Episode 257 – Harpist and the Harpy
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It’s fight and flght for Jon, seizing an opportunity to escape the Thenns and his merry band of new friends. In the East, Daenerys lowers the defense of Yunkai with the help of Daario Naharis.
Discussion Topics
The February special
A near miss
Jon and Ygritte
Bastard, oathbreaker, turncloak
Only a young girl
The real Daario
Strategy
The treatment of Dany
Owns of the Chapter
Listener Owns
A new GOO is coming
Fat Walda!
My apologies for bringing up an old episode on this thread. I probably should listen to this episode, first, and then could include some comment on it, specifically, but I want to make this comment while it is fresh in my mind.
I’ve slowly been making my way through a re-watch of previous seasons. Just yesterday, I made it to the season 3 episode where we learn Davos survived Blackwater. So, there’s poor Davos on his rock, he looks up, sees a ship in the distance, starts frantically waving, and all I could do was laugh. Why would I laugh? Well, all I could think was, “oh, look, it’s the SS Stannis Sucks!” 🙂
Nice episode. What Micah remarked about the Ice Dragon: it’s actually also a children’s novel by GRRM.
I just came by to say that is the best picture of Jorah ever.
Why do you say Jon seems to be a Stark “for now”, Micah? Of course Jon is a Stark. His mother was a Stark.
Ygritte was talking about the wildling courtship (“stealing”)/marriage practices, and Jon was asking her the logical questions, showing that their customs were not that great – what if she got “stolen” by some guy she hated, who was abusive, etc. Ygritte’s answer was that she would cut his throat while he slept. “A man can own a woman or a man can own a knife, but no man can own both. Every little girl learns that from her mother.” Among the free folk, man can use his strength to force a woman to be his wife, but then he better get rid of sharp objects, or she’s going to cut his throat in his sleep. Which epitomizes the good and the bad sides of the free folk anarchic lifestyle compared to the feudal system of the “civilized” “kneelers” south of the Wall. Neither society is great in terms of consent issues, human rights and women’s rights specifically, but the difference is: the feudal system provides outside protection, at least theoretically, from kidnapping and rape (as long as it’s not by a husband), which is a crime; while with the free folk, everyone is expected to fend for themselves, everyone can do whatever they like, but the others are just as free to stop them or kill them if they don’t like it. In some ways, women of the free folk have it better than the women south of the Wall, in others they have it worse. Ygritte believes the wildling system (or lack of it) is perfect, but she sounds really naive, and it seems she never had the misfortune to deal with rape and abuse. Their way of doing things must be great if you’re strong and a great fighter who can fight off your potential rapist/husband, but if he’s stronger than you, you can only hope to kill him in his sleep – after getting raped a few times. On the flip side, at least you have the right to defend yourself and kill your abusive “husband”/rapist. The women south of the Wall do not have that luxury; theoretically, they should be protected from rape by men they’re not married to, but they are obliged to tolerate marital rape (which is not recognized legally as rape in their society, since the husband has “marital rights”). If their father or guardian decides to marry them off to some guy for political reasons, or if they are a hostage/prisoner and their captors forced them into marriage (as we’ve seen with Sansa and the Lannisters), they get no say in it. And, unlike the free folk women, they aren’t even allowed to run away or fight against it, and if they kill their abusive husband/rapist, they must do it secretly (like Cersei did) because they would be considered a criminal and executed if found out.
Re: people talking only nicely about Ned – it’s not that everyone likes Ned and thinks positively about him after his death. They just don’t have anything genuinely bad to say about the things he did, since Ned generally didn’t do especially bad things. But, aside from Jorah, Theon also has negative memories of Ned as “cold” towards him, Jaime thinks of Ned as judgmental for the way he judged him for killing Aerys, and Stannis admits he didn’t like Ned and was jealous of his relationship with Robert and the fact that Robert made Ned his Hand, instead of his brother Stannis.
Daario is totally a glam rock star.
Kudos to Kate for speaking against the annoying “friendzone” concept. I think this concept originated from the fact that women are usually uncomfortable with straight up telling men, especially those they are friends with, “I’m not attracted to you” (I’ve said it straight up a couple of times, and going by my experience, men take it very badly), so they try to let them down gently by saying things like: “I see you as a friend”, “We should not spoil our friendship”, etc. And that’s how this myth originated – the idea that a man should never allow himself to be friendly with a woman, have normal conversations and stuff, if he hopes to ever get into her pants, because she’s going to “friendzone” him! When someone’s not attracted to you, it’s because they aren’t attracted to you, period, not because you’re friends. If there’s some romantic/sexual attraction there, then friendship, trust, being comfortable with each other, having normal conversations etc. can only help lead to a romantic relationship – rather than prevent it from happening.
Randa Noyce,
Same here. I just love it!
Annara Snow,
Bah humbug to both you and Kate — I think you both misunderstand the “friend zone” concept. Men don’t end up there because they become friends with a woman before they profess a desire for them, it is simply “where they are” when a woman tells them they like them as a friend but are not attracted.
It’s “she’s not attracted to me, so I am in the friend zone”, not “I better not become friends with her first or I’ll risk being put in the friend zone.”
Nothing to get heated about — just a guy’s way of short-hand labeling the idea that “somebody I am attracted to isn’t attracted to me that way.”
Kate,
RE: “A man can own a woman or a man can own a knife, but he can’t own both.”
I always took it to mean that if he owns both, she’ll probably stab him with it at some point.