Maximum Taco
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Posts posted by Maximum Taco
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Wasn't there a lady Mormont who died at the red wedding?
That may be why Lyanna is in charge.
No confirmation on Maege's status, I don't think she was in that episode.
The fact that Lyanna is Lady of Bear Island implies that Maege died, but it could also be that Lyanna is Lady of Bear Island the same way Bran was the Stark in Winterfell. Meaning she's just in charge cause all the other Mormonts are away.
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I too thought it was odd that Theon makes it seem like he thinks the Greyjoys are indebted to the Starks. I wonder what Balon would have made of that little declaration?
Well we need to remember that Theon was brought to Winterfell as a very young boy, and they never treated him badly, in fact they treated him pretty much like an honoured ward, most likely Ned treats Theon the same way Jon Arryn treated Ned himself. Robb treats him the same way he treats his brothers.
Ned even has Theon squire for him, which is typically a great honour, to squire for a great lord. I'm sure many Northern houses would love to have their own sons occupy a place like that in the Stark household. And here Theon is, as a hostage, and he knows he's a hostage, enjoying all these perks. They could just have easily kept him confined to quarters, never let him have weapons, and treated him like an enemy, which his family is by the strictest sense of the word.
Theon also grew up according to Northern customs too, so at this point he'd see these things as honours. It's not difficult to see why he'd think he owes the Starks a great debt before he meets his dad again and remembers how the Iron Islanders look at things that aren't earned through the iron price.
Balon on the other hand would see them as the Starks "taming" and "keeping" Theon. That he never earned anything, and the mainlanders made him soft.
I know it's only fiction but the idea of a library as old as the one in Winterfell catching fire really, really sucks.
I'm sure George thought the same way when he wrote it.
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I didn't see this a weird. I don't remember reading anywhere in the books that members of the Kingsguard couldn't hold public office. I'd assumed that the Warden titles are, in fact, public office, since they are not necessarily accompanied by land. My understanding here wasn't that Ned thought Jamie would inherit Casterly Rock, but that if Jamie were to be appointed Warden of the East, while Tywin still held the title of Warden of the West, the King would have put both positions (and a lot of power) in the hands of the Lannister family, as a unit, not in a single Lannister individual.
The Warden titles are traditionally held by the head of the house. This is the argument Ned makes for naming Robert Arryn as Warden of the East. That stands to reason that those inheriting the Lordship would traditionally inherit the Warden title as well.
Since Jaime will never succeed to the title of Lord of Casterly Rock, he also logically should never become Warden of the West unless also appointed to it. He would never succeed to it, because he can't succeed to anything. But Ned specifically talks about him succeeding Tywin as Warden of the West which would make him the Warden of the West and the East after Tywin's death. He even specifically says "No man should hold both the East and West"
The bigger problem Ned has is of course the one you mentioned, that this would put half the realms armies in the hands of the Lannisters, but he leaves this concern unsaid, instead just voicing the concern about Jaime himself one day being the Warden of both directions.
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Cersei has a completely self centric view of the world.
The only things that matters to her is her. Even her love for Jaime and her children can be seen as extensions of her love for herself. Especially early on when the Lannister twins were said to look almost alike when Jaime had long flowing golden hair. This also explains her dalliance with cousin Lancel.
Even if she can understand how the Martells feel, she doesn't care. She has no sympathy, because she isn't capable of sympathy.
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Are you really engaged in murder, if the person you kill was trying his level best to have you killed, for no other reason than he A) thinks it serves his political purposes (do you really think show Tywin thought show Tyrion poisoned Joffrey?), and B) because you're physique is outside the norm? Especially when the person who is trying to have you killed has ultimate political authority, from which there is no appeal? Show Tyrion's shooting of a bolt through show Tywin on the crapper looks more like justifiable homicide than murder to me. Hell, even strangling hs ex could reasonably be described as self-defense.
I wish The Hound was still around to tell the remnants of the Lannister clan what a pile of worthless sh*t they all are.
There was an appeal it was trial by combat.
Tyrion himself selected that appeal and he lost.
You aren't allowed to kill the judge because you lost the trial. There is nothing justifiable about the murder (and it was murder) of Tywin Lannister.
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Well, it sounds like a purely military title and if kingsguard can lead armies and be King's Hands, I guess this could be the same kind of appointment. The weird thing is the idea that he could not just be appointed, but also inherit an equivalent title. There's some other early installment weirdness in some of these chapters, isn't there?
There's a lot of early installment weirdness in the first book.
Not only for facts established about Wardens and Kingsguard but also for things that he planned to happen and then decided wouldn't.
We need to remember that George's plans changed somewhere during the writing of ACOK. This was really only supposed to be a trilogy with timeskips betwen books. So a lot of the plans he had needed to be changed.
Maybe at some point in that other story Jaime does inherit the Warden of the West title giving him control of half the armies in the realm.
Much of the foreshadowing George wrote in AGOT is foreshadowing stuff that may never happen.
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Did the show ever bother to explain Shae's true motivations? Or Tywin for that matter? In the books, Shae was promised a knight husband and a landed estate and she reneged. Tywin was shown to be a hypocrite (remember how he treated his father's "whore" and Tysha). Book!Shae never pretended to be anything than what she was, while it seemed Show!Shae thought it was this great love story (and became the protectress of Sansa - which was entirely dropped as well when Sansa was accused and had to flee). It's like the show knew it had to have Shae's fate remain the same but couldn't be bothered to have it make sense. For instance, Shae never speaks to Tyrion in that final scene, she sees him and tries to KILL him with a knife and he could argue he was protecting himself. In the book, Shae is trying to get back in his good graces after being found and uses the same line "My Lion of Lannister" that she used to ridicule him in her testimony agains him and that's what through him over the edge. And THAT would have made a more interesting scene.
But the show resists attempts to make Tyrion as dark as he gets in the books, even though as often repeated by several characters he is his father's son.
It's pretty much what you said.
The show is trying it's hardest to paint Tyrion with the whitest paint possible. He never has to do anything that's morally questionable, and he comes out of every situation with the audience's sympathy. In the books he's a gray nuanced character; in the show, he's the white washed hero, even moreso than Dany or Jon Snow I'd argue, because he also gets shit on more than them and therefore is always in the audience's sympathy.
The show also wanted us to care about Tyrion and Shae's relationship, so her betrayal would be all the more shocking. The only true way to do that is to make her a sympathetic character, so we don't expect her heelturn. She needs to be someone who is in love with Tyrion, and wants good things for him, and cares about Sansa, and at the last second they just assassinate her character by making her turn her back on everything and hop into bed with Tywin. It doesn't make any sense, but it does make a lot of the audience say "You bitch. Poor Tyrion." which seems to be what the showrunners are going for. It's a typical heel turn, it doesn't need to make sense for most people, because it's compelling enough that this lady we trusted is turning on our poor hero.
Even the actress who played Shae tried to ask for her character to avoid selling out Sansa, she could reason that maybe she'd be pissed enough at Tyrion to sell him down the river, but she could never rationalize Shae betraying Sansa. And the showrunners insisted she turn on Sansa as well, because they want us to hate her, and love Tyrion. Then when he kills her, all our sympathies are with Tyrion. He isn't the callous murderer who strangled a woman to death, a woman who was probably coerced into her testimony by powerful people. No no, he's the hero who killed that bitch who betrayed him and Sansa and hopped into bed with Tywin, and to top it all off, he was just defending himself cause she attacked first.
How can we possible hold that against our hero?
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If we look to the very end who do you think will be alive for the final credits and who will not?
If I were to make a list of all the main characters most likely to least likely to die it'd be something like:
Pycelle
Bronn
Barristan
Ramsay
Theon
Cersei
Littlefinger
Roose
Melisandre
Loras
Margaery
Grey worm
Jorah
Arya
Dany
Tyrion
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Missandei
Jaime
Stannis
Varys
Davos
Brienne
Pod
Tormund
Bran
Gilly
Sam
Sansa
Jon
The line divides who I think will survive from who I don't. I know that technically Jon might already have died but since I don't think he will come back pretty much the same I don't count it.
I didn't rank the newly introduced players since I haven't really seen enough of them to have an opinion.
Pycelle is already dead. He died at the end of ADWD. Or did you mean in the show? It's a book talk thread so I wasn't sure.
I have a pretty short list on who I definitely think will survive, it's mostly just the Starks, I don't think we'll see Sansa, Arya, Bran or Rickon die in the final 2 books or the last 3 seasons. But I do think there's a very good chance that Bran will never leave that cave.
Jon and Dany I'm torn about, I could easily see either or both of them going out in a blaze (perhaps a literal blaze) of glory in the no doubt upcoming battle with the Others.
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In the books Kevan left when Cersei refused his offer. He went back to King's Landing after Cersei and Margery had been arrested and became Regent in Cersei's place. Then, Varys killed him and Pycelle. It could happen the same way on the show. It's not as if they follow the distances and transportation difficulties outlined in the books.
I think it's going to happen the same as the books. I don't see why they'd being Kevan back just to give a little bit of exposition on Sparrow Lancel and then bitch slap Cersei. They could've just hired an extra to do that, or even just have Jaime (or literally anyone) explain what's been up with Lancel, getting the same actor back makes it seem like he'll be more important in later episodes.
Winter is Coming and Watchers of the Wall did report that Kevan will make an appearence in episode 10 as well.
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Would Tyrion be a hero, though? Jaime killed a crazy, murderous king and it seems like virtually everyone considers him scum of the earth. Tyrion killed his dad, one of the greatest sins possible, and while Tywin was a jerk he wasn't nearly as bad as Aerys.
Likely not.
It's a recurring theme in the books that "No man is as accursed as the kinslayer." And Tyrion killed (or at the very least admits to killing) both his nephew and his father. He'd be seen as damned in the eyes of gods and men.
Jaime would be looked at with a lighter touch, even though he broke a sacred vow he never turned against family.
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In the books, the only Stark child known to be alive for sure is Sansa, and no one knows where she is...right? Arya has been missing, and I think everyone pretty much knows that Jeyne isn't her at Winterfell.
On the show, Jon knows that Bran and Rickon are alive, he's about to know that Sansa is in Winterfell - will he tell her about Bran and Rickon? That will totally change her game plan.Brienne knows Arya is alive - is she going to share that knowledge? That will be a huge change from the books where everyone assumes only 1 Stark is alive, to all of them but Rob are.
Does Jon know that Bran and Rickon are alive in the show? When did he find out?
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And that she so easily ditched the Red Woman and the Brotherhood gang...
Yeah, has she forgotten about Gendry already?
Remind me never to become Arya's friend.
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ETA: Does Dany being styled Princess of Dragonstone mean she is Viserys's heiress presumptive?
Typically Dragonstone is awarded to the heir apparent during Targaryen rule. So it probably does imply that Dany is next in line for the throne. Just like the heir apparent in the British Monarchy is styled as the Prince of Wales.
If Viserys was to have a male child, the child would probably be given the title over Daenerys, so it seems odd that Viserys would shoose to confer the title on Dany. He probably did it just to puff her and by extension himself up a little more.
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Do you guys think that the artist formerly known as Jaqen is the same guy that was at Harrenhal?
In the book, I never considered it might be the original "Jaqen" at the House of Black and White because I thought we saw where he went and it was elsewhere. In the show, it seems like the same guy, mainly because they are in possession of the same face. But who knows, maybe they get together and swap with each other all the time. Reduce, reuse, recycle. And I don't think the show is going to be doing the plot where we saw the guy in the book who was once Jaqen.
I'm not sure it even makes a difference if it is the same guy or not.
I don't think so.
Jaqen obviously had more things to do in Westeros, if he was heading back to Braavos that soon he could've taken Arya himself. I think the whole point is that any faceless man can use any face. So when Arya mentions Jaqen to the Kindly Man (or Angry Man) then he uses Jaqen's face to illustrate that.
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I hope George R. Martin goes into what made the Valaryians special.
Originally they were just shepherds living near dragons right? How did they manage to tame them?
He never really does. Not even in A World of Ice and Fire, it's all written as speculation.
Apparently the Valyrians themselves
claim to be actual descendants of the dragons. So "blood of the dragon" is a literal saying.
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I need to re-read the last books again. I don't remember Varys killing Kevan, or the hidden sand snake. It might be because I was so bored by people I didn't care about and over description. So glad that things that took a gajillion pages (Jon's election) are only taking 5 minutes.
The hidden sand snake is easy to miss. There's only a few clues that point to it and it isn't confirmed yet. You could easily miss it if you aren't reading carefully.
There's a novice known as Alleras (called the Sphinx) in the citadel, he claims to have a Dornishman for a father and a Summer Islander for a mother. He is also a slim comely youth, which is how a woman dressed as a young man would look. He has a widows peak and black eyes, two traits Oberyn also has.
Sarella Sand, Oberyn's 4th daughter, also has a Dornishman for a father and a Summer Islander for a mother. She is remarked to have a love for learning and a love for Oldtown, both things which could lead her to the citadel. She is also known to "push in where she doesn't belong" and a woman does not belong in the citadel where only males can become maesters. Sarella is outside of Dorne when her sisters are captured by Doran, and Doran tells Hotah to "leave her at her game"
Finally Alleras is Sarella spelt backwards. These clues lead many to speculate that they are one and the same.
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But they kept the fight with Jaime anyway where Tyrion said he killed his son. It just didn't make any sense at that point.
In the books I felt a lot of it was guilt. That didn't make it any easier to watch all the meandering ( which the books are clearly speeding up thank god). I just hope they run into Jorah soon!
Nope they took that out too.
I remember cause I was very excited for Dinklage's delivery of that line. "Yes, I killed your vile son!"
Would've been awesome, but it never happened. They parted as bros.
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Yeah, Show!Ellaria's dialog was a combination of the Sand Snakes': Obara's angry confrontation with Hotah, Nym's plan to assassinate all the the Lannisters. I get the feeling that Show!Snakes will be indistinguishable back singers for Ellaria, instead of the wildly different characters they are in the books.
(Ellaria and the Sand Snakes, in concert Sunday night at the Sunspear Square Water Gardens! Get your tickets now!)
Correct me if I'm wrong though, but even Nym doesn't want to kill Myrcella. Nym just wants to wipe out everyone else, but that's more so the Martells can crown Myrcella and rule the kingdoms with her as a puppet.
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It actually makes sense to me. Vengeance isn't supposed to be rational. She wants to hurt them because they killed the man she loved. Myrracella is the only way to do that. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if she wanted to kill Tyrion as well. It's interesting that the prince repeated what his brother said earlier.
Exactly.
They are painting Doran as the sympathetic party here, and also as someone who really has no choice.
Which is why it'll be all the more surprising when he reveals he's been playing everybody like pieces on a cyvasse board.
It is unfortunate that they felt the need to assassinate Ellaria's character to do that though. In the books it's Obara who comes to Doran seeking vengeance (but even she doesn't suggest torturing and killing Myrcella, she just wants war.) I suppose they wanted us to see a familiar face in our intro to Dorne though.
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Was the book as vague over just how bad viewers were supposed to find Ramsay?
The books paint Ramsay as pretty much the worst guy who has ever lived.
The things he does makes actions taken by Joff and the Mad King seem forgivable.
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Totally forgot about the siege at Riverrun stuff. I find that's true of many of the books 4 & 5 plots in A Song of Ice and Fire -- with no resolution to much of it, I forget it even happened, since it doesn't have a lot of meaning as a half-finished story. I have to refresh my memory as to where characters ended up, for instance.
Yeah, a lot of it is boring stuff.
I said before that I think George knows where he wants people to be (or not be) at certain points in the story, but he has no idea what they should be doing until then.
For instance he needs Jaime to be out of the capital
when Cersei is arrested,
but he doesn't know what to do with him so he just sends him on a Riverlands tour. In the show they are sending him on a Dornish tour.
It's a good move in the show because as you said, this continues the story in Dorne that normally would be an Arys Oakheart/Balon Swann joint and makes it into a Jaime/Bronn joint therefore attaching characters we care about already instead of forcing us to try and care about new characters, and it also gets Jaime out of the capital like the story requires.
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In the books that was one of my favorite parts of Jon's corner of the story. Watching Sam play all of the factions againt each other to make sure Jon was elected. I don't suppose we'll see Sam's trip to the citadel either, which makes me question how much value that plot point will have in the book. Last we checked in on them the Citadel was plotting against Dany and her dragons with a concealed Sand Snake weren't they?
I don't know if they're actively plotting against her, they definitely don't like her very much though.
The last we saw Sam he has told Archmaester Marwyn (whose Ring and Rod and Mask are Valyrian Steel) about Aemon's thoughts about Dany being the prince that was promised, and Marwyn leaves to be Dany's maester in Aemon's place. He tells Sam to forge his chain quickly and get back to the Wall. He also tells him to speak no more of prophecies or dragons, unless he fancies poison in his porridge.
But also suspected to be in the Citadel is a concealed Sand Snake (Sarella Sand masquerading as Alleras the Sphinx) and the faceless man who once was Jaqen H'ghar but is now the novice Pate.
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I love how Weiss and Benioff have repurposed characters and actors we already know and often love into spots that GRR had used to introduce still more characters (Is he trying to break a record for largest cast for a high-fantasy novel series?). Jamie heading to Dorne — with Bronn! What a great idea. I don't recall Jamie doing much of anything once he got back to King's Landing one-handed (other than having sex with Cersie). And Bronn was pretty much out of the picture. So nice to have them both heading to Dorne on a mission, instead of random other Kingsguard guy whose name I can't recall.
Jaime doesn't stay in KL in the books either. Cersei gets pissed off at him cause he spurns her offer of being the King's Hand and chooses the Kingsguard over her. Cersei then commands him to lift the Seige at Riverrun and some other Riverlands holdfasts still declaring for Robb and his cause.
In the show they seem to have him care a lot more about his children, in the books he very rarely thinks of Joff, Tommen or Myrcella as "his children" and while he is devoted to them because he is a Kingsguard and it is his duty he doesn't have a lot of paternal feelings towards any of them. In the books he's much more preoccupied with feelings of restoring his honour and doing his duty. He wants to serve Tommen because he is the LC of the Kingsguard, he wants to save Sansa because she is his last chance for honour etc.
I'm conflicted about that change. It makes him more sympathetic a character, but also a lot less nuanced. For instance I can't see this Jaime doing something like
refusing to show up for Cersei's trial by combat. They'll have to make it impossible for him to receive the message in the show if they still go that route.
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Sweet, finally some Boltons.
This season has been mighty deficient on flayings.
Cersei Lannister: Not As Smart As She Thinks She Is
in Game Of Thrones
· Edited by Maximum Taco
Exactly.
This is the same reason the Lannisters give Littlefinger Harrenhal and send him off to marry Lysa.
They don't expect Dorne or The Vale to actually contribute forces, but the marriages ensure that they won't be allying themselves with Stannis (or when they were alive Renly or Robb), it's worth the marriage to keep the Martells and Arryns neutral.
Of course we all know they shouldn't trust Littlefinger to follow along with their plan, but if he was loyal to the crown it's an awesome idea.
Now from the Lannister perspective they have ensured that
i) The Tyrells are their allies via Tommen's marriage to Margaery
ii) The Martells are at best their allies and at worst neutral via Myrcella's marriage to Trystane.
iii) The Arryns are at best their allies and at worst neutral via Littlefingers custody of Robin Arryn (even though this isn't true)
iv) The Freys are their allies due to them burning every other bridge by their conspiracy to murder Robb Stark.
v) The Boltons are their allies due to Ramsay's legitimization only being valid under Tommen (or a Baratheon successor's) rule (if someone else becomes King, he is no longer a Bolton) and also because they have also burned every bridge by their conspiracy to murder Robb Stark.
So now 5 Kingdoms are either with them, or neutral, and the only allies Stannis has left is if he can incite the North to rise up against the Boltons.