[Book Spoilers] EP510 Discussion

[PatrickStormborn]

This isn't Disney.

At the start of the series, many would have considered Ned to be the main protagonist and would have rejected the idea of him dying. The story can evolve when a seemingly indispensable character is killed off.

This isn't The Walking Dead either. Some characters literally can't be killed because the story is about them.

[mrs snow]

fuck brienne. how is nobody upset that she killed the hound and stannis? i hate that bitch

only if the hound is actually dead 😊

[Samwellsglisteningweiner]

nt

Edited June 15, 2015 by Samwellsglisteningweiner

[Vvornth]

I'm starting to wonder if D&D is suddenly feeling some pressure to be shocking now that they are spinning their own material rather than building on the books. Their solution seems to be simply to up the bodycount.

Either that or they are just getting rid of characters to slim the actors needed for next season.

Edited June 15, 2015 by Vvornth

[falcotron]

apart from Tyrion there are literally no 'good' guys left

There aren't supposed to be any good guys. Good guys don't conquer the world. Neither do honorable guys like Robb, or grimly duty-bound guys like Stannis, or any other possible substitute that some other fantasy stories try to pass off as goodness.

Meanwhile:

4) Arya - I like her but I'm not absorbed enough for her to be the main protaganist

Part of the reason ASoIaF (and GoT) works is that there is no main protagonist.

The story mostly focuses on the people who could end up sitting the Iron Throne or uniting the disputing factions or weaving a spell to save the world, but don't, ultimately coming to realistic endings—usually meaning pointless and often anticlimactic. Most of the best stories in history end up a lot more like Asha's or Quentyn's than like Aragorn's, but very few fantasy writers even touch on those kinds of stories, much less focus on them, and that's part of what makes this series stand out.

Arya is different because she's obviously not going to save the world. She's a different story that originated from the same place as Robb's and Bran's more traditional stories, which serves to show how much wider the world is.

She's also even more clearly not a good guy. You can see Jon, Oberyn, or Tyrion as flawed heroes if you want, but it's hard to see her as a force for anything other than either vengeance or (less likely) dispassionate death.

[UKS]

Kit did not name the movies he would be working on (all actors would have that lined up explicitly and would be shilling that hard.) and he hates his hair... Yet it remains uncut. He got no leaving gift.

No way he is not coming back. Would be cool if he misses season 6 though. (He won't.)

[dannyk65]

Which is why Youre going back and forth between threads on the SHOW FORUM bashing the show. Listen kid, it's past your bed time, take a breath, step away from the computer and get some sleep. Maybe go watch one of the more "intelligent" shows instead that you seem to be so fond of

Aggressive! Especially with that screenname

[Christi84]

This whole episode makes everything feel like it has no sense.

-LF tells Sansa to avenge her family and stop being a bystander:D&D male her a rape victim and bystander only saved by Theon

-rush Tyrion's arc and put Varys with him so we have the good KL duo in Mereen, ignoring the good shock of Varys in KL

-The Watch let Jon Snow and all the Wildlings in and THEN decide to trick him and kill him

-Doran sends his son with Myrcella and Ellaria and the SS poison her when she's not that far away, insuring that Cersei will most likely kill Doran's ONLY heir(show wise) and bring them into a war, and going against Oberyn's own words and making Dorne no better than the rest of Westeros

The list could go on and on, but it was such a waste of a finale and a season

I can see Jon Snow and The Wall not being in season 6 until the end...theres so much about to hit the south, obviously more Dorne with repercussions of Myrcella, Versei, Margaery, and Loras trials, possible Ironborn and Riverland fighting, stuff at Oldtown, and then there's Dany's arc, Tyrion and Varys in KL, maybe Davos is leaving the Wall before hearing about Jon and runs into Sansa and Theon and helps them find Rickon and Bran, etc...

I think the writers are going to try to keep Jon Snow alive the last shot of Season 6

[Tony Inchpractice]

shahid-pk 1441--you have gotten it. The writers think they are attaining the level of Shakespeare and Greek tragedy by killing everyone off, that they are reaching some sort of level of profundity. But Shakespeare and Greek tragedy have a sense of catharsis and of suffering that is morally meaningful, and says something about our world which is ultimately affirming. This is just a horror movie, with all the triviality of such. Life is hard, but it is not without heroism, and the good guys do not always lose. That is what the great writers and storytellers of the past, in their different ways and modes and cultural contexts, have always seen.

It is lamentable because i truly believe the five books as ASIOAF as we have them ARE classics. If the books go down this road--and I am not just talking about the fates of Stannis or Jon Snow or Myrcella, although these were all sensationalized and trivialized from what the books were indicating (and I think, in shock at the botching of Stannis and the North, we have not laid enough stress on how awful and boring the TV Dorne plot is).

I also blame the TV writers not just for having the show outstrip the books--that was always going to happen--but to have it occur in season 5 and not 6 or 7. There was a lot of good, tragic stuff in book 5--Quentyn's death, Kevan's death, etc.

And I think the Iron Islands should have been put in, just so we can see more of Asha/Yara who sis a strong and very interesting female character and could have presented a counterpoint to the, again, meaningless deaths of Shireen and Myrcella and the brutalizatuion of Sansa. That this was not put it is why Balon is still King. And Balon being the last standing of the five kings is just the sort of video-game trivialization that this series did of a book series that was not finished and whose incredibly high quality in the first five books may now forever be despoiled.

Most of the complexity of the books has been watered down gradually as the TV show has progressed. This is the whole thing about popular TV; you sacrifice substance for entertainment.

i was so upset when i read this but ive decided i dont believe it... .there is just too much that doesnt make sense. And he didnt say he wont be in season 7! Idk but have to hold out hope i think...why make such a big deal through the entire show about his parentage etc and then just cut us off ?? Will be stupid if he is truly dead

Yup.

Edited June 15, 2015 by Tony Inchpractice

[falcotron]

I'm starting to wonder if D&D is suddenly feeling some pressure to be shocking now that they are spinning their own material rather than building on the books. Their solution seems to be simply to up the bodycount.

Either that or they are just getting rid of characters to slim the actors needed for next season.

They moved a couple deaths forward from WoW (along with all kinds of other things from WoW), and skipped many deaths from the books. I don't see how that qualifies as upping the body count to be shocking.

[Vvornth]

They moved a couple deaths forward from WoW (along with all kinds of other things from WoW), and skipped many deaths from the books. I don't see how that qualifies as upping the body count to be shocking.

What deaths would that be? What information do you have that we don't from WoW?

[Denam_Pavel]

I have had time to "sleep" on it and if I could I would give the show a rating of 0 simply because of how D & D royally screwed up theFTW scene. It just didn't make sense.

At least in th books we knew they were short on food supplies because of having to feed Stannis' men and the Wildlings. This was before Jon even decided to go to Hardhome or Stannis left to get support from the mountain clans. They weren't sure they would survive. It made FTW seem more plausible because Jon was leaving them to even get more Wildlings on a possibly doomed mission to Hardhome . More mouths to feed and shelter if he succeeded. Next he got the threatening letter from Ramsay which made sense to many in the NW that he was betraying his vows and REALLY getting involved in the politics of the realm. The final straw that broke the camel's back was Wun Wun attacking and ripping apart Ser Patrek.

The way D & D portrayed him as a traitor just didn't work, In fact....Jon proved by going to Hardhome what a threat the White Walkers were to the realm and that both Wildlings and the Night Watch....well hell....EVERYBODY else in Westeros should be forgetting their political struggles and power grabbing and work together for the survival of them all. The way these writers did it made the Night Watch a bunch of dim witted Idiots whose comprehensive brains had an inability to comprehend this even after they had seen wights and White Walkers before. Plus don't they realize Tormund and the Wildlings will probably KILL THEM for doing that to Jon? So utterly STUPID. This scene alone made the finale one big flop!

Let's not forget that the Pink Letter stipulated that Mance Raydar, an oathbreaker, was alive and set free south of the Wall, thanks to Jon as well. the Night's Watch was given no context for that.

[Bayard]

Actually, what she did was pretty smart. They will either take him hostage or kill him. Either way will incite a war. Ellaria and her snakes will have vindication that the Lannisters need to be wiped out. She is guessing that they would kill him. She sees the Lannisters as cut throat and would kill him easy without flinching. This would finally make Doran go to war.

Oh and Split Pea has some valid points. Whoever is being a complete knob, seriously go get a drink and come back when you have passed out and have better things to say.

What vindication will they have if they are dead??? When the Lannisters kill Trystane, sure he might go to war, but wouldn't he first punish the people who betrayed him??? I get that maybe Ellaria and the Sand Snakes don't care about their cousin (even if in the books they obviously do), but they don't even care about one another??? Doesn't Ellaria care that her daughters will probably be executed for treason by Doran??? Were they trying to portray her as a crazy woman? I didn't get that.... why would the other Sand Snakes go with it??

Once again you can legitimize one of the hundreds of Martell bastards running around Dorne.

Why would Ellaria care about Trystane? In Dorne, succession is to the oldest heir, male or female. If the "HEIR OF DORNE" is dead, who is next in line?

Sandsnakes, maybe?

First of all, only a king can legitimize a bastard, of course King's Landing wouldn't do it, so they would need to win the war and be independent. Granted, they might achieve that, but who exactly are these many Martell bastards?? The Sand Snakes??? The same women that betrayed Doran?? and he would legimitize them?? Not to mention how obviously dumb they are, would he leave Dorne in their hands??? That makes no sense, even if he decided not to kill them

You do realize at the time he had no choice? Right? Robert was King, there was no indication that Robert would release him of his vows. And it was likely that Tywin would die before Robert. Tywin also continued to fight a war with the Starks when Jamie was captured. So your theory is still flawed.

We have two examples of Tywin fighting people with one of his potential heirs captured. And Tywin was NOT going to be okay with having a bastard much less legitimizing one. Dorne is cool with bastards and cool with woman running the show. We also don't know if Doran has other heirs that exist.

Tywin care first and foremost for the Lannister name. He never saw Tyrion as his heir, he always saw Jaime, even so he fought. Why? for the power of his house and because he had backups. He wasn't going to be blackmailed. He already had prepared replacements for Jaime, he had Kevan's children, he had Tyrek (that's why he's still very important) and if need be he had Steffon and Daven. Does Doran have any real options??? he doesn't.

[Khorkalba]

This isn't The Walking Dead either. Some characters literally can't be killed because the story is about them.

I agree that the story is very much about Jon, which is why I doubt that he will be killed off permanently.

GRRM could do it though if he really wanted to. Ok, so Jon is a Targ. That doesn't make him an invincible superhero and the only person (besides Dany) who's capable of defeating the Others and ruling the realm peacefully. And the whole AAR thing could turn out to be nothing more than legend and superstition.

Personally, I think ASoIaF would be a hell of a lot better off without going down the cliche "Chosen One" route.

[PatrickStormborn]

I agree that the story is very much about Jon, which is why I doubt that he will be killed off permanently.

GRRM could do it though if he really wanted to. Ok, so Jon is a Targ. That doesn't make him an invincible superhero and the only person (besides Dany) who's capable of defeating the Others and ruling the realm peacefully. And the whole AAR thing could turn out to be nothing more than legend and superstition.

Personally, I think ASoIaF would be a hell of a lot better off without going down the cliche "Chosen One" route.

No I kind of agree with this. But the story he has chosen to tell involves the protagonists (Jon, Dany, Tyrion, Bran, Arya and presumably Sansa) surviving and playing a role in the endgame.

[falcotron]

I can see Jon Snow and The Wall not being in season 6 until the end...theres so much about to hit the south, obviously more Dorne with repercussions of Myrcella, Versei, Margaery, and Loras trials, possible Ironborn and Riverland fighting, stuff at Oldtown, and then there's Dany's arc, Tyrion and Varys in KL, maybe Davos is leaving the Wall before hearing about Jon and runs into Sansa and Theon and helps them find Rickon and Bran, etc...

I'm not sure why they need the Davos-finding-Rickon story. In the books, it's all about getting Manderly's faction to openly declare against Bolton; in the show, there's no such faction, nobody to declare for, and if they already have Sansa they don't really need Rickon. And, story-external, GRRM clearly wants to explore Skagos, and to get another shot at writing Osha, but neither of those are too important to the show.

But if they hear the story from GRRM and it sounds interesting enough, they'll probably find a way to fit it in. Especially if you're right and they can drag Theon into that story, giving him a much more satisfying redemption arc than they could do with just Sansa.

But meanwhile, you really think they're going to find Bran too, rather than him just becoming the next Bloodraven Tree Monster?

PS, you forgot Arya in your list of other plots that could fill the gap next season.

[NymeriaWarriorQueen]

Let's not forget that the Pink Letter stipulated that Mance Raydar, an oathbreaker, was alive and set free south of the Wall, thanks to Jon as well. the Night's Watch was given no context for that.

You are absolutely right. I should have included that. There was just a momentum in the book that led up to the stabbing of Jon Snow, We never got that onscreen.

[mrs snow]

I point and laugh if you buy that.

yep...me too

[Christi84]

I'm not sure why they need the Davos-finding-Rickon story. In the books, it's all about getting Manderly's faction to openly declare against Bolton; in the show, there's no such faction, nobody to declare for, and if they already have Sansa they don't really need Rickon. And, story-external, GRRM clearly wants to explore Skagos, and to get another shot at writing Osha, but neither of those are too important to the show.But if they hear the story from GRRM and it sounds interesting enough, they'll probably find a way to fit it in. Especially if you're right and they can drag Theon into that story, giving him a much more satisfying redemption arc than they could do with just Sansa.But meanwhile, you really think they're going to find Bran too, rather than him just becoming the next Bloodraven Tree Monster?PS, you forgot Arya in your list of other plots that could fill the gap next season.

Yes I forgot about Arya..my bad..i thought they might hold it off til season 7 like the Wall. I dont think they'd go find Bran, bit the idea that she'd try to search for both. Like they'd find Rickon first and he'd tell them where Bran was planning to go. I think they'd do this story and add Davos to it because they put such emphasis on Davos' relationship with Shireen, and no doubt he can play that pseudo father to the left over Starks. Plus, itd be good for Sansa and Theon to have someone who can fight if they're not going to have Brienne as a protector Edited June 15, 2015 by Christi84

[falcotron]

What deaths would that be? What information do you have that we don't from WoW?

The couple of deaths I was referring to being moved forward from WoW to the finale are Stannis and Shireen.

I suppose that, if the Pink Letter is true, you could argue that Stannis's death already happened, at least in Jon's PoV and for the readers. But, given the Theon preview chapter, I'm assuming that we're not going to actually know that Stannis is dead until WoW.