400 replies to this topic

[The Storm Queen]

Nev yn, on 23 February 2012 - 06:24 PM, said:

Uh, did you?  Tip:  The first episode of the show is not analogous to the first chapter of the book.  The first chapter was the prologue, following an expedition of the Night's Watch that comes to an untimely end.  The second is a Bran POV.  Third is Catelyn.  The fourth is the first Dany point of view.  In which nobody tells her the water is too hot.  She herself describes it as "scalding hot" (how would she know if she's immune to scalding?).  Fun trivia, strictly speaking a hot tub can easily be set to be "scalding hot", which starts at around 105 degrees F.  Some people turn them up to 110 or slightly more.  Guess we're all Dragons.



I'll save you the trouble.   Again, you're quoting the show.

For all its worth I always thought that the hot bath did have another background. Having a very hot bath or frantically scrubbing your skin is in books or films often used as an allusion to abuse and the subsequent need of the victim to "cleanse" her/himself.
If I remember correctly this is the first scene in which we encounter Dany and one of the first things we see is Viserys molesting her in a brutal way. The whole scene is designed to show us how relatively weak and frightened Dany is at the beginning of the books and how much she becomes stronger in susequent books.
That is the way I read the scene sans fire immunity references....

[Plem]

To me the only plothole (although I don't know if it's fair to call it that, it's more like a stretch) was Mance and the others taking Jon with them to the Wall after discovering that he is still loyal to the Night's Watch. The wildlings never seemed like the forgiving type to me and they should have killed him on the spot. I'm not holding it against GRRM though, because I couldn't see any other way to advance the story.

Other than that I'm pretty satisfied with how he's handled the story so far. Even if there are plotholes, they are so minor that they're not worth mentioning imho.

[Quint]

One of the biggest inconsistancies for me throughout the books would be Tyrions prowess in battle. I don't understand how a dwarf, not once but many times is able to kill numerous knights and men-at-arms during a huge scale war. Besides the fact that he waddles and suffers from leg cramps and spasms, he is also a capable acrobat ( I don't have my books but during the feast at winterfell when Jon encounters Tyrion I believe he does some sort of summersault). I always felt GRRM treated Tyrion a lot better than some other characters and allowed him to get away with some pretty scandalous stuff while other characters kept getting the axe. Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike Tyrion at all, I love his wit and how he adds humour to the series, but I just can't imagine him killing trained soldiers with all his physical disabilities.

[Independent George]

Arland, on 24 February 2012 - 10:41 AM, said:

Actually shouldn't she have died of suffocation with no regard to any fire immunity, she might have?

Good point; obviously, she's immune to carbon monoxide, too. That's actually a great super power, because she doesn't have to waste all that money on batteries for a monoxide detector. I wonder if it works on radon.

[Light a wight tonight]

Nymeria's wolf army. That geographical area wouldn't have supported as many wolves as there seem to be. Packs are seldom more than a dozen or so because the amount of food in an accessible area is limited. They'd even run out of Freys in a short while.

[Lord Balbi]

I know this doesn't really qualify as a plothole or inconsistence but I just wanted to share how I think Quentyn's plan to steal a dragon was just ridiculous.

As I was reading I couldn't understand what miracle Quentyn intended to perform when he eventually would have to face a dragon but I though that was probably my fault. He would surely have more than just "blood of a dragon" and will power in order to pull that off.

I was wrong...

[Fire_Kiss]

Arland, on 24 February 2012 - 01:33 PM, said:

Ye... but what all those bears do in these long winters? do they get extra big? Or extra hairy???

Don't bears hibernate? Just sayin.

[Nev yn]

Quote

Why does Olenna depend on Sansa wearing the amethysts to smuggle poison into the wedding party? You'd think she would want to keep her circle as small as possible; the only other person who needs to know the plot is Margaery (so that she doesn't drink the poisoned wine).

The Tyrells were interested in Sansa, after they found out that she hadn't been despoiled by Tyrion (mayhaps wanting to revive the "Marry her to Willas and usurp Winterfell" plan).  Using the hairnet via Sansa is a way to ensure that Sansa doesn't have anywhere else to go.  They were probably planning on scooping her up in the aftermath, not telling anyone else about the amethysts, but using Sansa's guilt and feelings of culpability which they will cover up to get her to go along with their plan.  Tyrion gets killed for regicide, and Sansa is free to marry Willas.  Unfortunately for them, Littlefinger hadn't really left KL and scooped her up via Dontos before they could recover from the confusion.

[Lord Littlefinger's Lash]

MAJOR PLOT HOLE

The walls of winterfell are supposed to be heated by hot water running through them.  But Theon has to go all the way to the Kitchen Keep to get hot water for a bath?  WTF GRRM?

[Arland]

Fire_Kiss, on 24 February 2012 - 02:58 PM, said:

Don't bears hibernate? Just sayin.

My point exactly. They do. And while they do they use the reserves of fat collected during summer. Now if we have winters who last for few years, those bears should pick some serious fat to survive.

[Fire_Kiss]

Lord Littlefinger, on 24 February 2012 - 03:32 PM, said:

MAJOR PLOT HOLE

The walls of winterfell are supposed to be heated by hot water running through them.  But Theon has to go all the way to the Kitchen Keep to get hot water for a bath?  WTF GRRM?

That is something I've had to question too; the extent of the damage done to Winterfell. I mean, isn't it a castle?!? Why is the entire host holing up in the Great Hall?
But I believe the specifics to your question is that the hot spring tubes/pipes were damaged in the fire Ramsey Snow caused.

[BlackTalon]

Light a wight tonight, on 24 February 2012 - 02:25 PM, said:

Nymeria's wolf army. That geographical area wouldn't have supported as many wolves as there seem to be. Packs are seldom more than a dozen or so because the amount of food in an accessible area is limited. They'd even run out of Freys in a short while.

That doesn't seem so strange to me. First of all it must remembered that most of the peasants who encountered the pack can't count past twenty (fingers+toes, remember the account the villagers gave to Ned about ser Gregors raiding force, one said "fifty" or something, another one said "hunnerds and hunnnerds) so several hunderd wolves is likely vastly exaggerated. fifty, sixty seventy maybe.

Plus Nymeria probably united several wolfpacks that had been prowling the Riverlands separately before that.

As far as food is concerned, one word: carrion.
by that time the country was literally littered with corpses of all kinds, they would have found enough to eat.

[Independent George]

Nev yn, on 24 February 2012 - 03:27 PM, said:

The Tyrells were interested in Sansa, after they found out that she hadn't been despoiled by Tyrion (mayhaps wanting to revive the "Marry her to Willas and usurp Winterfell" plan).  Using the hairnet via Sansa is a way to ensure that Sansa doesn't have anywhere else to go.  They were probably planning on scooping her up in the aftermath, not telling anyone else about the amethysts, but using Sansa's guilt and feelings of culpability which they will cover up to get her to go along with their plan.  Tyrion gets killed for regicide, and Sansa is free to marry Willas.  Unfortunately for them, Littlefinger hadn't really left KL and scooped her up via Dontos before they could recover from the confusion.

Maybe this belongs on another thread, but I've never believed that Mace Tyrell has any idea that his mother poisoned Joffrey. Subtlety is not in his playbook, and I just can't see Olenna conferring with Lord Oaf of Highgarden about something this big.

[Dragon greyscale]

Fire_Kiss, on 24 February 2012 - 01:21 PM, said:

And as far as long winters go, food can be preserved with very primitive methods (canning, drying, root cellars) for years. The fact that we aren't eating 15 year old corn in America is astoundingly myopic in my mind. (but I'm one of the "crazies" who actually preserves food just in case the world ends)

Wait, they have canned food in Westeros?

[Ser Lepus]

GreenHand, on 23 February 2012 - 09:21 AM, said:

An interesting point... If you think that Varys keeping many raven-utilizing "little birds" in the Free Cities (from when he operated in Essos) doesn't explain how well well informed he is (I'm not entirely in this camp)... Then consider this: Maybe Varys being sold to a Sorcerer isn't the whole story. Maybe Varys actually apprenticed to the Sorcerer (even if as his slave as well) before the cutting that may or may not have happened. In this case, Varys maybe using an Obsidian/Dragonglass candle like Marwyn. Illyrio has the money and trading network to acquire one if Varys can use it.

The main problem I see is not who was sending the messages, but how fast they reach Illiryo and Varys; people in King´s Landing still don´t know that Daenerys has managed to hatch dragons despite all the sailors who learned about it in Qarth, and they don´t even know that she has conquered a city-state, but Illyrio (and probably Varys) knew almost intanstly; think about this:
People who have been dissecting the books and trying to build a timeline have estimated that Dany met Ser Barristan at most about six months and a few days after hatching the dragons (they have been taking into account her pregnancy, birthdays and other stuff); that may seem time enough, but she spent at least several weeks crossing the desert to Qarth, then the news had to reach Pentos, Illyrio had to contact Varys who enlisted Ser Barristan who sailed from Westeros to Pentos and from Pentos to Qarth; even accepting your theory that Illyrio and Varys can communicate magically (why did Illyrio visit King´s Landing, then?) it seem  that ships can go from Qath to Westeros in little more than two months, and that´s assuming the messengers barely stop in any port and jumped from boat to boat until reaching their final destination... To put it into perspective:
-A medieval merchant galley could travel from England to Italy in little more than one month.
-Two months is the same time it took Columbus to sail from Spain to America -with a stop at the Canary Islands -with the help of "trade winds" that made his trip riculously fast and easy
-Two months is about half the time it usually took the portuguese to sail from Europe to Cape of Good Hope, in South Africa.
-Two months is about a third of the time it usually took the portuguese to travel from Europe to India, ).

So, if the trip is relatively short for medieval standards, how come nobody in Westeros knows more about Dany? Nobody has ever thought of going to the Red Fortress and telling Cersei "My Queen, the daughter of that guy Aerys your brother skewered is gathering an army to take vengeanze on your family"?.

Edited by Ser Lepus, 24 February 2012 - 07:25 PM.

[Ser Lepus]

Double post, I´m sorry.

Edited by Ser Lepus, 24 February 2012 - 07:19 PM.

[Alia of the knife]

Fire_Kiss, on 24 February 2012 - 02:58 PM, said:

Don't bears hibernate? Just sayin.

They do, (just ask my idiot cousin who stumbled into a cave around their house when he went to sneak and drink).

[Kozma]

The horrible description (IMHO of course) it the Stannis winter campain. He will be dead in the heartbeat. Horses did not fight in winters. They have to be fed. Second and it is visible. The Westeros knight seems to be wearing full plate armor resembling maximilian armor. That type of the passive defense was designed in response to the firearm development. It cost a fortune.

[BlackTalon]

One thing that has always bothered me but that I have never ever seen mentioned, not in the books and not in the forum:

If you send a raven to some lord, how on earth does the bird know where to fly? Homing pigeons return to their coops, I  get that, but the "messenger ravens" hanging around the lords and their castles seem to be living quite freely, flying around at will ... do you just grab some random birds from the rafter in your maester's study,  tie a letter to their leg and tell them "just deliver this to Highgarden for me will ya, go south south west and keep flying for 3000 miles."

An example: In order for the white ravens of the citadel to deliver the message about impending winter, every House with a maester would have had to raise white raven, send it to the Citadel to wait there cooped up in some cage for a few years to then be sent back with a message.

Magic, I guess ...

Edited by BlackTalon, 25 February 2012 - 08:20 AM.

[puenboy]

Lothbrok, on 19 February 2012 - 02:56 PM, said:

I agree completely with you but it could be that she was afraid of losing the city to the Son's of the Harpy if her only trained and loyal troops left the city.

What do you see wrong with the situation? The Unsullied are taught to have their complete loyalty with whomever holds their contract. Dany makes clear that she owns them now then turns on the Slavers, who at best have a few sellswords and nobles to protect them.

I don't think anyone has bought the whole lot of the unsullied before since the price is too high short of a dragon, which Dany had. Her dragons are priceless. Trading one for the whole lot of Unsullied is a beneficial trade for the slavers, having attained priceless goods in exchange for an expensive army. What they didn't count on was Dany turning the Unsullied on the slavers themselves, since they have been mainly bought and sold in small amounts to be bodyguards and such. It would have been a very unfair trade for Dany if she sold Drogon for the Unsullied and don't double-cross the slavers, and the slavers thought that Dany was that desperate herself. Doing something someone has never done before can hardly be considered unrealistic. If you have a loaded gun and you sold it for a tone of diamonds, the buyer could have shot you with your own gun and take the diamonds for themselves.