Looking back: Did B&W blow something spectacular with Talisa Maegyr?

[LindsayLohan]

Now that they're all dead, I'd like to add I think the show missed a real opportunity to do something interesting and different than the books.

In the books Robb Stark married Jeyne Westerling after she took care of his wounds suffered storming her family's castle, the Crag, in the Westerlands. They are a house loyal to the Lannisters. Robb did not take her to the Twins for Edmure Tully's wedding, as he did not want to offend Walder Frey. She is still alive, a Lannister captive en route to Casterly Rock.

In the show, Robb's wife is changed to Talisa Maegyr, who claims to be from an old family in Volantis. Volantis is one of the Free Cities of Essos. The name is completely made-up, and the character does not appear in the books at all. Who is in the books? One of the sitting Triarchs (a democratically elected triumvirate that rules Volantis) is named Maegyr.

If the show had followed reality, the Volantese (and possibly allied cities) would have waged an insane invasion and economic warfare against the parties they held responsible. The Talisa Maegyr character is actually more appropriate as the bride of a Queen than anyone Robb was betrothed to or actually married to in the books, and she was freaking BUTCHERED. It would be the equivalent of Prince William marrying Jenna Bush, then Jenna getting assassinated in the UK by some foreign agent. The fallout would be INSANE.

B&W just let the whole thing drop, though. They had the opportunity to tell a fantastic story during a couple of middling seasons.

[falcotron]

Or maybe Maegyr is a common name in vulgate Valyrian, and it's more like Prince William marrying Jenny Bush, a girl I went to school with who came from a reasonably well off family (her grandfather owned a bunch of car dealerships) but isn't related to the former Presidents. It works either way.

Meanwhile, there's almost certainly no Volantene invasion of Westeros in the upcoming books. So, D&D had the choice to make their invented character stand alone, or to connect her to a much larger invented storyline that would completely change the endgame from the one GRRM gave them. I think they were wise to choose the first one.

And really, you could make the same argument anywhere. They chose this name for her, and they already had the option of making her a close relative of a Volantene triarch even before they chose the name. Or they could have made her the sister of the Sealord of Braavos just as easily and given her a different name. Or she could have been a secret Blackfyre, or a daughter of Doran Martell in disguise, or anything else they wanted. I'm glad they didn't do any of those things. I don't think the show would have been improved by adding a major new story that corresponds to nothing in the books at all in the middle of the series.

[YoungGriff89]

I actually agree with this and have posted about this once or twice:  In the definitive list of plot holes thread most recently.  I think it's debatable when it comes to the story she told about herself to Robb, but the argument is there that her family didn't care about her much since she didn't want to be a proper lady, and probably wasn't close in a line of succession.  I agree, they ignored a much cleaner route to getting Arya back (having the faceless men contracted by the Maegyr family) to Westeros.  I think it also helped world building in Dany's storyline since the Maegyr family would have probably had their slavery affected by a Westerosi invader.

[Lucius Lovejoy]

@LindsayLohan nice catch there, I never read TWOIAF so I never notice these things.  I think Talisa was really just a character invention to help emphasize "war is bad" since we weren't (thankfully) going to get a lot of scenes of the Mountain ravaging the Riverlands, and she also helped put show only viewers off the scent that some foul shit was being orchestrated between Tywin and the Westerlings in order to get the Freys and Boltons to turn on Robb.  Plus, it makes Robb look like less of an idiot.  So I'm happy enough with how it was done, and I think @falcotron was right that a Volantene invasion would be a bit much for the show.  Then again GRRM brought so much random shit into AFFC and especially ADWD that who knows, maybe a Volantene invasion of Westeros would happen in TWOW.  Wait a minute, we aren't getting TWOW, but maybe GRRM will write us another maester book about the Maegyrs and Volantis sometime before he gets around to writing TWOW.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

I also would like to have seen the "Maegyr" thing have a payoff of sorts. 

 

Then again, There is a Red Priestess doing something important in Volantis right now...

[Damon_Tor]

On 9/4/2017 at 4:54 PM, LindsayLohan said:

It would be the equivalent of Prince William marrying Jenna Bush, then Jenna getting assassinated in the UK by some foreign agent. The fallout would be INSANE.

To be more correct, it would be like Jenna Bush marrying an Scottish separatist who claims to be the King of Scotland then getting assassinated by agents of the Queen.

Would fallout be insane? As a pseudo-democracy, and especially one without a single head of state, no single Triarch has the power to unilaterally decide foreign policy. Maybe the nationalistic outrage of the Volantines would give him some temporary casus belli for joining the war, but probably not.

So imagine if Jenna Bush married some Scottish terrorist (that's what the news would call him no matter how much of a freedom fighter he thought of himself as) do you really think we'd damage our relationship with the UK over it? George Bush (let's assume he's still President) would be put under pressure to distance himself from his daughter, and likely would. Then she gets killed by the UK government, or at least forces loyal to them; I'm sure that would create tension, and I'm sure there would be significant political fallout, but we wouldn't enter the war on the side of the Scottish separatists because if it.

[kimim]

50 minutes ago, Damon_Tor said:

So imagine if Jenna Bush married some Scottish terrorist (that's what the news would call him no matter how much of a freedom fighter he thought of himself as) do you really think we'd damage our relationship with the UK over it? George Bush (let's assume he's still President) would be put under pressure to distance himself from his daughter, and likely would. Then she gets killed by the UK government, or at least forces loyal to them; I'm sure that would create tension, and I'm sure there would be significant political fallout, but we wouldn't enter the war on the side of the Scottish separatists because if it.

This. The situation is not how the op sees it.

Also, for me, the expansion of the story to Essos in the novels never worked as the heart of the story remains Westeros. Including new complications and cultures when so much is happening on Westeros is unnecessary. Point in both novels and show is that Robb broke his promise, giving Tywin the ability to threaten and manipulate Frey into the Red Wedding. Tywin could do that because when Stannis lost Blackwater, Robb lost, too. That defeat was in part made possible by Robb's decision to accept the crown and start a separatist movement, which made it impossible for him to ally with Stannis. 

Anyhow, this mess is interesting enough on its own without involving Essos.

[falcotron]

On 9/14/2017 at 7:51 PM, Lucius Lovejoy said:

Then again GRRM brought so much random shit into AFFC and especially ADWD that who knows, maybe a Volantene invasion of Westeros would happen in TWOW.

I think there might be an invasion from Volantis in the books—but if so, it'll be in support of Dany.

The leaders of Volantis have already gone all-in supporting the slavers' side in Slaver's Bay.

But meanwhile, the red priests are trying to foment a slave rebellion back home. They may succeed (maybe with Dany's help), or that may just be a feint where their real goal is to commandeer some ships to get the most useful revolting slaves over to help Azor Ahai Reborn.

The show sending Melisandre back to Essos may even be doing a simplified version of this, where she'll just come back with the Fiery Hand, with no discussion of Volantene politics (Essos is done, Dany won), and no explanation for why they all now have flaming swords (book readers will be able to guess, extremist book snobs will intentionally guess wrong to have something to rant about which will keep them watching, nobody else will care at all). In a war against wights, 1000 flaming swords (or however many they can afford to CGI) looks cool and makes sense at the same time, which is always a nice combination.