Season 8 Predictions?

[Einheri]

17 minutes ago, jcmontea said:

Totally. It was a tough decision. But I think what Tormund is saying is that Mance made that decision thinking about his own respect and his own status as a leader - effectively pride. He didn't think how can I get my deal south of that wall even if i have to bend he knee.

Watch the scene between Mance and Jon again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3s4-VP3JcM

It was never about pride for Mance.

 

[jcmontea]

12 minutes ago, Einheri said:

Watch the scene between Mance and Jon again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3s4-VP3JcM

It was never about pride for Mance.

 

That is what Mance says for sure. I don't doubt that. But then again who admits they don't want to do something because of pride? Its not the type of thing people are liable to say. 

And given that Tormund says its about pride, i think we are invited to at the very least be more skeptical of what Mance said. Maybe Tormund is wrong. But maybe not. We should question it. And Jon more importantly ends up bending the knee so we can assume that he agrees with Tormund. 

 

[Einheri]

2 minutes ago, jcmontea said:

That is what Mance says for sure. I don't doubt that. But then again who admits they don't want to do something because of pride? Its not the type of thing people are liable to say. 

And given that Tormund says its about pride, i think we are invited to at the very least be more skeptical of what Mance said. Maybe Tormund is wrong. But maybe not. We should question it. And Jon more importantly ends up bending the knee so we can assume that he agrees with Tormund. 

 

It's not about pride because most of the Free Folk would probably abandon him the moment he bent the knee to a southern king, and the rest would probably perish in the wars in the south, meaning that his people were pretty much screwed no matter the option he chose. Heck, by not bending the knee he arguable ended up saving more of them since Stannis opted to just hand them over to Jon's authority, and Jon turned out to be a great guy for the Free Folk.

For those reasons I think Tormund (or perhaps I should say the people writing the show since Tormund should know better) was just plain wrong in this instance. Jon's decision to bend the knee was stupid as well. He had already gotten what his people needed from Dany, and his  reasons for not bending the knee were as valid as Mance's reasons for not bending the knee to Stannis. Jon's too lucky that the White Walkers have breached the Wall, and that people have more important things to worry about than who rules the North because otherwise he'd have to face the backlash of his ridiculous decision. 

[jcmontea]

8 minutes ago, Einheri said:

It's not about pride because most of the Free Folk would probably abandon him the moment he bent the knee to a southern king, and the rest would probably perish in the wars in the south, meaning that his people were pretty much screwed no matter the option he chose. Heck, by not bending the knee he arguable ended up saving more of them since Stannis opted to just hand them over to Jon's authority, and Jon turned out to be a great guy for the Free Folk.

100k to 5k. Hard to see how they could have done worse than that. And they still had to fight in a southern war since they had to fight for Jon at the Battle of Bastards. 

Mance did not avoid his people having to fight below the wall and he got 95% of them killed. 

8 minutes ago, Einheri said:

For those reasons I think Tormund (or perhaps I should say the people writing the show since Tormund should know better) was just plain wrong in this instance. Jon's decision to bend the knee was stupid as well. He had already gotten what his people needed from Dany, and his  reasons for not bending the knee were as valid as Mance's reasons for not bending the knee to Stannis. Jon's too lucky that the White Walkers have breached the Wall, and that people have more important things to worry about than who rules the North because otherwise he'd have to face the backlash of his ridiculous decision. 

At this point your just refusing to accept what is presented on screen. Nothing the show showed suggests Tormund was wrong unless your going to say that had Mance bent the knee more than 95% of the wildlings would have died. 

[Einheri]

30 minutes ago, jcmontea said:

100k to 5k. Hard to see how they could have done worse than that. And they still had to fight in a southern war since they had to fight for Jon at the Battle of Bastards. 

Mance did not avoid his people having to fight below the wall and he got 95% of them killed. 

Again Mance doesn't save 100k by bending the knee to Stannis as most of those 100k will no longer follow him upon finding out that he's turned kneeler. And even if the number of Free Folk who made it across the Wall would have been somewhat bigger, he'd still doom them (Free Folk)  to a life of servitude to Stannis and his wars.  Yes, it's true that the Free Folk ultimately had to get involved in the Bastardbowl anyway, but that was because they chose to follow Jon after he convinced them that the new lord of the Dreadfort and Winterfell would come for them afterwards (and Tormund convinced them that they owed as much to Jon for protecting them) and not because their king had bent his knee to some other king

Quote

At this point your just refusing to accept what is presented on screen. Nothing the show showed suggests Tormund was wrong unless your going to say that had Mance bent the knee more than 95% of the wildlings would have died. 

I'm not refusing to accept what's presented on screen. I'm saying that what's presented on screen is stupid nonsense.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

8 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Yup. Pretty much. However, they are only taking the broad strokes such as Viserion is the one in chains that has an arrow (spear) thrown at his neck where a gout of flames follows, and then there is a death, and so on. And the dragon falling into water and "showing up" on the water's edge also comes from another dragon this happened to in the books. Plotzeed! again . When in doubt, mish-mash. If Daenerys and Jon had their own love story in the books, then why did we watch Arianne's, (f)Aegon, Rolland Storm, Quent, and rewind book Jon, and others play out on screen instead?
This is not the only time they have done this, and as a matter of fact, they have done this all along. Sometimes it is smaller details like giving Arya's torment of being teased in the books over to Margery instead. This was back in season 2/3 when Sansa and Margery were out walking around and Marg tells Sansa she was being teased and called "pig nose", or something. This was taken from Arya and reworked into Margery, and still sorta played out with Sansa on screen. It happens a lot!

You've read the last two books then? That's special.

Why is John traveling to see Dany a re-hash of Arienne trekking to meet fAegon? Why isn't it a remix of Davos going to White Harbor or Catlyn going to the Reach to meet Renly or the million other times someone-went-somewhere-to-meet-someone-for-somewhy in either the books or the show?

John putting the wildiings on the wall out of sequence from the books is trivial and doesn't effect his character arc at all.

Arya is obviously the only kid in the universe who has ever been teased. So Margery's back story was totally lifted from Arya.  Honest.

8 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

For the record, you said this, not I.

On the contrary, the show runners are obviously geniuses.  You know how I know? Because there is no shortage of people who love to come on these boards and criticize everything from major events to meaningless triva or who constantly bitch about what hacks D&D are.  Yet, these same people have tuned in to the show religiously for seven years.  Anyone who can do that is clearly a titan of cinema.

8 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Nope. They are not ignoring "every element" as I literally just pointed out. They are remixing these types of details and trying to make it new and their own for the show. The problem is, when it is not organic to the way the entire story for all characters is planned out, it is disjointed and jarring.

Totes!

Yeah, no. When the similarities basically amount to,

"Um, some shit went down. Some dudes died. One or more dragons were involved."

That doesn't make the battle of the frozen lake a remix of Quentin Martell's botched theft beneath the great pyramid of Mereen and it certainly doesn't re-cast the Night King as Quentyn Martell.

Nopes!

[Lady Of The Crossbow Inn]

I have a reply to another someone else about Tolkien/ASOIAF, so I'll put that in another post. But if you folks don't mind, I'll copy from my tattered ACOK paperback the relevant parts of the Dany's House Of The Undying prophecies that foretell a lot of what we're talking about. 

Longtime lurker,  but haven't posted much, I hope y'all don't mind. 

 

"I have come for the gift of truth," Dany said. "In the long hall, the things I saw...were they true visions, or lies? What did they mean?" 

...the shape of shadows....morrows not yet made...drink from the cup of ice...drink from the cup of fire...

..mother of dragons...child of three...

"Three?" She did not understand.

...three heads has the dragon...[the ghost chorus yammered inside her skull with never a lip moving, never a breath stirring the cold blue air..]...mother of dragons...child of storm......three fires must you light...one for life and one for death and one to love...

.[I interpret this as three pyres she must light so that she can be reborn again physically and spiritually...the first was Mirri Maz Durr/Drogo/birth of dragons, the second is probably like Season 6 on the Dothraki Sea, the book may well have something similar so that Dany can become  the new Khal of Khals in Dothraki eyes.before she can begin her conquest of Westeros...and the third? Don't know yet of course..but I hope it doesn't involve a Nissa Nissa-like thing with  Jon. Or maybe her book ordeal in the Dothraki Sea after she flies off on Drogon for the first time was the second "fire", she was burnt by the dragon, and her illness/miscarriage.suffering is a sort of transformative ordeal,and the Dothraki sea pyre would be the third. Hopefully this is how it will pan out.]

*three mounts must you ride..one to bed  and one to dread and one to love...* [Dany will have three husbands: Drogo "one to bed", Hizdhar zo Loraq of Meereen, she will "dread" b/c she hates compromise w/slavers+ is he the Harpy?) and one to love....Jon, more on this in a minute, it becomes clearer]*

three treasons will you know...once for blood and once for gold and once for love...[lots of debate on this; some think the MMD was the "blood" one, Brown Ben Plumm the "gold" one and Jorah the "love" one, but  the "love" one could end up being either Tyrion or Jon still].

"I don't understand," she said, more loudly. "Help me...show me..."

..help her...the whispers mocked. ...show her...

Then phantoms shivered through the murk, images in indigo. Viserys screamed as molten  gold ran down his cheeks and filled his mouth. A tall lord with copper skin and sliver-gold hair stood beneath the banner of a fiery stallion, a burning city behind him.[A grown Rhaego obviously; the show's version of this was Dany seeing him as an infant in Drogo's arms.] Rubies flew like drops of blood from the chest of a dying prince, and he sank to his knees in the water and with his last breath murmered a woman's name [Rhaegar of course, , and we all know by now the name he said had to be Lyanna].

...mother of dragons, daughter of death....

Now here's where it gets interesting. 

"Glowing like sunset, a red sword was raised in the hand of a blue-eyed king who cast no shadow. [Mel in ADWD noting how Jon's shadow on the Wall is so tall; can a resurrected Jon cast no shadows?***OOPS: Just remembered Jon's eye color SORRY. Still interesting though. Who would "cast no shadow"?)] A cloth dragon swayed on  poles amidst a cheering crowd. From a smoking tower, a great stone beast took wing, breathing shadow fire...mother of dragons, slayer of lies....[Is this an image from Dany in Westeros, "slaying" Cersei's lies?] a corpse stood at the prow of a ship, eyes bright in his dead face, grey lips smiling sadly. {This is certainly Aeron Damphair, dead at the end of "The Forsaken"...DAMMIT] 

 

Now here it is, folks. *DRUMROLL*: 

"A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness...mother of dragons, bride of fire..." 

 

Show-only folks don't get this, but Lyanna Stark is associated with blue roses. I think she wears them to the Tourney at Harrenhal and all the fan art depicts Lyanna wearing them. In AGOT book, Ned remembers Lyanna's death, in "a room that smelled of blood and roses."  ("Promise me," she had cried, in a room that smelled of blood and roses." We didn't see the roses, just the blood,  in the Tower of Joy 6.10 obviously. And WHY D/D couldn't have shown Lyanna with Blue roses in her hair in the wedding scene...this REALLLLY irritiates me...would it have broken the budget guys?) And interestingly, the only other time a character is associated with flowers is when Daario courts Dany by picking flowers for her. I think this is in the show. Linking Lyanna with Dany OMG foreshadowing I HOPE NOT DAMMIT again] The "wall of ice" is obviously Jon. And SWEETNESS. (ie Jon is the "mount to love.") and finally...BRIDE of fire. 

Not boyfriend, not paramour, not one-night fling. She is his BRIDE.Jon: groom of Ice, Dany bride of fire. Of course Jon is ice and fire but they are also one of each.  I don't see how George can write his way out of this one in order to contradict D/D's script for the show, unless he wants to pull a D/D-like total contradication of what he wrote long ago. And he began changing the plot of a certain character after Season 5, not Season 7, so we know this is not Jon, prob Sansa or Stannis.

They will marry at some point. maybe after a tempestuous courtship/Trident/who knows? And there might still be betrayal...but if the impending second "dance of dragons" in the books  involved Jon and Dany facing off against each other as enemies,  and not Dany and fAegon, why the "sweetness"? The prophecy could have explicitly linked sweetness, with  betrayal....but it does not. Everything in the Undying visions after this sentence is a jumble involving nothing in particular, and it is brief before Drogon kills the Undying and rescues Dany. 

 

On the show if there is any "dance of dragons" I think D/D will steal George's old rejected storyline and have tension between Jon and Tyrion..who may be a Targ himself. 

[jcmontea]

59 minutes ago, Einheri said:

Again Mance doesn't save 100k by bending the knee to Stannis as most of those 100k will no longer follow him upon finding out that he's turned kneeler. And even if the number of Free Folk who made it across the Wall would have been somewhat bigger, he'd still doom them (Free Folk)  to a life of servitude to Stannis and his wars.  Yes, it's true that the Free Folk ultimately had to get involved in the Bastardbowl anyway, but that was because they chose to follow Jon after he convinced them that the new lord of the Dreadfort and Winterfell would come for them afterwards (and Tormund convinced them that they owed as much to Jon for protecting them) and not because their king had bent his knee to some other king

I'm not refusing to accept what's presented on screen. I'm saying that what's presented on screen is stupid nonsense.

So your saying that most of the 100k are going to prefer to go to hardholme isntead of cross through the wall? How many? More than 95%? You think the mothers with kids are going to rather stay north of the wall with the white walkers closing in versus cross the wall just because Mance bent the knee? The same Mance who Ygritte said doesn't care about people like her that Jon and her had to be loyal to each other? 

Mance is a prideful man who didn't even want to give his people a choice. Tormund had it right. 

I get your view i just don't think that its supported by the show. If you want to reject what the show is saying because its stupid thats fine but then there is no point in analyzing the show characters. 

[Einheri]

1 hour ago, jcmontea said:

So your saying that most of the 100k are going to prefer to go to hardholme isntead of cross through the wall? How many? More than 95%? You think the mothers with kids are going to rather stay north of the wall with the white walkers closing in versus cross the wall just because Mance bent the knee? The same Mance who Ygritte said doesn't care about people like her that Jon and her had to be loyal to each other? 

Mance is a prideful man who didn't even want to give his people a choice. Tormund had it right. 

That’s exactly what happened after Mance’s host was scattered. The vast majority of them effed off to places such as Hardhome.

Also, the Free Folk followed Mance because they chose to do so. Once he was dead there was little stopping them from bending the knee to some southern king for protection, but they chose not to. Why? Well, the Free Folk are serious about maintaining their way of life, and that’s why they wouldn’t simply submit to some southern ruler even if it’s a matter of survival. Mance understood this. As did Jon, which is why he offered them passage with almost no strings attached. And even that failed to sway most of them as they didn’t trust the Crows.

So, Mance can’t bend the knee because his people simply won’t respect that decision just as most of the Northmen won’t respect Jon’s decision to bend the knee to Dany. Their personal pride has nothing to do with it, and the fact that the show writers try to suggest otherwise is a testament to how little they truly understand Mance (no surprise there – these are the same people who stated that Arya reclaiming Needle was about revenge…).

Quote

I get your view i just don't think that its supported by the show. If you want to reject what the show is saying because its stupid thats fine but then there is no point in analyzing the show characters. 

Well, that’s the point many on here have been making for years now. The characterization is often all over the place and many characters are so inconstant that it’s almost meaningless to even try to analyze them.

[Lady Of The Crossbow Inn]

MinscS2: Now to my reply to your Tolkien analysis. Bravo: could not have said it better myself. But allow me to add something I've been thinking about a lot since the Finale. 

Jon as Frodo, and how this may influence what may pan out in the books as well as the show after Season 7/in A Dream Of Spring (if we see it.) 

(One thing you can't compare the two though...I've never forgiven The Professor for having Frodo die a virgin. I suppose it's the Christ-like thing....but we don't know that either...stop you, too much Dan Brown novels Lol. But anyway, for a guy who dreamed up Beren and Luthien, a guy who knew his "O's"!  from his "A's!"  This is unforgivable.  Minsc, if you've read "The Lays Of Beleriand" you'd know what I meant... I hope you do! If not, I'll be happy to enlighten you. My eyes almost fell out of my skull!)

 

First, there is an obvious link between Jon and Frodo literally. I can't remember where I saw the interview,  but I think George talked at one point about getting his idea to kill off major characters/"no-one is safe" idea from LOTR, specifically when it looked like Tolkien had killed off Frodo at the end of TTT. And I was in shock after listening to this b/c *it all makes perfect sense."

Critics have savaged Tolkien for generations b/c of....how did the NYT review put it..."Ooooh, those awful Orcs"? Thinking he was goody two-shoes when he too was busy subverting fantasy tropes. (BTW I thank all the old gods and the new that I was fortunate to have read LOTR before Peter Jackson's films came out, and was completely Unsullied when I read them, I'd heard of Tolkien of course but fantasy was not my thing. One day a couple of yrs before the films came about, in the mid-90's, I bit the bullet. The only thing I knew of the story was some of the Hobbit names b/c  I'd read as a  kid in National Geographic articles on Jane Goodall and how she named some of her chimps Bilbo, Frodo, Drogo, etc. "Oh wow, so THAT's where these names come from!"  LOL. But  THANK GOD I was so ignorant! It made discovering his work all the better experience )

But anyway, think about it. First Gandalf "dies", then Boromir is seduced by the Ring and tries to steal it, then he gets killed, Merry and Pippin are captured by the orcs and will probably be gruesomely killed, Frodo and Sam disappear, traveling to Mordor alone...oh, and let's not forget Frodo's vision on the Seat of Seeing, when Sauron almost discovers him..so at the end of FOTR, when most fantasy stories have a slowly building fellowship/seeming initial hopeful start to the heroic Quest, everything is already falling apart and going to s**t. WOW! And then I laughed when George talked about  his reaction to Frodo getting stung by Shelob at the very end of TTT and how he had to wait a whole year for ROTK to come out to see if he was still alive. I CAN'T IMAGINE having to have to wait that long to find out....

 

..or can we? Frodo seemingly getting killed by Shelob in the last pages of TTT, and Jon "dying" at the very end of ADWD? Hmmm right? We're in a similar situation as book readers who can't wait for the Jon chapter. (can we imaging book release parties for TWOW, people getting out of bookstores clutching their copies, "QUICK! What page is the Jon chapter start????" 

 

So why would George have Jon "dying" in the seeming middle of his saga, just as Tolkien had Frodo almost dead in the middle of his? And in both cases in the very last pages of the book? Can one be evoking the other? More and more I have been comparing the two. There would have been no way for even the masterful Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh to evoke the "Sea-Longing" in the movies, but there was Frodo first hearing the murmering of the treetops when he looks out the window of the house of Bombadil, and it sounds like breaking waves on the shore..., a sound which of course he had never before heard...and from then on it is as if he is fated for death. And any elf who hears any sound of the Sea, waves/gulls/etc is doomed in a sense, he or she can never stay in Middle-earth. And even in the films there is the sense that anyone who has possessed the Ring, even for the briefest time, whether or not they give in to it, is likewise doomed. The ones who prove true are still bound for the Sea. Likewise, there are signs that Jon has had a fated life even from childhood (naming his wolf "Ghost" b/c that's how he sees himself, etc. He has his friends but he like Frodo is a solitary figure, set apart even though a has a few close friends (ie Jon/Sam.) And say what you will of Dave and Dan's script, you have to hand it to them, they ARE masters of foreshadowing in the show, a lot of it more subtle than you'd think. I'mnow going back and rewatching for Jon clues. And the sense that he is inexorably marching along to some great doom/fate. 

 

But what I am thinking of, and here is where Season 8 predication comes in, is how people keep forgetting that FRODO FAILED. he did NOT destroy the Ring, Gollum did and that was pure dumb chance. "I will not do what I came here to do. The Ring is mine!" This was not inherent evil on Frodo's part; Tolkien had a much darker worldview than critics give him credit for, Just as he believed Eras of good and evil were cyclical ("always,  after a defeat and a respite, the Shadow takes another shape and grows again",  a line from Gandalf I WISH had made it into the movies) he also seemed to be saying that in the end, if you remained close to the sources of Power, NO-ONE not even the purest most innocent person, was exempt from its deadly lure..everyone would give in finally at some point.

 

So here's what I see happening in the Season 8. Jon and Dany get to Winterfell. By then, after at least 2 weeks on the ship (b/c we know it takes at least 2 weeks for a ship to get from Oldtown to Bear Island as per Jorah; KL to Eastwatch might be a similar distance/timeframe? [At which point Jon will be staggering up the steps every morning going on deck, Dany will be struggling not to cling to the rails,  and the crew will be ready to mutiny from lack of sleep at night, not to mention some of the passengers too. It's a very small flagship and those walls arent' sound-proofed!  *CHORTLE* sorry I had to! ) and a few weeks travel on foot to Winterfell, plenty of time for Dany to know for sure. A month of travel at least...she can't fly the retinue on Drogon to this one. Whereupon Bran and Sam drop the truth bombs. Reaction? We shall see. Then Dany takes Jon aside and spills the beans of *her* news to Jon. And while Jon is reeling from all this, who should ride into town but Jamie with the epic news of Cersei's betrayal.  And to top it off, Sansa is in total panic mode with ravens pouring in left and right from Northern towns with WW's army bearing down on them. 

 

This makes Jon not Stark-angry, but Targaryen- ballistic over Cersei's betrayal. We don't know how his relationship with Dany will be at this point regarding the baby/incest/marriage/succession? ( Sudden thought: Can ship captains perform marriages in Westeros,  like in our world? HUH GEORGE??? Or Elio and Linda, where's your lore on this one??!? Maybe their relationship is further along than thought? I know. totally silly. Won't happen. But the mind goes in strange directions, munching the popcorn. 

 

What if the news of Cersei's betrayal coupled with the WW invasion/Wall coming down with undead Viserion's help makes him change his mind about the Iron Throne and he is sick of betrayal? Esp when he now sees he has a potential male Heir coming if he marries Dany? Everyone talks as if Jon never could want power b/c that's the way he is. But what if he has his "The Ring is MINE" moment and decides that yes, he IS the rightful heir and decides that he DOES want the Throne? 

 

What could be more tragic than Jon, the rightful Heir and potentially the best Ruler, suddenly wanting the Throne for all the right reasons (to save the world/help the people) and is "punished" by the gods/Fate/ whatever for this "sin" and does not get the throne. What if the sudden lure of the IT is his "Ring" his test, and he fails. Thus is his fate to Die, or go off into exile in the North, like Paul Atredies at the end of the Dune saga, after Chani dies gving birth to his twins...(ASOIAF always reminds me of Dune too, the characters thinking  in italics, the fueding Houses of the Lansraad, etc.)

 

 

[jcmontea]

23 minutes ago, Einheri said:

That’s exactly what happened after Mance’s host was scattered. The vast majority of them effed off to places such as Hardhome.

Also, the Free Folk followed Mance because they chose to do so. Once he was dead there was little stopping them from bending the knee to some southern king for protection, but they chose not to. Why? Well, the Free Folk are serious about maintaining their way of life, and that’s why they wouldn’t simply submit to some southern ruler even if it’s a matter of survival. Mance understood this. As did Jon, which is why he offered them passage with almost no strings attached. And even that failed to sway most of them as they didn’t trust the Crows.

So, Mance can’t bend the knee because his people simply won’t respect that decision just as most of the Northmen won’t respect Jon’s decision to bend the knee to Dany. Their personal pride has nothing to do with it, and the fact that the show writers try to suggest otherwise is a testament to how little they truly understand Mance (no surprise there – these are the same people who stated that Arya reclaiming Needle was about revenge…).

 

That is your interpretation and it very well could be true in the books. Would have to re-read the relevant sections to have a view on book Mance. But this is not the books. Its the show runners show and if they want to suggest that its pride than that means their chracters are just different than your interpretation of Martin's characters. Its not necessairly wrong unless it contradicts prior show characterizarions without an explainable reason. The show is the show and the books are the books. 

And you might trully be right about all the free folk saying F U Mance and not wanting to accept the deal to get through the wall. Its a counterfactual situation. I just have a hard time believing what he did was the best choice since literally 95% of his people died. Its hard to be more cataclysmic than that. But maybe him bending the knee would have been worse.

what i also have a hard time believing is you insisting that seeing the total destruction of his people would have no impact on how Tormund sees the world, what is truly important and how he thinks and acts. A holocaust should have some impact on your thinking and make you re-evaluate things.

23 minutes ago, Einheri said:

Well, that’s the point many on here have been making for years now. The characterization is often all over the place and many characters are so inconstant that it’s almost meaningless to even try to analyze them.

That could be true for some characters. However, a characterization can't be all over the place if the characterization is coming from the books and your comparing it to the show if the show never established the book characterization or if some major events happened that forced the character to change.

[jcmontea]

16 minutes ago, Lady Of The Crossbow Inn said:

MinscS2: Now to my reply to your Tolkien analysis. Bravo: could not have said it better myself. But allow me to add something I've been thinking about a lot since the Finale. 

Jon as Frodo, and how this may influence what may pan out in the books as well as the show after Season 7/in A Dream Of Spring (if we see it.) 

 

First, there is an obvious link between Jon and Frodo literally. I can't remember where I saw the interview,  but I think George talked at one point about getting his idea to kill off major characters/"no-one is safe" idea from LOTR, specifically when it looked like Tolkien had killed off Frodo at the end of TTT. And I was in shock after listening to this b/c *it all makes perfect sense."

Critics have savaged Tolkien for generations b/c of....how did the NYT review put it..."Ooooh, those awful Orcs"? Thinking he was goody two-shoes when he too was busy subverting fantasy tropes. (BTW I thank all the old gods and the new that I was fortunate to have read LOTR before Peter Jackson's films came out, and was completely Unsullied when I read them, I'd heard of Tolkien of course but fantasy was not my thing. One day a couple of yrs before the films came about, in the mid-90's, I bit the bullet. The only thing I knew of the story was some of the Hobbit names b/c  I'd read as a  kid in National Geographic articles on Jane Goodall and how she named some of her chimps Bilbo, Frodo, Drogo, etc. "Oh wow, so THAT's where these names come from!"  LOL. But  THANK GOD I was so ignorant! It made discovering his work all the better experience )

But anyway, think about it. First Gandalf "dies", then Boromir is seduced by the Ring and tries to steal it, then he gets killed, Merry and Pippin are captured by the orcs and will probably be gruesomely killed, Frodo and Sam disappear, traveling to Mordor alone...oh, and let's not forget Frodo's vision on the Seat of Seeing, when Sauron almost discovers him..so at the end of FOTR, when most fantasy stories have a slowly building fellowship/seeming initial hopeful start to the heroic Quest, everything is already falling apart and going to s**t. WOW! And then I laughed when George talked about  his reaction to Frodo getting stung by Shelob at the very end of TTT and how he had to wait a whole year for ROTK to come out to see if he was still alive. I CAN'T IMAGINE having to have to wait that long to find out....

 

..or can we? Frodo seemingly getting killed by Shelob in the last pages of TTT, and Jon "dying" at the very end of ADWD? Hmmm right? We're in a similar situation as book readers who can't wait for the Jon chapter. (can we imaging book release parties for TWOW, people getting out of bookstores clutching their copies, "QUICK! What page is the Jon chapter start????" 

 

So why would George have Jon "dying" in the seeming middle of his saga, just as Tolkien had Frodo almost dead in the middle of his? Can one be evoking the other? More and more I have been comparing the two. BACK SOON

 

 

Very interesting.

are you forseeing a Frodo ending for Jon?

[MinscS2]

9 hours ago, Meera of Tarth said:

I agree that Talissa's is rUshed but Ygritte's is well done because its developed through several seasons and they share lots of experiences together alone like climbing the wall. They have sex but later they are even more in love .It's  different there when in theory they are in love before and bc people tell us many many times.

You need to stop focusing on the comments from Davos and Tyrion. There are many other hints throughout S7 of how Jon and Dany are falling for each other. If you didn't notice them, it's your loss I'm afraid.

Also, what experiences did Jon and Ygritte share before they had sex? They walked around in the north for a short while, Ygritte tried to seduce him, he get's captured, feigns allegiance to the wildlings and on their way back to the wall she tricks him and strips naked in front of him which causes him to...cave in I suppose. 
Jon did come to love Ygritte after this, I agree, but when they had sex he didn't love her (if he did, the show did a shitty job of showing it), he was simply very attracted to her. Why was it OK for Jon and Ygritte to go from doing nothing intimate into having sex (especially when they weren't really in love yet), but forced when Jon and Dany does the same thing, albeit with the massive difference that they are in love by the time they have sex?

I personally prefer the kind of romance where love comes before the sex, but maybe that's just me.
 

Quote

As for the minority my experience is totally different. I personally don't know anyone who has liked it  from the forum(apart from people from this thread or others related to jonerys) and same thing outside hese boards. I would have liked to see that poll. Is it still open? Do you have the link?

https://www.reddit.com/r/gameofthrones/comments/70x0qt/tv_results_of_the_postseason_7_survey/

Almost 28.000 votes, 83% are fine with their relationship and only 17% are against it.

Quote

As for the time well we will have to disagree bc i can't see how these scenes cover six months especially after what Sansa says.

I normally believe that after each season at least some months happen in order to understand how the characters grow up, but the show doesn't make it clear (wikia says each season is a year but that doesn't work with the dialogues and events) (it did in season 1, though). So my assumption for that is that we are told that years have passed in between seasons, like Theon or Yara talking about Theon's past this season, for instance and bc the characters grow up due to that the actors grow up.

My theory is that time is relative in Westeros and we should not nitpick at it because it's already a complete mess. Of course, that can't mean half a year or periods as long as that during the season if we take into account the words of Sansa, Cersei, etc. We can add some weeks more, but not months.

But it's an established fact that one year passes during the course of a season. You might not agree with it, but it changes nothing.
Jon and Dany are both 17 at the start of S1 and 23 by the end of S7.
Sansa is 13 at the start of S1 and 19 by the end of S7.

Time passes not only between seasons, and episodes, but also between scenes. Take S7 E5 for instance: With less than 25% of the episode, Jon leaves Dragonstone and sails for Eastwatch. By the end of the same episode, he arrives. This is a journey that would've taken weeks, and so weeks has passed in the show, in the short span of ~20 minutes of actual show-time.

It is on occasion a complete mess though, as you say, but it would explain some of the stranger time jumps and why sometimes people seem to quick travel from point A to point B.
 

Quote

 So when talking about periods of time during a season (saying weeks for instance)  for Sansa might refer to a maximum of 1,5 months (I add a month more to these weeks), considering also that Cersei speaks with the iron bank and she also says something about paying the debt soon (between episode 3 or 4, I don't recall what she says but it's soon or a matter of weeks as well). Furthermore, we also have the wight hunt, that covers several trips around the continent in not more than 48 hours. 

Again, Sansa didn't say that she hadn't "seen" Jon in weeks, she said she hadn't "heard" from him in weeks, which is a massive difference.
We also don't know exactly how long time that passes after Daenerys rescues Jon & Co and until they reach King's Landing - probably some more weeks, and this time it happened off-screen between episode 6 and 7.

Quote

However, in between seasons, some months actually happen; otherwise events from the past could not be referred as "happened many years ago", like Theon's tortures.

This isn't always the case though; Between S5 and S6 no time at all passed, in fact less than 30 minutes pass between the end scene of S5 and the first scene of S6.
It's safe to say however, that by the end of season 7, an event that occurred in season 3 (like Theons torture by Ramsay) would've happened "years ago" (3-4 to be exact.)

[jcmontea]

2 minutes ago, MinscS2 said:

You need to stop focusing on the comments from Davos and Tyrion. There are many other hints throughout S7 of how Jon and Dany are falling for each other. If you didn't notice them, it's your loss.

https://www.reddit.com/r/gameofthrones/comments/70x0qt/tv_results_of_the_postseason_7_survey/

Almost 28.000 votes, 83% are fine with their relationship and only 17% are against it.

But it's an established fact that one year passes during the course of a season. You might not agree with it, but it changes nothing.
Jon and Dany are both 17 at the start of S1 and 23 by the end of S7.
Sansa is 13 at the start of S1 and 19 by the end of S7.

Time passes not only between seasons, and episodes, but also between scenes. Take S7 E5 for instance: With less than 25% of the episode, Jon leaves Dragonstone and sails for Eastwatch. By the end of the same episode, he arrives. This is a journey that would've taken weeks, and so weeks has passed in the show, in the short span of ~20 minutes of actual show-time.

It is on occasion a complete mess though, as you say, but it would explain some of the stranger time jumps and why sometimes people seem to quick travel from point A to point B.
 

Again, Sansa didn't say that she hadn't "seen" Jon in weeks, she said she hadn't "heard" from him in weeks, which is a massive difference.
We also don't know exactly how long time that passes after Daenerys rescues Jon & Co and until they reach King's Landing - probably some more weeks, and this time it happened off-screen.

This isn't always the case though; Between S5 and S6 no time at all passed, in fact less than 30 minutes pass between the end scene of S5 and the first scene of S6.
It's safe to say however, that by the end of season 7, an event that occurred in season 3 (like Theons torture by Ramsay) would've happened "years ago" (3-4 to be exact.)

What I find interesting is how much people complain about time but no one ever seems to mention the one thing that bothers me about the timeline on the show.

do you remember how big those dragons grew from the end of season 2 to beggining of season 3 and end of season 3 to the beggining of season 4? 

Literally Dany leaves Quarth/ Yunkai at the end of the season and we see her on her way to Astapor/ Mereen and the dragons in each case have grown significantly even though we don't see them grow at all during the season event though way more time passes during those seasons for her then between seasons.

That is the great time paradox of the show (that and how slow Little Sam grows) not how quickly Jon and Dany fall in love.

[MinscS2]

3 minutes ago, jcmontea said:

What I find interesting is how much people complain about time but no one ever seems to mention the one thing that bothers me about the timeline on the show.

do you remember how big those dragons grew from the end of season 2 to beggining of season 3 and end of season 3 to the beggining of season 4? 

Literally Dany leaves Quarth/ Yunkai at the end of the season and we see her on her way to Astapor/ Mereen and the dragons in each case have grown significantly even though we don't see them grow at all during the season event though way more time passes during those seasons for her then between seasons.

That is the great time paradox of the show (that and how slow Little Sam grows) not how quickly Jon and Dany fall in love.

Aye, some things doesn't fit within the time frame. The dragons aging much faster between seasons than everyone else is one of those things.
I guess we can blame magic on that one though, perhaps dragons age in bursts?

Little Sam is a good point though, he should be almost 4 by the end of season 7 but he seems to be somewhere between 2-3 in S7E5.
I guess we can always blame it (or rationalize it) on the fact that they didn't find a suitable child-actor to fill the role.

[Lady Of The Crossbow Inn]

One last post. In general, I hate the whole way this thing has been built up. The first season and the last season book-ending each other in the overall plot being about incest. Dave and Dan have openly admitted that their favorite House is the Lannisters, when George never chooses favorites, that's why his story is so compelling. the Starks don't adhere to their worldview, "nothing is nothing," "f*** the gods," etc. ..*Sigh*. And the whole plot is about how Ned and many others are destroyed,  so that Jamie and Cersei can successfully keep their twin bro-sis relationship a secret and put their incest babies, one of whom is an absolute monster, on the throne. Never mind that there is a prophecy that those incest babies are going to die and that they themselves may fall; what matters is that for many years, Jamie and Cersei enjoy private happiness in their incestuous relationship and get to see fruit of their incest rule. they are rewarded for their ruthlessness and treachery in order to do this. No great Southern Houses ever get in an uproar over THEIR incest. So for a while they live the dream, or  most of it. Yes, there's Tywin, but still. Their goals are realized, and they can take pleasure from that. 

 

Yes, I know this is the canon AGOT book plot, but I very highly doubt that the final 2 books are going to be such a perfect inverse bookend of the Season 8 plot. We are going to feel far more ambiguous about the "bride of fire" when reading those pages than we will seeing the show from Season 7/7 onwards. Again: complex character development/situations. The Long Night is going to be much worse in the books than in the show, so who knows? 

 

 

The way the show has made us so completely forget this, by season 5 and the infamous Jamie/Cersei rape scene, the outcry was just over the seeming rape, NOT the fact that that a twin brother raping his sister and bumping against the corpse of their incest love child as they couple on the floor. (Yes, there was a moment where Joff's body is bumped into and shakes. Correct me if I'm wrong, but absolutely NOBODY in the media was howling "INCEST!!", just RAPE,  and Lena and Nikolai weren't sticking their tongues out and going "EWWW! I'm so sorry!" in HBO interviews were they? No, b/c Dave and Dan just pleasure in shock for the scene's sake, but we did NOT have the incest shoved in our face. No, instead their relationship has been presented as noble and beautiful, "us against the hostile world" etc. Think about it. Every season seems to begin with a Lannister mourning their dead, and we as the audience are led to grieve with them, with sad music. Nobody else  seems to grieve for dead on this show.

 

But Jon and Dany are herded together in 5 short episodes--loaded with subtle romance; charged all the more for that--and then the incest thing in not only mashed in our faces like a pie, but we are already being told that they will be punished for it. It's almost as if Dave and Dan are taking pleasure in building up something they know fans want==precisely not b/c we are in love with Hollywood cliche, but for the simple reason that people cling to the hope that SOME good  things still exist in the world--and they do in the books, not on the show--but "nothing is nothing", D/D are much more nihilistic than even George can be-- and then destroying it. I don't know why anyone would take pleasure in that.

 

Now something like this may or may not pan out in the books, as far as the Jonearys thing not working out (I stick by my opinion is that Jon is like Frodo and will die in the end, he will have to sacrifice himself, practically as a way to win the War for the Dawn, but existentially for the sin of suddenly wanting power/giving in to the Ring moment, this would be George's twist on Frodo "having no honor in his own country", as it says in the Scouring of the Shire chapter. But we are most defenitely NOT going to be grimacing and recoiling in disgust at the very mention of them as a couple as we read the final 2 books. It'll be more complicated than that....as it should be. 

 

As to Jorah. I think he was always meant to be the surrogate father to Jon and Dany's inevitable child after Jon, or Dany,, or both, dies. Jorah is a fascinating character in the books, he is clearly on a redemption arc but personality-wise it is hard at this point to see anything developing between them as far as romance goes and I don't think it will come to that. O t may. But he is too much of a father-figure at this point and all through the books Dany has been spouting off at how repugnant it would be for her to be with men who are 2 or 3 times her age. She may eventually love him but not as she would a young man.

 

But Book Jorah is so far from show-Jorah even at the end of Book 5/Season 5 I can't wait to see this develop anyway. 

 

Of course I am talking George's "ugly bear" as opposed to Ian Glen, though...so even in the show, if it is Dany and Jorah at the end, it may be quite different. (Doggone it but that KISS though...I continue to curse Dave and Dan to the seventh hell that we didn't get that scene in the early seasons!!!I can't read that without needing new smallclothes! Damn you Nina Gold and your impeccable casting:)  

 

We do not know how Jonaerys will develop in the books of course (but it will), but athis point in the story Jon is much more honorable character. How will Jon betray Dany for love? Idk?

 

all we know is that at this point at the end of ADWD Dany is beginning to see Jorah  as a father-like figure. I stress "only beginning." "My bear, my old sweet bear, who loved me and betrayed me." She had missed him so. She wanted to see his ugly face, to wrap her arms around him and press herself against his chest..." Jorah is like Jon another tragic character but unlike Jon his flaws are more pronounced. There is that matter of selling the poachers on Bear island into slavery in order to continue to keep his trophy wife living  in style. Jorah rushing into marriage to Lynesse Hightower...the Westerosi equivalent  of taking the Manhattan wife back to Peoria...well. 

 

So what betrayal would Dany  suffer at the hands of Jon would be so much worse than what Jorah did that got him exiled twice? It would have to be pretty bad. I'm just throwing this out there. 

 

Not only that, but Jorah expresses the "fire and blood" harsh conquest Targaryen POV at this point in the book story (end of Book 5) more than Dany does. He is theruthless  hard-liner:

"I was tired, Jorah. I was weary of war. I wanted to rest, to laugh, to plant trees and watch them grow. I am only a young girl." (Somehow, we never see this Dany on the show!) 

No. You are the blood of the dragon. Dragons plant no trees. remember that.  Remember who you are, what you were born to be. Remember your words." 

"Fire and blood," Dany told the swaying grass. 

 

I have long thought that the conversation between Dany and Jorah in Season 6  "The Door," is one of the best in the whole series. Such layers of nuance, I have seen it dozens of times and still marvel at the subtle undercurrents, both in verbal and body language. Both even say so much with their.eyes. And this is for a reason.  it's where Jon and Dany have been starting to go, and would go, if they'd have had 4 seasons to develop. Sometime I will break it down. But I feel there is a payoff for that scene coming and I can't wait to see it. 

 

Dammit, it's complicated. I'd be happy with Dany ending up with either. As long as Jon got to hold his kid before he goes, and entrust to Jorah. OMG will he get Longcllaw back too?? *CRIES* 

 

Excuse long and rambling post. It's very late and I won't torture any more. 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

6 hours ago, Einheri said:

Watch the scene between Mance and Jon again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3s4-VP3JcM

It was never about pride for Mance.

 

 

5 hours ago, jcmontea said:

That is what Mance says for sure. I don't doubt that. But then again who admits they don't want to do something because of pride? Its not the type of thing people are liable to say. 

And given that Tormund says its about pride, i think we are invited to at the very least be more skeptical of what Mance said. Maybe Tormund is wrong. But maybe not. We should question it. And Jon more importantly ends up bending the knee so we can assume that he agrees with Tormund. 

 

 

5 hours ago, Einheri said:

It's not about pride because most of the Free Folk would probably abandon him the moment he bent the knee to a southern king, and the rest would probably perish in the wars in the south, meaning that his people were pretty much screwed no matter the option he chose. Heck, by not bending the knee he arguable ended up saving more of them since Stannis opted to just hand them over to Jon's authority, and Jon turned out to be a great guy for the Free Folk.

For those reasons I think Tormund (or perhaps I should say the people writing the show since Tormund should know better) was just plain wrong in this instance. Jon's decision to bend the knee was stupid as well. He had already gotten what his people needed from Dany, and his  reasons for not bending the knee were as valid as Mance's reasons for not bending the knee to Stannis. Jon's too lucky that the White Walkers have breached the Wall, and that people have more important things to worry about than who rules the North because otherwise he'd have to face the backlash of his ridiculous decision. 

 

5 hours ago, jcmontea said:

100k to 5k. Hard to see how they could have done worse than that. And they still had to fight in a southern war since they had to fight for Jon at the Battle of Bastards. 

Mance did not avoid his people having to fight below the wall and he got 95% of them killed. 

At this point your just refusing to accept what is presented on screen. Nothing the show showed suggests Tormund was wrong unless your going to say that had Mance bent the knee more than 95% of the wildlings would have died. 

 

4 hours ago, Einheri said:

Again Mance doesn't save 100k by bending the knee to Stannis as most of those 100k will no longer follow him upon finding out that he's turned kneeler. And even if the number of Free Folk who made it across the Wall would have been somewhat bigger, he'd still doom them (Free Folk)  to a life of servitude to Stannis and his wars.  Yes, it's true that the Free Folk ultimately had to get involved in the Bastardbowl anyway, but that was because they chose to follow Jon after he convinced them that the new lord of the Dreadfort and Winterfell would come for them afterwards (and Tormund convinced them that they owed as much to Jon for protecting them) and not because their king had bent his knee to some other king

I'm not refusing to accept what's presented on screen. I'm saying that what's presented on screen is stupid nonsense.

So, this whole discussion is about whether or not Jon bends the knee to Dany at the end of season seven in relation to a conversation he has with Mance at the beginning of season five?

Some points that seem to be missing: (I apologize if this has been gone-over, but these posts are really long)

1. Jon doesn't agree with Mance's decision not to submit to Stannis. He accepts it, but he doesn't agree with it.  This to me is one of the central themes of the show: Idealism vs Pragmatism. 

2. Jon takes a considerable amount of convincing. His decision was a bit of a shock but not really a surprise. Also, he's more than a little in love with her at that point.

3. The very first words out of Dany's mouth after he pledges himself to her are "What about those who swore allegiance to you?" He responds "They will come to see you for what you are." He knows his people will take convincing. He believes they can be convinced.  Same as the Free Folk and Mance, The same as the North Men and Jon Snow and the same as Jon himself regarding Dany. Is it a certainty? No.  People aren't robots.

4. Jon is fully aware of Mance's decision not to ben the knee to Stannis to preserve the solidarity of the Free Folk, but He'll also be aware of Tohren Stark bending the knee to Aegon to not see his people burned alive.  Forming an alliance with the Dragon queen to fight the army of the dead is at least as good a reason.

5. It's likely there will be a marriage next season.  This should go a long way to bringing the Northerners on side. Dany will be their queen either way.

[Lady Of The Crossbow Inn]

JcMontea, I took a long time editing my Jon/Frodo posts. I added a lot to them, both of them. So go back and read them, and reply if you want. There's a lot more there. MinscS2,  you too if you have read them. 

 

To the posters who are in the Jon/Jorah discussion. Someone should post a link to the Dany/Jorah scene in "The Door." Fascinating stuff, a season and a half on. Ian and Kit are both really fantastic  at coaxing a great performance out of Emilia. Yes, Kit too. There, I said it. Put my head on a spike:)

 

Gods, so many great posts. 3 or 4 major ways this Northern thing could go and compelling arguments for all of them. I just hope the tension between and Jon and Dany..they won' make us hate them. the show-runners hate the Starks, they've made that plain time and again. I swear, I can't forget, still, how they genuinely seemed to be surprised at the uproar over Sansa in Season 5. Or how they've turned Bran into a mental-stalking creep. I mean, trying to suss out an active plot for Bran is hard, I admit, if I was the writer... when he's just learning to see things and eating Jojen paste at this point in the books, but come on. There are many things they could have done with Bran rather than have him turn into a robotic, maybe-weirnet-porn-watching  creep. And someone PLEASE explain to me why they cut out the apparent ONE brief scene with Ghost yet kept Bronn's c*** jokes to Jamie in. 

 

So I don't think they mean for us to be liking Jon very much by the end of this. I expect him to die, but I don't mind characters dying if they die the right way...or at least the way they deserve to. With people honoring and respectng them. Yes, even the bad guys. Which he will never be....we hope.. 

[MinscS2]

4 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

3. The very first words out of Dany's mouth after he pledges himself to her are "What about those who swore allegiance to you?" He responds "They will come to see you for what you are." He knows his people will take convincing. He believes they can be convinced.  Same as the Free Folk and Mance, The same as the North Men and Jon Snow and the same as Jon himself regarding Dany. Is it a certainty? No.  People aren't robots.

I'm glad someone brought this up. I've seen so many "Jon's an idiot, the northern lords will hate him for this"-posts here recently. Jon (and Danerys) know there will be tension after his decision to bend the knee, but he believes the matter will be resolved. No one can argue with the fact that it's very much a part of Jon's character to do what he considers the right thing, even if people will disagree with him - to the point that they plot to kill him.

Saving the Wildlings and letting them trough the gate was the right thing to do even if the NW and the Wildlings have a long history of animosity and it would cause some massive tension within the NW.
Bending the knee to Daenerys after she risked her own and her dragons life to come and save him was the right thing to do, even if it was technically pointless for him at that point and would cause tension with his subjects.
Refusing Cerseis request and openly admitting that he had already bent the knee to Daenerys was the right thing to do, even if lying would've given them what they wanted (or at least they thought so.)

[MinscS2]

3 hours ago, Lady Of The Crossbow Inn said:

MinscS2,  you too if you have read them. 

It's an interesting analysis and I agree with many of the points you make.
However, I don't think that Jon and Frodo are supposed to be each others counterparts in the two sagas.
Are there parallels between Jon and Frodo? Absolutely, quite a few actually as you point out.

But there are also many parallels between Jon and Aragorn:
- Both begin their stories as underdogs of sorts. Jon is a bastard with all that entails, who don't know who his mother is and is hated by his stepmom. Aragorn is "one of them rangers", feared and almost hated by the common folk around Bree. He's a good wayfinder and fighter, but just as with Jon, there's nothing inherently royal about either of them, and initially it's hard to foresee how big their characters will eventually get.
- Both initially went into exile of sorts and tried to avoid their destiny. Both failed.
- Both are the front figures in the war against evil and leaders of men. Aragorn is the enemy of Sauron and Jon is the enemy of the Nightking.
- Neither of them actually want the responsibility of being in charge, or to be king. The responsibility is thrust upon them and they both begrudgingly accept the responsibility because they know that there's no better choice and because the realm needs them, not because they actually want to rule. 

I hope we see more parallels between them before the series is over.
- Aragorn ended up marrying the woman he loves, despite this marriage being somewhat controversial, and despite there being some initial attempts to prevent it. Once the dust had settled and evil was vanquished however, they ruled as benevolent king and queen. Hopefully Jon and Dany get the same ending as Aragorn and Arwen. It's not impossible actually.

With all that said, while there are parallels between Jon and Frodo/Aragorn, I'd say one is making it too easy for themselves by saying that they are mirrors of each other. GRRM is clearly influenced by Tolkien, so elements of Frodo and Aragorn are visible in Jon, but Jon is very much his own man and may end up having a different fate.