After the long night, err, wait, we have a great new GoT episode to review! Sean and Aziz discuss Game of Thrones with no book spoilers in the first episode, then Ash & Aziz are rejoined by Radio Westeros for Season 7! We’ll take some live questions while comparing the books to the show. Even with the show this far past the books, there’s still a lot to say…
Credits
Our introduction and the Westeros and Essos maps were created by Michael Klarfeld (Klaradox), with the cyvasse pieces created by dutchmogul. Check out the episode on YouTube or the Acast player below to see those images and some great art of Euron while listening, as well as the newest art of Mazzalicartho, by Azany. You can also find these images below.
The primary topics in this episode:
Meta-History
Becoming Crow’s Eye
The New Old Way
Above the Game… of Thrones
Outro
Tell the Crow’s Eye he’s afraid of kinslaying, and he’ll murder one of his own sons just to prove you wrong.” – ADWD, The Wayward Bride
“Who knows more of gods than I? Horse gods and fire gods, gods made of gold with gemstone eyes, gods carved of cedar wood, gods chiseled into mountains, gods of empty air… I know them all. I have seen their peoples garland them with flowers, and shed the blood of goats and bulls and children in their names. And I have heard the prayers, in half a hundred tongues. Cure my withered leg, make the maiden love me, grant me a healthy son. Save me, succor me, make me wealthy… protect me! Protect me from mine enemies, protect me from the darkness, protect me from the crabs inside my belly, from the horselords, from the slavers, from the sellswords at my door. Protect me from the Silence.” He laughed. “Godless? Why, Aeron, I am the godliest man ever to raise sail! You serve one god, Damphair, but I have served ten thousand. From Ib to Asshai, when men see my sails, they pray.” – AFFC, The Iron Captain
Mazzalicartho has grown! Art by Azany.
Credits
Our introduction, and the awesome new Essos map were created by Michael Klarfeld (Klaradox), with the cyvasse pieces created by dutchmogul. Check out the episode on YouTube or the Acast player below to see those images, as well as art by Ed Scheer.
The Reader (Martin Lewis of Echoes of Ice and Fire).
The primary topics in this episode:
Part 1 – Dreams of the Past
Part 2 – Dreams of the Present
Part 3 – Dreams of the Future
Part 4 – Dreams Out of Time
Outro
“There’s different kinds,” he said slowly. “There’s the wolf dreams, those aren’t so bad as the others. I run and hunt and kill squirrels. And there’s dreams where the crow comes and tells me to fly. Sometimes the tree is in those dreams too, calling my name. That frightens me. But the worst dreams are when I fall.”
– ACOK, Bran V
That night Sansa dreamt of Joffrey on the throne, with herself seated beside him in a gown of woven gold. She had a crown on her head, and everyone she had ever known came before her, to bend the knee and say their courtesies. – AGOT, Sansa IV AGOT
“He knew nothing of his mother; Eddard Stark would not talk of her. Yet he dreamed of her at times, so often that he could almost see her face. In his dreams, she was beautiful, and highborn, and her eyes were kind.” – AGOT, Jon III
“They are children, Sansa thought. They are silly little girls, even Elinor. They’ve never seen a battle, they’ve never seen a man die, they know nothing. Their dreams were full of songs and stories, the way hers had been before Joffrey cut her father’s head off. Sansa pitied them. Sansa envied them.” – ASOS, Sansa II
“That night Catelyn slept fitfully, haunted by formless dreams of her children, the lost and the dead.” – ASOS, Catelyn I
“She had no time for sleep, with the weight of the world upon her shoulders. And she feared to dream. Sleep is a little death, dreams the whisperings of the Other, who would drag us all into his eternal night. She would sooner sit bathed in the ruddy glow of her red lord’s blessed flames, her cheeks flushed by the wash of heat as if by a lover’s kisses. Some nights she drowsed, but never for more than an hour. One day, Melisandre prayed, she would not sleep at all. One day she would be free of dreams. Melony, she thought. Lot Seven.” – ADWD, Melisandre
The primary topics in this episode:
“And so we come, nearly, to the end of the world. Or, at least, the end of our knowledge. Easternmost and southernmost of the great cities of the known world, the ancient port of Asshai stands at the end of a long wedge of land, on the point where the Jade Sea meets the Saffron Straits. Its origins are lost in the mists of time. Even the Asshai’i do not claim to know who built their city; they will say only that a city has stood here since the world began and will stand here until it ends. Few places in the known world are as remote as Asshai, and fewer are as forbidding.”
“The dark city by the Shadow is a city steeped in sorcery. Warlocks, wizards, alchemists, moonsingers, red priests, black alchemists, necromancers, aeromancers, pyromancers, bloodmages, torturers, inquisitors, poisoners, godswives, night-walkers, shapechangers, worshippers of the Black Goat and the Pale Child and the Lion of Night, all find welcome in Asshai-by-the-Shadow, where nothing is forbidden. Here they are free to practice their spells without restraint or censure, conduct their obscene rites, and fornicate with demons if that is their desire.”
“He lifted his eyes and saw clear across the narrow sea, to the Free Cities and the green Dothraki sea and beyond, to Vaes Dothrak under its mountain, to the fabled lands of the Jade Sea, to Asshai by the Shadow, where dragons stirred beneath the sunrise.”
“She had heard that the first dragons had come from the east, from the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai and the islands of the Jade Sea. Perhaps some were still living there, in realms strange and wild.”
“Asshai, Dany thought. She would have me go to Asshai. “Will the Asshai’i give me an army?” she demanded. “Will there be gold for me in Asshai? Will there be ships? What is there in Asshai that I will not find in Qarth?””
In such fragments of Barth’s Unnatural History as remain, the septon appears to have considered various legends examining the origins of dragons and how they came to be controlled by the Valyrians. The Valyrians themselves claimed that dragons sprang forth as the children of the Fourteen Flames, while in Qarth the tales state that there was once a second moon in the sky. One day this moon was scalded by the sun and cracked like an egg, and a million dragons poured forth. In Asshai, the tales are many and confused, but certain texts—all impossibly ancient—claim that dragons first came from the Shadow, a place where all of our learning fails us. These Asshai’i histories say that a people so ancient they had no name first tamed dragons in the Shadow and brought them to Valyria, teaching the Valyrians their arts before departing from the annals. Yet if men in the shadow had tamed dragons first, why did they not conquer as the Valyrians did?
“But there were dragons in Westeros once, long before the Targaryens came, as our own legends and histories tell us.”
“If dragons did first spring from the Fourteen Flames, they must have been spread across much of the known world before they were tamed. And, in fact, there is evidence for this, as dragon bones have been found as far north as Ib, and even in the jungles of Sothoryos.”
“Some of the statues were so lovely they took her breath away, others so misshapen and terrible that Dany could scarcely bear to look at them. Those, Ser Jorah said, had likely come from the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai.”
“Travelers tell us that the city is built entirely of black stone: halls, hovels, temples, palaces, streets, walls, bazaars, all. Some say as well that the stone of Asshai has a greasy, unpleasant feel to it, that it seems to drink the light, dimming tapers and torches and hearth fires alike. The nights are very black in Asshai, all agree, and even the brightest days of summer are somehow grey and gloomy.”
“The waters of the Ash glisten black beneath the noonday sun and glimmer with a pale green phosphorescence by night, and such fish as swim in the river are blind and twisted, so deformed and hideous to look upon that only fools and shadowbinders will eat of their flesh.”
This is the first History of Westeros live Q&A ASOIAF event! Our previous Q&A episodes were show-only, whereas this Q&A only pertains to A Song of Ice and Fire. Questions can be anything ASOIAF-related… Theories, predictions, previous or upcoming HoW episodes, meta-questions, you name it.
To view questions submitted to the Q&A, click on “Be Part of the Conversation” in the bottom left of the YouTube video. You may then sort the questions by answered and unanswered as well as click on an answered question to be directed to the relevant timestamp.
Apart from Night’s King, topics include kinslaying, the blue eyes of the Others & Wights, Night’s Queen, the Lands of Always Winter, Coldhands, Stannis, Bran, Melisandre, Roose Bolton and Jon Snow.
“Some say he was a Bolton,” Old Nan would always end. “Some say a Magnar out of Skagos, some say Umber, Flint, or Norrey. Some would have you think he was a Woodfoot, from them who ruled Bear island before the ironmen came. He never was. He was a Stark, the brother of the man who brought him down.”
“This Nightfort is the place my husband has chosen for our seat, and there we shall abide.”
“This was where the Rat Cook had served the Andal king his prince-and-bacon pie, where the seventy-nine sentinels stood their watch, where brave young Danny Flint had been raped and murdered. This was the castle where King Sherrit had called down his curse on the Andals of old, where the ‘prentice boys had faced the thing that came in the night, where blind Symeon Star-Eyes had seen the hellhounds fighting. Mad Axe had once walked these yards and climbed these towers, butchering his brothers in the dark.”
After his fall, when it was discovered that he had been sacrificing to the Others, all records of him were destroyed and his very name was forbidden.”
“The legends say that the Night’s King was a warrior without fear, and when he saw a woman atop the Wall with skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars, he chased her and loved her though her skin was cold as ice, and when he gave his seed to her he gave his soul as well.”
“The oldest of these tales concern the legendary Night’s King, the thirteenth Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, who was alleged to have bedded a sorceress pale as a corpse and declared himself a king. For thirteen years the Night’s King and his corpse queen ruled together.”
Another week, another episode of History of Westeros!
Ashaya, Aziz and Sean discuss the exciting events of S04E05 of Game of Thrones. As always, we illuminate the backstory and explain the subtleties, keeping you prepared for the next episode and beyond! The end of the episode contains our spoiler discussion, as well as our discussion of the preview.
Sean is an Unsullied TV viewer whose unspoiled perceptions are quite the contrast to HoW’s thorough Game of Thrones education, and this makes the review unique. Sean is an insightful reviewer who first joined us in our Red Wedding discussion episode, and has been our previous three Season 4 episodes: episode 1, episode 2, episode 3, episode 4 (spoiler free), and episode 4 (spoilers)
I heard you like ships
I’m a stupid little girl with stupid dreams who never learns.
The fifth is difficult. I named her after my sister, Elia.
Every scene (and there were a lot) of S04E05 is discussed, what we liked and didn’t like, noting interesting but non-spoiler comparisons to the books. As usual there is special attention paid to hidden detail and backstory.
Be sure to check out our forum, which is newly launched, and introduce yourself there, as well as discuss podcast and TV show episodes. Please rate and review us on iTunes as well if you have the chance!
Do you think I’m easily shocked?
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Another week, another episode of History of Westeros! Actually, another two episodes of History of Westeros, as Game of Thrones S04E04 had so much to discuss that we released two episodes. This is part 2, we recommend viewing/listening to part 1 first as we reference things we discussed in this episode.
Ashaya and Aziz discuss the exciting events of Game of Thrones S04E04. The discussion revolves around the final scene with the White Walkers, the possible ramifications of the Bran and Jon storyline, and Coldhands. The surprises in this episode allowed us to tackle some longstanding theories regarding some of the series’ central mysteries. As always, we illuminate the backstory and explain the subtleties, keeping you prepared for the next episode and beyond!
Be sure to check out our forum, which is newly launched, and introduce yourself there, as well as discuss podcast and TV show episodes. Please rate and review us on iTunes as well if you have the chance!
Still want more? Be sure to check out Aziz’s appearance on Zap2it’s Game of Thrones S04E04 Google Hangout recap. It is located here.
Gift for the gods.
Our previous three Season 4 episodes are here: episode 1, episode 2, and episode 3. You can also search “TV Discussion” to find them all.
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Another week, another episode of History of Westeros! Actually, another two episodes of History of Westeros, as we have a separate spoiler filled episode this week due to how much we had to talk about! View part 2 here.
Ashaya, Aziz and Sean discuss the exciting events of S04E04 of Game of Thrones. As always, we illuminate the backstory and explain the subtleties, keeping you prepared for the next episode and beyond!
Sean is an Unsullied TV viewer whose unspoiled perceptions are quite the contrast to HoW’s thorough Game of Thrones education, and this makes the review unique. Sean is an insightful reviewer who first joined us in our Red Wedding discussion episode, and has been our previous three Season 4 episodes: episode 1, episode 2, and episode 3.
I will answer injustice with justice.
That was me knocking your ass to the dirt with your own hand.
Goodbye Brienne.
Every scene (and there were a lot) of S04E04 is discussed, what we liked and didn’t like, noting interesting but non-spoiler comparisons to the books. As usual there is special attention paid to hidden detail and backstory.
Be sure to check out our forum, which is newly launched, and introduce yourself there, as well as discuss podcast and TV show episodes. Please rate and review us on iTunes as well if you have the chance!
If I have to take one more leisurely stroll through these gardens, I’ll fling myself from the cliffs.
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Instead of the usual scripted episode, History of Westeros relaxes a bit to discuss S04E02 of Game of Thrones and the nuptials of King Joffrey, known as the Purple Wedding. Ashaya even made a purple cake for the occasion!
We are joined again by Unsullied TV viewer Sean Pink, an insightful reviewer who first joined us in our Red Wedding discussion episode, and who was in last weeks’ episode 1 review. His unspoiled perceptions are quite the contrast to Ashaya and Aziz’s thorough Game of Thrones education, and this makes the review unique.
No, no, no, no. You’re perfect the way you are.
After the credits, we discuss a few spoiler topics, so stick around for that if you have read the books!
I hate a good many things, but I suffer them all the same.
The dwarf, the cripple, and the mother of madness.
Look for me beneath the tree.
Every scene (and there were a lot) of S04E02 is discussed, what we liked and didn’t like, noting interesting but non-spoiler comparisons to the books. As usual there is special attention paid to hidden detail and backstory.
Sean is asked to make a few predictions, while Ashaya and Aziz struggle not to tell him how right or wrong he is!
The HBO show reviews may or may not continue, so please let us know if you’d like to see us continue doing them. Be sure to check out our forum, which is newly launched, and introduce yourself there, as well as discuss podcast and TV show episodes. Please rate and review us on iTunes as well if you have the chance!
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