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Brienne had been reluctant from the start. While she enjoyed writing reviews, recording them for a podcast felt too vulnerable. But Catelyn had insisted. Twitter constantly complained about the lack of female podcasters, Catelyn reasoned, so Brienne’s voice would make a welcome change, especially since her detailed breakdowns of fight choreography would give her an even broader appeal (Which was code for: Maybe men will listen to this without bringing up vocal fry in every iTunes review?). So, Brienne became a podcaster, with Podrick Payne as her longsuffering and loyal producer, and Warrior/Maiden was born.
At first, Warrior/Maiden had a small audience, made up mostly of her already loyal Stoneheart readers—she was glad to know her work at Catelyn’s magazine was good enough to earn some downloads. Her episodes were short and came out twice a week—fifteen minutes each of her thoughts on whatever shows or movies she had reviewed recently. Like always, she focused on fight choreography and character arcs and how the two should play into one another. And, like always, she spent an inordinate amount of time railing against the very concept of a “Mary Sue.” One particularly vitriolic episode, about the treatment of women in a new historical epic about the Battle of the Trident, got some traction on Twitter. A few feminist blogs signal-boosted the episode, and Brienne saw a spike in both listeners and engagement with the Twitter account. Thankfully, Catelyn’s daughter, Sansa, was interning for Stoneheart at that point and offered to handle the horrific social media side of things. Now, Brienne had her little Warrior/Maiden team all set, and she felt very content to remain mildly well-known for a medium-sized podcast.
Brienne was working from home, as was her wont on Fridays. After being in the office for four days, with recording sessions on both Monday and Wednesday, she relished the opportunity for a quiet, productive way to end her week. Then her phone rang.
“Bri, please, please, please tell me you have checked Twitter today!” Sansa was clearly excited about something.
“Nope, I’ve been struggling through this Ironborn: Fate of the Drowned review. I mean, honestly, how many uninspired submarine movies do we need—”
“BRI. Focus. Open Twitter,” Sansa interrupted.
Upon opening the app, Brienne immediately saw that she had been tagged in Varys’s latest weekly culture review. Clicking on the article, she saw that their Wednesday episode, focusing on the fluidity and grace of the fight choreography in the latest episode of A Girl Has No Name, had been selected by Varys as one of his week’s highlights. Varys had called it “a refreshing perspective on an often-underrated ensemble show.” Brienne quickly scrolled through her Twitter notifications, seeing that the fans had quickly retweeted the article and that there was a great deal of new engagement with her own personal account. She quickly closed the app—the last thing she wanted was to see the reactions to her account avatar.
“Sansa, did we know this was going to happen? I didn’t know Warrior/Maiden was even on Varys’s radar.”
“Pod and I scoured our emails this morning, and no, we didn’t have any forewarning. But, thank the Seven, Pod is so efficient, and we are going to be able to release today’s episode early to try to maximize on this opportunity! We are already emailing some people from our dream guest list to see if we can capitalize on this. And we were thinking—”
“Sansa, please slow down. I need a minute.” Brienne said, between focusing on taking deep, calming breaths. At their last goal-setting meeting, the Warrior/Maiden team had decided they wanted to start incorporating interviews with stunt people, fight choreographers, and perhaps even actors at some point. Interspersing the short weekly review shows with some longform interviews would give the show some needed variety. And Brienne had been able to hide her nerves, since the profile of the show wasn’t nearly large enough for one-on-one interviews to be an immediate threat. But now, it seemed that threat was imminent. She couldn’t imagine having to talk to someone over video chat for the podcast. Or even worse, in person at her recording studio. She had trouble getting her coffee order out correctly some days, how was she supposed to interview people she admired?
“Bri, I’ve got to go get ready for the episode to drop, but could we have an emergency Warrior/Maiden meeting tomorrow? I’ll add it to your calendar. Enjoy the limelight!”
Brienne proceeded to do the exact opposite of that. She texted her dad to let him know that she was okay but was going to be turning her phone off for the day, then she settled in to finish her Ironborn review. She had to self-edit the piece twice before submitting it to Catelyn—Euron Greyjoy was a hack who really only cared about gore and nudity—but then she was done with work for the day. She moved from her home office to her living room, opting to stay in and skip her usual workout. She felt like hiding away from people today, the thought of even turning on her phone too much to handle currently.
She decided she was going to treat herself—wine and her all-time favorite movie, Burn Them All, starring Jaime Lannister. She pushed down the thought that he was on her dream podcast guest list almost as soon as it popped into her head. She was not going to stress about the strategy meeting tomorrow; she was going to relax.
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Jaime Lannister hated Fridays. Every other day of the week, he was on set, either choreographing fights or supervising his stunt performers. A former actor, famous for doing his own stunt work, he had pivoted to be a stunt coordinator after an incident on set greatly reduced the mobility in his right arm. Which unfortunately meant he had to go to studio meetings on Fridays lead by none other than the studio head and his father, Tywin Lannister.
This week’s meeting had gone about as they always did—his father steamrolled everyone in the room, but especially Jaime and Tyrion, then abruptly released his terrified employees. Jaime was following Tyrion back to his brother’s office, venting as he always did after these meetings:
“Tyrion, honestly, how does he expect anyone to be productive after being told they are worthless for upwards of an hour? The man has never met an employee he likes.”
“Brother, didn’t I hire you an assistant to complain to? I have a lunch meeting with the lovely Daenerys Targaryen, during which I have to be at my most charming. Khalasar Studios has cut ties with her, and I plan to convince her to let me produce her next picture. So, please, go find Bronn.”
“I will remember this next time you need me to rescue you from another boring investor meeting.” Jaime glared at his brother, then laughed as he turned to go to his own office. Maybe he could leave early and let Bronn handle all his emails today?
Jaime realized with a great deal of frustration that Bronn was not at his desk, remembering that he had sent Bronn to do some site scouting for the next film he was working on. He settled in to work through his own emails. Almost immediately, the email from a Stark at Stoneheart caught his eye. Catelyn had little patience for his father, and so she and her writers rarely reached out to Casterly Pictures for anything. Intrigued, he opened the email. It was from Sansa, rather than Catelyn. Apparently, he was invited to appear on a podcast with some woman named Tarth. The email included a link to a Varys review. Jaime preferred music to podcasts during his workouts, but Myrcella loved podcasts. He picked up his phone to call her.
“Uncle Jaime! Hi!”
“Hi Myrcella, how are you?”
“I’m doing well, but I have to go into work for my internship soon. What’s up?”
“Have you heard of a podcast called Warrior/Maiden?” Jaime said, reading the title from the email. Myrcella’s response was immediate and quite loud.
“HAVE I? It is ONLY my FAVORITE culture review podcast! Brienne is the absolute best. She totally gets the importance of production elements to conveying character beats, she is, like, an amazing feminist, and her workout videos on Twitter are ABSOLUTE goals! Why? Don’t tell me you are finally going to start listening!”
“Well, I got an invitation to go on the—”
“WHAT? Uncle Jaime, you HAVE to! You could meet Brienne! And get a selfie with her for me! I didn’t even know she and Pod had planned to add guests!”
“Okay, okay, I get it, clearly I need to go on this podcast. No promises, but I’ll at least send over my availability.”
“Yay!!! I cannot wait, I’m only going to be one degree of separation away from Brienne Tarth! I really do have to go, Uncle Jaime, but don’t worry I will be definitely be sending you lots of episodes and articles, so you can be adequately prepared to appreciate this experience! Love you.”
“Bye, Myrcella. Have fun at work. Love you.”
Jaime, as promised, sent the dates he was available for recording to Sansa Stark. The timing actually couldn’t have been better, as he was currently wrapping up one film and would have some downtime before he started work on the next one. However, he couldn’t let go of the feeling that he knew the name Tarth. He tried Googling it, and all he got were booking sites for trips to the island. He decided to stop thinking about it and hope he remembered later.
He finished his emails and moved on to reviewing interview tapes for potential new stunt performers. He ordered lunch into his office, as he was definitely absorbed in the work. As he was about to finish up for the day the name “Selwyn Tarth” hit him. He immediately typed it into Google and realized where he knew the name from.
Selwyn Tarth had been one of the best stunt drivers in the Seven Kingdoms, but he had retired after a tragic accident led to the death of his wife and three of four children. It seemed the podcast host was the fourth child. Now he was getting more excited to meet her—her father had done the driving for the Mad Jon films, which were maybe his all-time favorites.
Checking his email, he saw that he would be meeting her a week from Wednesday.