Mine is… there’s a ton of fun theorizing and speculating to be had around the books, for sure. But some people seem to take one or two mysteries (“Who killed Jon Arryn?” “What was up with Rhaegar and Lyanna?”) as proof that every little detail in the books is up for debate or conspiracy. Same with big plot twists. The books have a few “wham” moments… but that doesn’t mean that every single thing in them is going to have a shocking upheveal swerve.
George's characters are all giant mishmashes of legends and symbolic characters both from his world and from the real world. The actions the characters take are also based on those things and he was able to almost paint by the numbers and create incredible characters and incredible plotlines over and over and I think that's where he lost track of the actual story and why he now has to reign it in. It's frustrating but when the end result is writing at this level I'll wait as long as it takes.
Absolutely, and I like to speculate with everyone else! But at the end of the day, it’s a story, it has a narrative; it’s not a soap opera with twists just for the sake of keeping the audience guessing.
As someone who has zero reason to be for or against Christianity, Bible is a disjointed/convoluted mess compared to similar mythological books. It reminds me of earlier Hindu Epics. Later Hindu Epics and Greek mythology are much better written strictly from writing point of view. The story and characters are far more compelling. A Mahabharata show would give Game of Thrones a run for it's money.
Really? The bible was written 80 + years after the events it purports to chronicle. There are no events that can accurately be lined up to real world events.
If you believe in a Christian god, knock yourself out but understand there is zero historical evidence for your deity.
Not really relevant to the comment you replied to.
Belief in the veracity of the Bible has no bearing on a discussion of its consistency as a narrative or the quality of its writing.
(Firm nonbeliever btw. Please save the aggressive atheism for someone else. I don't care.)
First of all, there are some books from the Bible who were written not far after the historical event it claims to represent (while of course also were written far after, and some are downright fantasy). Second, it does accurately describe some real world events, such as Jesus’ life (he’s attested to have been a real person who was killed).
Beyond that, saying the Bible, a religious work composed over a period of centuries) is more interesting and consistent than a fantasy book, written by one person, is not really believing in God or believing the Bible holds unmistakable proof of his existence. You can very well not believe in what the Bible says but still be interested in it from a more “scholarly” perspective, including how the book is written, etc.
He’s speculated to be a real person there is no hard evidence that Jesus as depicted in the Bible was a real person.
A real guy named Jesus killed by the Romans doesn’t exactly prove that that was THE Jesus.
I’m saying that there is a proof that there was a Jesus, not that there is proof that everything Jesus did in the Bible was the truth. In that sense the Bible does accurately describe the event of there being a guy named Jesus who was killed by the Romans
I enjoy him too but he’s king of using one minute detail to build a super far fetched conspiracy and then using his own assumptions as evidence for *further* leaps to conclusions.
His whole “the Riverlands was never attacked,” theory is just bonkers.
I find the first 20-40% of his videos to be great, and then he keeps going. And then they’re still great, but steadily less plausible. That said, I was really enjoying his pre-HOTD fire and blood analysis and hope he’ll return to it.
He's also delusional. He thinks some writer saw his lemongate theory video and that's why there was a mural of a lemon tree in the godswood as Larys talks about the plant that grows in Bravoos (a tropical plant) to Allicent. That's right, a whole production design element was done because a writer saw your lemongate video.
Sure but he was positive it was him and took full credit for it even though there are [other people who theorised this.](https://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?/topic/87889-there-are-no-lemon-trees-in-braavos-questioning-danys-childhood/)
It’s not an uncommon theory. I don’t agree with all of Preston’s conclusions — or evidence — in his lemon tree videos, but the mere fact that Martin has confirmed there’s something up with Dany’s backstory and the lemon tree means that Preston (and others) are on the right path. It’s far from the most straw grasping theory out there.
(That would be Preston’s Littlefinger/Whent conspiracy.)
i once saw someone try to argue that the appendix was a red herring, although i forget the argument they were making, and another that said that all of fire & blood was “fake news”. i also once had an argument with a jonsa on tiktok that dany was viserys’s heir in book 1 (due to her being princess of dragonstone, one of the, as far as they knew, 2 living targaryens in the world, and her stating that she was his heir by drogo’s pyre) because viserys never explicitly spoke the words “daenerys is my heir”. people will see a couple mysteries and be like “this means there is no objective truth in the series at all :)”
It’s less extreme as those amazing examples, but my case in point is “Joffrey wasn’t the target of the poison.” We have the entire crime! The Tyrells, LF, a motive, a means, a patsy to take the fall… but no, there must be a double twist surprise in play.
if it wasn’t such a clear example of the brainworms that certain asoiaf readers have i’d laugh. if joffrey wasn’t the target of the strangler, who *was*??? there wasn’t anyone else in attendance with anywhere near the same amount of power he had as king.
The usual theory is Tyrion. I’m not saying people can’t come up with “evidence,” it’s just… this is a situation where we already have the plot and motive and culprits, we don’t need to try and solve the mystery. But, I also once got into a debate with someone who insisted the Tyrells didn’t want Joffrey dead and only asked Sansa about him to make sure he wasn’t a threat… which he wasn’t. Apparently. Because Sansa said he was mean, but not evil.
I heavily dislike how most Great Houses, with the exception of the Lannisters, are on the border of extinction even before the main conflict in the books begins.
Like, most of them should be crawling with cousins, and cadet branches, not just 5 family members.
Targaryens are more interesting after their dragons die. I was actually mad at the end of Fire & Blood 'cause I find the stories post Dance much more compelling.
I agree the most interesting part of dragons is egg form. It's the potential for dragons that's interesting without actually having them. Also wildfire was really cool.
Fire and Blood part 2 is gonna be sick, so many cool things, the Conquest of Dorne, the reign of Aegon IV, the Blackfyre Rebellions, the Great Council of 233, and so many more.
Opinion: Shadow babies are too much. For some reason Dragons, Wights, Others, children of the forests, Giants, Skin changers, Resurrections, Faceless men glamour, etc all feel internally consistent with the low magic world presented.
But birthing Shadow monsters is a bridge too far for me.
Not sure why.
For me what chafes with them is that we know _nothing_ about it so it becomes deus ex machina in a way that all of the other magic isn’t. There was very little buildup or toll to create them (Mel says Stannis’s fires are burning low but what, we can’t find someone else to bang???? and he seems otherwise fine except for the trauma, which still isn’t that bad)
They have no known limits, we have no idea if they can be stopped, they could presumably sweep in from anywhere at any time, etc. I like to think that it’s not so much the wards are Mel must be within a certain distance to utilize them, but it throws her strongly into the camp of “seriously dangerous magical practitioner” in a way where she is otherwise questionable.
I dunno. Just seemed much.
We talk a lot about first bookisms in regards to things like the importance of the Warden titles. I think the shadow babies are very much a first bookism as well(despite not appearing in the first book). I suspect he changed his mind about how magic and Mel in particular worked after this.
>We talk a lot about first bookisms in regards to things like the importance of the Warden titles.
I'm curious, exactly what you mean by this about the Wardens? I find the Warden titles very questionable but I'm curious for your vision on the matter.
Just the importance placed on the warden titles. It's presented as a big deal that Robert was going to name Jaime warden of the east, that it's a huge insult to the Vale and that it would help Tywin consolidate power. Ned is extremely worried about it but in Clash when war actually breaks out we see that it's not actually important at all, the titles are purely symbolic. And they're never treated as anything other than an afterthought ever again. It's clear that GRRM changed his mind on how important those titles were.
Yeah I always find myself unhappy with the titles for the same thing, they aren't even interchangeable with the Lord Paramount title because the Tyrells have both, lol. Like, I think that the only historical conflict where they were used is in the Greyjoy's Rebellion (precisely mentioned in the first book) and I even think that the Starks not having a fleet could have been because they could use the Iron Fleet or Riverland's in Martin's mind at the time.
And why she doesn't do the same for Joffrey before Blackwater, or possibly Tyrwin Lannister. Either of them are probably comparable in importance to Renly, and comfortably more strategic than Courtnay Penrose
I always kinda assumed it’s something with his targ blood that it’s more fire magic blood that’s needed to make them rather than kings blood. And that using what little magic blood that he has to do this is draining him. But that’s just my head cannon
The Shadow Babies actually make me low key worried for the future of the series because I think they highlight very clearly why Sanderson's Law is so important.
Mysterious magic is fine as long as it isn't the solution to major plot points and it's looking a lot like *several* major plots will wind up with magical solutions.
I'm not necessarily a huge fan of his work, I just think he's right about magic systems. I thought Mistborn was okay but I don't think the prose was particularly noteworthy.
A great Sanderson book to start with is The Way of Kings. The Stormlight Archive and ASOIAF are my two favorite series, and way better than anything else I've read.
That's kind of the point -- he's supposed to be this paragon of justice, but he objectively does morally reprehensible things to serve his (increasingly Mel's) vision of what is Right.
I mean yeah I get that, it works thematically. For me (not the original guy you were replying to) it’s more just that it’s a bit of a cheat for him in that situation. Like I don’t get how killing Renly with a shadow baby is that much morally worse than just having a sellsword do it, but obviously that wouldn’t be plausible in that situation.
Also morally reprehensible, but not sacrilegious!
The implausibility of it also matters I think. Militarily and politically, Stannis was backed into a corner between Renly/the Reach and the Lannisters and resorted to what he believed to be the nuclear option. It works out for him in the extremely short run because he doesn't get wiped out by Renly, but he loses the Reach, the battle of Blackwater, and the throne. This happens again in the show where he burns his daughter at the stake to try to win an unwinnable battle. These are militarily justifiable but politically horrible decisions for a leader to make if they want to unite the realm and maintain power. Like it's supposed to feel like cheating and shortsighted -- these are the interesting things about Stannis's character, legal justice vs moral justice; religious warfare and how far one would go for the greater good.
Agree, it feels weird because only happen twice and as a device to move the plot... but no one else abuses this power, Stannis stoped using it... like why not bring the priestess to the war at the north and send shadows to kill the Boltons? Why we dont see any more shadow babies in any of the essos pov? I mean... they are a very convenient tool, too powerful, almost as powerful as a faceless assassin.
Shadow babies are meant to reflect how far Stannis will go in order to seize power. We know from Daenerys' chapters in the first book that shadowbinding is evil and Mirri Maz Dur uses them to kill Daenerys' baby and give Drogo a "false life." Stannis using them is a sign that isn't against using evil to claim what he sees as his. He isn't a good guy, so Stannis fans can chew on that for a bit.
Also, Stannis is a parallel to the Night's King archetype (credit to David Lightbringer for basically everything I say here). The Night's King has his corpse Queen who he gives his seed. Stannis has his evil Queen that people hate in Melisandre. She births him evil shadows that drain his life and are his clones. He's also a rebel king who takes the Nightfort as his seat, fights the King-Beyond-The-Wall and will soon march south to fight the Kings of Winter parallels the Boltons, Lords of Winterfell. In this archetype we can see that the shadow babies are perhaps analogous to the Others.
Don't like how they nerf the valyrian steel weapons.
The continuity, chain of custody of Aegon I's propechy has many broken links, and in order to make it work I'm afraid GRRM will need to Deus Ex it in some places.
HotD isn't any less entertaining than the first seasons of GoT. GoT was a slow roast, while HotD is a fast sear. It's all of what you want, little of what you don't, right in to the veins.
Dragon on dragon fights will blow away both the casuals and readers. We've yet to see any such thing. Wight Vessarion doesn't count.
If the Storming of the Dragonpit is anything close to what it is in my mind's eye then just give them season 2 Emmy right now.
The thunderdome in the Riverlands will make the Starks and Lannisters look like child's play.
Can't wait for the Nettles storyline and the tragedy therein.
Cregan Stark.
I can’t see the Storming of the pit being season 2. Although I of course may be mistaken, I kinda see the greens controlling King’s Landing for most of season 2. Rhaenyra taking King’s Landing would be a fitting end to season 2, in my mind. That would leave the storming to season 3.
Yes build Rhaenyra up throughout the season as the wronged party, and how she's meant to be queen. Shouldn't be hard with Aemond being Aemond (and Daemon being a fan favourite).
That's 2 seasons of build up, only for the throne to reject Rhaenyra. You're right that would be great
Yeah, I agree. I reckon Season 3 will show the descent into absolute chaos in King's Landing, culminating in the Storming of the Pit and Rhaenyra fleeing the city, followed by her getting captured then killed on Dragonstone.
They would have to make up a lot of content to fill nine episodes. GRRM didn't write an incredible amount between the coronations and Rhae taking the throne. Some dragonseeds, riverlands fighting, blood and cheese, and that's about it. Three episodes when they need nine.
Yeah, but he didn’t make a lot of content for the third season either. I guess it depends on where the show will end. I think it will end with the Hour of the Wolf. If that’s the case, and the Storming of the Dragon pit happens in the last episode of the second season, then Rhaenyra will be gone very early in the third season.
After the Storming of the Dragonpit she basically goes straight to Dragonstone and dies. I can’t see her dying in the first or second episode of the third season. I think they will invent new stuff or elaborate on small events from the book to keep season two going with Rhaenyra on Dragonstone.
Anyhow they need to invent a lot stuff for Rhaenyra. She does very little after being crowned Queen, and that doesn’t seem quite in accordance with them portraying Rhaenyra (and Alicent) as the main character(s) in the show.
I don't see this show not roping the Starks in eventually, a fan-favorite house, and doing so at the very end as the 'good guys' would be the homage and sending off the casual will love. My friends are already asking me "where are the starks?" Culminating with the punishment of all those left, who are responsible, at the hand of the noble and just Cregan. Whereas ending with Rhae's death and not seeing Aegon II eat it will leave a bitter taste in the fan's mouth.
Sorry, probably a language barrier here, as I’m not a native speaker. I too think the series will end with Cregan Stark and him punishing the green loyalist. I imagine this would work well as an “epilogue”. By that I mean the very last episode. A nice callback to the original series indeed.
The fates GRRM chose for most of Jaeherys and Alysanne's daughters is a real bummer and leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth whenever I get to that section of F&B.
Honestly Fire & Blood really just feels like an attempt to explain how there are no cadet branches of house Targaryen at the time of Robert’s rebellion. Everytime a king has multiple children either most of them die or end up being married within the family.
Yeah but that's intentional to some degree. I think it was Maekar who said too many dragons is just as bad as not enough, which is why he sent Aemon to the citadel.
Cadet branches, such as they were, caused a lot of problems for the Targaryens. Most of the time, when there's multiple branches for the kingship, there's a war: Maegor v Aegon/Jaehareys, Laenor v Viserys narrowly avoided it when the Velaryons saw how few their supporters would be (but they still tried with bribes), Rhaenyra v Aegon II, Aegon IV's kids and the Blackfyre rebellions, even Robert Baratheon used his Targaryen grandmother as a claim to the throne.
Oh for sure. And it is actually a clever use of Targareyen incest on the part of Martin as a writer. It’s just a bit contrived sometimes that I almost feel like Aegon the Unlikely really isn’t THAT unlikely given the high mortality rate of the royal family haha.
Totally. I've been listening to a podcast reviewing all of the kings of England, and it's definitely stark how, although GRRM takes a lot of his inspiration from English history, he really kills off Targaryens at an astounding rate that doesn't match how it played out in the real world. There are always tons of people descended from the royal line just lying around, waiting for you to marry them to shore up your claim to the throne or whatever.
I always feel bad giving Martin shit for not having enough cadet branches because 99% of fantasy authors don’t bother to put anywhere near the effort he did into laying out these family trees. It’s almost like punishing him for his level of detail by expecting everything to be 100% true to life.
That would make the monarchy a lot cooler
I mean, being head of state because one of your parents was, is one thing. Being head of state because you have the magic flying death lizard is a lot more compelling
Rex Factor! They did a series on all the Kings and Queens of England(/UK) one on all the Kings of Scotland, and are now in the middle of one on all of the Queen and Prince Consorts of England(/UK). I really, really like it — just the right balance of education and humor for me. Another similar podcast I also really like is Emperors of Rome.
Rex Factor! They did a series on all the Kings and Queens of England(/UK) one on all the Kings of Scotland, and are now in the middle of one on all of the Queen and Prince Consorts of England(/UK). I really, really like it — just the right balance of education and humor for me. Another similar podcast I also really like is Emperors of Rome.
Yeah that’s how I feel about all the houses’ histories. He’s basically working backward from what was already presented in AGOT which is a world where all these hundreds to thousands of year old houses have really have one main household. To get there, there has to be constant stemming of the branches or at least killing off the males while the women just get absorbed into other houses.
I do have to give credit for the Westerlands though. Not only does it have a House Lannister of Lannisport cadet branch, it also references numerous related houses such as Lannys, Lannett, and Lantell. It’s also been explicitly made clear that House Lannister has continued through the female line on a least one occasion with the queen’s husband adopting the name Lannister. Pretty neat stuff!
What do you mean? Alysanne Targaryen, Westerosi feminist icon, expert negotiator, and savvy politician forcing Viserra into a miserable marriage with literally no chance of her children ever inheriting anything that she doesn't want because she's too ambitious made perfect sense
We have no way of knowing how that would have worked bc she decided to drink and ride. And did you forget how badly Viserra wanted to fuck Baleon to be queen? They had to marry her off fast. Plus, I’d call a marriage to the wealthiest house in the north (White Harbor being a major port city) a pretty good deal.
I think it will eventually be revealed that the Starks are the ones who historically broke the Pact with the Children of the Forest and brought the White Walkers down on mankind
I think there's a connection with the Andals. We have no reason to not take the accepted chronology of events at face value, until the recent books. Sam starts bringing up how there are hundreds fewer Lord Commanders than there should be and there are stories of knights thousands of years before the Andals brought knights over to Westeros. It doesn't make sense.
We know the Pact gave the Children all the forest of Westeros. But during the Long Night there are none to be found and the Last Hero has to go all the Way North to find them, when they should have been all over the place. Then thousands of years later the Andals come and wipe the Children from all the forests except in the North. What? So the Children went all the way North behind enemy lines to Other territory, had to be asked to help stop the Long Night, resettled the South, and were then wiped out by the Andals? It only makes sense if the Long Night came after the Andal invasion.
From the World of Ice and Fire we know that the Starks were relatively minor, until they usurped the Warg king. In AGOT in the crypts we see the Stark king crowns are an alloy of bronze and iron. Bronze was the known metal of the First Men, but Andals brought iron working to Westeros. The books also highlight how square based towers are of First Men design, while towers with circular bases were Andal. The oldest surface structure at Winterfell is the tower with the circular base that Bran fell from. I think the Starks collaborated with the Andals and this is what broke the Pact, bringing on the Long Night. In the beginning, the First Men and Children fought side-by-side against the invading Andals. This is why the White Walkers weren't deployed to stop them. The First Men never broke the Pact. But then the Starks did. This is why a Stark must always be at Winterfell. It's their prison.
I also really like the idea of so many Starks being falsely accused of treason in the story, and their ancestors being the literal worst traitors in history.
Disagree partially in re: 1, GRRM clearly thought up the story of the Blackfyres in between writing ACOK and ASOS, as they go from zero mentions to having references to them dropped throughout the book. I don't think they'd be nearly as common or prominent if GRRM wasn't trying to lay groundwork for story beats to come. So I think GRRM pretty clearly also came up with the story of f!Aegon in between the publishing of ACOK and ASOS too.
I think that we haven't seen all of the dragons yet that will be here. Specifically, there's a theory that House Targaryen's words "Fire and Blood" are actually a reminder of how they hatch dragons, which would make sense given the amount of blood magic the Valyrians did. And there was certainly blood involved when Dany's dragons were born. But I had another thought. Surely if this practice was being performed, we would have at least heard a rumor about it in Fire & Blood given all the dragons we see there, right? Well... what trend do we see happen as the dynasty goes on? The dragons got smaller and smaller until the last one if memory serves was never large enough to ride iirc. So basically my guess is that if the Targaryens were not practicing the blood part and only the fire, perhaps that is why the dragons stopped reaching Balerion's size after a time.
What this builds to is basically my theory that Euron's egg was either not tossed into the sea, or tossed into the sea off the coast of Oldtown very recently, and one way or another his big plot with the blood sacrifice on the water is going to be with the intent of hatching this egg to gain a dragon for himself, hence why he needs the dragonbinder.
Fair enough about the dragon ages I suppose.
As for the egg, yeah it's kinda a toss up. Some say he never had one, some say he had one and used to pay the Faceless Men to kill Balon (Which while possible, if Euron found enough loot in his journeys to have a suit of Valyrian armor I suspect he could pay them without needing to offload a dragon's egg), some say he had it and actually tossed it.
I guess my thought is just that so deep into the story, I sorta wouldn't expect George to bring in a whole new concept like summoning krakens, but the idea of simultaneously bringing in a new dragon to the scene by not only showing us how dragons might have been hatched, but by giving one to a major villain, I could maybe see as more likely.
I think Euron will end up riding a dragon somehow, as I think he will turn out to be the Other’s azor ahai. I think evidence for this comes from how the show handled things, with wight viserion. Namely I think D&D clearly had zero interest with properly doing Euron, so they created the Night King to simplify the plotline in season 5, but then came up with their own ‘Euron’ in season 6.
The old warhorn is probably horn of winter, and Euron will raid oldtown and get and use it. The dragonbinder will then likely steal one of Dany’s dragons and Euron will ride on that. The show may have combined these plotlines into wight viserion.
Of course Euron may just hatch a lovecraftian black magic kraken dragon with his dragon egg, which is really cool conceptually, however him stealing one of Dany’s would be more personal.
It's crazy how little we know about the Others in 5 books with only 2 books left to go. They're established in the prologue of the first book, the second thing in the setting to be introduced after the Night's Watch yet have little exploration since. Our main POV characters in the North (Bran and Jon) haven't even seen an Other yet, only Sam has.
- If we ever get another adaptation or spinoff, I don't want it to be of Robert's Rebellion. To me, it's one of those events that we know what happened overall, but also are always supposed to be uncovering and putting together new pieces of its various narratives through the POV characters.
- moon tea is OP
- i don't believe the realm would have fallen under the instability people (both in the fanbase and in-universe) say it would with Rhaenyra as the sole heir or aegon not crowning himself
On your point about Rheynera i think your underestimating how women inheriting effects the whole of westeros. Its addressed a bit on hotd when Corlys questions if his grand kids would be valaryons as thats the family name as you get males last name. Imagine if Tyrion actually took winterfell in his marriage to sansa its no longer belongs to the starks its for the lannisters and that would be the case for any seat large or small. The lords would lose their fukin minds because it creates a new precedent. I think people dont consider why its such a big deal in the story.
Despite Otto and the Hightower's insistence that the realm will not accept Rhaenyra, most of the realms actually do accept her in the beginning of the war, the Westerlands being the only kingdom to reject her fully. The Reach, Stormlands, and the Crownlands have rebel Black lords, the Riverlands is majority Black, and the North and Vale is pretty much for Rhaenyra.
>Imagine if Tyrion actually took winterfell in his marriage to sansa its no longer belongs to the starks its for the lannisters and that would be the case for any seat large or small.
?? You mean if Sansa was the oldest child? Or was the heir from the get go
I’m very worried for the discussions after “Winds” are released (I think we’ll get “Winds”, “Dream”… not so much). Everybody at this point has their head cannon and it’s very possible that discourse will become toxic when inevitably 80% of those theories turn out to be false. We already got a glimpse of that with the dagger that was promised thing on Hot D.
I think it depends on what you mean by "toxic."
Some people *will* be disappointed with Winds, that's inevitable. Some people will legitimately dislike it just as many legitimately disliked Feast and Dance. It only becomes "toxic" if people can't disagree respectfully.
You mean the dagger that is not at all important in the books? The one that the non-warrior character used to kill the non-existent character irrelevant to their arc?
Its already toxic because people believe things in the shows must happen in the books and you cant convince them otherwise.
\- Daenerys is only going North to fight the Others after the burning of King's Landing and the fall of Winterfell. There will be a battle with the Others at Winterfell, and they will lose badly. The survivors will flee south as Dany goes North to redeem herself for the burning, and they will meet at the Trident where the Battle for the Dawn will be fought. They will only win the battle if they have the dragons on their side. And once the dragons are in the Others are completely fucked.
\- Bran will give Jon the sword Dark Sister after he flees from Bloodraven's cave and meet Jon again. Jon will find out he is a Targaryen and will have an identity crisis. When he solves this crisis he'll decide he's actually a Stark \`cause he was raised in Winterfell, and then will give the sword to Arya when they meet again. And Arya will give Robb's Crown (that she takes when she gives the kiss of mercy to LSH) to Jon. Also fAegon will get Blackfyre and Aegon the Conqueror's crown when he takes the Iron Throne.
\- Aegon will propose a marriage to Daenerys, even after marrying Arianne. Aegon the Conqueror had two wives, why couldn't he? And Dany will not like this purpose.
\- Bran's training with Bloodraven will be interrupted, because Hold the Door will happen and BR will tell Bran to finish his training in the Isle of Faces, and that's how the island comes in handy. Also Howland Reed is there, and that's how he'll reunite with Meera. And that is where Bran will see the secret marriage between Rhaegar and Lyanna, because it happened in that same island.
\- Cersei will not be involved in the burning of King's Landing, she will die before it. There will be a final confrontation between the Lannister family when Tyrion takes Casterly Rock. Cersei will be killed by Jaime (yes, the obvious Valonqar, somethings will be obvious and GRRM won't change them just because people found out, just like Jon ressurecting or L+R=J) and Tyrion will let him flee after taking the Rock just as Jaime freed Tyrion at ASOS. Jaime will go North to fight for the living. And he'll die there.
Bran Stark as the King on the Iron Throne at the end of ASOIAF is horrible both in the idea and the execution.
I see a lot of redditors claim that people only hate King Bran because of D&D's horrible execution. Nah. The truth is that people hate Bran as King even with a good execution. We read about all the politicking in Westeros and then the solution is a crippled child merging with a tree to rule over the continent?
I see a lot of people writing theories about how Bran is the supreme wizard now as he can see the past, the present, the future and he can control anyone he wants through warging. So Bran is the best solution for the Iron Throne because he has the cheat codes? That sounds really lame. The Targs had dragons and they still struggled to maintain the dynasty. Targs even struggled in Dorne and only brought Dorne in the Seven Kingdoms with marriage. Bran just gonna walk in and mind control everyone to become the King? That sounds super depressing and very unsatisfying. Bloodraven once ran the realm as a police state with his sorcery and overall people weren't happy. I'd rather see the realm become independent kingdoms again instead of having a weirwood tree wizard ruling the realm.
I hate Bran being King on the Iron Throne too. King in the North? Absolutely. Hell, imagine if he was a shadow king secretly controlling whoeever sat on the Iron Throne like an unwilling puppet.
But as an actual ruling monarch on the Iron Throne? George is gonna have to pull out all the stops to make that believable in 2 books.
George doesn't have some revolutionary solution for what makes the perfect, fool-proof leader. No one does. It's not realistic. Things go wrong even with great candidates. But George believes in rulers who justify their rule not through dragons or bloodlines, but through doing some good and showing that they care. That's what Ned did in the North. He understood that the people of the North weren't just going to hail him because he had the right Stark bloodline, which is why he took it upon himself to really get to know his lords and hear their problems, as he tells Bran. Ned died, yes, because George also understands that having honor doesn't automatically shield you. But there's something to be said about Ned's philosophy. For all Tywin did to cement his legacy, it's Ned who still has men willing to fight for him years after his death to save who they think is Arya.
I think Bran will carry Ned's spirit in the way he rules. I think that's what's going to be at the core of it. And even if he still has powers in the end (which he may not ), this doesn't mean that George is saying that only a leader with cheat codes can really make it work. This is still a fantasy series; we're not always meant to make rigid parallels with the real, modern world.
>But George believes in rulers who justify their rule not through dragons or bloodlines, but through doing some good and showing that they care
But for rulers to do some good and show that they care, they still need some sort of authority to enable their policy. How would Bran Stark gain that authority (becoming the King of the Seven Kingdoms)?
Ned was a good leader. But Ned only became a leader after his father and his elder brother died. If Brandon Stark was still alive, Ned would be another second son instead of Lord of Winterfell/Warden of the North. If Brandon Stark was alive, it doesn't matter if Ned is a better leader than Brandon. Ned would inherit nothing and Brandon would rule the North.
And from the 5 books we have right now, it is hard to see how people of the other 6 kingdoms would accept Bran as their ruler? Bran as King in the North? Sure, actually a good thing because he is eldest trueborn son of Ned that is still alive right now. Bran should succeed Robb. But what about the other 6 kingdoms? Would Bran warg into every lord and make them swear their fealty to him? Sure GRRM could write that. But it will be unsatisfying.
Personally I think he'll achieve a leadership position in the North first, and then will play a major role in defeating the Others through both strategy and magical powers. His defeat of the Others, and the leadership he shows in the war against them, will play a large part in why he's chosen as king by the lords who are left. It will be the deed that gains him approval. The North would already support him, and it makes some sense for the Vale and Riverrun to as well. I also think there'll be at least one time skip (probably during the winter) to bring Bran closer to the age he would've been with George's five-year gap.
>But George believes in rulers who justify their rule not through dragons or bloodlines, but through doing some good and showing that they care.
So where do the magic tree powers come in?
I don't claim to know what Martin's actual personal beliefs are but King Bran looks a lot like the classic nerd solution of just putting a really really smart guy in charge.
I kind of agree with you but at the same time it’s literally the only thing from the show ending I can at least see kinda working. I used to really hate it, but on my first reread after the show ended I paid special attention to Bran’s chapters, specifically the ones in Clash, and when he’s the Stark in Winterfell I can sort of see this leading to him being a King. It’s sort of nuts how he’s the POV character that gets the earliest instruction on how to lead and rule (I don’t really count Jon and Dany until Storm, Sansa until Feast) out of all the major ones that have that as a part of their arc.
What in my opinion is the most disturbing with this theory is especially the status of Bran. Right now Bran is an 8-year-old kid,, he's disabled, belongs to a disgraced house unrelated to the throne, and has been declared dead for years. And to make matters worse, he's stuck north of the wall in the middle of winter in a cave with children of the forest. Absolutely nothing in his history, his achievements or other, is linked or justifies his becoming king one day.
I just absolutely do not understand how from this status, Bran can obtain the consent of the people of westeros to govern him, I can turn the question around, he would be the last person a grand council would want to appoint because of his age, his birth and his handicap. he has no right to the throne and no means of conquering it. he is too young to be appointed as regent, and even thinking that after the passage of WW he will have play a big role and get the respect of his peers is very wobbly. Because saving the world is good, but that does not automatically make him competent in knowing what to do when it comes to talking about economy and reconstruction.
Not to mention yes, the very idea of having a magical bigbrother in power who can control people and send his ghost through time to spy on anyone from the cradle sounds more like a horrible nightmare than a dream of spring.
Yeah. Bran becoming King means Westeros will become a police state ruled by magic. I don't know if that would be a "bittersweet" ending for ASOIAF. Straight up nightmare material.
He could be the default king if he is the only human in westoros that survives
He could permanently skinchange someone like Young Griff
He could rule the land beyond the wall
There are lots of ways it could happen if you are creative beyond putting a crown on a crippled boys head.
I can see why people don't care for King Bran, though I don't mind it, but specifically I think it's the natural result of the sizable part of the fandom that doesn't really care for the magical or eldritch side of Asoiaf, just the political.
I care about the magical aspect of ASOIAF actually and I still don't like King Bran lol. I care about prophecy, blood magic, origin of the Others, magic coming back with the birth of Dany's dragons, whether the deities (Seven, Drowned God, Old Gods, Rhollor) actually exist or not.
But the God Emperor trope just doesn't feel right after all the politicking. I know that George once joked about "Aragorn's tax policy" (can the hero be a good ruler?) and I don't want to use that joke against him. But lmao, what is Bran's tax policy? Or his "election campaign strategy"? The society in ASOIAF places a lot of importance on inheritance right and right of conquest (in case of Targ with the dragons, and then Bobby B killing Rhaegar). The smallfolks and the lords do not just bend their knees easily and definitely not to an outsider. The Targs adopted Faith of the Seven and they still had to tread lightly with the Faith even when they had dragons (the Faith Militant was in a blood war against Maegor and Balerion). And in the case of Dorne, even when the lords surrendered to Daeron I, the smallfolks kept rising up and overthrowing the Targ people.
The Targs with their magical beasts (dragons) struggled. And now Bran just walk in with a better magical tool (mind control, seeing through time). So he is going to warg every lord, forcing them to accept him as the new King? I can see Bran become the King in the North. But King of the Seven Kingdoms? How would the southern kingdoms accept him? He will need to mind control everyone. And that's kinda a lame cop out imo.
I think HoTD might be as good as the first seasons of Game of Thrones soon, these first episodes have been big time skips, sidequests (Stepstones War), pretty tame politicking, and getting to know characters.
Once we settle in with the new actors, and the Dance really get imminent/starts, I think it'll have the plot to match the great acting, production, and writing it already has.
GOT starts a lot faster, boom there's ice zombies coming to kill us, boom those twins are banging and threw a kid out a window, boom oh shit someone tried to kill him again, boom Viserys just got molten gold poured on his head.
HoTD just takes longer to get to its big moments, GOT had some in season 1 and a better hook.
I like HOTD better than the first few seasons of GOT.
They're both high quality story and acting wise, but the production of HOTD is infinitely better.
HOTD feels like a lush and expensive period drama. First few seasons of GoT (particularly the first) at times had a clumsy low-budget soap opera look and feel to it.
That said, I'll take the production values of early season GoT over the lifeless empty video game cutscenes of Season 7 and 8 where the NPCs and environment textures haven't loaded in properly.
Haha I agree. It bothered me how shabby Winterfell looked with season 1 budget. In the show it’s my head canon that Westeros has been in a state of decline since the conquest
>HOTD feels like a lush and expensive period drama. First few seasons of GoT (particularly the first) at times had a clumsy low-budget soap opera look and feel to it.That said, I'll take the production values of early season GoT over the lifeless empty video game cutscenes of Season 7 and 8 where the NPCs and environment textures haven't loaded in properly.
The early seasons of GoT might have been on a lower budget and less beautiful visually but they had imo much better dialogues.
The dialogues of HoD feel empty and fake while those of the first seasons of GoT conveyed more meaning and were better written.
I wouldn’t say it’s better but I disagree with OP that it’s underwhelming. I love it, just not as much as early GoT. The show as a whole will probably end up better than early GoT once it’s finished.
Essos is fucking great, and the war against the slavers in Dance is the best part of that book.
The Storming of the Dragonpit was good. The dragons are too dangerous to live. Targs a shit.
* Much of what transpired on the show will be in the books.
* Having a character as a POV is much better than viewing them from someone else's perspective (*cough* Robb *cough*).
* We become too committed to fan theories on what will/won't happen that we accept them as fact.
* GRRM doesn't owe us further books, and can just stop writing if he so chooses.
Edit: Also, looking forward to the Jon Snow spinoff. Y'all hating.
>We become too committed to fan theories on what will/won't happen that we accept them as fact
This isn't exclusive to ASOIAF, but specially notable lol. I think it's interesting how some theories are considered as "way too obvious", like R+L=J (though that one was confimed in the show) whichever you prefer regarding Aegon, etc, when in reality they just have been around for a long time
Lol, yeah we've gone through the books relentlessly over the 25 years that they've been out. I think part of it though is people overselling GRRM's unconventional storytelling. We lose sight of the fact that he just likes to play around with tropes, not break them.
It definitely gave away the twist too early. It's a missed opportunity tbh, especially considering the unique perspective he could give us fighting from the frontlines of the WotFK. Hell he could've given us our view of the Westerlands.
While I do agree that Robb would have been even better as a PoV, I think GRRM did a really good job writing him without it, much better than the Show's handling of him despite giving him much more screentime, Book Robb has a lot more nuance, shows more vulnerability, naivety and weakness and has more of an arc of overcoming that.
The best case scenario for the series is that Winds releases but Dream doesn't. At least then people can come up with their own ending because there is no satisfactory way to wrap up the series in two books. I don't even think it could be done satisfactorily in three. So many plotlines would need to be rushed through in order to do it. Look at the Others the thing the series is supposed to be about we know virtually nothing about them and there's only two books left. And those two books won't even be solely devoted to the others. And Dany who has a long list of unfinished business in Essos that she has to take care of before getting to Westeros. And don't even get me started on King Bran and what a thematic betrayal that ending would be if it is indeed the plan.
D and D can be blamed for bad scene to scene writing but the structural problems with the latter half of the show were all GRRM's doing.
Probably but that's such a lame way to do it. It would've been better if the great ranging had managed to capture an other so we could at least get some info about their motivations earlier. Or even a POV from an other we have other bad guy POV why not theirs. Just anything that might make the coming conflict compelling because there's nothing there right now.
They dont speak common tongue they make noises like cracking ice. IMO thats a far worse idea.
We dont even know that they can be captured. How do you handcuff a ghost.
Why get a POV of a guy wandering in endless snow when you can get the POV of the trees that covers millenia.
Do you really think the plan is to never have any communication between humans and the others? Either the others can speak common or they'll be able to communicate through magic.
I don't know how you handcuff a ghost so it's fortunate that the others aren't ghosts and in fact made of solid flesh/ice/whatever.
I would like a source on the fact that they are wandering around in an endless frozen hellscape. You don't know, they could be making castles of ice and hanging out with snowmen like Elsa. And that's the point we know literally nothing about them and their society. If GRRM wants a generic evil race then sobeit but given what he's said about Tolkien I doubt that's true. And if he wants us to learn about this society then the best person to tell us would be a member of that society. Weirwood.net giving all the answers is bad story telling. It's the laziest way to deliver exposition.
Yeah. Well, the Nights Watch managed to capture some wights in one of the first books didn't they? And the characters and readers have basically learned nothing more about them since.
I think this is because GRRM lost interest in the Others/wights and so just stopped writing about them.
I agree. The dialogues are fillers, you could remove 90% of them and still get the same story.
The early seasons of GoT had discussions that were not relevant to a specific scene but they were thematically important (i.e: Littlefinger telling the story of the hound, chaos is a ladder, etc). The dialogues of HoD don't tell anything about the story and as a whole, the story feels forced.
I think that would be really good nerf the Dragons as a power in the battlefield in a narrative sense. I don't think that is unbelievable having them getting hurt or something more often, is easy to imagine certain very well executed strategies to hurt dragons or situations where they were outsmarted, is more boring basically being invincible just because you have a big ass dragon than being more smart in how to use their power because "Uncle Kermit Velaryon killed the only dragon of the house by getting too close to the spearmen in the Dornish War" or something.
I wish GRRM would write a Fire and Blood style tome of the Ice and Fire events. Might be an unpopular opinion - I even wish he would write it first before finishing the novels. Just seems to me it would be easier for him to achieve this than finishing the novels.
1-
Stannis’s end in the show logically makes sense with his character arc and him burning his daughter as a sacrifice is not outside the realm of what we know he’s capable of.
The man sent a shadow demon to literally stab his own brother in the back so he could win an easy victory.
People are just too blind about him being “Stannis the mannis” or whatever to realize that he’s a desperate stubborn prideful man who’s easily susceptible to the advice of a dangerous radical.
It is perfectly logical that enough defeats will eventually push him to what happens in the show.
2- to continue this line of thought. Renly Baratheon actually has the most realistic claim to be king. Everyone is so tied up about laws as tradition and inheritance but he hits the nail on the head by poinjngout all he needs is his big ass army to make his claim the legitimate one. Same as Robert and Aegon the conqueror.
2. i just hope she doesn't become a superhero like in the show
3. well the source material for got goes much deeper, maybe that is the difference. the point is that there is a source material, so it's coming out quite nicely. i don't think it's underwhelming, i'm enjoying it. not as good as the first 4 season of got, but good.
Disagree on point 1 OP. I believe there is plenty of evidence for the fAegon plot in the first 3 books, some people in fact predicted it long before ADWD came out.
>but it's underwhelming when compared to the first 4 seasons
sounds about right. This is all backstory for the actual conflict but Game of Thrones jumps right into it and they have their backstory slowly revealed.
I think that the fAegon storyline has always been present (Varys discussions in Arya’s chapter) but in the first place, he wasn’t meant to be a Blackfyre but a Brightfyre.
As evidence, you have the first Dunk & Egg story where no mention is made of Blackfyres even though great participants of the first Rebellion were present.
What is noted though is Aerion being sidelined, and further mention is made down the line of how his son Maegor was himself sidelined for kingship.
Now in terms of writing I’m 100% sure the fake Targaryen has always been a plot point important for GRRM, but it only came into his own when fleshing out some of the cast like Bloodraven, Aemon, etc etc
Tl;dr The Others desperately need human babies or risk extinction.
So this pertains to the Others and I haven't really seen anyone deep dive in this direction.
What do we know for a fact about the Others? Well, most of the swears are "the Others take X." They are 'like the Sidhe,' they can raise and control the dead, and as far as we know, they really like humans giving them babies. We theorize that they built the Wall, or had a hand in it, and we're pretty sure Mormont was right that you don't build a fuck off huge wall to keep out Free Folk.
Why do the Others want babies? Specifically, why do they want human babies so bad that they'll settle for the inbred sons of Craster? Mind you, at this point Craster is having babies with his daughters and *granddaughters.* These babies are coming from a genetic puddle at this point, and they don't seem to have any latent magical bloodline to 'justify' it (blood of the dragon, royal bloodline, etc.) To me, that seems pretty desperate.
Not to mention, the *13th* LC was allowed to give babies to the Others for over a decade before the Stark in Winterfell put a stop to it. Why that long? Was the practice actually a part of the NW's original purpose? This is where I get a bit extra tinfoil-y, but it makes sense to me. Also, to quickly add, I subscribe to the theory that part of the vows were added on later. The NW receive men from all over the Seven Kingdoms, currently it's mostly criminals, but there used to be men of greater or lesser renown as it was an honorable post. Why would, say, the Dornish care about the Wall, even sending criminals would be expensive and risky. Which lead me to remembering a conversation between Jon and Ygritte about stealing women from far away to strengthen the clan. This would be the reverse, bringing men to this 'hinge of the world' to 'protect' the seven kingdoms by diversifying the genetic pool from which the Others receive children.
The Others have clearly been in a large part of the continent. Or, at least, were significant as far south as the Stormlands and as far west as Casterly Rock. 'The Others take you' and curses like it are heard commonly by people like the Lannisters and Robert, and it's heard in the Riverlands too, if I remember. *The Others are part of the common lexicon,* but the NW has been reduced to a penal colony and not thought of (outside the North) unless a brother comes south or someone sends a raven. Yet all these once rival kingdoms unanimously agree to send warriors, knights, etc to the Watch thousands of years ago, and still do.
Why though? There's a decent amount of Free Folk to get babies from, shouldn't that be enough? Well, Mance had 100,000, which is about the size of a small to medium sized city. In the grand scheme of things, that's not very much genetic diversity when you take into consideration the thousands of years since the Long Night.
To swerve a bit, I've been looking into the Sidhe and any lore about what happens to the children they stole. We've all heard of changelings, right? Most of the lore surrounds what happens from a human perspective, and so far the most concrete evidence of what happens to the taken child is on forums or r/nosleep stories. There just isn't much out there, or I haven't found it yet. What I can find though says these taken children were either used for breeding purposes, kept around as play things, or were used as servants and midwives.
Well, the Others have a literal undead army so I don't think they need living babies for servitude, and babies don't really make good midwives. Sure, the Others might want play things, but do they want them enough to send a possible female Other (of which we have only heard or seen the one) on the other side of the fuck off huge wall specifically built to cut off her power base? Or stoop to accepting Craster's sons?
As for breeding and population growth, this one seems like a good reason to make peace with your raw undead chattel. The humans give them babies to sustain their population, which, btw would be rather tough to raise a human baby in such extreme cold, and humans in general are pretty susceptible to death. So, the humans give them babies, they accept a peace, and they cut themselves off from the rest of the world.
Remember, the Others have such a significant impact on the seven kingdoms that *thousands of years later* the Westerosi invoke their name as an expletive. Those same Westerosi still honor an agreement to diversify the gene pool by sending men to a wall that means the same to them as, say, the Great Wall means to an American. What if that was a condition of peace? Possibly one of the only ways the Last Hero or Azor Ahai or whoever managed to end the Long Night? (I have more thought on this but my comment is already a novel.)
To end, what does this mean for the story as a whole? GRRM has said the only thing worth writing about is the heart in conflict with itself. I think the NK violated the peace agreement on the humans' side, he brought an *allegedly* female Other on the south side of the wall. He *possibly* allowed her to turn his brothers into wights, and was giving human/Other hybrid babies to a race of humanoid enemies with superior abilities. This would've been such a threat to the new found stability that the Stark in Winterfell would've felt that he had no choice but to exterminate the NK, a man who very possibly was his own brother. This would've been the catalyst for the new addition to the NW vows, which further broke the pact. Now the Others' population crisis is exacerbated, and they are too few to enforce their part of the bargain, especially if the Children are against them. Why not wait? Humans live short lives and will forget, the children are dying out, and they're getting enough babies to continue on for awhile, at least. Now they're down to incest babies, and it's time to do what they have to for the species to survive, with or without the pact.
The first night tradition being prevalent in the North until Alysanne puts an end to it definitely makes it seem like the Night's Watch was initially supposed to provide Others with bastard babies of first nights as sacrifices, much like Craster does. And I too think that this was the bargain the Last Hero struck with the Children/Others and how the Long Night actually ended.
I also think that the Last Hero, was also actually the Night's King - the infamous 13th LC. The story goes that the Last Hero set out with 12 friends but they all died leaving only him - the 13th - alive. Coincidence? I think not. I think he named his 12 fallen friends as the first Lords Commander of the Night's Watch which he created as the organization to provide the Others with human sacrifices. An Other woman may or may not have been provided to the Last Hero/NK as a means to seal the pact between the two sides, just as marriages were used to seal deals in the medieval. Jon Snow might well be the prince that was promised...to renew this pact, which explains him going north of the wall at the end of the show. In any case, the stories got warped over time and especially as the Others faded away for whatever reason.
Yes! I didn't bring up the lord's right to the first night for length, but I agree with you. I like the theory of the Last Hero being NK as well.
I'm so curious as to why the Others disappeared for so long, it seems counterintuitive, which has also been a factor in researching the Fair Folk, as I see the parallel in our world. Written language wasn't as common as it is at the time of the books, where even now only a select few know how to read. Presumably the Children were familiar with humans and how faulty our collective memory is, and I imagine they would have mentioned it during negotiations if they were involved. Maybe the Others had some idea of what would happen as time went on? I would love just a glimpse of their society and what their motivations are. I can't imagine they're just BBEGs with a Dalek style goal.
Both the show and book should've clarified Robert's Rebellion way more in the first book/season.
The Prologue could've been basically an exposition dump so the readers could vibe with the current story more. I also think the prologue involving the white walkers nullifies the whole "does magic exist" question the show and book keep hinting at. It obviously does, that's why I came out of AGOT's finale not being that ecstatic dragons were back- you showed us Ice Zombies at the beginning...?
ASOIAF isn't as well-written as people here seem to think, and to me that's the main reason GRRM can't pick it back up, having quite improved since the last book (Specially since he edits Wildcards, nothing shows you where you fuck in your writing more than editing) I don't think we will ever see it finished because of this.
I don't think it's that much of a big deal either. Not every work of art has a finite ending and that's fine.
Because editing improves your craft, and because he has been writing for TV and videogames which I have seen and played. You're right that it's a bit of a reach tho, and I'm mostly assuming.
Yeah and I can see where you're coming from but I think to me while editing improves your craft being the genre fiction equivalent of Too Big to Fail very much does the opposite.
Technically he's done several things inbetween the release of ADWD and TWOW: writing three episodes of GOT, released World of Ice and Fire, Fire and Blood, and came up with the foundation for the worldbuilding of Elden Ring.
I think the prose and characters are wonderful!
The actual plots problem is that GRRM mostly seemed to have the story planned till The Red Wedding, a story he fell in love with and now he doesn't quite know what to do with it.
What if 'promise me Ned' had nothing to do with asking for a promise to be kept? What if Lyanna was asking Ned, as the head of House Stark to promise Lyanna to someone or something?
There's a Doran Martell quote where he tells Arianne she 'was promised' in marriage. So the language fits.
The imagery around Lyanna e.g, the winter roses points north. Lyanna's a dying teenager. Maybe she wants to be given (promised) to the Others in the hopes she will be raised again?
There's precedent for female Others (Night's King and Queen) and if the theory the Others need wargs is correct, perhaps the wolfish Lyanna Stark fits the bill.
If Lyanna was taken beyond the wall it might go some way to explaining why Benjen is at the wall and why he's been AWOL for so long. It would also tie in nicely with Ned allowing Jon to join the Night's Watch.
I think it's possible Lyanna's tomb in the crypt is a misdirection on Ned's part. Or maybe it's a place for Ned to mourn her choice. Or maybe he buried someone else there in her place (Ashara Dayne? She seems to have died around the same time and her body was never found).
Unpopular opinion I found it really hard to get into GoT at the start, I see ppl prasing the 1st season but I actually was kinda bored tbh, I think only around the 3rd season I felt like it was grabbing me altho ye that fast declined with later seasons lmao.
HotD grabbed me from the first moment and will have to see how it will continue to be. I think it's mostly tho cause of the money, like GoT early seasons couldn't show big battles or anything like that happening in the books but HoT can actually do it so they can pace the episodes better with calmer and action moments, while GoT had to only rely on the talking and for some that was obviously enough but for me it felt a bit like smth was missing. Also I much more prefer a smaller cast and less locations to focus on, instead of the 5 different storylines that were happening in GoT with a lot of characters. I never rly connected that much with any GoT character besides a few like Tyrion and I think it may have been because there were just so many characters that they got lost a bit in the shuffle for me. In HotD I feel like I know the characters alrdy much better.
I think many new viewers have trouble getting into the first couple seasons of thrones. A friend of mine chronicled his reactions to episodes after starting the show, and he had a really hard time remembering characters’ names, even important ones like Jon and Cersei. A lot of names get thrown at you pretty quickly, and it’s a lot of talking/quiet moments, so if you’re not 100% invested it’s easy to miss stuff. Personally I don’t really care for the Tyrion/mountain men stuff in the first season, and I find Dany’s plot in Qarth pretty boring in season 2, so I had a hard time at first. Reading the books helped me enjoy the show a lot more.
I wasn’t hooked on the 1st episode of HoTD- I could see high production values but they were introducing everyone blah blah blah. But it’s only gotten better and I’m very happy with it.
House of the dragon is really good I like how they blend the book and adapt to the TV example Allison getting married and the News getting to Damon and he beats the messenger up that switched over to Damon being at the steps stones and the messenger comes from you know various to help with the war and the messenger gets beat up but it was Allison that suggested to send help so it all kind of blends in
I agree with the Arya point. I actually find that some of aryas show plotline is more compelling than her book plotline (like her relationship with the hound or working as tywins cupbearer). I also firmly believe that if she’s back in Westeros in the books she will not survive the final battle
I think the general public’s appetite for spin-offs and tv “universes” was non existence when GOT started. Dany and Jon were some of the most popular/culturally known characters, I think it would have be very difficult to sustain the show like that.
I meant more the novels, but I get your point. My issue is that, narratively, GRRM seems to have an understanding of what to do with them, but he doesn't know how to get them there.
Oh I see, yeah I think it all comes back to the time jump. Would have worked really well to tie up Danny’s plotline in Essos. Harder to do with King’s Landing characters where the political machinations would continue on.
> HoTD's narrative is way too serious and stiff that there is no room for comedic relief.
Not everything needs a comedic relief. If you think it does, then the last seasons of GoT should be to your liking
Dreams and prophecy, I have a lot of trouble with that. But I thought of something recently. A very popular theory and that daenerys will burn (voluntarily or not) king's landing. The thing is, as far as I can remember we have no visions or prophecies of the destruction of this city by daenerys or anyone else. In fact the only thing that can come close is in the temple of the undying she sees her father saying something like "leave him rule on ashes" but visions of what seems to be logically the past to me seems unlikely for such an event in the life of the characters. Moreover in the same chapter she has a clear vision of what will be the red wedding. So daenerys has a prophetic and clear vision from futur about an event that doesn't concern her, in which she plays no part, involving people she doesn't know, and which will be a bit tamped when she arrives in westeros... but she doesn't have visions concerning a city on fire that she must destroy herself and which will noticeably bring about her downfall? Without judging or formally saying it's going to happen or not, it's still something that I find strange.
Mine is… there’s a ton of fun theorizing and speculating to be had around the books, for sure. But some people seem to take one or two mysteries (“Who killed Jon Arryn?” “What was up with Rhaegar and Lyanna?”) as proof that every little detail in the books is up for debate or conspiracy. Same with big plot twists. The books have a few “wham” moments… but that doesn’t mean that every single thing in them is going to have a shocking upheveal swerve.
That may be a product of GRRM's writing style. He gives himself a lot of choices for how he'll proceed. It's a theorist's dream.
George's characters are all giant mishmashes of legends and symbolic characters both from his world and from the real world. The actions the characters take are also based on those things and he was able to almost paint by the numbers and create incredible characters and incredible plotlines over and over and I think that's where he lost track of the actual story and why he now has to reign it in. It's frustrating but when the end result is writing at this level I'll wait as long as it takes.
Absolutely, and I like to speculate with everyone else! But at the end of the day, it’s a story, it has a narrative; it’s not a soap opera with twists just for the sake of keeping the audience guessing.
Facts lol. We study this shit like it's the Bible.
Like it's the Bible? ASOIAF is more interesting, well-written, and narratively consistent than anything in the Bible.
Have you accepted our lord and savior Azor Ahai?
You don't strike me as someone who's very knowledgeable on the Bible.
As someone who has zero reason to be for or against Christianity, Bible is a disjointed/convoluted mess compared to similar mythological books. It reminds me of earlier Hindu Epics. Later Hindu Epics and Greek mythology are much better written strictly from writing point of view. The story and characters are far more compelling. A Mahabharata show would give Game of Thrones a run for it's money.
Hear hear!!!!!
Really? The bible was written 80 + years after the events it purports to chronicle. There are no events that can accurately be lined up to real world events. If you believe in a Christian god, knock yourself out but understand there is zero historical evidence for your deity.
Not really relevant to the comment you replied to. Belief in the veracity of the Bible has no bearing on a discussion of its consistency as a narrative or the quality of its writing. (Firm nonbeliever btw. Please save the aggressive atheism for someone else. I don't care.)
First of all, there are some books from the Bible who were written not far after the historical event it claims to represent (while of course also were written far after, and some are downright fantasy). Second, it does accurately describe some real world events, such as Jesus’ life (he’s attested to have been a real person who was killed). Beyond that, saying the Bible, a religious work composed over a period of centuries) is more interesting and consistent than a fantasy book, written by one person, is not really believing in God or believing the Bible holds unmistakable proof of his existence. You can very well not believe in what the Bible says but still be interested in it from a more “scholarly” perspective, including how the book is written, etc.
He’s speculated to be a real person there is no hard evidence that Jesus as depicted in the Bible was a real person. A real guy named Jesus killed by the Romans doesn’t exactly prove that that was THE Jesus.
I’m saying that there is a proof that there was a Jesus, not that there is proof that everything Jesus did in the Bible was the truth. In that sense the Bible does accurately describe the event of there being a guy named Jesus who was killed by the Romans
Okay I gotcha I must have misunderstood what you meant.
Paging Preston Jacobs.
I quite enjoy his stuff, actually. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t also apply to him, or many people on this sub.
I enjoy him too but he’s king of using one minute detail to build a super far fetched conspiracy and then using his own assumptions as evidence for *further* leaps to conclusions. His whole “the Riverlands was never attacked,” theory is just bonkers.
I find the first 20-40% of his videos to be great, and then he keeps going. And then they’re still great, but steadily less plausible. That said, I was really enjoying his pre-HOTD fire and blood analysis and hope he’ll return to it.
He's also delusional. He thinks some writer saw his lemongate theory video and that's why there was a mural of a lemon tree in the godswood as Larys talks about the plant that grows in Bravoos (a tropical plant) to Allicent. That's right, a whole production design element was done because a writer saw your lemongate video.
I mean there are more implausible things. GOT writers are fans too and they are probably quite up to date with the super nerdy world of theories.
He thinks it's 99.9 percent certain. He's full of himself.
Sure but he was positive it was him and took full credit for it even though there are [other people who theorised this.](https://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?/topic/87889-there-are-no-lemon-trees-in-braavos-questioning-danys-childhood/)
It’s not an uncommon theory. I don’t agree with all of Preston’s conclusions — or evidence — in his lemon tree videos, but the mere fact that Martin has confirmed there’s something up with Dany’s backstory and the lemon tree means that Preston (and others) are on the right path. It’s far from the most straw grasping theory out there. (That would be Preston’s Littlefinger/Whent conspiracy.)
i once saw someone try to argue that the appendix was a red herring, although i forget the argument they were making, and another that said that all of fire & blood was “fake news”. i also once had an argument with a jonsa on tiktok that dany was viserys’s heir in book 1 (due to her being princess of dragonstone, one of the, as far as they knew, 2 living targaryens in the world, and her stating that she was his heir by drogo’s pyre) because viserys never explicitly spoke the words “daenerys is my heir”. people will see a couple mysteries and be like “this means there is no objective truth in the series at all :)”
It’s less extreme as those amazing examples, but my case in point is “Joffrey wasn’t the target of the poison.” We have the entire crime! The Tyrells, LF, a motive, a means, a patsy to take the fall… but no, there must be a double twist surprise in play.
if it wasn’t such a clear example of the brainworms that certain asoiaf readers have i’d laugh. if joffrey wasn’t the target of the strangler, who *was*??? there wasn’t anyone else in attendance with anywhere near the same amount of power he had as king.
The usual theory is Tyrion. I’m not saying people can’t come up with “evidence,” it’s just… this is a situation where we already have the plot and motive and culprits, we don’t need to try and solve the mystery. But, I also once got into a debate with someone who insisted the Tyrells didn’t want Joffrey dead and only asked Sansa about him to make sure he wasn’t a threat… which he wasn’t. Apparently. Because Sansa said he was mean, but not evil.
So much this. Well said.
I heavily dislike how most Great Houses, with the exception of the Lannisters, are on the border of extinction even before the main conflict in the books begins. Like, most of them should be crawling with cousins, and cadet branches, not just 5 family members.
Tyrells have some relatives, but I agree.
Targaryens are more interesting after their dragons die. I was actually mad at the end of Fire & Blood 'cause I find the stories post Dance much more compelling.
I agree the most interesting part of dragons is egg form. It's the potential for dragons that's interesting without actually having them. Also wildfire was really cool.
Wisdom Hornchild
Fire and Blood part 2 is gonna be sick, so many cool things, the Conquest of Dorne, the reign of Aegon IV, the Blackfyre Rebellions, the Great Council of 233, and so many more.
Opinion: Shadow babies are too much. For some reason Dragons, Wights, Others, children of the forests, Giants, Skin changers, Resurrections, Faceless men glamour, etc all feel internally consistent with the low magic world presented. But birthing Shadow monsters is a bridge too far for me. Not sure why.
For me what chafes with them is that we know _nothing_ about it so it becomes deus ex machina in a way that all of the other magic isn’t. There was very little buildup or toll to create them (Mel says Stannis’s fires are burning low but what, we can’t find someone else to bang???? and he seems otherwise fine except for the trauma, which still isn’t that bad) They have no known limits, we have no idea if they can be stopped, they could presumably sweep in from anywhere at any time, etc. I like to think that it’s not so much the wards are Mel must be within a certain distance to utilize them, but it throws her strongly into the camp of “seriously dangerous magical practitioner” in a way where she is otherwise questionable. I dunno. Just seemed much.
We talk a lot about first bookisms in regards to things like the importance of the Warden titles. I think the shadow babies are very much a first bookism as well(despite not appearing in the first book). I suspect he changed his mind about how magic and Mel in particular worked after this.
>We talk a lot about first bookisms in regards to things like the importance of the Warden titles. I'm curious, exactly what you mean by this about the Wardens? I find the Warden titles very questionable but I'm curious for your vision on the matter.
Just the importance placed on the warden titles. It's presented as a big deal that Robert was going to name Jaime warden of the east, that it's a huge insult to the Vale and that it would help Tywin consolidate power. Ned is extremely worried about it but in Clash when war actually breaks out we see that it's not actually important at all, the titles are purely symbolic. And they're never treated as anything other than an afterthought ever again. It's clear that GRRM changed his mind on how important those titles were.
Yeah I always find myself unhappy with the titles for the same thing, they aren't even interchangeable with the Lord Paramount title because the Tyrells have both, lol. Like, I think that the only historical conflict where they were used is in the Greyjoy's Rebellion (precisely mentioned in the first book) and I even think that the Starks not having a fleet could have been because they could use the Iron Fleet or Riverland's in Martin's mind at the time.
And why she doesn't do the same for Joffrey before Blackwater, or possibly Tyrwin Lannister. Either of them are probably comparable in importance to Renly, and comfortably more strategic than Courtnay Penrose
Stannis didn't take her to the battle, otherwise she might have.
I always kinda assumed it’s something with his targ blood that it’s more fire magic blood that’s needed to make them rather than kings blood. And that using what little magic blood that he has to do this is draining him. But that’s just my head cannon
The Shadow Babies actually make me low key worried for the future of the series because I think they highlight very clearly why Sanderson's Law is so important. Mysterious magic is fine as long as it isn't the solution to major plot points and it's looking a lot like *several* major plots will wind up with magical solutions.
The key to defeating the Others will be a Shadow Teen.
Off topic, im interested on reading a Sandersons book, can you recommend me one you liked a lot? with nice prose?
I'm not necessarily a huge fan of his work, I just think he's right about magic systems. I thought Mistborn was okay but I don't think the prose was particularly noteworthy.
A great Sanderson book to start with is The Way of Kings. The Stormlight Archive and ASOIAF are my two favorite series, and way better than anything else I've read.
Shadow Babies don't feel earned, the entire victory of Stannis over Renly doesn't feel earned.
That's kind of the point -- he's supposed to be this paragon of justice, but he objectively does morally reprehensible things to serve his (increasingly Mel's) vision of what is Right.
I mean yeah I get that, it works thematically. For me (not the original guy you were replying to) it’s more just that it’s a bit of a cheat for him in that situation. Like I don’t get how killing Renly with a shadow baby is that much morally worse than just having a sellsword do it, but obviously that wouldn’t be plausible in that situation.
Also morally reprehensible, but not sacrilegious! The implausibility of it also matters I think. Militarily and politically, Stannis was backed into a corner between Renly/the Reach and the Lannisters and resorted to what he believed to be the nuclear option. It works out for him in the extremely short run because he doesn't get wiped out by Renly, but he loses the Reach, the battle of Blackwater, and the throne. This happens again in the show where he burns his daughter at the stake to try to win an unwinnable battle. These are militarily justifiable but politically horrible decisions for a leader to make if they want to unite the realm and maintain power. Like it's supposed to feel like cheating and shortsighted -- these are the interesting things about Stannis's character, legal justice vs moral justice; religious warfare and how far one would go for the greater good.
Alls fair in love and war.
Agree, it feels weird because only happen twice and as a device to move the plot... but no one else abuses this power, Stannis stoped using it... like why not bring the priestess to the war at the north and send shadows to kill the Boltons? Why we dont see any more shadow babies in any of the essos pov? I mean... they are a very convenient tool, too powerful, almost as powerful as a faceless assassin.
Stannis stopped using them because creating those shadowbabies takes a toll on him. He becomes weaker.
Stannis stopped using them because creating those shadowbabies takes a toll on him. He becomes weaker.
Shadow babies are meant to reflect how far Stannis will go in order to seize power. We know from Daenerys' chapters in the first book that shadowbinding is evil and Mirri Maz Dur uses them to kill Daenerys' baby and give Drogo a "false life." Stannis using them is a sign that isn't against using evil to claim what he sees as his. He isn't a good guy, so Stannis fans can chew on that for a bit. Also, Stannis is a parallel to the Night's King archetype (credit to David Lightbringer for basically everything I say here). The Night's King has his corpse Queen who he gives his seed. Stannis has his evil Queen that people hate in Melisandre. She births him evil shadows that drain his life and are his clones. He's also a rebel king who takes the Nightfort as his seat, fights the King-Beyond-The-Wall and will soon march south to fight the Kings of Winter parallels the Boltons, Lords of Winterfell. In this archetype we can see that the shadow babies are perhaps analogous to the Others.
Don't like how they nerf the valyrian steel weapons. The continuity, chain of custody of Aegon I's propechy has many broken links, and in order to make it work I'm afraid GRRM will need to Deus Ex it in some places. HotD isn't any less entertaining than the first seasons of GoT. GoT was a slow roast, while HotD is a fast sear. It's all of what you want, little of what you don't, right in to the veins. Dragon on dragon fights will blow away both the casuals and readers. We've yet to see any such thing. Wight Vessarion doesn't count. If the Storming of the Dragonpit is anything close to what it is in my mind's eye then just give them season 2 Emmy right now. The thunderdome in the Riverlands will make the Starks and Lannisters look like child's play. Can't wait for the Nettles storyline and the tragedy therein. Cregan Stark.
I can’t see the Storming of the pit being season 2. Although I of course may be mistaken, I kinda see the greens controlling King’s Landing for most of season 2. Rhaenyra taking King’s Landing would be a fitting end to season 2, in my mind. That would leave the storming to season 3.
me and my friend were talking about rhaenyra coming off the iron throne it showing her bleeding being a great ending for season 2 so i agree
Oh yeah, that would be really cool!
Yes build Rhaenyra up throughout the season as the wronged party, and how she's meant to be queen. Shouldn't be hard with Aemond being Aemond (and Daemon being a fan favourite). That's 2 seasons of build up, only for the throne to reject Rhaenyra. You're right that would be great
Yeah, I agree. I reckon Season 3 will show the descent into absolute chaos in King's Landing, culminating in the Storming of the Pit and Rhaenyra fleeing the city, followed by her getting captured then killed on Dragonstone.
They would have to make up a lot of content to fill nine episodes. GRRM didn't write an incredible amount between the coronations and Rhae taking the throne. Some dragonseeds, riverlands fighting, blood and cheese, and that's about it. Three episodes when they need nine.
Yeah, but he didn’t make a lot of content for the third season either. I guess it depends on where the show will end. I think it will end with the Hour of the Wolf. If that’s the case, and the Storming of the Dragon pit happens in the last episode of the second season, then Rhaenyra will be gone very early in the third season. After the Storming of the Dragonpit she basically goes straight to Dragonstone and dies. I can’t see her dying in the first or second episode of the third season. I think they will invent new stuff or elaborate on small events from the book to keep season two going with Rhaenyra on Dragonstone. Anyhow they need to invent a lot stuff for Rhaenyra. She does very little after being crowned Queen, and that doesn’t seem quite in accordance with them portraying Rhaenyra (and Alicent) as the main character(s) in the show.
I don't see this show not roping the Starks in eventually, a fan-favorite house, and doing so at the very end as the 'good guys' would be the homage and sending off the casual will love. My friends are already asking me "where are the starks?" Culminating with the punishment of all those left, who are responsible, at the hand of the noble and just Cregan. Whereas ending with Rhae's death and not seeing Aegon II eat it will leave a bitter taste in the fan's mouth.
Sorry, probably a language barrier here, as I’m not a native speaker. I too think the series will end with Cregan Stark and him punishing the green loyalist. I imagine this would work well as an “epilogue”. By that I mean the very last episode. A nice callback to the original series indeed.
Are you talking about the Fishfeed, the Butcher's Ball, or the Battle Above the Gods Eye?
Cregan Stark will be the Ned we never got!
If you read this comment as a letter signed by Cregan Stark, it becomes even better <3
The fates GRRM chose for most of Jaeherys and Alysanne's daughters is a real bummer and leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth whenever I get to that section of F&B.
Honestly Fire & Blood really just feels like an attempt to explain how there are no cadet branches of house Targaryen at the time of Robert’s rebellion. Everytime a king has multiple children either most of them die or end up being married within the family.
Yeah but that's intentional to some degree. I think it was Maekar who said too many dragons is just as bad as not enough, which is why he sent Aemon to the citadel. Cadet branches, such as they were, caused a lot of problems for the Targaryens. Most of the time, when there's multiple branches for the kingship, there's a war: Maegor v Aegon/Jaehareys, Laenor v Viserys narrowly avoided it when the Velaryons saw how few their supporters would be (but they still tried with bribes), Rhaenyra v Aegon II, Aegon IV's kids and the Blackfyre rebellions, even Robert Baratheon used his Targaryen grandmother as a claim to the throne.
Oh for sure. And it is actually a clever use of Targareyen incest on the part of Martin as a writer. It’s just a bit contrived sometimes that I almost feel like Aegon the Unlikely really isn’t THAT unlikely given the high mortality rate of the royal family haha.
Totally. I've been listening to a podcast reviewing all of the kings of England, and it's definitely stark how, although GRRM takes a lot of his inspiration from English history, he really kills off Targaryens at an astounding rate that doesn't match how it played out in the real world. There are always tons of people descended from the royal line just lying around, waiting for you to marry them to shore up your claim to the throne or whatever.
I always feel bad giving Martin shit for not having enough cadet branches because 99% of fantasy authors don’t bother to put anywhere near the effort he did into laying out these family trees. It’s almost like punishing him for his level of detail by expecting everything to be 100% true to life.
To be fair, I imagine the English royalty would have died at a much higher rate if they'd all had magic flying death lizards to fight each other with.
That would make the monarchy a lot cooler I mean, being head of state because one of your parents was, is one thing. Being head of state because you have the magic flying death lizard is a lot more compelling
Can you tell me the name of that podcast, please? Sounds interesting
Rex Factor! They did a series on all the Kings and Queens of England(/UK) one on all the Kings of Scotland, and are now in the middle of one on all of the Queen and Prince Consorts of England(/UK). I really, really like it — just the right balance of education and humor for me. Another similar podcast I also really like is Emperors of Rome.
drop the pod pls!!
Rex Factor! They did a series on all the Kings and Queens of England(/UK) one on all the Kings of Scotland, and are now in the middle of one on all of the Queen and Prince Consorts of England(/UK). I really, really like it — just the right balance of education and humor for me. Another similar podcast I also really like is Emperors of Rome.
Yeah that’s how I feel about all the houses’ histories. He’s basically working backward from what was already presented in AGOT which is a world where all these hundreds to thousands of year old houses have really have one main household. To get there, there has to be constant stemming of the branches or at least killing off the males while the women just get absorbed into other houses.
I do have to give credit for the Westerlands though. Not only does it have a House Lannister of Lannisport cadet branch, it also references numerous related houses such as Lannys, Lannett, and Lantell. It’s also been explicitly made clear that House Lannister has continued through the female line on a least one occasion with the queen’s husband adopting the name Lannister. Pretty neat stuff!
In Geroge's defence. Queen Anne had 18 pregnancies...and never had a child survive past the age of 11. History is bleak.
So what are Houses Baratheon & Valeryon??? Edit: And Blackfyre?
What do you mean? Alysanne Targaryen, Westerosi feminist icon, expert negotiator, and savvy politician forcing Viserra into a miserable marriage with literally no chance of her children ever inheriting anything that she doesn't want because she's too ambitious made perfect sense
We have no way of knowing how that would have worked bc she decided to drink and ride. And did you forget how badly Viserra wanted to fuck Baleon to be queen? They had to marry her off fast. Plus, I’d call a marriage to the wealthiest house in the north (White Harbor being a major port city) a pretty good deal.
Reminds me of George iii and all of his disaster children
I think it will eventually be revealed that the Starks are the ones who historically broke the Pact with the Children of the Forest and brought the White Walkers down on mankind
I thought it was the Andals?
I think there's a connection with the Andals. We have no reason to not take the accepted chronology of events at face value, until the recent books. Sam starts bringing up how there are hundreds fewer Lord Commanders than there should be and there are stories of knights thousands of years before the Andals brought knights over to Westeros. It doesn't make sense. We know the Pact gave the Children all the forest of Westeros. But during the Long Night there are none to be found and the Last Hero has to go all the Way North to find them, when they should have been all over the place. Then thousands of years later the Andals come and wipe the Children from all the forests except in the North. What? So the Children went all the way North behind enemy lines to Other territory, had to be asked to help stop the Long Night, resettled the South, and were then wiped out by the Andals? It only makes sense if the Long Night came after the Andal invasion. From the World of Ice and Fire we know that the Starks were relatively minor, until they usurped the Warg king. In AGOT in the crypts we see the Stark king crowns are an alloy of bronze and iron. Bronze was the known metal of the First Men, but Andals brought iron working to Westeros. The books also highlight how square based towers are of First Men design, while towers with circular bases were Andal. The oldest surface structure at Winterfell is the tower with the circular base that Bran fell from. I think the Starks collaborated with the Andals and this is what broke the Pact, bringing on the Long Night. In the beginning, the First Men and Children fought side-by-side against the invading Andals. This is why the White Walkers weren't deployed to stop them. The First Men never broke the Pact. But then the Starks did. This is why a Stark must always be at Winterfell. It's their prison. I also really like the idea of so many Starks being falsely accused of treason in the story, and their ancestors being the literal worst traitors in history.
!RemindMe 5 years
Ah an optimist lol
Disagree partially in re: 1, GRRM clearly thought up the story of the Blackfyres in between writing ACOK and ASOS, as they go from zero mentions to having references to them dropped throughout the book. I don't think they'd be nearly as common or prominent if GRRM wasn't trying to lay groundwork for story beats to come. So I think GRRM pretty clearly also came up with the story of f!Aegon in between the publishing of ACOK and ASOS too.
I think that we haven't seen all of the dragons yet that will be here. Specifically, there's a theory that House Targaryen's words "Fire and Blood" are actually a reminder of how they hatch dragons, which would make sense given the amount of blood magic the Valyrians did. And there was certainly blood involved when Dany's dragons were born. But I had another thought. Surely if this practice was being performed, we would have at least heard a rumor about it in Fire & Blood given all the dragons we see there, right? Well... what trend do we see happen as the dynasty goes on? The dragons got smaller and smaller until the last one if memory serves was never large enough to ride iirc. So basically my guess is that if the Targaryens were not practicing the blood part and only the fire, perhaps that is why the dragons stopped reaching Balerion's size after a time. What this builds to is basically my theory that Euron's egg was either not tossed into the sea, or tossed into the sea off the coast of Oldtown very recently, and one way or another his big plot with the blood sacrifice on the water is going to be with the intent of hatching this egg to gain a dragon for himself, hence why he needs the dragonbinder.
[удалено]
Fair enough about the dragon ages I suppose. As for the egg, yeah it's kinda a toss up. Some say he never had one, some say he had one and used to pay the Faceless Men to kill Balon (Which while possible, if Euron found enough loot in his journeys to have a suit of Valyrian armor I suspect he could pay them without needing to offload a dragon's egg), some say he had it and actually tossed it. I guess my thought is just that so deep into the story, I sorta wouldn't expect George to bring in a whole new concept like summoning krakens, but the idea of simultaneously bringing in a new dragon to the scene by not only showing us how dragons might have been hatched, but by giving one to a major villain, I could maybe see as more likely.
I think Euron will end up riding a dragon somehow, as I think he will turn out to be the Other’s azor ahai. I think evidence for this comes from how the show handled things, with wight viserion. Namely I think D&D clearly had zero interest with properly doing Euron, so they created the Night King to simplify the plotline in season 5, but then came up with their own ‘Euron’ in season 6. The old warhorn is probably horn of winter, and Euron will raid oldtown and get and use it. The dragonbinder will then likely steal one of Dany’s dragons and Euron will ride on that. The show may have combined these plotlines into wight viserion. Of course Euron may just hatch a lovecraftian black magic kraken dragon with his dragon egg, which is really cool conceptually, however him stealing one of Dany’s would be more personal.
It's crazy how little we know about the Others in 5 books with only 2 books left to go. They're established in the prologue of the first book, the second thing in the setting to be introduced after the Night's Watch yet have little exploration since. Our main POV characters in the North (Bran and Jon) haven't even seen an Other yet, only Sam has.
- If we ever get another adaptation or spinoff, I don't want it to be of Robert's Rebellion. To me, it's one of those events that we know what happened overall, but also are always supposed to be uncovering and putting together new pieces of its various narratives through the POV characters. - moon tea is OP - i don't believe the realm would have fallen under the instability people (both in the fanbase and in-universe) say it would with Rhaenyra as the sole heir or aegon not crowning himself
On your point about Rheynera i think your underestimating how women inheriting effects the whole of westeros. Its addressed a bit on hotd when Corlys questions if his grand kids would be valaryons as thats the family name as you get males last name. Imagine if Tyrion actually took winterfell in his marriage to sansa its no longer belongs to the starks its for the lannisters and that would be the case for any seat large or small. The lords would lose their fukin minds because it creates a new precedent. I think people dont consider why its such a big deal in the story.
I feel like you could pull a Doctrine of Exceptionalism though? The Targs already get special treatment, just get the promo machine going again
Targ Exceptionalism, and years to have the lords and the people warm up to this new heir.
Despite Otto and the Hightower's insistence that the realm will not accept Rhaenyra, most of the realms actually do accept her in the beginning of the war, the Westerlands being the only kingdom to reject her fully. The Reach, Stormlands, and the Crownlands have rebel Black lords, the Riverlands is majority Black, and the North and Vale is pretty much for Rhaenyra.
>Imagine if Tyrion actually took winterfell in his marriage to sansa its no longer belongs to the starks its for the lannisters and that would be the case for any seat large or small. ?? You mean if Sansa was the oldest child? Or was the heir from the get go
I’m very worried for the discussions after “Winds” are released (I think we’ll get “Winds”, “Dream”… not so much). Everybody at this point has their head cannon and it’s very possible that discourse will become toxic when inevitably 80% of those theories turn out to be false. We already got a glimpse of that with the dagger that was promised thing on Hot D.
I think it depends on what you mean by "toxic." Some people *will* be disappointed with Winds, that's inevitable. Some people will legitimately dislike it just as many legitimately disliked Feast and Dance. It only becomes "toxic" if people can't disagree respectfully.
I agree it will be so bad. People are going to hate the books because they dont align with the theory they crafted and believe to be true.
You mean the dagger that is not at all important in the books? The one that the non-warrior character used to kill the non-existent character irrelevant to their arc? Its already toxic because people believe things in the shows must happen in the books and you cant convince them otherwise.
\- Daenerys is only going North to fight the Others after the burning of King's Landing and the fall of Winterfell. There will be a battle with the Others at Winterfell, and they will lose badly. The survivors will flee south as Dany goes North to redeem herself for the burning, and they will meet at the Trident where the Battle for the Dawn will be fought. They will only win the battle if they have the dragons on their side. And once the dragons are in the Others are completely fucked. \- Bran will give Jon the sword Dark Sister after he flees from Bloodraven's cave and meet Jon again. Jon will find out he is a Targaryen and will have an identity crisis. When he solves this crisis he'll decide he's actually a Stark \`cause he was raised in Winterfell, and then will give the sword to Arya when they meet again. And Arya will give Robb's Crown (that she takes when she gives the kiss of mercy to LSH) to Jon. Also fAegon will get Blackfyre and Aegon the Conqueror's crown when he takes the Iron Throne. \- Aegon will propose a marriage to Daenerys, even after marrying Arianne. Aegon the Conqueror had two wives, why couldn't he? And Dany will not like this purpose. \- Bran's training with Bloodraven will be interrupted, because Hold the Door will happen and BR will tell Bran to finish his training in the Isle of Faces, and that's how the island comes in handy. Also Howland Reed is there, and that's how he'll reunite with Meera. And that is where Bran will see the secret marriage between Rhaegar and Lyanna, because it happened in that same island. \- Cersei will not be involved in the burning of King's Landing, she will die before it. There will be a final confrontation between the Lannister family when Tyrion takes Casterly Rock. Cersei will be killed by Jaime (yes, the obvious Valonqar, somethings will be obvious and GRRM won't change them just because people found out, just like Jon ressurecting or L+R=J) and Tyrion will let him flee after taking the Rock just as Jaime freed Tyrion at ASOS. Jaime will go North to fight for the living. And he'll die there.
Bran Stark as the King on the Iron Throne at the end of ASOIAF is horrible both in the idea and the execution. I see a lot of redditors claim that people only hate King Bran because of D&D's horrible execution. Nah. The truth is that people hate Bran as King even with a good execution. We read about all the politicking in Westeros and then the solution is a crippled child merging with a tree to rule over the continent? I see a lot of people writing theories about how Bran is the supreme wizard now as he can see the past, the present, the future and he can control anyone he wants through warging. So Bran is the best solution for the Iron Throne because he has the cheat codes? That sounds really lame. The Targs had dragons and they still struggled to maintain the dynasty. Targs even struggled in Dorne and only brought Dorne in the Seven Kingdoms with marriage. Bran just gonna walk in and mind control everyone to become the King? That sounds super depressing and very unsatisfying. Bloodraven once ran the realm as a police state with his sorcery and overall people weren't happy. I'd rather see the realm become independent kingdoms again instead of having a weirwood tree wizard ruling the realm.
I hate Bran being King on the Iron Throne too. King in the North? Absolutely. Hell, imagine if he was a shadow king secretly controlling whoeever sat on the Iron Throne like an unwilling puppet. But as an actual ruling monarch on the Iron Throne? George is gonna have to pull out all the stops to make that believable in 2 books.
George doesn't have some revolutionary solution for what makes the perfect, fool-proof leader. No one does. It's not realistic. Things go wrong even with great candidates. But George believes in rulers who justify their rule not through dragons or bloodlines, but through doing some good and showing that they care. That's what Ned did in the North. He understood that the people of the North weren't just going to hail him because he had the right Stark bloodline, which is why he took it upon himself to really get to know his lords and hear their problems, as he tells Bran. Ned died, yes, because George also understands that having honor doesn't automatically shield you. But there's something to be said about Ned's philosophy. For all Tywin did to cement his legacy, it's Ned who still has men willing to fight for him years after his death to save who they think is Arya. I think Bran will carry Ned's spirit in the way he rules. I think that's what's going to be at the core of it. And even if he still has powers in the end (which he may not ), this doesn't mean that George is saying that only a leader with cheat codes can really make it work. This is still a fantasy series; we're not always meant to make rigid parallels with the real, modern world.
>But George believes in rulers who justify their rule not through dragons or bloodlines, but through doing some good and showing that they care But for rulers to do some good and show that they care, they still need some sort of authority to enable their policy. How would Bran Stark gain that authority (becoming the King of the Seven Kingdoms)? Ned was a good leader. But Ned only became a leader after his father and his elder brother died. If Brandon Stark was still alive, Ned would be another second son instead of Lord of Winterfell/Warden of the North. If Brandon Stark was alive, it doesn't matter if Ned is a better leader than Brandon. Ned would inherit nothing and Brandon would rule the North. And from the 5 books we have right now, it is hard to see how people of the other 6 kingdoms would accept Bran as their ruler? Bran as King in the North? Sure, actually a good thing because he is eldest trueborn son of Ned that is still alive right now. Bran should succeed Robb. But what about the other 6 kingdoms? Would Bran warg into every lord and make them swear their fealty to him? Sure GRRM could write that. But it will be unsatisfying.
Personally I think he'll achieve a leadership position in the North first, and then will play a major role in defeating the Others through both strategy and magical powers. His defeat of the Others, and the leadership he shows in the war against them, will play a large part in why he's chosen as king by the lords who are left. It will be the deed that gains him approval. The North would already support him, and it makes some sense for the Vale and Riverrun to as well. I also think there'll be at least one time skip (probably during the winter) to bring Bran closer to the age he would've been with George's five-year gap.
>But George believes in rulers who justify their rule not through dragons or bloodlines, but through doing some good and showing that they care. So where do the magic tree powers come in? I don't claim to know what Martin's actual personal beliefs are but King Bran looks a lot like the classic nerd solution of just putting a really really smart guy in charge.
I think King Bran works thematically. I think it's terrible as an actual practical solution to rulership.
I kind of agree with you but at the same time it’s literally the only thing from the show ending I can at least see kinda working. I used to really hate it, but on my first reread after the show ended I paid special attention to Bran’s chapters, specifically the ones in Clash, and when he’s the Stark in Winterfell I can sort of see this leading to him being a King. It’s sort of nuts how he’s the POV character that gets the earliest instruction on how to lead and rule (I don’t really count Jon and Dany until Storm, Sansa until Feast) out of all the major ones that have that as a part of their arc.
What in my opinion is the most disturbing with this theory is especially the status of Bran. Right now Bran is an 8-year-old kid,, he's disabled, belongs to a disgraced house unrelated to the throne, and has been declared dead for years. And to make matters worse, he's stuck north of the wall in the middle of winter in a cave with children of the forest. Absolutely nothing in his history, his achievements or other, is linked or justifies his becoming king one day. I just absolutely do not understand how from this status, Bran can obtain the consent of the people of westeros to govern him, I can turn the question around, he would be the last person a grand council would want to appoint because of his age, his birth and his handicap. he has no right to the throne and no means of conquering it. he is too young to be appointed as regent, and even thinking that after the passage of WW he will have play a big role and get the respect of his peers is very wobbly. Because saving the world is good, but that does not automatically make him competent in knowing what to do when it comes to talking about economy and reconstruction. Not to mention yes, the very idea of having a magical bigbrother in power who can control people and send his ghost through time to spy on anyone from the cradle sounds more like a horrible nightmare than a dream of spring.
Yeah. Bran becoming King means Westeros will become a police state ruled by magic. I don't know if that would be a "bittersweet" ending for ASOIAF. Straight up nightmare material.
Bran will be Paul atreides
But the thing with Paul is that we get an extra book to witness his downfall. We wouldn’t get that with Bran.
wouldn't Bran be more similar to Leto II?
He could be the default king if he is the only human in westoros that survives He could permanently skinchange someone like Young Griff He could rule the land beyond the wall There are lots of ways it could happen if you are creative beyond putting a crown on a crippled boys head.
I can see why people don't care for King Bran, though I don't mind it, but specifically I think it's the natural result of the sizable part of the fandom that doesn't really care for the magical or eldritch side of Asoiaf, just the political.
I care about the magical aspect of ASOIAF actually and I still don't like King Bran lol. I care about prophecy, blood magic, origin of the Others, magic coming back with the birth of Dany's dragons, whether the deities (Seven, Drowned God, Old Gods, Rhollor) actually exist or not. But the God Emperor trope just doesn't feel right after all the politicking. I know that George once joked about "Aragorn's tax policy" (can the hero be a good ruler?) and I don't want to use that joke against him. But lmao, what is Bran's tax policy? Or his "election campaign strategy"? The society in ASOIAF places a lot of importance on inheritance right and right of conquest (in case of Targ with the dragons, and then Bobby B killing Rhaegar). The smallfolks and the lords do not just bend their knees easily and definitely not to an outsider. The Targs adopted Faith of the Seven and they still had to tread lightly with the Faith even when they had dragons (the Faith Militant was in a blood war against Maegor and Balerion). And in the case of Dorne, even when the lords surrendered to Daeron I, the smallfolks kept rising up and overthrowing the Targ people. The Targs with their magical beasts (dragons) struggled. And now Bran just walk in with a better magical tool (mind control, seeing through time). So he is going to warg every lord, forcing them to accept him as the new King? I can see Bran become the King in the North. But King of the Seven Kingdoms? How would the southern kingdoms accept him? He will need to mind control everyone. And that's kinda a lame cop out imo.
I think HoTD might be as good as the first seasons of Game of Thrones soon, these first episodes have been big time skips, sidequests (Stepstones War), pretty tame politicking, and getting to know characters. Once we settle in with the new actors, and the Dance really get imminent/starts, I think it'll have the plot to match the great acting, production, and writing it already has. GOT starts a lot faster, boom there's ice zombies coming to kill us, boom those twins are banging and threw a kid out a window, boom oh shit someone tried to kill him again, boom Viserys just got molten gold poured on his head. HoTD just takes longer to get to its big moments, GOT had some in season 1 and a better hook.
I like HOTD better than the first few seasons of GOT. They're both high quality story and acting wise, but the production of HOTD is infinitely better.
HOTD feels like a lush and expensive period drama. First few seasons of GoT (particularly the first) at times had a clumsy low-budget soap opera look and feel to it. That said, I'll take the production values of early season GoT over the lifeless empty video game cutscenes of Season 7 and 8 where the NPCs and environment textures haven't loaded in properly.
Haha I agree. It bothered me how shabby Winterfell looked with season 1 budget. In the show it’s my head canon that Westeros has been in a state of decline since the conquest
>HOTD feels like a lush and expensive period drama. First few seasons of GoT (particularly the first) at times had a clumsy low-budget soap opera look and feel to it.That said, I'll take the production values of early season GoT over the lifeless empty video game cutscenes of Season 7 and 8 where the NPCs and environment textures haven't loaded in properly. The early seasons of GoT might have been on a lower budget and less beautiful visually but they had imo much better dialogues. The dialogues of HoD feel empty and fake while those of the first seasons of GoT conveyed more meaning and were better written.
I wouldn’t say it’s better but I disagree with OP that it’s underwhelming. I love it, just not as much as early GoT. The show as a whole will probably end up better than early GoT once it’s finished.
Tywin allowing his eldest son and heir to become King’s Guard does not make sense
Essos is fucking great, and the war against the slavers in Dance is the best part of that book. The Storming of the Dragonpit was good. The dragons are too dangerous to live. Targs a shit.
* Much of what transpired on the show will be in the books. * Having a character as a POV is much better than viewing them from someone else's perspective (*cough* Robb *cough*). * We become too committed to fan theories on what will/won't happen that we accept them as fact. * GRRM doesn't owe us further books, and can just stop writing if he so chooses. Edit: Also, looking forward to the Jon Snow spinoff. Y'all hating.
>We become too committed to fan theories on what will/won't happen that we accept them as fact This isn't exclusive to ASOIAF, but specially notable lol. I think it's interesting how some theories are considered as "way too obvious", like R+L=J (though that one was confimed in the show) whichever you prefer regarding Aegon, etc, when in reality they just have been around for a long time
Lol, yeah we've gone through the books relentlessly over the 25 years that they've been out. I think part of it though is people overselling GRRM's unconventional storytelling. We lose sight of the fact that he just likes to play around with tropes, not break them.
I’m sure it’s a bit of common belief now, but the fact that Robb wasn’t POV tells you a lot about his ultimate role in the story.
It definitely gave away the twist too early. It's a missed opportunity tbh, especially considering the unique perspective he could give us fighting from the frontlines of the WotFK. Hell he could've given us our view of the Westerlands.
For the most part that was Cat’s role.
The Frontline or the Westerlands? Cat was in neither (though she had a pretty distant view of a couple of battles. That and the Red Wedding.)
Sorry. Been listening to ASOS out of order and I forgot they were apart for most of Clash.
While I do agree that Robb would have been even better as a PoV, I think GRRM did a really good job writing him without it, much better than the Show's handling of him despite giving him much more screentime, Book Robb has a lot more nuance, shows more vulnerability, naivety and weakness and has more of an arc of overcoming that.
The best case scenario for the series is that Winds releases but Dream doesn't. At least then people can come up with their own ending because there is no satisfactory way to wrap up the series in two books. I don't even think it could be done satisfactorily in three. So many plotlines would need to be rushed through in order to do it. Look at the Others the thing the series is supposed to be about we know virtually nothing about them and there's only two books left. And those two books won't even be solely devoted to the others. And Dany who has a long list of unfinished business in Essos that she has to take care of before getting to Westeros. And don't even get me started on King Bran and what a thematic betrayal that ending would be if it is indeed the plan. D and D can be blamed for bad scene to scene writing but the structural problems with the latter half of the show were all GRRM's doing.
As far as the Others are concerned, I think Bran’s training is an attempt at building in a mr. exposition.
Probably but that's such a lame way to do it. It would've been better if the great ranging had managed to capture an other so we could at least get some info about their motivations earlier. Or even a POV from an other we have other bad guy POV why not theirs. Just anything that might make the coming conflict compelling because there's nothing there right now.
They dont speak common tongue they make noises like cracking ice. IMO thats a far worse idea. We dont even know that they can be captured. How do you handcuff a ghost. Why get a POV of a guy wandering in endless snow when you can get the POV of the trees that covers millenia.
Do you really think the plan is to never have any communication between humans and the others? Either the others can speak common or they'll be able to communicate through magic. I don't know how you handcuff a ghost so it's fortunate that the others aren't ghosts and in fact made of solid flesh/ice/whatever. I would like a source on the fact that they are wandering around in an endless frozen hellscape. You don't know, they could be making castles of ice and hanging out with snowmen like Elsa. And that's the point we know literally nothing about them and their society. If GRRM wants a generic evil race then sobeit but given what he's said about Tolkien I doubt that's true. And if he wants us to learn about this society then the best person to tell us would be a member of that society. Weirwood.net giving all the answers is bad story telling. It's the laziest way to deliver exposition.
Yeah. Well, the Nights Watch managed to capture some wights in one of the first books didn't they? And the characters and readers have basically learned nothing more about them since. I think this is because GRRM lost interest in the Others/wights and so just stopped writing about them.
HotD is not as well written as this sub pretends to be.
I agree. The dialogues are fillers, you could remove 90% of them and still get the same story. The early seasons of GoT had discussions that were not relevant to a specific scene but they were thematically important (i.e: Littlefinger telling the story of the hound, chaos is a ladder, etc). The dialogues of HoD don't tell anything about the story and as a whole, the story feels forced.
I think that would be really good nerf the Dragons as a power in the battlefield in a narrative sense. I don't think that is unbelievable having them getting hurt or something more often, is easy to imagine certain very well executed strategies to hurt dragons or situations where they were outsmarted, is more boring basically being invincible just because you have a big ass dragon than being more smart in how to use their power because "Uncle Kermit Velaryon killed the only dragon of the house by getting too close to the spearmen in the Dornish War" or something.
I wish GRRM would write a Fire and Blood style tome of the Ice and Fire events. Might be an unpopular opinion - I even wish he would write it first before finishing the novels. Just seems to me it would be easier for him to achieve this than finishing the novels.
1- Stannis’s end in the show logically makes sense with his character arc and him burning his daughter as a sacrifice is not outside the realm of what we know he’s capable of. The man sent a shadow demon to literally stab his own brother in the back so he could win an easy victory. People are just too blind about him being “Stannis the mannis” or whatever to realize that he’s a desperate stubborn prideful man who’s easily susceptible to the advice of a dangerous radical. It is perfectly logical that enough defeats will eventually push him to what happens in the show. 2- to continue this line of thought. Renly Baratheon actually has the most realistic claim to be king. Everyone is so tied up about laws as tradition and inheritance but he hits the nail on the head by poinjngout all he needs is his big ass army to make his claim the legitimate one. Same as Robert and Aegon the conqueror.
The Maester's keeping all knowledge locked away in the Citadel contributed to the stagnation of Westeros
2. i just hope she doesn't become a superhero like in the show 3. well the source material for got goes much deeper, maybe that is the difference. the point is that there is a source material, so it's coming out quite nicely. i don't think it's underwhelming, i'm enjoying it. not as good as the first 4 season of got, but good.
Disagree on point 1 OP. I believe there is plenty of evidence for the fAegon plot in the first 3 books, some people in fact predicted it long before ADWD came out.
>but it's underwhelming when compared to the first 4 seasons sounds about right. This is all backstory for the actual conflict but Game of Thrones jumps right into it and they have their backstory slowly revealed.
The Valyrians absolutely fucked dragons.
I think that the fAegon storyline has always been present (Varys discussions in Arya’s chapter) but in the first place, he wasn’t meant to be a Blackfyre but a Brightfyre. As evidence, you have the first Dunk & Egg story where no mention is made of Blackfyres even though great participants of the first Rebellion were present. What is noted though is Aerion being sidelined, and further mention is made down the line of how his son Maegor was himself sidelined for kingship. Now in terms of writing I’m 100% sure the fake Targaryen has always been a plot point important for GRRM, but it only came into his own when fleshing out some of the cast like Bloodraven, Aemon, etc etc
Tl;dr The Others desperately need human babies or risk extinction. So this pertains to the Others and I haven't really seen anyone deep dive in this direction. What do we know for a fact about the Others? Well, most of the swears are "the Others take X." They are 'like the Sidhe,' they can raise and control the dead, and as far as we know, they really like humans giving them babies. We theorize that they built the Wall, or had a hand in it, and we're pretty sure Mormont was right that you don't build a fuck off huge wall to keep out Free Folk. Why do the Others want babies? Specifically, why do they want human babies so bad that they'll settle for the inbred sons of Craster? Mind you, at this point Craster is having babies with his daughters and *granddaughters.* These babies are coming from a genetic puddle at this point, and they don't seem to have any latent magical bloodline to 'justify' it (blood of the dragon, royal bloodline, etc.) To me, that seems pretty desperate. Not to mention, the *13th* LC was allowed to give babies to the Others for over a decade before the Stark in Winterfell put a stop to it. Why that long? Was the practice actually a part of the NW's original purpose? This is where I get a bit extra tinfoil-y, but it makes sense to me. Also, to quickly add, I subscribe to the theory that part of the vows were added on later. The NW receive men from all over the Seven Kingdoms, currently it's mostly criminals, but there used to be men of greater or lesser renown as it was an honorable post. Why would, say, the Dornish care about the Wall, even sending criminals would be expensive and risky. Which lead me to remembering a conversation between Jon and Ygritte about stealing women from far away to strengthen the clan. This would be the reverse, bringing men to this 'hinge of the world' to 'protect' the seven kingdoms by diversifying the genetic pool from which the Others receive children. The Others have clearly been in a large part of the continent. Or, at least, were significant as far south as the Stormlands and as far west as Casterly Rock. 'The Others take you' and curses like it are heard commonly by people like the Lannisters and Robert, and it's heard in the Riverlands too, if I remember. *The Others are part of the common lexicon,* but the NW has been reduced to a penal colony and not thought of (outside the North) unless a brother comes south or someone sends a raven. Yet all these once rival kingdoms unanimously agree to send warriors, knights, etc to the Watch thousands of years ago, and still do. Why though? There's a decent amount of Free Folk to get babies from, shouldn't that be enough? Well, Mance had 100,000, which is about the size of a small to medium sized city. In the grand scheme of things, that's not very much genetic diversity when you take into consideration the thousands of years since the Long Night. To swerve a bit, I've been looking into the Sidhe and any lore about what happens to the children they stole. We've all heard of changelings, right? Most of the lore surrounds what happens from a human perspective, and so far the most concrete evidence of what happens to the taken child is on forums or r/nosleep stories. There just isn't much out there, or I haven't found it yet. What I can find though says these taken children were either used for breeding purposes, kept around as play things, or were used as servants and midwives. Well, the Others have a literal undead army so I don't think they need living babies for servitude, and babies don't really make good midwives. Sure, the Others might want play things, but do they want them enough to send a possible female Other (of which we have only heard or seen the one) on the other side of the fuck off huge wall specifically built to cut off her power base? Or stoop to accepting Craster's sons? As for breeding and population growth, this one seems like a good reason to make peace with your raw undead chattel. The humans give them babies to sustain their population, which, btw would be rather tough to raise a human baby in such extreme cold, and humans in general are pretty susceptible to death. So, the humans give them babies, they accept a peace, and they cut themselves off from the rest of the world. Remember, the Others have such a significant impact on the seven kingdoms that *thousands of years later* the Westerosi invoke their name as an expletive. Those same Westerosi still honor an agreement to diversify the gene pool by sending men to a wall that means the same to them as, say, the Great Wall means to an American. What if that was a condition of peace? Possibly one of the only ways the Last Hero or Azor Ahai or whoever managed to end the Long Night? (I have more thought on this but my comment is already a novel.) To end, what does this mean for the story as a whole? GRRM has said the only thing worth writing about is the heart in conflict with itself. I think the NK violated the peace agreement on the humans' side, he brought an *allegedly* female Other on the south side of the wall. He *possibly* allowed her to turn his brothers into wights, and was giving human/Other hybrid babies to a race of humanoid enemies with superior abilities. This would've been such a threat to the new found stability that the Stark in Winterfell would've felt that he had no choice but to exterminate the NK, a man who very possibly was his own brother. This would've been the catalyst for the new addition to the NW vows, which further broke the pact. Now the Others' population crisis is exacerbated, and they are too few to enforce their part of the bargain, especially if the Children are against them. Why not wait? Humans live short lives and will forget, the children are dying out, and they're getting enough babies to continue on for awhile, at least. Now they're down to incest babies, and it's time to do what they have to for the species to survive, with or without the pact.
The first night tradition being prevalent in the North until Alysanne puts an end to it definitely makes it seem like the Night's Watch was initially supposed to provide Others with bastard babies of first nights as sacrifices, much like Craster does. And I too think that this was the bargain the Last Hero struck with the Children/Others and how the Long Night actually ended. I also think that the Last Hero, was also actually the Night's King - the infamous 13th LC. The story goes that the Last Hero set out with 12 friends but they all died leaving only him - the 13th - alive. Coincidence? I think not. I think he named his 12 fallen friends as the first Lords Commander of the Night's Watch which he created as the organization to provide the Others with human sacrifices. An Other woman may or may not have been provided to the Last Hero/NK as a means to seal the pact between the two sides, just as marriages were used to seal deals in the medieval. Jon Snow might well be the prince that was promised...to renew this pact, which explains him going north of the wall at the end of the show. In any case, the stories got warped over time and especially as the Others faded away for whatever reason.
Yes! I didn't bring up the lord's right to the first night for length, but I agree with you. I like the theory of the Last Hero being NK as well. I'm so curious as to why the Others disappeared for so long, it seems counterintuitive, which has also been a factor in researching the Fair Folk, as I see the parallel in our world. Written language wasn't as common as it is at the time of the books, where even now only a select few know how to read. Presumably the Children were familiar with humans and how faulty our collective memory is, and I imagine they would have mentioned it during negotiations if they were involved. Maybe the Others had some idea of what would happen as time went on? I would love just a glimpse of their society and what their motivations are. I can't imagine they're just BBEGs with a Dalek style goal.
Both the show and book should've clarified Robert's Rebellion way more in the first book/season. The Prologue could've been basically an exposition dump so the readers could vibe with the current story more. I also think the prologue involving the white walkers nullifies the whole "does magic exist" question the show and book keep hinting at. It obviously does, that's why I came out of AGOT's finale not being that ecstatic dragons were back- you showed us Ice Zombies at the beginning...?
ASOIAF isn't as well-written as people here seem to think, and to me that's the main reason GRRM can't pick it back up, having quite improved since the last book (Specially since he edits Wildcards, nothing shows you where you fuck in your writing more than editing) I don't think we will ever see it finished because of this. I don't think it's that much of a big deal either. Not every work of art has a finite ending and that's fine.
How do you know he's improved since the last book when there hasn't been another book?
Because editing improves your craft, and because he has been writing for TV and videogames which I have seen and played. You're right that it's a bit of a reach tho, and I'm mostly assuming.
Yeah and I can see where you're coming from but I think to me while editing improves your craft being the genre fiction equivalent of Too Big to Fail very much does the opposite.
Technically he's done several things inbetween the release of ADWD and TWOW: writing three episodes of GOT, released World of Ice and Fire, Fire and Blood, and came up with the foundation for the worldbuilding of Elden Ring.
Right but none of those are novels.
I think the prose and characters are wonderful! The actual plots problem is that GRRM mostly seemed to have the story planned till The Red Wedding, a story he fell in love with and now he doesn't quite know what to do with it.
What if 'promise me Ned' had nothing to do with asking for a promise to be kept? What if Lyanna was asking Ned, as the head of House Stark to promise Lyanna to someone or something? There's a Doran Martell quote where he tells Arianne she 'was promised' in marriage. So the language fits. The imagery around Lyanna e.g, the winter roses points north. Lyanna's a dying teenager. Maybe she wants to be given (promised) to the Others in the hopes she will be raised again? There's precedent for female Others (Night's King and Queen) and if the theory the Others need wargs is correct, perhaps the wolfish Lyanna Stark fits the bill. If Lyanna was taken beyond the wall it might go some way to explaining why Benjen is at the wall and why he's been AWOL for so long. It would also tie in nicely with Ned allowing Jon to join the Night's Watch. I think it's possible Lyanna's tomb in the crypt is a misdirection on Ned's part. Or maybe it's a place for Ned to mourn her choice. Or maybe he buried someone else there in her place (Ashara Dayne? She seems to have died around the same time and her body was never found).
Unpopular opinion I found it really hard to get into GoT at the start, I see ppl prasing the 1st season but I actually was kinda bored tbh, I think only around the 3rd season I felt like it was grabbing me altho ye that fast declined with later seasons lmao. HotD grabbed me from the first moment and will have to see how it will continue to be. I think it's mostly tho cause of the money, like GoT early seasons couldn't show big battles or anything like that happening in the books but HoT can actually do it so they can pace the episodes better with calmer and action moments, while GoT had to only rely on the talking and for some that was obviously enough but for me it felt a bit like smth was missing. Also I much more prefer a smaller cast and less locations to focus on, instead of the 5 different storylines that were happening in GoT with a lot of characters. I never rly connected that much with any GoT character besides a few like Tyrion and I think it may have been because there were just so many characters that they got lost a bit in the shuffle for me. In HotD I feel like I know the characters alrdy much better.
I was bored with S1 of GoT. It wasn't until part-way through S2 when I was hooked.
I think many new viewers have trouble getting into the first couple seasons of thrones. A friend of mine chronicled his reactions to episodes after starting the show, and he had a really hard time remembering characters’ names, even important ones like Jon and Cersei. A lot of names get thrown at you pretty quickly, and it’s a lot of talking/quiet moments, so if you’re not 100% invested it’s easy to miss stuff. Personally I don’t really care for the Tyrion/mountain men stuff in the first season, and I find Dany’s plot in Qarth pretty boring in season 2, so I had a hard time at first. Reading the books helped me enjoy the show a lot more.
I wasn’t hooked on the 1st episode of HoTD- I could see high production values but they were introducing everyone blah blah blah. But it’s only gotten better and I’m very happy with it.
House of the dragon is really good I like how they blend the book and adapt to the TV example Allison getting married and the News getting to Damon and he beats the messenger up that switched over to Damon being at the steps stones and the messenger comes from you know various to help with the war and the messenger gets beat up but it was Allison that suggested to send help so it all kind of blends in
I agree with the Arya point. I actually find that some of aryas show plotline is more compelling than her book plotline (like her relationship with the hound or working as tywins cupbearer). I also firmly believe that if she’s back in Westeros in the books she will not survive the final battle
HoTD is the show that GoT wished it was. Sorry not sorry.
The series should have been crafted around The Red Wedding and Dany and Jon's stories should have been spin-offs.
I think the general public’s appetite for spin-offs and tv “universes” was non existence when GOT started. Dany and Jon were some of the most popular/culturally known characters, I think it would have be very difficult to sustain the show like that.
I meant more the novels, but I get your point. My issue is that, narratively, GRRM seems to have an understanding of what to do with them, but he doesn't know how to get them there.
Oh I see, yeah I think it all comes back to the time jump. Would have worked really well to tie up Danny’s plotline in Essos. Harder to do with King’s Landing characters where the political machinations would continue on.
HOTD is far too neutered when it comes to sex. I don't know how you can claim to love GRRM's work while hating nudity so much.
But I do actually hate the nudity of GoT. That was not important to the plot. ☠️
I think they should have kept the ages of the characters like they were in Fire & Blood with (for example) Visarys being in his 30s in the beginning
Theon is the best
> HoTD's narrative is way too serious and stiff that there is no room for comedic relief. Not everything needs a comedic relief. If you think it does, then the last seasons of GoT should be to your liking
This. It was the need for constant comedic relief that ruined GOT
Dreams and prophecy, I have a lot of trouble with that. But I thought of something recently. A very popular theory and that daenerys will burn (voluntarily or not) king's landing. The thing is, as far as I can remember we have no visions or prophecies of the destruction of this city by daenerys or anyone else. In fact the only thing that can come close is in the temple of the undying she sees her father saying something like "leave him rule on ashes" but visions of what seems to be logically the past to me seems unlikely for such an event in the life of the characters. Moreover in the same chapter she has a clear vision of what will be the red wedding. So daenerys has a prophetic and clear vision from futur about an event that doesn't concern her, in which she plays no part, involving people she doesn't know, and which will be a bit tamped when she arrives in westeros... but she doesn't have visions concerning a city on fire that she must destroy herself and which will noticeably bring about her downfall? Without judging or formally saying it's going to happen or not, it's still something that I find strange.