soviet elsa posted:

*swirls wine glass, glares across from Red Keep to Sept*

edit: in the process of writing this short sentence I remembered Bronn manages to get Highgarden. No one in the Reach, which is famously ruled by a bunch of Garth "the Horny" Greenhand's offshoots, has any armies, riches, power, food to oppose Tyrion on this brilliant choice.

Waltzing Along posted:

Just met Frey. New cool rankings:

#1 Mormonts Raven
#2 Walder Frey. I found him much more likable in the book. He's kind of amusing with how he just doesn't give a poo poo with his words.

Last: Sansa, right before her: Daenerys. I forgot to mention how terrible the Dany stuff is. Are her chapters ever good or is it constant awful whenever she appears? Now that I think of it, her stuff on the TV show was the worst part of that, as well.

And after the Frey bit, I'm amused that Robb (assuming it's the same plot beat as the show) is going to die because of his lack of honor. He made a pact or whatever and went against it. While his dad died because he couldn't ever go against his honor. A lot of interesting karmic beats and ironies in this book. Neds first scene is beheading a dude and then loses his head, himself. Sansa loses her wolf because she lies (because she is a dumb idiot) and then loses her dad because she is a dumb idiot and turns him in. Ned probably should have been a bit more honest with his girls, though.

bobjr posted:

Elias_Maluco posted:

The books kinda suggests almost since the beginning that Dany is no savior, or at least much less makes her look like one than the TV show

The Fat Bastard, in a 2018 interview posted:

There was a fair amount of explicit sex in the series and some fans of the books were taken aback.

One of the reasons I wanted to do this with HBO is that I wanted to keep the sex. We had some real problems because Dany is only 13 in the books, and that’s based on medieval history. They didn’t have this concept of adolescence or the teenage years. You were a child or you were an adult. And the onset of sexual maturity meant you were an adult. So I reflected that in the books. But then when you go to film it you run into people going crazy about child pornography and there’s actual laws about how you can’t depict a 13 year old having sex even if you have an 18 year old acting the part — it’s illegal in the United Kingdom. So we ended up with a 22 year old portraying an 18 year old, instead of an 18 year old portraying a 13 year old. If we decided to lose the sex we could have kept the original ages. And once you change the age of one character you have to change the ages of all the characters, and change the date of the war [that dethroned the Mad King]. The fact we made all these changes indicates how important we thought sex was.

Waltzing Along posted:

And after the Frey bit, I'm amused that Robb (assuming it's the same plot beat as the show) is going to die because of his lack of honor. He made a pact or whatever and went against it. While his dad died because he couldn't ever go against his honor. A lot of interesting karmic beats and ironies in this book. Neds first scene is beheading a dude and then loses his head, himself. Sansa loses her wolf because she lies (because she is a dumb idiot) and then loses her dad because she is a dumb idiot and turns him in. Ned probably should have been a bit more honest with his girls, though.

Waltzing Along posted:

A "Starks aren't stupid" version of the book might be interesting. It would just be a single novel but still fun.

Dany dead early on.
Bran doesn't thrown out of tower.
Joffrey gets killed early on.
Cersei/Jamie get found out and exposed.
And on and on.

Liquid Communism posted:

Dany never had any chance of it, he signaled right from the start that she was not particularly hinged, and then did everything possibly narratively to make her lose it. Hard to expect even a well-balanced sheltered noble girl to stay particularly sane after being sold to what she sees as barbarians as a child bride at 13, and screwed over by literally everyone except Drogo.

Also, as a reminder:

https://web.archive.org/web/20180924150156/https://ew.com/article/2011/07/12/george-martin-talks-a-dance-with-dragons/

Waltzing Along posted:

I've heard once I get to book 4 things will go a completely different direction from the show. That's really why I decided to do this, just to see what actually happens. But how far are they going to diverge? Unrecognizably?

RoboChrist 9000 posted:

Again, I think he may have lost the plot, but I have to believe Dany was always set up to be a faildaughter idiot and a deliberate contrast to Jon.
Dany has everything handed to her by and large, and pisses it all away. She gets a Dothraki army and fucks it up. She gets an army and fucks it up pissing around Essos. She gets Slaver's Bay and fucks it up with the Meereeneese Knot. She's constantly failing upwards. In contrast Jon has everything stripped from him as the books go on, but manages to claw his way onwards, tooth and nail
Both are, of course, secret Targs.
Jon's goals are ultimately those of altruism and the Song of Ice and Fire - he is seeking to protect mankind against the Others. Dany's goals are the Game of Thrones and purely selfish; she wishes to rule over a kingdom that has long since grown tired of her family's literally insane bullshit.

Like both of them are riffs on the trope of the secret heir to the throne and all that. It's the sort of deconstruction Martin liked/likes. Plus not to mention Dany as a fairly obvious Gulf War 1 - and then Iraq War lmao - metaphor. Like literally everywhere she goes she leaves nothing but smoking ruins and death behind her. Whatever you think of her intentions and character, her track record is basically anyone who comes into contact with her gets destroyed by her. She's a one woman version of the Gang from It's Always Sunny.

chaosapiant posted:

Something I do enjoy about the books is that, while every word of that is true, Dany is written in such a way that most people, especially on a first read, are totally going to root for her. And she's kinda this great big red herring that is over shadowing Jon. Then there's the baby-targ introduced in Dances With Dragons that I don't even understand the purpose for. The show cuts out a lot of cool and interesting side plots and characters, but that was one I think the show was smart to do without.

chaosapiant posted:

It’s been 12-13 years since I read Dances With Dragons; doesn’t one of Dany’s chapters end in her dragons roasting one or the suitors from Dorne?

chaosapiant posted:

It’s been 12-13 years since I read Dances With Dragons; doesn’t one of Dany’s chapters end in her dragons roasting one or the suitors from Dorne?

Shimrra Jamaane posted:

lol. Lmao.



I wish I could send this to GRRM. Not to attempt to motivate him but because I want him to feel bad.

Ravenson posted:

His plot purpose is to preempt and gently caress over Dany. The books have made it pretty clear that as much as the nobility hates the Targs, from the small folk perspective the Mad King is looking less and less lovely with every war crime the new rulers commit in his absence. There's plenty of folk who would rise up for a true Targaryen, and so fAegon is on route to beat Dany to Westeros, win the popular appeal, offer her a version of what she wants that she won't take on principle (become his queen and inherent subordinate after all she's gone through), and promptly get eaten by dragons to absolutely ensure that the small folk will be just as done with the Targs as everyone else. If he weren't there and she showed up first she'd have the Throne in a matter of weeks with no problems, with him there even if she takes King's Landing she still won't have the kingdom.

His thematic purpose is to contrast Jon. FAegon looks the part of the secret heir, raised in the wilderness outside the kingdom by scholars and nuns so that he'd be a true ruler and nothing but virtue - but because it was a deliberate attempt to create him and because he was raised knowing his intended fate, he's actually an awful little poo poo who won't be any better a ruler than any of those who came before him. Jon meanwhile is a true secret heir and while he was raised by nobility he was genuinely humbled his whole life by being treated as a bastard and his training in the wilderness didn't involve being the Specialist Boy but just another guy who came to power by popular acclaim. Dany not having this either is why in the end she'll go crazy.

It's still just another huge complication that didn't need this much focus though.

Liquid Communism posted:

The irony is that Jon being as he is comes down purely to luck and his own nature. He has every reason to be bitter as hell, and frankly a lot of his motivation seems to be the desire to tell all of Westeros to get hosed and go be literally anywhere else. Makes his ending in the show make sense, of course Jon and Arya hosed off north after the war, they've got absolutely no reason to stick around while Sansa and Bran play at being rulers until the next rebellion. The wildlings are pretty much the only ones that have ever treated Jon as just some guy, and at the present point (and in the show) Arya's really got nothing left of a personality or sense of self beyond 'Jon's cool, I'll go chill with him and we'll murder the poo poo out of whatever was hanging with the Others'.

chaosapiant posted:

Arya never went with Jon North? Unless I’m missing something?

disaster pastor posted:

Not with Jon, but she does gently caress off and leave the continent and its politics behind. Though I guess it's more northwest than north.

Drakyn posted:

Arya's expedition - trapped in the ice overwinter -- perishes with all hands after consuming canned rations sealed with delicious lead solder to the bemusement of the locals; centuries later, bards compose a mournful ballad about how neat that was.

Waltzing Along posted:

And after the Frey bit, I'm amused that Robb (assuming it's the same plot beat as the show) is going to die because of his lack of honor. He made a pact or whatever and went against it. While his dad died because he couldn't ever go against his honor. A lot of interesting karmic beats and ironies in this book. Neds first scene is beheading a dude and then loses his head, himself. Sansa loses her wolf because she lies (because she is a dumb idiot) and then loses her dad because she is a dumb idiot and turns him in. Ned probably should have been a bit more honest with his girls, though.

bobjr posted:

Catlyn’s annoyed with it until she finds out Robb married someone with good birthing hips

bobjr posted:

Catlyn’s annoyed with it until she finds out Robb married someone with good birthing hips

TGG posted:

Best characters in these books

Strong Belwas
Barristan The Bold
Garlan Tyrell
Patchface

No more questions