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A Song of Ice and Fire, BOOK AND TV AND ESPECIALLY BOOK SPOILERS INSIDE

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  • KanaKana Registered User regular
    I think one of the best tricks GRRM pulls in asoiaf is re-investing the reader in revenge, even though it always ends up making things worse and there's even characters saying so.

    Book 1 is "We're gonna get those 100% evil Lannisters for what they did to Bran and Jon Arryn!"
    Book 2 is "We're gonna get that fucker Joffrey specifically, and the Lannisters more generally, for what he did to Ned!"
    Book 3 is "We're gonna get oh jesus christ fuck no Robb!"
    Book 4 and 5 now it's, "We're gonna kill every single Frey and Bolton for what they did to the young wolf, yeah! This will go great this time!"

    A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
  • BlendtecBlendtec Registered User regular
    edited May 2013
    shryke wrote: »
    Yar wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Ok, seriously, what main character's story/plotlines DIDN'T move forward in AFFC/ADWD in some people's minds? Like, I'm really curious what parts of the story did people think weren't advanced?

    All of the main characters from the first books were still more or less mulling about at the end of Book 5 doing exactly what they were doing at the end of Book 3 (or even Book 1). Still in the same place or on the same journey, trying to accomplish the same things and no closer to it. It's debateable for sure but that is how I and a lot of fans see it.

    Dany ends in the East, nearly naked with a dragon and some Mongols, right where she was at the end of Book 1. Jon's up at the wall trying to deal with wildlings and the Watch. He's LC now, but that was his clear trajectory very early in Book 1. Tyrion is still on the run and in hiding for killing his father and trying to make sense of his life and what to do next, which is where he was at the end of Book.. 3? I forget. Arya is still trying to be a faceless one, which is what she set off to do at the end of Book 2 and definitely so at the end of 3. Theon is still paying for his sins. Brienne is still trying to find Arya and Sansa for Catelyn. Bran is still on the run from Winterfell and learning about his wargness. Sansa is still with Littlefinger hiding from Joffrey and Cersei. Stannis has had some progress, what with his showing at the Wall and then taking up the Jon/Arya cause. Jacquen is still MIA and totally should have killed every other characer and been the main protagonist by now.

    People were looking for Arya to become a Faceless and get sent back into the Westerosi fray. People were looking for another to take up the Stark banner after Robb and go back after the Lannisters. People were looking for Stannis to finally listen to the Onion Lord and learn the error of his ways and kick Mel to the curb. They were looking for Dany to at least start making her way towards Westeros, which is what everyone watching the show or reading the books was waiting for from the time the dragons hatched. People were thinking Winter might be coming. That Bran was going to warg the hell up and make himself known. That Tyrion would find his way back to being The Man again like he was in Book 2.

    But like I said, I know all of this is debateable. I know you can reiterate 1000 things that each of those characters has gone through that, to you and many other fans, were very significant. Dany's "learning to rule"; I get it. So-and-so is "finding himself" or "coming to grips with..." or "trying to get to..." etc. I read the books, too, and I more or less remember all those things. Books 4 and 5 were still some of the best fantasy there is. They just significantly disappointed anyone who was specifically looking for any major progession of events like we got in Book 3.

    Right, the significantly disappoint people who had a different idea about where things would go or miss that all the shit you mention is stuff that happens in the book.

    You act like the end of ASOS already covered all this. It didn't. It just set up all of these plots. At the end of ASOS we knew, for instance, that Jon was gonna have to deal with being Lord Commander and getting the wall ready, settling with the Wildlings, deal with Stannis and Bolton, etc. And, lo and behold, that's what happened throughout the book. What was set up in the last book happening is not nothing happening.

    It seems mostly that you are disappointed all that stuff wasn't skipped over for some reason.

    I think biggest problem with books 4 and 5 is they don't have a big moment like 1-3 did. It's been said before, but putting at least one of the impending battles in them would've been great, and probably would limit the criticism of them. So much happens in ASOS, then you get into 4/5, nothing but build up, so you keep thinking something big is about to go down, and it doesn't. Doesn't matter how great/important the build up is if you're left hanging at the end. As was also mentioned before, complaints with it now are because we can't see the full picture. Years down the road people can go seamlessly from book to book or season to season, no waiting for the payoff.

    Blendtec on
  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    edited May 2013
    ADWD definitely suffers for not having the two big battles at the end.

    But that's a far cry from "nothing really happens". Everything up to the actual battle happens. And that's a bunch of stuff.

    Shit, more happens then in AGOT I'd say.

    shryke on
  • rizriz Registered User regular
    Sicarii wrote: »
    To continue the discussion from the show thread about the relative goodness of books 4 and 5...

    I think AFFC and ADWD get a lot of unwarranted hate from fans, partially because of how long they took to write and because of how they are divided up. I think splitting up the books by characters hurt the narrative more than it helped, but when you look at it as a whole book, I personally find it really entertaining and not a "slog" at all. Some of my favorite passages are from AFFC, especially the priest talking to Brienne about the War of the Ninepenny Kings.

    It's pretty clear in ADWD where George was having writer's block, because some of the character's motivations in Meereen and how they never notice each other sort of breaks the bounds of literary credibility. But I can understand why he had writer's block about it, at the same time. It's a flaw in an otherwise great book. Like I said, I think both of the books get way too much hate; I think they're fantastic.

    Couldn't agree more.

    The priest plainly states a central motif of the entire novel: That while the novels follow the plights of the lords and nobles as they play their game of thrones, it is the peasants and common soldiers whom suffer for changes they'll never understand/care about/appreciate/ or notice.

    It's probably one of the greatest passages in the entire series.

    Yes. I hope that part of Brienne's story gets the screen time it deserves, and an awesome actor for that role.

  • PsykomaPsykoma Registered User regular
    edited May 2013
    Quentin is pretty important, because him dying is going to make the Martells hate the shit out of Daenerys, possibly forcing them to back Aegon as soon as he lands.

    Edit: I mean, how do you explain "Oh yeah, my pet dragons totally ate the shit out of your son, whoops, my bad"

    This is generally how I think the conversation would go:

    Dany: "Your son and his companions enlisted a mercenary band, broke into my Dragons' lair, killing some of my guards (I think they did? I don't exactly remember, but it's still pretty immaterial to the whole attempted dragon theft thing), and tried to steal one of my dragons. My dragons did not let him."

    Doran: *Blood drained from his face* "Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. Please let us shower you with gold and offerings of fealty to appease you!"

    There really wasn't anything that Quentyn did those last few chapters which couldn't be viewed as punishable by death.

    Psykoma on
  • YarYar Registered User regular
    edited May 2013
    reVerse wrote: »
    Cersei's downfall, Jaime becoming more heroic, Tyrion becoming more villainy, Arya training (because surprise you don't get to be awesome magical ninja without training)

    "Becoming" is a very key word there. It is passive, not active, and the screen is active. Same goes for things like "training..." on TV usually a person spends what looks like about 15 minutes total with a ninja master before they themselves are an equally skilled ninja. No one wants to watch every step along the way. What we need is a mon-tage! Plus Jamie is already becoming more heroic in show-time and gets his chance pretty soon to show what a good-guy hero he has become. Which goes back to my point that we don't need two whole books / seasons to put us back where we already were.

    reVerse wrote: »
    a bunch of stuff with the wildlings and the Night's Watch and Stannis, Brienne's journey through the countryside, all the stuff on the Iron Islands, all the stuff in Dorne, Dany slowly coming to the realization that she'd be a shit queen contrasted by Aegon who's been taught to be the "perfect" ruler. Those are, off the top of my head, extremely important storylines from books 4 and 5. Maybe you could do them in one season, but there's much and more where all of that came from, such as Bran's story which is where we'll probably start getting stuff like the Tower of Joy.

    The stuff on the Iron Islands and Dorne was good, but very much side-story about new characters. That will be even worse for the show than it was for the books if that's where they are taking it. I'm not a showrunner nor am I even qualified to know what a showrunner might do and why, but my layman gut tells me that most of this stuff will be cut and/or shortened way down. The stuff you call "storylines" aren't storylines, they are internal psychological developments that can be great in a book where you are reading about one's thoughts and feelings all the time, but a show only has action, set, and dialogue. Dany "realizing" or "learning" something on TV is done in 5 minutes or less of action, set, and dialogue, and can't really be done in any more than that. You can have her say it or you can overtly show it through some event, but you can't really spend a whole episode on her thoughts about it like you might spend most of a chapter in a book on her thoughts about it.

    Here is the showrunner's quote on the matter:

    Vaguely spoilerish for TV in that it discusses how seasons might be structured, but nothing about plot
    Well… A Storm of Swords is too long to fit in a single season. And as readers know, A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons takes place during roughly the same time frame, so we’ll have to fold those together. The plan, if we’re lucky enough to be given the opportunity to see it through, is to use as many seasons as we need to tell the story as a whole, to do justice to George’s entire opus.

    At first it seems to say that Books 4 and 5 are definitely one season, but then it seems he clarifies that they're going to make as many shows and go on for as many seasons as they can get away with, so Books 4 and 5 could be 3 or 4 seasons if the show is popular enough and ratings hold fast.

    No doubt there is a practical consideration here - if they show is wildly successful and profitable, the executives are going to be pushing to make a whole season out of every chapter. More recently, they said this when asked if it might go on for eight or nine seasons:

    Again, vaguely sort-of spoilerish about future season structure but not about plots
    We have the opportunity here to tell a coherent story that lasts for 80 hours. And while a canvas of that size presents all sorts of storytelling problems, it also allows us to spend more time with these characters we love than we’ll ever get again.

    So they're saying maybe eight seasons. Which could mean one season each for the remaining books. Or it could mean one season for Books 4 and 5 as the earlier quote implied, and then three seasons for Books 6 and 7. Or anything, really.

    Yar on
  • enlightenedbumenlightenedbum Registered User regular
    That quote doesn't imply one season at all, anyone who reads it that way is dumb. It implies that they will be folded together, in that they won't be telling the stories in Feast then going back in time to tell the stories in Dance, and then merging them again at the end.

    Now, if WoW is out in time, I wouldn't be shocked if they move the siege of Winterfell or the battle for Mereen into season 6 because narratively that (probably) makes the most sense anyway.

    Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
  • YarYar Registered User regular
    He's talking about how the seasons will relate to the books. The sentence right before it is about fitting a book into a single season. So "folding them together" could naturally be taken as "folding them together into a single season." It could also just mean "we'll fold them together time-wise so there's no way they'll be able to match up book-to-season." But he doesn't say that. He just says "folding them together" when talking about book to season matching. To suggest someone is dumb for thinking it might be the former and not the latter is unjustified.

  • reVersereVerse Attack and Dethrone God Registered User regular
    edited May 2013
    So, Yar... basically, your point is that because you can't imagine, say, ninja training taking more than five minutes of screen time, that must mean that ninja training can only ever take five minutes of screen time? Because that seems to be your big counter-argument for all the story lines. "I think it can be done in one scene, therefore using more than one scene for it is stupid".

    And your "spoilery proof" about one season is just you misinterpreting something someone said. Good job.

    reVerse on
  • nexuscrawlernexuscrawler Registered User regular
    There's a lot more to her story than "ninja training" there's the whole slew of crap about the Faceless Men cult and Bravoos as a setting.

  • reVersereVerse Attack and Dethrone God Registered User regular
    edited May 2013
    There's a lot more to her story than "ninja training" there's the whole slew of crap about the Faceless Men cult and Bravoos as a setting.

    Yeah, world building.

    But apparently that doesn't count as content.

    Because... reasons...

    reVerse on
  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    Psykoma wrote: »
    Quentin is pretty important, because him dying is going to make the Martells hate the shit out of Daenerys, possibly forcing them to back Aegon as soon as he lands.

    Edit: I mean, how do you explain "Oh yeah, my pet dragons totally ate the shit out of your son, whoops, my bad"

    This is generally how I think the conversation would go:

    Dany: "Your son and his companions enlisted a mercenary band, broke into my Dragons' lair, killing some of my guards (I think they did? I don't exactly remember, but it's still pretty immaterial to the whole attempted dragon theft thing), and tried to steal one of my dragons. My dragons did not let him."

    Doran: *Blood drained from his face* "Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. Please let us shower you with gold and offerings of fealty to appease you!"

    There really wasn't anything that Quentyn did those last few chapters which couldn't be viewed as punishable by death.

    The problem is there's now no one to marry to Dany.

  • reVersereVerse Attack and Dethrone God Registered User regular
    shryke wrote: »
    Psykoma wrote: »
    Quentin is pretty important, because him dying is going to make the Martells hate the shit out of Daenerys, possibly forcing them to back Aegon as soon as he lands.

    Edit: I mean, how do you explain "Oh yeah, my pet dragons totally ate the shit out of your son, whoops, my bad"

    This is generally how I think the conversation would go:

    Dany: "Your son and his companions enlisted a mercenary band, broke into my Dragons' lair, killing some of my guards (I think they did? I don't exactly remember, but it's still pretty immaterial to the whole attempted dragon theft thing), and tried to steal one of my dragons. My dragons did not let him."

    Doran: *Blood drained from his face* "Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. Please let us shower you with gold and offerings of fealty to appease you!"

    There really wasn't anything that Quentyn did those last few chapters which couldn't be viewed as punishable by death.

    The problem is there's now no one to marry to Dany.

    Someone upthread mentioned that Doran has another son.

  • syndalissyndalis Getting Classy On the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Products regular
    shryke wrote: »
    Psykoma wrote: »
    Quentin is pretty important, because him dying is going to make the Martells hate the shit out of Daenerys, possibly forcing them to back Aegon as soon as he lands.

    Edit: I mean, how do you explain "Oh yeah, my pet dragons totally ate the shit out of your son, whoops, my bad"

    This is generally how I think the conversation would go:

    Dany: "Your son and his companions enlisted a mercenary band, broke into my Dragons' lair, killing some of my guards (I think they did? I don't exactly remember, but it's still pretty immaterial to the whole attempted dragon theft thing), and tried to steal one of my dragons. My dragons did not let him."

    Doran: *Blood drained from his face* "Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. Please let us shower you with gold and offerings of fealty to appease you!"

    There really wasn't anything that Quentyn did those last few chapters which couldn't be viewed as punishable by death.

    The problem is there's now no one to marry to Dany.

    Sure there is; the only one who can tame the queen and her dragons.

    Podric.

    SW-4158-3990-6116
    Let's play Mario Kart or something...
  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    Yar wrote: »
    He's talking about how the seasons will relate to the books. The sentence right before it is about fitting a book into a single season. So "folding them together" could naturally be taken as "folding them together into a single season." It could also just mean "we'll fold them together time-wise so there's no way they'll be able to match up book-to-season." But he doesn't say that. He just says "folding them together" when talking about book to season matching. To suggest someone is dumb for thinking it might be the former and not the latter is unjustified.

    It's a rather silly interpretation though.

    Especially in light of the second quote, which more implies "one book a season except for ASOS". Although I'd bet those end up split too.

  • iguanacusiguanacus Desert PlanetRegistered User regular
    Break the engagement between Trystane and Myrcella.

  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    Yar wrote: »
    reVerse wrote: »
    Cersei's downfall, Jaime becoming more heroic, Tyrion becoming more villainy, Arya training (because surprise you don't get to be awesome magical ninja without training)

    "Becoming" is a very key word there. It is passive, not active, and the screen is active. Same goes for things like "training..." on TV usually a person spends what looks like about 15 minutes total with a ninja master before they themselves are an equally skilled ninja. No one wants to watch every step along the way. What we need is a mon-tage! Plus Jamie is already becoming more heroic in show-time and gets his chance pretty soon to show what a good-guy hero he has become. Which goes back to my point that we don't need two whole books / seasons to put us back where we already were.

    Except not everyone is montage training. They are doing stuff. Things are happening and character growth is going on. And the books follow that growth. Especially since alot of it is important.

    Plus, there's a reason the montage has been dead for ages in film now.

    reVerse wrote: »
    a bunch of stuff with the wildlings and the Night's Watch and Stannis, Brienne's journey through the countryside, all the stuff on the Iron Islands, all the stuff in Dorne, Dany slowly coming to the realization that she'd be a shit queen contrasted by Aegon who's been taught to be the "perfect" ruler. Those are, off the top of my head, extremely important storylines from books 4 and 5. Maybe you could do them in one season, but there's much and more where all of that came from, such as Bran's story which is where we'll probably start getting stuff like the Tower of Joy.

    The stuff on the Iron Islands and Dorne was good, but very much side-story about new characters. That will be even worse for the show than it was for the books if that's where they are taking it. I'm not a showrunner nor am I even qualified to know what a showrunner might do and why, but my layman gut tells me that most of this stuff will be cut and/or shortened way down. The stuff you call "storylines" aren't storylines, they are internal psychological developments that can be great in a book where you are reading about one's thoughts and feelings all the time, but a show only has action, set, and dialogue. Dany "realizing" or "learning" something on TV is done in 5 minutes or less of action, set, and dialogue, and can't really be done in any more than that. You can have her say it or you can overtly show it through some event, but you can't really spend a whole episode on her thoughts about it like you might spend most of a chapter in a book on her thoughts about it.

    Yeah, if you think this, you aren't paying any fucking attention. They may be new or newish characters, but they are not a side-show. They are a main component of the story.

    Again, this comes back to people acting like ASOS was somehow stamped with "this is all the important shit there will ever be in the series". For ... really, who the fuck knows why.

  • YarYar Registered User regular
    It's not like anyone has "the right answer" on this. You aren't going to prove me and I'm not going to prove myself correct. My opinion that I believe to be sound is that books 4 and 5 are noticeably less dense with action and plot movement, and most of what people enjoyed or got out of it is stuff that can't translate well to the screen except in short depictions. No big battles. No climactic interactions. No surprise twists. A lot of filler.

    For how many minutes of how many episodes did we watch Arya train with Syrio? A large portion of her role in Book 1 was reduced to like a single scene. Because you really don't need to see more than one scene of it to get it from a viewer perspective.

    Ninja training.

  • Salvation122Salvation122 Registered User regular
    riz wrote: »
    Sicarii wrote: »
    To continue the discussion from the show thread about the relative goodness of books 4 and 5...

    I think AFFC and ADWD get a lot of unwarranted hate from fans, partially because of how long they took to write and because of how they are divided up. I think splitting up the books by characters hurt the narrative more than it helped, but when you look at it as a whole book, I personally find it really entertaining and not a "slog" at all. Some of my favorite passages are from AFFC, especially the priest talking to Brienne about the War of the Ninepenny Kings.

    It's pretty clear in ADWD where George was having writer's block, because some of the character's motivations in Meereen and how they never notice each other sort of breaks the bounds of literary credibility. But I can understand why he had writer's block about it, at the same time. It's a flaw in an otherwise great book. Like I said, I think both of the books get way too much hate; I think they're fantastic.

    Couldn't agree more.

    The priest plainly states a central motif of the entire novel: That while the novels follow the plights of the lords and nobles as they play their game of thrones, it is the peasants and common soldiers whom suffer for changes they'll never understand/care about/appreciate/ or notice.

    It's probably one of the greatest passages in the entire series.

    Yes. I hope that part of Brienne's story gets the screen time it deserves, and an awesome actor for that role.

    I'm pretty sure he doesn't fit the book description but I really, really want Ben Kingsley as Septon Maribald.

  • reVersereVerse Attack and Dethrone God Registered User regular
    edited May 2013
    shryke wrote: »
    Again, this comes back to people acting like ASOS was somehow stamped with "this is all the important shit there will ever be in the series". For ... really, who the fuck knows why.

    I have a theory. Basically up until the Red Wedding the series was plodding along on a fairly predictable route. Then the Red Wedding happened and readers who didn't learn anything from Ned's death got angry because the series was no longer what they thought it was and they internalize this as a personal attack on their intellect. Then they convince themselves that it is the rest of the books that is terrible and bad because their ego doesn't let them admit to themselves that they got took by a surprise.

    reVerse on
  • BobbleBobble Registered User regular
    Didn't GRRM say "in an ideal world, book 3 gets split into 2 seasons and books 4/5 are combined into 3 seasons" or something to that effect?

  • enlightenedbumenlightenedbum Registered User regular
    Patrick Stewart here, but same idea.

    Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
  • Salvation122Salvation122 Registered User regular
    Patrick Stewart here, but same idea.

    Stewart looks way too aristocratic for the role, IMO.

    I wanted Stewart for Tywin but I can't imagine anyone other than Charles Dance doing it now.

  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    Yar wrote: »
    It's not like anyone has "the right answer" on this. You aren't going to prove me and I'm not going to prove myself correct. My opinion that I believe to be sound is that books 4 and 5 are noticeably less dense with action and plot movement, and most of what people enjoyed or got out of it is stuff that can't translate well to the screen except in short depictions. No big battles. No climactic interactions. No surprise twists. A lot of filler.

    For how many minutes of how many episodes did we watch Arya train with Syrio? A large portion of her role in Book 1 was reduced to like a single scene. Because you really don't need to see more than one scene of it to get it from a viewer perspective.

    Ninja training.

    She didn't have a large roll in book one either. She's got 5 chapters. And they covered it all in the show.

  • reVersereVerse Attack and Dethrone God Registered User regular
    Patrick Stewart here, but same idea.

    Bill Mays here... aw.

  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    reVerse wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Again, this comes back to people acting like ASOS was somehow stamped with "this is all the important shit there will ever be in the series". For ... really, who the fuck knows why.

    I have a theory. Basically up until the Red Wedding the series was plodding along on a fairly predictable route. Then the Red Wedding happened and readers who didn't learn anything from Ned's death got angry because the series was no longer what they thought it was and they internalize this as a personal attack on their intellect. Then they convince themselves that it is the rest of the books that is terrible and bad because their ego doesn't let them admit to themselves that they got took by a surprise.

    I think it's partially that it was so long waiting on AFFC that people forgot that ASOS introduces a ton of new plots and characters too.

  • SerukoSeruko Ferocious Kitten of The Farthest NorthRegistered User regular
    no matter how they pace it out. They are gonna have a bitch of a time not catching up with old man martin and then having to wait for him to come up with more content.

    "How are you going to play Dota if your fingers and bitten off? You can't. That's how" -> Carnarvon
    "You can be yodeling bear without spending a dime if you get lucky." -> reVerse
    "In the grim darkness of the future, we will all be nurses catering to the whims of terrible old people." -> Hacksaw
    "In fact, our whole society will be oriented around caring for one very decrepit, very old man on total life support." -> SKFM
    I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes
  • nexuscrawlernexuscrawler Registered User regular
    syndalis wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Psykoma wrote: »
    Quentin is pretty important, because him dying is going to make the Martells hate the shit out of Daenerys, possibly forcing them to back Aegon as soon as he lands.

    Edit: I mean, how do you explain "Oh yeah, my pet dragons totally ate the shit out of your son, whoops, my bad"

    This is generally how I think the conversation would go:

    Dany: "Your son and his companions enlisted a mercenary band, broke into my Dragons' lair, killing some of my guards (I think they did? I don't exactly remember, but it's still pretty immaterial to the whole attempted dragon theft thing), and tried to steal one of my dragons. My dragons did not let him."

    Doran: *Blood drained from his face* "Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. Please let us shower you with gold and offerings of fealty to appease you!"

    There really wasn't anything that Quentyn did those last few chapters which couldn't be viewed as punishable by death.

    The problem is there's now no one to marry to Dany.

    Sure there is; the only one who can tame the queen and her dragons.

    Podric.

    The real dragon horn is Pod's massive wang

  • reVersereVerse Attack and Dethrone God Registered User regular
    syndalis wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Psykoma wrote: »
    Quentin is pretty important, because him dying is going to make the Martells hate the shit out of Daenerys, possibly forcing them to back Aegon as soon as he lands.

    Edit: I mean, how do you explain "Oh yeah, my pet dragons totally ate the shit out of your son, whoops, my bad"

    This is generally how I think the conversation would go:

    Dany: "Your son and his companions enlisted a mercenary band, broke into my Dragons' lair, killing some of my guards (I think they did? I don't exactly remember, but it's still pretty immaterial to the whole attempted dragon theft thing), and tried to steal one of my dragons. My dragons did not let him."

    Doran: *Blood drained from his face* "Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. Please let us shower you with gold and offerings of fealty to appease you!"

    There really wasn't anything that Quentyn did those last few chapters which couldn't be viewed as punishable by death.

    The problem is there's now no one to marry to Dany.

    Sure there is; the only one who can tame the queen and her dragons.

    Podric.

    The real dragon horn is Pod's massive wang

    The person who blows it dies.

  • syndalissyndalis Getting Classy On the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Products regular
    I have taken to thinking of him as Tri-Pod Payne since that episode.

    Can't help myself.

    SW-4158-3990-6116
    Let's play Mario Kart or something...
  • ArbitraryDescriptorArbitraryDescriptor changed Registered User regular
    riz wrote: »
    Sicarii wrote: »
    To continue the discussion from the show thread about the relative goodness of books 4 and 5...

    I think AFFC and ADWD get a lot of unwarranted hate from fans, partially because of how long they took to write and because of how they are divided up. I think splitting up the books by characters hurt the narrative more than it helped, but when you look at it as a whole book, I personally find it really entertaining and not a "slog" at all. Some of my favorite passages are from AFFC, especially the priest talking to Brienne about the War of the Ninepenny Kings.

    It's pretty clear in ADWD where George was having writer's block, because some of the character's motivations in Meereen and how they never notice each other sort of breaks the bounds of literary credibility. But I can understand why he had writer's block about it, at the same time. It's a flaw in an otherwise great book. Like I said, I think both of the books get way too much hate; I think they're fantastic.

    Couldn't agree more.

    The priest plainly states a central motif of the entire novel: That while the novels follow the plights of the lords and nobles as they play their game of thrones, it is the peasants and common soldiers whom suffer for changes they'll never understand/care about/appreciate/ or notice.

    It's probably one of the greatest passages in the entire series.

    Yes. I hope that part of Brienne's story gets the screen time it deserves, and an awesome actor for that role.

    I'm pretty sure he doesn't fit the book description but I really, really want Ben Kingsley as Septon Maribald.

    Seems like a waste. He's got, what, three scenes? You'd get more use out of a Kingsley-Doran, but on the other hand, maybe they could only afford three scenes.

  • enlightenedbumenlightenedbum Registered User regular
    Seruko wrote: »
    no matter how they pace it out. They are gonna have a bitch of a time not catching up with old man martin and then having to wait for him to come up with more content.

    He's told Benioff, Weiss, and Codgman what his plans are. And he's still an executive producer who scripts an episode every year.

    Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
  • ArbitraryDescriptorArbitraryDescriptor changed Registered User regular
    reVerse wrote: »
    syndalis wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Psykoma wrote: »
    Quentin is pretty important, because him dying is going to make the Martells hate the shit out of Daenerys, possibly forcing them to back Aegon as soon as he lands.

    Edit: I mean, how do you explain "Oh yeah, my pet dragons totally ate the shit out of your son, whoops, my bad"

    This is generally how I think the conversation would go:

    Dany: "Your son and his companions enlisted a mercenary band, broke into my Dragons' lair, killing some of my guards (I think they did? I don't exactly remember, but it's still pretty immaterial to the whole attempted dragon theft thing), and tried to steal one of my dragons. My dragons did not let him."

    Doran: *Blood drained from his face* "Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. Please let us shower you with gold and offerings of fealty to appease you!"

    There really wasn't anything that Quentyn did those last few chapters which couldn't be viewed as punishable by death.

    The problem is there's now no one to marry to Dany.

    Sure there is; the only one who can tame the queen and her dragons.

    Podric.

    The real dragon horn is Pod's massive wang

    The person who blows it dies.

    After a good polish, it is later revealed that the warnings etched along its length were only referring to a "little death"

  • enlightenedbumenlightenedbum Registered User regular
    riz wrote: »
    Sicarii wrote: »
    To continue the discussion from the show thread about the relative goodness of books 4 and 5...

    I think AFFC and ADWD get a lot of unwarranted hate from fans, partially because of how long they took to write and because of how they are divided up. I think splitting up the books by characters hurt the narrative more than it helped, but when you look at it as a whole book, I personally find it really entertaining and not a "slog" at all. Some of my favorite passages are from AFFC, especially the priest talking to Brienne about the War of the Ninepenny Kings.

    It's pretty clear in ADWD where George was having writer's block, because some of the character's motivations in Meereen and how they never notice each other sort of breaks the bounds of literary credibility. But I can understand why he had writer's block about it, at the same time. It's a flaw in an otherwise great book. Like I said, I think both of the books get way too much hate; I think they're fantastic.

    Couldn't agree more.

    The priest plainly states a central motif of the entire novel: That while the novels follow the plights of the lords and nobles as they play their game of thrones, it is the peasants and common soldiers whom suffer for changes they'll never understand/care about/appreciate/ or notice.

    It's probably one of the greatest passages in the entire series.

    Yes. I hope that part of Brienne's story gets the screen time it deserves, and an awesome actor for that role.

    I'm pretty sure he doesn't fit the book description but I really, really want Ben Kingsley as Septon Maribald.

    Seems like a waste. He's got, what, three scenes? You'd get more use out of a Kingsley-Doran, but on the other hand, maybe they could only afford three scenes.

    But Doran should be North African/Middle Eastern.

    Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
  • reVersereVerse Attack and Dethrone God Registered User regular
    riz wrote: »
    Sicarii wrote: »
    To continue the discussion from the show thread about the relative goodness of books 4 and 5...

    I think AFFC and ADWD get a lot of unwarranted hate from fans, partially because of how long they took to write and because of how they are divided up. I think splitting up the books by characters hurt the narrative more than it helped, but when you look at it as a whole book, I personally find it really entertaining and not a "slog" at all. Some of my favorite passages are from AFFC, especially the priest talking to Brienne about the War of the Ninepenny Kings.

    It's pretty clear in ADWD where George was having writer's block, because some of the character's motivations in Meereen and how they never notice each other sort of breaks the bounds of literary credibility. But I can understand why he had writer's block about it, at the same time. It's a flaw in an otherwise great book. Like I said, I think both of the books get way too much hate; I think they're fantastic.

    Couldn't agree more.

    The priest plainly states a central motif of the entire novel: That while the novels follow the plights of the lords and nobles as they play their game of thrones, it is the peasants and common soldiers whom suffer for changes they'll never understand/care about/appreciate/ or notice.

    It's probably one of the greatest passages in the entire series.

    Yes. I hope that part of Brienne's story gets the screen time it deserves, and an awesome actor for that role.

    I'm pretty sure he doesn't fit the book description but I really, really want Ben Kingsley as Septon Maribald.

    Seems like a waste. He's got, what, three scenes? You'd get more use out of a Kingsley-Doran, but on the other hand, maybe they could only afford three scenes.

    But Doran should be North African/Middle Eastern.

    He'll be a British character actor and you'll like it.

  • nexuscrawlernexuscrawler Registered User regular
    Kingsley is natively English but he's of Indian descent

  • ArbitraryDescriptorArbitraryDescriptor changed Registered User regular
    Kingsley is natively English but he's of Indian descent

    And with his acting chops, that's close enough for me. I can totally see him hunched in chair, stricken with gout, giving a quiet lecture on patience.

  • MelksterMelkster Registered User regular
    Kana wrote: »
    I think one of the best tricks GRRM pulls in asoiaf is re-investing the reader in revenge, even though it always ends up making things worse and there's even characters saying so.

    Book 1 is "We're gonna get those 100% evil Lannisters for what they did to Bran and Jon Arryn!"
    Book 2 is "We're gonna get that fucker Joffrey specifically, and the Lannisters more generally, for what he did to Ned!"
    Book 3 is "We're gonna get oh jesus christ fuck no Robb!"
    Book 4 and 5 now it's, "We're gonna kill every single Frey and Bolton for what they did to the young wolf, yeah! This will go great this time!"

    That's my favorite thing about those first few books, especially. You end Book 1 totally behind Robb. He's going to go down there and kick ass and make the Lannisters pay.

    And then the war gets going, and gets worse, and at some point along the way you're like, "I'm not sure this was was such a good idea," and then it gets even worse still and you're like "Yeah this was a complete fuck up, we should have never had invaded. This wasn't worth it at all."

    Kinda like the Iraq war come to think of it.

  • enlightenedbumenlightenedbum Registered User regular
    Who is of an age with Kingsley, looks like him, and a badass?

    Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
  • reVersereVerse Attack and Dethrone God Registered User regular
    Who is of an age with Kingsley, looks like him, and a badass?

    George Clooney.

This discussion has been closed.