divica

6 minutes ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

I am putting this in spoilers since we are addressing the unpublished Winds spoiler chapter...

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And Massey will return with sellswords procured with funds from the Iron Bank

aboard the ships that Manderly has hidden up the White Knife. With Tommen fighting Aegon, and both of them fighting Euron, and with tales of Daenerys finally reaching Stannis's ear, he's gonna head south. 

Massey will return after months. He hasn t even left…  By the time he arrives most of those conflitos will be resolved...

ps it is a sample chapter published in adwd. I don t think we need spoilers...

2 minutes ago, The Coconut God said:

But why must we have this convoluted mess... Stannis losing, surviving, running away to the wall, somehow growing mad enough to burn Shireen instead of running off to Braavos to get more sellswords... all for the sake of the boring ass Ramsay vs Jon side story? I don't get it. It's just bad.

The story flows smoother, is more satisfying, and serves the characters better thematically if Stannis retakes Winterfell, finally loses his skepticism about his higher destiny and makes the supreme sacrifice for the sake of the realm, only to be crushed by reality in the most tragic way.

Because stannis taking winterfell is completly useless. The north is divided and he can t unite it without a stark. Wether he has winterfell or not is completly indiferent… Ther northerns won t march south and won t completly join him… 

Then stannis has to return to the Wall to see how the preparations are going to man the Wall. And why would he leave the Wall if massey might arrive at any moment with sellswords? he can t leave the north… if massey returns and he isn t there what would happen? It makes sense that if stannis is defeated he goes hiding in the Wall waiting for massey… It even makes much more sense for stannis to face the other on the Wall than winterfell….

And no matter what you may think of ramsay roose is a very interesting villain. He probably wiil have a backstory and it makes sense to have him vs a stark… Roose vs stannis is kind of useless...

1 minute ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

Jon is on ice, literally and figuratively. Manderly has pledged his support, and Stannis ought to be able to able to lead a force of Northmen south like Creegan did to save their damilies from more mouths to feed. That's where Drogon can melt his face, and Daenerys can take his troops to help her battle Aegon. And then Satin, dressed like Prince Charming can give Jon a kiss and wake the sleeper to battle the Others. Ok, maybe not quite like that, but perhaps you get my point.

Not seeing any of it happening. After the fiasco with robb and with winter here the northmen won t leave the north.

4 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

If he died and was reanimated, would that be the same as an actual living person? I don't think so, but I don't have the answe; it's at the very least debatable. But in the eyes of everyone, he would be someone who died and was brought back, and not unlike a wight. Why should anyone accept him as king?

It can go both ways. Either seen as a miracle or as an abomination… But if the old gods are involved the northerns will love it

1 minute ago, The Coconut God said:

If she hasn't done it already, how will she now? Stannis is prepared to die at Winterfell, and in that situation he wants Shireen to succeed him, we already know this. The only thing that could make him change his mind is if this existential threat of the Great Other actually manifests itself, because then he will have to believe that he is Azor Ahai and it is his duty to save the realm.

He is far from mel and shireen… what can he do? He can t abandon his troops and escape alone… And stannis won t ever burn shireen without mel influencing him...

6 minutes ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

The Boltons are going down one way or another. The George has set up an additional purpose for Stannis down the road. Some think he will fight the Others, but that's Jon's purpose. I think Stannis heads south to add fodder to the Second Dance of the Dragons. Since Dumb & Dumber planned to have Jon and Daenerys lead the aarmies against the Others, they didn't need him to the north, and they didn't need him toward the South since the cut the Second Dance of the Dragons. So Bolton defeated Stannis, and Dumb & Dumber had Jon take Stannis place in that respect. The George, though, still has plans for Stannis. 

Come on, he will go south with wath army and do what against danny and faegon's armies?

The north won t follow stannis south. He has close to 600 soldiers before these battles...

Stannis simply doesn t have the means to do anything until massey returns...

3 minutes ago, The Coconut God said:

You are free to disagree, but that is the enemy Melissandre set him out to face. If he's ever going to burn Shireen, and the show basically confirmed it, he will do it to protect the realm from an existential threat, He won't do it just to win a castle for himself, we've already seen that in the Theon preview chapters. If he dies in battle, Massey's orders are to win the throne for Shireen.

If he burns shireen it will be out of desperation. It doesn t need to be because of the others… If mel convinces him that his survival is crucial to save the realm and the only way for him to survive is to burn shireen he would do it.

4 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

I was speaking about the years long arguments made here that Jon's death will free him from his NW vow. If that happens, the same should happen to Robb's will.

I'm not fussed either way, I don't think Jon's dead.

Why would the will be anuled? 

The vows only say that he will be in the NW until he dies. So if he dies and comes back he kind of completed his vows. 

The will doesn t have clauses...

But I think jon will leave the NW because the northern lords will plead with him to do it and because it is necessary to unite the north. And the fact that the NW is basically over and failed miserably in its mission will also be important. 

41 minutes ago, Lion of the West said:

Now it may be that Stannis and Jon can switch places through a really convoluted set of events, but that would make no sense to me and take away from the message on House Baratheon on how infighting and division leads to destruction, just as the Stark kids probably will come into a better position than either Lannister or Baratheon because they kept themselves on the same side and didn't turn on each other, despite both Baratheons and Lannisters having much better shots at becoming the top House than the Starks really had.

It isn t that convoluted. If stannis loses the battle and returns to the Wall nearly alone he will be in a very delicate mental state. If mel convinces him to burn shireen to wake some dragon eggs that they brought from dragonstone and it doesn t work I can total see stannis joining the NW. How can he become king without an heir?

34 minutes ago, The Coconut God said:

You make a good point about fArya, but on the other hand the clansmen don't really plan to return home. Part of their reason for joining Stannis was that old men usually go out in the cold to die anyway during hard winters, to leave more food for the young, and they'd rather die in battle.

But the problem is that now they are going to fight the entire north (not just the boltons) for stannis that they don t seem to like… And they might die without even fighting… Stannis has no means to breach winterfell nor siege it…

There is no good reason for them to stand with stannis… 

2 minutes ago, The Coconut God said:

I agree that he has to lose, but not to the Boltons. The Boltons are much weaker end game material than Stannis. I understand that the show focused an entire season on Ramsay vs the Starks, but I'd call that a side quest more than story progression, and they had to deviate quite a lot from the books in order to have it happen anyway.

Keep in mind Jon doesn't need to prove himself in battle to become KitN because Robb's will exists in the books.

Not really. My personal theory is that the clansmen will abandon him because tey think he has no chance of winning, his people burn people alive, pray to a foreign god, farya is already saved… Without the clansmen his army is very small.

And roose has to have something special. If you read the chapters about him he doesnt think like a normal person… Like he is happy that ramsay would kill his baby son… Even if bolt on isn t completly right there has to be something...

4 minutes ago, weirwoodface said:

With all the buildup involving the Iron Bank, that is entirely possible IMO.

And there's also what GRRM referred to as the Chekov's gun of Nymeria and her ever-growing packs of rampaging wolves in the Riverlands. Arya is developing her skinchanging skills in Braavos, and she

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keeps having more and more intense wolf dreams in the Mercy chapters of TWOW. These two things cannot be a coincidence, IMO.

I think that Arya will have a very important role to play in the endgame. It just won't be parkouring out of a tree to slay some "Night King". It'll be better.

At the moment I think it would be more interesting if she ends stealing whatever the faceless in the citadel is after. It would conect the faceless to the major story and giver her something important to do.

3 minutes ago, Ingelheim said:

Sansa and Ramsay are just a shortcut to Sansa liberating the North with the control of the Vale army, and possibly LF at her side.

So much has to happen for this to make sense that winterfel would only be taken at the end of this book or in the next one. I can see one of her brothers controling the north and asking the vale for help with food/the others/the IT and sansa making the vale help.

And the north has to prepare to fight the others, it can t spend another book infighting...

8 minutes ago, The Coconut God said:

The story in the books is poised to have Stannis beat the Boltons, which means the next step is either a much earlier invasion of the Others (very fitting given the title), or a war between Stannis and the North and/or the Vale.

I think the story is poised to have stannis lose the war. In order to have the story progress stannis has to be defeated and die or join the NW.

3 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Maybe for some. 

The story is finished when the author is happy w/ it. What you or I or anyone think is completely irrelevant.

Why? 

Again, why? You don’t know what’s going to happen in the books. You don’t know which parts will be similar (between show and books) and which won’t. It seems you’re making an awful lot of assumptions here, but the fact is, no one knows any of this but Martin. 

We don’t even know if Bran’s story will play out similarly in the books. Again, you’re making assumptions based on what the show has done. 

I think for a lot of people it is hard to divide the show and the books. The events in both kind of merge. So what happens in winds will be important for the people that didn t like this season. 

Have you seen how many people have lost interest in asoiaf in the last years? If people find out that there will be even more books even more people will lose interest in the series because they will believe that we will never know the end…

And my point is that in the next book we need to have proof that there will be some major diferences or that he can make what happened in the show into a satisfying read. If one of the 2 don t happen manny people will also lose interest...

8 minutes ago, The Coconut God said:

That's what I got from it too. Plenty of differences, and differences interwoven with similarities.

Like I wrote in a different thread, how would you describe the Sansa & Ramsay plot line? Theon's arc is fairly similar, and he was the PoV for that plot line. In vague political terms, the Boltons are still using a Stark bride to consolidate their power. As a reader/watcher, you are still horrified by a young woman being victimized. And if Sansa ends up north with the Vale army, the end result might be the same too. But it's a very different story for Sansa, and a ton of minor characters and political complexities are missing. Can you really say anything about similarities and differences for this plot line without spoiling everything?

I think sansa is a huge snowball effect. In the books it makes sense that she becomes an influential person in the vale and that makes the vale help the north. In the show she was influential in the north. So is it very diferent for her character if she ends up in charge of the north or in charge of the vale? Hell I think I would like more to see alayne stone outsmart LF and Harry the heir and robin and end up ruling the vale than see sansa stark ruling the north where we already have enough characters for the job.

And maybe as you are saying this kind of logic can be applyed to several characters...

1 minute ago, kissdbyfire said:

That’s exactly it. Of course he won’t spoil the books, come on. And it’s obvious some things that happened on the show will happen in the books, however differently. 

That’s why he ended the post the way he did.

How about this?  I’ll write it.   You read it.  Then everyone can make up their own mind, and argue about it on the internet.

I think what happens in winds (that I really think is almost done) will define if people will care about his books or not.

First, the story has to be finished in 7 books because he takes too much time to write.

Then he will either have to make people understand and like what we saw on the show or write something that changes completly the fate of a character in the show and the books. And to me that character should be bran. I thought we would have a small number of pov chapters from him, but if grrm wants anyone to believe he can become king he has to rule something in the near future. Otherwise he should just make bran fuse with a weirwood...

Just now, kissdbyfire said:

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

in other words, things he has said before, many times. 

That is my point. We don t really learn anything new… Maybe there will be more diferences than grrm initially thought…

These "yes, no, yes, no" are pretty diferent from his previous answers. He could have fodused on how the journey to the end would be diferent and that the main points would be the same, but he didn t...

12 minutes ago, The Coconut God said:

It's from his most recent blog post. Titled "An Ending", btw, which might tell us something too.

I have no idea what that post says to us…

There will be diferences and similarities between the endings?

He has a gazillion projects he is involved in?

He doesn t have a date to release winds?

9 minutes ago, T and A said:

"How will it all end? I hear people asking.   The same ending as the show?  Different?

Well… yes.  And no.  And yes.   And no.   And yes.   And no.   And yes." 

- George RR Martin 

is that from a recent interview?

1 minute ago, nara said:

My thought was that he was escorting the wildlings back home

I thought Drogon took her to Dragonstone, where she was born. There is no new lord there so she can Rest In Peace.

If he was just escorting them he had the worse ending I could ever dream...

And why not be clear about what drogon was doing?

1 minute ago, CrypticWeirwood said:

Did you really believe that junk they told the Unsullied?  

Or should that be Unjunked?

yeah, that was an oficial sentence that everybody knows about… it isn t a secret deal...

1 minute ago, Anthony Pirtle said:

I thought the first half was pretty good. I mean, I wasn't crazy about how we got there, but at least it didn't mess about. Tyrion gave Jon a hell of a pep talk, and then he went and whacked the mad queen. Everything after Drogon flew off, however, was pretty silly. Hack dialogue and some very odd choices. 

Agree completly. after drogon flies off he takes the logic with him.

1 minute ago, bloodsteel bitterraven said:

As a prison I guess.

every city has a fucking prison...

2 minutes ago, Raksha 2014 said:

He could be escorting the Wildlings to their new homeland (?The Gift).  

they were going north...

Just now, House Cambodia said:

Yes

That does absolute no sense. If he was setenced to the NW why would he run away from the NW? that isn t jon...