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[Book Spoilers]Mockingbird's grin.


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Is it just me or is your comparison a bit skewed in terms of descriptive/judgmental statements? Serious question btw.

It's clauses like "kinder than his children" and the extra details you give about the tv deaths that made me wonder.

Possibly, but how do you imagine Tywin would deal with Cersei, Jamie or much less Tyrion lieing to his face several times? Cersei says that Tywin NEVER smiles at his funeral, but he seems to be pretty friendly and willing to discuss his past including the potential family "weakness" of Jamie's dyslexia. He had Tyrion's wife gang raped and forced him to particpate. He forced Jamie to lie and say Tysha was a whore he paid. He gave up on Jamie when he was in captivity at Riverrun, which is why he sent Tyrion to be the Hand in the first place, because he was the last son he had. And finally disowned Jamie when he insisted on retaining his position as head of the Kingsguard.

Tywin had the deserters at the Battle of Blackwater's knees broken with hammers to serve as a visual warning to any further desertion, and had his men rape, murder and burn the villages of the Riverlands to provoke the Starks to attack him at Harrenhal. Tywin did not suffer disloyalty in his vassals and was not a very sympathetic person, but apparently in his cupbearers his patience is much higher.

At any rate it still comes back to the fact that the only similarities are that Arya and Tywin are at Harrenhal and Jaqen has offered her 3 deaths, and Gendry is serving as a blacksmith. So I still stand by the statement that there are more changes than similarities in the story line, and so trying to predict what will happen next based on the books is not particulary likely to give you a good prediction.

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Possibly, but how do you imagine Tywin would deal with Cersei, Jamie or much less Tyrion lieing to his face several times? Cersei says that Tywin NEVER smiles at his funeral, but he seems to be pretty friendly and willing to discuss his past including the potential family "weakness" of Jamie's dyslexia. He had Tyrion's wife gang raped and forced him to particpate. He forced Jamie to lie and say Tysha was a whore he paid. He gave up on Jamie when he was in captivity at Riverrun, which is why he sent Tyrion to be the Hand in the first place, because he was the last son he had. And finally disowned Jamie when he insisted on retaining his position as head of the Kingsguard.

Tywin had the deserters at the Battle of Blackwater's knees broken with hammers to serve as a visual warning to any further desertion, and had his men rape, murder and burn the villages of the Riverlands to provoke the Starks to attack him at Harrenhal. Tywin did not suffer disloyalty in his vassals and was not a very sympathetic person, but apparently in his cupbearers his patience is much higher.

He did all of those things, and yet is still a complex, driven human, and not a complete monster like Gregor or Ramsay. He's only brutal when he finds it necessary, and it's absurd to think he'd find it necessary to discipline a foraged cupbearer over a minor, understandable, and ultamitely inconsequential lie, particularly when that cupbearer is, in her own way, showing more competence than some of his battlefield commanders. The book gives us backstory and internal monologue, while the series invents a scene with Arya, but both are to the same effect. If you choose to believe that Tywin is a Complete Monster and that the show ruins this for you, that's your prerogative, but there are plenty of people that are very knowledgeable of the books that would strongly disagree with you.

At any rate it still comes back to the fact that the only similarities are that Arya and Tywin are at Harrenhal and Jaqen has offered her 3 deaths, and Gendry is serving as a blacksmith. So I still stand by the statement that there are more changes than similarities in the story line, and so trying to predict what will happen next based on the books is not particulary likely to give you a good prediction.

This is, quite simply, not true. The similarities are plentiful, but you have to dig a level deeper than the superficialities you're looking at. Like I said, the first of Arya's names is wasted on an inconsequential (but despicable) soldier, driven in part or in whole by the fact that Arya didn't really trust Jaqen and thought it might be a trap. It doesn't matter that the name was The Tickler instead of Chiswyck (other than the fact that it deprives Arya of a moment in Book 3, but really that moment was lost - altered, really - when the show didn't have the time to focus quite so much on the torture).

The second death was done out of an immediate personal need, in both the show and the book. The name and context were different (and the show certainly amped up the immediate tension - again, a consequence of book-to-screen adaptation) but thematically, they were identical.

So it's perfectly reasonable to presume that the third death will follow the theme of the books, which was Arya making a choice that she felt would best help her brother's war effort, and realizing that she could manipulate Jaqen into going above and beyond the strict three-death limit by naming Jaqen himself. The fact that she was willing to snatch a message from Tywin's table to further the Stark war effort foreshadows that that's already on her mind, and frankly, it's such an awesome Arya moment that D&D would be loathe to lose it. Though they've changed the details, they have built toward it.

That it's going to be different in the details is a foregone conclusion. We might as well complain that it's telling the story using pictures and sounds instead of just words. But just because it shifts details here and there doesn't mean that they're changing things Just Because, and doesn't mean they're not building to the Big Moments that are straight from the books. It's not impossible to predict, you just need to use different tools.

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EDIT: Checked and I was wrong. They do meet in the first tourney scene, where Arya impertinently asks him why he's called Littlefinger. LF has eyes mostly for Sansa in the scene, but he does definitely get a good long look at Arya as well.

Littlefinger has never been in a scene with Arya the entire series, until now. So I think it's entirely possible that he does not recognize her.

First you say he was in a scene with Arya and then you say he has never been in a scene with Arya...

which is it?

Or did you mean the 2nd season?

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First you say he was in a scene with Arya and then you say he has never been in a scene with Arya...

which is it?

Or did you mean the 2nd season?

Did you see his EDIT? He added an EDIT in before what he initially said.

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I think this is HBO setting up something that will occur much later in the series - in Winds of Winter in fact, which is that Arya will eventually be sent by the Faceless Men on a contract to kill Littlefinger.

He is going to do something at Harrenhal to make her add him to her list.

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Quote from the HBO Episode synopsis: http://www.hbo.com/#/game-of-thrones/episodes/2/16-the-old-gods-and-the-new/synopsis.html

"A crisis is an opportunity."

Arya Stark continues to win points with Tywin Lannister, but has a heart-stopping moment when Petyr Baelish pays a visit to the commander. She keeps her head down during the visit, and although Littlefinger notices her, he does not recognize her. Littlefinger counsels Lord Tywin to draw in the Tyrells and, for now, forget that they sided with Renly Baratheon. Lord Tywin dismisses Arya, just as Littlefinger gives him an update on Catelyn Stark.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hi all, longtime lurker but this is my first post.

Figured it's time I finally joined the discussion after spending countless hours reading all the great theories in this forum!

I'm fairly confident they'll keep the third "death" largely the same, except that it will be Bolton that gets captured (economy of characters), and Bolton's takeover of the castle won't be aided by a Lannister turncloak (since we have no Vargo Hoat, Amory Lorch is dead, and it's a little late in the season to introduce a new major Lannister henchman out of the blue).

:agree:

Here my take on this: maybe LF is being set up to play the part of the "turncoat" who helps Bolton capture Harrenhal? The way it could play out is that LF tries to smuggle out Arya for his own purposes, and by doing so unwittingly undermines the defense of the castle. Unless he makes a conscious decision to betray Tywin - this IS still Littlefinger we're talking about, and he sure could be more devious this season!.

Also, it's true that Lannisters are fast running out of henchmen at Harrenhal since so many characters have been cut. Which makes me wonder, what is the Mountain that Rides doing all this time?? Of course in the book he's out ransacking the Riverlands, but that doesn't make for good TV. The audience needs to see him more, or they'll never get to hate him enough for the Red Viper duel (and later unGregor?) to have the intended effect... Ser Gregor Clegane is a major character and frankly, he's been basically AWOL so far. :dunno:

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