“Sooner or later, they will have to deal with Rhaegar and Lyanna and the Mad King”

[HouseLark]

It's having to deal with the Mad King that interests me most here, for both the TV series and the books. To me, this is an indication that there's an awful lot more to Robert's Rebellion than we know. I think the motivation for the war that led to the fall of the Targaryen's is much more complex than Robert's love for Lyanna.

But I wonder what others think the producers will have to deal with regarding the Mad King?

They have dealt with Jaime's kingslaying and the death of Rickard and Brandon through characters recounting the events so I don't think that is what Martin is referring to. Another possibility is the Harrehal Tourney which has been interpreted in so many ways, I'm thinking in particular of the meaning of Rhaegar crowning Lyanna Queen of Love and Beauty. The big one, and it's pure speculation since we know almost nothing about it, is the Tragedy at Summerhall. This seems to be a seminal event in the recent history of Westeros but it's aly been alluded to so far. It certainly played on Rhaegar's mind.

A second question is how can they deal with this?

The producers have been averse to flashbacks so far but some of this looks to be ridiculously complex to have as exposition - unless episodes are going to be turned into lectures. Rather than have sporadic flashbacks, one idea I had was to follow the example of Lost and Battlestar Galactica and within a series devote a whole episode to a flashback re-telling of events. It kind of breaks the flow of a series but at least it's a clean break rather than a fade-in/fade-out flashback sequence that often feels a bit to soapy.

[Sansa's Florian]

The Knight of the Laughing Tree story is one of my most anticipated scenes for this season.

[Ser Loudmouth]

Also, Jaime's dream and the whole Jaime+Brienne story arc is going to require a lot of exposition about Rhegar, Aerys and Aery's kingsguard if it's going to work like in the books.

[daimonionen]

Theres still that scene they filmed of Aerys killing Brandon and Rickard.

[Ciazio]

Theres still that scene they filmed of Aerys killing Brandon and Rickard.

Did they?!? That would be great!

[JP Dayne]

I wonder how they'll introduce flashback scenes. It won't work great because they didn't make any of it in the first season, so I really think they were gonna use a couple of flashbacks and then had a change of heart, and we'll never see that scene where rickard stark gets burned alive inside his armor and brandon gets strangled trying to free his old man =\

last thing I read, they'll introduce this kind of thing through dialog. It sucks, I really could do with a couple of scenes, namely "i looked for you on the trident..." and some tourney of harrenhall thing.

we have to understand that in order to have flashbacks, d&d would be in a pickle in order to make his cast return. I think it's pretty lame they changed the mountain, and he isn't even a main character! they recast beric, they didn't get great jon back... imagine having sean bean returning...

maybe it could be do-able with a younger actor portraying a young ned... but i dunno, seems weird

[Ciazio]

they didn't get great jon back

True? Me sad panda...

Anyway yeah, flashback are hard to do, even without the same actors.

[princethomas]

Its trickly. Part of what is so cool about The Knight of the Laughing Tree is that Meera doesn't say who they are. Even though we know, for the most part, who they are. I don't think a straight flashback would be as cool either because it would lack that Quiet Wolf, Young Wolf thing.

[Davos' fingertip]

im looking forward to the Knight of the laughing tree story too, it'll be the first time the viewers hear about what happened with Rhaegar and Lyanna, and i think they need to be reminded Lyanna is Ned Stark's sister too, probably forgot that because it was only mentioned in the pilot, and no one would have remembered the name anyway.

[HouseLark]

Well I'm not expecting the producers to deal with Rhaegar, Lyanna and Aerys in the next two series. From what Martin is saying, some things relating to these three will need to be made explicit; remember, even in the books nothing is really explicit - even the Harrenhal Tourney is interpreted by fans. In that respect, they can have Meera's re-telling of the tale of the Knight of the Laughing Tree but it seems that further down the line those events might need to be clarified for viewers (and indeed readers).

And as I mentioned, Summerhall needs to be brought and it's significance hinted at prior to being brought in. I'm thinking we need more about the Targaryens' obsession with fire which has directly or indirectly accounted for the deaths for at least two kings. So far we know Dany is drawn to fire and we know why, but we don't know that this interest is a familial trait.

As for the logistics of flashbacks: there's no problems. Most of the events happened in the past and didn't involve present characters. The only real issue would be Ned, the rest either haven't appeared in the series (Lyanna, Aerys, Brandon, etc), are still in the series (Barristan), or can be excluded (Robert doesn't need to be shown in the Harrenhal Tourney, a different, lithe, actor would be needed anyway). The only question then, would be getting Sean Bean back and making him look a bit younger which is easily done.

I could be reading too much into Martin's comment (I know, ASoIaF fan takes something too seriously shocker!), but it's that notion of the producers needing to address Aerys' actions. I can't see myself exactly what it is about Aerys that is so critical to the story that hasn't already been noted in the show (i.e.he was mad, he killed two Starks, and he somehow precipitated the fall of his house). It's probably that "somehow" that Martin is referring to.

[JP Dayne]

next two series? if the writers take that long, it'll seem they brought up lyanna and rhaegar out of thin air. Later revelations will seem farfetched and forced. While the books starve us with tids and bits of unreliable information forcing us to complete a puzzle, throwin down stuff like "yea there was this man, rhaegar, he was aerys's son. you remember him, the mad king jaime killed. he fell in love with lyanna, remember, she was ned's sister. so they hooked up, ran away, and had this little kid Ned raised as his own. his name is jon snow" wont seem smooth at all; they need to cite them more often so it can be incorporated or at least hinted that they had motives for what they did. I mean, cmon, that's the main mystery of the series. that and summerhall.

[eddard of the house stark]

Theres still that scene they filmed of Aerys killing Brandon and Rickard.

Are you sure about that? The only evidence that i know of is this:

(pause at 1:52) but that doesn't mean they filmed the whole scene.

[Ciazio]

Are you sure about that? The only evidence that i know of is this:

(pause at 1:52) but that doesn't mean they filmed the whole scene.

Is that Brandon?

Looks very much like Ned :-|

[JP Dayne]

the scene was filmed, we had a picture back the day. I'm sure google still has it :D

( well here it is, dunno if i can post links on this board)

http://cdn.chud.com/2/22/22a78d93_d47daec2_brandon-stark.jpeg

people even stalked the old fella that played aerys, they had their CV and all, and it was described as "mad king" IIRC

[DragonAge93]

I wonder if we'll ever see those scenes. D&D said last year there wouldn't be any deleted scenes since they used everything they filmed. Well, this begs to differ. I wonder if they're going to insert them in future seasons when it'll make more sense to use them.

[oprahnoodlemantra]

Jaime and Barristan will talk about the Harrenhal tourney, Rhaegar, Lyanna, the Mad King, and Robert's Rebellion.

[Peko]

I would think this season would be the most opportune to use the Brandon and Rickard death scene, since there will be much more emphasis on Jaime than there ever was before, and we all know he was there when it happened. The most likely route would be to have it be a dream of his at Harrenhal, and to have him wake up visibly at unease (perhaps to help sell that he's on a redemption arc). That being said, I really don't see how they could have smoothly incorporated it into season one, since it would have been weird to cut to the scene in the midst of Jaime and Ned's conversation in whatever episode it was, and no other opportunities presented themselves.

Just looking at the still of the scene captures a lot of its brutality and shock factor, and it would be a shame to see the full thing never used.

[sillent]

I would absolutely LOVE a flashback episode per season.. especially since season3 AND 4 are for just 1 book, surely they can devote an hour or two to some VERY interesting and rich history :)

[Khal-a-bunga]

There are a lot of ways for D&D to flesh out what happened with Robert's Rebellion, without having to resort to the traditional flashback model. Jojen, Meera & Bran will certainly be utilized & Jaime and Ser Barristan can also provide additional information on it.