Game Of Thrones - Book/TV discussions - WITH SPOILERS

For someone that is from another country who doesn't know the customs, but knows convenient bits and parts. It shocks me how calm and focused she is in the matter of kingly operation. Her reactions and attention to the map were both too controlled, and very focused. Also when they were alone, and he came to the "I need to go back to Walder Frey" she should have put out a "Not sure that's a good idea, you did disgrace one of his daughters for me" and the "I don't even know where winterfell is" just sounded like a girl playing dumb. Maybe its a trying to impose a belief on her actions, but I asked the question 3 co-workers who saw the video and they were all like "Doubly yes" so I'm not crazy.

 

Watch her eyes and facial reactions while it's unfolding, not what she says to Robb. I think that's what Parker is referring to.

I just watched the video for the first time and it is quite plausible. I hope that is what's going on because I don't know how else they are going to make the RW work with the same kick it had in the books. This way saves them having to mess with the Crag/Westerlings/etc but it does have ripples on down the line- in the books we haven't seen the end of all that yet I think. So a big change now may mean continuous smaller changes as the show goes on. Remains to be seen whether that will strengthen or weaken the overall story. Either way I'm really looking forward to the post-S3 interviews where the producers and GRRM will hopefully explain why they did it this way.

Also, can't wait to show the GF this video after the end of the season. If it turns out that Talisa is who we think she is it will blow her mind.

 

About one of the theories that's been floating around.

Spoiler

I find the arguments behind Lyanna and Rhaegor being Jon's parents very persuasive. It seems to me that most of the evidence to support this is in the first book, which is clever on GRRM's part because if you're like me, you weren't thinking about this so early in the story. To me the most compelling pieces all come from Eddard's perspectives. I flipped through the Ned POVs/scanned the interwebs, but I don't have the book in front of me at the moment so forgive my paraphrasing.

- The fear goes out of Lyanna's eyes after Ned agrees to promise. This seems to be much more than a 'please bury me at home' plea. It's also worth noting that it is says they found him. My thinking is that along with Howland Reed, Wylla was there, perhaps serving as a hand maid to Lyanna. This would explain why Ned claims Wylla is Jon's mother as she is the natural choice for a wet nurse and convenient cover.
- The kingsguard being at the tower of joy is unusual. Naturally, if Jon was a Targaryen heir that explains their presence. I don't know if it's necessarily the case that they can only guard the royal family, but 3 of them there including captain of the king's guard doesn't make much sense if Lyanna isn't pregnant with Rhaegar's child.
- When Ned is talking with Robert on the way to King's Landing he says that he is used to lies because he has been living with them for 14 years, which I'm pretty sure is Jon's age at the time.
- Later on in the story Ned thinks of Lyanna's promise and the price he's paid to keep it. If it was just burying her at Winterfell that doesn't seem to be much of price.
At the very least there's definitely something in the promise that remains to be explicitly explained in the books.

Still, I have one major problem with the theory. Jon doesn't have any Targaryen features. Like none at all from what I can remember. In fact, all I remember about describing how he looks is how much he resembles Ned, and he looks more like Ned than any of his other children. Jon seems to get burned the same as anyone else too. I realize Martin can't just give him silver hair and deep purple eyes since that would be too obvious, but it appears all the other Targaryen children have glaring features of their heritage that Jon is lacking. He would still be a Stark under the theory so he could resemble Ned anyway, but I think this is a problem that bears addressing.

About the whole Lynna loved Rhaegor and went willingly scenario, I don't know if there's very much to suggest this being true or false. She seems smitten by his song at the tournament. However, if she did go willingly and did love Rhaegor why is her brother and father killed when they confront the king? Couldn't they just let Lyanna tell them that that was what she wanted and possibly avoided the entire rebellion? We could just chalk this up to Aerys being crazy, I suppose.

I'm glad the tv show is lengthening season 3 (as I think Storm of Swords is the best fantasy book ever written), but I hope they do some major condensing for the next two. I find Brienne an interesting character. I did not feel that way about her recent POVs. Everything after she gets oathkeeper from Jaime literally should have been put into a single chapter. While they were still good, I have to agree with the consensus that book 6 better get rolling with the plot after the snail's crawl of the last two.

I am very curious if anyone here has thoughts on the following.

Spoiler

You guys remember the alchemist from the prologue of AFFC? That's supposed to be Arya's old faceless murder happy friend from Harrenhal, right? Later he assumes the identity of Pate, right? Ok, but what the hell is he doing there in the first place and what motives is he operating under? After the prologue the whole scenario is barely even touched on, but it seems so important. I have a feeling this is going to be a major plot line in the next book.

 

Spoiler

The Targaryens spent centuries breeding amongst themselves to keep a pure bloodline. I just checked, and the bloodline after the Mad King's grandfather shows two lines coming from the union of a Targaryen and a non-Targaryen: Steffon Baratheon, who, based on what we know about Ned's findings, would have been on dark hair/typical Baratheon appearance, as the Baratheon gene always overcomes the others; and Rhaenys, who is described as dark of hair and looking like a Martell. Therefore I think, especially with the other evidence in support of the Jon Snow parentage theory, it's safe to assume that if Jon Snow is the child of Lyanna and Rhaegar, he wouldn't have any Targaryen appearance at all.

In regard to Jon/Ned and appearance, all the Stark children except Jon and Arya are described as having some Tully feature to them, Arya being described as strongly resembling Lyanna. I take this as evidence that Tully genes are generally stronger than Stark, but Targaryen as shown above is weaker than any other. The Jon-resembles-Arya-resembles-Lyanna connection isn't the strongest since we have no reasoning for Arya having no Tully appearance to her, but combined with everything else it holds some weight.

In personality, Lyanna is described as hot-blooded, willful, courageous, and headstrong, while Rhaegar is described as more brooding and melancholy. I'd say Jon is an excellent mix of the two in personality. As far as burned, I'm not sure what you mean. Dany gets burned a bit by her own dragons in AFFC and a Tararyen has died from drinking wildfire, so they have no resistance to it other than Dany's dragon-birthing.

Pretty much what you said about Aerys being crazy. Even if he knew Lyanna and Rhaegar were off screwing happily, having two Starks confront him about her disappearance would easily set him off.

Been a while since I read AFFC, but I remember this theory being floated about, and I haven't seen anyone come any closer to a solid conclusion than you have.

 

Regarding the prologue to AFfC:

Spoiler

There was a maester in the citadel that was worried about the return of magic and whatnot, he seemed to be marginalized in the citadel because of his beliefs. I think for whatever reason the Faceless Men were hired to either kill him or stop him from doing something. The citadel just announced winter had arrived, maybe the rogue maester would get them to do something else that would be bad for someone. I'm guessing it's related somehow to Varys/Iilyro and their plans for Aegon and the realm but honestly at this point it could be just about anything.

 

Regarding the genealogy of the Targaryens, that's not quite right, but enough to dispute my objection, I think.

Spoiler

Aegon is the son of Rhaegar and Elia, but has silver hair and purple eyes (remember he had to dye it to hide his heritage?). All we know about Steffon is that he had black hair, which is just one trait. By the time we meet the remaining Baratheons there's a limited amount of Targaryen left in them. I totally forgot about Rhaenys though. She has a Targaryen father (Rhaegar), but apparently mostly resembles the Martells. Totally agree about the personalities fitting perfectly into Jon.

About fire, that was a potential trait I just threw out there that could have been used with Jon. When Viserys dies Dany remarks that fire can't kill the dragon. This seems to vary depending on the Targaryen, and I don't think any are totally resistant. Dany loves extreme heat (her super hots baths). Not too important though.

 

Spoiler

About the Baratheons, IIRC it's clearly stated that every child of a Baratheon male listed in the Boring Ancient Histories or w/e book Ned/Jon Arryn found had had black hair (and eyes?). As for Aegon, I'm a fucking idiot for forgetting about him. Also obvious Dany has blonde hair.

I kind of see what you're saying about Dany, and her "Fire" thing would tie in to the theory that "A Song of Ice and Fire" refers to Jon as Ice and Dany as the Fire. I'm wondering if we might somehow see Jon and Dany take the throne as equals - somewhat farfetched, but not impossible.

 

Looks like Gendry might get it. IIRC, wasn't Maester Aemon the one that Melissandre was after for the king's blood? Interesting twist.

 

Yeah that's one of the reasons they sent Aemon away. It looks like Gendry will be a stand-in for Edric Storm, who gets shipped off to Essos by Davos to avoid being killed, so while Gendry might live he probably won't be back after Davos sets him free.

 

And maybe Gendry will make his way to Bravos with Arya so that love story can begin. Its possible, old girl has to have a growth spurt sometime.

Also, I didn't know IGN did these, but it helps when talking to TVWatchers and you can't remember if Joffrey killed a whore or not with a crossbow.

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.ign.com/wikis/game-of-thrones/The_Climb_Differences" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.ign.com/wikis/game-of-throne ... ifferences</a>

 

<a class="postlink" href="http://io9.com/is-game-of-thrones-all-about-the-war-between-varys-and-493162195" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://io9.com/is-game-of-thrones-all-a ... -493162195</a>

This is a pretty fascinating read.

 

Another interesting thing was Melissandre telling Ayra that they would meet again. In the books, they haven't met (yet). Is that a book spoiler or a further plot deviation in the TV show?

 

A lot of differences considering they haven't diverged that far from the source material yet. Gendry being taken by Melisandre is interesting, but he's a minor character. However, if this marriage between Loras and Cersei actually stands we're definitely getting into that territory. Not sure that that's a bad thing. As long as we get the RW and Tyrion's revenge I really wouldn't mind them pulling away at that point.

Damn good summation of all the nuances covered in the show. I don't believe Varys though. As far as the books have gone we're supposed to believe his loyalty is to the Targaryens, and has been for a long time through his arrangements with Illyrio. Ok, but then you go back a few books and wonder why he was feeding all of that information to the Lannisters/Robert about Daenerys. Not to mention he sends assassins after her that damn near succeed. If he was loyal that whole time he would have been rolling the dice with her life when he could have easily just lied. He claims to serve the realm, but has done nothing in the book except further the sort of chaos Petyr was talking about in that episode (the end of book 5 for example). I don't believe him.

 

He doesn't want Dany on the throne, he seems to want

Spoiler

Aegon

That's my guess at least. His first choice was Viserys but he didn't have a good head on his shoulders, as it turned out.

 

I really don't mind them taking liberties with some of the storylines. So far, it's not been to the detriment of the show in any way whatsoever, and isn't it nice and refreshing for those of us who already read /can't resist reading once they start watching to experience a little uncertainty?

Rather than knowing what's going to happen, I'm having to guess like an initiate, and I find that's greatly improved my enjoyment of this season.

 

Why is no one talking about the Theon situation?! I was a bit confused and disappointed that it wasn't following the books, but holy shit is it delivering anyway.

The Boy is absolutely perfectly cast. Dude is insane. Theon's scenes are honestly my favorite part of this season (not out of some vindictiveness - having read the books I'm pitying him already) because they are just so damn well done. And seriously, dude is insane. And only getting worse.

"If you think this has a happy ending... You haven't been paying attention."

Oh man.

 

Well because this is the breaking of him into Reek that won't work on the TV show. Just like Whitebeard wouldn't work on TV, I'm sure we're going to be getting that coming up. The problem is, the silly TV watchers want to be told everything immediately so they don't know what's going on or why it would go on.

 

I haven't seen the episode yet, but reviews (from people who have read the book) have said George RR Martin who wrote this episode, took special time to troll those who believe in the Talisa spy theory. What say you?

 

I'm on the fence about the Talisa theory. A lot of the evidence in that video is bullshit. She writes a letter and then *gasp*, rolls it up when she's finished. What a crock of shit. It's a war camp. Everyone is writing letters. Then the whole thing about her not thinking highly of her father, which therefore means her father is some idiot in the Lannister camp, and her claiming descent from a tiger family therefore equals lions, which therefore equals Lannisters. Reaching much? A borderline retarded person could have memorized that wedding vow in less than 5 minutes. Also, the seven are known outside Westeros, and so are maesters. She could have asked anybody in the camp where to get supplies considering healing the wounded is all she does all fucking day. She's highborn as well, which generally means tutoring of other people's customs, and could even explain the accent as she may have learned at a young age, and probably would have had an adept tutor. Still, the fact that they've so drastically changed her character from the books, and that they've gone to lengths to give every other foreigner in the show an accent has me curious.

As for this episode there were a couple things that jumped out. Robb asks her who she is writing a letter to, she hesitates a moment and then says "mother," with a sly smile. Robb also said something to the effect of "How am I supposed to command an army with you over there looking like that?" It was definitely trolling. Nothing to strongly indicate one direction or the other, but enough to make you go 'hmmm.'

I don't remember Ygritte being nearly this annoying in the books. They've gone way further with the Shae/Tyrion love story. In the books Tyrion always harbors unspoken doubts, and doesn't seem nearly as affectionate for her as he has in the tv show. At this point the scene where he finds her in Tywin's chambers would go from 'awesome revelation', to 'you didn't see that coming because it makes no sense'. I hope they change the scene to adjust it for the tv show, otherwise smart watchers are going to be rolling their eyes at the lameness of the plot twist. If they still want to keep that scene the same, they at least need to weave in some subtle clues to make it pay off.