The Boiled Leather Audio Hour

Why did the Yi Ti build gigantic forts? Where did Azor Ahai really come from? Join us to not get any answers!

We're nearing the end. Not that anyone expected it when 1989 rolled around, but hindsight is a bitch.

We' re continuing our series and talk about the FRG in the 1980s.

We're reviewing the final episode of the season. What I show!

We talk about the big event, of course, but there's also a huge discussion about the worth of flashbacks and we even add a little addendum about the new trailer for the third season of House of the Dragon!

Payoffs are coming. We talk about the emotional impact this episode had.

We review the third episode of a show that's just getting stronger every week, and giving you some sound structural reasons as to why!

We review the second episode.

We are reviewing the first episode of the Dunk&Egg saga! Follow us along interpreting the new Laughing Storm and Dunk's extremely serious naivitée and wonder with us whether it matters how tall he actually is.

Without any reason in HBO's programming schedule whatsoever, we tackle the "Hedge Knight" and its value system.

In our 11th episode of the subseries about the history of the divided Germany, we're looking at East Germany from 1973 to 1989 - the era named after its charismatic, relatable leader, Erich Honecker.

In this episode, I take Grant Piercy, better known as Heathen King, to task. We talk about revenge in ASOIAF and in the real world, as well. Find his books online!

It is the day of days - we're tackling one of the biggest chapters yet. Who are the three heads of the dragon? What are the betrayals? Who's the grey-lipped man on a ship? The false dragon? We're talking about none of that. Instead, we're taking the deep dive into what this chapter actually MEANS.

Is there good and evil in ASOIAF, or is just a morally grey mass and mess? I take this up with Quinn the GM, who made a very instructive video essay on it that I really wanted to discuss in depth.

Today, we're taking a look at the detente between West and East Germany. What were the factors breaking the deadlock in domestic and international politics? How did it happen? And, most importantly, was it a success?

Jon's death comes as a big surprise for first-time readers, and not because it's sprung on you but because Martin is a damn good writer. We explain all the ways of why and how.

We’re talking about the Whispering Wood, and come off with one fundamental insight: GRRM is a good writer.

I’m talking to Artyom Nichipurov from Wolffdesigna Games, a Latvian firm that’s most famous for the excellent “Guards of Atlantis II”, a tabletop adaptation of the MOBA game experience. If you don’t know what any of this means, no worry, I got you covered - the first seven minutes of the episode explain what MOBAs are and how GoA2 specifically functions so you can understand the episode. If you already know, feel free to jump to minute 7.26 for the episode proper.

Today, we're talking about the period from 1966 to 1974. Witness the Grand Coalition and the coming into power of Willy Brandt, heading the first SPD government of the Federal Republic with his slogan of "daring more democracy".

Today, we’re covering the first half of the history of the Democratic Republic of Germany - or East Germany, to its friends. From the earliest days of popular insurrection to the construction of the Berlin Wall and the twilight days of Ulbricht’s reign, we have you covered.

In our ongoing series on the best moments of the series, we take apart the Bridge of Dream sequence, which provides us with some unusualy challenges - we don't really know where any of this leads, so this is more meta and speculative as usual.

Today, we're looking at why the CDU could rule for 20 years in the early German republic. There's a good combination of electoral shenanigans, foreign policy questions and old Nazis involved.

From the Berlin airlift to the Berlin wall, this episodes covers Germany’s capital (and the capital of spies) from wall to wall.

Everyone and their mother knows Dungeons&Dragons, at least in concept. But few people know the most important German roleplaying game, “The Dark Eye.” With professor Adrian Daub of Stanford, I talk about this game that’s near and dear to my heart - and maybe yours too, soon.

This is our 200th episode. Of course we wanted to do something special. George R. R. Martin asked us if he could guest host, but we were too busy, so we settled on doing the Red Wedding. We hope that’s ok.

We’re back again! With Jim McGeehin, I talk about the founding of not one but two German states. We’ll have a look at why we’re creating two states instead of one and how these two shape out. You might want to reference the following two diagrams, but it’s not essential. We keep it light on the legalese.

After 11 months, we’re back talking the history of the divided Germany! After looking at western Germany last time round, this time, we’re taking the deep dive into East Germany 1946 to 1948 and ask ourselves how to succesfully build socialism in Germany.

The season finale is here! Sean and I have a slightly different view about it, but as is our wont, we agree on a lot, and the show stays superb even though Sean left a bit disappointed.

There’s a lot of dragons this episode, and we’re comparing the show to Better Call Saul, The Americans and Halt and Catch Fire, because that makes a lot of sense - as you’ll learn listening!

Three days, and there’s good news (even earlier if you’re a Patreon!): HotD is STILL one of the best things on TV right now. This episode, characters, actors and dialogue writing are front and center, and the scenes are so damn good we cannot shut up about if for an hour.

“House of the Dragon” continues to be excellent in this laid-back but still incredibly rich and textured episode. We discuss shot compositions, nightmares, thin places and politics, all in one podcast!

The dragons danced and died, but Stefan skipped town. Yet Sean is not flying solo! Friend of the show Gretchen Felker-Martin, the acclaimed horror novelist behind Manhunt and Cuckoo, joins the Illustrious Co-host for a conversation about the most spectacular, violent, important episode of House of the Dragon yet. Join the ol’ Cut to Black team as they discuss this fantasy landmark!

This may just be the best episode of a great show yet. Sean and I discuss why in exhaustive and euphoric detail. Also, more detail than you wanted about full-frontal blowjobs, but the show started it.

Now we’re in episode 2. Who won? Ser Arryk or Ser Erryk? We’re not confused. Because we care about themes.

You didn’t think we’d miss this, right? Weekly episodes, from now on, on the regular channel! Listen to us how we discuss the most important thing in season 2: the new title sequence. And some other stuff, like child murder.

We finally did it and continue the “Best of ASOIAF” series. It’s a crowd pleaser, Daenerys’ “Dracarys” moment, which also marked a turning point for Emilia Clarke in the series. But we are digging deeper: why is it such a crowd pleaser, and what does it mean? What does it portend for Dany? Follow us into the deep dive and fry some slavers.

In a special, political episode, I talk with political operative Frank Spring about the upcoming presidential elections. If you don’t want politics from me, stay away from this episode :) You have been warned. 

Sean has written a list of the top ten TV shows of 2023 (https://decider.com/2023/12/29/sean-t-collinss-top-10-tv-shows-of-2023/), and we’re here to talk about it. Take it as your to-do-list, nod along or vehemently disagree!

Oppenheimer has been released on BlueRay. Having missed it in cinema and after covering Barbie with Sean, I’ll now took BLAH veteran and nuclear deterrence expert Tim Westmyer to debate why Oppenheimer is such a good movie, to clear up some of the technical questions and to have a deeper look at the genesis of nuclear weapons as portrayed by Christopher Nolan.

Ridley Scott’s new epic “Napoleon” sure is divisive and polarizing. It takes two historians to get the definitive judgement on the movie, and it’s greatly helped that we are in agreement: this movie is either way too short or way too long. Either one.

With Zero Hour dealt with, we’re looking at how the Western Allies laid the foundations for the democratization of Western Germany. From the foundation of parties to the Marshall Plan, the Allies were not exactly on the same page.

In a crossover with Javi Marcos, you’re getting an episode in which he interviews me.

Jim and I started a new subseries in our ongoing coverage of German history. This time, we will cover the divided Germany after World War II up until reunification. In our first installment, we set the scene in 1945, directly after the war. How did Germany look, and how was its outlook? And what is the myth of Zero Hour?

With board game designer Bryan Kromrey, I talk about the adaptation of the famous RTS “Company of Heroes”, how the modern Kickstarter economy works and how his process for a second edition went.

Origin stories are a Hollywood trope. Oftentimes, they’re rote and uninteresting, but if done right, they can recontextualize and enrich characters you never thought would rise above mid-level anti-hero-badassery. Case in point: the Hound, who gives the speech of a lifetime to Sansa in “A Game of Thrones”.

Finally, we’re in the home stretch. From the peace of Brest-Litovsk to the Kaiserschlacht offensive to the breakdown of the Central Powers and the winding down of the war in the fall, we’re doing the whole picture.

In the next installment of our ongoing series, we talk about Bran’s Dream from AGOT, Bran III. It’s a testament to Martin’s abilities as a gardener as well as to our ability to constantly reinterpret the source text.

We continue into the year 1917! This time, our focus is not on tactics, strategy, weapons and stuff but on the epochal events of the Russian Revolution and the American entry into the war.

We’re continuing the story of World War I with the year 1916. The battles of Verdun and the Somme are the most famous, and we’re giving them the space they deserve, but the Romanian campaign, the Brusilov offensive and the Battle of Jutland also get their share. To top it off, we delve into the politics of the year, which may surprise you in how consequential they were.

It was only a question of time until we hit one of the most profound and meaningful pieces of text in the whole ASOIAF corpus, but we did it! Sean and I talk Septon Meribald’s “broken men” speech. Follow us along hitting you over the head with deep in-text-analysis.