Re: the cannibalism (real and metaphorical) that’s discussed in this episode, I had some jumbled thoughts on how the recurring theme of incest also fits in the same logic https://twitter.com/girlsgonecanon/status/1312036916552962055

The Targaryens practice incest as a way to preserve their connection to dragons, but that also “cannibalizes” their own dynasty because it seems to be behind the stillbirths and mental illness that keep coming back in their history.

Craster also practices incest as means of survival (and because he’s a disgusting person), raping his own daughters to literally produce male children to give to the Others. Even if he doesn’t literally eat his sons he is treating them as meat

The Lannister incest is the one that fits the least in this framework but it’s also a relationship that’s so toxic we could argue it stunted both twins’ development in different ways, and ended the legitimate Lannister lineage since their kids are officially Baratheons

So yeah, George is kind of fixated on incest but I think that even though he presented some functional examples like Jaheaerys and Alysanne, he’s also using it to show that when a community - even the smallest nucleus of it, a family - folds onto itself it will end up

Consuming itself, exhausting its own resources and making everyone involved miserable, sometimes to the extreme consequences.

(I’m not sure I’m making sense because I thought of this a couple of days ago while listening to the podcast during my run and only now sat down to write it)