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AGuyToo
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Why did Bran reveal Jon's parentage to Sam, whom he barely knows, but not to Arya or Sansa?
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10 minutes ago, SeanC said:
True to form, the plot that sent him off was really dumb. How and when did Sansa figure all this out? What prompted this sudden revisiting of things like Littlefinger’s dealings with Ned Stark? There’s not even a hint of an explanation. It would tend to indicate that (assuming GRRM ever publishes the next book(s)) we’ll eventually get a more narratively satisfying story of Sansa outwitting Littlefinger, though.
I thought Bran (the all-seeing) simply told them what Littlefinger had done -- which sort of raises the question of why he didn't do so earlier.
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1 minute ago, GrailKing said:
Sansa is actually doing a mother's role with actual real people, trying to protect them, bring them together, feeding and clothing them as Lady of Winterfell she is their mother.
Ser Jorah to Danny paraphrase : they're wild beast, not your children, they can't be tamed.
I see what Sansa is now doing at Winterfell as good governmental work -- preparing for a long winter. In the books, Jon, while he's still at Castle Black, does some of this same stuff. In the last episode, Jaime of all people worried about the food supply. That's the business of government, not motherhood.
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2 hours ago, Francie said:
In my version, the only change I'd make is that I'd replace the mother with Sansa.
Why? Sansa is not a mother, whereas Dany is (in a manner of speaking).
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6 minutes ago, rmontro said:
I'm a little confused. There seems to be some suggestion here that Jon Snow would be clear cut heir to the throne? Could someone explain why that is? Is it just because he is male? Because Daenerys is more directly descended from the mad king.
Also: How do you think that it will come out that Tyrion is Targaryan, assuming that he is? Who is there around who would know? Bran?
Rhaegar was the eldest child and heir apparent of Aerys. As such, his legitimate descendant (Jon) is the next in line, ahead of Rhaegar's sister Daenerys. This is the same idea that, in Britain today, puts William, son of Charles, ahead of Queen Elizabeth's other children.
The one complication is that there is an (ambiguous) line in the books that suggests that Aerys disinherited Rhaegar (and his descendants). Here is the Quora discussion on the topics: https://www.quora.com/Did-Aerys-The-Mad-King-make-Viserys-his-heir-before-or-after-Rhaegars-death.
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I really don't understand Randall Tarly's motivation. He says he already has a queen (Cersei) for whom is apparently willing to die. But why? Cersei just grabbed the throne; she has no actual claim. And she killed much of House Tyrell (House Tarly's liege lords) with wildfire. Dany, on the other hand, is the only (known) descendant of the last Targaryen king (for whom House Tarly fought during Robert's Rebellion). Her claim is clear.
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7 minutes ago, SimoneS said:
Well, if you are referring to a tiny country like Great Britain, then yep, I can come up with several examples of different successions that occurred throughout the history in that country. The modern day monarchy succession does not represent what has occurred throughout all the history of all European monarchies. And GoT is base don medieval Europe.
Such as?
I think Greta is right. For example, when Edward III died, the crown went to his grandson Richard II (son of the Edward the Black Prince), even though several of Edward III's other children (Richard II's uncles and aunts) were still alive.
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13 minutes ago, mac123x said:
Male-preference primogeniture says that Jon is the "rightful" king. Eldest living son of the eldest son of the Mad King.
Proximity of blood says that Dany is the rightful queen. She's the king's daughter, Jon is the king's grandson.
Jon (if legitimate) would be ahead of Dany even without male-preference primogeniture. Rhaeger was not only the Mad King's oldest son -- he was the Mad King's oldest child. So even without male preference, Rhaeger would be the heir and all his legitimate descendants would be in line ahead of Rhaeger's siblings.
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5 minutes ago, GrailKing said:
LF- OH Shit, need her out of the way first.
Sansa looked surprised and I think a wee bit proud.
Proud? I don't think Sansa looked proud at all when she saw what Arya could do and how Arya and Brienne interacted. She looked worried -- maybe jealous.
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This woman was probably the inspiration for Natalie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonina_Makarova
She was older (20 not 16) and the circumstances of her first involvement with the Nazis were different, but many of the details match: she was used as an executioner of Russian POWs (1500!), she caught a venereal disease from the Germans that was treated at a hospital, she lived in cognito for many years, and she was eventually tracked down and killed by the KGB.-
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4 hours ago, Trillian said:
As an aside, i thought it was amusing that the Pastor gave Paige Capital to read. I was about Paige's age when I tried to read it. I was a pretty bright kid and had been raised as a socialist but I found it dense and nearly incomprehensible and finally gave up. Give her the Communist Manifesto to read if you want to introduce her to Marxist thought and not bore her to death. Then again, maybe that's why Tim chose it.
I think the edition Pastor Tim gave Paige was this one:
https://www.amazon.com/Capital-Communist-Manifesto-Writings-Library/dp/0394602021
It contains a collection of Marx's writing, including the Communist Manifesto and an abbreviated, simplified version of Das Kapital.
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On 7/12/2016 at 9:00 AM, YaddaYadda said:
I like that the 2 families that fought to the end on the Targaryens side are also the first ones to pledge allegiance to them. I like that we see the loyalty these families have in the books (the Tyrells aren't there yet, and are questionable at best), but I like how Dorne has just been waiting for that opening, and how the North is not being passive about what happened to their liege lords.
I love seeing that kind of loyalty.
This is also why I'm looking forward to a character like LF being put down for good.
This idea -- decades-long loyalty -- would be applicable if D&D had stuck with the Dorne plot of the books. There, in GRRM's original vision, it was Prince Doran who plotted "Vengeance. Justice. Fire and Blood" over the course of 20 years. That version was organic and moving and powerful. But in the D&D television version, they instead gave that plot to the cartoon characters Ellaria and the Sand Snakes, who are not Martells. In fact, supposedly to avenge Oberyn Martell and Elia Martell, the cartoon characters basically exterminated House Martell.
I know complaining about the TV Dorne plot is kind of tiresome at this point, but I can't help myself.
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20 hours ago, taurusrose said:
I am really excited about Dany's story. It's going to bring together a lot of characters who have never met or who haven't seen each other in a long time. It will be interesting to see how things reveal themselves when Westeros discovers both dragons and White Walkers. I also want to find out how Bran fits into the new world order even though I don't really care about Bran. I also want to see who Dany ultimately becomes. I've always liked her and believed in her. I hope the promise of her arrival and rule along with the negotiations and alliances she will have to be part of bears enjoyable fruit. I also want to see Cersei Lannister dealt with because it's been a long time coming. And, I HATE her. I'm ambivalent about Jamie's future. I don't really like him, but I don't know what I would like to see happen to him. I've always rooted for Arya. I don't think she's a monster; I think she was exposed to a lot of things she should not have been and those experiences have largely informed who she is now. But I don't think she is a lost cause. Of all the people I would like to see her reunited with, it's Jon. They clearly loved each other and he gave her Needle. I don't know how GoT will ultimately end. GRRM's unfinished novels cast a shadow over whatever the series does, IMO, but I'm going to enjoy the ride and hope that my favorite characters survive.
I'm also excited to see Dany in Westeros. We've been waiting five years for this, after all.
But I think the thing I'm most excited about is an Arya/Jon reunion. Even though they interacted on screen only once -- 58 episodes ago! -- that scene involved Needle, and I've since constructed an elaborate back story in my head for those two.
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17 minutes ago, Umbelina said:
So, do you guys think that video above was legit, or a hoax?
I guess it could be film from way back during the ship battles before Tyrion used the wildfire, but it didn't look familiar to me. ?
It looks legit. It's way too elaborate to be a hoax, and I also didn't recognize it from an earlier episode. And GoT does film in Croatia.
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53 minutes ago, Hecate7 said:
I see Arya as the one character who won't get killed. Arya and Bran, actually, seem to me to have plot armor. Arya is likely to be the last Stark standing. No offense to Bran.
Arya is always on her way someplace and either going someplace else or getting taken someplace else, and so I just don't see her purposefully striding over the Winterfell and fulfilling audience expectations in a straightforward and simple way. I figure she'll be in King's Landing first.
Cersei is at the top of Arya's list, and has been from day one. If Arya doesn't try to kill Cersei, there needs to be a good reason. I used to be adamantly opposed to Arya being Cersei's killer because I don't think people get what they want in this story, but now I'm starting to waver.
I don't know where they're going with Arya this season -- family reunion or ninja assassin both seem possible -- but I'd be surprised if Arya killed Cersei, only because it might undermine Dany's story.
She's traveling to Westeros with overwhelming strength, including three dragons, the Unsullied, the Dothraki, a huge armada, and alliances with Tyrell/Greyjoy/Dorne. At this moment Dany doesn't know about the Night King. As far as she knows, her principal enemy is Cersei and the Lannisters. If Cersei can be taken out by Arya working alone, that would seem to make the Army (and Navy and Air Force) of Dany kind of overkill.
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4 hours ago, slf said:
I'm aware Jon's had some success at the Wall, and isn't without leadership qualities when it comes to the military, which in no way changes the mistakes he made. It's understandable that he was all over the place because of Rickon's death but it's still a screwup. Understandably, Robb wanted to marry a woman he loved but that doesn't mean he didn't fuck up by doing it. Jon was warned about letting Ramsay play him and he was drawn in twice and a lot of mistakes were made on the battlefield, including that encircling. We have no idea if Cerwyn actually was approached or why they he didn't swear for Jon since the writing for the Northerners is so sloppy (no coalition among the Northerners means no one knows much); so that's just assumption. We know Sansa was trying to suggest allies and Jon cut her off with "we fight with the army we have" not "well we asked but they said no." As for his horse being shot out from under him, the right answer is not to charge your enemy on foot it's to get another horse from your men. Ramsay being equally hotheaded is why Jon didn't die during his charge- any military leader worth their salt would have rested their cavalry and just let the idiot running at them get pincushioned. Ramsay's idiocy doesn't make Jon's choice any smarter. This wasn't a small battle and is in fact the one that got him crowned King on the basis that he's a strong military leader. Yet...he fell into his enemies traps, did not actually lead his men on the field, and was rescued by his sister.
I'm not confusing the events that lead up to Hardhome at all. Jon handled so much of that badly, as I've pointed out. His men didn't just...up and kill him as a whim. He made a series of choices that are all understandable from one angle but a hard sell for a Lord Commander. (To say nothing of the fact that the ravens should've been a start toward getting new recruits not the whole effort.) That Alliser, who was hated among the men, was able to get a foothold says something; namely that he was communicating with them better and likely more than Jon was. Pitching it as just the men selfishly holding onto grievances is.... Grievances? This is cultural. They didn't even know the Walkers existed when they joined the wall; they would've grown up hearing stories about the wildlings attacking the wall, eating people. These men weren't trained to fight White Walkers. They were trained to fight the wildlings. Most of the men of the wall are older than Jon, have been there longer, some of them fighting the wildlings for decades. Olly watched his family cannibalized by wildlings. I have to disagree that Jon sold that, at all much less well. And how are dead wildling turned into wights more of an issue for them than the risks of the rescue in the first place?
How was the wall not undermanned? All those previous battles you mentioned lost men. The Wall was undermanned when Jon first arrived at it, something repeatedly stated in the show and books. Every single fight dropped their numbers more and more. They weren't gaining (getting) enough recruits to replenish their numbers. The wall was undermanned and vulnerable already and Hardhome really didn't help.
Jon wasn't a pawn, nor did I say he was. I said he was bargaining on behalf of Stannis - regardless of him turning down offers Stannis made - in direct contradiction to his oaths as a Lord Commander and brother of the watch and his men knew it. He absolutely participated in politics south of the wall. How Stannis becomes King or takes Winterfell does not concern the NW. They say that for a reason and that reason is there are Freys on that wall. Tarlys of the Reach. Men of the Riverlands, the Vale, the Crownlands, the Westerlands. You cannot participate in the politics of the realm. Another reason is than you might make the Wall a target. Let's say Stannis goes after Ramsay, loses, and Ramsay hears that Stannis was working with Jon Snow, the bastard son of Ned Stark and half brother of the previous King in the North, and so decides to attack the wall. Then what? The Wall is indefensible from the south side exactly because it's not meant to be defending itself from the Kingdoms. Any attack against the wall from within the Kingdoms is mostly going to get the Night's Watch slaughtered.
Sorry, I don't agree at all. The men of the watch screwed up by killing Jon but he did fail. Jon has had major screwups. To be "fair" to the character, the writing for him has been sloppy for seasons, more concerned with getting him where it needs him to be for his Great Destiny.
I agree that the writing on this show is sloppy, especially since they've gone off book, but I think we know as well as we know anything that Cerwyn did refuse. He's the third guy that Lyanna Mormont calls out: "And you, Lord Cerwyn, your father was skinned alive by Ramsay Bolton. Still you refused the call." At this public shaming, Cerwyn just looks down guiltily. If he hadn't been approached, he certainly would have defended himself. (ETA: If you freeze the video at the point the "King in the North" chant starts, you'll see that Cerwyn is in the same position as Manderly and Glover: he's kneeling with head bowed and grasping his sword which is pointed downwards. I bet they filmed a sequence of him pledging fealty in the same way as Manderly and Glover, but cut it for time.)
Sansa was completely wrong about the Northern houses. That was one of this season's themes: despite the romance of "the North remembers," the North for the most part did not remember. That was just another fairy tale. In S06E05, Sansa goes on and on at their planning meeting about how Northerners are different, more loyal, and how people would do anything for the Stark name. When Davos gently tries to suggest that she's being too rosy-eyed, she throws shade: "How well do you know the North, Ser Davos?" The subsequent Team Stark tour of the north yielded little beyond the fabled Mormont 62 (and they got those only because of Davos). Their ravens to the Northern houses -- the ones Lord Glover scoffed at -- apparently only resulted in some Hornwoods and Mazins. By the time the battle starts, there are no men -- as far as Jon and Davos know -- left for them to recruit and they are facing defeat by snow if they don't move quickly. Of course, Sansa knows that there is a source of new men, Littlefinger's army, but she chooses not to share that information. She didn't get "cut off" -- she just chose, for whatever reason, not to share.
Hardhome did strengthen the Wall because it gave them several thousand Wildling allies. There were only about 100 men in the Night's Watch at the time of the battle of Castle Black. By the time Jon set out for Hardhome there were fewer. Adding several thousand Wildlings at the cost of a handful of NW men was a good deal. It also meant several thousand fewer members of the Night King's army.
Cooperating -- to an extent, but only to an extent -- with Stannis to secure the Wildling alliance was also a reasonable call. Again, the Night's Watch only numbered in the dozens. They needed the freefolk.
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I agree with those who think the Northern lords were correct in choosing Jon to take the lead in the fight against the Night King. In terms of leadership and relevant experience, there really is no contest between Jon and Sansa.
Jon was elected Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. He led the raid against Craster’s Keep that avenged Jeor Mormont (Lyanna’s uncle). After Alliser Thorne became incapacitated, he led the defense of Castle Black against Mance Rayder’s giant army (which included some actual giants). He converted the Wildlings to allies by battling the Army of the Undead and killing a White Walker. He earned the personal loyalty of a talented group of men (Davos, Tormund, Sam, Edd). And – last but not least – he rose from the dead, making him almost a mythical figure.
Sansa’s experience was much more limited and better prepared her for navigating court intrigue at King’s Landing than repelling an invasion by ice monsters. I don’t mean to criticize her at all, but there’s really only so much to be learned from watching Littlefinger.
Now, I’m not sure how much the Northern lords know about Jon’s back story, but they certainly know this: he’s a warrior of the first rank who has courageously led men into battle and who has intimate knowledge of the threat from beyond the Wall. Given the challenges ahead, it makes a lot more sense to follow Jon Snow than Sansa Stark, despite her superior legal claim (trueborn vs bastard).
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Just now, HumblePi said:
In the last episode of Season 5, Jaime comes to get Myrcella and they set sail together to King's Landing. At the harbor, Myrcella says her farewells to Prince Doran and Ellaria before departing for King's Landing. Ellaria, taking her vengeance, kisses her after coating a fatal poison on her lips, thus sealing the young girl's fate. On board the boat, Myrcella reveals to Jaime that she has always known of his and Cersei's incestuous relationship, and that he is her true father. The two of them share a tender moment, before the effects of the poison become apparent. Jaime holds Myrcella as she falls, blood running from her nose
In the first episode of Season 6, Myrcella's body is returned to King's Landing with Jaime. Cersei waits at the port and immediatelyJaime and Tommen view Myrcella's remains realizes from Jaime's sullen expression that they were too late to save Myrcella from the Martells. Jaime and Cersei are aware that Doran Martell had nothing to do with the murder, correctly guessing Ellaria Sand and the Sand Snakes were the ones behind it.
Right, but if Doran hadn't been killed in the first episode, wouldn't he have executed Ellaria and the Sand Snakes for Myrcella's murder? So then, rather than a debate between Doran and Ellaria leading up to "Vengeance. Justice. Fire and Blood", it would just be Doran alone all season.
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Going back to the failures of the Dorne storyline, I realized another problem with the decision to have Ellaria take out Doran: it drained all the drama from the subsequent attempts at alliance.
I completely agree. Doran was a much more interesting character than Ellaria (never mind the Sand Snakes). Giving him his book role would have been more dramatic.
The only problem I can see is: what do they do about Myrcella? They need to kill her off somehow, so that all of Cersei's children will be dead.
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1 hour ago, shireenbamfatheon said:
Lastly, Tyrion is the only person keeping Dany in check, but I'll be shocked if he'll be okay with the alliance with Dorne next season when the Sand Snakes and Ellaria killed his niece in cold blood after he sent her there against her will because he thought she'd be safe.
This is a really good point. I had completely forgotten about Myrcella. How does Tyrion accept the presence of Ellaria in the alliance given this?
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1 hour ago, bluvelvet said:
My memory is fuzzy, did LF make a comment to Sansa about the North not following a woman? I just thought it was strange since House Mormant is being governed by a 10 year old female who obviously has the respect of the Northern lords. So technically they could have rallied behind Sansa..
LF said the opposite. He told Sansa that the North would rather follow a trueborn daughter of Ned and Catelyn Stark, born at Winterfell, than a motherless bastard, born in the south. He was wrong.
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11 minutes ago, Brn2bwild said:
6. When the Stark flag was lowered over Winterfell, I was hoping it would be more of a "Hell, yeah!" moment. Music swelling, Jon and Sansa smiling, etc.
A lot of people died in the battle of Winterfell, including their little brother. Celebration/swelling music/smiling would have been out of place.
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2 minutes ago, benteen said:
Jon and Dany are starting to assemble their armies for the end game. It's cool to see how characters are gravitating to them both. Jon with Sansa, Davos, Tormund, Melisandre, Brienne, Pod. Dany has Tyrion and the Greyjoys right now but you can expect both sides to keep building.
I wonder if Theon will end up fighting with the Unsullied. That training and discipline would probably help rebuild his mind after Ramsay.
Don't forget Varys.
The Unsullied are an elite fighting force. Being a eunuch is not enough. Theon isn't qualified.
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In this episode, we saw Davos discover Shireen's toy and the pyre on which she was burned.
But it's been weeks (at least) since Stannis killed Shireen. What did Davos think happened to her? Did he really never ask? In all this time?
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S07.E07: The Dragon And The Wolf
in Game Of Thrones
This episode seems to confirm that the plan to capture a wight was the stupidest plan ever. Not only are they not getting any help from Cersei, but they lost the Wall because they lost the dragon. I hope GRRM comes up with something better.