A Dance with Darkstar

Episode Transcript
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(00:47):
Dorn has long been the least united of the Seven Kingdoms.
Part of that is because it was the last of the kingdoms to be
united under a single ruler. By far, most of the other
kingdoms were united more than 1000 years before Dorn.
Of course, that means they've had less time to coalesce into a
single unit, so to speak. But geography and a wide variety

(01:11):
of cultural differences within Dorne have played a role in
keeping them relatively independent along all along
these years. This is an advantage in some
cases. For example, that fierce
independence kept them from everbeing violently subjugated by
House Targaryen. It took marriage to bring them
into the Seven Kingdoms. But on the other hand, this can

(01:32):
make civil conflict more likely and more bloody when it does
happen. The death of the Red Viper was a
trigger for exactly that. The more hostile elements in
Dorne, and there are many, wanted war with the Iron Throne.
It was just too much to bear forthem.
The Lannisters killed Elia Martel, sister to Oberyn and

(01:52):
Prince Doran and her children. They killed 2, and now they've
killed Oberyn as well. Yet Doran does nothing.
They say the Prince is cowardly,afraid of war, and not enough of
a man to avenge his own family. He shames all of Doran in their
eyes. We readers know better.
We know Doran has been plotting carefully and patiently,
changing plans when necessary, but always focused on the

(02:15):
downfall of House Lannister, especially Tywin.
Of course he didn't. Tywin died before he could get
that revenge, but still, that's been his goal.
And it's not through open war, of course, because Dorn can't
match Casterly Rock and manpowerand wealth, especially not while
they're sitting the Iron Throne,but through subterfuge,
plotting, intrigue, conspiracy, etcetera.

(02:38):
He had made a lot of headway, but it's a delicate balance.
He has to keep the Lannisters from being suspicious.
I mean, after all, they know what they did to his family and
they would expect enmity or perhaps revenge.
But by pretending to play nice with the Lannisters, Doran has
also fooled his own people, including his own family, into

(03:00):
thinking him passive and such. So he's walking a tightrope
while juggling teacups. When Aryan plotted against him,
the tightrope walk became all the more perilous.
Still, he counter plotted to gently stop her so as to
maintain that secrecy. One man intends to cut that
proverbial tightrope, and maybe he already has.

(03:20):
He wants to see those teacups come crashing down, and Doran
Martel with them, to shatter into shards and whatever else
happens, to see Doran embroiled in war, to sow chaos.
This is Sir Gerald Dane, but what's next?
House Dane Sigil is a fallen star in honor of their famous
sword Dawn, and the founding of their house.

(03:41):
It's bright and pure light. Our subject today is certainly a
fallen star, but he is not pure.He is not the bright light of
morning, the promise of a new day.
He is Dark Star and as he'll tell you, he is of the night.
We have Dorn at War, the Sand Snakes, House Dane, Dawn,
Starfall, High Hermitage, and plenty of theories as to what's
next for this agent of chaos. All that more on this episode of

(04:04):
History of Westeros podcast. Hello and welcome everybody.
Welcome back to another episode of History of Westeros Podcast.
We're here almost every Sunday at 3:00 doing live streams.
You can find us on YouTube as and after the fact.
You can find all our episodes edited and put up on Spotify as

(04:27):
videos and everywhere else on any podcast platform you listen
to. You can find us, but if you sign
up to be a member on Patreon, you get our episodes ad free
thanks to ninagoodqueenalley.tumblr.com.
She has the latest blog post. There is a question she got
about how about the marriage habits and logistics between 3rd

(04:50):
tier houses. We know how the top tier houses
often marry either within each other or to the strongest
vassals within their own region,like Stark's marrying Manderlees
or Umbers, things like that. But how does it work with one
step down? How do Lannister, how do say
Umbers marry down? Who would they marry and how
does that work? So that's a great question.

(05:12):
You'll want to read Nina's answer over at once again, good
queenalley.tumblr.com. 1L and ally, if you have questions for
us, you can certainly ask them live during the live stream or
hit us up at westeroshistory@gmail.com or
find us on Discord on X on Blue Sky, wherever you find us.
We're on Facebook. We're pretty much everywhere We
and we take those questions wherever you want to send them

(05:34):
and feel free to comment your favorite Dark Star theories or
send them. Send us them your way or our way
anyway you can because there's alot of them out.
There's a lot of good ideas withthis character.
It's it's kind of hard to get atexactly what he wants and what
might happen next. So that's part of the fun.
At the end of this episode, we'll of course mention more
episodes that will keep you immersed related to this one and

(05:55):
they'll also be the answer to this trivia question.
What famous band that George RR Martin loves has a song called
Dark Star. The answer will be revealed
during the episode if you're paying attention, and I'll point
out the answer more directly at the end.
Now let me read you the different sections we have for
you today, the different subtopics within the main topic

(06:17):
of Dark Star. We'll start with our first
mention. Then the five year gap,
appearance and personality, lifeand back story.
To crown her is to kill her. High Hermitage.
That's his castle, of course. Then the hunt for Dark Star,
claiming Dawn, question mark, murder of Doran, also question
mark. Then friends of Dark Star.

(06:39):
And this is where we theorize who he might ally with, if
anyone. And there's a big list of
possibilities there. And we'll finish off with where
does Dawn go? And that's not some strange
question about what happens when, you know, midday hits, I
mean, the sword Dawn. So we'll talk about that as our
last section, and that'll be ourepisode.

(06:59):
Let's get to that first mention,which of course comes in the
form of a quote. Arianne Martel arrived with Dre
and Silva just as the sun was going down with the West, a
tapestry of gold and purple and the clouds all glowing Crimson.
The ruins seemed aglow as well. The fallen columns glimmered

(07:22):
pinkly red. Shadows crept across the cracked
stone floors, and the sands themselves turned from gold to
orange to purple as the light faded.
Garen had arrived a few hours earlier, and the night called
Dark Star the day before. Right from the beginning, George

(07:44):
sets up Dark Star as different and apart from Aryan and the
rest of her party. He doesn't quite fit in, does
he? And he's not, and he's literally
not on the same timetable. So he he shows up early.
He doesn't really get along. He says awkward things.
He's kind of standoffish. Yeah.
He, he also has plans. He's there early.
He's already telling Arianne that he doesn't think her plan

(08:05):
will work. And he thinks this other plan
will work instead. So, yeah, he's already, you
know, messing with everything and then already minor agent of
chaos before he becomes a major agent of chaos.
Maybe he's eager. Maybe that's why he got there
first. Maybe he just wants to observe
everyone arriving, wants to talkto Arianne as soon as he can.
Still, it's I think it's a little bit telling that he was
the first one there. I don't think George just did

(08:27):
that randomly. The five year gap is a huge part
of understanding Dark Star. He's perhaps the most clear
example of a character created thanks to cutting the gap that
never was, We can call it. Most of us in the fandom seem to
believe that the plan was after five years, the gap would allow

(08:48):
Edrick Dane to age up to be about 17 or 18.
And he's a man then or released by Westeros standards.
And he could wield Don and do all sorts of things.
He could. He's the vehicle to get that
sword into play and maybe other things.
But we we didn't get that. Of course, there is no gap.
Edrick Dane is 12. And I don't know if that would
work, but we have this guy instead.

(09:10):
And there really are night and day.
Night and Dane, well, they're both Dane, but it's an unusually
apartment metaphor given the thenight and morning vibes from
that house in general. We're going to talk about the
purpose of Dark Star in terms ofwhat he wants, but we're here.
We're going to talk about why George made this change and what
the and the meta of this and whyit's telling.
If he wanted to have a characterplunge Dorn into war, why did it

(09:34):
have to be a Dane? And why did it have to be a Dane
from a cadet branch that had never been mentioned before?
I mean, that's not like an oversight.
It's not something we're supposed to sit here and go,
hey, where did that house come from?
That doesn't make sense. No, we've hardly seen Dorn.
We've never been to Starfall. So adding this castle and this
cadet branch, yeah, that's fine.But it's at the same time, it's

(09:57):
telling. And the fact that he made him a
Dane, rather than just picking an existing house, not adding a
castle, why not make him an uller?
The Ullers are famous for being warlike.
Why not make him a a will? The ones who cut the hands off
of all those captured Stormland.There's a lot of aggressive
Dornish houses that would have fit this.
Roll to AT the agent of Chaos roll, the war bringer roll.

(10:19):
But for some reason George said no.
We need this guy to be a Dane. That's very telling.
There's no house in Dorn that's more peculiar in terms of
theorizing their future role in the story, especially as it
pertains to a a new Long Night, The war against the war against
the Others, A war for the dawn. The Sword Dawn seems like it

(10:42):
might be related to that. Used to be a popular theory that
Dawn was Lightbringer itself. That theory's kind of lost a lot
of steam, but it's fair to mention anyway.
It could be the purpose of this could be for him to claim Don.
He wouldn't claim it through ordinary means.
Well, through the normal means. Rather, it's nothing ordinary

(11:02):
about it. By being a great knight and a
great person. Gerald is maybe one of those
two, Definitely not both. But also there is the
information about House Dane that we need, meaning the Tower
of Joy, other people at Starfall, someone to take us
there, a reason to go there. If Dark Star is being hunted,

(11:24):
they might chase him to Starfall.
And then we go to Starfall. We might see some of these
characters that we've only, well, we've never seen, but
we've heard about since the first few chapters of A Song of
Ice and Fire, or at least their their relatives.
So it's also interesting to notethat from a meta perspective,
George was a little surprised atthe fan reaction to Dark Star.
They didn't really, it didn't really land the way he wanted it

(11:46):
to. He he thought people would
consider him a little more like the Hound or Theon.
To be fair, these the hound killed a child too, so you know,
it's but yet he we like him overin the long run because he was
developed, but we didn't like him then.
We didn't like him right after he killed Micah.
It took a lot of work to make uslike the Hound, right?

(12:07):
And some people still don't. And I think the difference is
people don't. It's not that they dislike dark
stars that they think he's cringe.
Yes, yes. It's not that he's yeah, he's a
little cringe. Exactly.
Some people think he's a little over the top, the bad boy, say
genre or archetype that didn't go quite as well as George
wanted. But that doesn't mean he's not
really important. That doesn't mean he isn't going

(12:30):
to do major things in the story.So we will explore these
possibilities as we continue through this.
They're going to pop up throughout.
So and of course, some of this is just indirect reporting.
We don't really know exactly what George expected from Dark
Stars. It's just, you know, this is
through sort of second hand information, through things he
said at conventions. Let's talk about his appearance

(12:52):
and his personality, basics likethat.
This statement gives us a lot ofinsight and detail as to both of
those things. Quote.
If there was a handsomer man in Dorn, she did not know him.
Sir Gerald Dane had an aqualine nose, high cheekbones, a strong
jaw. He kept his face clean shaven,

(13:12):
but his thick hair fell to his collar like a silver glacier
divided by a streak of midnight black.
He has a cruel mouth, though, and a crueler tongue.
His eyes seemed black as he sat outlined against the dying sun,
sharpening his steel. But she had looked at them from

(13:33):
a closer vantage, and she knew that they were purple.
Dark purple, dark and angry. Can I just say how does Aria
know what a a silver glacier looks like?
She lives in dorms. Yeah.
What does she know what a glacier looks like?
Yeah, she's heard about them. Yeah, she's.
I guess what a glacier would look like if I Maybe she's seen

(13:54):
a picture drawing a picture. Of her hair.
There, Ian thinks how she used to have a weakness for pretty
boys, and that was a thing of the past.
Maybe, maybe she maybe she thinks she's outgrown that, but
she certainly has. In his case, though, she's still
a little tempted by him, and sheadmits to herself in her mind

(14:16):
that because he was so handsome,she didn't want to believe the
stories that we're told about him.
It's a perfect, very straightforward example of this
guy is so handsome that I'm in denial about all the red flags,
lots of red flags. I wonder what those red flags
were and will come just like some of these other subtopics

(14:37):
that are important surrounding Dark Star will drop a few hints
here and there or or even get close to something.
We don't know exactly though. We only know what things are
said about him, but we don't know why people say those things
about him. Maybe he had an elder sibling or
two who died suspiciously, making him the heir or the too
high Hermitage, or maybe he's killed people in a tournament.

(14:59):
Maybe he tortures servants or animals or something like or all
of the above. Yeah, they're just.
We don't know what it is, but it's bad.
And we hear words like cruel andangry, and we're going to use
words like bitter and intense because this is a guy who isn't
distracted by anything else besides his purpose.
And his purpose seems to be to bring war, if not other things.

(15:23):
It's definitely that. And Aryan hints towards this and
noting Gerald's cruel mouth and tongue that he doesn't spare
anyone's feelings. He just, he, he just says what
he wants to say. He's rude.
He's a little arrogant, maybe a lot arrogant.
Yeah, a lot arrogant. We'll say there's a specific
quote that says that. And he's also got, he's also
sarcastic and just callous and yeah, just not, again, off

(15:49):
putting. The other people in the party
just don't really like him. He doesn't really like them.
He doesn't. He doesn't seem to care that
he's not included. It doesn't matter to him.
He feels like he's above it all.He's better than them.
And he's a teetotaler, which means he doesn't drink.
And this is very fitting, I think, because he's a person of
absolutes. He's not.
He's looking like Tywin Lannister shaved his head when

(16:11):
he started to go bald because this is a man that doesn't
believe in half measures. It's like all or nothing.
Dark Star seems like that kind of guy too.
Not that he's like Tywin in a lot of ways, but this one for
sure. He also seems to have very sharp
eyes. Aryan notes that he's he sees
Arias Okart approaching from a distance and Aryan couldn't even
see yet. That could be because of his

(16:32):
clean living, but maybe he's just a little gifted in that
regard. He's he's also high strung.
Here's a moment that just makes you kind of roll your eyes and
go, huh, quote. Watch where you set your feet,
Dre cautioned. It has been a while since Prince
Oberon milked the local Vipers. I was weaned on venom, Dalt.
Any Viper takes a bite of me will rue it.

(16:53):
Sir Gerald vanished through a broken arch.
What a thing to say. He was going to pee.
I mean, this guy's just trying to warn you, like, he wasn't
questioning your manhood, guy. Come on.
So he doesn't drink alcohol, buthe does venom, right.
He was weaned on it. Yeah.
OK. Strange thing.
Is this supposed to be an implication that he's a
poisoner? Like, I don't think so.

(17:14):
But I don't think he's like a Jaime Lannister who just
wouldn't resort to that ever because he's too manly.
I think this is a guy that wouldbe.
Yeah, he would do that. He's maybe it's not his first
choice, but I don't think he'd scruple, you know, And, yeah,
Gary, after he leaves, they're like, I don't like that guy.
And Garen, Garen says I don't like him.
And no one does. Like he's.
Yeah, he's off putting. He's he's socially awkward.
Aryan slept with him. But, you know, she admits that

(17:37):
she had a weakness for his looks.
And, yeah, she did it when she was young and she was attracted
and she's a Princess. You know, she's just wants to do
the things she can get away with.
Yeah. She was a wild child, right.
And he was all for it. You know, she's a Princess.
She's good looking. He, he honestly reminds me a
little bit of Stannis, right? He's just so harsh.
His only humor is sarcasm. He's a he's he's not a second

(17:59):
son, but he has the attitude of a second son because he's a
cadet branch Dane rather than a main branch Dane.
And he's he's peevish about Arthur, as we'll see, doesn't
have much nuance in his words. Yeah, he's blunt, also like
Stannis. And there's also this whole, you
know, killing a child thing thatthey both have in common.
You know, he he's just really over the top.
And I think this is George making him a bad boy, but also

(18:21):
making him a guy who keeps people at at arm's length.
Dark Star doesn't want allies necessarily, or if he does, it's
only because he really needs them or to further his goals.
But he doesn't want friends or probably a wife even.
You know, if he had a wife, it would be like a very arranged
thing, very formal. And, you know, he would there

(18:43):
would would be a loveless marriage, you know, one of those
stereotypical marriage between loveless marriages between noble
families, you know, like, what would this man have to offer a
wife in terms of comfort and, you know, and intimacy?
Like he'd be like Aryan says, cruel mouth, cruel tongue.
I doubt he's gentle in bed, you know.
So this is a where a lot of bad boy figures like that's a a

(19:07):
trope with them. You can't get too close to them.
They won't let you. They keep their emotions hidden.
This guy, he's a little less like that and nor about keeping
his goals hidden. We don't exactly know what he
wants, what he's after. Sir Damon Sant was the Red Viper
Squire and he has an interestingthing to say about Sir Gerald.
Here it is quote. Sir Gerald is more a Viper than

(19:30):
your uncle ever was. Prince Oberyn could see that he
was poison. He said so more than once.
It's just a pity that he never got around to killing him.
The Red Viper thinking someone is poison is pretty bad.
Pretty telling, right? It's it's also goes to the point
of motivation. Nina says Oberon was no St.
obviously, but one of his primary motivations was love for

(19:52):
a sister, right, very clear cut there.
But Gerald, so far as we can tell, there's nothing He doesn't
have a family that's been mentioned that he cares about if
he has siblings, if he cares about other Danes.
It hasn't come up. So it's all about him and that's
why he's. Perhaps this is where George
failed to develop in a way that would land a little more as a

(20:17):
character that people would likeinstead of one that is just a
important, you know, a big page Turner, a guy who's going to
make things happen because there's there's no there's very
few redeeming qualities. This is a good redeeming quality
of Oberon that he cared about his family.
He was willing to risk himself for his for his fists, for his
sister and to do all that. That's that's noble, even though

(20:38):
his methods aren't, it's at least caring about someone else
that's a big deal. Showing that you care for anyone
else other than yourself is a big deal.
And if you have nobody else thatyou care for or that you express
love for or that you care that you want to defend, that's a the
one of the biggest red flags there is for a human being.
And I wonder how serious Damon is here.

(21:00):
Is Damon just being sarcastic? Like he never got around to
kill. It's a pity he never got around
to killing him. Like, was he really?
Did he actually talk about that?Did he?
Did Oberon really say, you know what?
I should kill that guy? You know, one of these days I'm
going to kill that guy? Did he actually say that?
I wonder if he did. I wonder where Damon like
exactly what Oberon said, because Damon certainly isn't
mincing words here. He's like more of Viper than

(21:20):
your uncle ever was. And this is pair that with his,
you know, the any Viper that takes a bite out of me will rue
it. Maybe if Oberyn had tried to
take a bite out of him, he wouldhave rooted it.
I I doubt that. But anyway, they never it never
came to that. Maybe it would have if Oberyn
lived longer. And that assessment plays out
later. Of course, that's Damon Sand.
Of course, that Damon Sands quote comes after the bit with

(21:42):
Marcella. But it's certainly easy to to
look at that and say, yeah, I can see that.
I can see why you call this guy a Viper.
Here's him meeting Marcella and thinking and or rather talking
about his famous cousin quote. Sir Gerald went to one knee.
The moonlight shone in his dark eyes as he studied the child

(22:04):
coolly. There was an Arthur Dayne,
Marcellus said. He was a knight of the
Kingsguard in the days of Mad King Aries.
He was the sword of the morning.He is dead.
Are you the Sword of the Morningnow?
No men call me Dark Star and I am of the night.
Yeah, believe him. He just suggested that Aryan

(22:25):
kill you, Marcella, right beforethis line, before this
conversation. And of course he's going to try
to do it himself shortly afterwards.
So imagine that looking this kidin the eyes and then just trying
to cut their head off of, you know, like a couple days later
or however long it was not long.You know, that's it's hard to
fathom that right there was a king Vorian Dane who was the
Last King of Starfall. He was called the sword of the

(22:47):
evening. Sounds like he was of the night
as well. In our episode on the founding
of the Principality of Dorne, Nymeria's uniting of Dorne, we
talked about Vori and Dane and the influence, the outside
influence on that character in this notion of the the Black
Knight, Dane Whitman, the Ebony Blade, all that stuff from

(23:08):
Marvel. We go into more detail there,
even though we come back to the point that he almost certainly
wasn't a character plan from thestart, right?
Dark Star was a retrofit in a bit laying an add on.
That's not a bad thing. I'm just saying that's just what
happened. He is playing a role and
performing a function within thestory that George imagined from
the beginning. So Dark Star, the character is a

(23:29):
later invention, but what he's going to do seemingly is
something George has had plannedfor a very long time.
Kind of like how Blood Raven, heplanned Blood Raven for a long
time, but he hadn't fleshed all of Blood Raven out.
He didn't even have the name Blood Raven when he invented
that character. He's like, I don't know what to
call him yet, but I know he's a Targaryen.
I know he's, you know, this and that, he descended from that,

(23:50):
blah, blah blah. I don't know exactly which
details he had figured out. But the point is, just because
George hasn't fully fleshed something out, that doesn't mean
he was added later. So maybe sometimes it's a half
and half thing. Anyway, let's stick with the
man's personality for now. Which was probably surprising
for a lot of us, right? Like the way House Dane has
always been presented to us. It's like they're so noble and
mysterious, but the mysterious part is, is is mysterious,

(24:14):
neutral and tragic. It's not like bad, it's not
evil. It's not like behind all this
could be lurking something dark.We never I, I never suspected
that at any point. You know, Arthur Dayne, the only
the the closest I got to that was, well, Arthur Dayne is
serving a bad king. You know, that's that's as far
as I ever went and probably the same as a lot of you guys.
And that's just a that's just a difficult situation when you've
been raised to do your duty and knighthood and honor and all

(24:36):
that. But he comes up empty and
redeeming quality as dark Star does.
So it was a surprise to have this character who's pretty much
the polar opposite of everythingwe've heard about prior Danes.
But that's to how George operates, right?
He's not going to have a house, a noble house that's just
entirely villainous or entirely good.
When we talk about houses that are pretty villainous, there's
exceptions, right? Well, sometimes we all know any

(24:57):
good Boltons, but there's hardlyany Boltons at all.
And we don't know, you know, forexample, there's dilarious sand
is a is an Ulhur daughter. And yeah, the Ulhurs are very
violent and aggressive and knownfor that.
And in this setting they are as well.
The current Lord Aller is one ofthe guys who turned didn't drink
to Doran's Toast, which we'll begetting to a little later.

(25:19):
Anyway, here's another small buttelling example quote.
As she led the Princess to the fire, Arianne found Sir Gerald
behind her. My house goes back 10,000 years
unto the dawn of days. He complained.
Why is it that my cousin is the only Dane that anyone remembers?

(25:39):
He was a great knight, Sir Ari'sOakhart put in.
He had a great sword. Dark Star said.
And a great heart. Something that Dark Star himself
does not seem to value or possess at all.
A great heart. Nope.
Now, this is the only and first person we've ever seen denigrate
Sir Arthur Dayne in any way whatsoever.

(26:00):
It's pretty clear he's a hater. The way he says it, right?
He's like he had a great sword. He doesn't even acknowledge that
Sir Arthur's greatness is partlyrooted in his honorable approach
to life. He's and his sense of duty and
just being a good person. That is as much of Sir Arthur's
legend as his prowess with a sword.

(26:21):
But Dark Star doesn't get that. Dark Star doesn't like that.
People would have talked about Arthur a lot as they do now.
And so Dark Star's been growing up hearing that, people always
talking about his famous cousin.You can see from that quote
earlier, he's like, why does people only talk about him?
There's other Danes, right? Well, yeah, but Sir Arthur was
great. Why not be proud of your famous

(26:42):
cousin? Nope.
He's bitter and jealous. Angry.
Right. He wants to do something about
it. His reputation rings out.
Arthur's does. He has a place in the history
books forever. Sir Gerald is jealous of that.
He wants that. Or he wants similar things.
Maybe he doesn't want the exact same recognition, the exact type
of recognition. But he wants recognition.
He wants fame, I think. And this is gets back to his

(27:06):
similarity to Stannis in some ways, right?
Think about how Stannis talks about Robert.
Oh, we all know what Robert would do.
He would knock down the gates ofWinterfell with his hammer, kill
Roose Bolton with one hand, killRamsey with the other.
Yeah, It's like everybody thinksRobert's so great.
Very similar to Gerald and his take on his famous cousin, you

(27:26):
know, and that's why I said earlier that he does have this
younger sibling vibe, the secondson vibe, even though he's not
the second son. Well, he might be.
We don't know. We don't know who his father and
mother are. We just know he's the Knight of
High Hermitage now. We don't know what he was when
he was born. So you're saying Stannis gives
off edge Lord vibe? Gerald, Dave.
You know it. You know it.
So it's kind of like this is allcadet branch thing is, is like

(27:50):
there's a few other examples of this, right?
There's some famous ones like the Lannisters of Castely Rock
are very quick to distinguish themselves from the Lannisters
of Lannisport, which Marcella infact does.
And they in fact, her body double her, you know, fake
Marcella is a girl from Lannisport, if I remember
correctly. Another example is the Royces,
right? There's the Nestor Royce, which

(28:11):
is the junior branch of the Royces.
And there's the senior branch which is currently led by
Bronzeon, so and Dark *2. There's another Stannis parallel
here is that Stannis was, you know, isolated and in a hard to
take remote castle of Dragonstone, Dark Star remote,
hard to take Castle High Hermitage, you know, great, very
defensible, but not great at storing lots of soldiers.

(28:34):
And the way he talks about Don, it's a little peculiar too.
It raises an eyebrow. He's obviously not worthy to
wield it in the sense that he's not obviously, he's obviously
not worthy to be a sword of the morning based on personality.
He might be good enough as a fighter, right?
That's that. He probably has that part down.
And as I said earlier, one out of two ain't that.

(28:55):
And that's like part of his anger.
Probably. He's like, I'm good enough
because he doesn't register thatgoodness matters, so he's like,
I'm just as good as him. Give me that sword and I'll be
as famous as him. He's wrong, but that's how he
thinks, and that's why he's peevish about it.
That's why he's jealous. Nina pulls a good example here.
Randall Tarley sneers at Briennebeing a good fighter because

(29:19):
she's, ah, it's her sword. She had a Valerian steel.
That's why she's good. To be fair, Randall Tarley
himself wields Valerian steel, so he does have a sense of how
useful and and great it is. But still, Brienne kicked ass.
We saw it. It was on page.
We saw it happen. It's actually possible the Dark
Star has already been rejected. He may have made a try for the

(29:41):
sword. We don't know how that works.
We don't know like there's a meeting of Danes like a Don
Colleen, you know, like the retired Dane matrons and and
senior Danes that say the gathertogether in some sort of council
and say this person's worthy or not.
We have no idea what the selection process looks like.
We just know that whatever it is, Dark Star, if he tried it,

(30:03):
he wouldn't he would have failed.
Or if he didn't, you know, ask for it or make a play.
He could be better than it was never offered to him again.
This is we're we're a little loose here because we don't know
how it works. But all this seems to add up and
would fit very well. He could be bothered that
Edrick, this 12 year old is boththe Lord of Starfall and

(30:25):
unworthy of Dawn because he's just a kid that could.
That's the kind of thing that a guy like dark Star would be
bothered. He's like, look, I'm the best of
the house, Let me be of the wielder of the sword.
It just makes sense. You know, he doesn't care about
all this goodness and nobility. He's like, no, it's about war.
It's about fighting. That's a sword, you know, give
it to me. So we don't know either whether

(30:46):
he's been passed over, whether he asked for it and got
rejected. He's definitely not happy about
it. Whatever, whatever happened, the
status quo doesn't like it now. Yeah.
On the other hand, like what would ever make this guy happy?
He sounds like the kind of dude that nothing would ever be
enough for him. Happiness is just an emotion
that isn't in his wheelhouse. Joy.
Nah, again, think of Stannis. This is the person that you

(31:09):
can't even get this man to laugh.
Hardly. And when he does laugh, it
sounds weird. It's like, 'cause he's not used
to it, He's like, this is a guy that has very little practice
laughing. If war makes Dark Star happy,
that would explain a thing or two.
But he may never have been to war, only saw a little of it,
right? This guy's too young to have
fought in Robert's Rebellion, and he may have been a Squire in

(31:29):
Robert's Rebellion, but that's about it.
He couldn't have been like a he wasn't a knight then.
He was too young for that. So there's a little bit of a
Knights of Summer vibe to him where he might be in and over
his head without realizing he's like, yeah, I want war, but he
doesn't really know what he's asking for.
He doesn't really know what thatmeans.
He might also have Azarianne diduntil she was corrected by her
father, a flawed notion of how populist Dorne is, of how big

(31:53):
their armies are. Like he's trying to start a war
between Dorne and the Lannisters.
If he thinks Dorne has 50,000 soldiers, Well, you could that's
part of his calculation, right? But if it's the truth is more
like 20,000, then whoops, maybe he maybe he's not so eager to do
that, but he didn't know. And this is gets back to what we

(32:13):
were saying earlier, that Doran's tightrope walk of
keeping his vassals happy while also plotting against the
Lannisters while keeping them ignorant of it is hard to pull
off. And this is a side effect of
that where Doran is happy to letthe rest of the world think
Doran is more powerful than it really is.

(32:33):
The side effect, the the downside of that is something
like this where someone else takes that knowledge and says,
hey, we're strong enough to fight a war against the
Lannister. We got 50,000 guys and Doran's
like, no, we don't. We're happy to let people think
that because it make keeps them off of us, but it isn't true.
So I think he's a lot more likely to think the way Arianne

(32:54):
used to think about Doran's strength in military matters
versus the truth that someone only someone like Doran would
know or someone that's a little older and wiser and maybe has a
has been around the block a few times, which Dark Star has not.
So he's a jealous and bitter man, still relatively young.
He's in his late 20s, mid 20s, ambitious and confident in his

(33:16):
skills at war. That's a deadly combination.
That's the guy who wants war andis very single minded about
getting it and has the talent. Even though he's comes up well
short in terms of redeeming qualities, you can't say he's
not a good at war and maybe or good at fighting.
And he seems to have a decent idea of how to start a fight,

(33:37):
although it's not going to go the way we he thinks.
I, I'm going to tell you, but more on that later.
So he has something to prove. He doesn't care who he has to
kill to prove that. And George sends that message as
early and economically as possible by having, we don't
know anyone he's killed. Surely he has, or else he
wouldn't have this reputation. But the one person he tried to

(33:59):
kill was a little girl. This is the picture we have of
this man, right? Like I said before, when that
was the only thing we knew aboutSandor, no one liked him, right?
And it took a lot of work, like I said, to get Sandor to be a
character people like. I don't think it's ever going to
happen with Dark Star. But this is the If you're
willing to kill a little girl, you're willing to kill anyone,
including more little girls. Remember what?

(34:21):
What? Remember that line from the TV
show Red Vipers? And we don't kill little girls
in Dorn. Surge is like, yeah, right.
Everywhere. Little girls are harmed
everywhere. Yeah, Cersei was right about
that, you know, and that's true here, too.
This is a good point. Like, here we go, Dark Star
doing it. So this this message is loud and
clear about what kind of man this is.
And it should anchor everything else we believe about this guy.

(34:43):
Needs to include the fact that he's willing to kill little
girls. All right, a little more on his
life and back story. Not a lot we have, but we can
always. As usual, there's a lot of
reading between the lines we cando and associating what major
events happened and how he mighthave participated in them.
Remember cadet branch knight of high Hermitage, not Lord of High

(35:05):
Hermitage. There is no Lord of high
Hermitage. It's a lesser house.
It's the like the level of say torn square.
The tall hearts are not, there'sno Lord tall heart.
There's a, there's a Helmand tall Helmand Tarheart was Sir
Helmand. He was the master of torn
Square, not the Lord of torn Square.
It's a lower rank. So there's a there's a lot of
those out there. Usually they have small thiefs.

(35:26):
There's a couple of couple of exceptions like the Knight of
Nine Stars, which has a very large fief but is still only
ranked at night. I don't know what to deal with
that is. But anyway, not super important,
but it is important in the senseof building the idea that Dark
Star is has a chip on his shoulder.
He's like, I'm lesser. No, I'm not, you know.
So there is a Lord of Starfall, of course, and that's Edrick

(35:48):
Dane right now. So as I said earlier, he was,
he's in the latest, probably in his late 20s, maybe in his mid
20s. He was born somewhere between
270 and 274, and remember right now it's 3 or 300 or three O 1
maybe. So he might, like I said
earlier, he might have been Robert's Rebellion as a Squire,
definitely not a knight, but maybe if he wasn't it as a
Squire, maybe for his father or another noble house in Dorn that

(36:12):
fought in the war, which would be most of them.
He would have also likely heard,as everyone did, especially in
Dorn, about Oberyn's attempt to raise Dorn for Prince Viserys,
Danny's brother, though that wasquelled before it got going.
Any violence that was cut off when he was nipped in the bud,
shall we say, by John Aron. And also very importantly in
terms of Robert Trebellion and major events that would be

(36:33):
relevant here, the death of Sir Arthur Dayne, right?
That's huge because this is a man who grew up in the shadow of
this legend, of this living legend, who became a dead
legend, which, of course, did not stop people from talking
about him. In fact, it probably made people
talk about him more. I mean, it's just kind of like
the way art becomes more valuable when the artist dies.
Sir Arthur's legend grew when hedied, right?

(36:54):
Especially the way he died like that added to it because of the
mystery behind that and the the heroic last stand Ness of it
all, even though there's more toit.
But from the outside, that's what it looks like, a heroic
last stand, dying for the king, going down, doing their duty.
You know, nothing. They they never yielded from
that. They never diverted from their

(37:14):
path of honor. Yeah, that's going to make
people talk. That's going to make a legend
grow. So that's interesting though,
too, because this is stuff that we can get into, like Dark
Star's arc could lead us to learn more about the Tower of
Joy, the rest of the Dane family, and the like, the death
of Ashara. It might not have occurred to

(37:37):
you that Dark Star might be a path to some of those events, to
illuminating some of those events with his dark light.
Well, I obviously can't promise you that that's going to happen,
but the possibility is strong. And if you hadn't thought of it
before, I'm very glad to introduce you to the concept
now. 1 war he could have fought in is Bailon Greyjoy's
Rebellion, because that started in the year 289 and finished in

(37:59):
I think 291. So Dark Star would have been at
the youngest 15, but maybe 16/17/18.
So yeah, he could have been in it.
That's quite possible. And if so, very good chance
that's the only war he's fought in, other than maybe some
skirmishes here and there. I don't know, you know, border
action, who knows, rating the Reach or something like that,

(38:20):
but nothing like a war. That would be the only thing
that I think would fit. We're told that he was Aryan's
lover briefly. That's definitely a point of
interest. We're not sure exactly when it
was, and the only confirmation is from the World of Ice and
Fire app, of all places. Now.
It's implied in the book. It's heavily implied in the

(38:41):
book, so we didn't need that confirmation.
But it's nice to have now, giventhat he's a bitter, jealous man
and Ariana eventually got worried about her own rights and
her own inheritance. She's like, Quentin's going to
push me aside or my father's pushing me aside for Quentin.
If she ever expressed any of that to Gerald, he would be all

(39:05):
over fuel in that fire. He'd be pouring gasoline on that
fire. He'd be like, oh, yeah, you want
to start something? Yeah, I'm with you.
Yeah, you're right. Oh, that you don't want them to
push you aside like that? That would be terrible.
That would be evil. You got to fight for your
rights. So he would be all about that.
I think nothing being nothing like being around a jealous
person to increase your own jealousies.
Like that's yeah, that's that's what do you call that some sort

(39:28):
of codependence to see a short term codependence, Right.
I think he, Aryan maybe even sought Gerald out because she
was feeling that bitter and maybe she knew that he was that
type. Like he he'd already expressed
that in the past, his peevishness had already been
outed in other places. He had talked about Arthur Dayne
and Dawn before. So it was well known, at least

(39:51):
to Aryan. So maybe, yeah, maybe this is
started early on, and if she's going to worry about Quentin,
then Gerald could fuel that fireand be like, yeah, Quentin's a
real. What a jerk, what a bad brother.
You know, that's who steals his sister's birthright, you know,
that kind of thing. Like, again, like I said,
fueling the fire. So he knows what it's like to

(40:13):
feel bitter about being lesser dynastically because he comes
from a cadet branch. So this is all these elements
here that are pretty well placedby George.
Even though it didn't necessarily work for people to
like Dark Star, the character isstill well crafted in terms of.
How he fits into Aryan Story andhow he fits into this very
tumultuous boiling pot that may boil over.

(40:35):
That is Dorn. Yeah.
Maybe he's like the equivalent of the jerky high school
boyfriend. The guy that comes off is funny
and sarcastic and kind of confident, but you realize that
that he's not that confident. He's just standoffish and he's
not his. His humor comes from being from
low self esteem or from putting wanting to put people down

(40:56):
because he's mean. He's just not a good person,
right? Like this is an old trope,
right? The there's so many movies and
shows where you know, a younger girl falls for the boy that's a
few years older, You know, like he's into, I don't know, go back
to the 50s and the guy would be into motorcycles.
Go into the 80s and he's like ina metal band or something with
long hair. I don't know.
There's the trope is is old, right?

(41:19):
And Nina says, I also think George is being a bit cheeky and
having Aryan muse on Gerald's potential to be a worthy
consort, thinking that Doran would question her good sense,
but that their children would beas beautiful as dragonlords.
Nina suggests this might be foreshadowing.
Kazarian's not going to marry Gerald.
We don't think that seems very unlikely.
But she might marry a highborn worthy consort whose potential

(41:44):
children could look like dragonlords.
Aegon, right? Young Griff, that theory we've
been pushing for a long time. We're not nearly the only ones.
It fits super well. So that Dark star could be like
the, the build up the, the, the,the parallel to Aegon in a
sense, someone that has those qualities that builds up to that

(42:04):
for Ariana, who's like, well, I want to marry him because he's a
king. That would be a much bigger
deal. And it would be a reason for her
to turn against her father a little bit, even though right
now she's all all about doing what her father wants.
But if she had the chance to grab a crown.
So at some point Aryan recruitedDark Star for this plot.

(42:27):
Whatever had happened between them in the past, whatever he,
whatever feelings he had, he shehad for him.
The change that evolved into a little something a little more
mature clearly didn't evolve allthe way because she still
involved him in this plot despite all his red flagginess.
I guess she just maybe just perceived his red flagginess in
terms of a relationship and not in terms of a conspiratorial

(42:50):
partner, in which case she wasn't thinking that far ahead.
Doran straight up tells her later she was a fool to include
him. He already saw a dark star as
the most dangerous man in Dorne,and events proved that
correctly, or proved Doran correct at least.
It'd be hard to argue against that.
So we have to understand here that when he says most

(43:12):
dangerous, he doesn't mean just with a sword.
He doesn't mean he doesn't say he's the best sword in Dorne, he
says most dangerous. That's different.
That's because he's the kind of man to start a war.
But at the same time, Aryan thinks he might be able to beat
Aries Oakhart one-on-one. And that's impressive.
That's at Night of the Kingsguard.

(43:32):
But another thing Doran might have been saying is, look, this
guy's willing to kill anyone if it advances his goals.
He might be willing to kill you.He might kill you, Aryan, if it
made him, if it advanced his 'cause whatever that may be, he
wouldn't scruple not to do that.He's going to kill Marcella.
Why would he not kill Aryan? I mean, it's the consequences
might be greater because she's aMartel and he's in the land of

(43:54):
Martels, but there's so many houses that would be happy to
overthrow the Martels, probably especially as long as Doran's in
charge. And again, this speaks to this
unknown deeds that he's done in the past to have this
reputation. Why does Doran feel this way?
We know he's right, but what past what transpired in Dark

(44:17):
Stars life to for him to have this reputation?
We can only guess. We can only imagine.
And what do other Danes think about him?
It would be amazing for Edrick to weigh in on Dark Star or just
some other Dane like Illyria. Dane is still around.
That's that's Edrick's aunt, Ashara's younger sister, much
younger sister as far as we can tell.
Remember she was betrothed to Barrack Dondarian.

(44:39):
That's kind of how that's how Edrick became Bedrick.
Edrick, Edrick Squire or BarrickSquire in the first place.
So yeah, I, I, I would really like more people in Doran to
weigh in on Dark Star before, you know, we can understand,
like, what it is that caused them to have this reputation.
But whatever it is, we don't need to know to know that.
Doran felt very strongly about it, and Oberyn was considering

(45:03):
killing him, so he agreed, at least in part.
But their concern over him is clearly not just, again, not
just that he's great with the sword.
No, you're not. The Prince of Doran is not
worried about a guy who's great with a sword, but he is worried
about someone that can cause political instability, someone
that's willing to murder princesses.
That is what makes him dangerous.
And this is what we get into here.
This is the the main thrust of Dark Star's arc so far.

(45:28):
Let's talk about it. To crown her is to kill her.
That's actually a line from Illyria.
He said that's a Tyrion, but it was referring to Marcella also
because Tyrion, remember, he waslike, well, what are you going
to do now? And he's like, maybe I'll raise
Dorn for Marcella and Lyra's like, well, that wouldn't do
anything. That would be a futile gesture.

(45:49):
To crown her is to kill her, youknow?
And Tyrion's like, well, futile gestures are all I have left.
Dark Star feels similarly, except for he probably doesn't
think his efforts are futile. But he definitely wants to crown
her, to kill her. Like, kill.
He definitely wants to kill her.He's skipping a step.
He's like, skip the crowning. Just get right to the killing.
Here's him telling Ariana's doubts right here.

(46:11):
It occurred to me as I was pissing that this plan of yours
may not yield you what you want and.
What is it I want SER? The Sand Snakes freed vengeance
for Oberon and Alia. Do I know the song?
You want a little taste of lion blood?
That in my birthright, I want Sunspear, in my father's seat, I

(46:33):
want Dorn, I want Justice. Call it what you will, crowning
the Lannister girl is a hollow gesture.
She will never sit the Iron Throne, nor will you get the war
you want. The lion is not so easily
provoked. The debate over whether it's
vengeance or justice is a prettyinteresting question that gets
at the heart of blood feuds and and peace and how these things,

(46:56):
cycles of violence continue. Whether it's vengeance or
justice kind of depends on whereyou're standing, and I suppose
you could see a little of both in it.
So yeah, Dark Star is suggesting, yeah, why bother
with this part? Just killer.
And that is more likely to get the result you want.
An important factor too, is, if it wasn't clear from that quote,
Ashaya was whispering the inner thoughts of Aryan.

(47:18):
Aryan doesn't say out loud that she wants her birthright and sun
spear and Dorn. She keeps that part secret.
She says out loud, I want justice.
Maybe it's not secret. Maybe he knows that, but he
doesn't say it here. So he doesn't, you know, this is
this is perhaps a, an argument against the notion that the Dark
Star pushed her in her jealousy over Quentin because it maybe he

(47:39):
doesn't even know about that. An important another important
factor here too, is that Quentin's dead.
So if they knew that, that wouldchange a lot of things.
But obviously neither of them know that Doran doesn't either.
So here's what he proposes instead of crowning her quote.
Sir Gerald drew his sword. It glimmered in the Starlight,

(48:02):
sharp as lies. This is how you start a war, not
with a crown of gold, but with ablade of steel.
I am no murderer of children. Put that away.
Marcella is under my protection and Cerarees will permit no harm
to come to his precious Princess.
You know that. No my lady, what I know is that

(48:25):
Danes have been killing Oakhartsfor several 1000 years.
His arrogance took her breath away.
It seems to me that Oakharts have been killing Danes for just
as long. We all have our family
traditions. Dark Star sheathed his sword.
I. Definitely love that line, and

(48:45):
it turned out to be a twisted bit of foreshadowing.
Like George was very clever withthis.
There is a moment where Aryan thinks that if Sir Ari saw the
way Dark Star was looking at her, there would be blood on the
sand. So there's a lot of tension Bill
here. George absolutely played up the
possibility that Aries, Oakhart and Dark Star would fight there.
There's a dispute over Aryan, over their family history, you

(49:08):
know, just standard reach versusDornish enmity.
And Aries is killed, but not by Dark Star, but he's blamed for
it. So it's, that's the weird
foreshadowing that's that's kindof twisted and, and unusual is
that it looks like Aries and Dark Star might fight, but they
don't. But Dark Star is blamed for it.

(49:30):
So everyone thinks Dark Star killed Sir Iris, but yeah,
that's not true. And of course, Arianne is being
very naive here. As an aside, I should point out,
thinking that she's no murderer of children.
Remember the title of this section to crown her is to kill
her. Yeah.
She has seemingly learned this lesson now after the fact.
She didn't know it at the time because her father tells her,

(49:51):
right? She he tells her all what's
happening and how he's been plotting and planning.
Finally lets her in on all that.And by A Dance with Dragon,
she's fully on his side now thatshe knows what's going on.
So back to this whole killing a child thing.
It's interesting, you know, we talked about Sandor already and
Stannis didn't kill a child, buthe was willing to with Edric
Storm and he might do it with his own daughter.
And so was Robert. Robert Baratheon was willing to

(50:14):
kill Daenerys, you know, when she was only 13.
And he was more concerned about her unborn child.
So this is, this is the oppositeof Ned, someone that would never
kill a child, you know, willingly.
There might be things that happen that 'cause that to
happen, you know, wars get started, children are going to
die. It's also a little bit like
Jamie and Bran, right? A great swordsman who somehow

(50:35):
fails to kill a child, right? Dark Star failed to kill
Marcella. Jamie failed to kill Bran, but
does maim them for life. And these are all for different
reasons. Robert because he was afraid of
and hated Targaryens. Stannis because he thought it
was necessary to defeat the Others, because he's been misled
by Melisandre, who was, you know, maybe misleading herself

(50:56):
too. And Dark Star, though, what's he
doing? What is we know he wants to
start a war, or at least he wants to help Barry and start
one. But no, he wanted to start a war
on his own, I think. But why?
Yeah. Nina also asked this question.
She wonders where George saw Dark Star as sort of a proto
version of what he would explorewith Danny and Dario, as well as

(51:18):
Danny and the shave paint. Like, there's definitely vibes
of Dark Star in both these characters.
The tension between starting a war in the name of justice
versus potentially killing children, which is what always
happens in a war. That's all very familiar to
Danny. And she's becoming a little more
savvy. And as she gets more
experienced, like obviously Danny starts off very naive but
grows quickly going through so many heavy, intense life

(51:42):
experiences of many of which no one would ever have because
they're supernatural, etcetera. But anyway, that's getting a
little off topic. Dario's an open advocate for war
against the former slaving families, while the shave of pay
is going to call multiple times for the execution of Danny's
child hostages. Yeah, that's that is similar
Dark stars like, yeah, kill the kill the girl, you know, start a
war that way is this is the onlyway it's going to work.

(52:04):
And he's also a great fighter, which is the Dario part and the
handsome part, right? Or, I don't know, not everyone
considers Dario handsome, but daddy does.
So that's that's what matters here.
So when Arianne and company findthemselves outed with Ario Hotel
just waiting for them, right. Dark stars like that's that
We're we're beaten. Time to surrender.
He's not stupid, but as soon as an opportunity opens, a window

(52:27):
opens. He jumps through it.
Rs is foolhardy charge of all things.
The Oakhart buys the Dane some time.
If he could only knew what he what he's charged, would do.
If he knew that the one moment he left Marcella unguarded would
be the moment that someone triedto kill her, he would not have
done that. But of course, how could he have

(52:48):
known that? So yeah, this is probably the
only moment that this is of all like in weeks that the most open
Marcella was and Dark Star saw that opportunity and did not
miss his chance. Actually, he did miss his chance
because he didn't kill her and Ceraris.
He expected that Ceraris wouldn't be able to follow.
He's like, well, that guy just charged into Ario Hota, so I

(53:10):
don't suppose I have to worry about him following me.
And indeed, well, Arias didn't get very far, so he didn't kill
her. But he because the horse shield
away. This makes him a wanted man.
It also makes him a scapegoat. Marcella agrees to blame Sir
Arias's death on Dark Star. Important note, however, this is
coming. Well, this is a very curious

(53:31):
moment. When they tell the Sand Snakes,
when Aryan, Marcella, Doran, they're all telling this lie to
the the Sand Snakes, Tyen and Nymeria are like, yeah, right.
They immediately sniff out. They're like, Dark Star didn't
do that. Yeah.
And then they say some other things like, well, that part's
true, you know, so they know forsomehow they know.
And that's curious. We'll get back to we'll come

(53:52):
back to this. But, you know, how do they they
either they might have just sniffed out a lie, but there
might be more to it than that. There may be more information
that they know that they aren't letting on.
So, yeah, he's blamed for the death of Cerraris, which also it
doesn't just put this all on therogue night who they can try to
wash their hands and say, hey, we had nothing to do with this.
This guy isn't we, we didn't support him.

(54:14):
We weren't behind this at all. We're trying to bring him to
justice too. It buys time.
They have to go after Dark Star now.
They have to go try to root him out and capture him and bring
him to justice, which delays Marcella's trip back to King's
Landing, which is what Sir Baillon Swan was coming to do.
He was like, I'm coming down. I'm going to bring Marcella home

(54:35):
and I'm going to bring her home through the through the Bone
Way, where we'll do the fake ambush.
We're going to pin an ambush on Tyrion and bad stuff will
happen. So we'll, we'll, she's sure
she's already thinking how to blame, blame all this on Tyrion,
which but of course, as we all know, Doran Martel knows about
this plot. He knows that they're trying to,

(54:57):
they're going to murder Tristaneto so that she doesn't have to,
so Marcella doesn't have to marry him.
And of course, Doran's like, well, we can just delay that
trip. They can't tell.
They can't tell us to go on the trip.
If we have a good reason to delay it, then they'll tip their
hand about the ambush that we already know about.
And this is a long journey. If you look at Sunspear and you

(55:18):
look at High Hermitage, it's hard to find a point in Dorn
that's farther away than than from Sunspear, than High
Hermitage. So it's several weeks just to
get there. All, All in all, this time, you
know, Cersei's plan is not happening.
It's just delaying and delaying.She gets the news.

(55:39):
She gets the news about all thisCersei does, and she, she's
like, what? She's not angry.
I mean, she is. She's sad about her daughter,
but she's more than anything, she's confused.
She's like, who is this Dark Star?
Why would he do that? We have the same question.
Cersei. We don't know either, but Cersei
being Cersei, she's like Tyrion's involved somehow.

(56:02):
She just has to blame Tyrion I and.
And even though later we're going to discuss possibilities
of different factions Dark Star could end up associated with, I
don't think Tyrion and Dark Starwill ever be on the same team.
You never know, I guess. But yeah, that doesn't seem
likely. But it would be funny.
Cersei's like, OK, The Cersei will be like, see, yeah, here's
a big, somewhat ironic question.Dark Star told Arianne he didn't

(56:26):
think her plan would work. It's like just crowning her.
That's not going to get the result you want.
Well, it doesn't look like his plan's going to work either.
Like killing her might have worked, but maiming her didn't
even come close to working. Like Cersei didn't even consider
sending armies to Dorn. She's just like what, why, what
is going on? She didn't say call the banners,
you know we're attacking Dorn and they couldn't if they wanted

(56:48):
to. This is a maybe a miscalculation
on Dark Star's part. The Lancers are just too damn
busy with other armies with morepressing concerns than you know,
getting. Sorting through all this Dorn
business that has Searcy confused more than anything
else. Especially with Young Griff
landing like that is way more pressing.

(57:11):
And in between, like to March anarmy to Dorn, they'd have to go
through Young Griff's armies. So yeah, Searcy and other
Lannisters might be as mad as all 7 Hells, but they can't
March any armies into Dorn anytime soon, if ever.
So again, there's this question of why Dark Star wants war, but
now there's this further question of what he's going to

(57:33):
do when he realizes it didn't work.
War didn't start because of this, although there is war
happening, the Seven Kingdoms isat war, but he didn't add to it
like he wanted to. So if there's if this chaotic,
if his chaotic energy isn't enough to create a war, well
then what will he do next? He doesn't seem like he's just
going to give up, does he? So another move is coming.

(57:56):
Maybe he already had other movesplanned and we'll see that
unfold. Not sure.
Without a clear picture of his motive, it is difficult to guess
what else he might do to fulfillthem.
Trying harder to provoke the Lannisters wouldn't work though.
So that that maybe that method is completely out.
So maybe he has to look to a different element, a different
way to create war. And we'll talk about that a

(58:16):
little more later. We have an exciting episode
searcher technology now. I call it technology.
It's this great, cool thing thata Shaya built enables you to
search for any of our episodes. We have so many episodes now
that it's getting unwieldy, and we wanted to create a solution

(58:36):
for that. I wanted to have a way for
people to find episodes and a Shaya tell people a little more
about it. It's really cool.
I love this thing. If you're a patron, you get
access to this. It's kept up to date, automated
and whatnot with our shorts, ourfull episodes.
It intakes Spotify, you know, RSS with the video and the

(58:57):
audio. And it imports YouTube.
So you can see if you're watching, you can see it on the
screen. But yeah, when you click on it,
it has embeds for Spotify, for YouTube, etcetera.
It has tags for everything, for guests.
I think it's really useful for us on the back end, and I think
it'll be useful for y'all on thefront end too.

(59:18):
And there's lots of other exciting changes coming soon.
Yeah, Ashay has been doing more work on our website.
And one other thing I want to tease that she's been working on
is a timeline, a full timeline of everything in Westeros with
episodes relevant to those timeline milestones.
Like, you know, we have A Long Night and then we have the Pact,

(59:38):
and we have all these things. Any episodes we have that are
related to those topics be linked right there on the
timeline. So that's not done yet, but it's
something Ashay is working on, and it's super cool.
So I'm excited for that. Dornish Dame says while I think
Dark Star might have been added,so there's an adult Dane, I
think the backfilling of bloody Ben Blackwood info making him so
young gives George a precedent for a young Lord fighting.

(01:00:00):
That's a good point. We shouldn't just write Edrick
off as a mover and shaker. He he did come off as a capable
young man, a brave and, you know, noble, honorable, kind of,
you know. So yeah, you're right.
You're right, Dornish Dame that that's a very strong
possibility. We can't.
We shouldn't just. Throw Edrick in a corner.

(01:00:21):
It really is. Bloody Ben is probably the best
example for that, too. Yeah, well, at least one of the
best. Hard to think of a better
example. Brian Valco says, do we know
which branch of House Dane make our Targaryen's wife and Egg's
mother, Deanna was from? Maybe Dark Star, even from a
lesser branch, is closely related to the Targaryens.
Well, he wouldn't have Targaryenblood, but yeah, that could be.

(01:00:41):
Yeah, it's possible. I mean, you'd think they'd marry
from the main branch because of,you know, pride and all that,
but maybe maybe she was from a High Hermitage Dane.
Yeah, that's possible. I never, never considered that.
I've always assumed it was Starfall, to be honest.
But I never. Yeah, you bring up a good point.
We maybe shouldn't assume that. If I'm betting on it, I would
bet Starfall, but I wouldn't bet100%.

(01:01:05):
My question is, how long do we even know that the High
Hermitage Danes have existed? Very good question.
Yeah, We have no idea. Maybe they've only existed for
100 years. Maybe they've existed for 5000
years. Maybe just yeah.
You know, You know what? I mean, we don't know.
It's a, the Starfall days existed for 10,000 years and
this cadet branch could have come along at any point in that
10,000 year history. Like at any point they could be
20 years old, you know, probablynot, but they're also probably

(01:01:28):
not 9000 years old. But anyway, we really don't
know. Dark Star started the house
himself and said I don't want tobe part of these other.
Days. Screw you guys.
Struck out. He's like High Hermitage.
I'm a hermit. He built it himself.
Yeah. If you guys knew how many times
while writing this document I typed Dark Stark instead of Dark
Star, well, you would see a highnumber.

(01:01:50):
I did it a lot. Backspace one time.
Backspace one time. Damn it.
Dark Stark yet again. How many times did you say Dork
Star? Though I never did type dork
star that. 'D be more accurate.
I never typed Dark stork either,or dork stork.
Dark Star is also sung by the Grateful Dead from 1968.

(01:02:13):
And it's a song that's kind of famous in there from among
Grateful Dead fans because it's a, it's been there's like a
bajillion different live versions of it that, you know,
Grateful Dead fans where he's trading live recording tapes.
George is a massive fan of the Grateful Dead, so very possible
that's where he got the name from.
He went to a whole Grateful Deadlike festival weekend last year,
which was pretty cool. Pretty nice for him.

(01:02:35):
Yeah, Yeah, there was, there wasphotos, a couple photos went up
on one of his assistants Instagrams and of, of George
just like having a good time with the Grateful Dead
backstage. Yeah.
The hula hoop. Yeah.
George with the hula hoop, right.
That's cool. Yeah.
He loves a Grateful Dead. He's loved him, you know,
probably since 1968 or so. Although he says his wife Paris
is even an even bigger fan. Yeah, she may have gotten him

(01:02:56):
started on it. And it's true.
Let's talk about High Hermitage.After Dark Star goes off to
relieve himself, we get this quote.
When he was gone, the others exchanged glances.
Forgive me, Princess. Said Garen softly.
But I do not like that man. A pity, Dray said.
I believe he's half in love withyou.

(01:03:18):
We need him, Arianne reminded them.
It may be that we will need his sword, and we will surely need
his castle. High Hermitage is not the only
castle in Dorn, Spotted Silva pointed out.
And you have other Knights who love you?
Well, Dray is a knight. I am, he affirmed.
I have a wonderful horse and a very fine sword, and my valor is

(01:03:42):
second to well, several actually.
Garin goes on to say several 100more like.
So High Hermitage is where he fled to and is holed up again.
Here's a Here's a map shot. You can see just how far it is
from Sunspier. Not only is it far in terms of
distance, it's on the West side of the Torrentine and the

(01:04:03):
Torrentine is a uncalm river. It's a very rapid flow.
It's not a good river for trade going up and down.
So this is a very difficult trek.
And that's part of why they Aryan says we might need his
castle, our Hammer spotted. Simple says, well, Hammer is not
the only castle in Dorne, which is true, but this one might be
particularly isolated and difficult and hard to get to,

(01:04:25):
which is where they clearly planned on keeping Marcella
until phase two and phase three of their plans happened, which
are not going to happen now. Yeah.
So Nina also says there's a kindof an irony of a Hermitage guy
who lives at a Hermitage, which is like a the original term
hermit is like a religious seclusion thing, not just a

(01:04:49):
seclusion thing. So thinking of this guy as a
religious recluse, he's like, yeah, that's he's the opposite
of that. Certainly not religious, not a
recluse either. So it looked like the plan was
to head up the Green Blood River, you know, all the way up
upriver and then strike out Westtowards High Hermitage.

(01:05:09):
The river would get them a good halfway or maybe a little less.
And of course it's faster travelthan than walking or riding a
horse. But of course, that's where Ario
Hotel was waiting for them. They never got to the river.
A question I have about her HighHermitage and when it was built.
We can't answer that question aswe said, but if it was around in

(01:05:32):
the first Dornish war, meaning not long after Aegon's Conquest,
then it may have been burned. Because let's not forget that
Aegon and Visenya burned every castle in Dorn.
It said up to three times exceptSunspier.
They might have ignored it though because it's so small.
It just might have been too irrelevant for them, and if so

(01:05:52):
then we have nothing to say. But if it did, if that did
happen, then it would have some scorch marks like a lot of these
castles do. It might even be carved directly
into the mountains. You know, like a lot of castles
that are Mountain High up in themountains is like it's carved
into it, like it's mountain itself is part of the castle.
And if that's the case, tunnels.Tunnels, right?

(01:06:15):
An easy way to escape without even alerting your foes that you
like. You might have a siege, a
miniature siege of High Hermitage.
And the guy just like escaped through the back door that no
one even knows about. Yeah.
Or you let them take. Yeah, you let them do that.
Maybe that's what he wants, likelure them to High Hermitage and
be like, peace, They're going tosit there and have no idea that
he's gone somewhere else. So.
Yeah, so we brought it up earlier.

(01:06:36):
It is kind of like Dragonstone in that it's, the castle is not
a big threat because you can't store a lot of troops there.
It's too far from any targets. You know, like the marching an
army out of High Hermitage to gosomewhere would be just.
You can't do that just across the desert with a whole army.
So many people know better than that.
So it's again, it's the defensiveness, the ability to

(01:06:58):
hold up in this castle that matters like a dragon stone
that's relevant here. Aryans plan to include him in
the plot. Obviously this backfired like
once they were outed and they'relike, we should surrender, He
tries to kill Marcella and that made things all worse and caused
the put put all of Dorn at risk.And now this castle of High
Hermitage that they thought would be a help to their quest,

(01:07:21):
to their plan, to their conspiracy might also backfire
because now, like, how do you get this guy?
You got a, he's a wanted man, but how are you going to get him
out of that castle, right? It's really difficult.
Which brings us to our next section, the hunt for Dark Star.
What's in store for Gerald Dane?What's going to happen here?

(01:07:43):
Remember that feast? That's an important moment in A
Dance with Dragons where they talk of where Sir Gregor's head
shows up and pretty much all theLords of Lords and ladies of
Dorn are there to witness this. And well, if Gerald hadn't been
a wanted man, he would have beenat that feast, probably like the
rest of Dorn, and he might have been one of those that poured

(01:08:06):
his wine on the ground like O Barra did.
Instead, O Barra is coming for him, assuming he's sold up in
his castle, which for now, let'swork with that assumption.
Here's Arianne thinking about that quote.
If the gods were good by now, O Barra Sand had treed him in his
mountain fastness and put an endto him.

(01:08:28):
She said as much to Damon Sand that first night as they made
camp. Be careful what you pray for,
Princess. He replied.
Dark Star could put an end to Lady O Barra just as easily.
She has Arie O Hota with her. Presumably Hota and and O Barra
bring men with them too, right? It's not just they're not going
to go by themselves, right? So Hota's fight in finger quotes

(01:08:53):
with Sir Arias, which was, you know, very one sided, combined
with everyone's opinion of him, everybody's afraid of OTA.
Is George setting us up here? We've fallen for that trick
before. The unbeatable fighter.
How many of these supposedly unbeatable fighters actually
remained unbeatable? Arthur Dayne didn't, Jaime
Lannister didn't, Sir Gregor didn't Red Viper didn't Like all

(01:09:17):
these guys end up losing, right?Sometimes they carve a swath
through the books before they meet their end, like Sir Gregor.
But yeah, I, I, we got to be wary about George building up a
character like Khal Drogo. Another example like super bad
ass like guy and all of a suddendies of a infection.

(01:09:37):
You know what? I'll tell you, I've seen all of
those supposedly unbeatable men beaten.
Never seen Maester Ayman beaten.That's right.
So we we know specifically that Bailon Swan brought 3 Knights, 8
Squires and 20 men at arms plus some servants with him.
So we know at least that's his contribution to this.
But they'll probably be a largercomplement of Dornish soldiers

(01:09:59):
going along. But this is really out of place.
Bailon Swan, a swan, a waterfowlin the desert, they don't belong
there. But here's the thing, if they go
there and go to Iron Ridge and, and besiege him or whatever,
well, that could happen. But why are we assuming he's
there? Why there shouldn't be an

(01:10:19):
assumption that he's definitely at his castle?
I mean, is that really his plan?Cut down, Marcella, then go
hide. Doesn't sound right.
That doesn't sound right at all.It sounds like he this was phase
one or step one. And there's more to come.
And we'll have to keep talking about that because it's.
Yeah, this is. I don't think that's.

(01:10:40):
We should not assume he's at high.
Herman just put it that way, Nina says it's a probably a best
guess sort of situation. Like, where else are they going
to look for him? It's a good place to start.
If they don't expect him there, well, move on to find out where
he might go elsewhere. That's very difficult if he's
not there because he could be just about anywhere.
But yeah, you got to start from somewhere.
So go to his castle, you know, if he's not there, all the more

(01:11:02):
easy for them to get in and maybe question some servants or
something. Compare Nina says Brienne and
Shadrick's independent searches for Sansa.
Neither of them know for sure where she went, but both of them
know that she has an Ant in the veil, and that's a sensible
place to at least begin a search.
Now, Brienne doesn't end up following that particular trail.
She goes for a different one. But Shadrick does follow that

(01:11:25):
trail, and he is there now. So yeah, I really don't think
Dark Shark's just going to sit back and wait for war.
That was Aryan's plan. So she kind of thinks that maybe
she's still thinking along thosesame lines, that he's following
through with that. But yeah, he knows they're
coming for him, right? So that's, that's got to factor

(01:11:46):
into his calculus here. He's not like they're coming for
me. I'm going to just go hide in my
castle. I don't know about that.
How much forethought went into this?
Like he definitely suggested to Aryan, I mean, we should just
kill her, just do that now. But maybe it was more of a
suggestion, less of a suggestionand more of a long term plan
than he has in mind. Maybe he's been thinking about

(01:12:08):
it for a while and again, we just keep coming guys.
Why does he want war and or why does he want war with the
Lannisters or the crown? You know?
So here's where we got to ask some other questions.
Does he have other allies that we don't know about?
Is he working with somebody or will he work with somebody?
You know, allies of circumstancepeople that find themselves on

(01:12:29):
the same with the same enemies often team up right and the
Lannisters have plenty of enemies, but so do so does
Prince Dorian right. So there's all these elements
within Dorne might be willing tofight with Dark Star or maybe
not with him as a leader, but maybe right, like he, he may
consider it a smokescreen of sorts.

(01:12:49):
This whole thing about Arianne is a distraction.
He may not want war with the Iron Throne.
He just might want to cause somechaos, climb that ladder, you
know, a little fingerish. And by creating tension between
Dorne and the Lannisters, well, it enables him to thread that
needle and and do things I suppose now he can do basically

(01:13:10):
if Prince Doran is having to deal with the Lannisters, even
if it is an open war, because itmakes it a lot harder to deal
with Dark Star, like, this is one man, right?
And he's already done the damage.
Dark Star's not going to start another war, is he?
Well, probably not, but who would it be?
He might have a little bit of a grudge against Doran for pinning
the death of Arius Oakhart on him.
But on the other hand, this might be another thing that

(01:13:33):
Doran does that actually helps Sir Gerald.
Like, hey, free boost to my reputation.
I killed Sir Arias Oakhart. I'm a bad ass.
I killed a Kingsguard knight, right?
Ever. He's happy to have people think
he killed Arias Oakhart and Oakhart.
Danes love killing Oakharts, as we heard.
To have it, to have it known that you killed one of the

(01:13:53):
Kingsguard. What if he also managed to kill
Balon Swan, two of the Kingsguards this guy has killed.
What a reputation that would be that even if he doesn't deserve
it, the way the rumors would spread about him, people would
be like, that guy must be reallygood, really dangerous if he
killed 2 Kingsguard. Yeah, he wants fame and
recognition, and Dorin gave it to him by pinning this this

(01:14:15):
killing on him. So he might even lean into he
might even tell people yeah, look at me.
I already struck a blow. I killed Sir Arias Okart look at
me. You know, that might make that
might give him more clout amongst other Dornish that
they'd like to hear that they were like, yeah, you killed an
Okart. Cool.
Thumbs up. So, Sir Damon, if we come back
to that line of him pointing outhow dangerous Dark Star is,

(01:14:36):
calling him a Viper, saying thatOberyn called him poison, Yeah,
we can't just stop at killing a little girl to start a war.
There's got to be Step 2, step three-step 4.
Now, if it did come to a fight like, between, like, him and
Hotah, Dark Star might be arrogant enough to think he

(01:14:57):
could win that fight, but I doubt he takes him on
one-on-one. I think there's maybe a trap.
I mean, this is a mountain fastness, right?
The I could drop rocks on their heads or something.
Like, there's a lot of ways thatthey could get ambushed or
attacked at night. Guerrilla tactics, kill some
Arias Urquhart's Squires, you know, just make them all

(01:15:18):
nervous, destroy their morale. Yeah.
This could go a lot of ways thatthey don't seem to have
considered. Yeah, a lot of these characters
have been built up in terms of fighting.
Kill Hota badass Obara seems to be at least very capable, if not
more. And then Dark Star himself.
But that could be the trick here, that they're not going to
fight. It's going to be an ambush.
It's going to be a trap. It's going to be something else.

(01:15:40):
We've seen Hota even think aboutSir Bailon.
He thinks this guy won't be so easy to kill like Sir Arias.
You know that guy. He this guy won't just charge
into my axe like a dummy. This guy is a lot more canny, a
lot more experienced, doesn't have a death wish, you know,
he's not, he's not a boy, He's not all emotional, you know, And

(01:16:00):
so Hotop pretty much nailed it with that assessment too.
So, but yeah, maybe it doesn't come to a fight.
Maybe it just comes to guerrillawarfare and stuff like that.
And again, why would George go through all this trouble to
create a Dane, which was, which required retrofitting?
I mean, return to that point where if he'd made an Uller or a

(01:16:23):
Corgile, something like that, hecould have easily just added a
character like that to work. But no, he chose a Dane.
So if he chose a Dane, an important house, that has a lot
to do with some central mysteries around the series,
things that we've been considering since the first
book. Early on.
You can't kill him off quickly. If he, if his purpose was just

(01:16:44):
to start this war, that doesn't make any sense.
If that was his only purpose as a character, he didn't need to
be a Dane as far as we can tell.But if we look beyond that,
where his famous heritage could come into play, other characters
might talk about him. We have this build up.
Well, we've got a strong theory as to at least what part of that

(01:17:05):
ongoing role could be claiming Dawn question mark.
The five year gap, as we said, would have enabled Edrick Dane
enough time to grow and wield the sword.
Not necessarily what George planned, but it seems to fit
perfectly to create this new character to get done in the
store and get an adult in there.But yeah, so.

(01:17:28):
But he's not going to earn it. So that only leaves one option,
which is taking it by force. He complained that Sir Arthur
got a lot of reputation undeserved.
He's like, oh, he had a famous sword.
So if he really sincerely believes that, if Dark Star
really believes that most of Arthur's reputation came from
his sword, we know he's wrong about that.

(01:17:49):
But if he sincerely believes that, then he's going to want
that sword to to to prove that. He wants to prove to people that
he's just as good as Arthur. But he can't prove that without
Arthur's sword because that was part of what gave Arthur that
such a great advantage accordingto Dark Star's line of thinking.
But even if we think Dark Star is is a really good fighter, I

(01:18:09):
don't think he was as good as Arthur.
Like Arthur is so legendary, just like a generally
generationally talented fighter.Anyway, there's another
possibility here. It doesn't have to be done.
Although as always, we should say why not both?
So let's present this idea and we consider that maybe multiple
of these theories might come true.
He could be a vehicle for illuminating the Tower of Joy

(01:18:35):
and events surrounding that. The Danes having knowledge about
this is something that's alreadybeen something that's already
had groundwork laid for Edrick has a little information.
He knows Willa right? That was his wetner.
So he has a he's a tidbit enoughto get us interested enough to
reveal to us that oh hey, there's a thread to follow here.

(01:18:57):
And Gerald obviously resents andenvies his kinsmen the this
maybe the fact that they're the superior branch.
So what if he just heads to Starfall?
He distracts people. They got a war.
They're looking for him. They're going to High Hermitage.
Meanwhile, he's headed to Starfall.
He's not at High Hermitage. Suckers.

(01:19:18):
They went and tried to find me there.
I'm down here. He seizes Dawn.
Lady Illyria, who was going to marry Barrack Dondarian.
He seizes her, forcibly marries her.
Then it's Starfall is his. Maybe he could take it by force.
I mean, if Edrick, it gets tricky if Edrick has made it
back there, which I think he probably has by now.

(01:19:39):
He left the Brothers without banners quite a while ago and he
brought end guy, the Archer and a few others with him.
So they may already be there. And Dark Star may have to, you
know, kill them to to do this orimprison them or something like
that. So that seems like a strong
possibility. And if we could see all that, if
Hota and Obara follow him there,if they find out that he went to

(01:20:01):
Starfall or they think, well, he's not here.
Where's the next best chance place to look?
Starfall. That's the other how?
How's Dane? Better than nothing.
We can at least ask other Danes about this guy who could learn
more about him to get our get their opinion.
And maybe they have some ideas on where he might be hiding or
what he's doing. So it does make sense that
Starfall would be Next up. And thus there's your answer.

(01:20:22):
There's your vehicle. That's how we get to Starfall.
They follow him there, or at least go there to see if he went
there. They may find that he's already
been there and left. He's already done all this.
He's already taken Illyria to wife, killed Edrick and Stolen
Dawn. That could have already be done
by the time they get there. And while they're there, well,
they also get to talk to Willa and some other people maybe.

(01:20:43):
Yeah. Don't know exactly how it play
out. Obviously, that's up to George.
But there's a lot of meat on this bone, right?
And then they could bring up some really interesting
conflicts. Dark Star fighting or killing
Edrick. And it's the deal with End Guy,
the Archer. That's no, that's no, that's no.
That's a difficult problem to have.
End Guy is an amazing shot, but it might be the kind of

(01:21:03):
subterfuge thing. Like he shows up, he's like,
hey, I'm here, you know, I'm your cousin, let me in.
And then he, you know, pulls a fast 1.
He lets some some soldiers in through a side door and then
they you know, I do pull a Theonkind of move something like that
where they take an easy to take castle because it's undefended.
Why is it so undefended? Well, we'll get into that in a

(01:21:23):
minute. It's probably undefended,
though. So yeah, this would not only
claim him, Don. He might be trying to claim
Starfall as well. If he marries Illyria, he could
pull that off. And this may also reveal to us a
few other Dane cousins here and there.
We may. Yeah.
The idea that we can see Starfall is exciting, even if it
doesn't cover all these bases that we're throwing out there
because of. Yeah, because of characters like

(01:21:44):
Willa and other Danes. Illyria herself is interesting.
The possibility that Edrick and Inga are there just.
I just want to see the castle. I don't.
I don't even care who's there, although obviously that's gravy.
I would love to see Willa there and the other things.
So yeah, that's that's got me chomping at the bit, champing at
the bit. So, yeah, so Edrick had

(01:22:06):
information on Willa, but maybe maybe he was lied to as well.
Like there's definitely some lying going on around John and
Willa. We don't have to assume Edrick
knows the truth. He was a kid.
They wouldn't let the kid in on the lies, right?
You tell you can't trust a nine year old or a six year old.
And he wasn't even that old. He was younger than that.
So they're not going to let him in on the conspiracy.
And there would not necessarily be a reason to tell him later

(01:22:27):
either. So Edrick's information might be
wrong, but it doesn't, it still gets us and Aria to know of that
connection between him and John and the Tower and the Starfall
and Willa. So let's talk about the
potential of more internal conflict or something that could
happen, like a murder, the murder of Doran Martel.
Let's talk about that possibility.

(01:22:47):
So in this thinking, in our thinking about High Hermitage
and what Dark Star has done, he's drawn Hota away.
HOTA, the most fearsome protector of Doran Martel isn't
by his side. We saw what happened when 2
seconds of Arias Oakhart not guarding Marcella and then what

(01:23:08):
happened? His greatest protector is gone.
That might be meaningful he if he has allies close by to
Sunspier meaning Dark Star, or if he pulled a fast one and you
know went the other way. Maybe he didn't go to High
Hermitage at all. Maybe he went east towards
Sunspier to to, you know, facilitate Part 2 of the plan.

(01:23:31):
What would his motive be here? To get rid of the guy who is
holding peace, who's who's usingall his power to keep peace?
That would be a good person to kill if you want war, or to get
rid of the man that ordered his capture.
Now, is he still an outlaw if hekills the man that ordered him?
Well, only if the replacement carries that forward.
If Arianne takes the throne of this the throne of Sunspier, the

(01:23:53):
high seat of Sunspier, is she? Well, she would probably still
want Dark * captured and and brought to justice because he
may in this scenario, he would have killed her father.
But in this scenario, Aryan may not be the one who ends up on
top. Maybe he's maybe his plan goes
beyond that because yeah, killing Dorian or, and or

(01:24:13):
claiming Dawn would not be the end of it.
That would just be another interesting step towards towards
what? What is his end game?
So now if he does this, the Lannisters and the Martels would
want him dead. So he's 2 powerful enemies and
the latter has been scapegoatinghim already right?
So one way for any powerful person.

(01:24:35):
Usually it's not an option for for us smaller folk.
You can get away with crimes if you are tight with the person,
they can offer you a pardon. Or if you have a compelling
reason to get for you to get a pardon from, maybe you have
leverage on them so they give you a pardon, right?

(01:24:55):
That might be his angle. Gain power, gain this and that,
then get a pardon from whoever takes power.
They would have to owe him a favor.
Let's talk about who those friends of Dark Star might be.
This is a, shall we say, a variety of scenarios in which
Dark Star allies or is already allied with existing factions.

(01:25:17):
I think he needs powerful allies, given what he's done.
Like, yeah, he may be a solo operator, but it can only go so
far with that. He's at least trying to bring
other people into this, whether they're directly connected him
or to him or not. So yeah, there's the concept of
the Golden Company has friends in the Reach.
Maybe he has friends in Dorn. Right?

(01:25:40):
If he helps the Ironwoods take the seed of Dorn, he'll pardon
him, right? You're not.
You did fine. You, you acted like a
dornishment, right? You acted like, like the rest of
us wanted to act. We wanted to kill Lannisters.
You tried to kill a Lannister. Why is that a crime?
Right. That's that was Sir Rickard's
argument. Sir Rickard, Lord Rickard's
arguments, Rob, He's like, how could it?

(01:26:01):
How could I be wrong to kill Lannisters?
That's who we're supposed to be killing, right?
When he got killed those prisoners.
Yeah, similar, kind of similar, right?
So he's a wanted man in Dorn. He's obviously burned the
Lannister bridge. He isn't a good fit for an
alliance with Stannis, who's toofar away anyway.
Daenerys as well, too far away. Maybe we'll we'll consider
Daenerys a little later because she won't always be so far away.

(01:26:24):
But let's consider better options for now.
And I think the best option is when we've briefly mentioned
already, and that's Aegon, YoungGriff, Connington, Golden
Company. Their timing is also great too
in terms of when they've landed.So Dark Star at Aegon, a good
way to remind people of your famous father and his best

(01:26:44):
friend Arthur Dayne. His famous father Rhaegar, of
course, is to show up with your own Knight of House.
Dane works even better if you also have Dawn like Arthur did.
Let's recall Connington told Aegon that he needed a
Kingsguard of his own. Duck is the only Kingsguard
member so far of Aegon's 7. Aegon himself was like, yeah, I

(01:27:06):
want people who are willing to die for me.
Connington doesn't really agree.He's like, you need great
swords, you know, I the truth isprobably somewhere in between.
That's probably what's ideal. Dark Star is definitely of that
ladder type. He's not going to die for Aegon,
but he might. But he is competent with the
blade, if not excellent. He's obviously not your standard
Kingsguard material, right? He doesn't have that nobility

(01:27:29):
and honor, but that doesn't meanthey might not make that
mistake. They don't know his reputation.
They're not. They're not from dorm.
Well, they you know, Aegon, if he's legit, he is half Dornish,
but he didn't grow up there. He doesn't know about it.
He doesn't know the deal like Dark Star's reputation is.
Yeah, They don't necessarily know it, and they won't
necessarily seek it out. They might fall for the same

(01:27:52):
trick that a lot of us did and thinking all the Danes are good.
Nope. So there's two.
Yeah, those two basic schools ofthought with Kingsguard.
So the problem with connecting Dark Star to the Kingsguard,
Aegon's Kingsguard is that, well, he if he wants to seize,
you know, Starfall or something like that, he can't, you know,
he's he's he wants to be a Lord during the Kingsguard means you

(01:28:12):
give up titles. That's a that's maybe a flaw in
this idea. So maybe he just is a good ally
for Aegon, a good sworn sword orjust something like along those
lines, rather than a Kingsguard.But the Kingsguard is it's a
possibility. The other problem, though, is
Aryan herself. If Aryan and Aegon become an
item, which is a very strong possibility in our eyes, that's

(01:28:33):
a theory we like a lot. Well, she might be like, yeah, I
worked with this guy and he sucks.
I don't like him. And she's going to have Aegon's
ear. So she says, no, she might have
her way because she's in his ear.
And she, you know, maybe she's seduced him.
And so he's going to do whatevershe says.
Yeah. So that might be, that might be
a a pain point there, a difference of opinion that that

(01:28:55):
Aryan might come out on top of. But maybe she's just like, Nah,
yeah, he sucks, but we need every sword we can get.
We don't need to trust him. We need to unleash him, just
send him at our foes. And, you know, just otherwise
don't trust him. Yeah, she might reach that
conclusion. Another element of this that
seems quite relevant is that theGolden Company and Coddington
are also not aware of Dark Sword's reputation.

(01:29:16):
So there's a lot of, there's a lot of invisibility here for
him. And that might be part of his
angles. He's like, yeah, they don't know
who I am. They don't.
All they know is I'm a Dane, andthat carries a lot of weight by
itself. And beyond that, you know, if
they don't know the rest. The problem there, though, is
that, you know, who would know Dark Star's reputation?
Varis. Varis knows everybody's
reputations. And Varis is obviously behind a

(01:29:38):
lot of his Golden company, AegonConnington stuff.
So he might have a say. He might be like, yeah, we want
this guy or might be like, Nah, this guy is just, he's more harm
than goodwill come from having him on our side.
But I think Varis would be of the mind that we can use this
man but we just shouldn't trust him but unleash him.

(01:29:58):
Yes that same kind of thing. But I would love to know what
Virus's reaction was to Dark Stars moves like Dark Knight of
House Dane tried to kill Marcella.
He might be just as perplexed asCersei, but he might also have
known about it. Maybe he maybe Virus and Dark
Star have been in contact. That doesn't seem super likely,

(01:30:18):
but it's possible. We got to consider it.
So this is to me, this is probably the most likely option
that Dark Star goes to team Aegon in some form or fashion.
It's a great fit for Aegon because of he's trying to
project that he's the son of Rhaegar.
And this really adds to that vibe.
And Dorn would back Aegon because they think he's Dornish.

(01:30:44):
They think he's half Dornish. They Elia was his mother on in
their mind. If the lie gets outed, then
maybe that all changes. But until then, or unless that
happens, Dorn is going to think,hey, half Dornish, that's our
guy. I mean, there's no one else
that's full Dornish. So yeah, that's our guy.
Not only that, but the Lannisters killed his mother and

(01:31:04):
the Baratheons killed his father.
His father, you know, obviously Robert killed Rhaegar and
Lannisters killed Elia. So those are obvious enemies
too. So he's already a lot pre
aligned against those factions. Very good fit.
More coming in a moment, but let's have our quote of the
week. Here's another quote from
Cersei. Not Cersei, CERSEI, but Cersei

(01:31:27):
Circe, as in from Greek mythology.
Yeah. This book is by Madeline Miller.
Here's the quote. The punishment of a God was a
rare and terrible thing, and talk ran wild through our halls.
Prometheus could not be killed, but there were many hellish
torments that could take death'splace.
Would it be knives or swords or limbs torn off?

(01:31:50):
Red hot spikes or a wheel of fire?
The naiads swooned into each other's laps.
The river Lords postured faces dark with excitement.
You cannot know how frightened gods are of pain.
There's nothing more foreign to them, and so nothing they ache
more deeply to see. On the appointed day, the doors

(01:32:11):
of my father's receiving hall were thrown open.
Huge torches carbuncled with jewels glowed from the walls and
by their light gathered nymphs and gods of every variety.
The slender dryads flowed out oftheir forests and the Stony
Oriads ran down from their crags.
My mother was there with her Naiad sisters.
The horse shouldered river gods crowded in beside the fish,
White Sea nymphs and their Lordsof salt.

(01:32:33):
Even the great Titans came, my father of course, and Oceanos,
but also shape shifting Proteus and Naires of the sea, my aunt
Celine, who drives her silver horses across the night sky, and
the four winds led by my icy uncle Borius 1000 avid eyes.
The only ones missing were Zeus and his Olympians.
They disdained our underground gatherings.

(01:32:54):
The word was they had already held their own private session
of torment in the clouds. Charge of the punishment had
been given to a fury. One of the infernal goddesses of
vengeance who dwell among the dead.
My family was in its usual placeof pre eminence, and I stood at
the front of that great throng, my eyes fixed upon the door.
Behind me. The naiads and river gods

(01:33:15):
jostled and whispered. I hear they have serpents for
hair. No, they have scorpion tails and
eyes dripping blood. The doorway was empty.
Then at once it was not. Her face was grey and pitiless,
as if cut from living rock, and from her back dark wings lifted,
jointed like a vulture's. A forked tongue flipped from her
lips and on her head. Snakes writhed green and thin as

(01:33:38):
worms, weaving living ribbons through her hair.
I bring the prisoner, and that'sthe quote.
If you want to get that book, goto historyofwesteros.com and
order it through our links there.
It's such a good book, I love it.
You get such a rare glimpse intosomeone that actually knows how
to write Gods and Demigods. It's such a hard thing to pull
off. It's something that a lot of

(01:33:59):
authors just avoid, but she dives right in and just makes
the whole thing about it. I mean, you've got, like you
said, this is like a bunch of gods in this room watching a
spectacle. It's it's really unusual and
very, very well written. I, I highly encourage you to
check it out And hopefully HBO makes it into a show.
They were talking about doing that, but we'll see.

(01:34:19):
All right, back to it, Dark Starand Daenerys.
It's a possibility, maybe a thinone, but we should consider it.
As we said, she's still too far away for any sort of thing to
happen in the moment, but she could show up in Westeros.
She could defeat Aegon and he could switch sides.
He could survive the death of Aegon and be like, yo, I want to

(01:34:42):
be on the side with Dragons, right?
He's burned too many bridges to consider many other options,
right? Daenerys might think of him as
the same way. Like, well, I think she's done
being attracted to bad boys likeshe was with Dario and Drogo.
And he even has AD name. But still, I think she's
overdone with that. She might notice it and be like,
well, he's handsome, but that's not going to matter this time.

(01:35:03):
I'm not going to fall for that. But she again, like Aryan, she
might make the same Calcas and go, yeah, maybe this guy is not
trustworthy, but we could use his sword.
Or because she's kind of ignorant of Westeros, she might
not know who this guy is and might just be like Dane.
Hey, my brother's best friend was a Dane.

(01:35:24):
She might make that same mistakeand think he's a good guy
because she doesn't know better,so it's possible.
It would be a thing that comes later though.
And if he has Dawn, that might give him some clout in her eyes
too, because again, she wouldn'tknow about everything that came
to put that in a situation it's in now.

(01:35:46):
Dark Star and Euron, an intriguing villainous pairing. 2
ambitious agents of Chaos. Cruel, both of them, very
dangerous, both of them. Dark Star doesn't quite have the
eldritch vibes of Euron. He does have the ancient family
and the ancient mystical sword going for him, so he's got a
little bit of that. You know, it's a touch.

(01:36:09):
If Dorne is wracked by internal turmoil, such as by what Dark
Star has done, or because of other factors, or all of this
together, then you can see why Euron would benefit.
If Dorne is at war, then that's a one less faction or one less
army that he has to worry about in his quest to take the Iron
Throne. He could even make them an ally

(01:36:29):
somehow, you know, allies of circumstance.
No one really wants to have the Ironborn as an ally, but in
times like this, you got to do what you got to do.
So this is perhaps something yetto come.
This some of these ideas we should consider.
The Dark Star has already been in talks.
He's already allied with some ofthese people or one of them.
This one is less likely in that regard.

(01:36:50):
It could be one that dark stars like, hey, this is the guy for
me. This is the team I want to be on
so so I need to consider not a lot of meat on that bone, but
definitely worth thinking about.In addition to the concept of
Aegon as his main or most likelyally, there's Dorn.
Let's talk about that. It's it might even be more

(01:37:11):
likely than Aegon, or perhaps it's just as likely, or maybe
both will happen. In other words, the warlike
Dornish, the ones who are against Doran's plan, the ones
who don't like him. And there's a lot of them.
The Sand Snakes themselves were the loudest voices about getting
revenge for their father. It seems that they've come
around and accepted Doran's plan, but maybe they haven't.

(01:37:34):
Maybe they still want war. Maybe they're just going along
with the plan to do something else.
They wanted to kill Marcella. They wanted war.
They were totally about that. They did swear on their father's
grave though, which he seemed togenuinely take that as sincere.
But we could be getting set up here.

(01:37:54):
Consider this moment during the feast where Sir Gregor's head is
revealed. This is where we get the we get
to see that divide in in that moment quote.
Hota paid more note to those whodid not drink.
Sir Damon Sand, Lord Tremend, Gargolin, the Fowler Twins,
Dagos Manwoody, the others of the Hell Holt, the Wills of the

(01:38:17):
Bone Way. There is trouble.
It could start with one of them.Doran was in angry and divided
land, and Prince Doran's hold onit was not as firm as it might
be. Many of his own Lords thought
him weak and would have welcomedopen war with the Lannisters and
the boy King on the Iron Throne.Chief amongst these were the

(01:38:40):
Sand Snakes, the bastard daughters of the Prince's late
brother Oberyn the Red Viper, three of whom were at the feast.
Doran Martel was the wisest of Princess, and it was not the
place of his Captain of Guards to question his decisions.
But Ariohota did wonder why he had chosen to release the ladies

(01:39:05):
Obara, Nymeria and Tain from their lonely cells in the Spear
Tower. That passage is full of
warnings, potential foreshadowing when we're
considering the possibility of arevolt against Doran Martel's
rule. There is plenty to work with in
just this two paragraphs. It's not like the level of drums

(01:39:29):
at the Red Wedding or R + L equals J, but it's nowhere near
tinfoil either. I'll call it perfectly Cromulan
as a theory. The idea that Doran will be
overthrown or assassinated by other Dornish persons or perhaps
his own family. Obviously not Aryan.
At this point she's already leftand we can see inside her head
and she's not thinking of anything like that.

(01:39:50):
I suppose that could change, butseems unlikely.
But the Sand Snakes, Yeah. Are we really?
Are we really sure that they've turned and and are on Doran side
fully? Maybe, but we shouldn't be
certain of that. And that was a lot of people
that refused to drink to Doran'speace.
Dark Shark could have many sympathizers.
I pointed out earlier, a lot of people might be like, yeah, good

(01:40:11):
that he did that. You know, they might not like
that he went against the Prince,but I don't think that matters
to them because they want to go against the Prince.
All these warning lines in here,if there is trouble, it could
start with one of them. And it was a long list of
possibilities. And then he mentions the Sand
Snakes. And then he says, I'm not really

(01:40:32):
sure why the Prince let them go.That seems dangerous.
He also thinks many of his own Lords thought him weak.
Many of his own Lords would havewelcomed open war with the
Lannisters, which is exactly what Dark Star is trying to
start. We have to consider that they've
talked, that Dark Star has maybespoken with the others.
The wills that various elements in Dorn that oppose Doran have

(01:40:58):
met to discuss that and what to do about it seems very possible.
And it's been built up for so long.
I mean, they hate the Lannisters, they hate the rich
men. And those two are sitting the
throne as allies, A throne stolen from Dorne, from Elia,
from her children. So, yeah, we know.
Again, we know Doran has been making moves, but the rest

(01:41:21):
don't. Dark Star doesn't.
All the others don't. The wills don't.
They don't know that. Yeah.
Plan is in progress. So they're acting as if Doran's
doing nothing, and from their perspective, that's the worst
thing. It's cowardly, it's weak, it's
anti Dornish. So yeah, I think there's a
strong chance that there's been a meeting of this faction.

(01:41:43):
There's so many of them. That list was really long and it
wasn't a comprehensive list, right?
So they would, if they knew whatDoran was doing, they would
realize, OK, he's not so weak after all.
Maybe they wouldn't, maybe they still prefer to do this openly,
but at least they would be partly assuaged by the fact that
he's doing something. But now, is he still going to
get to do those some things? Are his plans so thrown out of

(01:42:06):
whack that it's just going to beas if no one ever knew about it
except Aryan and and us, You know, is it just going to.
Yeah. Doran's going to die without
anyone knowing what his plans were.
It's it's possible. Another weird thing that could
happen is threat to Doran. That's a little subtle and might
be a little like tragic. Is Aegon himself OK?

(01:42:30):
We know Aegon is a good chance he's fake.
Aegon himself doesn't know that he thinks so.
He acts sincerely because he hasno reason to think he's not.
Who Varis and Connington have told him he well, Varis is not.
Varis has never spoken to Aegon directly, but he's behind it
all. Obviously.
Doran already suspects it's a it's a fake.
He he's heard about this and he's like, is that really

(01:42:51):
Rhaegar's son? Is that really alias kid?
I would love it to be, but I'm suspicious.
So if he finds out it's a fake but is unable to prove it, think
about the conflict that would come within Doran.
Doran's like, yeah, Doran is king, let's support this guy.
And Aegon's an area. And Doran's like, no, he's not
really my sister's son. But he can't prove that.

(01:43:13):
It would sound, it might sound like a lie, especially to people
who already don't trust Doran, who think he's managing the
country poorly. So I don't know if that would go
over very well. So it becomes like he's the one
guy that knows the truth and maybe a few, maybe Aryan too, or
a few other people. And Aryan he won't be able to to
coordinate with because she'll be in King's Landing with Aegon

(01:43:33):
probably. So that could be a real problem
that could be a catalyst for more problems for Dorian.
Maybe that's the last straw for some of those Lords.
They say, OK, this is a, this istoo much.
We got to get rid of this guy. And even if they know it's a
forgery, they might be like, shut up Doran.
Who cares if it's a forgery? People think he's Dornish.

(01:43:56):
That's what matters. It doesn't matter if he's really
Dornish. If the world thinks there's a
half Dornish king that's good for us, who cares if it's true?
No one's ever going to find out.So they were like, shut up,
Doran. Let it.
Let him think, let us think that, let you know, fake it, go
with the fake, accept the forgery, you know, but he might
not want to. And Varis having Varis on your

(01:44:18):
team, I mean that's like, who better to have on your team for
getting masses of people to believe a lie, You know?
It's like Varus's propaganda to make people think this is really
Rhaegar's son. In my opinion, in my head cannon
is he's going to be very successful at that, at least in
the short term. So if any of this has merit,
Dark Star is in the center of it.

(01:44:39):
If there's if there is an activeplot or will be an active plot
to take out Doran, it's hard to imagine Dark Star not being part
of it or already part of it or central to it.
Not only did Prince Doran send away Hota, but remember where
his armies are. He gathered 2 hosts and they're
one of them is waiting in the Bone Way.
One of them is waiting in the Prince's past.

(01:44:59):
They're waiting for a signal so it seems he's denuded.
Sun Spear of Fighters. Not only is Hota gone, but these
hosts are up there. He's had to have send some
trusted captains and Knights away, so he might be
particularly undefended right now.
And yeah, it might make him vulnerable from within if if the

(01:45:20):
main threat to him, he sees the main threat as the Iron Throne,
as the Lannisters, as war with them, but the main threat might
truly be from within. Stargazer Jenny sends a super
chat. Well, thank you, Stargazer
Jenny, appreciate that. Where does Dawn go?
Regardless of who he allies withand if any of that has any

(01:45:41):
merit, there's basically two parts of this.
One is how he plays into the allthe different factions and where
all that's headed with Aegon, with Danny, with Dorn.
But Dawn is the other big part of this.
It doesn't have to be included in any of that.
It's kind of a separate plot line.
It could be involved, but let's treat it separately for now so
we can kind of hone in on it andget to this detail level.

(01:46:04):
While Danny might seem like one of the least likely options for
Dark Star to be associated with her to join, she's the most
likely of these factions to go north to fight the Others, which
is where we would think Don would want to end up.
Like Don should end up in the north somehow, right?
To fight the others? Isn't that kind of where we all

(01:46:25):
think, or at least suspect is the most likely?
It's hard to imagine Don going north if Dark Star is still with
Egg on or if he stays in Doran to overthrow Doran.
Unless that just happens really quickly and and then Danny comes
later. That dark star will die
eventually. Seems kind of likely.

(01:46:46):
He's a live by the sword, die bythe sword kind of guy.
And there's going to be a lot ofthat going on.
But somehow don't Don has to go north.
Maybe he takes it there, but it could go north without him.
It could go north with or without him like he could.
There's ways for the sword to gonorth with him being dead, but
that's tricky too, because if he's killed in, I don't know,
King's Landing, they would send the sword back to Starfall.

(01:47:08):
No, that's what usually happens.Like give the sword back to the
family. So why would that doesn't help
it go north? It's going back.
S Yeah. What good is that?
So his deaths are theorizing about it doesn't necessarily
help us figure out this Don question.
But despite the confusion here, we can be pretty confident that

(01:47:29):
his role in facilitating Don's role will be central.
There's a Edrick's really the only other candidate.
And again, then why create Dark Star if you're going to have
Edrick do it? Doesn't seem necessary.
So context clues, reading between the lines, a lot of this
points to that. So pretty exciting.
This is a really interesting character.

(01:47:50):
Even if he didn't land the way George wanted in terms of
personality and fan reaction. I think what he does, what he's
going to do is going to make himimportant, make him memorable.
In that regard, a lot of us willbe like, ah, that guy, Dark
Star, Dang it, he did that thing, He did that other thing.
We hate him, but there's a lot of characters we love to hate.

(01:48:12):
He may end up in that category when it's all said and done,
because if we think about it, we've probably only seen, I
don't know, 20% of his total arc.
Maybe, maybe a little more, but it feels like there's plenty
more to come and more of our opinion will be fleshed out.
We're not going to like him. He's just too unlikable in terms
of his personality. But it might be a fuller picture

(01:48:35):
than just we don't like him. Seeing what he does might prove
to be make him at least more interesting, which is great.
Very curious to see what what George does with all this, with
Dawn, with House Dane, with their ancient heritage, with
that mystery and how it all fitsin.
A quick note here at the end to say I barely mentioned the TV
show. I mentioned it briefly, just
that Oberon Oberon example talking about little girls in

(01:48:57):
Dorn, which is really has nothing to do with anything.
It's just an example of of a concept.
The TV show's plot on Dorn was just so different and aimless at
times where they didn't even know what they were doing.
And of course, there was no DarkStar or Aryan.
So it's pretty hard to use it asa guy, even though like major

(01:49:18):
turning points, even though like, whoa, that happened.
We can't even count on that happening here.
But maybe, maybe. So that's why you said very
little about the TV show at all.Sometimes it's a little bit of a
guideline sometimes. Sometimes it facilitates
theories, but I just didn't include it at all this time
because it's just like that version is just.
I didn't want to bring it up. It just, it just stains the rest

(01:49:42):
of it. Yeah.
Anyway, the trivia answer, what famous band that George loves
has a song called Dark Star. As as we said during the mid
roll, it was the Grateful Dead. But people also noticed there's
a song by Crosby, Stills and Nash called Dark Star.
Yeah, I noticed that too, because I went looking up.
I looked it up to get any more information on Dark Shy that I
could and I was like Crosby Stills, a Nash.

(01:50:04):
Oh yeah, they had one too. Theirs was like 10 years later I
think. I don't know if it's an homage
or not, but could be, could be, could be.
I don't think it's a cover either.
That's also possible, but maybe someone else knows.
Anyway, good job. Does it?
You got that. We mentioned or at least alluded
to some episodes that y'all might want to check out next if

(01:50:26):
you want to stay immersed in Dorn.
We have House Dane episodes, twoof them.
One about the history of House Dane 2, a second one about the
characters. We have our A Feast for Crows
and A Dance with Dragons Valariritis episodes, which of
course cover these chapters in depth.
We have Ilaria Sand, we have a whole episode on her.
We did episodes on the two Aryanspoiler chapters from T Wow, one

(01:50:50):
of which had a small quote from that in this episode.
So those two episodes are separate, one for each Aryan
spoiler chapter. Those, of course, are pretty
relevant, the first one more than the second one, but both of
them are relevant. And last, but certainly not
least, are three scripted episodes on Nymeria.
The third one is where Vori and Dane and a lot of these relevant
characters are discussed. But the whole thing is is fun in

(01:51:13):
terms of seeing a full picture of Dornish history and how
things developed to get to the point where they're at now.
That's our episode, everybody. Thanks to Nina for her great
takes. Don't forget good
queenalley.tumblr.com. Thanks to Joey Townsend for the
music on our show. It's great.
I love that music. That theme song is very catchy.
It has been for such a long time.

(01:51:33):
And shout out to our good friendMichael Klarfeld.
His website is KLARADO x.de. That's claradox.de.
You can get maps like this one, like that one, like lots of
other ones. Peruse his website to see.
They're fantastic. There's really, they're really
unparalleled in my opinion, and you can get them for pretty

(01:51:55):
cheap. So check it out.
And until next time, on behalf of Ishaya, I'm Aziz Valar
Riridis.

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