask no one ever. (laughs) - Well, she wanted to be Storm Queen. - She did. - Right, she was the soul heir and she would have been Storm Queen until Beratheon. Tell Beratheon happens. - So the next question I have is, you know, we're talking about what really happened. - Yeah. - And we talked about like why the Targaryens invaded or whatever, but a question I have is, why make the iron throne? Who decided to do that? Do you think? - I feel like, if someone wanted to make a case for any of them, I think that you could do it. I could see Aegon doing it as a like, you know, it would be really cool. - Right, if I had a throne of sorts, that'd be cool. - Yeah, it's not said in the text. I mean, it says Aegon orders the sorts to be sent back. So it's not said in the text exactly who made like the initial decision. It is the kind of thing that's silly enough that I think it may be it was our boy Aegon. Maybe he was like, you know what, I need a my Aegon for it. That's really cool. I need a really cool Gamer chair in my fort. - Yes. - So. - Right. Right, and I could see Viseña being like, okay. And then, like, so he pitches it and then the sisters have to talk about like, okay, well, if we're gonna do it, like, we need it to be symbolic, we need it to like, we like, we need it to like be both a threat and like symbolic, okay? - Right. - Like, we need it to be like representative of, you know, this is what happens if you do not capitulate your swords get melted and twisted and they, you know, we sit on them. - Right. - I think this is one of those details that unfortunately for me kind of breaks down in a Watsonian, or a rather in a, yeah, in a Watsonian kind of way. I think what really happened was George R. Martin thought of this idea and it was so cool. But there's not really a good explanation for like a real person would think about this. Like, it's a weird idea for a real person to think about for their real throne. - Right. - You know, like, so it's like a, for me it's a stretch. - Right. And as like, we will continue to read like, this would be a really uncomfortable chair to sit on. So even like, even if someone was like, man, but the symbolism's so powerful, I feel like the person who might actually sit on the chair would be like, right, but I can cut myself in a thousand different ways. And like, I've heard why do I want to sit on this. - Yeah, I'm gun physically injured from this chair. I'm getting a new one, you know? - Yeah, right. Yeah, so I think you're right that like, ultimately the answer is doylist. Is that like Martin really wanted the symbolism, both of like the melted swords becoming like this big threatening like the visible threat of violence. Like a constant present visible threat of violence. I think he's also, there's some other layered symbolism. We don't have to get into about it being like a tree and like the green seers and like, there's like a deep layer of the way that kings in Westeros are like that the ancient kings were probably green seer kings. We're probably gonna get another one with brand. Brand's going to be a green seer king. And that like the iron throne is like a twisted like, destruct destroyed version of like the, the weirwood throne of like the green seer king. So it's like a metal tree with all of its branches and you know, like it, like you could picture it. It definitely has some physical aspects. Yeah, like the roots, like the noddingness of the roots and the intertwined nature of the, yeah, but it's meant to be like represent the like, destroyed usurped, you know, like broken down one that rather than like the actual, you know, green growing tree. Right. That the green seer has. So there's some of that as well, but like ultimately I think the answer is symbolism. Yeah, the answer was like this is neat and it's a fictional narrative here you go. Right. Right. I do appreciate that house of the dragon. While it had to work, it had to work with the iron throne that was available from Game of Thrones was still like, right, but we're gonna add some more sorts in there because it actually does need to be worth threatening. Look, we put more polkae things on the ground. They're doing their best to try and make it look more dangerous. They're doing their level best. You were correct. Another segment we may have, particularly more as we move forward, was it magic or did we trick you? Which is us fundamentally questioning whether magic exists in this universe. Right. So, and I, question, I think we talked about this before. I kind of am playing with the idea. I don't know that it's correct. I don't care because I'm wrong all the time, doesn't matter. I'm kind of been interested in the idea that maybe there like really isn't magic in Westeros or in Planetos at all. And that like dragons for example, are just like creatures, they're just animals. And like white walkers are just a different kind of life. Right. And all these things that are being interpreted as magic are either like natural events or purposeful tricks or human psychology. You know, I stare into the flames and I see snow falling. I guess it's snow-sweetie or is it ashes from the fire you're staring at? Right. You know. Right. But so I think it's a definitely a really interesting conversation. I do think the text is asking you to ask that question. So the one bit of magic we encounter in this section is, what was her name? The Dreamer. Dany's. Dany's the Dreamer. Who dreamed of the doom of Valeria, and which led the how Stargary into Flee Valeria. There's a nice little line the text where it's like, she dreamed of the doom. So they fled. 12 years later the doom happened. And I'm like, 12 years later. Aha. So what was it? She was like really, really prepared kind of vision. Like she gave them like a really good leeway. Aha. Or, you know, is it magic or did we trick you? Did she actually have a vision of the deal? Aha. Or did she have like a nightmare that you took too seriously? And then it so happened that volcano's exploded in Valeria. Right. Right. Or maybe she's just like really good at reading like social political trends and understanding that like you can only really dig into volcanoes so far before they blow up in your face. Maybe she was like a really big environmentalist. Yeah. Oh my god. And she was really against it. It actually kind of loved that like Dany's was an environmentalist. And like everyone else in Valeria was like, what? No. That's dumb. It's fine. Power is power. We're digging for power. That's why we're doing this. And she was like, dad, I had a vision. Yeah. Yep. Global warming is coming, dad. Yeah. Bad of getting out of here. Yeah. No. I tend to agree with you that like Dany's probably didn't have a dream that like she's she she was like good at reading what was happening within Valeria society was like looking at that and going like, hey, there's only so long that we can start tapping volcanoes that they might blow up. Like the text actually says that the Targaryen family didn't have a lot of power in Valeria. It was not one of the most powerful houses. It was probably closer to one of this like my theory is that it was closer to one of the secondary houses. Yeah. That's what it sounds like. Closer to like a messy or you know, some of the houses that you don't remember are exists like Westeros because they're not the big seven houses. Like a car-start kind of situation. Yeah. Yeah. Where they were like adjacent to power, but not like the most powerful. So they just kind of were like weren't able to gain any kind of influence and so left. And you know, Dany's was probably really good at looking at sociopolitical trends or even like we're tapping a giant chain of a giant chain of volcanoes and they're probably going to blow up at some point. Right. And maybe she like genuinely was really nervous about it and actually had like a dream or a nightmare just because she was always only she was anxious about and she said it's much it must be magic. Yep. And her whole family said magic. Yeah. That's great. So that's became the idea that Targaryens have prophetic dreams. Well the prophetic thing dream drives me crazy because it's it's so the kind of thing that could be magic. But it could also just be like, people you dream every night. You dream multiple dreams every night. And then things happen every day. Eventually those things are going to coalesce. Like they are going to be things like people have like deja vu all the time. Like, whoa, like I dreamed of that or like whatever. That's a regular human occurrence. So at the same time you have like chapters with Daenerys and a song, "Why isn't fire?" That seem very specifically prophetic. Like one of her visions in the house of the undying is of her riding through a crowd of people on her horse and then crying out mother to her. Right. And then that happens. Right. So I'm like, that seems to be magic. Uh-huh. Right. But is it, you know, I don't know. Or are you high? Right. Right. I don't know. Is it magic or are you on drugs? Right. Or is it wishful foam in or is it foresight? Like the one other time that we see like what could be a bit of magic in this chapter is at the very end with the high septent at Old Town where it's said that the high septent at Old Town like fasted for seven days and like had a vision, had a vision that if Aegon, you know, that if Old Town resisted, like that it would all be burned. And so he had this magic vision from the gods and then is like, "Hey, maybe we should just capitulate." Right. And I'm writing that and going, "Sounds like you're just a smart cookie who is being wise about the political trends and the fact that the enemy has dragons." Like I don't think it takes a vision from God to be like, "Hey, if you resist, the city's gonna burn when you're when you're in these literally have dragons and have burned a bunch of stuff already." Exactly. It doesn't even take like high level thinking. It's pretty basic. Right. Like putting the pieces together. Right. Absolutely. So yeah, I definitely want to keep an eye on. Is it magic or do we trick you? Yeah. And I think something related that we don't have to spend a lot of time on is the idea of like, "Do we have to trust what the Masons say when they say that something definitely absolutely 100% happens?" I love when the text is like, "This definitely happened. We had 15 people present and they wrote it down and it's exactly this way and we definitely totally know it." Yeah. I'm like, "Doth protest too much." Right. Right. When like, the whole book begins with the Masons being like, "I don't know. You could take this a lot of ways. There's multiple versions of the story. You know, fog of history, blah, blah, blah, but this thing, this thing definitely happened. And Aegon definitely said these exact words in this exact order and there were no mistakes. Yep. These really cool words that make him sound so badass and awesome. He definitely said that. 100%. I'm always like, "Okay." And he's usually like, "Well, we know that because there were masters there." And I'm like, "Okay, buddy." Because they're the most trustworthy source. Right. Right. Right. And I just like wonder like, "We're even, were there even masters there?" Or is that literally just like a tool that you use to claim that something is accurate? That if you want to say something definitely happened, you have to put a master there. Otherwise, no one will believe you. Right. And it's like, and there's just no way, there's no way to verify. That's the thing is like, particularly in a world where you don't have like, like the kind of archiving systems we have now. And even now, you have to question sources and stuff like that back then, that quote, unquote, back then. In that kind of time period, it would have been so easy to fake shit. Right. Because you just write it on a piece of paper and say, "This is the letter that doesn't such master scent." And it's totally true. You know, like, it's so, so easy. So I do think we need to question everything that the text says. Yep. Almost, almost especially when the text is adamant that it's true. Yes. But when the text is like, "No, no, really, I'm like, really, really, really, really kind of." Yeah. Really, really. Or you just really want this to be the version that's true. Exactly. And that does happen throughout the text, which I think is great. Yeah. I suppose we could wrap up with like, we mentioned that there's some themes we're going to be hitting. That I think that we're already starting to see both that the vulnerability of women means the vulnerability of all of us. And also that like monarchy is bad. And that like, ruling families can become like symbols, little microcosms of how terrible things for everyone. I'm thinking of her in the black, who also kind of reminds me of that whole narrative reminds me a little bit of Taiwan, devastating the Riverlands during the Clash of Kings and Stormswords, who's just kind of like, "Oh no, my power. Oh no, my honor. Destroy all the small folk who cares." Right, exactly. Throw a body. Like you said, throw a body. Throw a body's at them. We also know that like, even before Aegon comes to him that like, Heron was the kind of person who was like throwing bodies at his giant work projects was like, "I don't care what the small folk need. I want to build this really cool castle. It's my castle. I think it's great. I'm going to name it after myself. Just like the Aegon Fort. Yeah. You got Heron home? Oh, they were like a Kindred Spirits. Kindred Spirits. Kindred Spirits. They could have been best buds. No, no. No, no. Heron, Heron, Heron, the black is six feet away because he's not gay. And he's black because he's, because he's crispy. He gets burned. Yeah. That's my theory. But yeah, he's like, Heron, the black serves as like a really interesting symbol of monarchy more generally. He's an impressive invader because he's ironborn, so he's not technically native. Right. Though none of the Andals are native anyway, but like that's prehistory. Who devastates the lands he rules over for vanity projects and then retreats to like self-protection and leaving all of his people vulnerable when his own power and position is under threat. And like, that is ultimately what happens to the Targaryens. I mean, like, we're going to get there. But like, even in a song of ice and fire. Like, that's what Ares did. We know that like Ares, like when under threat, when tyrants coming to King's Landing is just kind of like bars it like, you know, fortifies the whole town and is like, if I can't have it, no one can. I'm going to burn the whole fucking thing down. After he's like done similar kinds of things of like all these vanity projects, building all of the wildfire like that. Heron is eventually what the Targaryens devolve into is just this like, massive invader who's willing to let everyone die for their own pride. Yeah. Ooh, I like that. Ooh, I like that a lot. So it's definitely not as we go on. Right at the beginning. We get a little seed of like the worst that monarchy can be right at the beginning. Right? It's supposed to be the height of the Targaryen dynasty. We're already getting this tiny little seed that's like, yeah, but this is what it turns into. Monarchy is bad. We should definitely track that as we go on because I think that's a really important. How do the Targaryen kings become more and more like the original kings they conquered? You know, and the bad ones. Right. Ooh, right. I love it. Right. And to your point about the vulnerability of women, I was thinking of our, our, our gala, the way that like, our gala is the one who gets really shafted by the narrative and is super vulnerable and the whole, this whole thing gets kicked off because our galac is like the only air that I have is my daughter. And that makes me feel vulnerable because we live under a patriarchy and feudalism. So like, eh, having a female air puts me in vulnerability. So I will appeal to the only thing I know, which is another form of power, which is what brings in Aegon and what kicks off the whole conquest to begin with. Mm-hmm. Exactly. Oh, I love that tie to it. That's awesome. Mm-hmm. All right. So it was, it was our galac's fear of losing power because of the ways that his daughter would have been disempowered if she was his only air that kicks off this entire conquest. This is what I'm saying about this time to house the dragon and the dance. Yeah. This is the same problem. It's the same problem on Targaryen's face when, when Viser's tried to make Reneira the air. It's the same exact thing. Right. Right. And Danny, Danny, Danny keeps running into the same thing. This is going to, this is going to absolutely, I mean, I think the whole, I've said this before, I think the whole history informs Danny's story and will inform what, however that ends. Yep. You know, and I think, I mean, the more we're talking about it, like if Daenerys channels her inner Visernair reign as an Aegon, she'll sacrifice her ability to rule for the good of everyone's like survival. And I think that would be an appropriate heroic ending, right? For Daenerys Targaryen. I unfortunately do not think Daenerys is going to actually sit the Iron Throne though I do want her to. Yeah, I agree with you. I feel, I feel that she has, she is, she is not long for the world's. Yeah. I don't think she's going to die the way she does in Game of Thrones, but I don't think she's going to survive the story. Yeah. Unfortunately. But I could see her and/or John sacrificing themselves for everyone else. That's very off topic. Yeah. So, Gratting, if we did a really good job recording a really short podcast. I think I asked for Daenerys. That's okay. It's our podcast. We can do what we want. So, for next time we have to determine how far we want to read the next chapter, Reign of the Dragon. How long are you? The next chapter is short. Perhaps if we want the episode to be shorter, we do the short chapter as one. And then I think the next chapter after that, oh no, these are all, the next two chapters are pretty short. And then I think we get to the Suns of the Dragon where it starts to get long. So we'll have to, yeah, the Suns of the Dragon is the first chapter that's like very many pages. - Right. - A hundred over a hundred pages. So what we can do then is, so our listeners know, for the next episode, we'll do one chapter, the next chapter, and then for the episode after that, we'll do the chapter after that. And then we'll start breaking it down by like either page number or where we stop in the story, like describing it for you guys, you know where to read up to, where to follow along with. - Yeah. - Okay. But I think that would work, that works in terms of this because I mean obviously, particularly with these first couple of Targaryens, there's a lot to talk about with, what their characterizations are like, and as we get more information, we'll be able to revisit some of these conversations. - Right. And I'm sure we will. So thank you all for joining us for this first inaugural episode. - Yeah. - House of Fire and Blood, which we are lovingly calling Huffby. - Huffby. - In honor of Hot D. And if you want to send us any questions or anything, you can send me a message on Tumblr. I'm Cosplay Caroline, and I'm a TikTok @BelogBELOCK and Gretchen, you have some things as well, right? - Yeah, you can catch me on Tumblr at GN Jones Writer, or you can catch me on Twitter as G underscore loves books. Perfect, and eventually we'll make an email, the count. But for this is what we're at for now. - Yeah. So thanks everyone, and we'll talk to you next time. - Bye everybody. - Bye. So the reason the Aegon report for me makes so much sense and defining it is that that's so the kind of thing my brother would do. I don't know, do you have any brothers? - I have an older brother. So I have an older brother, and he's just super goofy, and I love it when we get along great. But when I was in ninth grade, so he would have been a senior in high school at this time. Our parents went on vacation and left us alone. I went babysitting. So I was gone for three or four hours. I'd come back. All the lights in the house are out, and it's summertime in Jersey, right? All the lights in the house are out. And I'm like, what the fuck is everyone? And the back door of my parents' house used to have like a deck, and it was like a sliding glass door and a deck. And I go over, and the sliding glass door was like covered in blankets. And there was a, like a handwritten sign on it that says "Fortress Fun, no girls allowed." And I was like, what? So I opened the door, obviously. And what my brother and his friends had done was they had pulled out the awning over the deck and taped with tape blankets all around the awning around the deck to like encase it in blankets. Oh my god. And they called it "Fortress Fun" and they put a TV out there so they could play video games. Oh my god. And as soon as I opened the door, they're like, "No girls allowed, no girls allowed." That's the egg I'm for. I'm like, it's the egg I'm for. Right, and this is not like a small child. This is like an 18 year old. Yep. And his friends, they all said, "You know what would be a great idea." Oh my gosh. It apparently took them forever. The best part was it stayed up most of the weekend, and then it started raining. Oh no. And we were like, we were like, if the blankets get wet, we'll be awning collapse in the house, be destroyed. And so we're like, quickly like in a rush in the middle of the night, we're like taking blankets down, like pulling duct tape off. Yes. Did you tell your parents? Yeah, okay. We took pictures. It was so great. In the future, they had, they remade "Fortress Fun" a couple times, but always inside, because my mom wouldn't obviously let them do it outside again. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And then it was called "Endor Trist Fun." It. Wow. So yeah, that's as soon as I read "Aggonfort" I'm like, I know that kind of person. Yep. Uh-huh. That makes perfect sense. 100% tracks. Yeah. Very nice person. Super goofy. Yep. Yep. Also building a wooden fort when you got dragons is fine. Don't worry about it. It's fine. It's his fort, man. No girls allowed. Right. Just like don't set your dragons off around it. Exactly.