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[Book Spoilers] House of the Undying


Artemis

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Here's the strange thing about the burned out throne room covered in snow . . . I actually imagined something like that happening even before watching this episode. I've had this imagery in mind for a while now; the Red Keep damaged in a battle involving dragons (with Aegon and Daenerys squaring off), holes in the roof, snow falling into the throne room and dragons poking in their heads as Daenerys holds court, etc.

Then, to see that image visualized on-screen in a way, it was really strange. I started thinking: "Wow, maybe I wasn't far off."

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This 'interpretation of Pyat Pree's Evil Doppelgängerhouse' just gave us stuff we did not need.

1. Two visions completely redundant. Drogo and Rhaego are dead and burned. They won't come back. What was the empty throne room supposed to mean?

2. There were no Undying Ones within Pyat Pree's Evil Doppelgängerhouse.

3. The whole point of the House of the Undying were the visions. So why give us a twisted version of it instead of cutting it completely.

4. The whole point of Qarth was the House of the Undying. They would have better cut this twisted version of Qarth and invented something completely new.

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The more I think about it, the more I warm up to the way they did the House of the Undying. Someone pointed out they subtlely worked the "song of ice and fire" line into the King's Landing scene, and shouldn't we be happy that we got a new prophecy? That had to have the GRRM seal of approval.

I can't help but wonder how people would be reacting if GRRM had written this episode rather than the last one. No doubt they'll insist it would have been better. Still. In any case, my inner nerd will forever insist that the blue rose would have been in there if he'd written it.

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and what gives you the impression that the storytelling of D&D will live up to that?

It may or may not. Personally, I see the series as being at all the right plot points as it ended, so I assume that pattern will continue. There also has been a pattern of some lines being spoken by different characters than in the books, which is not uncommon in adaptations.

But you certainly can't conclude objectively that it won't, which is why I objected to someone say that you "cannot deny" that they "completely fucked" it. Of course you can. That's opinion, not undeniable fact.

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Maybe I'm grasping at straws here, but I figured I'd check the boards to see if anyone else noticed this: about 44 minutes in, when Dany first enters the Throne Room, the camera pans behind her and we see a stained glass window with something BLUE (possibly floral? Can't make it out) in the center and we see her torch burning beneath it. Initially I thought this was purely coincidental, but as we pan around and see the rest of the Throne Room, the other windows have been blasted out. So I'm thinking we readers did get a wink here, albeit a very subtle one. Anyone else notice this or have any thoughts on it?

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I was content with the HOTU itself, but the burning of the warlock was rushed and clunky, as was the chains just burning off/her being able to get out not to mention Pyat Pree's idiocy/quick death... In general it was an inevitably weird scene that they handled as best they could. I honestly liked the imagery of the iron throne, wall, and khal with rhaego quite a lot.

Did we really expect rhaegar and his harp? Or an obvious spoiler of a guy with a wolfs head sewn on at a wedding.

I may be in the minority but now that all is done, I think HBO did the best they could with the source material. The same cannot be said for Jon

It was weird that they got Jason Momoa to play Rhaegar Targaryen.

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i wasn't expecting all the propechies. but we could have gotten, he is the pwp and his is the song of ice and fire. it could have even been pyat pree saying it.

so the point of the whole qarth storyline was...... what? doreah and other unnamed members of the khalasar die. the dragons learned fire attack. way too much happened for the city of qarth without gaining an understanding of the city at all. nothing happened for daeny at all.

i now 100% believe they should landed daeny in westeros instead of stannis this season

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I have two questions that I really ought to know the answers so, but I don't.

1 - Can someone remind me of the significance of the blue rose in the books?

2 - Have we been told whether George told D&D the main thrust of how things end and can thus glean things about the books from what we were shown here?

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If the HotU scene wasn't a vehicle for the prophecies, why bother with it at all? Some argue that blue flower's and cloth dragons would only make sense to book readers. But three betrayals influences her behaviour for the future, and if you aren't aware of R+L=J then snow on the throneroom doesn't make sense to tv viewers either. As for the budget reasoning, a disembodied voice is more expensive that creating the tent with Momoa and the child? Why not skip the HotU alltogether, and have Quaithe deliver the omens in some other time? It is fitting that a poor season would have a poor finale.

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Hiya. First-time poster here. I admit to not having read every single post in the E10 threads, so my apologies in advance if this has been brought up elsewhere, but...

Are we sure that was snow in the throne room scene at the HOTU? It looked like it could've been ashes. It was gray, and the way it lingered in the air was different than the snow blowing in the following scene at the Wall (in which Dany noticeably shivers from the cold). My first thought was that it was snow and represented the future ("winter has come," and all the symbolic implications of "Snow"), but if this vision is more in keeping with ACOK, it might've been the past -- King Aerys's "Let him be the king of ashes." (minus Aerys & Rossart, but maybe this is the post-wildfire aftermath Jaime describes in ASOS?). Someone else mentioned that there's a skeleton, too, which lends itself to whole "charred bones and ash" thing with the Mad King.

Anyway, it seems like lots of folks are interpreting all of the TV HOTU scenes as prophesies for the future. I saw them more as what has been (Aerys's reign), what is (Mance's tent north of the Wall), and what may/never be (Drogo's return). That would've been more in the spirit of the actual HOTU from the book (unlike 90% of what we actually saw. Seriously, would it've killed them to stick a blue flower in that ice? Something? Anything?).

Or maybe it was just snow and I'm completely off my tits. :)

Edited to add: Whoa ... great minds think alike, houseHB. LOL!

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I can't have been the only one that was pissed off about how the sequence of events unfolded at the House of the Undying in Quarth.

Besides the image of the Wall and the Iron Throne, did they even allude to the other prophecies/images presented in the book? I don't think they did but I'll have to re-watch the episode again.

No. Just no. I would have liked the episode otherwise but I was still seething about the House of Undying or the lack thereof until the end of the episode.

I absolutely agree with you. The episode was good with powerful and emotional moments. The actors were very good too... but what about the most important parts? I mean Daenerys' visions... they dodn't make sense, they don't hint to her future.

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Hi, 1st post :P I actually liked it because I wasn't expecting anything. After the changes made this season, I expected them to totaly butch this one (like they did with Jon's arch). They didn't imo. As a book fan, yes it was a letdown (especially because HoTU chapter is the only Dany's chapter I liked in the books). But I believe it worked well for tv... Love the iron throne room burned and covered in snow/ashes, the wall was cool too (definitely, Winter is coming!). Didn't particulary liked the Drogo/Rhaego scene, boring...

Imo, showing the RW would be a major sopiler, Rhaegar's could be there and so the blue rose (KateStone, I went to see that scene again and you're right. All the windows are destroyed, except the one with a blue glass in a kind of floral arranjement), but I belive that it wouldn't worked as we didn't have any previous references to R+L.The profecies can be had later by Qaithe, and maybe after Barristan's talk with her about Rhaegar's she will dream about it or something...

It was poor but not that bad, imo...

ETA: Greyscale Dragon, interesting thoughts. You made me look at the whole thing in a different way...

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Hiya. First-time poster here. I admit to not having read every single post in the E10 threads, so my apologies in advance if this has been brought up elsewhere, but...

Are we sure that was snow in the throne room scene at the HOTU? It looked like it could've been ashes. It was gray, and the way it lingered in the air was different than the snow blowing in the following scene at the Wall (in which Dany noticeably shivers from the cold). My first thought was that it was snow and represented the future ("winter has come," and all the symbolic implications of "Snow"), but if this vision is more in keeping with ACOK, it might've been the past -- King Aerys's "Let him be the king of ashes." (minus Aerys & Rossart, but maybe this is the post-wildfire aftermath Jaime describes in ASOS?). Someone else mentioned that there's a skeleton, too, which lends itself to whole "charred bones and ash" thing with the Mad King.

Anyway, it seems like lots of folks are interpreting all of the TV HOTU scenes as prophesies for the future. I saw them more as what has been (Aerys's reign), what is (Mance's tent north of the Wall), and what may/never be (Drogo's return). That would've been more in the spirit of the actual HOTU from the book (unlike 90% of what we actually saw. Seriously, would it've killed them to stick a blue flower in that ice? Something? Anything?).

Or maybe it was just snow and I'm completely off my tits. :)

Hey! First time poster too ;) Very interesting theory... I hadn't thought about it. When I saw the throne room scene I thought that might have been a vision of a possible future where the others destroyed everything. But the snow definetely looks different and Dany only shivers in the following visions. There might be some truth there :dunno:

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I seriously abstain from a tourette-cursing-crysis like there's no tomorrow about the Dany arc,but I can only wonder.....if they used the dracarys thing this season,how the bloody f%@k will they pull out the Astapori burning-of-the-slavers scene next season? It will look so repetitive,most all-movie fans will throw horse dung at D&D

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1 - Can someone remind me of the significance of the blue rose in the books?

Basically, blue rose = Lyanna Stark.

2 - Have we been told whether George told D&D the main thrust of how things end and can thus glean things about the books from what we were shown here?

From what I understand, he has. They also know who Jon's parents were.

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From what I understand, he has. They also know who Jon's parents were.

If that is the case, it makes people complaining too much seem way premature to me. Knowing this, at least for now, it just makes me really intrigued as to why they are choosing to do things the way that they are. Curious...

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Yet another first timer ... At first I was bummed that they left out so many of the visions, but all of this discussion about the visions they did show has got me a bit more excited. There might be some foreshadowing that we hadn't been exposed to before?

The one part I didn't like is that I'm wondering if they are going to omit the part where she uses her dragon to burn the guy selling her Unsullied. Now that she's already used that trick, will they basically have a repeat of the exact same thing with a different person? It would really suck if she just goes and buys the Unsullied with Xaro's stolen flatware and whatnot!

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