GoTTalkPod. Not your father's ASOIAF pod.

No book in the series gets more hate than Feast. That's understandable--the earlier books comprise arguably the greatest epic fantasy trilogy of all time. Faced with writing a sequel to that, GRRM plotted an entirely different course--Feast sacrifices epic action for internal struggle. The original trilogy is about heroic characters remaking the world around them. In Feast, we're navigating internal landscapes. The transformation is personal. Consider these lines from the book: Have you decided what you are? The question is, who are you? Girl or boy, we fight our battles, but the gods let us choose our weapons. What is dead may never die but rises again stronger. What changed? I died in the Battle of the Trident. Who are you? No one. The earlier books contained many great ideas and insights. Feast goes a step further and shows how you can apply those ideas to enrich your own life. Another big difference is that Feast emphasizes and highlights the social context in which we operate. As a result, it offers a much more nuanced and thoughtful discussion of personal choice and responsibility than does the original trilogy. Feast also differs from the earlier books because it's the product of a different cultural moment. The earlier books were conceived and written in the 1990s, when political scientists were contemplating "the end of history." Feast is written after 9/11 and Bush/Gore, when our understanding of democracy and our place in the world has been massively shaken. The point is, Feast is not at all like the original trilogy--it's even better. Mentioned during pod: Original, correct Margaret Thatcher quote with context: https://www.loc.gov/programs/poetry-and-literature/poet-laureate/poet-laureate-projects/poetry-180/all-poems/item/poetry-180-133/the-summer-day/ Francis Fukuyama and the end of history: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24027184 The cost and complexity of "greed is good": https://www.chicagobooth.edu/review/moral-ambivalence-gordon-gekko GRRM against voter suppression: https://grrm.livejournal.com/287215.html Song of Myself (I contain multitudes):  ⁠https://poets.org/poem/song-myself-51⁠ The Summer Day (one precious life): ⁠https://www.loc.gov/programs/poetry-and-literature/poet-laureate/poet-laureate-projects/poetry-180/all-poems/item/poetry-180-133/the-summer-day/⁠

Welcome to the Covid edition of the pod. Apologies for the scratchy voice, but what can a guy do? In this episode, we pay our usual homage to Plato and Dante, but we also take one of our patented digressions, this time into twentieth century existentialism. You heard it right--we do an extended riff on Sartre's play "No Exit," which is the origin of the phrase "Hell is other people." It's the last line or among the very last lines of the play--the point is, it's the punchline to the whole thing. We talk about how Sartre's meaning is different than modern uses of the phrase, but above all, we look at how the concept "Hell is other people" really does capture Tyrion's experience. I strongly encourage students of Tyrion to check out the play. It's quite short--written during the occupation of Paris, it had to pass the censors, be one act and done before curfew. Other interesting tidbits--Sartre wrote the play after a conversation with Albert Camus--yeah, that Albert Camus--who also played the male lead in the original production. We close with more Socrates discussion, this time comparing Tyrion to the Socrates of Plato's Symposium. The Symposium happens to be my all-time favorite Platonic dialogue, and I highly recommend it to pod listeners, who will immediately recognize the dialogue's influence on ideas of love in Western culture. I massively cut back my Symposium rant, leaving about 15 minutes of discussion about Platonic love, Socrates, Aristophanes and Alcibiades on the cutting room floor--thank me later! Even by my standards, it was the mother of all digressions and had to go.  Still working on Lady Stoneheart episodes, so any questions or issues you want to see covered, please do leave a voice message. Thanks!  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/glen-reed/message

In Brant Two, GRRM digs deep into his bag of tricks and comes up with...twincest! But this pair of identical twins couldn't be more dissimilar--they disagree on literally everything, except for maybe the need to silence Bran. Speaking of which, Jamie looks to add "kidslayer" to his list of honors/epithets. But let's not make the mistake of having the incident at the very end of the chapter obscure everything that came before--the chapter is in fact about problems of perception and interpretation. Surprise! That also happens to be a key theme in Bran One. So it seems pretty clear based on these two chapters (and insights from the larger series) that Bran's role is similar to that of Ishmael in Moby Dick. That is, he's the (limited) lens through which we view much of the action in the story, and communicates some of the key problems and issues George wants to explore. These include the inescapably subjective experience of seeing and interpreting our reality. Of course, this problem will occur over and over throughout the series and is not exclusive to Bran. But it's clear that it is perhaps the central motif of Bran's character. I've said over and over again that real magic is being able to see with another person's eyes, being able to feel what they feel. Early returns, however, aren't encouraging--George so far seems to be saying that it's difficult, if not impossible, to do so. Bran One and Two say that our understanding is necessarily totally context dependent and incomplete, while Arya One says we can't reliably make others aware of our feelings and experience, at least not with words. Meanwhile, here's Cat Two, earnestly encouraging us to look through different lenses and keep the parallax alive, hoping that maybe, just maybe, we can find a shared meaning. For my part, I'm on Team Cat. Whatever the resolution, I'm virtually certain that this will be an animating source for all the books to come in the series. Note: I'm heavily involved in a Lady Stoneheart episode. LSH as a Dante character. LSH in the context of war literature. LSH in the context of the literature of revenge--emphasis on The Iliad and The Oresteia. And finally, LSH and the contrast between restorative and retributive justice. These are my LSH areas of exploration. If you have questions or avenues you want covered, please do leave a voice message through the Spotify pod message function. Get in! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/glen-reed/message

Plato's Republic is the Mother of Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire. Arya One is the Midwife. Contrary to popular belief, Arya One is not some throwaway text between two vastly more consequential chapters. In fact, it lays out the central moral and ethical questions that power the entire series. That's because Arya One is George's answer to Book V of Plato's Republic, the massively influential--and controversial--heart of Plato's great work. Plato imagines what it might take to create just individuals and a just society to promote and sustain such a citizenry. His arguments are in turns insightful, revolutionary and repugnant. George takes Plato's ideas and puts them in action--he turns Plato's thought experiment into a great fantasy epic. Arguably the action of the series--the "game" in Game of Thrones--is George underlining Plato's point about nepotism and family-based claims to power and resources. Indeed, virtually every major line of argument in Book V is echoed or addressed in some way in Arya One. Equality of opportunity and education, the role of women in society, the desirability and consequences of maintaining family names and lines of succession, bad-ass warrior women, philosopher queens, guard dogs, hunting, and yes, even incest--all of these things and more appear in both Book V and George's work. When Plato writes that a prerequisite for creating philosopher kings and queens is dividing children from their parents at birth, George takes him at his word--Dany and Jon are the literary expressions of this idea. When Plato writes that men and women should enjoy the same opportunities and education, George gives us Jamie and Cersei to show the consequences of failure to do so. He gives us Arya and Brienne to show the alternative scenario; that is, when women are educated according to their unique interest and ability, as opposed to their predetermined, gender-specific roles. In this episode, I point to the links between Plato's Republic Book V and Arya One, and try to explain how this single chapter lays the groundwork for George's entire series. Still working on audio quality issues. I'm a literature nerd, not a sound engineer, but I am trying. References in the text Ancient Greece Declassified: https://www.greecepodcast.com/ Angie Hobbs Plato's Republic: https://fivebooks.com/book/platos-republic-a-ladybird-expert-book/ Mary Townsend: https://www.academia.edu/34022796/The_Woman_Question_in_Platos_Republic Also, here's good, accessible discussion by Santa Clara University's Markkula Center for Applied Ethics about the concepts of fairness and justice in modern society: https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decision-making/justice-and-fairness/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/glen-reed/message

Great things sometimes come in small packages. Arya One is a short little chapter that is easy to overlook. People will call it a palate cleanser or the pause that refreshes between two blockbuster chapters, Cat Two and Bran Two, either side of this one. But with the benefit of the re-read, with the ability to see the entire scope and ambition of GRRM's work, it is clear that this chapter presents the core ethical arguments of the entire series. Arya One is inspired by Book V of Plato's Republic, which begins with an admonition to explain the disposition and education of women and children in Plato's idealized, just society. Here Arya talks of fairness, as a nine-year-old child must. But when we hear Arya claim that the prevailing social order based on gender and class is not "fair," we understand that is a nod to the issues raised and addressed in The Republic specifically around these topics. Little nine-year-old Arya fires the opening shots in the complex ethical debate about what makes a just society in this very chapter. There is plenty of evidence to support this argument, and I present it in detail in Part Two of the Arya One re-read. In Part One, we tackle a different, but also profound problem that has confounded humans throughout the ages--that is, is communication even possible? Is it possible to communicate what we feel or think to another person? GRRM takes it even further, showing multiple times already that not only is successful communication difficult to pull off, but failure to communicate can in fact be deadly. The good news is that George would say, yes, there is a way to communicate our feelings toward another person, but just don't do it with words! This solves the riddle of the constant mussing of the hair that goes on in this chapter--it's an unmistakable sign of affection and no words are necessary. Which brings us around to another one of Plato's classic arguments--beware of rhetoric. Speech, the spoken word, is an important source of deception. And indeed, George spends much of the chapter showing us precisely this, mostly through Sansa's lying teeth. I argue that while George makes it manifest in this chapter, this phenomenon has in fact been latent throughout the book so far. So please do dig in and engage with Part One until we return with Part Two, when we'll dive into questions and fairness and education, and show how Arya One links to one of Plato's most famous chapters. Thanks for listening! Woot woot!!! Here's an academic from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln talking about Plato's (and Aristotle's) influence on the series specifically referencing the Gorgias. Note, this article is written from the perspective of the conclusion of the show, so it's definitely a different angle of attack, but the thrust of the argument is the same. Please note there are MAJOR SPOILERS for both books and show in this one: https://www.newswise.com/articles/how-game-of-thrones-embraced-the-platonic-ideal --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/glen-reed/message

Did I tell you that every scene in the series has a double or a triplet? Well, here's one of those doubles--Catelyn Two is the double of the Prologue. If we agree that the series is about the problem of the eyes, about Joyce's parallax and the ineluctable modality of the eyes, and about Plato's cave and how we perceive reality through our eyes, then George has to keep hitting that theme. Beyond the point-of-view structure, GRRM has to create doubles and triplets to cultivate our dragonfly eyes, to give us different views of the same problem--same issue, same concerns, but different characters, different setting. This is essentially George offering us a lesson in close literary reading, an early chapter, an early chance to cultivate and stretch our literary analytical muscles. And if you don't believe me, ask George himself--in this very chapter, the author peers out from the text and tells us to read his novel allegorically. He has Maester Luwin tell us to look through different lenses, that "there's more to this than the seeming," and how the "true message [is] concealed within." George could not make it any more explicit. This is comparable to Dante's admonition in Canto IX of the Inferno to "look beneath the veil of my verse." But in contrast to the Prologue, which ends with the Others intruding on Waymar Royce's false reality, this chapter has no such revelatory moment--we are left with the undeniable sense that something is amiss here, but with no obvious resolution to that tension. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/glen-reed/message

Did I say Cat One and Dany One were a pair? Well, Jon One and Dany One are a pair! Believe that Jon and Dany are destined to be Westeros' new power couple? Well, the links are established beginning in this very chapter. Dig in to find out what a feast in Winterfell has to do with Daenerys Targaryen. And if that's not enough to entice you inside, how about a heaping helping of Dante, Joyce and Socrates, fathers and sons, plus a side of the age-old problem of appearing and being seasoned with a soupcon of Stoicism? And oh, yeah, the Lannister brood enter the frame. Get in! Get Lit! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/glen-reed/message

Woot woot! Weeks after publishing a special episode dedicated to showing Plato's influence on the series, we get confirmation. Arianne II from the pre-released Winds of Winter material includes a direct reference to Plato's cave, confirming beyond a shadow of a doubt that George is intentionally linking his work to those past greats. Of course it is in that line--we knew it was based on tons and tons of textual evidence. But here GRRM makes it as explicit as he possibly can that ASOIAF should be viewed and understand in the context of Plato's Republic and indeed the other great epics we've cited so far. George's work exists in a fantasy universe and so cannot make explicit references to Plato. Here he does the next best thing--he describes a descent into a cave, a long and steep and rough descent, a cave lit by fire, where voices echo off walls and we encounter blind, staring eyes and representations of reality in the form of statues. That is all but a verbatim lift from The Republic itself. So give this very brief episode a listen in its own right, but above all, please please do lend an ear to the Plato's Cave episode because we now know that George intends for us to understand earlier chapters and incidents in the story to be viewed through that lens. Get in! You may ask yourself, how is it that I only just read Arianne II, when it's been available for some time. The reality is that I have been avoiding these chapters like the plague. I don't want to take on board text that's outside the five published books. I have not looked at nor do I reference any other text or statements that George makes anywhere but in the books themselves. I just don't believe that's our charge--our goal is to engage with the text we're given and develop our own understanding, not to appeal to George for his understanding! Another reason I haven't looked at this material is that the text in these sample chapters could change, so I don't want to get all worked up about text that isn't official, isn't published. And as I believe and hope I showed in the Cat One/Dany One special episode, the context around these chapters matters a great deal. So I'm never going to read these chapters in isolation and take them at face value. That's because the chapters don't exist in isolation, they exist in the larger context of the work. But I have been pondering what to do about TWOW when or if it ultimately drops, so I thought I should look at the text and see what we're dealing with. Who knew there was such an important chapter and reference to Plato lurking in these sample chapters?!?!?! I certainly didn't, but am glad I looked. Thanks for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/glen-reed/message

Did I say Joyce's parallax is a central issue in the series? Well, this chapter gives us some key evidence for that statement. Words, lines and scenes are doubled, offering two interpretations or takes of the same event or thing. If you're going to write thousands of pages of text using the point of view structure, you have to show that points of view differ, that they matter. George does some of that work in this chapter. And Joyce isn't the only work alluded to here. Robert and Ned's descent down into the crypts is evocative of other well known journeys down into the land of the dead--in Homer, Virgil and Dante. But above all, the language in this chapter most closely mirrors the descent down into Plato's Cave. The Allegory of the Cave is so important to GRRM's series that I did an entire special episode on it. That's because while we formally encounter it here, we are going to be dealing with this issue for all five books, so best come to grips with it now. For our purposes here in the re-read, it's enough to note the links, the suggestion that we are operating in Plato's Cave of shadow reality. And if that's correct, then it should color our understanding of everything that passes between Ned and Robert in this chapter. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/glen-reed/message

George Martin's Song of Ice and Fire provides a modern take on Plato's Republic. There, I said it. George takes the themes of Plato's masterwork and sends them marching across our pages in the form of zombies and dragons, eunuchs and lost little girls. Certainly the most famous portion of the Republic is the Allegory of the Cave. It's five pages of Plato's metaphysics and epistemology--or it's about the process of education. Or all of these and more. What's more, it's an allegory--it's begging you to interpret it as having lessons and insights into human nature. Whereas Plato's allegory is five pages long, George's allegory is currently five books long. But it too is begging you to interpret the series as having lessons and insights into human nature. This is the first of several planned episodes looking at the relationship between Plato's Republic and GRRM's ASOIAF. Here we show the direct influence, scene by scene and line by line, of Plato's Cave on George's series. Clarifying Socrates' role in the story--I realize that in the pod I often make reference to Socrates, without explaining his role in the story. To be clear, Socrates was Plato's great teacher. It was only after Socrates' death that Plato began to write the dialogues for which he (and Socrates) would become famous, including the Republic. Plato made Socrates the hero of virtually all of his writing, so the action of the Republic is the story of Socrates going down to the Peiraeus, down into the metaphorical cave of ignorance, and educating the people he encounters there. So Plato is the author of the tale, but Socrates is its hero. Socrates is the one who actually talks out the Allegory of the Cave. All of these special episodes contain ***MAJOR SPOILERS*** Time stamps so you can jump directly to the most relevant bits: 0:00 Intro and Plato's Republic in ASOIAF 7:59 Plato biography--what a truly remarkable life this guy lived. 14:07 Plato and Dante similarities--trying to solve for factionalism and political failings by creating wise, just, compassionate citizens. 21:41 The Allegory of the Cave--five of the simplest but most profound pages in Western philosophy 31:16 Plato's metaphysics and the divided line/The Matrix/modern media bubbles 38:16 BAM! Plato's Cave in the books, beginning with the Prologue of Book One--"The right eye was open. The pupil burned blue. It saw." 42:06 Gared and Ned in the context of the end of the allegory 54:48 Arya 3 and 5/Chs. 32 and 65 GoT--Arya into and out of Plato's Cave 1:01:59 Mel, Stannis the Mannis and the cave of self deception 1:19:24 Sansa 1/Ch. 10 AFFC Littlefinger inviting others into his cave of false reality--come on in, the water's fine! 1:21:21 Davos 2/Ch. 42 ACOK One of the best chapters in the entire series, absolutely derivative of Plato's Cave. "Something is wrong here, the onetime smuggler thought. Yet he nodded and said, "I see."" Davos sees, and unfortunately for Stannis and Mel, he's the only one 1:28:34 North and South of the Wall, outside and inside Plato's cave and the the divided line Thanks for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/glen-reed/message

Dany One is the bizarro-world version of Cat One. Why is that? Here we deconstruct the ways in which Cat One and Dany are opposites, mirror images of one another. And then we ask ourselves, why did George do it that way? What are the implications for our reading of the remainder of the book? The series? Some will tell you the symbols of Cat One are there for worldbuilding. That's true. But more than that, they are supremely important symbols that inform our understanding of the power dynamics at play throughout the series. I argue George's approach is similar to that in Dante's Comedia, where line by line, canto by canto, and book by book, interpretations and meanings change--we must constantly revise and reevaluate our understanding of events and symbols as we go. Another famous example is Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov--from the beginning, readers have been trying to divorce Ivan's Rebellion and The Grand Inquisitor chapters from the rest of the book. But you can't do it with Dostoevsky, and you can't do it in ASOIAF. So take the plunge with me, and let's peek under the hood at the literary workings of these two chapters and indeed the broader series. While I was away I launched a new website to help increase the show's reach and give another avenue to reach me and ask questions, interact with the show. Hit me up using the contact form. Get in! https://gottalkpodnotyourfathersasoiafpod.wordpress.com/ Some show highlights/breakpoints: ***As always, the special analysis episodes contain MAJOR SPOILERS*** 17:52 We talk about the symbols in Cat One and their absence in Dany One 24:50 Other links between the two chapters 29:21 Revising our thinking as a result of these chapters 47:13 Legitimate power and authority courtesy of Max Weber Thank you for listening and please do interact with the show through the website or the voice message function. Thanks! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/glen-reed/message

Woot woot! Enter the hero--Daenerys Targaryen! Welcome to GoTTalkPod! Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire Book discussion and analysis. Dany One is everything that the preceding chapters are not. In this chapter, Robert is the usurper, Viserys is the rightful king; children have no parents and no home; slavery is illegal but it nevertheless exists; all the traditional signifiers of power and authority are absent. The only sense in which anything in the series is familiar and has been seen before is Viserys appears to be just another "lost boy" in the same vein as Waymar Royce and Theon Greyjoy. Another source of continuity is that we've been setting up for this chapter throughout the early potion of the book. George has been priming the Joycean pump in prior chapters, and here it finally pays off. The point-of-view structure, maturity, usurpation, parallax and indeed, metempsychosis are all evident here. The early action of the chapter also tracks the structure of the first chapter of James Joyce's Ulysses. In this episode, we discuss how those themes are expressed in Dany One. For a more detailed discussion of Joyce's influence on the Song of Ice and Fire, please do give a listen to the Bloomsday special episode. Note that these re-read episodes are always spoiler free, while the special Bloomsday episode does contain major spoilers. ***The chapter-by-chapter reading will be spoiler free unless otherwise indicated.*** Please do interact with the show. You can reach GoTTalkPod through the voice message feature on Spotify. As appropriate, your comments may be included or addressed in future pods. Get in! Get involved! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/glen-reed/message

Welcome to GoTTalkPod! Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire Book discussion and analysis. Catelyn One occupies an important location in the physical and emotional geography of the book, sandwiched as it is between Bran One and Dany One. The series is about kids maturing, and we can't talk about kids without mothers, so Cat's role here is to provide the motherly presence that has been lacking in the first few chapters, and that will be so obviously and desperately needed in the following Dany chapter. This chapter also delves deep into the history of Starks, the Weirwood and Winterfell, as well as the various magical and mythical creatures in the series. We focus on the symbolism and possible Biblical and literary associations of Winterfell, Ice, the Stark words "Winter is coming," and finally on the significance and associations of the name Cersei, with a stopover in Pedantry Corner. We argue that the chapter primes the Joycean pump for the rest of the book and series. Cat One begins with a reference to Riverrun--the first word of Finnegan's Wake--and ends with a reference to Cersei, the title of the longest and perhaps most disturbing episode in Joyce's Ulysses. And then there's the small matter of the point-of-view structure, which Joyce popularized. We discuss these issues and more in the Bloomsday special episode, so please do go there for a deeper dive into Joyce's influence on the Song of Ice and Fire. Note that in contrast to these re-read episodes, which are always spoiler free, the special episodes do contain major spoilers. ***The chapter-by-chapter reading will be spoiler free unless otherwise indicated.*** Please do interact with the show. You can reach GoTTalkPod through the voice message feature on Spotify. As appropriate, your comments may be included or addressed in future pods. Get in! Get involved! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/glen-reed/message

GoTTalkPod honors Joyce and GRRM in the same pod! Two great epics, unified by many of the same themes. Come along for the ride and see how George structured Dany's storyline around Joyce's notions of usurpation, metempsychosis and children maturing. Get in! ***Major Spoilers*** Roughly 11:30 of intro/context for folks not totally up to speed on both Joyce and ASOIAF Comparisons and analysis start at 11:30 Metempsychosis (yes, you read that right!) discussion starts at 18:10 Usurper/Dany 1 from AGOT discussion starts at 27:20. Happy Listening! Oh, and please do interact with the show. You can reach GoTTalkPod through the voice message feature on Spotify. As appropriate, your comments may be included or addressed in future pods. Get in! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/glen-reed/message

Welcome to GoTTalkPod! Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire Book discussion and analysis. Now our watch begins in earnest--we are into the novel proper with Bran 1/Chapter 1!!! Please tackle the prior episodes for a sense of our angle of approach. We're less interested than other pods in the literal events of the novels; rather, our focus is primarily on the literary evolution and meaning available to us through the text. So, yes, while there are a million and one ASOIAF/Thrones pods out there, few if any tackle the text in precisely this way. Maybe you've heard about the series and are just getting into it for the first time, trying to understand what the hype's all about? Or perhaps you already read the novels and felt like there was something more going on, but just not sure what. Or got the sense that some of the scenes and themes of the book are familiar, but you just can't put your finger on it. Or feel that there is more to the text than meets the eye but can't quite see past the lamprey pie to find what's hidden underneath. GoTTalkPod is here to help you sort through it all and find the meaning beneath the veil of George's verse. In this chapter we see the great theme of the series open up before us--justice, in all its complex, magnificent and terrible dimensions. What's that I hear? The Plato claxon sounding loud! Plato is the great philosopher of justice, so there can be no doubt we're swimming in his pool. But of course, how can you talk about justice and epic songs without mentioning Dante? The short answer is, you can't. And George doesn't try to--there are more hints at the Dante connection in this chapter. And finally, the evidence pointing to a link to James Joyce begins to pile up in earnest. ***The chapter-by-chapter reading will be spoiler free unless otherwise indicated.*** Please do interact with the show. You can reach GoTTalkPod through the voice message feature on Spotify. As appropriate, your comments may be included or addressed in future pods. Get in! Get involved! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/glen-reed/message

Welcome to GoTTalkPod! Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire Book discussion and analysis. We kick off our virtual book club at the very beginning of George RR Martin's series, with book one, A Game of Thrones Prologue re-read and analysis from an academic litcrit perspective. What does that mean? To paraphrase George's obvious literary hero, Dante, we will be looking beneath the veil for the deeper allegorical and moral meaning in the text. Hold on to your hats, kids, because this isn't like any other ASOIAF re-read--we've got epistemology, parallax, the ineluctable modality of the visible, Plato's cave and probably a whole bunch of other highfalutin classical literary terms. But if I do my job correctly, they will all be made accessible and understandable, and above all, provide us powerful new tools and lenses through which to view GRRM's masterwork. I mean, you've listened to a hundred re-reads about Others and wights and the Wall and the Night's Watch, but how many of those include references to both James Joyce and Mel Brooks in the same episode? Don't need the recap and just want to jump right into the analysis? Start at 7:19. ***The chapter-by-chapter reading will be spoiler free unless otherwise indicated.*** Please do interact with the show. You can reach GoTTalkPod through the voice message feature on Spotify. As appropriate, your comments may be included or addressed in future pods. Get in! Get involved! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/glen-reed/message

Welcome to GoTTalkPod! Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire Book discussion and analysis. We lay out the rationale for a literary critical analysis of George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. As widely read as the series is, as deeply plumbed as it is on pods and YouTube channels everywhere, the series still offers profound insights little discussed almost anywhere else. What do you want? Homer, Dante and Joyce? Check check and check! With a heaping helping of Melville and Plato on the side. Always wondered who is the prince that was promised? Whose is the song of ice and fire? Be the first kid on your block to find out. Get in! Get lit! Get GoTTalkPod! In this line of the pod, we're going to do a read-through of the books, a virtual book club where we tackle the text chapter by chapter looking for the lessons on offer. To paraphrase Dante, we are going to look for the meaning hidden beneath the veil of GRRM's verse. Happy Listening! Oh, and please do interact with the show. You can reach GoTTalkPod through the voice message feature on Spotify. As appropriate, your comments may be included or addressed in future pods. Get in! Get involved! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/glen-reed/message

GoTTalkPod! Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire Book discussion and analysis. Looking at the influence of Dante on the series. Arya's entire plot line? Winterfell? King's Landing? Battle of the Blackwater? Check, check, check and check. All inspired by Dante. Lady Stone Heart? Yup. Braavos? Uh-huh. 35 minutes of rambling about Dante proper, followed by 35 minutes of Stark-related MAJOR SPOILERS explaining the Stark/Dante connection with particular emphasis on Ned, Sansa and our girl Arya. Eager to jump right into the ASOIAF material without the Dante context? Jump to 37:45. ***Spoilers from there on out*** Happy Listening! Oh, and please do interact with the show. You can reach GoTTalkPod through the voice message feature on Spotify. As appropriate, your comments may be included or addressed in future pods. Get in! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/glen-reed/message