Television Vs. Book: Why'd They Make [Spoiler] Such A [Spoiler]?

[WindyNights]

40 minutes ago, SimoneS said:

Frankly, I don't believe GRRM when it comes to Jon. No way he makes his lead male protagonist half alive. I wouldn't be surprised if figuring a way to wiggling out of this is one of the reasons that he is stuck. 

I think if a theory is based upon the author lying then it's not a very good theory. And it's just wish fulfillment.

He's been setting up Jon's resurrection since Book 1:

Inside the tent the shapes were dancing, circling the brazier and the bloody bath, dark against the sandsilk, and some did not look human. She glimpsed the shadow of a great wolf, and another like a man wreathed in flames.-Daenerys

Finally he looked north. He saw the Wall shining like blue crystal, and his bastard brother Jon sleeping alone in a cold bed, his skin growing pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled from him.-Bran

I think he's had plenty of time to figure it out. 

But also he's hammered that point so repeatedly and consistently, it seems silly to say he's lying." Cat isn't LSH, Gregor isn't Robert Strong, Beric in AGOT isn't the Beric we meet in ASOS. My people who come back aren't truly resurrected, they're reanimated by fire. I hate it how Gandalf the White came back more or less the same. "

 

Like this isn't a just a handwave just to get Jon out of his vows (vows which Jon already broke in the book). This is a philosophical statement that GRRM is making.

[nikma]

16 hours ago, MarySNJ said:

He breaths and drinks and sleeps, and still can engage in sexual intercourse, all of which would be impossible or unnecessary if he's just a reanimated corpse.

And we know this will happen in the books, so he can't be  just a reanimated corpse there either. 

I don't think that any meaningful change in Jon's character in the books makes any sense.

[MadMouse]

Jon's resurrection will likely be under completely different circumstances than either Cat or Beric. He's warged into Ghost,  Shireen's death will probably be the spark and the big one IMO, earlier in ADWD Jon dumps corpses in a ice cell to see if they'll reanimate. I think that's a hint at where his body ends up and what did Aemon say, the cold preserves and the fire consumes. Jon's biggest change won't be physical but his personality, his time in Ghost will make him more savage/ confident and less likely to suppress his desires.

[SimoneS]

39 minutes ago, WindyNights said:

I think if a theory is based upon the author lying then it's not a very good theory. And it's just wish fulfillment.

I don't care enough about the GoT books to have a theory about Jon or a wish about Jon. However, I do know how sci fantasy stories unfold and it unbelievable that Jon, the lead male protagonist, is going to be a reanimated corpse for the rest of this story when meeting Dany, falling in love with her, and having sex and a child is clearly in the direction that the story is going. I simply don't believe that Martin is going to turn Jon into to some half alive man. Maybe he isn't lying, maybe like @Wouter said, he is "misleading." 

 

39 minutes ago, WindyNights said:

 Cat isn't LSH, Gregor isn't Robert Strong, Beric in AGOT isn't the Beric we meet in ASOS. My people who come back aren't truly resurrected, they're reanimated by fire. I hate it how Gandalf the White came back more or less the same. "

Everytime I read this quote from him, it cracks me up. Has he never read the Silmarillion? Gandalf isn't human. He is a magical being who has taken human form. Of course, when he "dies," he returns with the similar character, but stronger and more powerful. The only "pure" human in the fellowship is Boromir who is corrupted and dies early.

Edited September 9, 2017 by SimoneS

[WindyNights]

1 hour ago, MadMouse said:

Jon's resurrection will likely be under completely different circumstances than either Cat or Beric. He's warged into Ghost,  Shireen's death will probably be the spark and the big one IMO, earlier in ADWD Jon dumps corpses in a ice cell to see if they'll reanimate. I think that's a hint at where his body ends up and what did Aemon say, the cold preserves and the fire consumes. Jon's biggest change won't be physical but his personality, his time in Ghost will make him more savage/ confident and less likely to suppress his desires.

Warging into Ghost as a second life when you die is said to eat away at someone's humanity. It's not a refrigerator. If warging into Ghost was meant to preserve Jon's humanity then why add in this detail? 

 

Quote

"They say you forget," Haggon had told him, a few weeks before his own death. "When the man's flesh dies, his spirit lives on inside the beast, but every day his memory fades, and the beast becomes a littleless a warg, a little more a wolf, until nothing of the man is left and only the beast remains."

D & D have confirmed that Stannis burns Shireen in the books and Shireen is currently half a thousand miles away from Stannis when he dies so if Shireen's the spark then Jon will stay dead for maybe even months.

I do agree that Jon's body will be put in the ice cells but that only stops his body from visibly rotting. It won't affect the physical changes (no bloodflow, no heartbeat, no eating, no sleeping) nor his personality changes.

1 hour ago, nikma said:

And we know this will happen in the books, so he can't be  just a reanimated corpse there either. 

I don't think that any meaningful change in Jon's character in the books makes any sense.

I think Jon will have sex with Daenerys too but I don't think that him having an erection matters. Fire wights don't have blood flow, it's true, but they're literally magic. Beric doesn't have any bloodflow according to GRRM but somehow he's able to run around and be agile despite that being impossible for someone full of coagulated blood. 

I think we have to separate what does and doesn't make sense and what it is we like and don't like. 

Edited September 9, 2017 by WindyNights

[MarySNJ]

2 hours ago, Wouter said:

Allthough GRRM may be misleading here, I'm pretty sure he would simply not have killed Jon if by doing so he would now consider himself stuck. I don't doubt this was planned. If his body changes because of the resurrection (and it should, considering it's going to be magic ritual on a dead body, most likely by Melisandre's fire magic), maybe this could actually offer benefits as far as the fight against the Others goes (resistance to cold would be nice - Melisandre doesn't need an external fire, doesn't she?).

In that case though, there may also be a price to pay, as those huge magic feats always seem to take a toll in ASOIAF.

I fear that Shireen's death inadvertently paid for Jon's life in the show, and may do so in the book too. That is a terrible price to pay for Jon's life, but probably will be the unexpected result as I expect Shireen will be sacrificed for some other purpose as she was in the TV show. Try to imagine being broody Jon Snow knowing that his resurrection was bought by the death of an innocent child. Yikes. 

 

1 hour ago, nikma said:

And we know this will happen in the books, so he can't be  just a reanimated corpse there either. 

I don't think that any meaningful change in Jon's character in the books makes any sense.

Supposed Jon will have more wolf-like traits after inhabiting Ghost for a while but we'll see. 

 

ETA: Late to the party as others beat me to it. 

Edited September 9, 2017 by MarySNJ

[WindyNights]

1 hour ago, SimoneS said:

I don't care enough about the GoT books to have a theory about Jon or a wish about Jon. However, I do know how sci fantasy stories unfold and it unbelievable that Jon, the lead male protagonist, is going to be a reanimated corpse for the rest of this story when meeting Dany, falling in love with her, and having sex and a child is clearly in the direction that the story is going. I simply don't believe that Martin is going to turn Jon into to some half alive man. Maybe he isn't lying, maybe like @Wouter said, he is "misleading." 

 

First question. Have you read GRRM's other stories? 

GRRM isn't just a science-fantasy author. He's a horror author too and that bleeds very much into this series. So Daenerys x Jon being necrophilia on top of incest fits into that. 

 

 

1 hour ago, SimoneS said:

Everytime I read this quote from him, it cracks me up. Has he never read the Silmarillion? Gandalf isn't human. He is a magical being who has taken human form. Of course, when he "dies," he returns with the similar character, but stronger and more powerful. The only "pure" human in the fellowship is Boromir who is corrupted and dies early.

You're misinterpreting. He's not saying it doesn't make sense from in-story perspective. He just doesn't agree with the decision from an out of story perspective because it works against his worldview: 

 

So all that time I thought Gandalf was dead, and now he’s back and now he’s Gandalf the White. And, ehh, he’s more or less the same as always, except he’s more powerful. It always felt a little bit like a cheat to me. And as I got older and considered it more, it also seemed to me that death doesn’t make you more powerful. That’s, in some ways, me talking to Tolkien in the dialogue, saying, “Yeah, if someone comes back from being dead, especially if they suffer a violent, traumatic death, they’re not going to come back as nice as ever.”

My characters who come back from death are worse for wear. In some ways, they’re not even the same characters anymore. The body may be moving, but some aspect of the spirit is changed or transformed, and they’ve lost something. – GRRM

I’ve tried to set it up beforehand with Beric Dondarrion and his repeated [resurrections]. There’s a brief appearance by Beric in Book One and he rides into the city and he’s this flamboyant Southern knight. That’s not that man we meet later on.” – GRRM

The only reason that people don't want to believe it is because Jon is a main character and in some people's eyes the main character.

[MadMouse]

1 hour ago, WindyNights said:

Warging into Ghost as a second life when you die is said to eat away at someone's humanity. It's not a refrigerator. If warging into Ghost was meant to preserve Jon's humanity then why add in this detail?

Where did I say it would preserve his personality? I said it will change him.

Again his resurrection will involve two different types of magic, both examples you cited only involved either one. 

[WindyNights]

2 minutes ago, MadMouse said:

Where did I say it would preserve his personality? I said it will change him.

Again his resurrection will involve two different types of magic, both examples you cited only involved either one. 

Which could to the problem being compounded

I wouldn't be surprised if Jon howled when he comes back 

Edited September 10, 2017 by WindyNights

[MadMouse]

Just now, WindyNights said:

Which could to the problem being compounded

And it allows Martin do whatever he wants with Jon's resurrection, just like Dany's one time miraculous fire immunity.

[WindyNights]

41 minutes ago, MadMouse said:

And it allows Martin do whatever he wants with Jon's resurrection, just like Dany's one time miraculous fire immunity.

Yes, exactly. It's all up to GRRM.

 

But GRRM says death should bring drastic consequences and whoever he resurrects come back as not the same person which is one way how he differentiates himself from Tolkien .

That's why none of this loophole nonsense holds. If GRRM wanted to do that he would but I don't think he wants to.

[SimoneS]

1 hour ago, WindyNights said:

First question. Have you read GRRM's other stories? 

GRRM isn't just a science-fantasy author. He's a horror author too and that bleeds very much into this series. So Daenerys x Jon being necrophilia on top of incest fits into that. 

You're misinterpreting. He's not saying it doesn't make sense from in-story perspective. He just doesn't agree with the decision from an out of story perspective because it works against his worldview: 

No, I haven't read any of GRRM's other stories. I think he is terrible writer and barely managed to skim through ASOIAF. I have no idea what your comment about GRRM's lack of understanding about Gandalf means. 

Having a debate about what a wealthy pretentious author who cannot finish his story means or intends to write in that story based on his comments in interviews over the years makes me feel ridiculous so I am done. 

[WindyNights]

35 minutes ago, SimoneS said:

No, I haven't read any of GRRM's other stories. I think he is terrible writer and barely managed to skim through ASOIAF. I have no idea what your comment about GRRM's lack of understanding about Gandalf means. 

 

It means you have no idea what he's actually saying. It's not a complaint about in-story mechanics. It's a disagreement over worldviews. Tolkien's working off a Catholic mindset, GRRM is an atheist who has a different view on death. 

GRRM's other stories inform the intention GRRM is aiming for in this story. I can assure you that the ending won't be Jon and Daenerys ruling over Westeros in the end.

 

Having a debate about what a wealthy pretentious author who cannot finish his story means or intends to write in that story based on his comments in interviews over the years makes me feel ridiculous so I am done.

I mean you're in a Tv forum thread about GOT tv versus this book series to listen to people debate their differences.

I don't see any real difference in how ridiculous one is over the other.

Edited September 10, 2017 by WindyNights

[ShellsandCheese]

Hasn’t GRRM always said that Arya, Bran, Dany, Jon, and Tyrion are the five characters that will for sure be left standing in the end? Has that changed? If it hasn’t, than I think it’s safe to assume that Jon is definitely being resurrected in the books and not for the purpose of dying again. 

[WearyTraveler]

Before the show caught up to the books, I lost count of all the posts I read (here and in other places) stating that Jon would stay dead, and that he was not Rhaegar and Lyanna's child because Martin is supposed to be this rebel who just doesn't do fantasy tropes.

I confess I haven't read his other books, but I'm a very avid reader. I learned to read at 4 and since then, you can bet that I'm always in the middle of reading one book or anther, be they in paper or electronic.  Sometimes it's two, or even three, books.  When I was 12 years old I had a journal where I religiously wrote the title and author of every book I read.  By 13, the list was 1,000 titles long and at 15 I stopped keeping it.

It's one thing to try to subvert a trope and create something original, it's quite another to do so at the expense of story structure and logical literary plotting and characterizations.  When you read as much as I have, your brain starts identifying patterns.  Some patterns resonate with us because they are Universal issues that affect every human on Earth, regardless of culture, race, country of origin, religion, etc.  Some of those issues are death, grief, war, the struggle between good and evil, and so on.  Eventually, you pretty much develop a sense of where a story is going and where it will end up; and your appreciation for the work comes not from a surprising ending, but from the journey that takes you there: how compelling are the characters, how much can you relate, how much can you understand them, how detailed is the world they live in, etc.  Sure, there are some unexpected things, but they mean nothing if they were not set up in the pages leading up to them, or if you can't see the logical chain that led to that surprising thing.

Surprise, for surprise's sake is not satisfying for a reader.  Let me give you a short example.  Let's say I write a book about a sweet, orphan girl.  She's adopted as a baby and her parents are wonderful, supportive people.  She lives in a great little town and has many friends.  When she turns 6, her parents give her three puppies.  She takes care of them and loves them, feeds them and plays with them.  She's happy and kind to strangers, her inner monologue shows no signs of any malice or evil thoughts.  She's what you would call a goodie-two-shoes.  There's nothing wrong with her environment or her family.  She's not bullied in school, and she's not a bully either. She has many loving friendships.  On her 9th birthday she wakes up, goes to the kitchen, gets a knife and kills all three dogs.  The End.

That little story doesn't earn its ending.  It subverts the trope of the good guys being always good, it subverts the trope of having a source of dramatic tension for the protagonist.  It subverts the trope of having children be good and innocent.  It has a surprising ending. And yet, it's not a good story at all.  There's nothing to explain the sudden cruelty and murdering impulses.  The end is unearned and there was no set up or logical way to arrive at the surprising twist.

I'll give Martin his due and say he does write very compelling characters, in an engaging, detailed, fully developed world.  He even manages to surprise readers many times in ASOIAF: Ned's death, the Red Wedding, LSH, the Purple Wedding, Doran Martell's long game.  But he is not entirely free of tropes, and frankly no author is completely.  Tiny example: the Hound hitting Arya in the back of the head during the Red Wedding, leading us to think that she's dead, only to surprise us later with the revelation that she was hit with flat of the ax.  

To me, many of the people who were fiercely hanging on to their belief that Jon would be just some bastard and that he would stay dead, dead, dead failed to see the underlying story structure that indicated the contrary.  Some failed because they simply missed it, others because they don't like the "good" guys in their stories and this includes the Starks, and Jon, and Daenerys; they prefer the flaw-ridden anti-heroes who throw children out of windows or win power and riches through their cunning, brilliant minds.  Somehow, these things should be exalted, because it makes the character "more interesting" or a "winner".  And so, the story structure and all the logical threads that have gone on before the current circumstances MUST be ignored, so that the guys "I" like can win.

Yes, Martin talks about Beric being a shell of his former self, but the man has been resurrected "half a hundred" times (to use one of Martin's favorite writing crutches when it comes to counting something in the books).  Yes, Lady Stonehart is nothing like Cat, but her death was more traumatic, she suffered heavier losses and more humiliation than Jon at her moment of deah, and her body was in the river for days before it was found and resurrected.  Yes, the skinchanger says that, eventually, the warg's essence and thoughts will fade away inside the animal he/she is warging; but "eventually" is the operative word here, the warg needs to be separated from his/her own body for a long time for this to happen.

There are some things that make Jon different from Beric, LSH and the skinchanger fading away inside his animals:  he's Azor Ahai reborn (see Melisandre's chapter where she asks the Lord of Light to show her AA because she wants to see what is happening with Stannis, and she complains that the LoL only shows her snow), he's a Targaryen and he's special (just as Dany is special).  He won't be resuscitated  by Thoros, who, by his own admission, was never as devout and experienced as Melisandre; unlike Beric's umpteenth resurrection, he will be brought back only once (show Jon even asked Mel not to resurrect him again); although he died betrayed by his brothers, his state of mind was not as frail, damaged and traumatized as Catelyn's was before she died; he will not spend weeks and weeks warged into Ghost waiting to be resurrected.

So, while I agree that all these resurrections set the stage for Jon's eventual return, one can not ignore that there are things that make Jon different from all the previously resurrected people.  And this does not even contradict Martin's statement regarding Gandalf.  His objection was that Gandalf came back almost the same, that there was no consequence to himself personally.  That doesn't mean the consequences Martin has in mind have to be devastating for the character, that's an illogical leap (Beric's first resurrection wasn't devastating to him).  I don't have any doubt that Jon will be changed.  He needed to die so he could be AA reborn.  He will be changed but at the same time he will still be Jon Snow.  His core will remain the same.

Circling back to tropes, I see where Martin has subverted some, but others he has kept alive and well.  For an example, look no further than Tyrion's plot armor during any battle in which he's ever been involved; by Westerosi world standards, he should have been dead several times already, but he's one of Martin's 5 and the one he identifies with the most, so, on he goes, drowning his sorrows in wine while travelling through Essos.  I fully expect him to survive the revolt and bloody uprising we left him in at the end of book 5.

Edited September 10, 2017 by WearyTraveler

[screamin]

I think in the books Jon may come to the Vale, where "Alayne" will endeavor to speak to him, despite a prohibition of LF's not to, lest she be recognized. It stands to reason that Jon would appeal for aid to the Vale, which has untouched food reserves and armies to lend if they please. And I think it's foreshadowed when Sansa thinks of Jon "How sweet it would be to see him agaain."

[YaddaYadda]

Jon's death has been foreshadowed since AGOT during Bran's coma. It's still shocking as hell that it happened. But everything is also set for his return. I couldn't work out how Stannis would be back at the Wall, (especially after the pink letter business) because he seems to be an important part to Jon being brought back, but now that we know that he feeds Shireen to the flames, he'll be there for whatever event that's meant to happen at the Wall. 

Jon is supposed to be special and his resurrection will be special too. On the show, I see zero differences between Beric and Jon. Beric is a husk, there's nothing left of him, he doesn't remember all that much, he looks and sounds weary. Show!Beric is the opposite of that. It doesn't make Jon look all that special next to him. 

In the books, for sure there will be. Jon is going to come back changed. He was murdered, he started his second life, he's going to be get pushed out of his second life, and who knows what he will see when he is transitioning into his second life and out of it and if Bran and Bloodraven are going to show him things. Bran reached Jon through Ghost in ACOK, so there's a chance he might do that again. That's not to mention how questionable the moment for Bowen Marsh and his cronies chose to stab Jon. I know that Jon riding south was the straw that broke the camel's back, but I very much question the sanity of that plan. It was done in plain sight, just as Tormund, his son and some sixty (I think it's more) wildlings are present at Castle Black, Norrey and Flint are there with about a dozen men between them. Bowen Marsh went on a suicide mission. It very much feels like a moment that was manipulated for that specific end result, Jon's death. 

Anyway...we'll see, if ever.

[MadMouse]

Jon and Dany's journey parallel each other, her surviving the funeral pyre was described as a miracle and you could also argue a rebirth. Jon's will be similar to a degree, if Martin wanted him to be like Beric or Cat then he would have been brought back the same way but he didn't. All the factors likely to be involved in his resurrection are setting it up to be a miracle type situation too. Warging, sacrifice, Kings blood.

[Wouter]

5 hours ago, WearyTraveler said:

Before the show caught up to the books, I lost count of all the posts I read (here and in other places) stating that Jon would stay dead, and that he was not Rhaegar and Lyanna's child because Martin is supposed to be this rebel who just doesn't do fantasy tropes.

 

The vast majority of bookreaders expected Jon to be resurrected, well before it happened on the show. The same goes for Jon being the son of Rhaegar; this was the consensus after book 1.

[Wouter]

15 hours ago, ShellsandCheese said:

Hasn’t GRRM always said that Arya, Bran, Dany, Jon, and Tyrion are the five characters that will for sure be left standing in the end? Has that changed? If it hasn’t, than I think it’s safe to assume that Jon is definitely being resurrected in the books and not for the purpose of dying again. 

Martin hasn't said this. It's taken from an early outline for the books (with severe differences to the published works). Martin wrote in his pitch to publishers that those 5 characters would make it through all 3 (then planned) books. He has not said they will be "for sure left standing" at the very end. 

[WindyNights]

7 hours ago, WearyTraveler said:

Before the show caught up to the books, I lost count of all the posts I read (here and in other places) stating that Jon would stay dead, and that he was not Rhaegar and Lyanna's child because Martin is supposed to be this rebel who just doesn't do fantasy tropes.

I confess I haven't read his other books, but I'm a very avid reader. I learned to read at 4 and since then, you can bet that I'm always in the middle of reading one book or anther, be they in paper or electronic.  Sometimes it's two, or even three, books.  When I was 12 years old I had a journal where I religiously wrote the title and author of every book I read.  By 13, the list was 1,000 titles long and at 15 I stopped keeping it.

It's one thing to try to subvert a trope and create something original, it's quite another to do so at the expense of story structure and logical literary plotting and characterizations.  When you read as much as I have, your brain starts identifying patterns.  Some patterns resonate with us because they are Universal issues that affect every human on Earth, regardless of culture, race, country of origin, religion, etc.  Some of those issues are death, grief, war, the struggle between good and evil, and so on.  Eventually, you pretty much develop a sense of where a story is going and where it will end up; and your appreciation for the work comes not from a surprising ending, but from the journey that takes you there: how compelling are the characters, how much can you relate, how much can you understand them, how detailed is the world they live in, etc.  Sure, there are some unexpected things, but they mean nothing if they were not set up in the pages leading up to them, or if you can't see the logical chain that led to that surprising thing.

Surprise, for surprise's sake is not satisfying for a reader.  Let me give you a short example.  Let's say I write a book about a sweet, orphan girl.  She's adopted as a baby and her parents are wonderful, supportive people.  She lives in a great little town and has many friends.  When she turns 6, her parents give her three puppies.  She takes care of them and loves them, feeds them and plays with them.  She's happy and kind to strangers, her inner monologue shows no signs of any malice or evil thoughts.  She's what you would call a goodie-two-shoes.  There's nothing wrong with her environment or her family.  She's not bullied in school, and she's not a bully either. She has many loving friendships.  On her 9th birthday she wakes up, goes to the kitchen, gets a knife and kills all three dogs.  The End.

That little story doesn't earn its ending.  It subverts the trope of the good guys being always good, it subverts the trope of having a source of dramatic tension for the protagonist.  It subverts the trope of having children be good and innocent.  It has a surprising ending. And yet, it's not a good story at all.  There's nothing to explain the sudden cruelty and murdering impulses.  The end is unearned and there was no set up or logical way to arrive at the surprising twist.

I'll give Martin his due and say he does write very compelling characters, in an engaging, detailed, fully developed world.  He even manages to surprise readers many times in ASOIAF: Ned's death, the Red Wedding, LSH, the Purple Wedding, Doran Martell's long game.  But he is not entirely free of tropes, and frankly no author is completely.  Tiny example: the Hound hitting Arya in the back of the head during the Red Wedding, leading us to think that she's dead, only to surprise us later with the revelation that she was hit with flat of the ax.  

To me, many of the people who were fiercely hanging on to their belief that Jon would be just some bastard and that he would stay dead, dead, dead failed to see the underlying story structure that indicated the contrary.  Some failed because they simply missed it, others because they don't like the "good" guys in their stories and this includes the Starks, and Jon, and Daenerys; they prefer the flaw-ridden anti-heroes who throw children out of windows or win power and riches through their cunning, brilliant minds.  Somehow, these things should be exalted, because it makes the character "more interesting" or a "winner".  And so, the story structure and all the logical threads that have gone on before the current circumstances MUST be ignored, so that the guys "I" like can win.

Yes, Martin talks about Beric being a shell of his former self, but the man has been resurrected "half a hundred" times (to use one of Martin's favorite writing crutches when it comes to counting something in the books).  Yes, Lady Stonehart is nothing like Cat, but her death was more traumatic, she suffered heavier losses and more humiliation than Jon at her moment of deah, and her body was in the river for days before it was found and resurrected.  Yes, the skinchanger says that, eventually, the warg's essence and thoughts will fade away inside the animal he/she is warging; but "eventually" is the operative word here, the warg needs to be separated from his/her own body for a long time for this to happen.

There are some things that make Jon different from Beric, LSH and the skinchanger fading away inside his animals:  he's Azor Ahai reborn (see Melisandre's chapter where she asks the Lord of Light to show her AA because she wants to see what is happening with Stannis, and she complains that the LoL only shows her snow), he's a Targaryen and he's special (just as Dany is special).  He won't be resuscitated  by Thoros, who, by his own admission, was never as devout and experienced as Melisandre; unlike Beric's umpteenth resurrection, he will be brought back only once (show Jon even asked Mel not to resurrect him again); although he died betrayed by his brothers, his state of mind was not as frail, damaged and traumatized as Catelyn's was before she died; he will not spend weeks and weeks warged into Ghost waiting to be resurrected.

So, while I agree that all these resurrections set the stage for Jon's eventual return, one can not ignore that there are things that make Jon different from all the previously resurrected people.  And this does not even contradict Martin's statement regarding Gandalf.  His objection was that Gandalf came back almost the same, that there was no consequence to himself personally.  That doesn't mean the consequences Martin has in mind have to be devastating for the character, that's an illogical leap (Beric's first resurrection wasn't devastating to him).  I don't have any doubt that Jon will be changed.  He needed to die so he could be AA reborn.  He will be changed but at the same time he will still be Jon Snow.  His core will remain the same.

Circling back to tropes, I see where Martin has subverted some, but others he has kept alive and well.  For an example, look no further than Tyrion's plot armor during any battle in which he's ever been involved; by Westerosi world standards, he should have been dead several times already, but he's one of Martin's 5 and the one he identifies with the most, so, on he goes, drowning his sorrows in wine while travelling through Essos.  I fully expect him to survive the revolt and bloody uprising we left him in at the end of book 5.

By taking this stance, you're directly contradicting GRRM's words and are on holding onto hope because he's special.

GRRM says that his characters who die aren't the same characters who come back via resurrection. This isn't a vague statement, it's a definitive statement for all resurrections.

I could even see LSH and not Melisandre being the one the to bring him back considering she has Robb's will, crown, Ice in Targaryen colors and likely now knows the truth of his parentage.(We're not certain where she is when Jon dies) 

 

Furthermore, we don't know how affected Beric was with the first resurrection. We just know he's losing more and more of himself. He went from a Loras-type character to some grim specter. 

 

And that's not even getting to the physical changes which seems to be done on the first try. LSH looks like a vampiric zombie after one resurrection. She didn't get healed and her biological processes didn't restart considering she has a cut throat.

Right now I'm leaning toward the fact that we're going to lose Jon's POV and GRRM might want to turn him more into an enigma.

3 hours ago, MadMouse said:

Jon and Dany's journey parallel each other, her surviving the funeral pyre was described as a miracle and you could also argue a rebirth. Jon's will be similar to a degree, if Martin wanted him to be like Beric or Cat then he would have been brought back the same way but he didn't. All the factors likely to be involved in his resurrection are setting it up to be a miracle type situation too. Warging, sacrifice, Kings blood.

But he is. That's how the show did it. GRrM even said Beric's resurrection was a set up for Jon and Cat. And fire resurrection and ice resurrection are the only ways we can get resurrection. 

 

Also Stannis has been confirmed to burn Shireen so unless Jon is going to wait a month or more before he's revived then kingsblood will not be involved.

[MadMouse]

1 hour ago, WindyNights said:

But he is. That's how the show did it. GRrM even said Beric's resurrection was a set up for Jon and Cat. And fire resurrection and ice resurrection are the only ways we can get resurrection. 

 

Also Stannis has been confirmed to burn Shireen so unless Jon is going to wait a month or more before he's revived then kingsblood will not be involved.

All he said was it was a set up, never did he say Jon and Beric would be the same. Did Beric or Cat warg into a animal that we missed? Why include that if Jon was just going to be a carbon copy. Stannis would give the order to burn Shireen and she's at the wall. And since Mel has been at the wall all her visions have been pointing to Jon which she's ignored or misread. Both Stannis and Mel will burn her assuming it will do whatever but it will revive Jon. Once again something we haven't seen that in the books. Kings blood on both sides.

[WindyNights]

1 hour ago, MadMouse said:

All he said was it was a set up, never did he say Jon and Beric would be the same. Did Beric or Cat warg into a animal that we missed? Why include that if Jon was just going to be a carbon copy. 

 

We're talking about reanimition by fire. Beric/LSH/Jon.

I don't doubt that warging tweaks how it works but I don't think it works like a fridge. Ghost is a wolf that eats at Jon's humanity the longer he stays there. So like I've said before, it could make the personality change even more drastic. 

Take into account that this would do nothing about Jon's physical state.

 

1 hour ago, MadMouse said:

Stannis would give the order to burn Shireen and she's at the wall. And since Mel has been at the wall all her visions have been pointing to Jon which she's ignored or misread. Both Stannis and Mel will burn her assuming it will do whatever but it will revive Jon. Once again something we haven't seen that in the books. Kings blood on both sides.

Stannis couldn't even burn Edric without months of waffling his feet. He couldn't even burn Asha on the march to Winterfell despite her having queensblood. And yet, we're supposed to believe he asks for Shireen's immolation within the week without Melisandre's influence? If that happened, I'd say the show did it much better.

 

On top of that, Stannis knows he has a 20 K sellsword army on its way to the Wall even if he's defeated. He can afford to wait. Shireen's burning and Jon's resurrection won't be connected.

[MadMouse]

1 hour ago, WindyNights said:

 

We're talking about reanimition by fire. Beric/LSH/Jon.

I don't doubt that warging tweaks how it works but I don't think it works like a fridge. Ghost is a wolf that eats at Jon's humanity the longer he stays there. So like I've said before, it could make the personality change even more drastic. 

Take into account that this would do nothing about Jon's physical state.

 

Stannis couldn't even burn Edric without months of waffling his feet. He couldn't even burn Asha on the march to Winterfell despite her having queensblood. And yet, we're supposed to believe he asks for Shireen's immolation within the week without Melisandre's influence? If that happened, I'd say the show did it much better.

 

On top of that, Stannis knows he has a 20 K sellsword army on its way to the Wall even if he's defeated. He can afford to wait. Shireen's burning and Jon's resurrection won't be connected.

If warging doesn't change how it works why include then? Beric was resurrected multiple times, Cat's body had been decomposing for days, neither applies in Jon's situation. The same with him warging into Ghost, yeah its said you lose your humanity and basically become one with the animal, how many wargs have come back from that? Name one.

So while I agree that Jon's personality will change  to say he'll end up like Beric or LSH is a big assumption. Martin has left himself enough wiggle room he can do whatever he wants.

D&D after the episode aired said Martin told them Shireen burns on Stannis's orders.

Edited September 11, 2017 by MadMouse

[WindyNights]

2 hours ago, MadMouse said:

If warging doesn't change how it works why include then? Beric was resurrected multiple times, Cat's body had been decomposing for days, neither applies in Jon's situation. The same with him warging into Ghost, yeah its said you lose your humanity and basically become one with the animal, how many wargs have come back from that? Name one.

So while I agree that Jon's personality will change  to say he'll end up like Beric or LSH is a big assumption. Martin has left himself enough wiggle room he can do whatever he wants.

To tweak Jon's new personality in a different direction than LSH's and Beric's. A more wolf-like direction. 

Yes, you're right that GRRM can do anything he wants with the resurrection but his words say that he wants drastic changes for people who die.  He doesn't want Gandalf the White."Oh he's a little different but he's basically the same."

 

 

2 hours ago, MadMouse said:

D&D after the episode aired said Martin told them Shireen burns on Stannis's orders.

I know that. I'm not saying he doesn't but you're going to see Stannis struggle with that and that will take several chapters and you need Melisandre there to convince him. 

Stannis isn't going to just send a raven to do it. This is the climax of Stannis' story. You can't treat it like a check mark.

[WearyTraveler]

12 hours ago, WindyNights said:

By taking this stance, you're directly contradicting GRRM's words and are on holding onto hope because he's special.

I'm not contradicting Martin's words, I'm looking at them in conjunction with what he has done for other characters he himself has said are key to his story.  Many characters in the books get hurt, die, or suffer the natural consequences of the world Martin has created, such as the smallfolk, or the knight the Hound and Arya find in the Riverlands who is dying from an infected wound.  Other characters don't suffer the same consequences:

• Daenerys should have burned to dust in Drogo's funeral pyre, after all, she's human, made of flesh and blood.  When asked if Daenerys was immune to fire, Martin said she was not and that the fact that Dany didn't burn was a one time only special circumstance
• Bran fell from a very high tower, everyone agreed he should have died, but Bran was special, destined to be the three eyed raven, so he didn't die
• Tyrion, as I mentioned before, should have died several times already: by the hands of the mountain clans on his way in and out of the Vale, in the battle against Robb's forces where his father put him in the most dangerous place in the formation, in the battle of the Blackwater, when the stonemen attacked his boat... But, Tyrion always gets miraculously saved, while other men around him who are stronger and more experienced die or get greyscale
• Arya (and the Hound) shouldn't have survived the Red Wedding.  When they go in, the camp has been enclosed, they have to go through sentinels, it is described as a "one gate" to get in or out situation, this makes escape less likely.  Yet they manage to get away practically unscathed.  The Hound suffers more wounds at the hands of two of the Mountain's men than he does in the full blown battle outside the Frey castle.  We read a lot about common girls being raped (particulary in  AFFC, when Brienne is looking for Sansa) and killed during, and after, the war; but Arya never suffers that fate, even though she pretended to be a commoner from the moment she escaped The Red Keep

I can list more examples, but I think these make the point.  Martin may speak about other authors treating certain characters in special ways, but he's guilty of the same thing.

 

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GRRM says that his characters who die aren't the same characters who come back via resurrection. This isn't a vague statement, it's a definitive statement for all resurrections.

I never claimed Jon would be the exact same.  I believe my words were that he would change, but his core would remain the same.  Beric changed, but he didn't completely lose the person he was.  As a matter of fact, he continues to dedicate himself to the mission Ned gave him, from his first resurrection to his last death.  His core remained the same.

 

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I could even see LSH and not Melisandre being the one the to bring him back considering she has Robb's will, crown, Ice in Targaryen colors and likely now knows the truth of his parentage.(We're not certain where she is when Jon dies) 

There's no basis for this.  Anything is possible, but there's absolutely no indication of this happening.  Last we saw LSH, she was waiting for Brienne to deliver Jaime in the Riverlands, miles and miles away from The Wall.

 

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Furthermore, we don't know how affected Beric was with the first resurrection. We just know he's losing more and more of himself. He went from a Loras-type character to some grim specter. 

If he's losing more and more of himself, it stands to reason there's something to lose.  There was a whole 100% to start with.  The very statement he makes is that with every resurrection he loses something else.  Therefore, he didn't lose 80% the first time around.  He indicates it is the resurrection process that deteriorates him every time he goes through it.  So he started with 100%, the first time he was resurrected, he still continued fighting and outlawing his way around the Riverlands, so, maybe he lost 15-20%.  The next time he was resurrected, he started with 80-85%, so after the second resurrection, he'd be down to 60-65%, and so on.

He didn't lose all of himself after the first resurrection, this is clear by the fact the character himself says the process has been gradual and that the losses happen after he's resurrected, not in the times between resurrections; so, why would we presume that Jon will be equal to Beric's current sate after Jon's first resurrection?

If anything, Beric's story indicates that Jon may change a little after his first resurrection, and lose more and more of himself if he is resurrected again and again. It doesn't indicate that Jon will be a husk of his former self after only the first time.

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And that's not even getting to the physical changes which seems to be done on the first try. LSH looks like a vampiric zombie after one resurrection. She didn't get healed and her biological processes didn't restart considering she has a cut throat.

She looks the way she does because her body was decomposing in the hot weather of the Riverlands for two days before it was thrown into the river, where it floated and got bloated and more damaged as it made its way south of The Twins. That's different from Beric who gets resurrected immediately after each death, and who actually has scars (meaning healed) tissue from the different wounds that caused his many deaths.  Jon's body is at The Wall, where it's so cold, they keep meat frozen there for months and months, so, even if it takes a few days for his resurrection to happen, he won't look as worse for wear as LSH.  If we go by the two examples given to us in the books, Jon's body will be closer to Beric's after his resurrection than LSH.

 

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Right now I'm leaning toward the fact that we're going to lose Jon's POV and GRRM might want to turn him more into an enigma.

I doubt it.  But, again, anything is possible.  It just doesn't look plausible to me, after reading the first 5 books,

 

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But he is. That's how the show did it. GRrM even said Beric's resurrection was a set up for Jon and Cat. And fire resurrection and ice resurrection are the only ways we can get resurrection. 

Sure, but we have exceptions to the rules, such as Coldhands in the books, and Benjen on the show.  Martin likes to have rules for how things happen, but he likes to break his own rules too, and it's usually because.... reasons!

 

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Also Stannis has been confirmed to burn Shireen so unless Jon is going to wait a month or more before he's revived then kingsblood will not be involved.

We don't know how any of this is going to go down.  If the Pink Letter has some truth on it, Ramsay defeated Stannis.  It could be that Stannis escaped and is on his way to the Wall by the time Jon gets the letter.  It could be that he arrives, just a couple of days after Jon is murdered.  Or not.  The amount of time it will take Stannis to decide could be as long as it took him other times, or it could be shorter because he has suffered more losses and would be more willing to believe Melisandre now, after he loses almost everything to Ramsey.  There's no way to tell with the information we have, but a case can logically be made for several options.

Edited September 11, 2017 by WearyTraveler

[WearyTraveler]

5 hours ago, WindyNights said:

Yes, you're right that GRRM can do anything he wants with the resurrection but his words say that he wants drastic changes for people who die.  He doesn't want Gandalf the White."Oh he's a little different but he's basically the same."

Words are wind.  Or, as we say now: actions speak louder than words.  Beric didn't change all that much after his first resurrection.  He changed a little after each one, until he became a husk. LSH changed a lot, but her circumstances were different than Beric's.  The Others re-animate corpses, wildlings and black brothers seem to go through the process in the exact same way.  Very little of their former self remains (a little does, as we see from the wight that was after the Lord Commander in Castle Black).  BUT, Coldhands is special.  He is clearly an ice wight, but he's different from all the other ice wights.

Martin can say a lot of things about the writer he wants to be in interviews, but his own work speaks louder as to the kind of writer he actually is.  And he shouldn't be so hard on himself, he's actually a pretty good writer.

[benteen]

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My opinion is that GRRM's "gardening" style of writing is reason the original trilogy was extended to 7 books. I don't object to the story changing as it goes, rather than sticking to a strict outline, especially since what we've gotten so far is better than the original story described in the infamous letter from 1993. But GRRM's garden has a lot of exotic plants in it and they grew like weeds and are hard to bring under control. 

Definitely on this.  I don't think you have to stick to a strict outline, you should have the freedom to change the story if you wish.  Martin once said that he gets bored when he knows where the story is going.  I understand not wanting to make it predictable but if the story is heading in a certain direction, sometimes it just has to head in that certain direction.  His writing styles leads far too much into detours and distractions.  He's gone so far off the path that he might never get back on it and I don't think he's that interested anymore in getting back on it.

[WindyNights]

On 9/11/2017 at 4:01 AM, WearyTraveler said:

Words are wind.  Or, as we say now: actions speak louder than words.  Beric didn't change all that much after his first resurrection.  He changed a little after each one, until he became a husk. LSH changed a lot, but her circumstances were different than Beric's.  The Others re-animate corpses, wildlings and black brothers seem to go through the process in the exact same way.  Very little of their former self remains (a little does, as we see from the wight that was after the Lord Commander in Castle Black).  BUT, Coldhands is special.  He is clearly an ice wight, but he's different from all the other ice wights.

Martin can say a lot of things about the writer he wants to be in interviews, but his own work speaks louder as to the kind of writer he actually is.  And he shouldn't be so hard on himself, he's actually a pretty good writer.

Coldhands might actually be a fire wight as well. He doesn't have the blue eyes of an ice wight. 

 

Let's review GRRM's actions then: 

Drogo is brought back....as a vegetable. 

Gregor Clegane is brought back as a Frankstein monster/mute golem.

 

Beric is brought back 6 different times. He doesn't eat or sleep. His heart isn't beating. And he's lost so much memory that he doesn't know where he came a from or who the woman he was in love with. He goes from a flamboyant summer knight to a grim specter. 

Cat turns into a wrathful revenant. She's Nemesis wrecking vengeance on her enemies. Same physical effects as Beric.

[WearyTraveler]

14 hours ago, WindyNights said:

Coldhands might actually be a fire wight as well. He doesn't have the blue eyes of an ice wight. 

Fire wights don't have black hands, which is a very important feature of ice wights.  So much so, that after Sam and Gilly climb on the elk with Coldhands, the chapter closes with Sam noticing his hands are black.  A common technique to leave the readers in suspense and worried about what might happen to Sam and Gilly now that they are with a wight.  Since he does exhibit a big characteristic of the ice wights, I'm going to say that he is one, but something or someone interfered with the process.

 

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Drogo is brought back....as a vegetable. 

Gregor Clegane is brought back as a Frankstein monster/mute golem.

Drogo was brought back with blood magic.  So, he may actually be a third option for resurrection.  As far as we know, Mirri used blood in her ritual, not fire or ice, and her God is not R'hllor or The Other one.  It's possible that Gregor never died, we really don't know.  Qyburn experiments on people and it's implied he uses blood magic as well, which he learned while at the Citadel, but he's no red priest.

 

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Beric is brought back 6 different times. He doesn't eat or sleep. His heart isn't beating. And he's lost so much memory that he doesn't know where he came a from or who the woman he was in love with. He goes from a flamboyant summer knight to a grim specter. 

You don't seem to want to acknowledge the importance of the six times, which is something we should consider, given that the author took pains in reminding us of that every time someone mentions Beric and the Outlaws.  The first time we meet Beric after he left KL, he's in a cave, ready to pass judgement on the Hound.  He even makes a joke, he's agile, he's almost good enough to beat the Hound.  We learn that he still remembers the mission Ned entrusted on him, and it's only later that we learn he has been progressively losing his memories.  His heart not beating is not something that is said in the books, that I recall.  Perhaps you can provide a quote.  What is  said in the chapter as Arya is describing the character for us, is that he has the scars of the other wounds that killed him.  And scars means living tissue.

Once again, Beric says the process made him a specter progressively.  Not after the very first time. I'll ask again, if Beric is set up for Jon, why would Jon be a grim specter just after the first time?

But, I think the strongest argument for Jon not being radically changed after his resurrection is the show itself.  I know that they do some things differently, but, HBO made it a part of the deal that Martin had to tell them his intended ending in order for them to even do the show (basically, they said "spill the beans or we won't shower you with millions of dollars for the right to turn your books into a TV show").  Some of the minor characters' fates will not be the same (e.g. Selmy is dead on the show, alive in the books), off course; even some of the main characters' stories could change (e.g. Sansa's Vale plot was completely thrown out); but, the purpose of knowing the ending is to depict the ending, and D&D have said they'll do Martin's ending.  This is probably specially more true for the main 5 (of which Jon is a part) than for any of the others.

So, Jon, Tyrion, Bran, Arya and Dany will get the same ending in the show than they do in the books, for sure, while other characters might get something similar to heir book endings but not exactly the same.  And yet other characters will probably get completely different endings (Bronn and Tormund as fan favorites come to mind).  The fact that show!Jon is not significantly changed since his resurrection is the strongest indicator, so far, that those of us who have speculated a similar fate for Jon based on what we have read so far in the books could be correct.

 

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Cat turns into a wrathful revenant. She's Nemesis wrecking vengeance on her enemies. Same physical effects as Beric.

This is not a physical effect, it's an emotional / psychological one.  Plus, Beric isn't wrecking vengeance, he's handing out justice, just as Ned asked him to do.  It's not vengeance because he's not judging people that wronged him, he's judging those accused of crimes by the realm.  Perhaps he suffers from vigilantism, but it's not vengeance on enemies.

Edited September 13, 2017 by WearyTraveler

[WindyNights]

12 hours ago, WearyTraveler said:

Fire wights don't have black hands, which is a very important feature of ice wights.  So much so, that after Sam and Gilly climb on the elk with Coldhands, the chapter closes with Sam noticing his hands are black.  A common technique to leave the readers in suspense and worried about what might happen to Sam and Gilly now that they are with a wight.  Since he does exhibit a big characteristic of the ice wights, I'm going to say that he is one, but something or someone interfered with the process.

Coldhands says that the black hands are a result of the heart no longer beating. GRRM says that Beric's heart no longer beats so we can infer that Beric has black hands that he covers with gloves or that he'll get there.

Here's the quote:

 

The ranger studied his hands as if he had never noticed them before. "Once the heart has ceased to beat, a man's blood runs down into his extremities, where it thickens and congeals." His voice rattled in his throat, as thin and gaunt as he was. "His hands and feet swell up and turn as black as pudding. The rest of him becomes as white as milk."

 

as for the rest: 

12 hours ago, WearyTraveler said:

Drogo was brought back with blood magic.  So, he may actually be a third option for resurrection.  As far as we know, Mirri used blood in her ritual, not fire or ice, and her God is not R'hllor or The Other one.  It's possible that Gregor never died, we really don't know.  Qyburn experiments on people and it's implied he uses blood magic as well, which he learned while at the Citadel, but he's no red priest.

If you want to be pedantic then Drogo never actually died. MMD used blood magic on a living Drogo and he only came back as a vegetable. 

Clegane is dead at least in the books. Gregor's skull was sent to Dorne. He either has no head or is using someone else's head. Think of him as a golem.

12 hours ago, WearyTraveler said:

You don't seem to want to acknowledge the importance of the six times, which is something we should consider, given that the author took pains in reminding us of that every time someone mentions Beric and the Outlaws.  The first time we meet Beric after he left KL, he's in a cave, ready to pass judgement on the Hound.  He even makes a joke, he's agile, he's almost good enough to beat the Hound.  We learn that he still remembers the mission Ned entrusted on him, and it's only later that we learn he has been progressively losing his memories.  His heart not beating is not something that is said in the books, that I recall.  Perhaps you can provide a quote.  What is  said in the chapter as Arya is describing the character for us, is that he has the scars of the other wounds that killed him.  And scars means living tissue.

Once again, Beric says the process made him a specter progressively.  Not after the very first time. I'll ask again, if Beric is set up for Jon, why would Jon be a grim specter just after the first time?

GRRM flat out said that Beric was a corpse. Take it up with the author. I don't know why you're trying to argue canon.

Beric was set up for LSH and Jon. Again, those were GRRM's words.

Arya does note that Beric doesn't eat or sleep though and that he doesn't even feel the heat from his sword.

Anyways I don't think Beric being resurrected 6 times affects anything but his personality. He was no less dead the first time than the last time. I'm not arguing that Jon is going to lose his whole personality just that he'll be drastically different. I could even see him not having a POV anymore.

 

13 hours ago, WearyTraveler said:

But, I think the strongest argument for Jon not being radically changed after his resurrection is the show itself.  I know that they do some things differently, but, HBO made it a part of the deal that Martin had to tell them his intended ending in order for them to even do the show (basically, they said "spill the beans or we won't shower you with millions of dollars for the right to turn your books into a TV show").  Some of the minor characters' fates will not be the same (e.g. Selmy is dead on the show, alive in the books), off course; even some of the main characters' stories could change (e.g. Sansa's Vale plot was completely thrown out); but, the purpose of knowing the ending is to depict the ending, and D&D have said they'll do Martin's ending.  This is probably specially more true for the main 5 (of which Jon is a part) than for any of the others.

So, Jon, Tyrion, Bran, Arya and Dany will get the same ending in the show than they do in the books, for sure, while other characters might get something similar to heir book endings but not exactly the same.  And yet other characters will probably get completely different endings (Bronn and Tormund as fan favorites come to mind).  The fact that show!Jon is not significantly changed since his resurrection is the strongest indicator, so far, that those of us who have speculated a similar fate for Jon based on what we have read so far in the books could be correct.

If Jon dies in the books and dies in the show then that would be the same ending, correct? Anything else is stuff that happens along the way. So if Jon came back as a Beric-type versus the full resurrection he had in the show, it would still be the same ending if they both die. That's why it's erroneous to say that because his happens in the show then this must happen in the books.

 

On top of that, the show writers have already stated that the ending of the show will no longer be the same as the books' ending. 

Here's quote: 

BENIOFF: It’s already too late for that. We’re already well past the point of it[the ending]jibing 100 percent. We’ve passed George and that’s something that George always worried about — the show catching up and ultimately passing him — but the good thing about us diverging at this point is that George’s books will still be a surprise for readers who have seen the show. Certain things that we learned from George way back in that meeting in Santa Fe are going to happen on the show, but certain things won’t. And there’s certain things where George didn’t know what was going to happen, so we’re going to find them out for the first time too, along with millions of readers when we read those books.

 

moving to your last quote: 

 

14 hours ago, WearyTraveler said:

This is not a physical effect, it's an emotional / psychological one.  Plus, Beric isn't wrecking vengeance, he's handing out justice, just as Ned asked him to do.  It's not vengeance because he's not judging people that wronged him, he's judging those accused of crimes by the realm.  Perhaps he suffers from vigilantism, but it's not vengeance on enemies.

That's not what I meant. Same physical effects as in Beric meaning that both LSH and Beric are walking, talking corpses without a beating heart. LSH was only resurrected once btw.

Beric and LSH do share an emotional effect in common. They're both clinging to their desires right before they perished. Beric's desire was to protect the smallfolk and brig Gregor's bAnd to justice and Cat's last desire were for her children and to punish the Frey. 

Also segues in nicely with Jon's last desire before he died which was to take Winterfell and rescue Arya.

[WearyTraveler]

2 hours ago, WindyNights said:

Coldhands says that the black hands are a result of the heart no longer beating. GRRM says that Beric's heart no longer beats so we can infer that Beric has black hands that he covers with gloves or that he'll get there.

Here's the quote:

I wasn't asking about Coldhand's heart, I know his heart isn't beating, and I'm quite familiar with his speech.  He says it to Bran when they are in an abandoned wildling village, after Bran tells him he knows Coldhands has just killed brothers of the NW (because he saw their bodies as Summer and fought with Varamyr in the skin of his one-eyed wolf for the right to feed from the corpses).

What I said was that I didn't recall anyone in the books saying that Beric's heart wasn't beating.  And they don't.  Martin says it later in an interview, but the work should stand for itself.  If he wanted readers to know that Beric's heart isn't beating, then, someone should have said it, regarding Beric, in the books.  Also, he shouldn't have given the man scars from the wounds that killed him, because scars means living tissue, and living tissue means a beating heart.

Before assuming that Martin doesn't know this, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and an attempt at cunning.  Perhaps Martin meant that Beric's heart isn't beating now, after six resurrections, but it might have been beating before.

In any case, there is, in the canon, a marked difference between ice resurrections, as performed by the Others, and fire resurrections, as performed by the priests and priestesses of R'hllor.  And since the canon doesn't go into all the differences and the implications, we simply can't say, for sure, how it works and how it all turns out for Jon.

 

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If you want to be pedantic then Drogo never actually died. MMD used blood magic on a living Drogo and he only came back as a vegetable. 

 

Well, let's not call each other names, shall we? I'm sorry you felt I was being pedantic.  That wasn't my intention.  You brought up Drogo, so, I pointed out he was brought back as a vegetable, and MMD did say the words "only death can pay for life".  Then she proceeded to kill Daenerys' baby, so that Drogo could "live".  Dany then took three lives (MMD, Drogo and Drogo's horse) to pay for the lives of her three Dragons.

My point in bringing this up is that it appears, from the canon, that blood magic is yet a third way to bring people back from the dead.

 

Quote

Clegane is dead at least in the books. Gregor's skull was sent to Dorne. He either has no head or is using someone else's head. Think of him as a golem.

 

We know that Dorne was promised Gregor's head, and we know that Tywin wanted it to be a public execution so there could be no doubt that it was the Lannisters "paying their debts".  We also know that further delays in sending said head would look suspicious, so a skull was sent, but there was no public execution, and no scene in the book where either Qyburn or Cersei admits that this is, in fact, Gregor's head.  If I recall correctly, once Doran receives it, he even expresses some doubts about it being Gregor's head.  So, it could have been his head, or it could have been a decoy to appease Dorne.  

The conversation in the books goes as follows:

Quote

She [Cersei] took Qyburn by the arm as they made their way down the stairs. "Have you attended to that little task I set you?"

"I have, Your Grace.  I am sorry that it took so long.  Such a large head.  It took the beetles many hours to clean the flesh.  By way of pardon, I have lined a box of ebony and silver with felt, to make a fitting presentation for the skull."

"A cloth sack would serve as well. Prince Doran wants his head.  He won't give a fig what sort of box it comes in".

It could be they sent Gregor's head, or maybe not.  I don't think the text gives us a definitive answer.  But, in any case, my point wasn't about his head.  In fact, my point is even stronger if Gregor did die, as my specific argument was that Qyburn is neither a White Walker, nor a priest of R'hllor, so whatever Gregor is now, he's not a fire wight or an ice wight.  It is heavily implied that Qyburn was using blood magic rituals that he learned in the Citadel to reanimate Gregor.  So, once again, there's a third way to resurrect people in the books.

We saw what Mel did on the show, and her ritual was different from Thoros'.  In the books she's also fond of using King's Blood for her work, something that Thoros doesn't use.  So, it stands to reason that Mel's process to resurrect Jon in the books could be different than what we have seen so far from other re-animators (White Walkers, Red Priests, practioners of blood magic).

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GRRM flat out said that Beric was a corpse. Take it up with the author. I don't know why you're trying to argue canon.

First of all, canon is only the books.  If Martin wants his readers to know something, it should be written in the books as not all readers will bother to read his interviews.  The books clearly state that Coldhands and all the other ice wights are corpses, but it leaves wiggle room when it comes to people resurrected by Red Priests.

Second of all, I never said Beric, at the end of his days, is not a corpse.  I only pointed out facts from the books that indicate he might not have been a corpse right after his first resurrection (scar tissue being present, no blood congealing in his extremities, the fact that his memories didn't disappear completely after his first resurrection but did so progressively after each resurrection).

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Beric was set up for LSH and Jon. Again, those were GRRM's words.

And I never said they weren't set up.  I pointed out that LSH and Beric come out of the process differently.  By the time Beric is a husk of his former self it has been six resurrections, his body healed, hers didn't.  He lost his memories, she recalls the Red Wedding in detail.  These are indications that this resurrection process is not consistent.  Ergo, it's hard to tell how Jon will be affected, given that he's a warg (which neither Beric nor LHS are); the Red Priestess that will apparently resurrect him has different rituals than Thoros, which include using blood magic; and they are at The Wall, where Mel herself tells Jon in ADWD that the magic of The Wall is strong, and she is stronger there; to name a few.

I'm not contradicting canon, I'm merely pointing out that:

1. Canon is not consistent when it comes to resurrections.  The author has clearly given himself plenty of wiggle room to do whatever he wants with Jon's resurrection by setting him up as special: he's a warg, and a Targ, and the embodiment of fire+ice, and most likely TPTWP or AA. Dany is also a strong candidate but she has never wielded a sword in the books or on the show, so that reduces the likelihood that she will be the one to fulfill the prophesy.  On the show, there have been two stare downs between NK and Jon, both emphasized by the way the scene is shot and the music that goes with it.  I think this points to Jon being the one having to kill the NK in order to eliminate the WW threat, so, he will be AA reborn.
2. Martin says many things about having real consequences for characters, but many of his own characters have quite a thick plot armor protecting them and don't suffer the real consequences that they should suffer as people living in this world Martin created. I believe I have already given several examples of this.
3. What Martin says he wants to do as a writer in interviews is not always what Martin does as a writer in his books.  For example, Martin has complained that in TLOTR we are told that Aragorn was a good King, but that we actually don't know why Aragorn was a good King because we are never told of his economic and social policies (I think he specifically mentions taxes).  With two books left, Martin will probably have to give a similar answer to his own readers.  Whatever power structure is set up at the end of this saga, I doubt we'll get an 8th book explaining, in detail, why the form of government established in Westeros after the WW threat is eliminated is good/bad.

Quote

Arya does note that Beric doesn't eat or sleep though and that he doesn't even feel the heat from his sword.

Yes, she does.  But we don't know that this was always the case, as she meets him after a few resurrections have already happened.

 

Quote

Anyways I don't think Beric being resurrected 6 times affects anything but his personality. He was no less dead the first time than the last time. I'm not arguing that Jon is going to lose his whole personality just that he'll be drastically different. I could even see him not having a POV anymore.

 

And I'm saying that there's room in the canon to believe otherwise because the characters say that his deterioration has been (a)progressive and (b)the result of each resurrection.  It's the resurrections that seem to be taking a toll on his body and his mind.

I'm also saying that your interpretation may be a valid one, but that book canon and author choices in the text leave enough room for other interpretations to be just as valid and plausible.

We'll just have to wait for the next two books to see which one it turns out to be, if Martin ever deigns to finish the story he started, that is.
 

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If Jon dies in the books and dies in the show then that would be the same ending, correct? Anything else is stuff that happens along the way. So if Jon came back as a Beric-type versus the full resurrection he had in the show, it would still be the same ending if they both die. That's why it's erroneous to say that because his happens in the show then this must happen in the books.

With some characters, yes, with Jon, Arya, Daenerys, Tyrion and Bran, no.  Their show stories have been extremely close to their book stories. For those who are not fans of these characters, it might be a hard pill to swallow, but these are the top five protagonists and whatever happens to them on the show, will probably be very close to what happens to them in the books.  I have no doubt that Jon and Dany will eventually end up falling for each other in the books, for example. 

I think that if it's an important development for one of these five characters, it will certainly be very similar.
 

Quote

On top of that, the show writers have already stated that the ending of the show will no longer be the same as the books' ending. 

Here's quote: 

Quote

BENIOFF: It’s already too late for that. We’re already well past the point of it[the ending]jibing 100 percent. We’ve passed George and that’s something that George always worried about — the show catching up and ultimately passing him — but the good thing about us diverging at this point is that George’s books will still be a surprise for readers who have seen the show. Certain things that we learned from George way back in that meeting in Santa Fe are going to happen on the show, but certain things won’t. And there’s certain things where George didn’t know what was going to happen, so we’re going to find them out for the first time too, along with millions of readers when we read those books.

 

This is grasping at straws, in my opinion.  Off course some things will be different for some characters.  I imagine Bronn and Tormund will have very different endings on the show than they do in the books.  fAegon isn't even on the show, so, if they learned about his fate in Santa Fe, they will not depict that on the show.  As to things that Martin wasn't sure about, it's a safe bet that this relates to second and third tier characters, like little Lyanna Mormont.  Martin has always known the fate of his top five and I'm pretty sure that fate will remain the same in both mediums.

Quote

That's not what I meant. Same physical effects as in Beric meaning that both LSH and Beric are walking, talking corpses without a beating heart. LSH was only resurrected once btw.

Precisely. She was only resurrected once and the effect on her body is worse than Beric's who has been resurrected 6 times.  So, the process was not consistent.

Edited September 14, 2017 by WearyTraveler

[screamin]

51 minutes ago, WearyTraveler said:

I wasn't asking about Coldhand's heart, I know his heart isn't beating, and I'm quite familiar with his speech.  He says it to Bran when they are in an abandoned wildling village, after Bran tells him he knows Coldhands has just killed brothers of the NW (because he saw their bodies as Summer and fought with Varamyr in the skin of his one-eyed wolf for the right to feed from the corpses).

What I said was that I didn't recall anyone in the books saying that Beric's heart wasn't beating.  And they don't.  Martin says it later in an interview, but the work should stand for itself.  If he wanted readers to know that Beric's heart isn't beating, then, someone should have said it, regarding Beric, in the books.  Also, he shouldn't have given the man scars from the wounds that killed him, because scars means living tissue, and living tissue means a beating heart.

Before assuming that Martin doesn't know this, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and an attempt at cunning.  Perhaps Martin meant that Beric's heart isn't beating now, after six resurrections, but it might have been beating before.

In any case, there is, in the canon, a marked difference between ice resurrections, as performed by the Others, and fire resurrections, as performed by the priests and priestesses of R'hllor.  And since the canon doesn't go into all the differences and the implications, we simply can't say, for sure, how it works and how it all turns out for Jon.

 

 

Well, let's not call each other names, shall we? I'm sorry you felt I was being pedantic.  That wasn't my intention.  You brought up Drogo, so, I pointed out he was brought back as a vegetable, and MMD did say the words "only death can pay for life".  Then she proceeded to kill Daenerys' baby, so that Drogo could "live".  Dany then took three lives (MMD, Drogo and Drogo's horse) to pay for the lives of her three Dragons.

My point in bringing this up is that it appears, from the canon, that blood magic is yet a third way to bring people back from the dead.

 

We know that Dorne was promised Gregor's head, and we know that Tywin wanted it to be a public execution so there could be no doubt that it was the Lannisters "paying their debts".  We also know that further delays in sending said head would look suspicious, so a skull was sent, but there was no public execution, and no scene in the book where either Qyburn or Cersei admits that this is, in fact, Gregor's head.  If I recall correctly, once Doran receives it, he even expresses some doubts about it being Gregor's head.  So, it could have been his head, or it could have been a decoy to appease Dorne.  

The conversation in the books goes as follows:

It could be they sent Gregor's head, or maybe not.  I don't think the text gives us a definitive answer.  But, in any case, my point wasn't about his head.  In fact, my point is even stronger if Gregor did die, as my specific argument was that Qyburn is neither a White Walker, nor a priest of R'hllor, so whatever Gregor is now, he's not a fire wight or an ice wight.  It is heavily implied that Qyburn was using blood magic rituals that he learned in the Citadel to reanimate Gregor.  So, once again, there's a third way to resurrect people in the books.

We saw what Mel did on the show, and her ritual was different from Thoros'.  In the books she's also fond of using King's Blood for her work, something that Thoros doesn't use.  So, it stands to reason that Mel's process to resurrect Jon in the books could be different than what we have seen so far from other re-animators (White Walkers, Red Priests, practioners of blood magic).

First of all, canon is only the books.  If Martin wants his readers to know something, it should be written in the books as not all readers will bother to read his interviews.  The books clearly state that Coldhands and all the other ice wights are corpses, but it leaves wiggle room when it comes to people resurrected by Red Priests.

Second of all, I never said Beric, at the end of his days, is not a corpse.  I only pointed out facts from the books that indicate he might not have been a corpse right after his first resurrection (scar tissue being present, no blood congealing in his extremities, the fact that his memories didn't disappear completely after his first resurrection but did so progressively after each resurrection).

And I never said they weren't set up.  I pointed out that LSH and Beric come out of the process differently.  By the time Beric is a husk of his former self it has been six resurrections, his body healed, hers didn't.  He lost his memories, she recalls the Red Wedding in detail.  These are indications that this resurrection process is not consistent.  Ergo, it's hard to tell how Jon will be affected, given that he's a warg (which neither Beric nor LHS are); the Red Priestess that will apparently resurrect him has different rituals than Thoros, which include using blood magic; and they are at The Wall, where Mel herself tells Jon in ADWD that the magic of The Wall is strong, and she is stronger there; to name a few.

I'm not contradicting canon, I'm merely pointing out that:

1. Canon is not consistent when it comes to resurrections.  The author has clearly given himself plenty of wiggle room to do whatever he wants with Jon's resurrection by setting him up as special: he's a warg, and a Targ, and the embodiment of fire+ice, and most likely TPTWP or AA. Dany is also a strong candidate but she has never wielded a sword in the books or on the show, so that reduces the likelihood that she will be the one to fulfill the prophesy.  On the show, there have been two stare downs between NK and Jon, both emphasized by the way the scene is shot and the music that goes with it.  I think this points to Jon being the one having to kill the NK in order to eliminate the WW threat, so, he will be AA reborn.
2. Martin says many things about having real consequences for characters, but many of his own characters have quite a thick plot armor protecting them and don't suffer the real consequences that they should suffer as people living in this world Martin created. I believe I have already given several examples of this.
3. What Martin says he wants to do as a writer in interviews is not always what Martin does as a writer in his books.  For example, Martin has complained that in TLOTR we are told that Aragorn was a good King, but that we actually don't know why Aragorn was a good King because we are never told of his economic and social policies (I think he specifically mentions taxes).  With two books left, Martin will probably have to give a similar answer to his own readers.  Whatever power structure is set up at the end of this saga, I doubt we'll get an 8th book explaining, in detail, why the form of government established in Westeros after the WW threat is eliminated is good/bad.

Yes, she does.  But we don't know that this was always the case, as she meets him after a few resurrections have already happened.

 

And I'm saying that there's room in the canon to believe otherwise because the characters say that his deterioration has been (a)progressive and (b)the result of each resurrection.  It's the resurrections that seem to be taking a toll on his body and his mind.

I'm also saying that your interpretation may be a valid one, but that book canon and author choices in the text leave enough room for other interpretations to be just as valid and plausible.

We'll just have to wait for the next two books to see which one it turns out to be, if Martin ever deigns to finish the story he started, that is.
 

With some characters, yes, with Jon, Arya, Daenerys, Tyrion and Bran, no.  Their show stories have been extremely close to their book stories. For those who are not fans of these characters, it might be a hard pill to swallow, but these are the top five protagonists and whatever happens to them on the show, will probably be very close to what happens to them in the books.  I have no doubt that Jon and Dany will eventually end up falling for each other in the books, for example. 

I think that if it's an important development for one of these five characters, it will certainly be very similar.
 

This is grasping at straws, in my opinion.  Off course some things will be different for some characters.  I imagine Bronn and Tormund will have very different endings on the show than they do in the books.  fAegon isn't even on the show, so, if they learned about his fate in Santa Fe, they will not depict that on the show.  As to things that Martin wasn't sure about, it's a safe bet that this relates to second and third tier characters, like little Lyanna Mormont.  Martin has always known the fate of his top five and I'm pretty sure that fate will remain the same in both mediums.

Precisely. She was only resurrected once and the effect on her body is worse than Beric's who has been resurrected 6 times.  So, the process was not consistent.

It was specifically stated in the books that Lady Stoneheart was resurrected after days of her corpse rotting in the river where it was thrown, that Thoros refused to try to resurrect her because it had been "too long" and that Beric had chosen  (in relief?) to give up his resurrected life to her. This could account for the difference between Beric and her (the rotted appearance, the unhealed wounds). 

On the same subject, who else thinks Brienne was resurrected prior to her last appearance in the books?

[WindyNights]

1 hour ago, WearyTraveler said:

I wasn't asking about Coldhand's heart, I know his heart isn't beating, and I'm quite familiar with his speech.  He says it to Bran when they are in an abandoned wildling village, after Bran tells him he knows Coldhands has just killed brothers of the NW (because he saw their bodies as Summer and fought with Varamyr in the skin of his one-eyed wolf for the right to feed from the corpses).

What I said was that I didn't recall anyone in the books saying that Beric's heart wasn't beating.  And they don't.  Martin says it later in an interview, but the work should stand for itself.  If he wanted readers to know that Beric's heart isn't beating, then, someone should have said it, regarding Beric, in the books.  Also, he shouldn't have given the man scars from the wounds that killed him, because scars means living tissue, and living tissue means a beating heart.

Before assuming that Martin doesn't know this, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and an attempt at cunning.  Perhaps Martin meant that Beric's heart isn't beating now, after six resurrections, but it might have been beating before.

Coldhands is agile and able to fight men if the NW despite not having any pumping blood, I don't think scar tissue is a good indication because these guys have magic bodies. Their bodies are no longer bound by the laws of biology. Beric's body is knitted back together to some extent through magic not the actual healing process hence why Beric is pretty normal after the Hound nearly cleaves his shoulder off.

I mean it's fair to say that GRRM didn't make that clear in the books but that's more a critique against the author rather than building up an argument as to why Jon's resurrection will largely mirror the show's version.

 

2 hours ago, WearyTraveler said:

In any case, there is, in the canon, a marked difference between ice resurrections, as performed by the Others, and fire resurrections, as performed by the priests and priestesses of R'hllor.  And since the canon doesn't go into all the differences and the implications, we simply can't say, for sure, how it works and how it all turns out for Jon.

 

Sure but GRRM called Beric not the ice wights, the foundation behind Jon and Cat's return. He's linking all 3 together. And we know how fire resurrection works,for the most part, the resurrector seems to sacrifice a bit of their life force and the resurrected sacrifices parts of their own being like their memories in order to come back. And what GRRM is saying is that true resurrection doesn't exist. Corpses are reanimated and people's souls are re-attached.  The magic doesn't actually turn a dead body into a living body. 

 

You brought up Drogo, so, I pointed out he was brought back as a vegetable, and MMD did say the words "only death can pay for life".  Then she proceeded to kill Daenerys' baby, so that Drogo could "live".  Dany then took three lives (MMD, Drogo and Drogo's horse) to pay for the lives of her three Dragons.

My point in bringing this up is that it appears, from the canon, that blood magic is yet a third way to bring people back from the dead.

 

I mean Drogo and Gregor are the only blood resurrections we have and both of them came back as brainless mutes. 

 

We know that Dorne was promised Gregor's head, and we know that Tywin wanted it to be a public execution so there could be no doubt that it was the Lannisters "paying their debts".  We also know that further delays in sending said head would look suspicious, so a skull was sent, but there was no public execution, and no scene in the book where either Qyburn or Cersei admits that this is, in fact, Gregor's head.  If I recall correctly, once Doran receives it, he even expresses some doubts about it being Gregor's head.  So, it could have been his head, or it could have been a decoy to appease Dorne.  

The conversation in the books goes as follows:

It could be they sent Gregor's head, or maybe not.  I don't think the text gives us a definitive answer.  But, in any case, my point wasn't about his head.  In fact, my point is even stronger if Gregor did die, as my specific argument was that Qyburn is neither a White Walker, nor a priest of R'hllor, so whatever Gregor is now, he's not a fire wight or an ice wight.  It is heavily implied that Qyburn was using blood magic rituals that he learned in the Citadel to reanimate Gregor.  So, once again, there's a third way to resurrect people in the books.

 

That's not really Gregor. It's Gregor's body mixed with the body parts of other people. He's Frankenstein's Monster. 

 

But anyways, there's an AGOT Bran chapter that strongly implies that he has no head:

There were shadows all around them. One shadow was dark as ash, with the terrible face of a hound. Another was armored like the sun, golden and beautiful. Over them both loomed a giant in armor made of stone, but when he opened his visor, there was nothing inside but darkness and thick black blood.

 

It's possible that he does have a head or that it's a head that's not his own but I think Cersei really did send them Gregor's head. It's hard to imitate an 8 foot tall man's head.

2 hours ago, WearyTraveler said:

We saw what Mel did on the show, and her ritual was different from Thoros'.  In the books she's also fond of using King's Blood for her work, something that Thoros doesn't use.  So, it stands to reason that Mel's process to resurrect Jon in the books could be different than what we have seen so far from other re-animators (White Walkers, Red Priests, practioners of blood magic).

 

Melisandre can do anything GRRM wants her to. The most important question and it's one that you keep ignoring is " What does GRRM want?"

 

Does GRRM want to bring back Jon the same and stronger than ever? Gandalf the White is different than Gandalf the Grey but GRRM disparages the the whole character by saying it's basically the same guy even if he's a little different. 

GRRM's whole point of view is that death is transformative to the point that the characters that have been brought back should no longer be the same person.

 

We're getting too hung up on the mechanics when the #1 focus should be on what GRRM intends.

 

You can make an argument on the whole undead body but have we ever witnessed a character come back to life with a living body. Well seeing as Beric is also a corpse then the answer is no so I see no reason why Jon would be different. 

The whole argument that Jon will be alive alive rests on him being a main character and because people think he's too special to do that to. This is GRRM. I think is an enlightening quote on how he thinks:

GRRM:"I killed Ned because everybody thinks he’s the hero and that, sure, he’s going to get into trouble, but then he’ll somehow get out of it," he says. "The next predictable thing is to think his eldest son is going to rise up and avenge his father. And everybody is going to expect that. So immediately [killing Robb] became the next thing I had to do."

He killed Ned to dash expectations and he killed Robb to dash expectations. There are plenty of fans who expect Jon to get the Gandalf the White treatment even though they know GRRM doesn't like that and they do it by talking up how being a little more wolf-like is a major change. I think that's an expectation that GRRM is going to dash. 

Ultimately, Jon is a wish-fulfillment character and I think GRRM knows that. And I think he's using that to his advantage. 

 

Canon is not consistent when it comes to resurrections.  The author has clearly given himself plenty of wiggle room to do whatever he wants with Jon's resurrection by setting him up as special: he's a warg, and a Targ, and the embodiment of fire+ice, and most likely TPTWP or AA. Dany is also a strong candidate but she has never wielded a sword in the books or on the show, so that reduces the likelihood that she will be the one to fulfill the prophesy.  On the show, there have been two stare downs between NK and Jon, both emphasized by the way the scene is shot and the music that goes with it.  I think this points to Jon being the one having to kill the NK in order to eliminate the WW threat, so, he will be AA reborn.

 

Daenerys is AA. Jon might be too but the prophecy makes it clear that AA is supposed to wake dragons from stone. That's something only Daenerys has done. I don't think Jon is ever going to wake dragons from stone,

 

What Martin says he wants to do as a writer in interviews is not always what Martin does as a writer in his books.  For example, Martin has complained that in TLOTR we are told that Aragorn was a good King, but that we actually don't know why Aragorn was a good King because we are never told of his economic and social policies (I think he specifically mentions taxes).  With two books left, Martin will probably have to give a similar answer to his own readers.  Whatever power structure is set up at the end of this saga, I doubt we'll get an 8th book explaining, in detail, why the form of government established in Westeros after the WW threat is eliminated is good/bad.

Actually, I think we will. He wants an ending like Scouring of the Shire/LOTR. LOTR continues long after its climax. I actually think the final battle might occur halfway into his last book with the latter half detailing all the consequence and what's set up for the future of Westeros but even if he doesn't, he went into detail about how Jon and Daenerys are as rulers.

2 hours ago, WearyTraveler said:

With some characters, yes, with Jon, Arya, Daenerys, Tyrion and Bran, no.  Their show stories have been extremely close to their book stories. For those who are not fans of these characters, it might be a hard pill to swallow, but these are the top five protagonists and whatever happens to them on the show, will probably be very close to what happens to them in the books.  I have no doubt that Jon and Dany will eventually end up falling for each other in the books, for example. 

 

Not really. I mean I think Daenerys' story is the most accurate and i think that's because GRRM had her story very well plotted out but it's not really how GRRM is telling her story. Jon x Daenerys is definitely accurate but I know that mostly because the books have big flashing neon signs that Jon is going to hook up with Daenerys,

 

But look at Tyrion's story. Does it seem very probable that GRRM is going to sideline his favorite character like that? Show Tyrion acts like a prop to Daenerys' story. What is Show Tyrion's storyline? He wants a good queen to break the wheel? 'Cause that's not Book Tyrion's storyline which is "I want Westeros to suffer, kill my siblings and rape Cersei". Book Tyrion is a villain, Show Tyrion is a straight hero. 

And Sansa's story doesn't seem like it would resemble her story at all in the books. All that Ramsay stuff was invented so how much show stuff does that leave really? Not much. She meets the Stark siblings and she takes down Littlefinger. All those other details don't seem to be things that GRRM would actually detail until he got into that point. 

If you really analyze it, there's actually not much story that Arya and Bran had post-ADWD material. And Arya's material in particular is mostly just show invented like her hand in the Frey massacre.

So that leaves Jon's story. Like I do think Jon will be KITN as well but I don't think he's going to wrest control from the Boltons or even to fight Ramsay or to unite the North. I don't think he's going to go off to Dragonstone to mine dragon glass( mostly because GRRM seems to want Daenerys' invasion and the Other's invasion to happen simultaneously) or that he'll go off to the South to talk about the oncoming apocalypse like some Biblical prophet.  These are roles that other characters have (Stannis and Marwyn)

 

3 hours ago, WearyTraveler said:

This is grasping at straws, in my opinion.  Off course some things will be different for some characters.  I imagine Bronn and Tormund will have very different endings on the show than they do in the books.  fAegon isn't even on the show, so, if they learned about his fate in Santa Fe, they will not depict that on the show.  As to things that Martin wasn't sure about, it's a safe bet that this relates to second and third tier characters, like little Lyanna Mormont.  Martin has always known the fate of his top five and I'm pretty sure that fate will remain the same in both mediums.

 

They're talking about the endgame for characters. They're talking about the ending. The actual ending. And they even said they're changing things even for the story that GRRM told them about.

3 hours ago, WearyTraveler said:

Precisely. She was only resurrected once and the effect on her body is worse than Beric's who has been resurrected 6 times.  So, the process was not consistent.

The damages to Catelyn's body were far worse than to Beric's body. That's consistent. Deric's body never recovered its eye for instance.

 

 

 

[SimoneS]

On 9/11/2017 at 6:47 AM, WearyTraveler said:

• Daenerys should have burned to dust in Drogo's funeral pyre, after all, she's human, made of flesh and blood.  When asked if Daenerys was immune to fire, Martin said she was not and that the fact that Dany didn't burn was a one time only special circumstance

I have always wondered about this. Even if she didn't burn, surely she must have died in the fire and then been transformed so why wasn't she different? It seems clear to me that magic works and the supposed price is dictated by the story which is typical fare for a sci fantasy novel.

 

19 hours ago, WearyTraveler said:

But, I think the strongest argument for Jon not being radically changed after his resurrection is the show itself.  I know that they do some things differently, but, HBO made it a part of the deal that Martin had to tell them his intended ending in order for them to even do the show (basically, they said "spill the beans or we won't shower you with millions of dollars for the right to turn your books into a TV show").  Some of the minor characters' fates will not be the same (e.g. Selmy is dead on the show, alive in the books), off course; even some of the main characters' stories could change (e.g. Sansa's Vale plot was completely thrown out); but, the purpose of knowing the ending is to depict the ending, and D&D have said they'll do Martin's ending.  This is probably specially more true for the main 5 (of which Jon is a part) than for any of the others.

So, Jon, Tyrion, Bran, Arya and Dany will get the same ending in the show than they do in the books, for sure, while other characters might get something similar to heir book endings but not exactly the same.  And yet other characters will probably get completely different endings (Bronn and Tormund as fan favorites come to mind).  The fact that show!Jon is not significantly changed since his resurrection is the strongest indicator, so far, that those of us who have speculated a similar fate for Jon based on what we have read so far in the books could be correct.

There is no doubt that D&D know the character's fates.  It is one of the reasons that the story is unfolding at warp speed. Dany and Jon have fallen in love over five episodes instead of over 10 episodes or more. D&D have been rushing to give the characters their endings according to Martin. I actually find this very exciting to finally know how the story ends although I will miss the show. 

Edited September 14, 2017 by SimoneS

[glowbug]

There are a lot of resurrections in these books and no two look exactly the same. All of the characters who have been resurrected have come back changed, usually in a negative way, but those changes look very different from each other. Even Catelyn and Beric, who were resurrected by the same magic, are different in a lot of ways because of the circumstances in which they were resurrected. Jon will be changed undoubtedly, but I'm sure it's going to look a lot different than the other resurrections we've seen. We don't know what GRRM means by Beric foreshadowing other resurrections. He may have been using Beric to foreshadow that resurrection through fire magic is possible, or to foreshadow that death negatively affects the characters who are resurrected, or both. Jon's consequences will be very different from Beric's. The warging adds a completely new aspect to his resurrection as does the potential blood magic as @WearyTraveler pointed out. The fact that he will in all likelihood be able to father a child afterwards means he isn't going to be a corpse. He will certainly be changed by it and I expect, based on GRRM's comments, that he will suffer some negative consequences from the experience, but I think it's bridge too far to say that GRRM has confirmed that Jon is going to be walking corpse. 

[WindyNights]

On 9/13/2017 at 9:07 PM, SimoneS said:

I have always wondered about this. Even if she didn't burn, surely she must have died in the fire and then been transformed so why wasn't she different? It seems clear to me that magic works and the supposed price is dictated by the story which is typical fare for a sci fantasy novel.

 

There is no doubt that D&D know the character's fates.  It is one of the reasons that the story is unfolding at warp speed. Dany and Jon have fallen in love over five episodes instead of over 10 episodes or more. D&D have been rushing to give the characters their endings according to Martin. I actually find this very exciting to finally know how the story ends although I will miss the show. 

She didn't die because of magic. It was a one time magic miracle according to GRRM.

And you realize she burned two different people and depending how you do it, it could confer magical effects. I mean obviously the dragons awoke so we know magic was involved.

On 9/13/2017 at 11:07 PM, glowbug said:

There are a lot of resurrections in these books and no two look exactly the same. All of the characters who have been resurrected have come back changed, usually in a negative way, but those changes look very different from each other. Even Catelyn and Beric, who were resurrected by the same magic, are different in a lot of ways because of the circumstances in which they were resurrected. Jon will be changed undoubtedly, but I'm sure it's going to look a lot different than the other resurrections we've seen. We don't know what GRRM means by Beric foreshadowing other resurrections. He may have been using Beric to foreshadow that resurrection through fire magic is possible, or to foreshadow that death negatively affects the characters who are resurrected, or both. Jon's consequences will be very different from Beric's. The warging adds a completely new aspect to his resurrection as does the potential blood magic as @WearyTraveler pointed out. The fact that he will in all likelihood be able to father a child afterwards means he isn't going to be a corpse. He will certainly be changed by it and I expect, based on GRRM's comments, that he will suffer some negative consequences from the experience, but I think it's bridge too far to say that GRRM has confirmed that Jon is going to be walking corpse. 

They're not actual walking corpses. There magic corpses. They're like lichs. Like for instance, Beric's body isn't pumping blood but he can still move and be agile. So Jon being capable of impregnating someone is not impeded by being undead. These are corpses that don't fully obey the rules of nature. 

[SimoneS]

16 minutes ago, WindyNights said:

She didn't die because of magic. It was a one time magic miracle according to GRRM.

And you realize she burned two different people and depending how you do it, it could confer magical effects. I mean obviously the dragons awoke so we know magic was involved.

So in other words, GRRM agrees with my statement, "It seems clear to me that magic works and the supposed price is dictated by the story which is typical fare for a sci fantasy novel." I have no clue what exactly you think is different in what I wrote and what he said or even your follow up comment. You are just rephrasing what I wrote. 

Edited October 11, 2017 by SimoneS

[WindyNights]

16 minutes ago, SimoneS said:

So in other words, GRRM agrees with my statement, "It seems clear to me that magic works and the supposed price is dictated by the story which is typical fare for a sci fantasy novel." I have no clue what exactly you think is different in what I wrote and what he said or even your follow up comment. You are just rephrasing what I wrote. 

The price was two people's lives arguably 3 if you want to count Rhaego but I don't.

Edited October 11, 2017 by WindyNights

[SimoneS]

40 minutes ago, WindyNights said:

The price was two people's lives arguably 3 if you want to count Rhaego but I don't.

So again, "It seems clear to me that magic works and the supposed price is dictated by the story which is typical fare for a sci fantasy novel."

[ElizaD]

Now the show is over and we know what the endings of the main characters are; GRRM said they'd be taking different roads to the same place, so major events like King Bran and Jon killing Dany will surely happen if ADOS is ever published. I'm prepared to speculate that Jaime might kill Cersei in the books instead of simply dying with her, but the deaths of the twins/Dany and the fates of Tyrion/the Starks are absolutely canon to me.

My first reaction after the finale is still to think that GOT was right to cut a ton of sideplots from AFFC/ADWD; I'll even continue to defend the likely combination of Cersei and Aegon as the enemy Dany destroys in King's Landing. But even if the plot content of the seasons is roughly fine by me, I now feel that seasons 7 and 8 turned out to be far too short, something that didn't worry me before season 8 aired. Knowing that Dany ends up being killed, the buildup absolutely should have begun earlier. Now it's too much of a 180 from season 7 to season 8. After 8x05 it was already obvious to viewers that she would be killed in the finale so it wasn't even a Red Wedding shocker where the foreshadowing was subtler and spread across seasons 2 and 3. If the show needed to hit GRRM's biggest plot points of dead Dany and King Bran, I think it stumbled with both. King Bran relies solely on Tyrion's speech; his qualifications for kingship didn't even get the superspeed buildup that Dany's fall did.

[screamin]

I'm taking it as canon that the show ending means that in the books Sweetrobin survives, and that Sansa manages to outplay LF in the Vale all by her lonesome to save him - and not have to marry Harry in the bargain, because he's kind of a dick (though I foresee her using the promise of a possible betrothal to manipulating him into being her general).

[Minneapple]

The ending makes me wish we were getting the books, because I actually liked it. The lead-up, not so much. I would love to read GRRM's lead-up to this ending, however many thousands of pages that would be. But I don't think we'll get it.

54 minutes ago, ElizaD said:

I'm prepared to speculate that Jaime might kill Cersei in the books instead of simply dying with her, but the deaths of the twins/Dany and the fates of Tyrion/the Starks are absolutely canon to me.

Yes, now I think Jaime is the valonqar and now we know why they removed that from the prophecy.

[Dame sans merci]

2 minutes ago, Minneapple said:

The ending makes me wish we were getting the books, because I actually liked it. The lead-up, not so much. I would love to read GRRM's lead-up to this ending, however many thousands of pages that would be. But I don't think we'll get it.

Yes, now I think Jaime is the valonqar and now we know why they removed that from the prophecy.

Ditto. I think Cersei is likely to die far earlier in the books, meaning that Jaime killing her wouldn't be as repetitive here when placed right next to Jon killing Dany.

[Maximum Taco]

8 minutes ago, Dame sans merci said:

Ditto. I think Cersei is likely to die far earlier in the books, meaning that Jaime killing her wouldn't be as repetitive here when placed right next to Jon killing Dany.

Agreed, when Dany takes King's Landing it's almost certainly going to be fAegon on the Iron Throne.

This will also help to play into her villainous turn. It was easy for us to agree to her taking down Cersei, she's one of the most villainous people in the cast. But Aegon (as so far depicted) seems to be a very normal sort of boy. 

[Advance35]

I'm also glad the show spared us Lady Stoneheart since ultimately, I don't think she will effect the fate of any A-List character.   

I'm wondering if Sansa will end up alone or with Harry or Robyn.  For some reason I feel like that's a road GRRM might take, don't ask me why.

I can't see Bronn ever being put in charge of one of the Great Houses.  I expect Highgarden to go to The Hightowers, The Redwynes or even The Fossoways.

Quote

I'm taking it as canon that the show ending means that in the books Sweetrobin survives, and that Sansa manages to outplay LF in the Vale all by her lonesome to save him - and not have to marry Harry in the bargain, because he's kind of a dick (though I foresee her using the promise of a possible betrothal to manipulating him into being her general).

And hey, character evolution, maybe after working against the Lannisters, and AOD, Harry turns into someone Sansa actually cares about and readers too for the matter.   She has grown to see the value in people beyond their station (Mya Stone and Jon) I could see her differing from her Mother in that she is able to love a child, even if the child is not her own.

[Constantinople]

1 hour ago, ElizaD said:

My first reaction after the finale is still to think that GOT was right to cut a ton of sideplots from AFFC/ADWD; I'll even continue to defend the likely combination of Cersei and Aegon as the enemy Dany destroys in King's Landing.

I agree since either the series would have had to be longer, or things would have been even more rushed than they were

[Maximum Taco]

2 hours ago, Advance35 said:

I'm also glad the show spared us Lady Stoneheart since ultimately, I don't think she will effect the fate of any A-List character.   

I disagree. 

The one thing GRRM won't shut up about is how much he argued for Lady Stoneheart and how her omission is the biggest thing that upset him about the show (to be fair that was before this season.) and that he considers her a major part of The Winds of Winter. 

Lady Stoneheart is already involved in Brienne and Jaime's story, not sure if you consider them A-List characters or not. I wouldn't be surprised if she becomes involved in Arya's storyline as well. Book Arya is on this path to becoming a soulless killing machine obsessed with vengeance, with little to no morals. I can see a lot of mirrors in that story with the path Lady Stoneheart has taken. 

Arya in the show is frankly just a mess of a character. She was on this path, but then it seems like the showrunners would be afraid we'd stop liking her so she's no longer willing to kill people she doesn't know and she gets the early season Dany treatment and only kills bad dudes who personally wronged her. But somehow she's still enough of a sociopath to personally and without help dismember two men and bake them into a pie. And then she's ready to kill her sister, but then she's all about family, but then she doesn't care about her family anymore and is happy to leave them forever and never return. 

[Eyes High]

4 hours ago, ElizaD said:

Now the show is over and we know what the endings of the main characters are; GRRM said they'd be taking different roads to the same place, so major events like King Bran and Jon killing Dany will surely happen if ADOS is ever published. I'm prepared to speculate that Jaime might kill Cersei in the books instead of simply dying with her, but the deaths of the twins/Dany and the fates of Tyrion/the Starks are absolutely canon to me.

Same.

Like most readers, I thought there was a chance that both Jon and Dany would get knocked out of contention for the throne in the books, but I never thought it would happen in quite that way.

I'm surprised Tyrion ended up as Bran's Hand, but Book Tyrion being the Hand to the endgame ruler is not at all surprising. Tyrion really did stand "as tall as a king" as his shadow once did in AGOT, although given that in the books he sets out to destroy his family in ADWD, including signing away Casterly Rock, it's odd that he's responsible for the Lannister legacy. Tywin would hate the idea of his golden twins dying and the son he hated so much being all that was left, so that's something.

Arya going exploring isn't surprising to me as a book endgame, although I'm not entirely convinced that Arya going "west of Westeros" as opposed to heading for Braavos is GRRM's planned book canon.

I never would have thought Sansa would end up QITN based on the books alone, but her endgame in the show seemed to be tracking towards being the single Lady of Winterfell since Season 6.

Unless GRRM publishes the end of the series, I guess we're left to imagine whether the Stark line survives (which seems like it will be down to Sansa) and whether Tywin's line is extinguished with Tyrion. Certainly neither Sansa nor Tyrion seem likely to remarry in the show, with Tyrion having been celibate for several years and Sansa having crowned herself queen and still dressing in a manner calculated to eliminate the possibility of physical touch.

[SeanC]

20 minutes ago, Eyes High said:

Unless GRRM publishes the end of the series, I guess we're left to imagine whether the Stark line survives (which seems like it will be down to Sansa) and whether Tywin's line is extinguished with Tyrion. Certainly neither Sansa nor Tyrion seem likely to remarry in the show, with Tyrion having been celibate for several years and Sansa having crowned herself queen and still dressing in a manner calculated to eliminate the possibility of physical touch.

Purely talking about the show, since TV Sansa seems to be all about the Stark dynasty, I'd expect her to eventually marry some sperm donor to pop out a few heirs and otherwise ignore the guy as much as possible.  When talking about Bran getting the throne, his inability to produce heirs was a concern to her.

Tyrion, who knows?  There's a bunch of other minor Lannisters out there, presumably, if need be.

As far as main character endgames, I'll categorically state that I think D&D completely rewrote the Cersei/Jaime stuff apart from them both dying at the end.

The endings for the remaining six original POVs, I expect the broad strokes are accurate, albeit with elaborations or some alterations. 

Bran being king is locked in, to me, because D&D quite obviously never cared at all about Bran as a character and there's no way they would have come up with that ending by themselves.

The Six Kingdoms/North split, as presented in the show, is total nonsense.  I don't know if that's a show-only elaboration, and, say, in the books it will be Sansa as Lady with Bran as King, or if GRRM has some surely more detailed and elaborate method of arriving at the same result.  I briefly wondered the writers wanted the "Queen in the North" stuff as a shield against Dany going full-villain along with Cersei, but on reflection they've never shown the degree of awareness to warrant such a pre-emptive action; so probably not.

Edited May 20, 2019 by SeanC