Jack Sovick joins me to talk about his background in the Game of Thrones universe, his love for the show, and why he thinks the new HBO show might be the perfect sequel to the hit HBO show, "Game of Thrones: A Song of Ice and Fire".
00:00:33.400I've got a great stream with a great guest that I think you're really going to enjoy.
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00:02:39.860Okay, I read one of those, but I never read the small novel that this was based on.
00:02:46.520But before we dive into the show and all of that background, why don't you tell people your history with Game of Thrones?
00:02:52.120Yeah, so people, you know, obviously people know me more for, like, politics and Trump stuff and all that.
00:03:00.760But prior to my political whatever media work and activism and Turning Point and everything else,
00:03:10.520I was online and ran a blog and had my original Twitter account was called I was the Angry GOT Fan.
00:03:19.600And as Angry DOT Fan, it was it started started off when I was still in the military, still in the intel community, and was posting anonymously.
00:03:29.440So, you know, former and on here, you know, recovering and on and was always tweeting from the perspective of a guy who was a book fan who was not a fan of the show.
00:03:40.780And it was, you know, it was done as a character, it was very funny.
00:03:44.920And, you know, we tried to, it's kind of like Red Letter Media, if anyone knows that, or like Mr. Plinkett.
00:03:50.100And I was always doing it as this character.
00:03:52.800But as the show got further and further away from the books, the character, and we did this for years, the, you know, the blog and the Twitter account really took off.
00:04:03.600And, you know, we were getting, you know, over 100,000 views at one point on the blog itself was just AngryGOTFan.com.
00:04:12.920We wrote a Trump and Sansa fanfic at one point, because when Trump was running for president, the goal was, of course, that he needed to unite the Northern Lords.
00:04:21.520And so, of course, asking for Sansa's hand in marriage was clearly the way to be able to do this.
00:04:26.620The left tries to bring this up every once in a while, like it's some kind of attack on me.
00:04:29.920I'm like, you guys are just so boring and stupid.
00:04:34.720And it's like one of the only things that I've ever left still public from that blog, because it's just so hilarious.
00:04:45.320And I actually got to, you know, get into it with some of those guys that worked on those Cimmerillion type, you know, type books with, it's called Elio and Linda.
00:04:54.920Some of the people who ran Westeros.org and ran some and actually wrote some books and have been assistants of George R. Martin.
00:05:04.760I got to meet with George R. Martin a number of times during this time frame.
00:05:08.040And then, you know, I decided that since the book stopped coming out in 2016, I'd step away for a brief period to make America great again.
00:05:16.920So you left a promising career in, you know, a media criticism and instead transition to hanging out of the White House and being highly influential in politics.
00:05:27.780Yeah, there's actually a vice profile of me from like 2017 that where a guy and I've had a number of journalists like reach out to me and say, hey, man, just so you know, like I used to follow Angry DOT fan.
00:05:40.380Like I really liked it. And they kind of have to like sheepishly admit that they actually thought it was hilarious.
00:05:46.000And I have this vice article on me that, you know, it takes the normal sort of like, you know, the, you know, litany of horribles on me, but also kind of points out that, hey, here's this Game of Thrones blogger.
00:05:56.900And now he's in the White House. Like, how did that happen?
00:05:59.700Yeah, no, that's a that's a fantastic backstory. I really enjoy that.
00:06:03.120And we're going to dive, of course, into the show itself.
00:06:06.440But before we do, guys, let me tell you a little bit about Frontier Magazine.
00:06:09.720Hey, guys, we all have to read things digitally these days, but I'm old school.
00:06:13.800Whenever I can, I want to feel the weight of the page in my hand.
00:06:17.120So when I look at Frontier Magazine, which is always beautifully shot and beautifully laid out and has really interesting articles, that's what I'm looking for.
00:06:24.660I've written for Frontier. Many of my guests have written for Frontier from this show.
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00:06:52.920That's BlazeUnlimited.com slash Oren Frontier40 for that discount.
00:06:57.780All right. So I, like I said, have read the books, but it's been a while.
00:07:03.720I certainly was not running a blog or anything.
00:07:05.800So I have no doubt that you are far more familiar with the ins and outs and where the show differentiates from the books.
00:07:43.160You know, just right off the bat, you could tell.
00:07:45.260I mean, season one, to be fair, season one is the closest to the books that we've seen, you know, thus far.
00:07:52.500But right off the bat, there were already, you know, changes being made.
00:07:56.540There was, you know, we didn't have the word, we didn't have the word woke yet that hadn't had yet to enter the lexicon.
00:08:04.120But you would, you know, so we used to say social justice warrior and we say things like this.
00:08:08.620And so I was never, you know, I was never part of Gamergate or anything like that.
00:08:12.260But, you know, this was sort of my entree to this whole world was through criticizing what I saw was the rise of social justice or wokeness in HBO.
00:08:24.100And then, of course, you know, and in the fan space, you would get these sort of wars that were going on between people who were supporters of the books and supporters of the show,
00:08:33.020which kind of mirrored a lot of the same parallels that people saw in Gamergate, which is going around, going on pretty much right at this time frame.
00:08:40.620And so there was some some overlap with that with guys like Vox Day who were running the Rabid Puppies, which was a direct, you know, attack on George R. Martin over the Hugo Award.
00:08:52.200They were getting like way in the weeds here.
00:08:54.100But I know I know this lore, but yeah, yeah, go ahead.
00:08:57.000But yeah, this is like this is like the deep, deep lore.
00:08:59.780But what's really funny, though, is so when I started tweeting about Night of the Seven Kingdoms, there were people from the Game of Thrones community,
00:09:08.920which is funny because I've been out of it for so long that there were people on like TikTok and there were, you know, Instagram type people who were responding saying,
00:09:20.340oh, Posobik's trying to get into Game of Thrones like he's some he's some tourist.
00:09:24.580He's a political commentator, political creator.
00:10:38.180Martin defender in in terms of this, because so I have this really weird take where I actually support the ending of Daenerys being this evil figure.
00:10:50.200And throughout the course of when I ran the blog, I was always arguing against the social justice warriors because of this, because, of course, ultimately, they were always supporting the character of Daenerys and that she could do no wrong, that everything she did was perfectly awesome.
00:11:04.160Because yes, queen. And we remember there was this whole social phenomenon where people were naming their daughter Khaleesi.
00:11:11.540People were naming their family members, you know, after her.
00:11:17.000And in in in our society for like almost a decade.
00:11:20.520And suddenly all of that went off the rails because she obviously turned into an evil dragon queen.
00:11:27.200And I was had been arguing all along that if you just read the novels, you can see this this madness.
00:11:33.420And there's a there's a line in the novels where George R.
00:11:36.860Martin says over and over that every time a Targaryen is born, the gods flip a coin and one side is greatness and one side is madness.
00:11:43.980She is, of course, the daughter of Mad King Ares.
00:11:46.840She is someone who is seen as, you know, potentially this naive princess at the beginning.
00:11:53.720But as she gains power, she conducts she conducts actions which are, to my mind, are clearly very self-serving, very selfish and and ultimately evil.
00:12:06.420And you see this this narcissistic rage come up again and again, whereas on the TV show she's she's presented and we all remember this this famous picture right of where she's the the liberator of the slaves and they're all sort of like parading upon her.
00:12:20.960And it became this meme of like, you know, white women when they tip extra at Starbucks or whatever, you know, and it became this total meme of it.
00:12:29.740And in the books, it's there's an element of that, but it's not played up as much as in the TV show.
00:12:36.760Also, she's she's victimized in the TV show much more.
00:12:40.640She's portrayed in the very first episode, for example, she is portrayed as a rape victim.
00:12:45.100And in that scene, for example, it's the it's the wedding night where she marries Cal Drogo.
00:12:51.760That scene in the books is completely different where Drogo actually asks her consent.
00:13:00.080So it's completely changed even from that very original scene.
00:13:04.560And remember, if you go back, this was, you know, 2011.
00:13:07.760This was sort of the time of like the UVA.
00:13:10.560We were told the campuses were, you know, these these these rape factories that every guy on campus was just about to was about to date rape you.
00:13:20.320And there was this huge hysteria over this on campus.
00:13:23.800And I'm sorry, I'm just going to say it like it is that that's what it was.
00:13:26.700And I think that bled over into HBO and it continued to bleed over in that character whereby in in the show, you just don't have or excuse me, in the books, you don't have that sort of portrayal of Daenerys.
00:13:37.140It's it's much more shown on her own volition that she's doing these things up to and including, by the way, having her husband kill her own brother so that she becomes the heir to the throne, at least for the Targaryens.
00:13:49.760And this is something where I would constantly be battling these woke Daenerys fans saying, guys, it she's she's kind of evil, you know, and so anyway, long story that not to rehash all of that.
00:14:01.880But but but to point out that they just totally mismanaged and mistold the story where instead of instead of portraying it that way, they turned everyone into these sort of caricatures where a nuanced character like Daenerys or a nuanced character like Sanis just became a one dimensional or maybe two dimensional character seeking power or always seeking liberation and then flips on a dime.
00:14:27.360And so by the end of season eight, she's just she's you know, everyone's got their hopes in her.
00:14:33.120And it's a total rug pull because the writers, of course, didn't actually know what they were doing.
00:14:38.240And that's why David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, who were the writers of the TV show, have, if you notice, by the way, been pretty much excommunicated from Hollywood since then.
00:14:47.940At one point, they were going to be given a new Star Wars trilogy that has totally not come to fruition.
00:14:53.720In fact, Star Wars, another series where, you know, I've seen examples of this, like Kathleen Kennedy have gone down the same path where they haven't had any movies since I think it was the the oh, my gosh, was it the Rise of the Skywalker or whatever the last Disney movie was.
00:15:11.180And I guess they're doing like a Mandalorian and Baby Yoda movie, which is just super weird right now.
00:15:17.040But those writers have been completely kicked out of Hollywood pretty much ever since.
00:15:22.620Yeah, when you train wreck what is probably the last like collectively enjoyed cultural property of that era, you know, that badly, I think that that's pretty huge.
00:15:35.440I mean, basically, I don't think until Stranger Things, you had a show that was so simultaneously watched again by the United States really became water cooler talk.
00:15:44.840But even more things again, by the way, another another issue of finale.
00:16:04.940Well, an even more impressive failure, I think, is the House of the Dragon show.
00:16:10.940It's one it's one that competently acted, I guess, you know, nice sets and things.
00:16:18.120But ultimately, it just seemed to go nowhere.
00:16:21.020I turned it off halfway through the first season because I was just bored and depressed.
00:16:25.580There was just it felt like they took all the long wrong lessons from what people wanted from Game of Thrones and threw it into a new series.
00:16:36.480And it's working completely without any original book material, right?
00:16:40.080That that one's just completely written.
00:16:42.220Well, so that one's got their sort of this is in that similar in vain where George R.
00:16:49.120Martin has put out what he calls these fake histories of Westeros.
00:16:52.080And so there are some sort of like bullet point Wikipedia article type fake histories that you can books that you can get on on this period.
00:17:03.400And the Dance of the Dragons and this Targaryen civil war.
00:17:07.920It's the war that ends the dragons, the line of the dragons in Westeros.
00:17:12.640So it's why there's no dragons at the time of Night of the Seven Kingdoms or certainly by the time of Song of Ice and Fire, which is the main series.
00:17:21.860And so it's it supposedly is this really cool civil war with like dragons fighting dragons in the sky.
00:17:28.660But instead, you don't get any of that.
00:17:30.540And also, of course, you have this very strange and I think everyone's just disappointed.
00:17:36.280That's kind of silly addition of a totally race swapped version of the House Valerian, which are again.
00:17:44.660So the Targaryens, Valerians are supposed to be based on like the Romans and like the Roman Empire.
00:17:50.200And and and and by the way, the concept of race comes up very importantly in Game of Thrones from a plot perspective, because this remember, this is sort of the world before DNA, the world before CSI analysis.
00:18:05.280So if you're trying to figure out who is the son, who is the heir to the throne, you're looking at things like skin color, eye color, hair color.
00:18:13.500This becomes a huge plot point with the with the son of Robert Baratheon in the first season, not actually being his son and therefore not actually being the heir to the throne.
00:18:23.940Spoiler alert, which is why he which is what what leads Ned Stark and others to their death in the very first season to protect this secret that Joffrey was not actually the son of the king.
00:18:34.340And neither were his brother and sister. And so the fact that you would add in this sort of like race swapped version of the these these, you know, Targaryen similar family from Old Valeria is is just just ridiculous and just obviously ridiculous on its face.
00:18:54.060Jack, are you telling me that a show based on monarchy and succession and heritage and all these things, it matters that, you know, that's actually how genetics works is actually how lines of dissent work?
00:19:07.040Well, and a very interesting thing about Game of Thrones that's important, too, is, you know, obviously, this is a show that is trying to mimic in some way European history.
00:19:17.280You know, it's it's echoing different parts of that.
00:19:21.080But also when the show was originally kind of trying to tell its story, the racial change was kind of like geography.
00:19:28.620We knew we were in different places because the people looked different.
00:19:31.560And it was a visual cue as to the different cultures and lands and peoples we were encountering.
00:19:36.180The show was diverse, you know, I guess, in that sense.
00:19:40.380But there was a particular logic to where people, you know, people from the south had darker skin.
00:19:46.620You know, people from the north had lighter skin.
00:19:47.940Like you knew it was the natural understanding of how you would get a distribution of melanin in any given geographic setting.
00:19:55.320And so it helped us understand the world.
00:19:57.600But when you get this like weird swapping in, you know, the people that obviously did not belong in that particular setting introduced without any kind of connection to the world, it's jarring.
00:20:08.400It breaks up the visual language of the show and makes it very confusing for people to follow.
00:20:13.360So, well, yeah, and one of the examples of this, so jump ahead to Night of Seven Kingdoms a little bit when there's the character with, and by the way, are we going spoilers free?
00:20:25.360So we should make it, should stop here and make it clear, guys.
00:20:28.100We are going to be discussing the show in depth.
00:20:30.060So, you know, if you are worried, you haven't seen it yet, you, you know, it only takes literally, I think it's like three hours total to watch because the episodes are so short.
00:20:39.060So if you need to fix that, stop, go do that, come back, because we are going to actually get into plot points here.
00:20:53.940Well, the reason that he's bald is because he has the traditional Targaryen silver hair and that he is trying to hide the fact that he is a Targaryen by covering up the fact that he has this, this, it's sort of like this bleach blonde hair that you see most of the Targaryens have.
00:21:13.740And this is something, of course, that, that the, the sort of woke HBO fans were getting mad at me about because I was pointing out that the Targaryens are white and therefore anything the Targaryens do is white culture.
00:21:28.440It's obviously based on white culture.
00:21:30.260They were trying to say, oh no, they have a Dornish influence.
00:21:33.560And I'm like, well, this kid's clearly not Dornish.
00:21:36.480So again, it's a huge plot point because he's trying to be in incognito and, and go throughout the seven kingdoms as a, as a squire for this hedge night and spoiler alert or not spoiler alert, but just, just personal note that, uh, night of the seven kingdoms, the tales of Duncan egg have always been just a personal favorite of mine.
00:21:55.360I love this series because it's a smaller story because it's much narrower and, you know, we can obviously talk about that, but, but yes, this, this is a huge plot point in the series itself that we're talking about.
00:22:05.900What he's talking about is basic genetics and, and coloring and, and all of this.
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00:22:25.280So let's get into the show itself since we've talked about all the, uh, the previous iterations and, and why this one is different.
00:22:32.120Right. So you point out that this starts from source material that is shorter.
00:22:37.020It's more of a novella. Uh, it's more concise. Uh, the show itself is only about, you know, the think the first episode, something like 45 minutes and all the rest of them are, are closer to like 30 minutes, which is something we haven't seen from HBO in a long time.
00:22:50.800It's all about these big epic shows. And of course, game of Thrones is one of the shows that started that, uh, or made that, uh, such a desirable, uh, thing.
00:22:59.640But I think the fact that this is really shrunk down gives us a much better understanding of the world and makes it far more cohesive. Uh, one of the problems with game of Thrones, especially as it got looser later on with the writing was, you know, that it was clear.
00:23:13.520They didn't know what to do with all the characters and trying to switch perspectives and follow things around all the scales of epic battles and these kinds of things.
00:23:20.100This feels like a lot happens, but it all happens really over a few days in a particular area. Uh, you know, there's only a maximum of what 14 guys fighting at the end of the show. Uh, so this is really something where we went from these pitched giant dragon battles of, you know, hundreds of thousands of people clashing over massive battlefields and cities.
00:23:41.900And all of a sudden, actually, now we're just having a story about a normal guy going to a tournament and trying to figure out how he's good, how he's going to fight the radically different, uh, scope. And I think that really helps out a lot.
00:23:54.400No, it's amazing. It's, it just, it winds it down. So the original, cause a lot of people don't know this, the original, um, song of ice and fire. So the main series is based on the historical period of the war of the roses, which was a British civil war. Um, and for anyone who thinks that George R.R. Martin is some, uh, creative genius,
00:24:11.300the war of the roses was the Yorks versus the Lancasters as in the Starks and the Lannisters. You see it's, and instead of Eddard, they had Edward. And there's, there's just so many different things you could point out where it's actually, it's actually much more similar than, uh, than people realize it. Oh, Yorks and Lancasters, Starks and Lannisters. Okay. Got it.
00:24:36.540So once you realize what, what he's doing there, you realize that, Oh, okay. He's just taking some of that and, and even simplifying it. But at the same time, it's still, still quite complex in, in terms of the books. And, you know, he's adding great characters and I'm, I'm someone who, you know, I've, a lot of people detract from George R.R. Martin. A lot of people have, have said, and I think, I think wrongly have given him this criticism that he doesn't believe in heroism, that he's nihilistic.
00:25:01.540And, and you just don't see that from, from this series at all. You do see heroism in the character of Duncan the Tall, Sir Duncan the Tall, that he is this, um, you know, there, there's a great line in the books that they haven't used in the show yet, where, uh, where they say, dunk the lunk, think as a, thick as a castle wall.
00:25:21.420And, you know, he's not necessarily seen as the smartest knight of the seven kingdoms. He's not seen as this, you know, genius. He certainly doesn't understand any of the, any of these affairs of state or the, the palace intrigues, which of course is played up to great comedic effect in the series, both on, on the page and the screen.
00:25:42.520And, and, and of course his young squire, who actually is a member of the royal family is constantly having to explain to him like what he's done wrong and who he's offended.
00:25:51.280And of course this all, uh, you know, it, it all eventually culminates in him having to go on this huge trial because the, he, um, is defending a girl's honor, a puppeteer's honor or puppetress, I suppose you could say.
00:26:04.360And, um, and the person that he strikes is one of the princes of the royal family. And so it, it does get into these ideas of class. It gets into ideas of, can you become something greater? He's from a, uh, you know, very impoverished background.
00:26:22.640He grew up in flea bottom, which is known as the, you know, sort of like the slums of, it's like the, it's like the Harlem, I guess, of, uh, King's landing or the, the hell's kitchen of King's landing, if you will.
00:26:34.060And, you know, he's a, he's a, you know, a squire who's, uh, who's come up. And of course there is the, uh, well, I don't know if I, I guess I'll just say it because we are, we are doing, uh, spoilers here that.
00:26:46.680Yeah. We made it clear. So one of the big questions over all of this is, and I'm interested to hear your thoughts.
00:26:52.640That, you know, was he actually knighted? Um, and there's sort of, there's sort of this big mystery as to whether or not Sir Arlen ever actually bestowed on him knighthood or if he died beforehand.
00:27:06.080So is Dunk actually lying about being knighted, uh, when he's, you know, trying to prove himself. And, and this of course plays into, I think the wider series as well, which in the books is never confirmed one way or the other.
00:27:20.960Yeah. I haven't read the books yet though. I have that, uh, queued up for myself, but the, uh, it, it, from, at least from in the show, it's heavily hinted that he was never knighted.
00:27:31.620It's very clear that he's having that conversation, uh, while, uh, his, uh, Lord is dying and he's asking, why didn't you ever make me a knight?
00:27:40.380And it seemed like he kind of dies on the tree there before doing it. Uh, he's hesitant to, uh, uh, to knight others during the battle, but right before the trial of the seven, a lot of that is added that that it's, it's hinted at in the novel novellas, but it's, it's on the screen.
00:27:57.040I think they made it much more explicit. Gotcha. So that, so that, you know, may or may not continue to play in, but I think in the, at least in the show canon, it seems like they're going for, he never really was knighted, which makes it interesting because then there's that tension.
00:28:10.660And he believes so fervently and so sincerely in the knight's code, except for the one thing where he wasn't a knight. And that's, that's kind of, uh, obviously a tension there that I'm sure will, uh, probably play itself out in later seasons.
00:28:25.500Cause it does look like we are going to get later seasons and we'll certainly talk about that before we're done here. Uh, but I want to just go back and touch on a few of the things that you said there at the beginning.
00:28:34.080First, so refreshing to see a true hero's journey. Cause we, we were kind of prefigured. We know Duncan the tall ends up doing great things. We have that, that knowledge because of, uh, you know, previous shows.
00:28:48.300So we know he's got a larger arc, a longer story, but we also know that he's coming from nothing. He's the, you know, he's, he's kind of dumb. He's poor. He's from, uh, the slums. And so we know we were going to go on this journey.
00:29:01.920We just don't know how we're going to get there, but it's refreshing to have a classic hero's journey. It's also really refreshing that, uh, you know, as you say, we've seen heroism before we've seen the Starks and others be heroic, heroic, but dunks allowed to be heroic and like have some fun about it.
00:29:20.200There's actual comedy in the show. There are moments of lightheartedness. It's, it's not in, you know, the, the other series, anytime someone does something good, not only are they immediately punished, but they're just miserable the whole time.
00:29:33.420Like there's no, there's never a smile on any of their faces in this show. I feel like we are actually allowed to breathe for a minute. It's not this constant, like miasma of negativity that's occurring there.
00:29:44.100And so I think just that combination of getting a, getting a truly heroic character on a classic hero's journey, who's allowed to have some fun, even though we're getting really brutal game of Thrones moments and turns and things as well.
00:29:57.520I think mixing that in really, uh, ironically subverted the expectation of game of Thrones fans who are used to having their, uh, expectations subverted by the negativity and said flip the other direction really changed the energy of the series.
00:30:11.140Yeah. It's just an optimistic show and, and take the, you know, all the, like, you know, race stuff or whatever the woke stuff out of it.
00:30:20.780When's the last time you turn on the TV and actually saw something optimistic and saw some, saw something which actually gave you hope, hope for the world, hope for yourself, hope for bettering your situation.
00:30:32.000Um, I've actually said for years, and it was kind of cool cause I had an opportunity to, uh, to do something about this.
00:30:38.680I've said for years that if you go back to the 1990s, this was written, this is actually, you know, kind of the material that George RR Martin was writing right after the first book came out.
00:30:48.520So if, if you look at the, in terms of the release, um, publishing dates, the first book, a game of Thrones comes out and I think 96, and then this comes out the very next year.
00:31:00.080And so this comes out even before the sequel clash of Kings comes out.
00:31:04.640And so it's, it's written around that same timeframe.
00:31:08.920One of the biggest shows every Friday night in the 1990s was Hercules, the legendary journeys of Hercules.
00:31:14.540And this is a very similar setup where it just seems like it's the episode of the week.
00:31:20.020It's Dunk is getting into some, um, you know, some hijink, some issue that he's got to deal with.
00:31:26.920And he's got his sidekick there and they're just traveling around the kingdoms and getting into, you know, getting into nonsense.
00:31:33.100And this, this, this idea of a knight errant, um, if you go back to the penny dreadfuls of, you know, the British empire or the Victorian age, these were huge in, uh, in, you know, in British culture, these types of novels.
00:31:47.880And they're one of the things that actually led to sort of the idea of the American cowboy and a lot of the same stories that you would see there where it's just sort of the lone ranger going out and saving, you know, the town kind of stories.
00:32:01.980And this is what it were, you know, really where it came from.
00:32:04.980And it's something where I've always thought that George R.R.
00:32:07.980Martin was kind of just going for that.
00:32:10.080Like, let's just tell, have a fun adventure series.
00:32:12.500And in fact, you know, definite spoilers now, but the very next, um, novella in the series is just that it's, it's, it's not even, it doesn't even get into very much the high politics of the realm, which, which certainly the hedge knight does a little bit, at least in terms of the line of succession, having, having, you know, a direct effect from the events of the story.
00:32:34.720This one is just two lords arguing over a waterway and, and someone's put up a dam and, hey, you're diverting the water from my crops.
00:32:45.480And the other one's arguing and says, well, I have a claim to it and you don't.
00:32:49.980That's literally the whole story is, is just an argument between the two lords, which is, it's, it's actually my favorite one because it's such a small story.
00:32:58.280And you, you, you get into more of the character-based drama rather than this high political-based drama.
00:33:05.360Some say the bubbles in an arrow truffle piece can take 34 seconds to melt in your mouth.
00:33:10.020Sometimes the very amount you're stuck at the same red light.
00:33:25.880I just watched it a second time, uh, you know, uh, to prepare for this, uh, it, and again, guys, it's only like 30 minutes an episode.
00:33:33.940So you can, you can only six episodes.
00:33:35.980You can easily watch it for yourselves.
00:33:37.580Uh, but it's one of those, uh, scenarios.
00:33:40.560I think of the Mandalorian where obviously star Wars was flailing.
00:33:47.180They, they, you know, they were, they were flagging.
00:33:49.040They couldn't figure out what to do with the series.
00:33:51.360They'd have a number of very prominent, uh, embarrassments.
00:33:54.860And then they kind of came out with this small little tale of just two people doing their own thing.
00:34:01.120It's much more contained and, and, uh, you know, a little, I wouldn't go grounded.
00:34:04.600Wouldn't be the word there, but a little more able to be followed.
00:34:07.940You didn't have the grand politics of the entire galaxy.
00:34:10.500And then after that first season, they just tried to stuff as many references and expand the scope as fast as possible.
00:34:16.760And all of a sudden the charm of that relationship was gone, right?
00:34:20.340Like all of a sudden that back and forth that really the show was built on fell away.
00:34:24.580And so my concern is that happens here, right?
00:34:27.920That all of a sudden, you know, they kept most of the woke stuff out of this one.
00:34:31.900They kept the, the show focused and, and small, but the temptation is to immediately, you know, blow it up, bring new characters in, bring in all the member berries.
00:34:41.240Hey, I remember that guy. I remember that reference. I, Oh, I wanted to see what's happening with these other parts.
00:34:46.900And I, that, so my big concern is that they, you know, bring in a bunch of diversity, bring in a bunch of, uh, expanded, uh, world and plot that wasn't in those, those novellas.
00:34:56.760Do you think there'll be wise enough to hold to that smaller story?
00:34:59.580Do you think they have the level of restraint necessary when they have a hit like that to kind of stay focused there?
00:35:04.880Do you have faith in HBO to pull this off?
00:35:08.540Um, I'm, I'm certainly glad by the way, though, that, um, HBO was not purchased by Netflix.
00:35:15.560So I would say that that is a, a point in the right direction because this was something that, uh, certainly it seemed like it was about to happen just up until really a couple of weeks ago.
00:35:25.380This is one of the big, the big worries I've had.
00:35:27.980And, and by the way, part of my, I've, I've joked that like, cause people were saying that, Oh, well, it's only because Donald Trump was president that Netflix wasn't able to buy HBO.
00:35:36.300And now the Ellison family has purchased it.
00:35:40.500I've been playing the long game all, you know, all long.
00:35:43.900This is, this is angry GOT fans revenge on you.
00:35:47.840I would, I would, I would, yes, I really do want to have, you know, have the storyline where you for like the last 10 years became a political operative just so you could control who would end up owning your favorite, uh, book franchise.
00:36:00.680Is that, I mean, yeah, obviously, and, uh, that being said, I have put in a couple of requests for, um, uh, for potential, uh, other adaptations to that, that might be going on in, uh, in a song, the song of ice and fire prequels.
00:36:15.300For example, Agon's conquest apparently is getting a movie series, which I certainly want, uh, want to say, and if at all possible, but no, um, the guy who is the show runner for, I'll put it this way.
00:36:25.680But what I do have faith in is the fact that Ira Parker, the guy who is adapting this series, when you see the interviews that he's done and when you see just, just watching the show itself, you can tell that this is a guy who has a serious amount of love and respect for the series and for the characters.
00:36:46.300And a lot of people were saying, oh, you know, I think that the pacing of Duncan egg was very slow.
00:37:01.780And even in the very final episode, there isn't any twist.
00:37:04.940It's just, it's just a slow blur, slow burn type of episode.
00:37:10.020And I've said, you know, I think that's just someone who's actually has a real deal of reverence for the series, doesn't want to change anything that he doesn't have to, and wants to put out a product that is going to stand the test of time, which by the way, the original series has not.
00:37:29.080You don't see people holding these big Game of Thrones conventions.
00:37:33.860You don't see this fandom existing anywhere outside of a very, you know, slim minority of people.
00:37:40.720It's nowhere near what it once was in terms of a cultural force until the Seven Kingdoms came back around.
00:37:48.200And so will this inject, it's clearly injecting more popularity into the series, into the fandom.
00:38:30.860They did mention that they're going to be going to Dorne, which the Southern land, as you mentioned before, which they don't do in book two or novella two of the series.
00:38:40.020So interested to kind of see what goes on there.
00:38:42.700If they're going to be adding to the plot at all in, in terms of any of this, but we will, we will see.
00:38:51.180And I just hope that when they look at the, the ratings in terms of this became the number one show on TV.
00:38:57.020When it was out, it's rated the highest of any game of Thrones episode on the IMDB charts where it's rated higher than any of the original series or house of the dragon that HBO takes a look and says, Hey, wait a minute, guys, we've got a real hit.
00:39:12.180This new ownership with the Ellison family, David Ellison is going to say, guys, if it, if it ain't broke, we don't need to, you know, we don't need to fix it.
00:39:19.500Just leave it the way it is and let them cook.
00:39:22.400Your point about the staying power, I think is really important because like we were saying, this was such a cultural phenomenon.
00:39:27.960This is one of the, you know, last true shows that everyone watched.
00:39:34.020Rarely do you see something like that just immediately fade away.
00:39:37.760But when you look at Star Trek or, you know, the, the, you know, Stargate or any of these other like old, you know, sci-fi or fantasy shows, they tend to have big followings.
00:40:25.100We don't need to, you know, radically invest it with any kind of message.
00:40:29.040We can just let it unfold in the way that, that is going and people are going to enjoy it.
00:40:34.060We can kind of trust our audience enough to, to continue to follow this line.
00:40:39.200And we don't have to suddenly throw a bunch of dragons or nudity or whatever in there just to keep people interested.
00:40:44.820And, you know, the show did have some crass moments.
00:40:47.980I think actually funny enough, that was probably the, the, the knock I heard from it the most was how out of place those things felt and how unnecessary they were.
00:40:57.420And that's another good sign because the show I think was good at moments, but it became increasingly more and more people talking about the sex scenes and the, the CGI dragons and less and less about the acting or the character moments.
00:41:10.660And I really, you know, it's funny, you said that people push back against the pacing of this series.
00:41:16.620Cause I thought that was the best part about it.
00:41:18.260You get this slow buildup of these character moments, you know, introduced to everybody, these conversations, there's not a ton of action.
00:41:25.260And then you just get this magnificent battle scene, which again is small, but so powerful.
00:41:31.780And it's just been memed all over the place.
00:41:33.640I'm sure you've seen the edits, the get up edits and, and everything that have happened out of that.
00:41:37.620And just that just really only one episode of contained high, you know, a high intensity action, even then not at that big of a scope.
00:41:46.500And then it's so powerful that then you just kind of need the episode to breathe at the end, you know, you need that slow burn cause you're, you're just so on edge from everything that just happened, all the drama and everything.
00:41:57.700And that's kind of, I think the beauty of a show, that's how, you know, a show is well done when you appreciate those quieter moments, when you appreciate those moments to pause and think about what's happened and reflect and recover, because instead of just, you know, hitting you a spectacle constantly, you were actually enjoying the emotional arcs of people.
00:42:15.840You're given a time to, to feel how the characters feel and be glad that they've made it to the other side of this.
00:42:21.420And even in the one that truly big battle scene, that action was so tight for, for kind of what it was.
00:42:28.580I think people are appreciating that rather than using that as some kind of knock against it in general.
00:42:34.680Exactly. And at the same time, the stakes are higher because you're more invested in the characters.
00:42:39.720You, you actually don't know what's going to happen, especially because, Hey, this is a game of Thrones series.
00:42:45.700After all, the protagonist could be killed.
00:42:48.720You know, now, of course we, we know because of, because the fact that it's a prequel, we do know that he eventually goes on and he becomes the, the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.
00:42:59.020So eventually does become knighted in his own right.
00:43:01.800We don't quite know the path to that yet, but there are some references to him in the main series, both in the books and in the TV show, where it comes up that, that he does go on to become this great knight and this great hero.
00:43:14.140And so we don't know exactly the path that is taken.
00:43:18.160And, and yes, we also do find out that his, um, his squire egg becomes Aegon the fifth, Aegon the unlikely, the, uh, the ruler of the seven kingdoms.
00:43:29.600So even though he's the fourth son of, uh, Prince Makar, he does eventually become the king himself in his own right.
00:43:36.320And actually, so for folks to understand the timeframe, if you remember Maester Eamon, who is the maester, this, the old maester at the wall, when, when Jon Snow is there and at, uh, Castle Black, that is the brother of egg.
00:43:49.700So, uh, the older brother, he's the third of the four sons.
00:43:53.960And so he is, uh, someone who, um, actually mentions egg, you know, egg, I dreamt I was old, you know, and, um, that's the egg that he's referring to.
00:44:03.400So if you, if you do go back and forth, there are these references, Sir Duncan the Tall, Joffrey talks about him a couple of times, you know, why are there four pages to Sir, Sir Duncan the Tall?
00:44:12.060And only one for, uh, uh, uh, Beric Tandarian or, or whatever it was, or Barristan Selmy.
00:44:17.560And, uh, and so these are ways that you get invested in the stakes, but at the same time, we don't actually know what's going to happen in those scenes.
00:44:27.940It's been a long time since we've seen this slow kind of burn in one of these series.
00:44:33.480And it gives you the ability, I think, to just become more familiar with the characters, to build that relationship.
00:44:41.520And if you don't feel the camaraderie, the, the, what's great about the show.
00:44:45.160And I saw somebody mentioned this as well.
00:44:47.160What's so great about the show is that the best parts of it, some of the best parts as outside of the action are just the moments where it's Duncan eggs sort of hanging out and they could be just whittling together.
00:44:58.600Or he's, he's sort of teaching him sewing and weaving in this one scene.
00:45:02.040And it's just a cool scene of a couple of dudes, as, as they say, just dudes being bros.
00:45:08.400And, and there's something just truly amazing about that, that we, again, we have not seen on screen in, in a decade, at least a decade plus.
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00:45:49.180And I think that, again, is so important for them to keep things small, because as you say, that relationship is what matters.
00:45:55.760That's the core of the show. That's really the cornerstone.
00:45:58.900And so if you start trying to bring in a bunch of plot lines and new characters and expand the scope and everything, you're just necessarily going to lose some of that.
00:46:07.480And while there's a thousand deaths to the Game of Thrones that are shocking and everything, really, after the Red Wedding, most people start to lose any kind of sense of who's important and why deaths matter.
00:46:17.800Yeah, oh, another guy got stabbed. But I don't know. I think I spent 20 minutes with that character the entire time.
00:46:23.560So I don't really care. But obviously, as you say, in this instance, because we have focused so much on this relationship and the small circle around there, every single death, everything single possible event matters because we're just so familiar with these.
00:46:38.260And I think it would be foolish for them to to walk away from that relationship.
00:46:42.580I think it's critical, especially because we've seen how horrible all of the royalty in Game of Thrones can be.
00:46:50.060And that's kind of the last episode there is, you know, Duncan saying, look, I can't even deal with princes.
00:46:56.740I don't even want to be a part of this anymore. But then he realizes he's going to be leaving egg to his fate.
00:47:01.960He's going to be leaving him amongst all these jackals and he's going to more likely come up.
00:47:06.060And maybe the best thing he can do, maybe maybe the most important thing he can do for the realm is not to go and become this knight and fight alongside the Targaryens and everything else.
00:47:16.740Maybe the most important thing he can do is give this possible future prince a future, a moment, a childhood in which he is not surrounded by the most evil, devious people in the world.
00:47:27.580And maybe by going through that process, he can save him the fate of some of these other nobles.
00:47:33.160And I think that's an excellent way to end it. I don't know exactly how the first book ended.
00:47:38.680I know some people said that maybe that I don't know if this is true in the in the novella that he doesn't sneak away, that they know he's going with.
00:47:47.900Yeah. And so that that's a change. And so I don't know if they're going to make that an antagonistic thing.
00:47:52.100But otherwise, I certainly hope not, because if if they do, the the new Hand of the King, Brynden Rivers, a.k.a. Bloodraven, who also becomes a great character in the in the main series.
00:48:07.480He's he's particularly known for someone who operates a network of spies and a network of informants all throughout the land and is dealing with this what's called the Blackfyre Rebellion, these Targaryen pretenders and the great bastards of House Targaryen.
00:48:21.840And so if if they do end up making this a thing where, you know, Dunk is kind of on the run, I think, to your point, it would just add this extra layer of tension and confusion to the series.
00:48:35.440That would make it bigger rather than, you know, they could easily make it out where Prince Makar just says, OK, well, I know where egg went.
00:48:43.660He did what, you know, he was going to do and doesn't end up sending the knights of the realm against against him, which I certainly hope they don't do.
00:48:52.660I hope that, you know, I think you could easily write that off without having to change too much.
00:48:58.520But then again, you know, they certainly could do so.
00:49:01.340Well, Jack, it's been fantastic speaking with you.
00:49:06.300I know a lot of people have really enjoyed this show.
00:49:08.660And so I'm glad we could take a little break from what is obviously a rather crazy political world right now and just enjoy a decent piece of entertainment.
00:49:17.320I also was glad to uncover your long term plan to become a political influencer so you could ultimately control the fate of your favorite book series.
00:49:26.120But if people want to catch what you're doing, where should they be heading?
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