If you're a fan of the inner workings of Hollywood, then check out my podcast, the Town, on the Ringer podcast network. My name is Matt Bellany. I'm a founding partner at Puck and the writer of the what I'm hearing newsletter. And with my show, the town, I bring you the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. Every week, we've got three short episodes featuring real Hollywood insiders to tell you what people in town are actually talking about. We'll cover everything from why your favorite show was canceled overnight, which streamer is on the brink of collapse, and which executive is on the hot seat.

Disney?

Netflix. Who's up, down, and who will never eat lunch in this town again. Follow the town on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

I did not think they would be.

So eager to die. My ships sail at your command.

The realm's only hope is in a.

Leader strong enough to unite them. Do you accept me as your queen and ruler? Greetings, and welcome to House of Oak, a ringerverse podcast on the Ringer podcast network. I'm Mallory Rubin, and it is my absolute pleasure to invite you not only back to Westeros, but also to House of ours new ish ish ish fairy ish podcast feed. Joining me today, reminding me that we must play the board before us, which is full of male bad questions. Today, it's Joanna Robinson.

What's up, bad babies? We're in the endgame now. It's House of the Dragon time. Are you excited? Are you ready, Mallory?

Am I excited? Absolutely. Am I thrilled? Overjoyed? Consumed with anticipation? Yes. Am I also just a walking ball of stress, as always, heading into a new throne season? Yeah, of course. Yeah.

Look what's taken up. Permanent resonance on my desk.

It's beautiful.

It's the old doorstopper itself. Fire and blood. Here it is.

I love it. Great text. Love a fictional history. Love going to Westeros. Love potting with you. Here we are. We're back. We're going to answer mailbag questions today. Jo, we are just a couple weeks away from the premiere of hot d season two, and we thought it would be fun to hear from the bhad bhabies about what's on their mind on the eve of this next season of House of the Dragon as we return to the land of ice and fire. But before we unspool, whatever scrolls arrived via Raven leg. We gotta hit the early car today, programming reminders, because it is a busy time. The summer of content, Megeddon, is upon us. It is here at last here's what's cooking over on the ring. Reverse the midnight boys. We'll be with you tomorrow Wednesday for their instant reaction to the two part acolyte premiere. The acolyte begins this week. Episodes one and two are dropping together and the boys will have their instant reaction to both over on the House of R. We will be back on Friday for our deep dive into the two part acolyte premiere, where you might be wondering, is the oft mentioned never recorded nor aired, polluting?

What a phenomenal question. What a cogent and timely question to.

Be asked once again. I was stricken by illness on the eve of a Paul of fame. It is starting to feel like now.

It'S a bit yes.

And so when will the Paul of fame air? We can't say. And here's the thing. I think at this point we, while we cannot wait to do the pod and are genuinely looking forward to it, and we'll do it definitely. We're probably not going to say when we plan to do it until we actually have recorded it because we've been.

Like tempting the gods and fate by again and again.

So.

Yeah.

And let's plenty await us.

Joe, you know, oh yeah, there's Oscar.

Season, the one year anniversary of doing.

The one year anniversary.

Perhaps Dune prophecy hitting next sooner than that.

I'm sure Timothy Chalamet has a birthday at some point. Anyway, point being this, I just want to make it very clear that Mallory Rubin did try to convince us she was able to record this episode.

I did say, hey, pal, you recently potted through a head injury.

And she was also like, but also, I feel like I'm dying. And so Steve and I were like, listen, Paul will wait. They'll wait in the desert for us. I'm sorry.

I really feel bad. This is a bummer. We really want to do the pod. We can't wait. And we will do it. Because dune is eternal. The house of our hall of Fame is eternal. And at some point, Paul Atreides Muaddib, who is usul, will be inducted when.

We'Ll all find.

Okay, Joe, how can the people follow along?

Zachary, oh my gosh. I'm so glad you asked. First of all, before House of the Dragon kicks off in earnest, I really do recommend you subscribe to this podcast. We will be doing House of our twice a week and talk the thrones also. So there will just be a lot of opportunity to listen to us talk about some of your favorite nerd properties, Star Wars, House of the drag, it's all happening listen. So subscribe to the pod. What a great idea. Also follow us on social, on TikTok, on instagram, on Facebook, on X. I don't call it x, I call it Twitter. But you do you where you can see what we're up to, vote in brackets that are going on, all that sort of stuff. So that's a good idea. And then last but certainly not least, now is the time to get your dissertation length emails into us. Hobbitsanddragonsmail.com. that is the email that fed our mailbag today. And we'll be feeding a lot of our house the dragon coverage going forward, not to mention our acolyte coverage, which we're also very excited about. So hobbitsanddragonsmail.com, that is where you can send your ravens directly to us and join the conversation about House of the Dragon season two stressed Malibin dragon scream insert here.

I can't wait. Truly cannot wait. You know what else I can't wait for, Joe? Oh, what's that I can't wait for? Talk the thrones live, which we're doing this summer. We have mentioned the ringer residency, which is a six event extravaganza here in LA at the the El Rey Theater this summer. But this is a the house the Dragon mailbag episode. So we want to, like, specifically say we are doing a talk to Thrones live event on Tuesday, June 25 at the LRA Theater in Los Angeles. You'll be there, Joe? I'll be there. The dragon has three heads on talk the Thrones, which means Chris Ryan will be there. Will some special guests join us? Probably. Who can say? It's going to be a blast. We're going to have fun in Westeros together. So if you have not yet gotten your tickets for Talk of Thrones Live, head to the ringer.com events. You can find your link there for the event. You can find more info on Talk of Thrones live on all of the other great ringer residency shows, including a ringerverse live on July 17. So yeah, we really hope to see you for Talk of the Thrones live just a couple weeks into hot d season two.

It's gonna be a blast.

Do you remember that time that the cast saved by the bell went to Hawaii and they filmed a special and it was called saved by the Bell hawaiian style?

Of course I remember. Yes.

Right?

Yes.

So I'm here to tell you that since I will be in LA all summer to participate in all the talk of Thrones and House of our shenanigans this is like House of our LA style for me. Like, I'm having a Los Angeles adventure this summer, and I hope you guys come and see the live shows and be part of it because make my Los Angeles experience as delightful as it can be.

How many of your green things will you be bringing with you to laugh?

Well, there's the one that's currently in my hand, and I don't know. I think 15 might last.

15 pence?

Yeah. Through the summer.

So you think you're bringing 15 pens?

How many pens would you bring if you were going somewhere for two months?

Zero.

And you were working?

Probably zero.

Zero.

Yeah, I might. I would then secure some on the ground, but I don't know that I would bring any with me. Perhaps.

I have multiple green pens in my, like, my bag on your person at all times. Yeah. Yeah.

Just love knowing this about you.

One actually exploded in my bag when. I mean, yeah, when I flew to.

You know what? Can't do that. The notes app on your phone. Yeah. Yeah.

And I got green ink all over my hands, and I had to do a panel in Austin with green ink all over my hands. Nobody said anything, but I noticed. So, you know.

Joe looking like she robbed a bank.

Oh, boy. This is great. Listen, this is great stuff. I'm sure that everyone who did notice, they felt like they didn't need to speak or acknowledge it because it was assumed that it was a commentary on the green apple preference in the Apple wars. Will that be coming up momentarily? Who can say? Ooh, who can say? Listen, we do have some Apple wars content coming up at the very top of the mailbag. Before we get to the mailbag, we have to, of course, issue our friendly neighborhood spoiler warning. Joanna. And here it is. It's the same one as is basically always in place for our house of the Dragon pods. Of course, throughout, we will be referencing everything that has already happened in House of the dragon. So anything from season one fair game today, of course, anything that has been featured in a trailer for season two, casting information, marketing information for the new season, et cetera, that's all, fair game. We're not going to talk about anything from season two because we haven't seen season two, but we're going to speculate and look ahead because this is a preview pod. We will incorporate nuggets from fire and blood, the text to the source text, throughout, but through the bulk of the podcast, that will simply be context, history, lore, insights.

The only area in which we will be getting into future plot spoilers. Will be the end of the podcast. We have a couple mailbag questions that are more book spoiler centric. Those will be sectioned off. We will issue another spoiler warning right before we get to those questions so that you will have a chance to dip if you don't want to hear those. Okay, any other programming reminders? I don't think so. We're like 15 minutes into the pod. That was probably enough on the programming reminders front. Yeah, just great to be back together.

Positively zippy. I know I missed you at the end of last week.

I missed you, too. All right, the great houses will come to our pod. It's mailbag time. Steve, give us a call. Our first mailbag question today comes from Chris.

I just need everyone at home to know that through quirks of whatever, the call is actually very low in our headphones today.

Incredibly quiet.

It's like a crow is murmuring gently to us, like, excuse me, call. You have an email.

You know, I have to make that first call actually silent for the listeners now.

So if you don't hear us, like, gasp in startlement, it's because the crow is murmuring to us today. So there you go.

Just a whisper. A gentle whisper.

Ravens. Not a crow.

Raven? Chris asks. Slash says, I've been listening to you both for quite a while now, since the cast of kings in binge mode and the great Apple debate. I don't know if that was the exact intonation in Chris's email, but that's what I'm perceiving. There has been weighing on our parasocial thrumple. For the health and longevity of the pod, long may it rain. I'm sending a raven to propose that we explore unity apples together. I'm going to quickly pause here and say, if you're listening to this and you're like, is this going to be a house of the dragon question? It is. Stay tuned.

It is. No.

I am sending a raven to propose we explore unity apples together. Two examples of red and green mottled apples immediately come to mind. Gravenstein, Steen. Gravenstein. Gravenstein. Grovenston and Macintosh. That one I feel more confident in.

Yeah, crushed it.

Before you take your first bite of either. You don't know exactly where it will sit on the sweet tart spectrum, so there's an element of surprise and delight that is not unlike the feeling I get when listening to you both work through your relationship to stories and characters. What an extremely nice thing to say.

Lovely gravenstein.

Is that where we landed? Gravenstein can be found in Sonoma county and Macintosh are available at Gus's community Market in San Francisco. Wow, that's a very specific local plug right there. Joanna, I implore you to find a few of both and bring them down to Malford taste test next time you're in person potting. I'm also happy to gather up some prime unity apples and hand them off to smuggle in a question to make this mailbag worthy. Who do we think will be the unity apples of next season of Hot D and the Dragon wars to come? Okay, so, Joanna, those are your, like, that's a very regionally driven apple question for you. Yeah, you can answer that. You can share your thoughts on whether you'll be bringing some with you this summer, and then on the who will be the unity apple of next season of Hot D. I have some thoughts up to you, how you want to interpret that. It can be from the perspective of other characters in the story. It can be from the perspective of us as viewers at home. What's on your mind here? I wonder if we're going to have the same pick here.

Oh, interesting. Well, first and foremost, let me just say I love that gravancy and apples got brought up here. I recently moved back to Sonoma county, to the lovely hamlet of Sebastopol, one of my favorite places on the planet. They literally have a gravenstein apple fair every August in Sebastopol. And not only that, when I used to work at the Copperfields bookstore downtown, they would just put out huge crates of gravancy and apples at the front of the store that you could just have. You don't have to pay for them. They were just there. And the reason that gravity and apples are so plentiful around the area is because they are gross. I think gravity and apples are. Geez.

I was going to say is that why were they giving them away for free? Because they had been and corrupted by the presence of some green, but didn't want to be rude.

I think gravity and apples are like more of a cider apple than they are like an eating apple. I think that's true. I could be wrong. They're good for something. I know that true. But I don't think it's for eating. And that being said, I do like a Macintosh apple. I think a Macintosh apple is good. And those are more wildly available. You've had a Macintosh. Those are available all over the place. So we could call Mac. I love a Gravenstein for the nostalgia of where I currently live, but not actually to eat. But I think a Macintosh is a nice unity apple. Okay, moving on to who's the unity.

Apple of hot d?

So the real unity apple of hot D was viserys. Right. He was the unity apple, keeping the two sides just barely in check. Right. That was king Viserys. But guess what? He's dee de, so. And then I have a couple of different. I think that I feel like the fandom will be united in their love for. I expect Aemond Targaryen to become a fan favorite even more. So this. I really feel like this is going to be aemond Targaryen ascendant.

As, you know, he's my favorite maniac.

And I think he's soon to be everyone's favorite maniac.

Yeah.

So I think, like, in the fandom, I feel like Eamonn's gonna have, like, a really good year, is my guess, but. And then there's. There's, like, a new stark coming. I think, that's gonna be excited for the fandom.

Of course.

Yeah. You can decide if this is spoiler or not, but there's. There's. There's gonna be witchy stuff coming that I think is gonna be really exciting. But I think the real unity apple, the. The one person that both team green and team black would be like, I like them, and they're worthy of protection, is Helena Targaryen. Everyone likes Helena, right? I think that's just true. And when you look at the dinner scene that happened at the end of season one, Helena's the only one who's not causing a ruckus. I mean, yeah, Helena Targaryen, unity apple of House of the dragon, great pick.

Who doesn't love to hang out with somebody? Constantly dispensing little kernels of prophecy and bugs prophecy and routinely caressing the many spindly legs of a nearby bug. I would say I love this one.

The prophecy is the green apple and the bug is the red apple. And that's the unity apple. That is Selena Targaryen. Well, prophecy, a little bug.

That's a great pick. So I'm going to go with a new character. I thought you were gonna pick this character. Well, here we go. I'm going with the. This is like the. For the viewers lens.

Yeah.

I'm going with our guy, Freddy Fox, joining the party as Gawain Hightower.

Because I thought you might pick that.

Yeah. Difficult for me to imagine.

I just hope that he's. I just hope that he's in it as much as we want him to be.

So this is the thing. I. We're not going to get into any particulars about the role that Gawain plays in the story. I think the question of screen time is a reasonable one based on the book, but also think that, like, through just one season of the show so far, plenty of roles have been expanded or compressed or altered in terms of their vastness. Right. Uh, based on the interests of the. The showrunning team. So my. My feeling, based on my personal obsession with Freddie Fox as Spider and slow horses and King Hugo and the great, is that you don't cast Freddy Fox as Gawain Hightower unless you intend not only to make the role, if not, like, a starring leading role, which I don't think it will be a role of consequence and impact in the moments that he's on screen. And I think you don't cast him unless you intend to inject levity into the experience through Freddy. Right.

Yeah.

And so this is gonna be a intense story as we make our way through the dance. And I think that I am curious if. If Gawain will absorb again, without getting into any particulars, absorb some of, like the other book, Hightower character plot lines. I think that seems certainly in play and probable, and that could heighten the screen time. But whether or not you are invested in the Hightowers, whether or not you're team green, I think everybody will like watching Freddie Fox as Gawain Hightower on screen, and that he will give us a much needed jolt of joy and quirk and, you know, hot dumminess is.

Something that he does pretty well.

Some laughs and some cheer in a very, very grim story. So that's my pick.

That's a good one. I think also, Tom Bennett, who's playing Ulf White, again, not to go too much into the character, but the actor is incredibly funny. So I do think they've picked a few people to just sort of, like, lighten the mood of some of the things that we're going to be seeing this season on House of the dragon.

All right, our next question comes from Rachel. This isn't really a question, Joe. This is just an extremely sweet email that we got that we thought we would use as an excuse to talk about how maybe it's never too late to join the party. Okay. Should we make Steve read this email? Because it's, like, so nice about us. So nice about us. Feels weird to read it. Steve, I'm sending you this. Hold on. Okay, wait.

Is this because you don't think I say enough nice things about you in general?

No, that's just an added bonus though, that we get to hear you shout forcibly praise you. We're too read this.

Is this our love language, bitch? Words of affirmation from Steve. You know, I will say Steve after every single pod I do with Kai. Kai tells me I did a great job and I don't know that you always say that to me, Steve.

Wow, Steve's like, guys, that was long. I'll do my best to get it up.

This is like when my stepmom's birthday happens and he texts me at eight in the morning. Be sure to wish your stepmom a happy birthday. And I'm like, I was gonna, but now that you said that, anytime that I say that it's not, no, it'll.

Still matter to me that you did.

A good job with that said, Rachel says over a year after season one ended, I saw your breakdown of the dueling hot d trailers in my feed, and despite having not watched season one, I turned it on for some fun, listening the laughs, inside jokes and sheer excitement and joy. And the breakdown inspired me to finally go and watch hot tea myself. I've spent the last several weeks watching an episode and even going back to listen to the talk of the Thrones episodes and deep dive episodes. I could not get enough. I loved the show, loved the instant reactions, and absolutely loved the multi hour deep dives. It was all I listened to at work and while doing chores for weeks, watching Hot d gave me a ton of emotions, sometimes joy, sometimes awe. I was on the edge of my seat and even stunned. The two traumatic birth scenes particularly fucked me up. But I always kept coming back after every episode. It kept me wanting more, and I sometimes struggled not to binge several episodes in a row instead of going to bed. I hadn't felt that way about a show in a very long time and it was all over.

I felt like I was in a bit of a haze, the same haze that I used to feel when I finished reading a really good book series, that I had to face reality again and no one knew what I felt or was feeling. Listening to House of R is like being able to discuss all of those feelings, and now I'm not alone in my fandom. I love hearing your theories and book details and hearing other people's perspectives on each episode. Anyways, this is all to say that I eagerly await season two and following the pods and look forward to sharing in the excitement, laughs, and probably tears in real time. House of R has reinvigorated my love for the Game of Thrones universe, and I'm going to relisten to the deep dives because I can't quite leave Westeros just yet.

What a nice time.

Good job, Steve. Steve. Good job, Steve.

Great work.

Great work. Words of affirmation for you, Steve. Thank you.

Genuinely so sweet and so nice and really touched us and we wanted to share it because it but it is something we all, we really do like to just remind people and remind ourselves sometimes when, like, something is airing or people are talking about a book and we're like, oh, man, this is a thing that's is it too late to read Percy Jackson for the first time, right? To just point to a recent experience we had and it's like, it wasn't and it was great. And so it's if Thrones wasn't always for you or you missed season one and you're like, is it, is it too late? Ten episodes couple years ago already. People keep talking about this fictional history with unreliable narratives. Never too late to join us in Westeros. Never too late to find your own way into this world and figure out what it means to you. And so we just wanted to I mean, maybe you are not listening to this. House of the Dragon season two preview if you are not interested in House of the dragon, it's possible that we don't need to be saying this here in this particular context.

But just in case anyone was like, hey, I'm kind of like, I'm interested, but I don't know yet. We just wanted to extend a warm, welcoming westerosi embrace and say that we hope we will see you. The red keep on dragonstone driftmark all across the realm.

And Highgarden, Casterly rock, the wall. Ever heard of it?

Oh, man, the wall. She can't wait.

I co signed that. It was lovely email.

So nice.

And yeah, I'm really excited to be back in this world with everyone and I cannot wait.

Same. It's been so fun to rewatch, to start rereading, to just dip back in, to think about the impending season. It really is the most fun thing. I can't wait.

I can't wait to quiz Chris Ryan on various dragon phenotypes. It's been a good time.

We can't phase him. He's ready for. He's ready for our nonsense.

He's ready for whatever.

All right, our next question comes from Caleb. This is really, I mean, Caleb sending this particular question to hobbitsanddragonsmail.com. it's just.

What'S the wonderful stuff here? What's the topic for this email that I put in the spreadsheet.

Mallory, the professor is always welcome.

Correct.

And he is. If you could bring in any of the Lord of the Rings actors, either from the Peter Jackson films or from Rings of Power to hot D, who would it be? Be it replacing an existing actor or adding new characters. Oh, the new characters. Wrinkle. Hmm. An obvious choice would be to bring in Orlando Bloom to play a Targaryen, but I thought this might be a fun exercise. Okay, Joe, there's plenty of cross pollination between the rings and thrones universes already, right?

Yes.

Who has not been in Westeros yet that you would like to welcome along with all of the people we just welcomed. After reading Rachel's email, I know we.

Can'T bring Rob Aramao back to just being a different stark. No, no. Ten. Okay, my first, like, Kieran Hines didn't.

Get enough time as Mance Rader. So let's bring Kieran Hines back hard.

Agree. Dave Gonzalez was reminding me that, like, a bunch of book readers thought when Mance dies on the show, a bunch of book readers were like, well, that's a fake out, obviously. And it was this, like, longstanding until it was just like, nope, that was it. He's gone. Okay.

All right.

My first instinct was to go with the great Miranda Otto, who played Eowyn.

Good pick.

But. And was really fun on the sometimes good, not always great Sabrina tv series because I love bitchy older ladies in Game of Thrones. I would really love Miranda Otto to show up, but there are not a ton of bitchy older ladies involved in the Dance of the dragon, unfortunately. But maybe if we wanted to go back to last season, to second of his name, the hunt episode and recast lady Jocelyn Redwyne, who, you might have remembered her with her little dog, just, like, toss Miranda Otto in there to just really Lady Olenna it up in that scene. I think we could have used even more slicing and dicing from the sneering older ladies of the Hunt episode in season one. So that was my first love. This also House of House Redwyne could come back. They've got a fleet. It's something that we should always be thinking about when we're thinking about a massive war across the continent with a lot of coasts. Speaking of a massive war across the continent with a lot of coasts, I'm just going to drop some upcoming character names and tell you that I really tried to find some but could not find anyone to suit them.

Joanna Lannister, Castle Rock. We love a joanna. So Joanna Lannister and then Dalton Greyjoy, the Red Kraken himself. But I couldn't. I couldn't find.

Shout out to Red Kraken.

I could not find. Because here's the problem.

Yeah.

Thrones is full of, like, nasty little bastards and rings of power, and Lord of the Rings is full of lovely little people. You know what I mean? There's just like. It's. The attitude is not really where I needed it to be for a lot of people. But I have one exception. Well, there's a few exceptions, but I decided to go. You remember. I know you do. Galadriel's brother, Finrod. Yeah. The Silver Lake fade. But how can I forget Will Fletcher, who played Finrod in both the first episode and then the last episode of Ranks of Power? The first episode, he's playing her brother, the extraordinarily hot and wise elf. In the last episode, it's actually Sauron sort of cosplaying as Finrode. So it's a rope. Bummer. And so that actor, will Fletcher, got a chance to sort of, like, do this kind of twisted take on a semen art. So I was like, that's a nasty little bit. That's a good looking, nasty little bastard. And that's what we need for House of the dragon. And so where I would put him, and with love and respect to the actor who's playing them, but I think we could have gone a little harder on the Lannister twins, Jason and Tylen in season one, and we'll see them again this season.

So I would say maybe I would put Finrod, he of the Silver Lake fate. Cause they're supposed to be. The Lannisters are supposed to be, like, dashing but shitty. And I think we just leaned a little too smarmy and, like, dorky and not like, dashing and shitty, which is sort of what I wanted for the Lannisters. So that's what I would say. Will Fletcher, aka a hot elf who is also Sauron, as the Lannister twins, Jason spelled exactly as you think it should be, and Tyler Lannister.

So you think Jefferson hall should have just been hue of the veil.

Yeah. And that was leave it there. Leave it there. Yeah. This is not really anti that actor. It's more pro Will Fletcher. I don't know why I pop my bee on that so hard. Anyway, so.

Yeah, okay. It's a great. It's a great. It's a great pick. I love all of it. I'm going fastball down the middle right into the heart of the heat map here. I do believe, whether or not we are engaging in a thought experiment for our mailbag, that Charlie Vickers should be in Game of Thrones at some point.

See, I agree with you. I was just sort of like, he's busy.

He made this, to me, the clearest. Everything about this tracks, and you actually could cast him in a number of different roles in this show or elsewhere.

I think that Charlie Vickers, for those who don't watch, brings the power spoiler as a character.

Hot Sauron, who fucks.

He plays a character named Halbrand, who is also Sauron, who will soon be Annatar.

So, yeah, the Halbrand hair is a big part of the thronesy vibe. I think particularly gives a. Despite all of the time we spend in the Southlands in season one of rings of power gives a real northern Thrones energy to me. Now, I don't like to be ageist in my casting thought experiments, but I was like, oh, should Charlie Vickers be with love and respect to all of the actors who are about to join the party in these new roles, we just have not seen them yet. Should Charlie Vickers be Cregan Stark? But he's not young. He just is not young enough. Like, we really need that boy bond. Yeah, it's like, you know, that was the pitch from Rhaenyra, right at the. At the end of season.

I'm just going to call it the boy bond from now on, guys. It's like a soul bond when it's a boy, boy bond. Got it. It's like a boy band but with a strong accent.

Okay, so here's what I'm gonna throw.

Out to you, and I will be boys bonding.

Yeah.

Okay.

I'm gonna name a new character. And again, this is like, absolutely no shade at the actor who has been cast, who we have not seen yet in the role, and I hope will be wonderful, and then it will be unthinkable at a certain point that anyone else could have played the role. But just thinking, like. And I don't really wanna get into any details here, so it's sort of difficult to talk about this, but Hugh. Hugh Hammer.

Yeah.

Charlie Vickers is Hugh Hammer. Joe, what do you think? I will say to our listeners, if you don't want to know anything about you, don't google it. It's just a new character who's coming our way, and I think Charlie Vickers could be a great heel.

The only thing that I would push back on with that is that I actually just want to save Charlie Vickers for an even bigger role than Hugh Hammer, which, you know, I actually don't know how much or how little they're going to use Hugh Hammer or whatever. That's not really. But, like, I want him to, like, be in one of the main character in one of the spin offs or something. You know what I mean? That's what I want for him.

We have another casting question coming up later, and I had a similar conundrum with that in terms of like, yeah, I'll explain more when we get there, but I had a very clear slice of the narrative universe that I wanted that person to be in, but then didn't feel that any of the roles were going to be ample enough. It's an interesting one in this spinoff era that we find ourselves in anyway, whether it's Hugh or a northerner or, frankly, anyone else, I would love to see Charlie Vickers in House of the dragon at some point. Aegon's conquest Dunkin egg is probably not the energy we're looking for from Charlie, but, you know, plenty of interesting.

What if he says, you want to hear him say is blurry in here?

Okay, it's sealed. It's sealed. Yeah. Aegon's conquest, Charlie Vickers. It's done.

Done.

It's a lock.

Well, we're gonna have a lot of time in rings of power season two to see how well he looks in a blonde way, so we'll see.

Okay. I love it. All right, our next question comes from Quentin. Since the show has the acronym of Hot D, we would just like to pause here from reading Quentin's email and say, as we always do, thank you, George. RR Martin.

Thanks, George. Does your genius. No, no bound.

Thank you.

You take your time with Windsor Winter. You gave us that job, and we are grateful.

Who are two people, either from the show or the book, that you would ship regardless of sexual orientation, or who would you ship with each other based off what you know about the other person. Like, who would Mallory ship for Joe and vice versa. All right, Joe, how are you answering this? Are you pairing characters? Are you giving me a ship? What are you doing here, Zachary?

Why not? Both, obviously. Okay, so first and foremost, I'm solving the war.

Okay?

No press, but I'm solving the war. Jason and Helena are getting married, and we're just fixing the whole war.

Yeah, I can see team Green is. Well, though I also. Do you not ship Aemond and Helena?

I do, actually. They're top of my list. It's Aemond and Helena. Aemond and Helena. That doesn't fix the war, though.

We have nothing in common. She's our sister. You marry her then. I would perform my duty.

If mama had only betrothed us, I really would. He said he's eager to. Aemond and Helenite. I do ship it.

It's gotta be Aemond and Helena. It's. So this is really, truly. Of all the things that signal. We're back. We're back. It's a throne season, just.

We're shipping a brother and sister.

Here you go. Incest. Why the fuck not?

Is it cousins or is it a brother and sister? Which one do we pick?

Okay.

Outside of the incest sphere. I'm sorry to take us away from that.

Can you please add inside the outside incest sphere to the sound board moving forward? Thank you. Please. Thank you. Okay, carry on. Carry on.

It's like. It's similar to the dragonpit. Not wholly dissimilar. Okay. Mallory Rubin.

Yes.

With. And not to get in the way of a boy bond, but malorie Rubin with Cregan Stark.

I love it.

The wolf of the north. Because a, we know how much you love wolves. And b, perhaps if you are with a stark, would you perhaps acquire a dire wolf of your very own? Do you know?

Absolutely.

It's not an option. I have no idea necessarily. And who am I shipping myself with? Well, I'm so glad you asked.

I decided Beesbury.

Alan Beesbury, who is Lyman Beesberry's grandson and heir, that is who I am.

Letting me genuinely and truly one of the best and most fulfilling parts of the pod is how we talk about this. Sometimes in like, a very, like, earnest way and sometimes in more of like a ha ha way, but it's always true. Something about the experience of consuming, I think will change based on what we have shared. Right. And so, rereading fire and blood, I just cannot come across a beesbury of any generation I know without thinking of you. It's an instant association.

I don't know if Alan Beesberry is gonna be in hot d at all, but he does get an early spicy mention in the section that the show will be covering. And I was like, they have an option to bring house beesberry into. Back into the conversation where it belongs.

I love it. I love it. Okay. I, as mentioned in real time, have aimed. And Elena is my charactership. Super normal stuff.

Totally fine.

Super normal stuff. I have another answer that's, like, too book spoilery, so I won't get into it here.

He's got one eye, she's got a third eye. It all works.

It's perfect. I am shipping you with. I've got a couple ships for you. Okay. Okay, here's the first one. I am shipping you with not one, but two Cargill twins, both Eric and Eric. I think that this is probably the only way to solve the.

Wait, was that Eric or Eric?

You guys really need to get acquainted on an intimate level, and then we won't need to identify the particular threading on a.

This is a service ship. For the good of the pie.

Exactly.

Yeah. Okay.

Cloak's not needed for this ship. What do you think? You into it?

No. What's next? Okay, I don't want it.

I am shipping you, perhaps unsurprisingly with. You alluded to witchy stuff earlier. I am shipping you with Alice Rivers. You love a witch.

I love it. No notes on this one. Yes.

This actually feels like a love match. Meant to be.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. And together, we will ruin people's lives. Who loves ruin.

A serving wench who dabbled in potions and spells, says monkey and a woods witch. Claims Septon Eustace, a malignant enchantress.

I. As you know, I love a malign enchantress.

You do. You do. You love an ocean vista. You love a malign enchantress. And you loathe. Loathe a crevice. Yeah. Okay, Steve, anything to add?

My favorite thing about Alice rivers in that section that you read is they're like, maybe she was. I was worried you were gonna ship me with Laris, by the way, and then I wouldn't be able to, like, deny my creepy feelings.

I didn't think I needed to say it. I think that was just an assumed state. Yeah.

But, like, that part of the book is like, maybe she was a wet nurse to Larrys and Harwin, or maybe their dad, or maybe down the shes. Been here forever. Alice Rivers, a potentially immortal malign enchantress. Hot.

Ideal. Honestly, ideal. Keeps things fresh.

Yeah.

Okay. Beautiful. Our next question, Joe. This one is. Im going to leave this to you. This is really Joe. Yeah.

This is from Michal, who wrote in, actually wrote in this email when we were covering Shogun, I think, over on prestige or maybe to hobbits and dragons, but resent it for the mailbag. And there's just this quote from Shogun that goes a little something like this. A man may go to war for many reasons, but a woman is simply at war, which is a real banger. Bars from Shogun left and right. But in this email, it says, file under bangers from Shogun. We should keep in mind, during House of the dragon. This is really a question. I just wanted to pay Shogun back for all the times that I mentioned thrones when discussing Shogun, and I thought I would mention Shogun while discussing thrones. So if you haven't watched that show, you have a week and a half thereabouts before hot d comes back. So you can just binge Shogun in your anticipation, period, if you prefer, and then join us. It's a tremendous show.

Wonderful.

That's all. Thanks for the email.

Next, Brittany spelled a way that George.

RR Martin would spell it.

Yeah. B r I t t a n I e. Delightful.

Love. Love it.

Delightful. I am 100% a book purist and have always made a point to read the book before seeing the adaptation. Hot d is the only time I've willingly put off reading the book, so I genuinely don't know what Daemon will do next. But having gone through thrones with a building anxiety as a book reader, who among us? That was me, not Britney. I thought this would be a nice change of pace. Curious if either of you have ever approached an adaptation in the same way? Joanna um.

No, never.

Not once.

I can't think of one where I'm like, I'm sure I can't. I've been thinking about this and I can't think of a single example where I read the book after the, like, you know, I have, but, like, intentionally read the book after. But you know, something we've said, we've had a ton of people ask us, like, should I read the book or not? And the thing that we always like to point out about fire and blood, this particular adaptation, is that because fire and blood, as we've mentioned several times, is told from the perspective of multiple unreliable narrators. Shout out, mushroom, Eustace, monkin, mushroom, whatever you prefer. Team mushroom. Yep, I know you are. I might be Team Eustace. I don't know. I need to break it all down again. But as we've mentioned many times, this is just like a very different kind of adaptation because the story that is woven together in fire and blood is so full of heresy, hearsay, etcetera, that the version that we're seeing on screen is not always going to track what is in the book by design. So it's not just like a departure because they thought it would make for a better tv show, though in some cases, I'm sure that's the point.

But it's also this idea that they're like, this is what really happened. And so you can read fire and blood, and by the way it's only just a few chapters in fire and blood that are being covered in House of the dragon that Mallory and I have read over and over and over and over again, but, you know, and not be spoiled on what's to come because they are going to swerve left and right. Who burned this castle down? Who did that? You know, like, if. If the record is mixed, then, you know, oh, is Laenor still alive? Okay. You know, like, there are just going to be things that happen in the show that have nothing to do with the book. So I respect, I really respect what Britney's saying and the very french spelling of her name. Like, I really respect this idea of, like, hey, I just thought I would take a, you know, a different approach. But this is just like, the one example where I'm like, well, this is the one where, like, you, so many surprises can still be so surprised, you know?

And, yeah, the lane or call out is a good one because that was, I think, the most, like, oh, holy shit. This is just like, this outcome is genuinely different from any possibility presented in the text, but all of those competing narratives, like, not only does it leave open the door for, like, what is the true version of the events in the sense that then the show is the definitive canon in that sense. But, like, I think that commentary on how history inside of the world is told is something that extends across the wider throne sphere. Like, thinking about, you know, we recently revisited the thrones finale five years later, Joe, we talked about that on the most recent of our numerous, many abundant hot D trailer breakdown pods. We've done three. And on the most recent one, we. Normal.

Really normal, totally normal, absolutely normal stuff.

On the most recent one, we also revisited the Thrones finale because it had been shockingly and still impossible to believe. Five years, half a decade since that aired. And one of the things about revisiting that is you get to the moment where song of Ice and Fire, the tome is presented, and Tyrion's like, what? You know, are they kind to me? It's like, you're not in there, right? And however you felt about that when you watched the finale, it's like, there is that amplifying element here. Like, the thing that happened doesn't always make its way into the books. And so that is part of what George RR Martin is commenting on as he stitches together fire and blood part one.

For example, neither mushroom nor Eustace, nor monk, nor anyone has mentioned how impenetrable Mysari's accent is. That has not come up once in the fire and blood, you have to watch the show. You have to watch the show.

We know that was gonna be one of my other ships, actually was a time traveling ship of Mosaria and Littlefinger because of the ever shifting accents. A real love match right there. I'm with you on that reply to Brittany's question and just the encouragement. Again, if people don't want to read it, that's completely fine. We welcome all. We welcome all here. And if you do, and you're like, well, I still enjoy the show. You've got a ton of twists and turns in store. That's been one of the really fun parts for us, honestly, of watching it and covering it in terms of just then, the question about, have we ever done that? I was trying to think about this as well. When I am covering something, I think this is one of the earliest things we bought. I mean, obviously the first thing we bonded over was Jorah Mormont's just complete grip on our hearts. Our hearts. Yeah, let's. Our hearts. Our hearts. Souls. Our minds.

Our minds. Yes.

And then we bonded over loving a source text, Joe. Loving a. Loving a source text. And when we're covering something, maybe it's something that we've read many times and have a deep attachment to. If it's not, it's often something that we try to read. Like, again, this is now my second mention of Percy, but we had not previously read Percy. And, like, the fact that the show was airing was a really great. We welcomed that as an opportunity. I think we both were also like, we gotta read this before the show comes out. But welcomed it as an opportunity to say, here it is. Right. Our moment at last to dip into this world. Three body problems, same thing. I just read dark matter right before the show came out. Cause I was like, I wanna read this book before the show, et cetera. So I think that's a pretty routine experience for us. I was thinking about playing last of us in tandem with watching and covering the first season of the show. It's a slightly different cadence for that kind of experience. Rather than rushing through the game before the season, trying to pair the gameplay with the show, which was a unique one for me, but a really fun thing.

I was trying to think of all the things we covered on House of Art. I think the one that popped into my mind was watching a covering silo, not having read wool, despite having really wanted to read wool, and having possessed wool, and had it on my bookshelf for a long time, and then reading.

It, reading it after reading it.

Yeah. Like reading the beginning of it to try to just get a feel for the language and the prose and the world building and then kind of continue on with the series after that. But it's, you mentioned, of course, and read that beautiful question about Shogun, and that's the one, for me where I've wanted to read Shogun but haven't. And if I had been covering that, no doubt I would have felt compelled. But I just watched the show, having not read it and still have not read it. And I got to listen to the prestige tv podcast with Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney and glean all of these insights.

And that was a really fun way to cover the show, which was Rob was not reading the book, and I was reading the book along with the show. So that was really fun. And Shogun had been on my TBR pile for a long time, so I was really glad to also, if you like, look on my bookshelf or in my digital reader app or in my audiobooks, it's just full of things that are being adapted because that's just like, it is my job, but it's not required of everything outside of house. The dragon certainly is, but not everything. But that's just how I like to absorb things. And, you know, I will also. I'll often read things like, I read the accord of Thorn and Roses series because there was, like, rumors that Rod Moore would be adapting it or, like, fourth wing, you know, rumors that it would be adapted. I'm like, well, I just want to know. I want to have an opinion about casting or whatever. Like, I just want to know, even if it's not my usual cast, Charles Melton as Zaden.

Do it. I'll save it for another pot.

Okay.

All right. Our next question comes from Gregorio. My question is, what dragon would your choice? What dragon would be your choice to tame if given the choice? Apologies if you've answered this before. Currently going back to listen to all of the hot teapots that I skipped in the past. Thanks for getting me through my long night shifts.

The long night shifts. Gregorio, what a cool name. This was such an easy answer for me. Was this tough for you?

Only because so many of the possible outcomes are so appealing. It was a thrilling, thrilling exercise.

You and I are not the same. So I'll clear the deck so that you can get into this. It is. This is easy for me, and it is sea smoke, because sea smoke was abandoned ish by his, you know, writer Laenor. In the book Laenor is dead in the show. He's alive, but somehow not with his dragon question mark. Seasmoke, as we were discussing in the ringer, slack, also yesterday, has that goatee and what I call the derpy little horns, and he just has just, like, a really distant, distinctive face.

Incredible slack exchange with our beloved colleague Katie Baker, who came in multiple hours later and was like, wait, can we go back to the dragon? Who was described as having a goatee in, quote, derby horns?

And she said, respect to the Gen X dragon? So, yes, I want the Gen X dragon. We will go have lattes together, sea smoke and me.

Sea smoke is a beautiful pick. A wonderful pick. I considered sea smoke as well. I'm tempted by so many choices here. Obviously, we're going hot d division only here, right? We're not going back to the prior dragons or ahead to suck it.

Drogon.

Drogon. I'm down to two.

Admirable restraint. Genuinely. I think so. I'm proud of you. Yeah.

Was it anguish inducing to get to two? It was. I would like the opportunity to claim.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on.

I just wanna.

I'm gonna. I'm gonna write down on a piece of paper, okay. Who I think at least one of them is.

I feel like you'll be able to guess. I don't think maybe either of them.

But I just want to write it down so that, like, I know this is good podcasting, but I just, like. So you can say it, but then I can just prove it.

Which of your 30 some green pens are you using?

27.

Okay, here are my. Here are my two contenders. Veigar Vegar, which I assume you wrote down.

No, I didn't write Victor down.

Burma. Thor.

Well, shit.

You wrote for two. What did she put down before I explained my reasons. Who did you pick?

I put caraxes down based on the fact that I got a text from you earlier today about caraxes feet. And since you were thinking about caraxes deviated septum and his feet, I thought.

Perhaps, you know, I did consider caraxes. I love caraxes. I love so many of the dragons. Okay, you wrote down caraxes. Did you write down a second dragon?

No, I just wrote down caraxes.

Yeah.

That's a good. I should have known that you would never miss an opportunity to say. To say, veigar. Veigar that way. So, yeah, when we're talking about, I'm.

Gonna pour molten wax in the middle of the podcast table when I say.

That we're in person. Filming. I'm gonna have a little spray bottle, and you're gonna get a spritz every time you say, like a misbehaving cat. Tell me about your love affair with the bronze fury, vermithaur.

I would love to. So I am tempted, of course, by the idea of bonding with an egg in my cradle, I should say, but I did not go that route.

It's just special phrasing, honestly.

You know, it's on offer for the targs.

Dragon lore.

Going with my two candidates here. Something in common, right? They are dragons who have previous riders. And I love that, you know, the idea of rediscovering and forging a bond together. Beautiful thing. So, vermothor, the bronze fury, written by the old king Jaehaerys. I am tempted, Joe, by this symbol of legitimacy. It's appealing to me. It is, it is. You know, get to fly around and say, I'm on the bronze fury. The dragon of jaehaerys, the conciliator. Unwritten since the old king's death. Old large, second only to vhagar vagar in size vermothor at the time of the dance.

Can you spritz her?

It's kind of like warm in here. I wouldn't mind a spritz, honestly.

Can't endanger the equipment.

That's true.

Yeah.

You're a pro's. Probably one of the things that I really love about Vermithor. Who of course, we to remind everyone we saw in the season one finale, Vermithor is the dragon who daemon seeks out and sings to. Vermithor got a little lullaby. In the season one finale. We have spotted Verma, Thor in the season two trailers. Thrilling stuff. One of the things that is very.

Beardy and you love a beard. You love a beard. And this is a beard.

I love a beard. I love a beard. And I love a dragon who is so mighty and demands such respect that you don't even have to inflict violence. You could just say, have you seen Vermothor? Have you heard the bronze fury, Avyatz? And that's how you can conduct yourself as you fly about the realm. So one of the quotes, this is from pre. The pre dance timeline, from fire and blood, that I always loved is Jaehaerys saying, why would I need hostages? I have your word. That is all that I require. But grand Maester Bennifer shout out. Bennifer heard the words. He did not speak. Every man and maid and child in the Stormlands is my hostage. Whilst I ride him. His grace said without saying, that's just the vibe I'm going for.

So Mallory's like, who can I bully and intimidate with my massive war friendly dragons? And I'm like, sea soak and I are gonna go on little adventures and have lattes together. And that sounds correct for both of us.

Speaking of intimidation, I would now like to present the case for.

As Neil Miller likes to call her granny, war crimes.

We podcasted for just genuinely hours upon hours about my feelings about watching, getting to see young amend claim veigar in the back half of season one. It was a genuine thrill and joy to me. As Otto said to Alicent in episode seven, what that rogue Aemond has done in winning Veigar to our side, the boy was right. It's worth a thousand times the price he paid. You don't really need to know anything else. I mean, we can tell you more if you want. You don't really need to know anything else. Vegar, the oldest and largest dragon in the story at this point, Joe, totally.

If your goal is to crush your enemies, I think you have made two fine picks, and I love that for you.

You know, I'm a student of history.

This is two days in a row we've talked about your bloodlust and ambition on podcasts. Tune into our hacks over on the prestigious tv feed.

Was a joy. Interesting. Yeah, that's what that is. Definitely a read on Max pod. It's. Yeah, it's funny.

It's just.

Wow, there's really a lot of parts there, Joe. Veigar was written by Visenya, you know, fabled warrior. I love it. Written by Balon, the spring prince, obviously written by Laina. And now Amand. Like, this is. This is a. This is just a proud. Okay, so when you.

When you and Veigar chomp your way through, not a bag of sour patch kids, but a young boy and his tiny little.

No, no, no.

I will not harm you taking respons. But.

But in my version of this Arax, I'm like araks, but a woman couldn't control Veigar.

Flutter away, demon.

It was. This is why it seems right that I should pick. Veigar really just fits in with the hubris of thinking, you know, you're more.

Of a boss bitch than a man Targaryen. Great. Actually, I think you are. I do think you are more of a boss bitch than Aemon Targaryen, just for the record.

Thanks, buddy. Which dragon do you think Chris would have picked if he had been here with us for this exercise.

I mean, I think he would have remembered caraxes the most.

Yes.

Like, that's the easiest to identify.

Yeah.

But I think what? Maybe once he sees sunfire, he's gonna want sunfire.

I thought you might assume that I would pick sunfire.

No, I do love sunfire. Me too.

Steve, do you have a dragon you would want to buy?

Yeah, Steve.

I'd say definitely caraxes.

Yeah.

Did I say it wrong?

No, you nailed it. No. No, you nailed it.

Should I said it correct?

See? I mean, always.

Yes.

So therefore, I said it correct.

Sees, like, snakes, his wormy little body, like, over the ramparts and intimidates people.

Yeah.

Great shit.

Wonderful stuff.

The look that we get coded, that one.

Oh, absolutely. The look that we would get from caraxes when. When the file came in north of 3 hours. You know, something to think about. Something to think about.

I don't. Steve does not get a dragon. I don't want it.

Okay. Our next question comes from Christina. In addition to House of R and ringerverse, I also enjoy the comic book couples counseling podcast. The hosts, a married couple, use relationship books to discuss a different comic couple each month. During the Cyclops Jean Gray episodes of X Men 97, they talked about which of the five love languages applied to them. It got me wondering which applied a Damon and Rhaenyra. So here's my two cent Rhaenyra. I think her love language is words of affirmation. I think of how relieved she is in episodes three and eight when her father reaffirms her as heir, and how she asked Damon in the season two trailer if he accepts her as queen. It seems like words of support make her feel loved for Damon. This one's pretty simple. During season one, I joked that it does say lol, but I couldn't bring myself to say lol while reading the question.

You can just say lol.

Lol. You know, I was once ridiculed and scorned on this very podcast for saying loader and so well, I will tread with care moving forward.

You are so smart. And that's the dumbest thing you've ever said.

I stand by it. I do.

You have the most incredible brain of anyone I've ever met. And then you also said loader. Loader.

I said it with pride. I said it with gladness. And I will continue to do so. Resuming the email. During season one, I joked that murder was David's love language. But now that I'm really thinking about it, his language has to be acts of service, whether it's beheading or charging into battle. So the murder is still there. To be clear, Damon shows love by being a man of action because he sucks with words and he knows it sideways. Laughing with tears of joy. Emoji and send and send email. That's just sounded 97 years old. It was a tough one. Tough one for us all. Joanna, I would like you to obviously answer the question, but also to tell us, are you a love languages person or do you study the five love languages? When you got this question, did you know exactly what you were going to say or did you like me Google, what are the five love languages?

I know. I do know what the five love languages are. I think that most of that comes from having worked in a bookstore and sold innumerable copies of this book. So I already knew what they were. But do I, what I call, consider myself a scholar? Do I constantly reference the sacred text? No, I do not. But I think it's a really fun exercise here. I think what's interesting, and this happens all the time, the way that Christina wrote this, she sort of wrote the love languages going two different ways in the way that she was going to be.

My question. Yeah, I am not a expert. Should we be answering this like, what is the way that Damon and Reynara show love to others? Or what is the way they want to receive love? Love.

Because it's often different, like the way you show love versus the way you receive.

I'm going with receiving love for how I'm doing this.

I think we can answer this however we want. But what I think is true is that I love the description of Damon's acts of service as his love language. But I do think that's how he shows how he receives is the same as or near. I think it's words of affirmation.

Yes, that's my pick as well.

This scene from season one between Daemon and Viserys.

Yes.

Where Daemon says, you've only ever tried to send me away to the veil, to the city, watch, anywhere. But by ten years you've been king. And yet not once have you asked me to be your hand. And Viserys says, why would I do that? And Damon says, because I'm your brother. And the blood of the dragon runs thick. Thick. Why do you cut me so deeply then? Why do you cut me so deeply? Is such a good thing anyway. So, yeah, Demon's just like, let me serve you, let me serve you, let me serve you, let me do things for you. So, yes, that's obviously interesting that you.

Have each show before he calls Otto Hightower a cunt.

Okay. It seemed off topic. It seemed not relevant to the conversation at hand. I think that that is. I should have started it with Viserys saying, laughing with your whores and lick spittles. Which is honestly an iconic visery.

I'm a fatty.

I know. Me too. I'm gonna miss him so much in season two. But. So, you know, Damon does just want to serve and serve. But he also wants to be considered the best. The valley, worthy of the throne, worthy of the crown, the leader, stuff like that. You know, when he and Rhaenyra start their union as, like, the power couple of Westeros at the end of season two, he wants to do all these things like, in her name, but he also wants to be the one to decide what is done in her name. So he's not just like a. You know, he's trying to, like top from the bottom, essentially, you know, and it's like. That's not. It's complicated with Daemon Targaryen. And then I think to say Rhaenyra wants words of reformation, I think is very clear. Do you have a sense of Rhaenyra? How she shows her love?

Quality time, I was definitely thinking about. Yeah, quality time. I like. I was thinking about this for both of them in terms of what they are looking for from others. And then did spend a moment reflecting on what it said about me. That I thought about love languages through the lens of what other people give us and not what we give to them. And I'll sit with that for a bit later. But yeah, for Damon, I think I'm with you. That scene is such a big reason why. And then thinking about a moment of reunion between Viserys and Daemon in episode seven, and Viserys offering him a place at his court. And that if that's something you should need packaging, and then Damon has to reject it. Right? I need nothing like not being able to, after that feeling of rejection, admit that that is the very thing he seeks. And then in that same episode, we talked about this for so long in real time. The way that he receives Rhaenyra. Just saying I want you. That's just the thing he needs to hear. Right. I want you. And on and on the list goes, I think, of the evidence to support that for Rhaenyra.

And the question does a great job of outlining specifically episodes three and eight, where we really feel that the aegon and name day Hunt. No one's here for me, like, needing to feel that from other people. It's so devastating. That plea to Viserys in episode eight. Then defend me. Even her views on marriage and the conversations in episode four between Rhaenyra and Daemon. Marriage is only a political arrangement for women. It is like to be a death sentence. My mother was made to produce heirs until it killed her. I won't subject myself to the same fate. Like wanting somebody who wants her and values her for who she is and what she offers, not because she is a womb, a vessel, a concept, a path. Right. That seems to really fit. And then I like that the love language that Damon and Rhaenyra share in terms of what they're looking for from other people is words of affirmation. That's such a fascinating thing to think about it.

I think it speaks to the Targaryen insecurities. But I think that if anyone's playing at home, the five love languages are acts of service, words of affirmation, quality, time, touch, and gifts. So, you know, we can think about. Maybe we'll revisit this with some other relationships going forward.

I think Aegon, the elders, is gifts. He's like, you gave me this really cool crown. Oh, it's the conqueror's crown. Can you put it on my battle helm?

Yeah, he seems like a guy who wants stuff.

You gave me a dagger of a prophecy. I don't know. It's the dagger of prophecy.

Just some pointer.

Very valuable pointer. And presentations at the office, as we.

Know from that time that.

It'S words of affirmation for all of them. Joe, like, thinking about it now in real time. Aegon's at security. Like, do you love me? Right?

Yeah. It's very sad, but I don't. Yeah, I was just gonna say that I don't think Aegon is touch starved, because he is just, like, you know, certainly not forcing himself on any chambermaid and then also just, like, enjoying his own touch, as we have seen on the show. Shout out Tycoon Roy. Which brings us to our final non spoiler question.

This one comes from Kristen. I've also greatly enjoyed your coverage of another topic, one David Tennant, our beloved ten Hu, Yang and Crowley. And perhaps less belovedly is Barty Crouch Junior Junior. Barty Crouch Junior. And then if you could see this, you would see us both darting our tongue to the side of our mouths in a very clear tell. Revealing. Anyway, that's a conversation for him for a different podcast. But I digress. That's both me saying that and literally the next phrase of the email. While last year may have been hot David Tenet Summer, I can't help but wonder where you both would cast him in any of the Game of Thrones properties, whether it be a recast from Game of Thrones or Hot D, a character the shows may have omitted. Ooh, an upcoming character in the Dance of the dragons or any of the rumored or official spinoffs. Personally, after catching up on good omens and seeing that performance, I think he could have made a wonderful little finger. No shade to aid and kill his accents. Loved him in the wire of Peaky blinders. I think his charisma would have really brought something extra to the role.

Or maybe I just like the idea of him being around for almost the entire series. Winking emoji with the tongue out.

With the tongue out. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Yep, you bet.

Hey, you bet, you bet.

Listen, this is a great email from Kristen and I love to read it. And apparently the Littlefinger fan casting for David Tennant is kind of a popular one on the Internet. I think it's a mistake to cast someone that handsome and charismatic as Littlefinger. That sort of defeats the point of Littlefinger. I think he needs to be as creepy and off putting as I don't think David Tennant is capable of being off putting in that, I guess, unless he does his barty crouch talk thing the whole time.

Stuck. Quick tempers, slow minds.

I just Aiden Gillan's accent aside, I think he really nailed the correct smarm factor because if Littlefinger had been David Tennant, people would have been fucking shipping him a sansa. It would have gone in.

I think David Tennant would have said, peter, please, peeta, please. It's a different energy for sure. Okay, so where are you? Where are you slot now?

So I am not even ready to answer that question yet because I do want to just say and reiterate something you and I have said on previous pause, which is it's not too late to bring ty tenet back and recast him and give him the old Dean Charles Chapman treatment. Dean Charles Chapman played two different characters on Thrones without anyone blinking an eye. Titan was so good as a younger aegon that I just really made him to come back and play someone else. Okay, so this is actually kind of accent based.

Oh, okay.

Which is I really like it when David Tennant gets used as natural Scots, and natural Scots is actually not an accent that is often used in Thrones. The only example I could think of is Sandor Clegane the Hound. That's the only scottish accent we really get on Game of Thrones. And so despite other scottish actors being like, Richard Madden is doing his best Ned Stark. So I thought what if there's a slight timeline overlap with Dunkin egg? So it could go in Dunkin Egg or maybe just some other spinoff. But what if. If David Tennant plays Titus Lannister's kennel master, aka the founder of house Clegane? Can you just see him as someone who starts his life as a kennel master and then gets his own house as a result? That character does not have a name, but Sandra and Gregor is, I think, grandfather. Founder of House Clegane. I kind of like that idea. But if it needs to be an established character again, this goes back to the problem of like, I want him in a lot of the show. Which is why, yes, Littlefinger is a great pick. I was like, what about Uncle Benjen?

No offense to Joseph Maul, but if David Tennant showed up as Benjen Stark in season one, we would have been even more like, where the fuck is Uncle Benjen? Where's theory for years on once Stoneheart can't lose, where is Uncle Benjen? I would have enjoyed.

That's a good one.

In that role.

That's a good one. But that we would have been outraged then, in our waiting.

Oh, yeah.

Outraged. And then how little we get at.

The end of it to get on the horse. Well, no time. There simply wasn't.

Oh, boy. Benjen is a fascinating one to consider. Boy. Okay, a clegane, this is a. You've taken me on a journey here. One I was not expecting, but one I enjoyed.

I mean, I will say if you look at images of David Tennant from fright night, if he could do the accent, which I don't think he can, I could even put him in Dorne because that's the level of charisma.

He's ringing.

Anyway, sorry. Okay, so what do you got for me?

Okay, so I had an actually really hard time with this. It's tough because he has such a particular quality and vivaciousness and obviously he's an incredibly talented and capable and multifaceted actor who can do all sorts of different things. But, like, there's a certain presence and aura that we want from him. So that was what made it really tough thinking about tone. The one thing I feel sure of is that I want him in Dunkin egg. That is the spinoff I want him in. And yes, I am still calling it Duncan Egg. This will remain my version of George R. Martin.

And I'm saying if we slightly fudge the timeline.

Yeah, yeah.

The Lannister kennel master could make appearance. Okay. Yes. In Dunkin egg. What do you want?

So then I was like, all right, who in Dunkin egg? And, like, I, you know, obviously, I don't want to wait, so I want them. I want to think about someone from hedge night, and then I started thinking about sworn, so I.

You just reread the Dunkin egg books?

I've been revisiting Dunkin and having the absolute fucking time of my life. What a wonderful story. I can't wait to get. Of the Seven Kingdoms, as they are currently calling it next year. Okay, so the casting for our titular. Not actually titular, but, well, tales of Duncan egg in the written world, titular dunk and egg have been revealed. We're waiting on other casting, but we know from Nadiblog, from George that other casting is locked in. We're just waiting. And I am spending every day, Joe, waking up right now waiting to see who will be playing bailord break spear. This is, like, my current thing I care about most in the world.

Keeps you up at night. Yeah, it does.

But. So I was like, oh, could David Tennant play break spear? But it's just not. It's just not right. He doesn't feel like a make or to me, I had a little mental dalliance here with the idea that he could be Raymond Fossoway, which obviously not the stout build, but I liked the spirit and the kind of, like, jovial quality. And also, obviously, for us, just the house of our meta aspect of this. You have an apple as your sigil, and then you, Raymond Fosway, paint it green after it was red. Like, what a. This would just be. This would just feel like it was a thing made and done for us. But obviously, Raymond is just way too young. Like, it's just not even. There's not. I just don't think it's. Plenty of characters. Ages are changed, but. But the role he plays, like, he's supposed to be a youngster, so that doesn't work. And so then I went to the second novella, and here's where I landed, and I shocked myself, and I don't know. I don't know quite why this is.

Where I wound up.

This is going to sound crazy, but what about Sir Bennis the Brown for David Tennant? Now, you might be saying, here are the canonical things we know without spoiling any of the plot particulars about Dunkin egg for people. Here's the thing we know about Bennis. He reeks. Like, he smells so foul that his stench and the off putting nature of his stench is one of the defining things about him. Here's a thing we know about Sir Bennist. The brown. He chews on sour leaf all the time, and his mouth is stained. He's gross. He's a piece of garbage. He's disgusting.

Not just, like, physically, but everyone, like, he's got a terrible personality. He's a tough hang, but he is an unattractive person with a terrible personality. I'm sending this directly to David Tennant. This is what Valerie did.

Hang with me for a minute. Uncontainable snark. Bennis is a snark machine, and I think that there is, like, something in Venice where he's quick with a turn of phrase and he's ready to annihilate another person with some sort of withering remark that David Tennant's particular aptitude would actually, like, really lend itself toward, and it would be a different kind of thing. Do we want to all, like, fall in love with Venice? Probably not, but the snark is what drew me.

Okay.

There's a lot of wit there entwined with the foul qualities, and maybe it would be an exciting new spin for David Tennant. What do you think? And Dennis is a prominent character in the second novella, which is another thing that I liked about it a lot of screen time.

I like the screen time. I will.

I have not sold you. No, you don't want David Tennant. So on the stench front, everyone in Westeros smells like that is. It's just they all stink.

Chewing a wad of sour leaf that made it look as if his mouth were full of blood. That's what Mallory wants from David Tennant.

I want him to be able to channel the snark but also do something a little different. All right, so Joe is out on David Tennant as Sir Bennis the Brown, and that is something that I will just have to carry. I will have to carry that with me. But I do think that David Tennant belongs somewhere in Dunkin egg. Just the vibe of that.

I agree.

Slice of the story feels like a place where he could have.

I think we need to keep looking for the right non repulsive fit, but.

Oh, man. Okay, that's the end of the non spoiler section of the mailbag. We are heading to the spoiler section.

Grab your unity. Apples the mailbag going into the spoilers.

It's gonna be quick. We've only got a couple here. We've got two questions coming in the spoiler section. Sirens. You've been warned. If you don't want to hear the spoiler questions, this is where you leave us. We can't wait to see you again on Friday for the accolade deep dive. If you are interested in continuing on for the spoiler section, we will be starting that now. Our first book spoiler section comes from. Joe would just like to say once more before I read this question. If you do not want spoilers, leave now. Leave now.

Bye. Take the tunnels out of this podcast and we'll see you on the other side.

Here we go. Do you think the very gruesome thing that is definitely happening in episode one of season two will turn large swaths of people off the show? How do you do it? How do you do it in a way that doesn't completely horrify the audience? Everyone at the red wedding was an adult. They aged up, Tom and Myrcella, so they were late teenagers. Joffrey was over 18 in the show by the time he died. Even Luke last season, he was doing adult ish things when he died. Are they really going to kill a five year old in episode one of their giant show? Thank you, Joe. I will just note, in case this makes a difference to anyone, he's six. He's six.

Point of order. He's six. He's six. Six. Fine. Okay. Allow me, please, a minute to recap. Blood and cheese, because sometimes people join us in the spoiler section and they haven't read the books. So blood and cheese, this incident that we've known is coming. Everyone knows is coming. We're pretty sure it's happening in the first episode because the first episode is called a son for a son. Blood and cheese. The phrase refers to the two assassins who sneak into the castle and tie up Alicent and lay in wait for Helena. When Helena comes in with her three children, six year old twins and a two year old, and they give her the old Sophie's choice and say, you get to pick one of your sons to live. The two year old boy Maelor, or the six year old boy Jaehaery. And she's like, I'm gonna pick the firstborn. I mean, first, she's like, can't choose. Can't choose bugs and prophecies, allegedly. That's not in the book, but something will happen. So she's like, I can't choose. Then she's like, well, you know, Aegon really likes his firstborn, so we'll just, you know, the two year old won't even.

I mean, he's barely been here. So take the two year old, and then the assassins are like, you hear that, boy? Your mom wanted you to die. And then they kill the six year old. Says they kill the one that she said to spare.

Yes.

And they also threatened to, like, rape the six year old girl. I don't know if that's gonna make it into the show. It's a very grisly, tough scene. And then they leave. And then blood tries to take the head of the six year old out of the city, and he gets stopped and interrogated. And basically, all of this is done because daemon and Messaria, in some combination, orchestrated it. Okay.

A son for a son. Lucerys vengeance.

So blood and cheese. So, if you look at it, I mean, they've been, like, really heavy handed with the promo for this. If you look at the character poster for Helena, there's, like, a dude with.

A sneaking around the corner, secret hallway behind her.

And one thing that they've done, one thing that they didn't. I think this whole idea of making Helena, like, a dreamer, slightly addled Luna love goody in the first place is just gonna dial up the. Because this is essentially gonna, like, sort of similar to Ophelia and Hamlet. She's never gonna get over this, right? They're like, she survived, but did she really?

Yes.

She lost all of her marbles. And, like, do you think we're gonna.

Get, like, a mini prophecy from her before blood and cheese in the premiere? Like, we obviously spent a lot of time with the beast beneath the board. Do you think she's gonna be like, there's a gruyere. There's a ripe. The ripe, hard cheese?

We laugh to get through the pain. This is gonna be grisly and thoroughly. People are gonna clutch their pearls about it. But my experience in years and years and years of both thrones and hati fandom, because I remember the pearl clutching happening around Emma's death in episode one of House of the Dragon. There are people who would just be like, this is a misogynist show. This is a horrible, brutal show. Blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, you know, on the first part, we can have a more nuanced debate on the second part. Yeah, this is a nasty, brutal world and a nasty, brutal show, and it always has been. And this is. And if this is the line that some people want to draw, like, I'm not gonna, you know, say, you have to watch something that you don't enjoy, but, like, there will be, like, performative quitting, but then usually, oftentimes, like, there'll be serious quitting, but then there will be, like, performative quitting. And then oftentimes as performative quitters, I find just sort of slink back and don't talk about the fact that they're watching again. So, like, I don't know. I think it's.

I don't think they're gonna, like, super soften it. A six year old is still gonna, you know, die. They might not, like, show it, but also, we were stabbing babies on thrones, so I don't, you know, I just, you know, that's what I was gonna say.

Yeah. Like, obviously, I do think that, first of all, this is extreme, even by throwing standards, and that they are actually leaning into that and how they're talking about it, which is really notable. Right. Like, I think to the point of the question of, like, will this be too horrified? Like, will the audience be too horrified? I think that horrifying the audience is part of the point. Right. Like, to what you're saying, joe, about the nature of the world and the story. So there's an Ew piece from Nick Romano about this, and there's some interesting quotes there from both Olivia Cook and Ryan Condall. Quote, God. Cook, who plays Alison Hightower, tells Entertainment Weekly when broaching the topic, I just say it is Game of Thrones. Expect the worst. Expect the very worst possible, and then double it.

Double it.

I don't know what else to say without heavily spoiling it, but it is heinous. And then here's the quote about Condol. A song of ice and fire and Game of Thrones have really conditioned people to expect the unexpected and expect the horrible condolences. But, yeah, that one's pretty horrific. We'll see what people make of what's to come. So I agree with you. I think there definitely will be people for whom this is actually like a bridge too far, not something that they can consume and stomach, I think, for. It sounds like a fuck dumb thing to say, but I do think for a lot of people.

Why they watch.

The show sounding like, too sociopathic. Yeah. I think this will be the moment house of the dragon arrives in full. Right. Let's not forget. I think your stabbing baby's point is a great one. Right. The mass slaughter of Robert Baratheon's bastards and the stabbing of babies and brothels and was a thing that we all watched the pilot, the first episode of Game of Thrones. Joe, I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but the first episode of Game of Thrones ends with Jaime Lannister pushing Bran Stark out of a window. Now Bran lives, but listen, this is.

Just the things he does for love. I don't love.

The story begins with a kid being pushed out of a window. Like, this is the world that we're in. And I think obviously Veigar Vega snapping poor little Luke and Araks out of the sky was a on ramp to blood and cheese in many different respects, in terms of setting a tone for the horrors that are waiting on the show, in terms of the actual eye for an eye, sun for a son aspect of the story. But blood and cheese is gonna be the house of the dragon equivalent of Ned's beheading. It's gonna be the thing where people say, I understand what story I'm watching and how it will unfold. I understand what level of a thing I could not previously have contemplated in another world awaits me here. And then we'll await again and again.

Like, or the Red Wedding comp because, like, the Red Wedding and the reaction to it is, as everyone who has ever worked on Game of Thrones will tell you, the moment that that show, like, really arrived.

Oh, yeah.

Like, the viral videos of people watching the red weddings and the fact that.

By the way, there's another one, right? Talisa. Stabbed in her.

Yeah.

In her pregnant wooly. In her womb.

Yeah, exactly. Like, I think that, again, if it is too upsetting for people, I'm not saying, like, get over it or whatever, but, like, you know, if you don't want to watch the show, don't watch the show. I support you, but, like, yeah, I do. I do think that's what. That's what the show is. So, yeah, it will be really interesting to see how they do it. And I think it's going to be so key. We're going to talk about Damon next a bit, but it is so key for the. It has to be horrible. Has to be for what happens on team black going forward.

Yes. Which brings us to our next. Our final question. We have a related ish additional question that we'll hit inside of addressing reference this next one. Yeah, for some fodder. But, Joe, our next question comes. Our last question of the day comes from Lauren. Lauren asks, with all the emphasis on team green versus team black and choosing a side in the marketing for season two, I've been wondering, do you think the show can make any sort of compelling argument for siding with Team Green? And more broadly, do you think they need to, to make this show work for some background. Although Alison is my favorite character parentheses, I love an emotionally tortured redhead woman.

I can recognize this is a Sansa fan.

I can recognize that team Black is the obvious and unquestionably right team. And more problematically for the framing of quote pick aside, saying your team green makes you sound borderline misogynistic, which really takes the wind out of any fun of picking teams. That's a, that's. That's all in the email. I'm not sure I totally agree with that, but we'll, we'll. We'll get to that after resuming the email here. I've read the book, so I know about b and c, as does everybody else who was just listening to us talking about topical. But even with that, although it might sour some toward Damon, I think it's so hard to make any argument against Rhaenyra being the right flayer that they're using Alison as the figurehead for greens instead of Aegon, which, although smart in the sense that Alicent is a more sympathetic figure and can help help get around some of the misogynistic ickiness with Team Green, it doesn't really solve the narrative problem. Okay, Joe, we talked about a lot across season one, this fleshing out and softening of a figure like Alicent to warm us toward her, et cetera, et cetera. Many examples that we discussed across the course of the season.

Where are you on this more broadly? Do you know any team green?

I don't know anyone who's team green in my life, but, like, I don't.

I mean, do you see that changing with season two? Do you think it needs to change in season two?

I think it'll depend how the rest of team black reacts to what daemon, the thing that daemon does, but our sense is that daemon will be essentially, like, ostracized from team black for blood and cheese. So. But here's the thing is, like, I think Aemondo and Targaryen is going to rise to a daemon esque level of, like, he just only had a couple episodes last season, and I think with more time with him, you're going to have two fun little psychos on each side that we're sort of invested in. And I am invested in Alicent as I am in Rhaenyra, but in terms of who deserves to rule, Aegon's such a piece of. Of shit that, like, how can I support any team that's propping up Aegon? However, Alicent misunderstood a prophecy, or however justified Otto's distrust of daemon is, or whatever it is, it's not enough to justify who Aegon is. But once Aegon is out of commish, we're in the spoiler section, and Aemond is sort of like, you know, the leader of. Of Team Green. I think that'll complicate things. The Damon thing, I really feel like. So we got this email from Courtney and Lindsay.

Love a dual email, which we don't necessarily need to read out, but they were quite worried. They were sort of quote, gathering and quite worried about what the show intends to do with Damon in season two. And from our various breakdowns of the various trailers, our sense is that Damon, who in the book by now is already at Harrenhal, is going to go to Harrenhal pretty quickly. Perhaps mastermind blood and cheese, I, like, introduced my crackpot theory that cheese is never caught. Perhaps Damon is actually one of the assassins in the room. I don't feel strongly about that. But there are so many little choices they can make to amp up or ramp down Daemon's direct involvement. If he says something to Messari of we need something to be done and then doesn't say anything specifically, then, you know, his hands are much cleaner than if he's like himself taking a torch down a back passageway into the castle. So Damon's direct involvement in blood and cheese is a question. And then ostracized very soon thereafter to Harrenhal, where it seems like he's just gonna be beset by nightmares for perhaps much of the season when he's not threatening to burn people's houses down, right?

So, like, you know, then your house will burn. So here's. Here's the quote from Smith. A quote from Matt Smith. He's given several versions of this that had Courtney and Lindsay worried because they're Damon lover says, are we on this podcast? Matt Smith says, quote, he sort of tumbles into anonymity in a way. He gets softer, lazier, fatter, slower, and he's sort of haunted by his demons, really, by ghosts, by apparitions, by his own sense. The weight of all the bad deeds that he's done really come home to Rus, so to speak. And I think he becomes more exposed, really, in a way. So Daemon haunted this season. And then Ryan Condal gave this quote talking about his sort of bafflement around the daemon fandom where he says, quote, he's not Ned stark, he's the anti hero of the story. If you're looking for Han Solo, who's always going to do the right thing in the end, you're in the wrong franchise, folks. And so Courtney and Lindsay are like, do they hate Damon? And are they going to, like, character assassinate Damon or whatever? I don't think that that's the case. And I think no matter what, Matt Smith's, like, intelligence and charisma in his approach to the character is going to make Damon a compelling figure.

But if. If the show feels like it needs to turn down the brightness on Damon a bit in season two in order to give Team Green a fighting chance on the charisma front or anything else, I could see that perhaps being a calculation that they make. What do you think?

Yeah, this is so interesting to me. So when the team Green and team black trailers came out and the player intentions choose a side campaign began in earnest, I was chatting with our colleague, ringer editor in chief Ben Glixman, and he has not read the books, but he loves the show. And he was obviously very invested in our content around the show, and so we talk about it regularly and he was like, I don't understand who would be Team Green? And I found it very difficult to engage in a productive discussion with him about it without spoiling or getting into blood and cheese at all and everything that comes after that, which of course, I did not want to do. So I am so curious, like how the early reception, or if the early reception to the choices the characters make and how, to your point, they frame and position the choices the characters make, how, if at all, that alters the allegiance. Because I think ultimately, when is interesting about. There are many things that are interesting about the dance of the dragons, but part of why this is like a slice of the cannon that so many people love it, it is complex.

And you can start by believing and thinking that Rhaenyra was wronged. And you don't necessarily ever need to waver in that opinion. Right. In thinking that Rhaenyra deserved to sit the Iron Throne, that Aegon and the Greens stole Rhaenyra's birthright, that Viserys never wavered in his desire to see Rhaenyra on the throne. And you can still find yourself, and you should find yourself, because this is what's dramatically interesting about it, repelled by the decisions that certain members of team black make. And you should find yourself while rooting against Aegon and his claim, like you said, desiring time spent with members of the Greens. Like, that's what's interesting about the story. There's the actual who's right or wrong in the war aspect of it. Like, it makes me think a little bit of the great Jorah line that we quote all the time. Right. It's tempting to see your enemies all of as. It's tempting to see your enemies as evil, all of them. But there's good and evil on both sides in every war ever fought.

Do we quote that drawer line all the time?

I love that drawer line.

Okay.

I love that drawing.

I don't know that I've ever quoted it, but I love it.

So, like, how many viewers versus people in the story are gonna be swayed by, oh, the king's landing response to Rhaenyra's very harsh tax policy is like, when, you know, her standing really diminishes with the masses. Like, that's not going to be the thing that sways viewers. It has to be more emotional than that, not just the logic of the claim and the, yeah, we should also.

Say Thrones is an HBO, God love them are famous for kind of misguided marketing slogans or mottos leading up for the throne or whatever rally of the realm. There's various things where you're like, that's actually not the point of this season at all, but it's a convenient marketing tool. We've talked about this before, how thrones and Potter and a number of other fantasy things have this sort of baked into it, merch friendly pick aside sort of thing, where it's like, are you house Stark? Are you a hufflepuff? What are you? So the merch ification of Team Green and team black. But then again, I just don't know how much team green merch they're going to sell. But because we're not dealing with many houses, I mean, the Starks are here, but they're not a significant aspect. It's all the Targaryens. So it's slightly different. So to create this sort of, like, factions, you know, it's a civil war. Factions within a faction. I don't know, it's marketing. And, like, we don't need, like, no one ever thought Tywin and Cersei and Joffrey, like, had a claim or a point. Like, it doesn't, but they're still really interesting.

That's exactly.

We loved Jaime, we loved Tyrion. We didn't love Tywin or Joffrey, but we loved watching them. We weren't rooting for them to win, we were rooting for them to lose. But we loved every second that we got with our character. So that feels like a real corollary, I think I'm interested to see like, it's a marketing campaign point, which I think is right and important to keep in mind. I am curious how much of this is actually an extension of a very genuine intention and the presentation and narrative structure of the show. Right. Continuing to actually play at that question of like, well, should this be a harder choice and question of allegiance for people? Is it maybe not so cut and dry and clear? Will people be ultimately compelled? You mentioned earlier, you referenced like, basically like a misunderstanding in Viserys last gasp, the Targaryens naming all their kids AEgoN all the time is a way to position what Alicent does as something other than base betrayal. Whether people are compelled by that into rooting for Team Green is a different question entirely. Think there's then the like to the they're all Targaryens and it's a civil war.

It's the war of succession point that you made. That's the other thing about it that I think does make sense as a way to position the season. Right. It's just reminding us that this is a story about a dynasty tearing down its own might and fighting itself from within and whether anybody watching the trailers at home feels compelled to say, I'm Team Green or not. Not. The realm is divided and that's the story we're going to watch. And so there will be people in the world making the tm green choice and we have to believe that that would be possible. Right. And we have to at some point understand why somebody would make that decision and all the different reasons. The dance split the seven kingdoms in two. Like, that's the quote from fire and blood lords, knights and small folk declared for one side or the other and took up arms against one another on and on and on. Right.

So given that we're in a United States or in an election year, I'm sure this is going to be a very normal conversation that we have all summer.

Very, very cool and chill. And I'm sure that it will be very, very, very chill to be talking about the boys in an election year as well. I'm sure everything will be fine and calm and normal this year. Very calm and normal. Very calm and normal. I don't want everybody, if there is anyone out there who's team green, I don't necessarily want them to feel like. You don't have to be a misogynist to be team green. Right. No, it's tough to root against Rhaenyra. That part's hard. But you can. I don't think you're into team green. Yeah.

I don't think you have to be a misogynist, but I do want to talk to you about your.

We've got some, some feedback, for sure.

I have some notes.

All right, Joe, we did it. We did a mailbag, we did a primer mailbag, we did a season preview, and we will put this with our three again, three, three prior trailer breakdown pods and say that we have now done four preview pods for the season. And will we do more. Stay tuned. Stay tuned. We still get a week and a half before the net, the premiere. Any other thoughts on a dragon you want to bond with on the ship that you want to introduce into our lives? Oh, I guess.

I guess it's, it's pride month and I forgot to say Rhaenyra and Alicent in the show. I was shocked you didn't say Raniera and Alice. Yes, I meant to Rhaenyra and Alicent. That's another way to end the war.

Surrounded by candles.

Yeah.

Wonderful. Wonderful. Okay, that's a wrap. Thank you to our small council, Steve Almond for producing this episode, Arjuna Ram Capel for his additional production work on this episode, and show me a Daneron for his work on the social for this episode. Remember, head back into the ring. Reverse tomorrow. That's Wednesday. Because the midnight boys will have their instant reaction to the first two episodes of the acolyte, which are premiering tonight, Tuesday on Disney. Joanna and I will be back with you on Friday here on the House of R for our deep dive into the two part acolyte premiere. We are very excited to watch that show and chat about it together. And then we will be back, of course, next week. And there's no stopping the content from there. It's just going to be constant. So we hope that you join us. Ringer.com events get your tickets to talk to Thrones live June 25 at the L. Ray Theater in Los Angeles.

House of our Los Angeles style all summer long.

Bring your green pants, whether or not you're team green. No green apples, though it.