The Killing of Kevan by Varys the Spider

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:51):
The end of A Dance with Dragons set a relaxed, if ominous tone,
culminating in a death that was quite sudden.
You might have expected a death,given the apparent pattern of
epilogues and prologues, but notonly was the murderous moment
masterful, it brought back a favorite who had been missing

(01:14):
one of the most interesting, exciting, mysterious and
dangerous and dynamic characterswhose presence was a huge part
of the early books we're talkingabout.
He came back to kill two membersof the Small Council in one room
in one evening pretty easily, with children doing much of the
work. I mean, you know you've been

(01:35):
outplayed when children are yourdownfall.
A man who himself used to be on the council, by the way.
His return itself should be perhaps the biggest news of all
the matter, most urgently in need of of a response.
This man has access to everyone in the castle via his knowledge
of the secrets of the Red Keep, meaning the tunnels secrets he

(01:58):
has been learning and hoarding for his long Game of Thrones.
Now in its final phase. Aegon is here.
He's landed Conquest 2 point O, sort of.
It's time to emerge from the shadows and pave the way for his
candidates in darkly effective ways like assassination, A
masterstroke. The killing of an enemy leader

(02:20):
in a manner that causes his own allies to turn on each other.
It's so perfect. Virus is just one of the best
written characters in my opinion, because super smart
characters are among the hardestto write.
I mean, how do you convincingly write someone that outsmarts
everybody? How do you convincingly craft a
character who comes off as capable of running circles

(02:41):
around the rest through cunning?One of the many twists here is
that no one knows this but us. Well, and Varis.
It's a whodunit to Cersei, Mace Tyrell, and so many others in
the Red Keep and eventually elsewhere once news spreads.
One that will have them at each other's throats in some cases.

(03:02):
Meanwhile, we know who it was, yet nobody suspects the Spider.
They probably should. Maybe they will eventually, but
it's not there yet, I don't think.
And it might not be there yet, ever.
There yet, ever. Well, anyway, we've got
parallels to Ned's execution, John's assassination, theories

(03:24):
on what Virus expects from all this, as in what this pull of
the trigger will trigger, and what else he'll do to follow it
up. I mean, who thinks Virus is
going to stop at just one, well,two murders, right?
I don't. You don't either.
Probably. No.
Indeed, virus is unleashed now. So we've got a lot of discussion

(03:49):
in that regard to come. All that and more on this
episode of History of Westeros podcast.
Hello and welcome, everybody. It's Another Fine Sunday where
we are talking about the last thing that happens in the

(04:09):
published material that we have.Yes, we've got a few T Wow
chapters. In fact, we'll briefly refer to
the Mercy chapter in this one because it does give us a clue
to what's happened after this. Only a little clue, but
definitely a little bit's there.But mostly, yeah, it's the last
event of the books, the reemergence of virus, and it's
just really cool, all the theories about him.

(04:30):
We've talked about this chapter before, of course, with Kevin.
We did a scripted episode just about this chapter.
But it wasn't about the focus onvirus.
It wasn't about what he expects,the coming engineered disputes
between Tyrell and and Lannister, which virus, you
know, doesn't have to do a wholelot to make that happen.

(04:51):
But he sure is going to push it because, you know, Cersei and
the Tyrells already don't like each other that much.
So we're here most Sundays at 3:00 PM Eastern doing live
streams. You can find our episodes
afterwards anytime on YouTube. But if you check on Spotify or
in any other podcast platform, you can find the edited versions
of these episodes. A little cleaned up, slightly

(05:14):
shorter, a few mistakes, ironed out, things like that.
They're not hugely different, but they're definitely sound
better. And the quality is, you know,
it's, it's worth it. So check that out if you prefer.
And if you listen on Patreon, though, it's ad free and you got
to pay to sign up for that. But we give you other benefits,
things to make it worthwhile, extra episodes, stuff like that.

(05:34):
Shout out to our good friend Nina.
Nina Krusling good. queenalley.tumblr.com is where
you can find her blog. And the latest post over there
is a question about the Green Grace and the marriage to his
DAR. Why did she push it?
What's her agenda? What's her connection to the
Harpy? You don't want to read that, but

(05:54):
once again, over at goodqueenalley.tumblr.com,
that's 1L in alley like Queen Alice Anne.
You can hit us up with questionseither live during the episode
or if you're catching it afterwards on one of those other
platforms. Or not live.
Just hit us up at westeroshistory@gmail.com or on
Blue Sky or any other way that you can find us, like our

(06:20):
Facebook group or Discord. Yeah, there's lots of ways to
reach us. Trivia question to get us
started. At the end of the episode, I
will give you the answer. Who in the Kevin epilogue twice
responds to the mention of Jon Connington with something like
if it is Connington. Yeah, answer at the end, like I
said, and during the episode I will give the clues in case you

(06:43):
don't recall. If you're listening closely,
you'll get the answer through context and subtlety.
Now I do love an alliterative title, The Killing of Kevin, but
this was really more properly anassassination.
It had a political motive, it wasn't personal.
And though while we shouldn't believe everything Varas says,
he flat out says this and it it is believable.

(07:04):
In this case, why would Varas have a major problem with Kevin
specifically? And why would he not tell him
that as he's killing him? If he wanted revenge and wanted
him to be, like, gloating, like,I got you, why wouldn't he say
that? So, yeah, I think we can believe
virus on this, at least. Maybe not everything he says.
Well, definitely not on everything he says.
But this one, Yeah. And what makes this chapter

(07:26):
particularly interesting, among many other things, is that Kevin
has a lot of insights on other people in this.
He's noticed things. He's like, well, there's this
about Cersei. There's this about Paicelle.
There's any insight on a person that Kevin has, you can be
nearly certain Varus has the same insight times 5 or times

(07:51):
10. He's way more insightful, has
been around a lot of these people a lot longer.
So it's almost like if Kevin hasa thought about someone, you can
assume Varus has had it too, butwith more nuance, more depth and
more understanding of how to usethat, how to manipulate the
person based on those things. So yeah, even though this is not

(08:12):
going to refer to the other two Wow chapters again, I want to
repeat the warning. A little bit of a mercy chapter
in here. Not very spoilery, but just in
case you're trying to avoid that, I'll make sure you know
when it's coming. Here are the names of the
sections in this episode. I'll give you an idea what's
coming. We've got set up the murder
motive, viruses, expectations. A few questions we're going to

(08:32):
ask we don't have the answers to, but they're great questions
for us to be thinking about. Then we're going to talk about
Pycelle and why Pycelle was partof this.
Why was Pycelle killed? Was he just gratuitous bonus
murder for virus, or was there more point to it?
Was it? Does this help his goals in some
other way? And then what's next?
As in how people are going to react, what they might do, what

(08:54):
Cersei might do, what Mace Tyrell might do, what other
houses may or may not do, both at court and outside a court out
in the realm. And then maybe we're going to
finish up with some who's next, as in who might virus take out
next, who might be a benefit forhim to murder.
And, and 'cause even more consternation among people who

(09:14):
are like, why are these people dying and, and what else virus
can do to, to pave the way for Aegon along these lines, while
people don't even realize he's paving the way for Aegon along
these lines. So yeah, as I said, we've
covered Kevin's epilogue before,but mostly we discussed the
various plot lines within it, which is almost literally all of

(09:35):
them. It's an amazing chapter.
It, it was almost like a recap. It was like a narration, a
summary of all the various plot lines without a narration,
because there's no narrator in this story.
So it it's a council session where as councils do they go
through things in detail on the next item for Up for Business,
Let's discuss that. And that serves as a reminder of

(09:57):
so many different things that are happening in the realm that
are relevant to us. So they're rulers.
They're going through the different political implications
of what's happening in each region, what they may or may not
need to do about it. Right.
And then he has dinner with Cersei.
He catches up with with her and catches us up with what's going
on with her and with Tommen and Tommen's cats, of course, very

(10:18):
important. And the faith comes up a few
other things. George just manages to mix it
all in there, framing it within the cold winds of winter, and it
ends with the undiscussed character of ours.
As I said in the intro, probablya bigger thing than anything
they discuss, and they discuss almost everything.
The one thing it's probably not bigger than is is winter, which,
as I said, frames the whole scene.

(10:40):
So yeah, they discuss all these very important things at
council, and the former counselor shows up to stir it
all up and shoot Kevin. He just, he's shot very suddenly
again, even if you felt like something was going to happen,
because again, it's an epilogue,the actual moment of him being
shot it, it's still pretty sudden.
It's still pretty surprising that it came in that moment, not

(11:02):
necessarily that it happened in general.
I mean, he's just like, yeah, Nina, the way Nina puts it, it's
like there's a lot of, it's likeminutes from a meeting, you
know, you're recapping all theseevents.
So it's almost mundane. It can't be quite mundane
because it's the Song of Ice andFire.
It's the last chapter. You know something's going to
happen, but the setting is stillrelatively mundane.

(11:24):
He's trying to make it seem mundane.
Even if you know the undertone is, something's going to happen,
something's going to happen. But Kevin doesn't know
something's going to happen. Paisel is, well, Paisel is a
little worried about being murdered, but not in the way
that it happens, which is kind of an irony, one of the many
ironies of this chapter. And it's not necessarily a

(11:44):
parallel in the moment, but if you're looking at the book as a
whole and the different ways thecertain plots play out, Jon
Snow's assassination wasn't longbefore this.
So you kind of have a parallel murder kind of to end this
section of the book or that thispart of the story, like 2
important deaths. Obviously Jon's is a lot more
important and it probably won't stick, but still, this one's

(12:07):
framed in the epilogue at the end.
So that gives it a little bit more of a boost because of its
placement right at the end, right?
It's such an important moment. The the climax of the book
itself, if not the most important plot, certainly the
moment, the ending. And what happens to Kevin when
this happen? When when he's shot, he's
confused at first he thinks of Tywin immediately because Tywin

(12:28):
was shot by a crossbow. Also.
Then he thinks of Tyrion becausethat's who killed Tywin.
And he's like, oh, is this? Who is that?
Who got me too. This is all happening in a split
second in his mind. And then he realizes, no, it's
none of that, because he sees his murderer.
He sees virus emerge. It's a man again, missing since
the end of A Storm of Swords. That's quite a while, right?

(12:50):
That's two whole books almost. He just appears right at the end
of the second book since he's disappeared, and it's the
longest book. A Dance with Dragons is longer
than A Storm of Swords by a little bit.
And he's returned at last. Virus has because Aegon has
landed a major topic of discussion in the council
session that the chapter begins with.
It demanded a lot of attention. This, this landing of John

(13:10):
Connington and Aegon, this who they're not even sure if that's
who that he really is and all that.
So as he's dying, Kevin's like, oh, this is more serious than we
thought. And Kevin was the one of the
ones taking it the most seriously, which is part of why
Virus kills him, right? Can't have the.
Can't have the competent guy making good suggestions that

(13:30):
make Virus's job harder. Yeah, a very powerful secret
ally. What a problem.
Kevin's like, oh, my gosh, Varisis on this guy's side.
Uh oh. But I'm dead now, so I can't do
anything about it. This is the beginning of a very
long plan coming to fruition. Kevin's death is like the
milestone of, hey, I'm no longerhiding in the shadows.

(13:52):
I'm no longer pretending to be this diplomatic man who's afraid
of blood. Oh, my.
I'm bleeding. I'm squeamish.
Varis is not that man. Here is what he says.
Here's the quote. When he comes out to take help,
his man take the throne at last.He stood in a pool of shadow by

(14:13):
a bookcase, plump, pale faced, round shouldered, clutching a
crossbow in soft powdered hands.Silk slippers swaddled his feet.
Varice the eunuch set the crossbow down.
Sir Kevin, forgive me if you can.
I bear you no ill will. This was not done from malice.

(14:36):
It was for the realm, for the children.
It's a ridiculous thing to ask forgiveness for.
Like, sorry, I just killed you. I mean, it's also a ridiculous
claim that it's for the children, even though I don't
necessarily doubt that Varus sincerely believes that.
But, I mean, he's got child slaves in the room with him
helping him do murders, and theyhave their tongues cut out.

(14:59):
Like, yeah, for the children. So yeah, Virus.
But Virus might also be genuinely sad that this great
new world he's building where the king will be just and kind
and and educated and proper and and all the things a king should
be. And there, everything's going to
be great. Sorry you can't live in that
world, Kevin. Virus respects competence, and

(15:20):
Kevin is competent, you know, but he's too competent.
What Varus doesn't need right now is competence from his
enemies. He needs chaos so that his
candidate can swoop in and restore stability.
The chaos is the thing that Varus is foisting on the realm
without their knowledge so that his guy can come in and save
them from it. And, and you can see why Varus

(15:41):
would actually feel a little sadabout this because most of his
career, 20 plus years, he's beenmaintaining stability.
He's been helping the realm staystable in order to prepare for
this, which involves creating chaos in order to then recreate
the stability that the realm desperately wants to regain.

(16:04):
Stability that Varus falsely helped create by keeping Robert
alive, by doing a lot of things that he doesn't actually want to
do, but they he needs to do in the long term.
Remember what he said to Illyria?
He's like, I don't want Lannister and Stark fighting
each other now. It's too soon now.
It's not too soon now. It's not Lannister and Stark,

(16:27):
it's Lannister and Tyrell. But same difference.
He needs the Great Houses at each other's throats, not united
against him. He needs them to be available to
join his side rather than entrenched against him.
Had Kevin come along earlier, hemight have even been someone
virus protected, kept alive likea Robert or a Ned Stark.

(16:49):
Someone he might have even founda place for in his new regime if
things have been differently. But instead, timing and
circumstances made him the perfect target.
The most competent are now the biggest targets.
If you're smart and good at whatyou do and you're a Lannister,
Virus might want to take you out.
And of course, Kevin is at the top of that pile.
He's the Hand of the King, or was.

(17:12):
So Virus wants Lannister and Tyrell to have the worst people
in charge. Putting Cersei in charge makes
sense. Mace is already in charge, so he
doesn't have to do as much work there.
He's like, that's perfect, all right, That guy's already in
charge, Job done. And he's really good at getting
people mad at each other, reallygood at stirring division

(17:32):
between allies and stirring greater division between already
existing rivals, which is kind of what the Tyrells and Cersei
already are. Like they were already held
together by tape with people like Tywin holding them together
through sheer strength and the, and the, the value of their
shared alliance of hey, you can,we need you, you need us.

(17:52):
We got to hold on to the throne.But if Cersei's in charge, and
now that she is, then that's notreally the way they're
operating. Cersei is operating on a much
lower level. She's operating on.
They're out to get me. I'm out to get them, win or die,
you know, very, very basic levelthinking.
She doesn't have the same discipline and and stomach for

(18:16):
making for keeping the Tyrells on her side.
She just thinks they're out to get her.
She's not entirely wrong, but she's certainly wrong about a
lot of the details. Kevin's also useful as a symbol
of authority. He's the most senior available
male Lannister. Natural choice for leadership in
a Lannister LED government just kind of fits, you know?
It's We in the real world know that's not a good way to decide

(18:38):
leadership, but we also know that it's how things are done in
this world and it and in the real world to a lesser extent
here they just, they're a lot more open with their nepotism
here. We have plenty of nepotism in
the real world, but here it's like, yes, of course we do.
Nepotism is normal. That's why would we not do
nepotism in the real world. We're like, I can think of a lot
of reasons why you shouldn't do that.

(18:59):
But here, yeah, it's completely normal.
So yeah, you don't, you can't have Tommen ruling.
He's too young. And obviously we know why they
don't want Cersei ruling and whyvirus does.
So you have to sift the good ones out and let the bad ones
rule. That's what Var is doing.
So Kevin dies slowly, right? He's dying like, oh, the blood's
running and rushing out of him. His, his.

(19:21):
He's got a minute left or so. And Var explains to him he's
like, yeah, I'm sorry I have to kill you.
So let me tell you why he says how Aegon has been shaped to
rule, how, Kevin, your death is actually going to help create a
better realm for the world. You know, don't feel too bad.
The world's going to be better because of your death.
You know, it's kind of ironic ina sense because George gave us

(19:44):
all this rundown of all the different plot lines through the
council session and through various discussions and and
context clues, So many things without narrating.
He told us all these things. Yeah.
Here Varas kind of narrates his plans to Kevin as he's dying.
Like this super special master of cunning.
He's like, you know what I've had to hide?
For two books worth of time. I'm a guy who likes to talk.

(20:06):
I love to gab. I'm Varis.
I'm good at it. You saw me.
It counts. I'm always the guy that steps in
to be diplomatic. I'm always the guy that assuages
people's anger. He's so good at that.
He's a talker. So, you know, a part of me
thinks this is a little bit of Varis being human here.

(20:26):
I think some people may be overthink this things like, oh,
Varis is he's lying. He someone else is listening.
Why else would he be talking? Why would he be saying his plans
where people could hear them? Is it the little birds are
listening? They're like, yeah, he's not
third level tricking his own slaves who he has total control
over. They can't communicate with
other people. They literally can't speak.

(20:47):
Like why is he need to trick hisown slaves?
That or he has full control over.
I don't think so. I think this is just, yeah,
George wanted to explain Virus'snarrative a bit, and there's
just no great way to do that given the POV structure.
So why not have Virus to say a few things out loud?
It's no big deal. The man likes to talk.
We don't need a reason. People say things out loud when

(21:08):
no one's listening all the time.Almost everybody talks to
themselves, some people more than others.
Virus may not seem like the kindof person that does that, but if
he's 1000% certain no one's listening and then who, then
there's no risk. Anyway.
That's a small point to get hungup on, but honestly, he might be
a little lonely. A guy who likes to talk.
He has no companionship, but he's a he's also an actor.

(21:29):
This is an actor. That's why everything he's done
before now, it's like, I see really that much of A
manipulator. Yes.
He's was pretending the whole time to be squeamish, to be
calm, to be soft. And all these things, the
powders and everything, it's allan image.

(21:50):
It's all cultivated. None of that's who he is.
This man is is dark. This man is capable of very evil
things and you can't put much past him.
Nothing is too low. He's been keeping this secret
for like 20 years or so, or roughly the the secret of this
egg on this whole plot. I mean, he's finally getting to

(22:12):
do it. It's finally out.
Like I would. I can understand why he might be
bursting with enthusiasm or, or the the present moment is so
exciting for him. He's like, yeah, we're finally
moving. We're finally doing this.
It's finally happening. We're finally bringing Aegon to
the front. I've been wanting to talk about
this for 20 years or 15 years. And finally it's happening.

(22:33):
Yeah, it, it is pretty exciting for him, I think.
And he doesn't have anyone to tell.
He's an actor and there's no audience, Right.
So, well, he can pretend he's ina book.
Wait, he is in a book? Hey, so we're the ones he's
performing for. Hey, that works out pretty well.
Let's go through the the detailsof the actual murder, the
murderer real quick. Like it was quick in the book

(22:56):
too, right? Memorable because it was at the
end and really sudden he's just standing there and it happens.
Well, let's let's back up a little, though.
First, he's talking to Pycelle. Or he's rather, he's talking to
not Pycelle but Swift and some other people, and a novice shows
up and says the following quote.My Lord, my lady, I'm sorry to

(23:17):
intrude, but there's a boy below.
Grandmaester Pycelle begs the favor of the Lord Region's
presence at once. Dark wings, dark words, Sir
Kevin thought. Could Storm's End have fallen?
Or might this be word from Bolton in the North?
It might be news of Jamie, the Queen said there was only one

(23:38):
way to know Sir Kevin Rose. Pray excuse me.
Before he took his leave, he dropped to 1 knee and kissed his
niece upon the hand. If her silent giant failed her,
it might be the last kiss she would ever know.
Got it backwards there, Kevin. That's the last kiss you ever

(23:59):
know. Yikes.
Yeah, of course he's referring to Sir.
She's pending trial by combat, where with Sir Gregor as her
champion. I don't know why the heck he's
worried about that. That dude's not losing in a
trial by combat. Undead monster George didn't set
that up for him to lose. Not the first fight anyway.
So yeah, that's pretty ironic. This chapter really has full of,

(24:20):
like, Red Wedding level foreshadowing that's super easy
to miss. We'll go over it in a little
more detail later, but this is agood example of that.
Like the last kiss she would ever know.
Whoops, Got yeah, got that backwards, bro.
So Vara sent this little bird the to the actual messenger Here
is not one of the little birds. It says my I'm sorry to intrude,
but there is a boy below. That boy is begging the favor.

(24:42):
That boy is a little bird. This was just some novice that
brought the message to to Kevin.So he's not involved.
He's just an unwitting messenger.
But the little boy outside supposedly sent by Paisel.
Paisel's already dead when this happens.
This message is is coming posthumously, but falsely as
well. Varus sent the message to this

(25:03):
little bird as if it was Pycel. The timing is diabolical too,
not just for the politics, whichof course is going to be a large
portion of this episode, but thestate of the castle is such that
he he was able to kill Virus andthen just sit there and wait
without. I mean, Virus was able to kill
Pycel and then just sit there and wait without worrying that

(25:23):
someone else would show up because it's freezing and it's
night. Everyone's huddled up by the
fire. There's a lot of subtlety in the
chapter that kind of hints at that.
And no one, everyone just going to their fire to stay warm for
the rest of the night. It's late.
It's the the day's over. Yeah.
No one's going anywhere. So it's pretty, pretty excellent
timing. It works out well.

(25:45):
And Kevin nicely tips an accomplice to his own murder
here. How nice of him.
Quote. The messenger was a boy of eight
or nine, so bundled up in fur heseemed a bear cub.
Trant had kept him waiting out on the drawbridge rather than
admit him into Magors. Go find a fire, lad, Sir, Kevin

(26:08):
told him, pressing a penny into his hand.
Yeah, who tips their own accomplished to their own
murder? Well, Kevin does.
That's what happened. Funny how Marin Trant had the
right idea. That's a little bird.
Don't let him in. That's one of ours's.
So Trant oddly smart here by by accident now He's not.
He does. He gets no credit for this.
He's just a curmudgeon and not avery good Kingsguard, but he

(26:30):
happened to be right. Stopped clock is right twice a
day kind of business here. And frankly, Marin Trant should
be on the lookout for young people who who are murderous
because he's on Aria's list. So yeah, Aria, Aria may not be
the one to kill Marin Trant in the books, but Marin Trant
should be worried about small people carrying thin swords.

(26:51):
And you can't keep all the little birds out.
Also something Aria would be familiar with when she returns
to the castle during Game of Thrones after crawling through
the tunnels. Remember the the guards are
like, you can't keep these thesescruffy little kids out.
Yep, indeed, that's why Varus makes use of them.
It's so perfect. So here we go.
Another little bird shows up with our next quote and she
opens the door for him and look how creepy she is.

(27:13):
You're probably not even catching how creepy she is
unless you're on the lookout forit.
But she's creepy quote. The door was opened by a serving
girl, a skinny thing in a fur lined robe, much too big for
her. SER Kevin stamped the snow off
his boots, removed his cloak, tossed it to her.
The Grand Maester is expecting me.

(27:34):
He announced. The girl nodded, solemn and
silent, and pointed to the steps.
Solemn and silent 'cause she hasno tongue.
Creepy. I feel bad calling a little girl
creepy. It's not her fault, like Virus
did this to her. She's a child slave trained
killer. I like.

(27:54):
No, that's creepy. Silent and solemn.
She's Children of the Corn. Yeah, in some ways she's like a
young unsullied, like the harsh,brutal training to make her into
a killer. Yeah, obedient, all that.
That's creepy. So he goes into the chamber.
He knows how cold it is immediately, which to him is a

(28:15):
little strange because he thinksimmediately that Paisa loves to
keep it quote uncomfortably hot.So it's like something's off,
but it's not something that's going to set off alarm bells.
He's like, oh, the windows open.OK, that's weird.
But if you parse it all together, the silence of the
children messengers, the coming of winter, the fact that this is
an epilogue, then this we have this comment about the a quarrel

(28:39):
that comes a little later. It's really funny.
There's a quote where Kevin saysI don't want Lannister and
Tyrell. The last thing we need is a
quarrel between the two. We actually have the quote
later, but it's like quarrel. He was shot by a quarrel.
And you could say, oh, come on, Aziz, quarrel.
That's maybe that's a reach. But look, y'all, there's like

(29:01):
1000 synonyms for a minor argument, quarrel, tiff,
disagreement, dispute argument. He chose quarrel out of all the
synonyms. So I don't know y'all, I think
that was on purpose. So again, Red Wedding level
foreshadowing where you might miss literally all of it, but
when you go back and look for it, there's like, holy crap,

(29:23):
that's a lot of foreshadowing. And, and you know, it's because
the story's so immersive. You can't stop every other
sentence and be like, what's going to happen?
Let me think about what's coming.
That's not really the most fun way to read a story, especially
not the first time. So it's not like we're supposed
to be catching all these things again.
George designed the book to be reread, and this is just another
example of that. You've got that.

(29:43):
You got examples of that in the very first prologue, and you've
got examples of it, examples of it here in the last epilogue.
So it is all in between, too, save the theorizing and thinking
and pouring over for after the read.
It's fun to be surprised, you know, let yourself be immersed
and then then come here to the podcast.
And yeah, yeah, that's how I do it, Even me.

(30:04):
So, yeah, winter had come for Paisel already.
He was already dead, and that's why it was cold.
A little symbology there, But also, yeah.
Varus opened the window 'cause as he explains, Paisel, you
know, relieved himself. His bowels emptied when he died,
A normal thing to happen. And it smelled bad, so far as
you know. Just I don't like the smell.
I'm opening the window. And Vara, of course, Kevin knows

(30:25):
none of this. It all happened so fast.
Varus explains it to him though,right after this quote.
Then something slammed him in the chest between the ribs, hard
as a giant's fist. It drove the breath from him and
sent him lurching backwards. The white Raven took to the air,

(30:45):
it's pale wings slapping him about the head.
That was rude of the bird. Like you just got shot by a
crossbow bolt and the raven's hitting you with his wings too.
That's just insult to injury. Quite literally to fatal injury.
Yeah. He, like I said before, he
thinks of Tywin, he thinks of Tyrion, he thinks of his own
wife. He's like, he's, he's like, oh,
he kind of realizes what's happening.

(31:06):
And he, he already is having thesorrow of what's going to happen
to my family. I'll never see my wife again.
All this stuff. It's pretty sad.
Even though most of us probably aren't particularly fans of
Kevin, but George is good at making us feel bad for people we
don't necessarily have feelings for because it's a very human
thing to be like, I'm never going to see my wife again.

(31:27):
Anyone can sympathize with that sentiment in a vacuum, right?
Forget the fact that Kevin is complicit in war crimes, even
war crimes by the standards of this time.
I'm not saying modern war crimes.
They would be certainly. But like, by the standards of
his time, they destroyed the Riverlands.
He he didn't bat an eye at that when when his brother ordered

(31:49):
him to do this. Like, yeah, all right, the
Riverlands will burn because youordered it anyway.
So Kevin didn't actually die from the cross the boat
immediately cause Varus ordered his little birds to finish him
off. Like, he whistled at them.
Like, like, again, these are nottreated like people.
He whistled at them. Like.
Yeah. And that line, that chat, that
line, the way George writes it. And in their hands, the daggers,

(32:10):
what a way to end the book. So there would be some stab
wounds alongside the bolting, which would be a little
different from Tywin. Tywin, there was no other wounds
necessary. Tywin died before Tyrion even
left the room. But I don't know that anyone's
going to take note of that. I mean, they're going to see the
stab wounds. And if you were to really think
about it, he'd be like, boy, is there, these stab wounds aren't
very deep as almost as someone not very strong did it.

(32:34):
You know, you might eventually think of children that's you
might take a while to think of children as you're like, who's
going to suspect children as themurderer?
I was like, that's got to be pretty far down any list of
suspects. But it might be curious that
these stab wounds were not like adult strength.
But who would be the one to figure that out?
The maester. The maester's going to be the

(32:54):
one to make that conclusion. So no, no worries there.
There's no doctor in the house anymore.
Bars took care of that. So when we talk about why Paisel
was included in the murder here,that's going to be part of it.
But surely that's not it. Surely that's not the only
reason. So let's start with motive.
We'll get to Paisel, but let's get to the more important
factors first. The heart of it all.

(33:16):
But why? Why is Vars doing this?
What does he help to accomplish with the assassination?
To answer that question, we'll start with what Virus himself
says quote. Your niece will think the
Tyrells had you murdered. Mayhaps with the connivance of
the Imp, the Tyrells will suspect her.
Someone, somewhere, will find a way to blame the Dornish men

(33:41):
doubt, division and mistrust will eat the very ground beneath
your boy king whilst Aegon raises his banner above Storm's
End and the Lords of the realm gather around him.
As if to help prove Varsh's belief that Searcy will blame
Tyrion, Kevin immediately thought of Tyrion when he was

(34:02):
shot. So even he thinks of Tyrion.
So it's like, yeah. And he's not going to be the
only one because Tyrion's name will be bandied about quite
often, and that will stick with a lot of people.
And of course, one of the loudest voices will be Cersei
herself. And a lot of people will believe
it just because Cersei says so. And it's not unreasonable given
what they know. Given what we know, it's silly.

(34:23):
Tyrion's way the heck over Enslavers Bay.
He's nowhere near here, but he does want to kill Cersei.
So I mean, he would shoot her ifhe could, probably.
So, you know, Yeah. And the trial by combat and his
escape, everybody knows Tyrion escaped justice, that he was
freed from the Red Keep. Everybody knows Tyrion shot

(34:43):
Tywin. So it's a pretty smooth play by
Varys to just remind people of that to help kick the ball off,
help get that ball rolling. As to blaming the wrong people,
it's pretty effective. And there's something in the
series Nina points out there's it's not the only time we have
specific weapons used to kind ofsend a message about the murder.

(35:06):
There's some clue there. That's in that's in the choice
of weapon is is relevant. The dragon bone hilt dagger is
kind of on along those lines. Varus also planted that coin in
the jailer's room. Right that Kyburn found a hidden
gold coin from the Reach, a gardener gold coin that Olenna

(35:29):
loves to give away. Everybody knows Olenna loves to
cheat the merchants by giving lighter weight gold coins.
And the. Lo and behold, one of those
exact coins was found in Rugen, the jailer's room.
What? Rugen, of course, is Boris, but
that's the same kind of tactic where he plants, it's not a

(35:51):
weapon, the coin, but it's the same kind of idea where he
plants something associated withOlenna to get someone who's not
that bright to think along theselines.
Like he knows, like a really intelligent person is going to
be thinking, yeah, what an obvious way to get me to think
it was Olenna by using this coin.
Like, it's kind of straightforward, like this is or
this. This looks like a way to get me

(36:12):
to think it was Olenna. Like someone smarter might be
wary of that, just like this would be a way to get me to
think it was Tyrion. But Cersei is on that level.
This works on her and it will work on a lot of people.
So and and Virus knows that. Not only does Virus understand
the way Cersei thinks because he's been around her a lot, he
has way more practice because hestarted with Aries.

(36:33):
I mean, this guy is the most practiced in being a counselor
to a a kind of psycho person that isn't super smart, but it's
very powerful and aggressive andviolent.
So, yeah, Aries, Cersei, we've been through the parallels
between them before. Virus is like, man, it's like
I'm a man of destiny here. It's like the gods gave me a, a

(36:54):
person that I know exactly how to manipulate.
I have so much practice with this.
It's like Cersei is perfect and Tyrion is the ultimate boogeyman
for virus because Cersei is the ultimate puppet to advance his
goals, even though she's not exactly a puppet figurehead
maybe is a better term. And it's kind of interesting to
think about that Tyrion becomingsuch a boogeyman.

(37:16):
And so many people think if Tyrion is a bad guy, so many
people think he's, you know, flouted justice, murdered his
own father. And they're right.
He did those things, but they don't understand the context.
But that wouldn't necessarily matter.
And, and the point here is Virusis recruited Tyrion and Illyrio
is recruited Tyrion to be on Danny's side.
So this is thinking very far ahead.

(37:38):
They've really wrecked Tyrion's reputation here.
How are they going to rehabilitate it when they, when
they bring Danny into the fold? Or is that not even going to
matter because Danny's not goingto dance to Virus's tune anyway
and neither will Tyrion. It's very interesting.
Basically, how can they leverageTyrion as an advisor for during
and have this bad reputation around when they're trying to

(38:01):
start a new regime? It's a, it's a missing piece for
me at this point. So a little more on that later.
Now we don't know. Virus doesn't want Tyrion to be
made into the villain. He just wants to use Tyrion, the
Kingslayer, the Kinslayer, whichwhich he's both already to
really stir the pot with Cersei here.

(38:23):
Maybe their plan is to get rid of Tyrion in the long run.
Maybe he's just a tool for them.They're going to kill him off.
And who would be the Lord of Castley Rock then for them?
Oh, well, Tie rack. The missing tie rack.
He's been missing for so long. What is that called?
We call that Chekhov's air. In this case, it's not Chekhov's

(38:44):
gun, it's Chekhov's Lion, Chekhov's tie rack.
You know, George RR Martin's tierack.
Anyway, that might be the play here.
They're making Tyrion into a villain to make use of this
villainy. And then as soon as that
villainy has been used, then they toss them aside like they
do with a lot of their propped up villains.
You know, like Cersei herself. Now the irony might be that

(39:07):
Tyrion really does go more villainous and is too villainous
and shuts their whole plan down.He's a becomes a big part in
ruining the Aegon plan that withDanny alongside or leading the
charge thanks to his advice. Or who knows.
Tyrion's the one that's figured it out though.
Danny's got some advance warningthrough the House of the
Undying, you know, a cloth dragon on poles and all that.

(39:27):
But she may not figure that out right away.
Either way, it's another good example of Virus's plans being
too big for even someone smart as him.
He's so cunning, so patient, so disciplined, so thoughtful.
But this is too big for even him.
Like this is this is the equivalent of prophecy, the
sword without a hilt. Virus is trying to rule a

(39:51):
Kingdom, trying to manipulate anentire Kingdom of the entire
nobility. It's too much even for him and
his candidate isn't what he thinks he is.
So he may have gone too far withTyrion.
He may have made Tyrion into toomuch of A villain, one that can
turn around and burn him and maybe literally with with dragon
fire. In some ways, Cersei is a very
easy mark because she's so paranoid.

(40:13):
Again, that's like perfect for him.
So but he's got another one. He needs to, he needs to be
careful with her. He he, he wants her to go
against the Tyrells. He wants the Tyrells to go
against her, but I'm not sure hewants full blown war between
them. He just doesn't want them to to.
Face the new danger together. He doesn't want Tyrell and
Lannister united against Aegon. They don't have to go to war

(40:35):
against each other. Although maybe that's better for
him. I'm not 100% sure on how I feel
about that. I haven't.
I haven't rest landed on a conclusion with that.
I'm just very sure that virus doesn't want them working
together. That's the most important thing.
Maybe anything else beyond that is gravy.
Virus obviously doesn't know about Maggie the Frog
prophecies, which is another interesting wrinkle here.

(40:56):
Well, he probably doesn't know about that.
I don't know how he would have figured that out or learned
about that, but it's definitely a wrinkle.
Like, Cersei is even more paranoid about this than even
than even Virus can know. He knows she's paranoid, she
wears that on her sleeve, but hedoesn't know it.
It's supernaturally fueled on top of that.
Like, whoa, now, Maggie didn't prophecy that Kevin would die,

(41:21):
but it's certainly a reminder. It's certainly going to make her
feel more anxious. She's like, yeah, it's
prophesied that my children willdie, and one of them already
has. And, you know, the others aren't
necessarily safe. So yeah, her closest relative
besides her children being killed in the capital is a

(41:44):
pretty big reminder that she's not safe, that maybe she's
living on borrowed time, and that a person like her won't
just relax and deal with that, she's going to lash out, which
is what he wants. And Nina smartly points out as
well that Virus is benefiting from the heightened air of
suspicion around court in general.
Virus didn't engineer the Orane Waters situation, we don't

(42:05):
think, which is, again, Orane Waters running off with Searcy's
new warships. Searcy commissioned 10 Droman's
big ass warships and Orane just ran off with them.
He stole them. He's probably in the step stones
now. And yeah, we can be reasonably
certain virus have nothing to dowith that.
But Cersei doesn't know that. Cersei is going to be like, OK,

(42:29):
who did that? Who is he with?
Is he with the Tyrells? If she eventually lands her
suspicion on virus, then maybe she'll think he did that, which
he didn't. So he's she'll.
He's just going to be all mixed up.
She's got no idea where to assign blame for all these
various things that are happening, some of which aren't
really happening. They're just a product of her
mind. And if you're a regular listener

(42:51):
or knowledgeable about A Song ofIce and Fire in general, you,
you are aware that Aegon is not as perfect as Var as Stinks.
This is a big thing that I was saying a moment ago about this,
and we come back to it. He's not as humble or decent as
Var as Stinks. He's not as untested in power.
That's a big one. How does any person, especially
a young person, respond to beinggiven lots and lots of power?

(43:13):
Some of them, they just turn into idiots.
They just turn into they get drunk with power off with their
heads. You know, I can do what I want.
I'm the King Joffrey type stuff,right?
I'm not saying Aegon is Joffrey,but power could go to his head
too. He might not be a sadist with
it, but he could do stupid things, stupid, greedy things,

(43:33):
stupid boyish things. So that's a lot of power to give
to somebody. Look how many people out in the
real world, you, they win the lottery and they blow it.
They spend it all within, you know, a few weeks or something
instead of allowing that to be life changing money for them and
and like invest it and have thatsomething that's a part of them
for, for the rest of their life,if not for their family, for

(43:57):
generations. Nah Nah, people just can't
handle themselves when they're handed so much at once.
Not everyone obviously, but that's the point here.
We don't know whether Aegon can handle it or not.
And I don't think it's been partof his education as much as
Virus and Illyrio think he's humble cause of the fear he's
experienced and all these other things.
He hasn't gone through this. He hasn't been confronted with

(44:21):
the throne, the ability to do what he wants.
Or like Aryan, like he we haven't seen how he reacts to
like hot girl wants him. What's he going to do about
that? Is he going to just stop
listening to his advisors cause of what Aryan wants 'cause she's
hotter maybe, right? Virus has doesn't have a clue
about these things. Virus hasn't had a lot of

(44:44):
personal relationships in his own life.
It's a blind spot for him. He he understands how it affects
other people, but he might not understand how it could affect
his own candidate. It's pretty interesting.
Now, wouldn't it also be a huge irony if Aegon actually did turn
out to be paranoid, like like Cersei or or Aries?
Maybe not quite to that degree, but like, again, what is it?
What is it with these paranoid people?

(45:05):
Virus just keeps running into them as another point to take it
back even farther, Nina writes. It doesn't even necessarily
matter how good a Prince or a king Aegon turns out to be.
You can't fabricate a hero. You can't fabricate the stories
hero or a hero in general. He can educate him.
You can train him and all the things that he thinks he's done
that Daenerys has actually done.Daenerys has actually escaped

(45:25):
death many times. Daenerys has actually ruled a
city already. Daenerys, there were several.
Daenerys has already been testedin power.
Daenerys has already been testedin love.
She's had stupid relationships, infatuations that that a lot of
us have when we're a teenager that you probably regret later.
The later hasn't come for Danny yet.
She's still a teenager. But like Khal Drogo, that wasn't

(45:47):
a good relationship, you know? But she loved him.
She was in completely smitten, you know, Dario, bad, bad, bad
idea. But that's the point.
She realized that she's like, yeah, Dario, like she went
through it with Daria. And she's already realizing,
yeah, this is not, this is not agood idea for the long term.
Is will Aegon have that same realization about Aryan, if

(46:10):
assuming that's what happens, orabout just someone else?
Will he find his navigate his way through the pitfalls of
being a teenager, you know, likeDanny already has?
I don't know. I don't think so.
I think that's kind of what George is aiming to show us,
that you cannot create this. You cannot fabricate this

(46:30):
identity, which in a way makes the murder of Kevin unnecessary
and pointless. You don't.
None of this, even none of this is going to work, Varis.
You don't have to stir up the Lannisters and the Tyrells.
Your king is not going to king. He's going to do something else.
He's going to be Aegon. He's going to lead from the
front because he wants to. Even though that's a bad idea
for your plan, that's what he wants to do.

(46:53):
The puppet won't puppet, right? He's got his own plans and
schemes. And yeah, but that makes if if
killing Kevin is unnecessary andpointless because this whole
thing won't work, well, then Virus's whole career is
pointless by that logic. Like none of this whole 20 year
plan, it was never going to work.

(47:13):
So Cersei may not be a victim ofall this, but well, her power,
yeah, she's a victim of it in that sense, but not her life.
Meaning she's not going to get killed because of Virus's plan,
because she's the perfect one toto be the the spearhead here.
The other wrinkle with the Valancar here is that she thinks
Tyrion's going to kill her. She thinks the Valancar is going

(47:35):
to kill her and she thinks that's Tyrion.
Now we, we the royal, we many ofus, not all of us, most of us
think that that's Jamie, but that's the little brother that's
going to kill her. But again, virus doesn't know
that either. So this is a kind of an
interesting wrinkle. He's not aware of that the true
fear. Yes, he knows she fears Tyrion,
but he doesn't know just how bigshe's going to blame everything
on that. I wonder if that's ever going to
come out. That would be a weird thing for

(47:56):
Virus because given his anti magic stance.
Like she believes in a prophecy.Huh, interesting.
I don't know what he would do with that information.
It's be very curious. Anyway, this is certainly not
all about Cersei. Even though she is kind of the
lynchpin, even though she's a spearhead, we do have to look at
it from the other direction and then a few other directions.
There's lots of directions here,but mostly it's the Tyrells that

(48:17):
is are the the other big piece here since they're the other
great house being misled into fighting their own allies.
Now, as Vara said in the quote, Cersei will blame the Tyrells
with the connivance of the Imp, and the Tyrells will think she
did it. Why will the Tyrells think she
did it? Well, to start, they know they

(48:37):
didn't do it. So there's that immediately
reduces the amount of candidatesand Cersei benefits very clearly
more so than anyone. It's revenge on someone who put
her in the position she's in. For one thing, they can look at
it that way. The Tyrells can say, OK, so
Kevin had a little something to do with the walk.
They don't know. Cersei knows that, which she

(48:58):
actually doesn't know that, but they might think she knows that,
and she might. They might think, you know,
maybe she figured out that Kevinhad something to do with that
walk and she wanted him dead because of that.
Or set that aside. We don't even need that reason.
It just might help the the regaining of power is the huge
obvious factor here. No one's going to put that past
Cersei. Cersei would kill her own uncle

(49:21):
to get power. Yeah, of course she would.
No one's going to say Cersei would never do that.
Of course she would. Of course she would.
So in a sense the gain to Cerseiis so obvious that she
immediately has the the shacklestaken off of her and regains the
Regency effectively that even Cersei might realize that that's
why they would blame her for even her who is bad at smelling

(49:45):
her own BS. She might actually have that
revelation and you know, something like this.
So she's thinking, you know, I can see why they think I killed
Kevin given how much I benefitedfrom it, but maybe maybe even
not that maybe she won't realizethat she'll I think she'll
mostly just be focused on them like, oh, they did it.

(50:05):
I got to get them. That'll probably be her burning
question, which is a little bit of a similar angle here, because
she knows her children are are are in danger.
And that's the number one thing Mace is worried about.
Kevin thinks about it multiple times, that he's got blinders
on, that Mace has blinders on, that he's very focused on the

(50:26):
threat to Marjorie, the trial. That's why he brought his army
to King's Landing, because he's worried about what happens if
she loses the trial. Everybody doesn't want to say
the unspoken that, OK, if you'reso concerned or so sure of your
daughter's innocence, then why did you bring an army to King's
Landing? And Randall Tarley has an army
there, too, which there's a wrinkle to that we'll get to

(50:46):
later, because Mace obviously assumes Randall's on his side,
but he maybe shouldn't. So the Tyrells, again, though
it's less of a complaint. They're not quite as worked up
as she is because Cersei's worked up in part because of the
Valancar, because she's already a naturally paranoid person, and
because the murdered person was a Lannister.
Like, they, the Tyrells, can't be as upset as Cersei because it

(51:10):
wasn't one of their family members killed, right?
So she has more reason to be amped up, and she is more easily
amped up. So it's kind of a double whammy.
But of course, the Tyrells is still suspicious.
They still will be like, well, if she's willing to do that,
what else will she do? Kevin wasn't even like connected
to them by marriage. They just probably semi
respected him because, well, he wasn't Cersei and he was

(51:32):
competent and all this and wasn't as overbearing as Tywin.
I I kind of feel like they probably got along decently.
Kevin was was doing a good job. I mean, that's the point, right?
And there's the so here's the friends in the reach angle here.
This is kind of what I was saying with Randall Tarley.
There are those who are already Aegon's allies or who plan to
be. Maybe some of them haven't
decided yet or they're going to switch as soon as they get the

(51:55):
opportunity. This is going to hearten their
'cause they're going to be like,oh, Kevin was murdered and now
the Tyrells and, and Lannisters are at each other's throats.
Morale. That's what that does for their
'cause they're already worried. They're anxious.
OK, we're we're supporting a secret candidate who's landing
in the east. We've never met this guy.
We don't know much about him. This is a pretty big risk we're

(52:16):
taking. But if they see but then things
have really started to go their way though Tywin dies now, Kevin
dies, Lannister and Tyrell startto go at it.
That's great for them. They're like, all righty things
are going our way. This just gives them motivation.
I didn't think Virus knows that.He's like, we got to give, we
got to throw some bones to our erstwhile allies.
So they know things are going well.
They need to see progress. Otherwise they could just back

(52:39):
out. They haven't declared
themselves. They aren't implicated.
It's not past the point in no return.
And if things are going badly, they might do the worst and and
flip to our enemy, right? That's what Virus, that's the
worst case scenario is Virus does some stuff and the people
he was hoping to stay keep neutral or even on his side

(53:01):
actually fight against him. So that's his concern, but it
shouldn't be much of A concern because everything's going so
well for him. I think the friends in the Reach
will respond to this with gusto.They're thinking, yes, things
are going great, Varis is good at this, and they're seeing it,
even if they don't know Varis isdoing it.
Even if they don't know Varis isthe man who arranged all this.

(53:23):
But surely they have to have some involvement here, like who
reached out to these friends in the Reach in the 1st place?
Who arranged these negotiations?Where, how?
How did John Connington connect to these houses in the Reach
while he was in Essos? Varis, it's all running through
him, not directly through his agents, through people and
maybe, well, step back sometimesdirectly, but sometimes through

(53:48):
his agents. And we don't even know who some
of these agents are, whether they're little birds, probably
not. We're talking about like people
that could speak and negotiate and bribe the people who Viruses
has working for him, if not him directly.
So he's connected to all this. They know.
And that's probably a good thingfor most of them.
You know, Connington doesn't like Virus, but he has to

(54:10):
respect how good the man has been at doing all this.
He has to respect the game. Virus's game is incredible.
It's, it's almost Immaculate. And even if Connington can't
fully appreciate it because he'snot smart enough to realize all
the smart things, all the cleverthings Virus has done, if he's
too busy being turned off by himbeing a eunuch and disliking him

(54:30):
for his prejudices, he has to realize what a good plan all
this was. Even if, even if ultimately I
think it's going to fail, it's just so many things were done so
well. So yeah, I think that's a big
deal. So let's talk about Virus's
expectations and how this relates to kind of how he's

(54:51):
often run a lot of his game. If we look back on Virus's
career along with Illyrio, the way they ran their game back in
Essos, it was basically steal things and then sell them back,
or steal things from the Thebes and sell them back to the
original owners, or profit from secrets or a combination of the
above. That was their game.

(55:12):
They evolved to be able to do all those things depending on
the scenario. This is very similar to what
they're doing here. He's using kind of all that
knowledge for this culminative long Game of Thrones.
As I said at the beginning, steal stability from the realm,
sell it back from a profit, and don't let anyone know that

(55:33):
you're the one who stole it, of course, because then the whole
thing falls apart. So the irony here is that is
another example of Virus biting off more than he can chew, but
in this case, without knowing it, like he OK, so he doesn't
know necessarily there's things he hasn't considered or prepared
for with regards to Aegon and what kind of man he might turn
into, but he's also giving Aegonway more responsibility than you

(55:57):
realize. Do you really want to take the
throne and be in charge of it atthe moment the others invade?
Is that really the best time to be in charge?
Like, yo, that's your responsibility now.
You just took the throne, That'syour problem.
Sorry if you had just waited a few months, maybe take the
throne from somebody else after this other thing plays itself

(56:17):
out. But sorry, you're the king now.
This is your problem. That's the worst time to swoop
in and rescue the realm. Oh, civil strike between
Lannister and Tyrell, We'll solve that.
Wait, there's also the unkillable ice monsters in the
armies of the undead. You got to solve that one too,
bro. Yeah, and Virus wants you to
marry a woman with an army of Dothraki, who I'm sure will

(56:40):
adjust well to Westeros and viceversa.
There will be no cultural friction whatsoever between the
Dothraki and the regular Westerosi, right?
No, none of that's going to. They'll they'll get along
swimmingly. They'll get along as well as the
Dothraki. Love the poison water.
And there's also Euron Stannis Grayscale from his own father

(57:01):
figure. Like Virus didn't plan for that.
And I mean, obviously Aegon's father figure, not Virus's
father figure. But like, there's there's a lot
of unknowns here, a lot of responsibility that Aegon will
have to be in charge of given his positioning himself as the
monarch. Like, well, yeah, this is now
your responsibility. So there's there's a lot of
instability here. This could sink the ship before

(57:22):
he has a chance to ride it. If I can use a, a nautical
metaphor like that Virus's game is rock the boat and then bring
in a new captain who can keep the boat stable.
Well, what happens if the boat is too unstable and sinks before
you can write it and your your new captain sinks with it?
They've given him too much. The chaos is too chaotic.

(57:43):
Yeah. There's too many waves coming to
rock this boat that they didn't see.
Yeah. If I can just continue with the
metaphors now. Yeah.
Returning to Cersei here and allthe clues that were given, it's
pretty neat. Yes, it's easy to steal
stability and steal it back whenCersei already has so much
antagonism for the Tyrells. Just Cersei and power in general

(58:05):
is a good way to be like this isa problem, we'll help you solve
it. She is instability, she is
chaos. But again, George RR Martin is
nothing if not nuanced. Cersei has her Nirvana moments
and I mean Nirvana the band, notNirvana the like concept of
enlightenment. Cause Cersei is very far from
enlightenment obviously, and I mean that from the what is that

(58:28):
Nirvana song? Is it territorial pissings?
I forget it's it's the the line is just because she's paranoid
don't mean they're not after her.
That's not the exact line. He he doesn't call himself she
Kurt Cobain. But anyway, here is Kevin
thinking along those same lines.Quote.
Kevin Lannister was beginning tounderstand why Cersei had grown

(58:52):
so resentful of the Tyrells, butthis was not the moment to
provoke an open quarrel. An open quarrel.
See, There's the joke. Varus disagrees with this
conclusion by Kevin, and he willuse a quarrel to provoke it.
He will provoke an open quarrel with a quarrel.

(59:12):
That song is from Territorial Pissings.
It is also, of course, from Catch 22.
Right Catch, which I have read along time ago.
Great book, kind of forgot aboutit really.
Fun than we are Joseph Heller fans.
True, more recent Nirvana and and more repetitive, more
repeated. I heard that song many times.
I only read Catch 22 once, so let's get a little more specific

(59:33):
here. Cersei and the Tyrells, What
does that look like? How would virus take advantage
of it? Let's get let's, let's try for
some details here. Again, to repeat.
The most important thing for himis that they don't team up
against Aegon. That's number one.
He might even if things go well enough, win the Tyrell's over to
his side. They, it's not like they have a
child with a Lannister yet They aren't permanently tied in that

(59:55):
sense. Now, I don't know if that's what
virus is thinking in terms of you can't have Marjorie, Mary
Aegon. That's not really the plan.
They want Daenerys for that, Butmaybe that's a fall back plan.
I don't know. It's possible either way.
The Tyrells are not in the same situation as the Lannisters.
The Lannisters are just an enemy.
There's no way around that. And it's hard to, at least

(01:00:17):
currently, they're, they're the faction that has to fall by the
wayside. They're part of the part of the
problem that Aegon is offering the solution to.
The Tyrells maybe don't have to be part of that.
As long as they're not fighting,as long as they're not
antagonistic against Aegon, all is fine there.
And there's a lot the Tyrells may have to deal with that just
keeps them off the board with certain maneuvering or certain

(01:00:39):
other events. They might just be like, all
right, the Leinisters are out, we're not helping them anymore,
and we have our own problems now.
Old Town is overrun with Ironborn.
The Shield Islands already is overrun with Ironborn.
Old Town could have that happen too, and other things could
happen again. What about grayscale?
What if that just rampages through the Reach or something
like that? Like there's lots of things that

(01:01:00):
could just take them off the board or force them to look
inwardly rather than helping to fight against Aegon.
Will Cersei strike directly at Mace Tyrell you wonder?
I don't think Virus wants that because, well, Mace is a bad
leader. But maybe someone else taking

(01:01:22):
Mace's place wouldn't be so bad from his perspective.
Would that be Willis Tyrell? Well, Willis isn't exactly
experienced. He doesn't have much knowledge
of even what's happening. Probably he's sitting back at
Highgard and learning how to race horses and Falcon.
I don't know that he's politically minded.
So that might be good for from Virus's perspective, if the calm

(01:01:46):
and unwarlike Willis Tyrell becomes Lord of Highgard and he
has a a less ambitious approach.He's more looking ahead to make
sure his house survives, to makesure there's peace.
He doesn't. He doesn't have maces.
We have to be on the throne. Ambition all behind closed
doors, Olenna could be pushing in One Direction or another and

(01:02:07):
I don't think she's excited about them trying to take the
throne. I don't think she wanted that.
She definitely said that was more of a Mace and his puff fish
attitude so yeah. But again, let me remind you all
what I said before that mace's focus yes, it's the throne, but
it's Marjorie. She is their key to the throne.

(01:02:28):
She is their Princess, she is the queen.
So without her, yes, it's also his daughter.
So presumably some of it is his fatherly love, but mostly it's
his ambition. Without her, they don't have
that. They don't have the the conduit
to the throne anymore. So he's really focused on the
threat to her above all else. That's super important.

(01:02:48):
So Mace's realizes that Cersei wants Marjorie to lose the trial
and Cersei thinks Mace wants to kill her or and or is working
with Tyrion. Any of this could lead to
violence in the halls of the RedKeep.
Not something I would confidently predict, but we have

(01:03:09):
to consider that Cersei might just unleash the mountain.
Not just like go kill everyone you can, but make an example of
somebody. Show people what he can do.
Maybe the trial by combat will be sufficient for that.
But Cersei might want to show people that she's willing to use
him outside of a trial scenario to say, hey, look, I'm willing

(01:03:29):
to have someone killed right here in the throne room to show
you. I'm willing to do it.
I dare you to to speak up against me.
Or you're facing the silent giant again, right?
So I think a lot of people just be like, whatever you say,
Cersei. And she might be ruling more
directly with, like a mafia bosswith, you know, her number one

(01:03:52):
unkillable thug at her side at all times.
And she might have her hands full with the highsparrow as
well. That's a whole nother wrinkle in
this scenario. I don't know what kind of
involvement or inducements Varushas with the highsparrow, if he
helped at all, or if he will help, or if he'll feed him
information, or if he'll try to steer the highsparrow One
Direction or another. Varus doesn't want Aegon to have

(01:04:13):
to deal with that either. He wants that to be taken care
of, or at least not a problem. Ideally, the highsparrow
supports Aegon. I don't know if Virus will
maneuver towards that end or what he's considered with that.
But yeah, there's a lot of things that could happen.
We could have the faith in the Red Keep.

(01:04:36):
We could have Robert Strong killing people in the Red Keep.
We could have Tyrell's killing Lannisters in the Red Keep.
Yeah, and that would be a sure sign that Virus is getting
exactly what he wants. If there's fighting in the halls
of the Red Keep between Lannister and Tyrell, he could
steeple his fingers and laugh evilly and say, perfect.

(01:05:01):
And this is kind of like what happened when Robert died,
right? When Robert Baratheon died,
there was fighting in the halls of the Red Keep.
Ned thought he had the the city watch on his side.
Didn't work out. And let me remind you all, Vars
thought he had a lot of that in hand.
He thought he had come up with the right solution.
He's like, OK, here's how we're going to minimize the damage.

(01:05:23):
We're going to send Ned Stark tothe Wall so that he's not dead,
so that the Starks will be mad, but they won't be out for blood.
They won't be a vendetta. It mitigates the problem here.
But puppet's going to puppet. What does Joffrey do?
He's like off with his head, right?
Varsh didn't see that coming. Varsh didn't expect it,
definitely didn't want it. Cersei didn't want it.

(01:05:47):
So I think that's a clue to whatwe've been saying all along
here, is that all of Vars's smart plans, there's just so
many things he can't control, somany things that could go wrong
based on just something like that.
Just teenage boy wanted to show off for the crowd.
Teenage boy wanted to show off for his new hot girlfriend Aryan
maybe, or wanted to show off forI don't know who, but just show

(01:06:08):
off. He's that's teenagers do,
especially when they have a lot to show off.
So yeah, lots of really interesting unknowns here.
The High Sparrow, Aryan and the Dornish.
What exactly Mason Searcy might do to in response to all this?
Furthermore, there's more to it.Right the line.

(01:06:29):
Someone, somewhere will blame the Darnishman is what Vara says
there too. That's a clue we should be
thinking about beyond Lannister and Tyrell.
Of course, we were going to do that anyway.
But here's the next step. The Darnishman.
And it's also an A thought exercise in what Varus is doing
here. Varus knows that people will
blame the Dornishman because they always get scapegoated.
And he knows he's smart enough to realize that.

(01:06:50):
Yeah, the Dornishman always get blamed when murder is involved,
right. Or because of what Oberyn
screamed in front of everybody. Just.
Yeah, people just are prejudice against the Dornish.
And there's recent things that have happened there.
Dorn is in a little bit unstableright now too.
So it's a bit of a domino effect, but this is one of the

(01:07:10):
largest dominoes to fall after Lannister and Tyrell.
And by fall, I mean take sides. And by take sides, I'm entirely
sure whose side. But obviously Aegon wants the
Dornish on his side. Varus wants the Dornish to to
support him. And, and that's a big one for
the faction that's trying to restore the Targaryens who had

(01:07:31):
the Dornish on their side when they fell.
Rhaegar was married to Ilia, that's who.
His children with her were half Dornish, so bringing them back
into the full makes a lot of sense.
And of course, once these great houses start to make their
decisions, the lesser houses will feel safe making their
choices, usually just following along with their Liege Lord.
It might get tricky in some places, but then comes the next

(01:07:55):
question. How in turn will Varus take
advantage of all that? Yeah, good question, huh?
Let's return shortly with more discussion of just that magic.
Mine has a new variant on their excellent beverage, and it's no
longer a beverage. Well, you can still get it as a

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I love gummies. I'm a gummy fan.
I eat gummies of other kinds sometimes.
These, however, are for kids andadults 8 and up.
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I'm going to eat one right now. They're very tasty.
Green apple flavor. I love green apple and yeah, 1g

(01:08:40):
of sugar, 0 caffeine, which is why I assume they're safe for
children. I'm not a doctor.
I can't say why, but that's whatthis says here.
And all the same ingredients that we've described in detail
in the past that are in the beverage are here.
And it just might be a preferential, preferred way to
take it rather than a drink. A gummy tastes a little.

(01:09:03):
Personally, I think it tastes better than the drink.
I like the drink, but. I like the drink more, but I
also like the gummy tastes. It reminds me of the fruit
snacks from when I was a little kid.
They are like the little fruit snacks.
You're right. Because my, my parents were
hippies. So they would give me like the
dried fruit snacks, you know, like they gave me a certain kind
of fruit candy. It's like this.
Yeah, it does have that. It does kind of have that

(01:09:24):
flavor. It's a little more like, doesn't
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Yeah, you're right. It tastes like a dried apple.
Very true. So to celebrate the launch of
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(01:09:47):
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(01:10:08):
It's been been great for us and I think it'd be great for you
all as well. Let's talk briefly about the men
who are not in charge. We're continuing our discussion
about what war in the River Landor war in the Red Keep might
look like a fighting in the hallways.
Well, that tone is set at the beginning of the chapter.

(01:10:28):
So by the end of the chapter, Kevin's dead and all these
things have come out about what Vars is going to do.
But the beginning of the chapter, again, looking at it on
a reread, you see just how set up this is a factor that must be
must be considered is all these soldiers that are just hanging
out there quote. Randall Tarley and Mace Tyrell
had both brought armies to King's Landing, whilst the best

(01:10:49):
part of the strength of House Lannister remained in the
Riverlands, fast melting away. So it doesn't need to be a full
blown war like I said earlier for Varus to get what he needs,
although that might be good for him.
But at this stage, it doesn't look like it would be a very one
side or two sided affair. It looks like it would be
unbound. It looks like if war broke out

(01:11:10):
suddenly here, the Lancers wouldbe wiped out.
They have an army, but it's nowhere nearby.
They would have to retake the city or regroup or something.
Because right now, Maze Tyrell'sgot his army right there.
And if he wants to make a show of it or go full blown war, he
can do that again. Let's return to the the the
wrinkle here though, of Randall Tarley.

(01:11:30):
What is Randall Tarley going to do?
Is he a friend in the reach? Is he going to turn on Mace?
In that case, Mace Tyrell would would lose badly because he
would be caught off guard very unprepared.
The Tarly men would be ready. And presumably this could be a
direct route for Aegon to take the throne.
If Randall Tarley is a friend toAegon and Varys and he stabs

(01:11:54):
Mace's army in the back while they're trying to take King's
Landing or defend Marjorie or something along those lines,
they won't see it coming. And then the path is open.
They've got a friendly army holding the capital for them.
They can March in victorious andbe like, here's your throne,
Sir. We, we took it for you already.
So that maybe could work out great for Varus if that's the

(01:12:16):
play. Because yes, he's like, well,
there's a Tyrell army here and we got to worry about that.
But there's no Lannister army nearby.
And the Lannisters are the ones who were the bigger problem,
right? And, well, what if he doesn't
even need to bring his army inside?
He doesn't necessarily have to, because he's got the Gold
Cloaks. Most of them.
It's not like Littlefinger having full control, having

(01:12:37):
bribed their commander. I don't think it's reached that
level, although maybe it has. Kevin thinks during this chapter
how Mace has been kind of a jerkabout it.
He keeps putting Richmond in theCity Watch without putting
Westerman in. He's like he, he thinks, without

(01:12:57):
the balancing infusion of Westerman.
So it's very green. Gold cloaks, shall we say.
The gold cloaks should be western, right?
They're gold cloaks, but no, they're green.
They're turning green like the Tyrells.
The Gold rose is a gold cloak. So that is maybe all Mace needs
is just to control the Gold cloaks.
It's like 2000, dudes. And there's certainly no bigger

(01:13:21):
force inside the city walls. And the only big force outside
the city walls is, is his army and and Randall's army.
So Mace has reasons to feel confident here.
He has all, he's holding a lot of cards at the table there, a
lot of power. And that's just going to make
Cersei even more paranoid, even more worried, even more try even
more desperate to change the situation so that the odds

(01:13:43):
aren't so stacked against her. But it's not like the Tyrells
can just attack the Lannisters and take them off the throne
either. It's not quite that simple.
They kind of the tight rolls kind of need the Lannisters to
hold the throne. So it's it's very it's a
tightrope walk for both of them and Virus knows that.
Now what about Arianne here again, I'm bringing her back

(01:14:05):
into this. This is this is another funny
wrinkle because Virus might not like this.
You may not see it coming again.If he wants her to marry Danny
or him to marry Danny, then Arianne could really throw a
monkey wrench in that. Like, if Aegon falls for
Arianne, it'll be too late, right?
Unless she dies. But how are you going to take

(01:14:29):
that risk? He his first love, he falls for
her. He's infatuated in love with
Ariana, and then she dies. He might be bereft, he might be
depressed. He might be not willing to marry
anybody. He's shown that he has a spine
of his own. He's not just going to do what
he's told. So yeah, this could really
backfire. Virus definitely knows.

(01:14:50):
One thing he definitely knows isthat Nymeria and Taen are on
their way to King's Landing. And why does he know that he's
Virus? Of course he knows that.
How does he not? How could he not know that?
The fun thing about Virus is that we can safely assume that
he knows things like this. Like, yeah, it's two of the Sand
Snakes. You can't keep that quiet at

(01:15:11):
court. At the at the court of Sunspear.
Yeah. He might be talking directly to
Doran Martel about it, in fact, like he may not have sussed it
out. He may have been told directly,
but if he hasn't been told, he sussed it out.
And this was also just openly discussed at council.
So backing up. Kevin actually has yet to bring
it up. He's dreading it.

(01:15:32):
He's going to, he thinks how he's going to eventually have to
reveal to Mace Tyrell that, yeah, one of the Sand Snakes is
coming to claim the Darnish seaton the council that used to be
Oberon's. That's not going to make Mace
Tyrell happy, and that's why Kevin hasn't told him yet.
So he's so that's yet another thing that will stir up division

(01:15:53):
at court. More chaos in the Red key, more
people who hate each other, all trying to rule in the same
place. So Kevin knows that Virus knows
that. But what Kevin doesn't know is
the other one. He knows that.
Wait, is it Nymeria that's coming to take the now Mary's
taking? Yeah, Lady Nim, of course,
'cause she's the she's the one with Valentis blood and the one

(01:16:15):
that that that might gain garnerher some respect, that she is
descended from old Volantis. Whereas Tayen is there to get in
good with the High Sparrow, which throws a whole other
awesome wrinkle onto all this. What effect will she have on the
High Sparrow? How will she manipulate slash
move him and maybe a little viceversa?
I kind of feel like Nim will have way more success than

(01:16:36):
Tayen. Maybe.
Like tyen has the harder job to me.
She might, yeah, Because the High Sparrow is going to have a
lot of rules on it. You know, a lot of his own.
Sort of. I'm.
Not going to be pro this this Dornish bastard.
Even if she's the daughter of a SEPTA, I don't think he's going
to like that. She's.
I mean, she is, yeah. If she maybe she could say the
right things, though, and convince him that she's holy.
I don't know. I don't know.
Yeah. It's really it's you're right,
though. You're right to be wary or

(01:16:57):
uncertain of this because it's. It is uncertain.
So Kevin doesn't know about that.
Kevin and the other counselors know about Lady Nim, but they
don't know about Tyen. But Varis does.
So Varis, take that into accountand his plans, he's like, OK, so
the High Sparrow's about to haveTain talking to him and he might
have a sense of how that will go.
Like, we don't mean to share. Like, yeah, it might not go so

(01:17:18):
well. It might.
And we're not sure. But Virus might have some
confidence in what he thinks will happen there.
And of course, the going back tosomewhere, somewhere, someone,
somewhere will blame the Dornishis also, just to be clear,
there's a lot of just straight up prejudice here.
The rich and Dorn don't like each other historically so that
alone is just going to be the reason for them getting some

(01:17:40):
blame here and it will bring back some of the old resentment
of Oberon and Willis and all theother Varus.
Oberon defending Tyrion, like that's a big one for especially
for Cersei's. Like why did the Red Viper
defend Tyrion? Why did he face the Mountain?
Oh because of his sister? OK maybe he's just saying that
though 16 years later. Like from Cersei's perspective,

(01:18:04):
they've been seen working together already and that is
something she's not going to be able to dismiss.
Here's some other questions thatI think are interesting that we
don't have strong answers for. I just wanted to throw them out
there. Some of these aren't questions.
There are observations as well. One thing that I think is funny

(01:18:25):
almost in an ironic sense, is that Kevin in this chapter, he
thinks how maybe I could get Lancel on the Kingsguard, you
know, maybe that'd be a good place for him.
You know, even though Lancel is very unfit for the Kingsguard
because he can't fight and otherreasons too.
But that's so opposite to Tywin,who was like, get Jamie off the

(01:18:45):
Kingsguard. He's like his brother's like, I
want my son on the Kingsguard and Tywin's like, I want my son
off the Kingsguard. A few parallels here to Ned's
murder, right? Virus wanted to stop it.
We talked about that earlier howhow Joffrey went off script.
It wasn't off Littlefinger. He followed Littlefinger's
script instead of the script that Cersei and Virus gave him.
But Littlefinger, this is exactly what Littlefinger

(01:19:06):
wanted. Littlefinger wanted Stark versus
Lannister and he got it. So it goes to show that this how
effective this method can be. This was Virus is engineering
this one. He wants Lannister versus
Tyrell. So it's like Virus and
Littlefinger both have had theirmoments of turning 2 great
houses against each other. Now, I don't think Littlefinger
cares that Virus has done this one, but Virus definitely didn't

(01:19:26):
want Littlefinger to do what he did.
Nina also had a a great catch here with the parallels to the
murder of John. Certainly the murder of Jon
Snow, the assassination of Jon Snow is a near this point in the
book. So they we we talked about that
at the beginning, how it it setsthe tone important political
murders here, but that isn't very relevant to that.
It is a political murder. It wasn't done for gain or

(01:19:49):
revenge. Personally, like Bowen Marsh had
tears in his eyes when he killedJohn.
He didn't really want to do it. He's not trying to cause war by
doing it, but he's going to. We all know the the Night's
Watch is going to explode into violence thanks to the death of
John. Not just because of the death of
John, actually, but in part because of that other things
were happening. So the Wall isn't looking for
this, but it's going to happen anyway.

(01:20:10):
And virus isn't necessarily trying to start a war.
He's trying to win a war. It may go farther than what he's
looking for as well. So we have perhaps violence at
the Wall spreading too far because of John's murder.
We may have violence going much farther than than virus.
Prepared, forgiven the murder ofKevin.
And yeah, Bowen Marsh didn't want to do it.

(01:20:31):
Virus isn't doesn't didn't really want to kill Kevin
either. He's just like, well, this is
necessary. This is for the realm, for the
watch, is what they said when they stabbed John, right?
And Virus is like, yeah, I, I bear, you know, ill will.
This is for the children, for the realm, right?
It's very similar vibes there. And there's connections to
Cersei on both ends here, kind of randomly, because maybe Bowen

(01:20:51):
Marsh got news from Cersei because remember, Cersei was
thinking of arranging for John'sdeath and sent men up there who
may or may not have arrived yet to maybe do that.
So the Bowen Marsh may have donewhat he did, done what he did,
what he did with his help, because they thought maybe

(01:21:12):
Cersei would back them up a little, that they could look to
the crown for a little support on that, which is also kind of
happening here on the other end.Obviously, Virus is certainly
banking on Cersei's reaction to what he's done.
So Cersei's reaction is a big part of other of these.
Another funny moment here. When Kevin comes into Paisel's

(01:21:34):
chamber, before he sees the body, before he gets shot, he
sees the white Raven, and he's like, winter.
And then he gets shot. Right.
But this is a man who just walked past a Moat full of snow.
He kicked the snow off his bootswhen he came into the room, was
like, yeah, I think you knew it was winter already.
But I mean, yeah, it's the official.
The white Raven is still like, oh, but yeah, you knew it was

(01:21:56):
winter already. What What becomes what counts as
winter and what doesn't in Westeros, though I guess there's
a lot of dispute on that, certainly with the people in the
far North. Would call a light dusting.
We could say your mileage may varies.
Varies. Varies.
Very. Yeah.
Another funny moment here, leading us into our Pycelle
discussion. Weisel points out in the council

(01:22:18):
chambers how John Connington once stood where Red Rot Ronit
Connington was making similar promises about delivering a
pretender's head. Because Red Ronit's like, I'm
not a traitor, give me an army, send me against my against John,
my cousin, and I will bring you his head.
Because John Connington promisedto bring Aries Roberts head
Robert Ronit. Yeah.

(01:22:40):
Anyway, Kevin then thinks, ah, old people, they're always
making connections, everything reminds them of something else.
Then two minutes later, Kevin makes a similar connection when
he thinks of the Battle of the Bells and the dead Targaryen
princelings whom he saw personally.
So it's like you just thought about someone making connections

(01:23:01):
and then made a very similar connection in your own head and
didn't catch the irony. So I love it.
George is great with that. So Pycelle.
Let's talk about Pycelle and whyhe was included in the murder
and why this matters a lot. Here's another bit of
foreshadowing that is just makesyou shake your head.
Go George RR Martin, you sneaky bastard.
This first little clue right here quote.

(01:23:23):
He did not think that Mace Tyrell would be so clumsy as to
try to murder either Paisel or Swift.
But if guards made them feel safer, let them have guards.
Mace no. Varis, yes, but Cersei will
believe it was Mace. So well played Varis.

(01:23:44):
It's an irony because the guardswouldn't help.
The guards are guards didn't help, just like guards didn't
help Tywin. The guards were standing outside
of his door. They were nowhere near when the
moment came. Kevin will actually say as he's
dying. There are hundreds of Lannister
guards in this castle and Varis retorts, but none in this room.
And and that's the problem when your enemy can literally emerge

(01:24:07):
from the wall. And what do you do about that?
Yeah. So let's talk about this.
How does it relate? Kevin comes into the room.
He doesn't immediately notice Paicelle's body until after he
himself has been shot. In fact, he calls out for
Paicelle's help, which is part of the point here.
Maybe, like, yeah, when something goes wrong, when

(01:24:28):
there's, you know, CSI type workto be done here, crime scene
investigations, You need the maester.
And, well, the maester is dead. Here's that moment right after
he calls out Pycelle's name quote.
Then he saw Grand Maester Pycelle was seated at his table,
his head pillowed on the great leather bound tome before him.

(01:24:51):
Sleeping, Kevin thought, until he blinked and saw the deep red
gash in the old man's spotted skull and the blood pooled
beneath his head, staining the pages of his book.
All around his candle were bits of bone and brain islands in a

(01:25:12):
lake of melted wax. He wanted guards, Sir, Kevin
thought. I should have sent him guards.
Could Cersei have been right allalong?
Was this his nephew's work? This is part of why Varus calls
Kevin a good man and service to a bad 'cause even though, again,

(01:25:32):
war crimes, even as Kevin's dying, he still feels bad.
He's like, I should have given Paisel guards.
He thinks of his wife, he thinksof people who will miss him and
things like that. So this is he's thinking of
other people even as he's dying.So that's, that's a part of like
the the goodness in him if you're looking for it.
But basic detective work here. Paisel was killed by virus, not

(01:25:53):
by one of the little birds. And we know that because his
head was smashed open. He wasn't stabbed repeatedly
with little child daggers. A little bird isn't strong
enough to cave an old man's skull and even an old 80
something year old man like Paisel, No, you can't do that.
It's just they're just too shortand not strong enough.
Let's remember that Virus acts squeamish around blood.

(01:26:15):
I pointed that a few times, but this is the most telling moment
of all. It's one thing to shoot some
with a crossbow bolt, but he caved in Paisel's skull with
some heavy object and it's been a little while.
He's been standing there in the room while that blood and bone
and brains all sitting there andhe's not squeamish about it.
He's just lighting his tongue. He doesn't like the smell of
the, you know, the empty bowels,but the blood doesn't bother him

(01:26:36):
at all. Again, actor so.
And you can tell it's been a little while, not just because
of the smell and the cold, but because of the pooling wax and
the nothing tells time like a candle, right?
You can look at all the wax. So yeah.
So why didn't he kill Kevin and only Kevin?
He didn't. He lured Kevin into Pycelle's

(01:26:56):
chambers to kill him there to make it look like a double
murder to. Well, it was a double murder.
It doesn't look like one. It is one.
So let's get specific as to why it helps #1 Pycelle is a major
Lannister toady. It looks like you're killing
someone on the Lannister side along with Kevin, who is
obviously a Lannister himself. The last thing Virus wants is,

(01:27:17):
is anyone else throwing their weight behind someone who was an
Aegon Again, that's still rule #1 here, can't reiterate that
enough #2 he's a, even though he's a Grand Maester, that's not
the highest position of authority.
It's, it's a reasonably high placed position of authority.
It's, it's the, you know, he tends to the Rookery, the, the
messages to come by Raven. So he's an important part of the

(01:27:38):
communications system here at the Red Keep.
So it's pretty big. Also, it just heightens
tensions. Just a second body.
Another death at the Red Keep just makes everyone scared.
One body makes them scared, another body even more scared.
Who's doing this? Why?
How did it happen? How did the murderer sneak in?
There's so many confusing questions here that all point to

(01:27:58):
Nobody's Safe and the Citadel isgoing to have to send a
replacement. They don't know if they're maybe
they won't. Maybe they'll wait because like,
I don't know if we should send aGrand Maester while things are
so uncertain. Maybe they will.
Maybe Cersei will reject the person.
Maybe they'll ask permission first.
It's it's a whole to do. This is without a Grand maester

(01:28:19):
in place Right now, though. Things are kind of, you know,
some things will fall by the wayside, which might be part of
what Virus wants, part of the chaos, part of the instability
that he will then sell back to the realm.
You know, a part of me considered whether this was just
a little extra for him. Like Paisel hates Bars, has
said, insults him regularly. So maybe part of this was like,
Bars was like, yeah, I'm so gladmy plans align with me getting

(01:28:40):
to kill this guy. A little extra bit of
satisfaction. So I wondered if it was like a
bonus death, like, yeah, I'm going to kill this guy because
he sucks. I hate him.
But now, this was pretty much just business.
He might have taken a little bitof extra pleasure in it because
yeah, this guy's insulted him somany times.
But ultimately, Varus is sticking to the plan.
This is definitely a murder for reason not for.

(01:29:01):
It's not a gratuitous I get somerevenge bonus time here.
Even if he did enjoy it, which he might have.
So again, I'll repeat that the lack of a maester immediately is
going to make it harder for themto figure out what happened.
And as Varus says, Cersei will blame Tyrion.
We'll spec. The Tyrells are on his side and
given Pycelle was so close to like Tywin and by extension

(01:29:26):
Kevin, everyone knows this too. Which wasn't, it was like a well
known bias. So Cersei knows that too.
Cersei's like, OK, so that's a second person who's my ally
that's been killed. Obviously they're coming after
her family their their power block from the way she sees it.
Now of course Tyrion's not included in that, but Tyrion's
enmity towards Pycelle was quitepublic too.

(01:29:48):
Everyone knows Pycelle testifiedagainst Tyrion.
So if Cersei's first thought is this was Tyrion, Pycelle's body
only fuels that fire. Pycelle was nasty to Tyrion on
the stand witness stand in the trial.
And to be fair, Tyrion stole poisons from him and dosed him
with them. And to be fair to Tyrion,

(01:30:10):
Pycelle sold him out on the matter of the Marcella marriage,
which brings back the point of Pycelle being in charge of
communications, a lot of what comes and goes by Raven Pycelle,
well, I should say, had access to.
And who did Pycelle sell Tyrion out to in the matter of the
Marcella marriage and keeping that a secret?
Cersei. So, yeah, so Cersei, the way her

(01:30:34):
brain works is like, oh, Tyrion wanted to kill Pycelle because
he hates him. She would be less thoughtful of
the political ramifications here, even though they're very
important and just it just make her hone in more on Tyrion.
It's it's very perfect. So again, and so, yeah, this is
not gratuitous. This is very there was a big
point to this virus knew what hewas doing when he killed Paisel

(01:30:56):
and where he killed him and the timing of it.
And we also have the Tyrells pushing hard to put more of
their own people on the council or in more important places in
court. That was what had Kevin
thinking. I can see why the Searcy gets
frustrated with these Tyrells. They really, you give them an
inch and they want to take a mile.
That was one of his thoughts. He's thinking how there he was
trying to balance the council. He was like, let's have an even
number of Lannisters and Tyrellson the small council.

(01:31:18):
And even before that, Cersei wastrying to stop the appointment
of Garth the gross on the council.
Garth Tyrell, that's Mesa's uncle.
He was going to be mash her coin.
Remember that, until Cersei liedand was like, oh, you're going
to have to tell Garth. He can't have that job because
I've already given the job to Lord Giles Rosby, who he she
hadn't, but she told Giles Rosbyto pretend that she had already

(01:31:40):
offered him that job before. And then of course, Giles died.
And then Sir Harry Swift has therole now.
And Harry Swift is not too bright now.
Mace has even tried to replace Sir Harry's afterwards.
Anyway, he's like this. Get rid of Sir Harris and put
Garth in. He's way better at this.
And that's actually probably true.

(01:32:00):
Mace is, yes, Mace is trying to get power.
He's this is about ambition. But Sir Harris is horrible at
this job and Garth was at least Lord Seneschal of Highgarden.
He might have been bad at it, but he at least has experience.
He's, he might be corrupt, but he's probably not incompetent,
whereas Hari Swift is incompetent.
In this very chapter we saw Hari's complain about having to

(01:32:22):
go overseas to borrow money for the crown.
And then in the Mercy Shop chapter we actually, you know,
we see him do that. Slight spoiler warning, he's
trying. He's not really trying.
He's just going to a play and doesn't want to go back because
he's failed to get the money Cersei wants and he doesn't want
to go face her, which reminds usthat Cersei is effectively in
charge again, exactly what Viruswanted.

(01:32:44):
So that part worked. Pycelle also in that council
session, which I wonder if Variswas listening to, probably was.
You probably heard everything they said.
Pycelle was like, yo, these rumors from the east about
Dragons, we should take that seriously.
Virus is like, shut up, shut up,shut up for good, shut up about

(01:33:09):
the Dragons, shut up about the Dragons.
So, yeah, so Virus is like, yeah, he doesn't want people.
He's like, I would rather peoplecontinue to pretend those
Dragons rumors aren't aren't real.
I'd rather them forget about that for now.
Yes. And again, just real quick, back
to the Citadel thing and the grand maestro.
Even if they pick one right awayand have some in mind right

(01:33:31):
away, it would be like a month or two before that person
arrived at the fastest, you know, And Cersei would be
suspicious of almost anyone theysend because it's it's Old Town
that's in the Reach. She's she's going to be
suspicious of anyone like alliedto the Tyrells and their
Hightowers are a vassal. She doesn't have any other

(01:33:51):
experience with the Hightowers notably, so it's not like she
can be. Oh, the Hightowers are cool.
I know them. Yeah, she doesn't have that.
So she's going to any anyone coming from the Citadel, she's
going to that's Cersei's paranoia.
Here's another quote, Kevin thinking about how Pycelle was
right. And here's why Pycelle was
worried. Quote.

(01:34:12):
Lord Tyrell loves me not, Grandmaster Pycelle said in
gloomy tones. When the Hand had departed this
matter of the moon tea, I would never have spoken of such, but
the Queen Dowager commanded me. If it please the Lord Regent, I
would sleep more soundly if you could lend me some of your

(01:34:35):
guards. More George humor here, too,
Kevin thought. Pycelle, with his head pillowed
on a book, was asleep at his desk when he first saw him.
I would sleep more soundly if you could lend me some of your
guards, He thought he was asleep.
Yeah. And Pycelle's like, yeah, I
didn't want to be caught in between these two Queens here.

(01:34:58):
I didn't want to accuse Marjorieof Moon T in open court.
And Mace Tyrell definitely didn't want to hear that.
So Paisel was that's why he was worried that Mace Tyrell might
come to kill him. And Kevin's like, yeah, Mace
Tyrell's not going to just kill you, but yeah, virus will.
So pretty, pretty ironic for sure.
So Paisel was worried about that.

(01:35:19):
And that's going to be, he said this out loud, so which means
other people hurt him. And Paisel may have said this to
somebody else. Now, Kevin can't reveal this
because he's dead, but Sir Harris was standing right there.
Harris again is not very smart, but he heard Pais say this.
So if he thinks about it at all,he will probably think of it in
very straightforward terms. Meaning Paisel was worried about

(01:35:42):
Mace Tyrell killing him. So the murderer must be Mace
Tyrell. Or since Tyrion used a crossbow,
it must have been Tyrion. Maybe Tyrion and Mace Tyrell are
working together just like what Virus wants, just like what
Sirius. Cersei thinks so.
Ari Swift though, he's a vassal of the West and he's afraid of
Cersei, so he might just tell her or do what she wants because

(01:36:03):
he's not so stupid as to realizethat Kevin's death put Cersei
back in charge. That's one thing that any noble
can understand, is who's in charge next.
That's that they're born to follow, even the nobles.
Another thing he might do, though, because he's not smart,
is to say these things out loud,like he might say to somebody,

(01:36:24):
one of his friends, a drinking companion, that Mace did it or
that he suspects Mace or that hesuspects Tyrion.
And that could spread rumors, which is probably what Virus
wants too. Now he's not spreading rumors
anymore because he's over in Essos, he's at plays, you know,
and Bravos failing to get money from the Iron Bank.
So I don't think he's telling those rumors to anyone that

(01:36:47):
matters at this point. But, and if he says it out loud
near one of his guards and they come back, who knows?
These aren't things we'll necessarily hear about, but the
vectors of how this rumor spreads are laid out for us.
It's, it's going to be believable when, when this news
spreads around in the way that virus wants it to.
And as that happens, more and more people will react and

(01:37:09):
decide and, and choose. So again, we, as we keep doing,
we have to look at this from multiple angles.
We we did it with Kevin. Cersei will blame Tyrion of the
Tyrells. As we've said several Times Now,
who else will the Tyrells blame and, and suspect besides Cersei?
Now that's a big one, but it's not necessarily the only one.
Nina says. I think it's very possible the
Tyrells will blame Cersei thinking that Cersei got rid of

(01:37:31):
Kevin to reassert the Regency. Because another factor that I
didn't even mention was Kevin was planning on sending Cersei
back to the Casterly Rock. So there's yet another reason
for Cersei to want Kevin dead, but that doesn't mean they'll
stop there. And say, OK, that's so much
motive, it's definitely Cersei because they might consider who
else has. Does she have word with her?

(01:37:52):
Do they? Does she have other allies or is
there other candidates worth considering?
Here's a quote that transitions us away from Pycelle and to
other subtopics. Quote, Pycelle is not the only
council member our Hand would like to replace.

(01:38:13):
Mace Tyrell had his own candidate for Lord Treasurer,
his uncle, Lord Seneschal of Highgarden, who men called Garth
the Gross. The last thing I need is another
Tyrell on the small council. He was already outnumbered.
Serharis was his wife's father, and Paisel could be counted upon

(01:38:35):
as well. But Charlie was sworn to
Highgarden, as was Paxter. Red Wine, Lord Admiral and
Master of Ships, presently sailing his fleet around Dorn to
deal with Duron Greyjoy's Ironman.
Once Red Wine returned to King'sLanding, the council would stand

(01:38:56):
at 3:00 and 3:00, Lannister and Tyrell.
George showing us a lot of the competitiveness here between the
two houses while also having Kevin just make some bad
estimations of what's going to happen.
He's right that Pycel could be counted on until he of course
was killed. Paxter.
Red wine though. And Tarly.

(01:39:17):
Tarly was sworn to Highgarden, but he's probably a friend in
the Reach and probably is going to turn on Highgarden.
Packs of red wine probably won'tturn on Highgarden, he'll just
lose to your own Greyjoy's Iron Man.
Probably whatever you're on has planned for will probably work.
So Kevin's sitting here thinkingonce red wine returned to King's
Landing. Red wine's not returning to
King's Landing, y'all? I really don't think that's
happening. And even if he survives, King's

(01:39:41):
Landing might already be in someone else's hands by the time
he's capable of returning there,and I don't think, again, don't
think he will be capable of returning there.
If he escapes, it'll probably beback to the Arbor, which will be
closer by than King's Landing. He won't sail all the way back
around to be like ah, I lost. No, I'll head home and be like,
ah, I lost. If he survives at all.

(01:40:02):
And all of this though, once again, we can assume Boris knows
all of the things that Kevin just thought of, every single
bit of it. He knows that Kevin wants a
balance between Lannister and Tyrell.
He knows Paxter red wine is off fighting Euron Greyjoy.
He might not realize that Euron Greyjoy is going to win, though.
That's something for us readers and Euron to realize.

(01:40:24):
So that part, even Virus might be surprised by that.
And that's part of the fun here is what will even Virus be
surprised by again, the others, all that stuff happening in the
North, he's got no idea about that, I don't think.
And he's got no idea of the eldritch apocalypse to coin.
Poor Quentin that's coming from Euron.
So Virus can't plan for the supernatural.

(01:40:47):
It's something that was introduced to us early.
Even if Virus was lying about toTyrion about the voice in the
flames, even if he's not really a hater of the supernatural, he
has no experience or expertise in it.
So either he actually hates it and has a blind spot for it or
just has a blind spot for it. Like everybody who is an expert

(01:41:07):
on the supernatural in the Song of Ice and Fire in world nobody,
we readers actually are the experts as quote, quote UN quote
experts we because we know more about the supernatural in this
setting than any single character does.
So we're the closest thing to that.
And we can tell that Euron's going to win, right?
Just for story reasons and other, you know, Yeah, eldritch

(01:41:31):
apocalypse reasons. Like you can't not have the
eldritch apocalypse, right? We don't know exactly what
that's going to look like, but Euron's not going to lose to
Paxter. Red wine.
Come on. Come on.
Right. There's a lot of things Mars
can't see coming. The the way the the Dragons will
behave, the way Danny's going tobehave, the way the Dothraki are
going to behave, the way Euron, the way Aegon's going to behave.
All these carefully laid plots, the Red Keep between human

(01:41:55):
beings, between people who behave like humans, who act with
pragmatism, who act with human emotions that you can understand
and predict. That's all going out the window
because of all these things thatare inhuman, subhuman or non
human or just dead. Like forget human living flesh

(01:42:17):
walking around animated. Like what does Varus think of
Sir Robert Strong, for example? What's his opinion of the Silent
Giant? Does he have a plan for that or
is he just going to allow it to work itself out?
Does he? What's his opinion on that?
I have no really wondering aboutthat one because as much as he
knows with all these people, that's not a person.

(01:42:38):
One thing missing here is Kingsguard.
I don't mean that they're missing.
I mean that, Sir, she's got Robert Strong, she's got Marin
Trent, and then we've also got Jamie out in the Riverlands and
Loris Tyrell is maybe burned badly.
There's missing and we got BorisBlunt, who's incompetent.

(01:43:00):
There's missing Kingsguard. I mean, as in there's open
spots. Cersei could very well look to
name new Kingsguard. That's her purview and pick
people that are loyal. That's something that she might
work with, something that she isn't totally paranoid about,
which is another parallel to Aries.

(01:43:21):
Aries was afraid of just about everybody except his own
Kingsguard and I, we talked about in the Summer Hall episode
how that might be because the Kingsguard saved him from
wildfire and his family from wildfire.
Well, not all of them, but theirbravery kept him alive, and that
might be why he trusts them. I don't know how Cersei's going
to look at that. She doesn't have.
She wasn't saved by a Kingsguardin that regard.
She slept with one quite a lot, but that's not nearly the same

(01:43:45):
thing. Who's going to be hand?
We know Cersei regains control as the Regent, but it's strange
right? I I think I misspoke earlier.
Mace's hand to the king and Kevin is the region, but it's
not clear on who's how power will fall and be redistributed
with Kevin's death. Maybe there maybe Cersei just

(01:44:08):
becomes the region and rules hisqueen region again.
That seems like the simplest andmost likely outcome, but is she
going to keep Mace's hand? Will she try to push him away?
Will he fight back on that? I virus may stoke that fire.
He may find a way to get information to Cersei that makes

(01:44:29):
her really want to get rid of Mace even more.
Yeah, there's a lot of things hecould do.
And maybe the other way, he could maybe give some
information to Mace, tell Mace things that will help him defeat
Cersei in order to pave the way for Aegon, give them both
information that will have them destroy each other, that kind of
thing. Now, Virus is mostly concerned

(01:44:50):
with the Crown Lands, King's Landing, Storm Lands, the Reach
and the West, and the Riverlands.
He doesn't really have a lot of a lot to do with the Veil,
especially because the Veil is likely to focus northward
anyway, and then the North, which is also likely to focus
northward relatively. Like the Veil is going to look
at the North and the North is going to look at the Wall and be

(01:45:10):
on the wall. So Virus might be able to just
kind of ignore all that for now and just let it take care of
itself and seize the throne. And then once he's in, once his
man is in charge, he can deal with that later.
And again, Iron Isles, that's a problem for everyone.
It's not a unique problem to Aegon and Virus.
It's it's a problem for everyone.
So, well, that one's kind of just hanging on over everyone at

(01:45:32):
court, though. Let's remind ourselves of how
tense things already were. Varus is creating a very tense
situation, but it was already really, really tense.
Quote. Lannister Spearman and Crimson
cloaks and lion crested half helm stood along the W wall of
the throne room. Tyrell guards and green cloaks

(01:45:53):
faced them from the opposite wall.
The chill in the throne room waspalpable.
Though neither Queen Cersei nor Queen Marjorie was amongst them,
their presence could be felt, poisoning the air like ghosts at
a feast. That's really powerful image and

(01:46:14):
really strong evocative writing.The ghosts at the feast, Cersei
and Marjorie, their presence is looming over everything.
Those men with little to do, butespecially someone that they
might have to kill later. Especially because we have the
visual of the greens versus the blacks and the Dance of the
Dragons. You can picture many scenes like

(01:46:35):
that where Rainier and Allison were nowhere to be seen, but it
poisoned the air. It's a great point, Yeah.
It's just green and gold insteadof green and black.
That's really true, Green. Really green and red.
It's that Christmas in there. That's true.
Crimson and gold. Yeah, you're right.
Crimson. Bloody Christmas.
I remember what a big deal Tywin's death was like.

(01:46:55):
Of course, we saw a lot of that through Cersei's point of view,
which is kind of interesting to to have this coming back around.
It's not as big because Tywin was a bigger deal than Kevin,
but it's big in a sense that it's happening again.
It's like, oh, a second murder in the Red Keep, second murder
of a high official. The region, jeez, 2 Lannister
brothers, another one killed. Everybody knew how connected
they were. So it's, it's just like no one

(01:47:17):
could fail to miss that connection.
And it's beyond the suspicion. It's the appearance of weakness.
This makes them look weak. You can't protect your high
officers. They're killed in their own
home, basically the place they live.
You can't save them. Like that's that's weak.
And as we saw with Paisel beforeKevin's murder, he was worried.

(01:47:42):
He's like, I need protection. How do you think everyone else
at court is going to feel now that these fears were voiced and
came to roost? Like, yes, proof we do need
protection. People are dying here.
Counselors getting shot and had their skulls caved in.
The Red Keep is dangerous. It shouldn't be, but it is.

(01:48:05):
And again, the one of the craziest things about all this
is so few, if anyone is even going to think of virus.
He's been gone for a while. He's causing so much of this.
They're not even going to think of them.
They're not even going to consider that he's involved
somehow. A few might briefly think of him
because of the Tyrion stuff, andwill Virus maybe had something

(01:48:28):
to do with Tyrion's escape. It's kind of indirect, though.
They don't think of Virus as someone that's a killer like
that, you know? They think of him as squeamish
and soft and maybe dishonest, sure, but I don't know that they
think of him as doing something direct like this.
And that's amazing, because something chilling and

(01:48:48):
simultaneously fun to consider is that this is virus's first
big move after Aegon's landing. What else is he going to do?
He's just getting started. He's going to unleash his
intrigue in ways never before seen, never before seen.
He's so smart, so good at this, and he's been preparing for this

(01:49:09):
for two decades ish. A long game that's come to
roost. Juggling wizardry, as Illyria
calls it. But now it's time.
Light the fuse, flip the switch,unleash the slowly gathered
resources for this long-awaited moment.
Accidentally wrote Light the Fust instead of Light the Fuse
in my notes here, which is just kind of funny.

(01:49:30):
Fust, Light the fust, Virus, whatever that means.
It's go time for virus. No more diplomacy, charm, you
know, dissembling niceness. He blew his cover at the end of
A Storm of Swords. Now he's out there.
He's he showed every. He pretended to be nonviolent.

(01:49:51):
Now he's caving people's skulls in.
His plans have pitted people against each other before, but
now it's in in the open. Now it's earnest.
Now it's time for his chosen candidate to ascend during a
time of civil strife. Kevin is a model for what Vars
can do here. This murder accomplishes a lot.

(01:50:11):
What other murder he can accomplish a lot for him, maybe
not quite so much with one murder.
This is really hard to top, but there's things he could do by
killing or discrediting the right people, removing them from
the board, the Game of Thrones board.
Virus can advance his own cause in other ways.
And I just this is where the theorizing gets really
difficult. We throw names out and and think

(01:50:33):
about it and say, well, that might be someone Virus wants to
kill. But this gets so complicated
because we're dealing with such an intelligent character.
It's the the peak of George's writing.
So yeah, who's next? Perhaps that's a more directly
important question, because imagining the different ways
virus might manipulate public opinion or set houses against

(01:50:54):
each other, it's kind of infinite.
There's so many possibilities there.
But guessing at who he might murder, well, there's only so
many names we have. Maybe he'll murder some tax
collector or a series of them, or captains of the gold cloaks
or certain gate guards to make sure that the gates can be
opened for his armies or what have you.
We don't necessarily know those names, but of but of the ones

(01:51:18):
that might matter, we can narrowmake like a shorter list, right?
Especially because virus, if they're not pinning it on him,
if they're not thinking of him, what's stopping him from just
emerging from another wall and shooting somebody else?
They don't necessarily have a way to stop that.
What are they going to do, just not operate in the Red Keep
anymore? Or we're not going to conduct a
business in the Red Keep anymore?
It's too, it's too unsafe. That looks so weak.

(01:51:40):
He's the only person that has mastered the Red Keeps tunnels,
which might be something that hewould kill over.
Maybe he'll kill Kyburn because if Kyburn starts to learn his
way around the tunnels, and I don't know that he has, but if
he does, better shut that down. Doesn't want anyway, this is
this is his home field advantage.
Those tunnels are all his. He's the only one that's

(01:52:00):
mastered them. Don't let anyone else learn
that. So that's a particular brand of
competence that he might want toshut down.
So Cersei is the only one I kindof think he would definitely not
kill, at least not anytime soon.Olenna is lucky, perhaps, that
she's not around because Cersei doesn't like her and virus might

(01:52:23):
kill her to stoke the embers andbe like, oh, look what Cersei
did. You know, Mace Tyrell, I don't
think, I don't think he's going to.
I don't think virus would kill Mace Tyrell at this juncture,
though maybe he would if it camedown to his army.
You know, there, there it comes time for the Aegon to actually
take the throne, but maybe not before that for the same reason.

(01:52:47):
Of course, the High Sparrow probably isn't going to be
assassinated. At least it's at least not until
some particularly important time.
And if it happens, well, Varus would pin that on Cersei or the
Tyrells and put cast his king. Aegon is a good guy.
Oh, Aegon will avenge the murderof the High Sparrow, right?
That could that could happen. We know.

(01:53:08):
So oddly, Paxter red wine is safe from Varus, not safe from
Euron. And Cerharis is kind of safe
because he's in Bravos. Varus can kind of ignore him.
He's kind of out of the way. I don't suppose there's much
purpose in killing him. Maybe there is though.
Interesting. Maybe killing Sir Harris and
Bravos would would make Cersei even more paranoid about other
things. So yeah, Kyber is definitely a
possibility. I think Virus might want to take

(01:53:29):
him out, but the reason to do that might be to just.
That's a way to deal with the Mountain.
Well, this is his caretaker. Kill his caretaker in the
Mountain will just start going berserk and other people have to
deal with that. Maybe that's how to deal with
the Mountain. Lady Nim and Taen, right?

(01:53:50):
Again, Kevin didn't want to tellMace knowing he'd be upset.
Well, let Mace be upset, says Varis.
You know, let him be upset, let him know, and then maybe kill
one of them to inflamed the garnishment even further.
Like yes, see you. This is fight for Aegon.
Aegon will avenge the murder of Tain or Lady Nim or both of
them. And what other other friends in

(01:54:13):
the Reach? Whatever they need to get going,
whatever they need to commit fully.
Maybe a key death, maybe a certain Lord has to die so that
that son can take over. That son is ready is all about
it. There's a lot of examples out
there waiting to happen that George maybe just hasn't given
us the information on because itwasn't relevant until now.

(01:54:34):
All he's got to do is mention a few houses, the names that we've
heard of before. One or two Lords dies suddenly
and the son or daughter or whoever takes over has already
been sussed out by Varys as as alike a violent guy, you know,
maybe like a dark star, someone who really wants to make a name
for themselves by starting a war.

(01:54:56):
Well, that's the kind of person that Varys might arrange to be
in charge for certain houses andthe kind of person he might take
out for other houses. Like, well, I don't want the
violent guy in charge because I want them to sit out.
I want the passive Willis Tyrellin charge or I want the
aggressive. You're on gradual.
I mean, I'm not saying Virus hadnothing to do with Bailon's

(01:55:17):
death, but obviously you're on taking over change the Iron
Islands dramatically so that kind of thing.
Virus would have a list of like every Lord of significance and
would have some sort of dossier on them in his head.
He didn't write it down. Probably about what kind of
person they are and and whether they're a candidate to help or
hurt or Option C or D, whatever that might be.

(01:55:40):
Randall Tarley, probably not because he's probably a friend
in the Reach. Ramsar is probably an ally
already, so he probably gets left alone.
He's probably someone that virushelps pave the way for rather
than someone he takes out. So that's a big mystery, and
some of it is just mysterious because George probably hasn't
bothered to explain it yet. Some, a lot of houses that might

(01:56:00):
get involved here, houses that are maybe connected to the
Golden Company fossil ways. Gosh, there's so many other
names that aren't having been said in a while, names that you
might might be more familiar from Dunkin egg that aren't very
big in in a song of ice and firelike names of houses.
There's so many houses, especially in the reach, which
is the most populous, but there's also the storm lands and
also the certain houses in the West might actually be willing

(01:56:22):
to turn against the Lannisters. So again, predicting what virus
will do is just too much. It's like predicting what
Littlefinger would do. It's like it's impossible.
It's like predicting what the prophecies will say.
You know, it's just not, it's a fun to to run your mind through
it, but you'll never have solid answers.
You'll just be tempted by all the possibilities.

(01:56:43):
You know, you'd be like, oh, look at all the look at all
these options. There's so many things that
could happen, so many ways this could go.
It's amazing. And this is a great example of
the questions being fascinating by themselves rather than the
the questions alone are so compelling and give us a sense
of how much more there is that is yet to come.
And that is just a wide open bunch of awesomeness, Dornish

(01:57:07):
Dame adds. I think there will be a few that
die for the crime of being in the wrong place at the wrong
time. Yes, 1000% Kevin arguably is.
Was that like, I think Virus, when I was opining earlier how
Virus might have had some genuine sadness for Kevin
because he thinks this is a guy that could have been an
effective part of a new regime if circumstances were different,
If it weren't for his brother and his, his niece and some

(01:57:30):
other things, but maybe a littlemore literally in the wrong
place at the wrong time. Yeah.
Just people that guards, like I said, certain people in charge
of certain gates or certain money or certain messages,
someone who's like, you can't carry that message to that
person. The messenger's got to die.
You do kill the messenger because we can't have that.

(01:57:52):
Yeah. That is the collateral damage or
a form of collateral damage thatthat people refer to in war.
The people that, yeah, they didn't do anything wrong.
They didn't. They're not directly involved,
but they happen to be, as JordanStain puts it, in the wrong
place at the wrong time, meaninga very unlucky place for them to

(01:58:14):
be at that time. Because much more powerful
people have them killed and never bother to even care about
who that individual was that they just killed.
Because they're more concerned with power and gain and little
individuals beneath their feet mean nothing to them.
And that includes Virus. He again, should not fool you

(01:58:38):
like the TV show did. I don't know if they consciously
made Virus a good guy in the show because they actually
thought that's what he was in the books or they just decided
to change him. But it's just, it just adds to
people's mistaken impression of what kind of man Virus really
is. And that makes him one of the
most fascinating characters because he's meta wrongness that
people have about him is part ofthe fascination.

(01:58:59):
Frankly, I think that's interesting even even even as
I'm calling people wrong. The royal we the royal them
rather, it's, it's fascinating to me that people take it that
way because what virus is tryingto do virus.
He he, he worked, he did his job.
He convinced some people out there that he's actually a good
guy. I know I I have like various
sympathies within me that I can't help.

(01:59:21):
But can't shake it. He's so good at it.
The guy's very convincing. It's a really well written
character. I want to believe, even though I
know I know he does, like I, I, I wish the show had really shown
that more because I think I would.
I think it would stick with me more if I had seen it more up
front. It's more interesting to have a
guy who thinks he's doing right that is flawed than a guy who is

(01:59:42):
just pure good. Basically is kind of how they
tried to make him in the show. He's like, Oh no, I will stand
up to Danny. I will die on my principles.
Like I would be so curious to see how how tortured virus is,
like if he sits with the little chilled little birds and he's
just torn up inside over it or if he's kind of hardened to it,
I don't know. Yeah, it is.
It's super interesting. One of the most fascinating,

(02:00:04):
endlessly fascinating characters.
And that'll probably be true even after it's all said and
done, because because we won't know some of these things, some
of these answers will never be revealed to us.
But that's part of the fun, y'all?
Our trivia question was who during the council session in
this chapter, twice says if it is Connington answers Randall
Tarley. You know who said that right
away? Most valuable chatter, Dornish.

(02:00:27):
Dame Dornish Dame. Good job, Dornish Dame.
Yes, it was indeed Randall Tarley.
First time he says if it is Connington.
The second time he actually saysif it is him.
When someone else says Connington, it's so it's almost
comical. It's like he's just not good at
convincing people to look the other way.
He's like, ah, you shouldn't payattention to this guy.
It's just too unsubtle. But they don't even know what to
look for, whereas we do. So they're not, they're not,

(02:00:47):
they're their suspicions aren't raised by him saying that
because they have they're not suspicious in the slightest
about to like, oh, Randall Charlie, does this mean Randall
Charlie's going to turn on us, You know, just because he's
doubting it's John Connington. It's not a it's not a rational
of a conclusion given what they know, but what we know.
It's extremely rational and verytelling.

(02:01:09):
Next week we do not have a live stream, but we do have an
episode. Baylor 3, the death and legacy
of Baylor the blessed with Nina Nina Krusling almost said her
maiden name there. It takes a little getting used
to Nina Krusling. Well, returning.
We recorded that offline and it will be up next Sunday.
So for for video and then the week after for podcast.

(02:01:29):
So no live stream next week, butwe'll be back the week after
with one and onward. Thanks for attending everybody.
We appreciate your presence. We appreciate you spreading the
word. We appreciate your support in
all the different ways you can help out our show.
We are very lucky to be able to do this for a living, but we're
not sitting here raking in the cash either, so we do appreciate

(02:01:49):
your support. Thanks again to Nina for her
excellent takes. Great notes on virus, such a
difficult subject. I appreciate her theories, ideas
and attention to detail. Thanks to Joey Townsend for our
great music and Michael Klarfeldwho we just got to hang out with
last week. He was here in the US and that
was a lot of fun hanging out with him here in Atlanta and up

(02:02:11):
in Chicago. Shout out to Steve Van Prien who
we hung out with as well, and Tommy and Lita Pappas who were
our hosts and good friends as well.
Until next week and next time, Valar Riridis.

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