Chapter 1: What is discussed at the start of this section?
Greetings, and welcome to House of R, a Ringerverse podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin. Joining me today, she knows a witch who pays copper for teeth. I do. I know you do. Never has there been an easier choice for what to say at the top of the pod today. It's Joanna Robinson. Mallory. Yes. What a joy to see you. Thrilled. Thrilled to be here to dive deep
into episode five, already somehow episode five, the panel ultimate episode of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which we will do right after this. All right, Jo. We're going to be back for the finale because it's already finale time somehow on Sunday night. Immediately after episode six, we will be here with CR. For Talk of the Thrones. Correct.
Next Tuesday evening, we will be back with a deep dive into the finale. But before then, later this week, we're going to have our Buffy. I don't want to jinx it. Season three, part two pod. We made it this time. It's going to happen. Thrilled. Can't wait. Spoiler warning for today's pod, in case anybody doesn't know by now. How do we handle the spoilers?
Oh, listen, the most of this episode is spoiler safe. That's right. Spoiler free. That's right. The very end, Carlos will spike your heart rate and your blood pressure by blaring some sirens that will let you know that it is spoiler time. Yes. And then additionally today, we've got a spoiler section within a spoiler section.
because one of the actors in the show dropped a pretty heavy revelation that maybe Mallory wishes she didn't know. I would prefer not to know. You're welcome to leave the pod at that point. It would be the very last thing we talk about. It's going to be the last thing we talk about in the spoiler section. So the spoiler section will have a spoiler section.
This information's out there, so we just want to talk about its implications. Or I wanted to talk about its implications a little bit, at least. Mallory's like, please protect me. Protect me at all costs. How can everybody follow along? Oh, my gosh.
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Chapter 2: What are the implications of the trial of seven?
Thanks for asking. Why don't you subscribe to the pod wherever you listen to podcasts? Why don't you watch us on Spotify or on YouTube? That's a great thing to do. Why don't you follow us on social? Do it. And you can always email us, hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com. Send the buff emails.
Please. Start sending your Project Hail Mary emails.
Yes.
What else is happening in spring? Daredevil. A Nolan movie? A Nolan movie is coming. Yeah. If you were able to figure it out from our very subtle clues.
Just really, really delicate. Actually, someone was like, I hope they do Inception. I was like, good news. Yeah. We already did it. Check those feeds. We already did it. Follow along. And it's not Inception.
Okay. It's time for the opening snapshot. Joanna. Mallory. If anybody didn't watch Talk the Thrones, or they did, but they just want to have the table set for them again, another amuse-bouche, an hors d'oeuvre of takes. Give us your quick opening snapshot thoughts, feelings about episode five in The Name of the Mother.
I guess I just want to track my, like, very flimsy episode title tracking that I've been doing this season and just say, so in The Name of the Mother, as we talked about in Talk the Thrones, you know, defending the young and the innocent, right? I charge you to defend the young and the innocent. And that's, of course, what Sir Arlen says, you know, in the name of the mother. Yes.
Leave that boy alone or unhand him or whatever he says. Now you have to vomit. Get your damn hands off of her. Whatever it is he says, right? But weren't innocence, innocence... Killed in this episode. Sure.
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Chapter 3: How do the characters react to the shocking events?
Baelor. And most crucially of all, my guy, Beesbury. Most crucially of all, huh? Are dead at the end of this episode. Indeed. So in the name of the mother, the innocents were not defended in this episode.
The mother's very present across this episode, either in the pledge or the absence.
Rafe also died. Humphrey Arding. A lot of death. We did say spoiler warning at the top of the pod today.
Yeah, Arlen's shout, obviously, but also Dunk really longing for his mother.
Oh, sure.
I mean, there's mommy issues across the board.
Dunk haunted by the dead Frey, the dying Frey, croaking for his mother. Croaking for his mother. Lionel saying, like, you know, did your mother love you best? Too bad. No man fights so fierce as when neglected by his mother. Such a vibe. Such a vibe from Lionel. As far as we know, Gwyn, whose birthday it is, does not have a mother, or George forgot to come up with one. I don't know.
How do you think Gwyn is going to look back on this particular birthday celebration? She's like, crush, no one will ever forget my birthday. That's what she'll say. They won't necessarily remember it was your birthday, but they'll remember what happened.
Don't forget the tourney at the Ashford Meadow. Will they remember your name?
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Chapter 4: What is the significance of the flashback to Dunk's youth?
George did it. Oh, man. I loved this episode. I thought it was... Obviously thrilling and devastating. You know, Baelor, real fave. So it's a heartbreaking time here at the House of R. But really this episode, I thought, did a great job of simultaneously joining, taking its place in this proud Game of Thrones tradition.
The elite penultimate episode, the elite battle episode, the elite episode with a shocking subversive death, while also doing so in a way that felt utterly specific to what this show is, to its vibe, to its scale and scope, to its essence and sensibility. And that's just a hard thing to do.
Obviously, this episode includes the biggest adaptive change yet of the season by a country mile, a Sir Arlen Dick-sized mile.
My favorite unit of measurement. I agree. I'm still not really entirely sold on the fact of whether or not we needed this flashback. I'm not like mad about it, but I don't know that we needed it or I don't know that we needed all of it. Perhaps we could have had some of it, but I don't know that we needed this much of it. 20 minutes is no joke. No joke at all.
In a little bite-sized episodes as these are, you know?
I definitely have a couple notes on it still, but a lot of things inside of it worked for me. What is your despair level as we pre-grieve? Heading into the finale, knowing we just have one left.
I know that pre-grieving is a state that you live in. I'm... Inspired by Roman Roy. I'm in a like... He's really emotionally healthy. I'm in a really high celebratory mood because I feel like... The prophecy has come true, which is that people are really getting into and catching on to the show. No question.
I feel like people, we heard from a bunch of bad babies anecdotally about how people in their lives are catching up. Sarah, who's in the studio with us today, just told me she binged last night. So people are catching up with the show because the word of mouth is so good. This is what we were hoping. And exactly the moment we thought it could happen.
Well, we felt like maybe like after the egg reveal or whatever. I felt like there was a little bit of an uptick and now it's like, oh. It's just been like, yeah. And then the Baylor entrance last week I think really got people talking a lot. And then, of course, what happens in this episode. So I really feel like what we were hoping has come true. It started as like a modest audience.
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Chapter 5: What key moments occur during the trial of Arian?
Mm-hmm.
That means he's so used to death. But I was wondering if, like, is this the first time he tries to take a life?
Yeah, I think, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's more my interpretation.
Yeah, I think, because, you know, when he and Rafe are talking on the walk back, and she's like, is that the first time that you, like...
saw a body and he's like no but clearly in this circumstance and in this way but as an active sort of like yeah I because I think there's when he first does it there's kind of a little bit of a whoa like what is Dunk about to do moment but I read it as yeah he's trying to like ease this mercy yeah ease this man's pain he's like I can't move this horse
And then Rafe's like, let's move this horse. And then they can't move that horse. And then the guy dies anyway. He's got a sigil. We can ransom him. So they would have saved themselves. They would have saved him like, I don't know, a minute of agony if he had been able to stuff him out.
If he's been there for two days, as your math indicates, then I'm not sure what that minute would have done.
Did I say two days? Again, I am not a veterinarian. I don't know how long you can survive under a horse. Rafe is here.
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Chapter 6: How does Dunk's character develop through his experiences?
Just like a really distinctive face. And then I think it's really, you know, she's quite young. I think it's really cool that she's been in like Dune Prophecy and Night of the Seven Kingdoms. Like keep casting her, HBO. She's fantastic. Well, take us to Accent Corner with the two of them. I refuse. You know what? Sorry. Off brand for me. Wow. I'm shocked.
They're children and they're being asked to match. Basically, they're trying to match Peter Claffey's natural. Like, they're like, let's not make Peter Claffey do an accent. Yes. So we'll just have him be Irish.
Right.
Davos was kind of Irish, so that's going to be the flea bottom accent, I guess. And so these kids have to match that.
Chapter 7: What are the implications of Dunk surviving Summerhall?
And they're kids and they don't. They're fine. I didn't mean make fun of the children.
I just meant the low class flea bottom accent.
Mercilessly mock child actors.
Yeah.
They're trying to do Irish-ish is what they're aiming for.
Great stuff. So Rafe is mentioned in the novellas as we noted earlier. Yeah. But this is totally new what we get here. Yeah. They're older like we noted but this idea of Rafe is this like the central figure in Dunk's life. The love story. The kind of like original wound of this loss and the loss of this love. This is all new.
Carry these Mystery Night packages to share what we do know about Rafe from the text.
Sure. Mystery Night. Quote, they chase them through the alleys and make them give the head... Okay, this is when they're running around with a severed head, by the way. Yeah. You know, kid stuff. Four-year-old kid stuff. Yeah. The picture's some like... What were you doing it for? Some tots. Not running around with a severed head. They chase them through the alleys and... Girls, essentially.
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Chapter 8: What themes of honor and sacrifice are explored in this episode?
They'd chase girls through the alleys and make them give the head a kiss before they'd let them go. That head got kissed a lot, as he recalled. There wasn't a girl in King's Landing who could run as fast as Rafe. Ferret, Rafe, and Pudding. Little monsters, those three. And me, the worst of all. And then this other quote. Better a beggar than a thief.
He had been both in Flea Bottom when he ran with Ferret, Rafe, and Pudding, but the old man had saved him from that life. It's interesting because... So the line, there wasn't a girl in King's Landing who could run as fast as Rafe. Some people are taking that to mean that Rafe was a girl. And some people are like... That's possible, I think. It's possible.
But, like, it's not necessary because the point is these little monsters, Ferret, Rafe, and Pudding, were running around with a severed head chasing girls. And the point was the girls could not outrun Rafe. And does that mean that Rafe's a girl? No. Rafe is a girl here. Great. Who cares?
And so from that... And then what do they do with that severed head when they're done chasing the girls with it? They dump it into a bowl and winds up in the bowl of brown. Very tough.
This is why you never trust a bowl of brown. Absolutely. Never trust a bowl of brown.
Rats are the best thing you can find in a bowl of brown, I think.
That's definitely an ideal outcome. A rat, for sure. Rafe, clearly the brains of this business operation, right? Wants to ransom the Frey soldier. He dies as they're pulling him out, so they can't. And then immediately goes to the Teeth for Copper place. And does have a moment, though, to say to Dunk... Do you know any words? Do you know any words? There's a dead body in front of us.
Do you know any words? So this is something we've been tracking all season because we open with Dunk burying Arlen in the first episode. I don't know the right words. Ought to be a sept in here. In episode four, he says, the old man was never much for praying. So Dunk is like, why words? Why? So they don't end up in no hell with the rest of us, Rafe says. And Dunk replies, I don't know any words.
So very like Melisandre to Shereen. There's only one hell princess, the one we live in now, right? Thinking about another hell versus this one. But I like this idea that, like, Dunk doesn't know the words here. And then he has this formative experience to come with Arlen where he learns all of these different things. But never this.
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