Not A Podcast ASOIAF Re-Read Podcast NotACast

If you’re looking for a truly incredible podcast—you’ve found the one! Jeff and Emmet, as well as the guests they bring on, are knowledgeable, passionate, and critical in their analyses of the series. And when I say critical, I mean critical in the truest sense—using evidence from the text and real-world to support/refute assertions and contextualize the series while acknowledging how their own personal biases and experiences impact their analyses. One of my favorite parts of the discussion is how they always bring in the larger moral and ethical implications that arise. I always come away from this podcast feeling like I know A LOT more than I originally did about ASOIAF and critical literary analysis in general. You can tell the hosts really love what they do and it’s infectious! Thanks, Jeff and Emmet!

-Zoe of House Luna, “Loyal, we rise”

The hosts are two of the best regarded voices in the ASOIAF fandom, and for good reason. They tackle so much of the depth of the source material here that it is a true joy to follow along with them.

I try to give everything I review either 1 star or 5 stars, and I could not decide which to give them, so I broke down and gave them 3. On the core of their commentary? 5 stars, hands down. But there are so many small problems that I can’t give the whole thing 5 stars. On the other hand, the core is so good that I can’t let those problems bring it down to 1 star. So, here are the problems:

- Audio quality. Audio quality. Audio quality. Yes, they’re clearly co-hosting remotely, but its very pathetic that both hosts can’t provide comparable sound quality, and even worse when several guest hosts sound better. I hate taking points off for this, but I’m 50 episodes in and it hasn’t gotten better. They have patrons, so take some of that patreon money and buy a netter sound system.

- They defend themselves on this one, but never their actual logic. The constant griping about feudalism. Yes, the series shines a light on the less pleasant aspects of feudalism in our history, but to hear the hosts, feudalism is the worst thing ever (in a series with an entire continent of very non feudal slavers right next door) and is doomed to fail (but somehow has lasted millennia in the series). I don’t like to defend feudalism (it feels like having to defend a politician you loathe against a particularly unwarranted attack), but they pretty much use it like a strawman.

- The implicit and very parochial sense of presentism in the commentary. Stuff like constantly correcting themselves when using the word actress instead of actor, or going off on tangents about corporal punishment, really pulls you out of the show. I often get the impression that the show is composed for a very specific subset of the fandom. That is fine, except that it is the same point of view as offered by the rest of the ‘big names’ in the fandom. So, more of the same, but better quality more of the same.

I found this podcast when I was searching for GoT podcasts for season 8. This, along with Binge Mode, was my favorite. Their analysis is really deep, going into the themes and characters with a reallly fresh take. I started to reread the books so I could work alongside their chatper-by-chapter episodes on Game of Thrones and I have been really impressed. Their analysis is not only deep from a story and character standpoint -- but they also pull in history, philosophy, politics and the mechanics of story telling and writing. I constantly rewind to listen to certain points again and again.
I can't recommend this podcast enough.