Springwatch

Great topic! I enjoy reading your posts, thanks.

My thoughts are that there was more fire and blood at the Blackwater than anything Dany did. But also that probably Tyrion and Stannis both have Targ ancestry, so the fire and blood connection still stands.

5 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

That is your interpretation based on the assumption that GRRM is a liar, both when interpreting text in the novels, with George's choice and collaboration with illustrators and with interviews.

Liar is a strong word, implying malice. I don't think GRRM is malicious. He is capable of making statements that turn out to be false when checked against the books - I gave the example of him saying Sansa is a more sympathetic character now she's taken responsibility for her part in her father's death. She didn't have a part in her father's death, and she's not shown any signs of taking responsibility for it. He's said other odd things about Sansa, and so I guess probably he's not totally reliable on other topics either.

Like this one. 

there are people who have gone to Valyria & you know one of them is present in the book, Euron with his horn ... ah which is definitely of Valyrian manufacture

It's just one sentence - the definitely Valyrian horn does support the assertion that Euron went to Valyria, that's how the sentence reads. Why mention it otherwise? If the horn came from the warlocks, it serves no function in that sentence, it would be hopelessly misleading.

Which brings us to collaborators. We're told the official app states that the horn came from the warlocks. Here's the thing: no collaborator has permission to mess around with major characters or important items such as the dragon horn, because that would have a severe impact on GRRM's writing. So we must assume that nugget of information came from GRRM himself. And the effect of that nugget is that the interview statement becomes questionable, and we can carry on arguing Euron and Valyria just as before.

Which brings us to my original point: it is most likely GRRM prefers a live topic to a settled and dead one.

4 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

A topic on which you already expressed your opinion in another thread. Basically, you cherry pick what must be canon depending on your own hypothesis, and in a very inconsistent way. Because here you are both trying to argue that George deceives and lies, while simultaneously making your interpretation of the words in an interview factual. Your argument makes no sense to me. And that's all I'm going to say about it. I have no interest in a back and forth over this.

Rude as ever, I see. I won't miss you. And I get the last word, lovely!

I don't see any contradiction in checking the truth of GRRM's statements. 

Sorry about the cherry-picking and inconsistency and illustrators, but I have no idea what you're talking about. And to be totally, totally clear, I'm not running multiple user names. It's just me.

22 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

That is your interpretation based on the assumption that GRRM is a liar, both when interpreting text in the novels, with George's choice and collaboration with illustrators and with interviews.

Before we get down to quarrelling - what about illustrators?

8 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

No he does not explicitly say that Euron got the horn from Valyria.

The horn has no place in the sentence except to support the idea of Euron being in Valyria. That is how the language is understood. Possibly GRRM is being devious, but that's still a deception.

4 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

Schrödinger’ s cat

At least the cat has to make its mind up eventually...

7 hours ago, butterweedstrover said:

Or maybe it wasn't a mystery and you just thought it was to make the narrative fit the story you want told. It was never framed as a mystery, he comes back with ancient magic, knowledge, and skills to help conquer Westeros. Hence plot. 

There's plenty of mystery. How Euron got in and out of Valyria without physical harm is very mysterious, given Valyria's record of killing everybody. And the narrative purpose of the Reader and his challenge, that's mysterious too.

7 hours ago, butterweedstrover said:

The historical questions of "how, when, where," are meaningless as this isn't a historical investigation, its character building. Valyria exists to shape the characters, not vice versa. It can take whatever form the narrative needs it to take, it isn't an independent body separate to the story. 

Good characters need a good fictional universe to express themselves in, to be moved and shaped by. You can't have the lethal nature of Valyria suddenly not apply to Euron. There's a story to be told, and we deserve to hear it.

14 minutes ago, Yaya said:

@YeniAy_Ottoman

 

it is hard to hear & the closed-captions are whack.

this is what i can hear:
-----------
(someone asks:  another quick question?)

GRRM:  i don't promise any answers - haaahahahaahahaaahahaaahaha.

(a voice interrupts - 'sorry have to go?')

GRRM:
Motions to the question asker: ask your question.

QUESTION:
Just quickly, since the Doom of Valyria no one has been able to step into it or sail near it but there are rumours someone was able to so is there any magic strong enough to withstand the curse that is placed up on Valyria & if so which magic is that?

GRRM:
I don't know about magic ... but there are people who have gone to Valyria & you know one of them is present in the book, Euron with his horn ... ah which is definitely of Valyrian manufacture and you may find out more about Valyria & who's gone there and some people go there and they don't get to leave again - haaahahahaahahaaahahaaahaha ...
-----------

one must remember the time context:  this was in December 2016.  
all the canon is published, the "dump-truck full of money" was into season 7.

I've listened to it several times and the above is accurate.

So. To support the statement that Euron went to Valyria, GRRM uses exactly the one item that the official app says Euron did not get from Valyria.

#unreliableauthor confirmed.

On 5/9/2023 at 8:43 PM, sweetsunray said:

He's talking about the horn!!! Incredible. He references the horn as an artifact of undoubted Valyrian manufacture and evidence of Euron's visit there. Not the egg, not the armour, but the horn, the same horn that other sources say came from the warlocks (and if that nugget didn't come from GRRM, where the heck did it come from?)

Have I got that right?

On 5/16/2023 at 11:11 PM, chrisdaw said:

I think the majority of readers will consider Euron having been to Valyria as the more dangerous and interesting resolution.

Needs a twist though. Danger has no drama when we know Euron returns without a scratch on him.

GRRM likes things to be true and not true at the same time. Some kind of shadow baby or corpse-handler scenario would fit the bill. Or not the land, but a sunken ship or city. And some eldritch horror especially for Euron.

I agree LF and SH are going to meet up - they are unfinished business to each other. The Riverlands is the most likely place, but the Vale is possible, because SH is the person who'd have the least problem crossing the Mountains of the Moon - like Mel, the cold probably can't touch her, and the clansmen would be awed by her. Personally I don't think Sansa leaves the Vale, because my bet is that she gets iced and preserved by the predicted avalanche.

I've a hope LF and SH don't end up dead immediately, but shock each other into a better sanity. When they rediscover their human heart, they can get right back into being in conflict with it, which makes them a lot more interesting.

In GRRM's scifi novels touch makes a psychic connection easier. This might be a hint of that. The Hound overreacts to Sansa's touch on the shoulder too. Probably others.

Why two fingers precisely sounds a bit mysterious, but Jaqen laid two fingers against his own cheek to signal to Arya he'd made her second kill, and that doesn't suggest anything at all to me.

ETA

Tingling in Dany's POV is also the sound of bells. A summons to war, mabye?

On 5/15/2023 at 1:13 AM, chrisdaw said:

You have a vested interest in Euron not having gone it seems when the point is the opposite. The purpose of the Forsaken chapter which was to round out ADWD was to legitimise Euron as a world scale threat,

I've no doubt at all that Euron is a big deal. We're getting very close to Lovecraft with Euron (the tentacles), and the Lovecraftian gods would be a very good fit for Planetos.

I don't think Euron is the heroic adventurer he pretends. So far we see him use catspaws for dangerous, unpredictable work (the horn blower, Victarion). So far no-one has returned from Valyria, except one who was backed by a mighty dragon under the name of a Valyrian god. What's Euron got?

Maybe he took his treasures from the hands of his dying catspaws. Or maybe - and this is the option I like - the sailors' tales are true and there is madness in the seas around Valyria, and Euron fell victim to something Lovecraftian who offered treasures in exchange for a human host (linking to the gods' instruments motif ).

On 5/15/2023 at 1:13 AM, chrisdaw said:

Aeron deducting that the armour proves he's been to Valyria is supposed to be taken at face value and contributes to the chapter's purpose.

Still, for me that's a disappointing end for the Reader (and us, the readers). Should have played it safe. Not asked questions. Taken things at face value. Boring!

8 hours ago, James Arryn said:

This is incorrect, imo. His path would have been different. Even if we somehow discount Cersei’s statements, even if we think he himself was doomed to be caught,

There's no if about it. Ned had breakfast, waited for the death of Robert, waited for his council to assemble, and then went to the throne room when summoned. He was playing to lose.

And Cersei has been lying half her life.

8 hours ago, James Arryn said:

that would have resulted in dead Ned. But the Lannisters having Sansa…as a result of her choosing Cersei over Ned…were explicitly why he chose to kill his honour and plead guilty. He was perfectly resigned to his own death until Varys told him about Sansa. 
 

And Ned pleading guilty did, to the realm as a whole, make him seem much more guilty and therefore changed the dynamic in extreme. Had he just been killed it would have played very differently. 

If Sansa could magically escape, yes, but that's not happening. Cersei's plans for the Tower are to slaughter every last soul in it except her precious hostages. She sent the Hound. She sent Kingsguard. She sent her red cloaks and kept the less reliable gold cloaks to protect herself and Joffrey. She did all this because she wanted a job done on the Tower of the Hand and no-one  to escape it.

These plans don't include opening the castle and city gates for the Stark girls and their cartloads of luggage.

8 hours ago, James Arryn said:

edit: but I agree that if Sansa thinks this or anything like it, it’s not on the page. Maybe this is how he rationalized changing her from ~ villain to sympathetic in his own mind and, lol, has his own headcanon?

She was never a villain, she just wanted to stay in KL with her father, same as before. Cersei with her spies and allies already had much better information than Sansa ever had.

Mostly I think GRRM is playing some deep kind of game with his readers. I mean if he sees Sansa as a villain (and many readers pick up the tropes) - why not actually give her the opportunity to commit the crime? But he hasn't.

Sometimes I go wobbly and think maybe GRRM has actually forgotten what he wrote. But no way! He's had plenty of time to re-read. He wrote very deliberately and in detail. But he does treat interviews lightly. So.

10 hours ago, chrisdaw said:

Yeah I'm saying I don't think he cares about confirming it outside of the text because to his mind the pay off was the end of the Forsaken chapter and he's already 'released' (read) that, so the answer is already out there in text. It's also been so long it might have slipped his mind the Forsaken chapter didn't make it into Dance.

Would be a better pay off if Euron didn't go. And even the Forsaken falls short of proof - there's no law of physics that the armour could only be found in Valyria. GRRM loves writing ambiguities.

On 5/11/2023 at 5:34 PM, Lady Stonehearts Simp said:

So he is lying? That’s a dick move. Either dance around it or don’t answer it. 

Bit strong, but yes he does dick around in interview. Cheese doodles, anyone?

And he says some strange things. (irrc) He modestly laughs about how difficult it to keep track of eye colours etc. Well, it's not, it's not difficult at all, you keep notes, if you don't want to do that, any helper can do it for you, or a computer can do it. In one of his acknowledgements he thanks someone for IT support - there are no limits on what that could do for him. And to cap it all, he merrily continues turning various eyes to blue, and never once asks for later editions to be corrected. (as far as I know)

Again, he says (irrc) Sansa has become a more sympathetic character now she has taken responsibility for her part in her father's death. That never happened. Sansa has never shown the slightest guilt or anxiety about anything she told Cersei. As she remembered it, she poured her heart out and Cersei smiled and sent her away. Ned was set on his doomed path anyway, nothing could save him - the text leaves no room to doubt this.

So - GRRM pulled a dick move in interview. I think he does it amuse, and provoke more debate. Interestingly, another time a show watcher asked if he wasn't frustrated that the betrayal scene didn't appear in the show, because it would have been a great scene, and very revealing about Sansa's character. He wasn't.

2 hours ago, chrisdaw said:

I think the questioning of Euron having been to Valyria is a minor set up for the minor pay off at the end of the Forsaken which is supposed to answer the question, big up Euron and hint that he has more Valyria gotten tricks up his sleeve. So I don't think it's surprising GRRM would confirm it because it's minor in the first place and he released the Forsaken.

It's the Reader's line I'm thinking of - it's a line that sings, because even though it's such a small, quiet thing, it strikes to the heart of Euron's kingship:

Every man there knew that the Doom still ruled Valyria. The very sea there boiled and smoked, and the land was overrun with demons. It was said that any sailor who as much as glimpsed the fiery mountains  of Valyria rising above the waves would soon die a dreadful death, yet the Crow's Eye had been there, and returned.

"Have you?"  the Reader asked, so softly.

Euron's blue smile vanished. "Reader," he said into the quiet, "you would do well to keep your nose in your books."

The courage, the deadliness of it. (And oh my, is the author addressing us?)

it's a flourish any author would be proud of, and it deserves better than to be thrown to the dogs like a stale sandwich. So I don't think GRRM deliberately did that. It might have slipped out of course, if he was tired, distracted, but the quote above is strong enough that we should keep our minds open, I think.

On 5/9/2023 at 6:01 AM, Lady Stonehearts Simp said:

I saw a tiktok of someone asking GRRM and he confirms it.

I don't believe GRRM wants anything confirmed. Confirmation is boring and static, controversy is energising and keeps interest high - so if you ask me, none of his remarks in interview are canon, their only purpose is to spark discussion, not end it. Even apparently simple statements. Why set up a mystery, and then just pop the bubble without the readers doing any work at all?

If GRRM does have a taste for the direct and gross red herring, I'd sooner expect it in off-the-cuff remarks than in the books he's laboured over for decades.

12 hours ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

I don't think anyone but the Daenerys fans would be all that surprised.

And that's what happens when people start taking the show as canon....

Here's one:

Quote

CONJOSE (SAN JOSE, CA; AUGUST 29-SEPTEMBER 2) | PERMALINK  SUBMITTED BY: AGHRIVAINE  [Note: The following several reports all come from ConJose. Rather than break each indivdual report into its own place, each reporter has all of their statements placed in one entry.]  So, I asked a bunch of questions that got an "excellent cheese" response from George, who was at least amused enough by our observation that he used cheese to change the subject that he went on to use cheese as the *only* subject change... Anyway, here are the questions that I asked that got an "excellent cheese" response, and others can chime in with theirs. Other questions got outright "No, that's just wrong" (most of them Trebla's!)

[...]

I also opined that "A Song of Ice and Fire" might as well be titled "A Song of Child Abuse" since children get such poor treatment. Oh, and I did get another "excellent cheese" when I observed that Arya is incredibly psychotic for an 11 year old girl.

So - cheese (he wants to get off the subject), but also excellent (there's something interesting there). It's not going to be  'Arya is psychotic', because that would be ugly, stupid writing. There will be something flowing from his world-building - she's bonded to a direwolf (both of you will change),, and 'wolf-blooded', and probably much more. Gods. Destiny.

On 5/1/2023 at 3:40 AM, Lost Melnibonean said:

No doubt, Daenerys is the most obvious candidate. She totally fits the prophesy to a tee. 

There's just one problem, while the Dutch like to eat herring raw, most of us prefer it smoked and salted. 

So, shouldn't we assume that the most obvious candidate is a red herring? 

How could this turn into a good narrative though? The innocent readers will assume GRRM is lazy or forgetful or incompetent; they will start talking indulgently about first-bookisms and GRRM's weaknesses as a writer. (They are doing it already.) How could any writer lay himself open to this?

On 4/11/2023 at 12:17 PM, AryaRegina said:

That night she lay in her narrow bed upon the scratchy straw, listening to the voices of the living and the dead whisper and argue as she waited for the moon to rise. 

On 4/11/2023 at 1:49 PM, Sandy Clegg said:

It speaks to her with different voices, gives her goose pimples then makes her feel dizzy for an instant.

To me, it's this moment of coldness + dizziness that is the subtle clue. A hint that this voice is not merely her imagination, but an outside force. And the fact that it speaks in different voices suggests that it is likely not the original owner of those voices. 

Sounds like ghosts. I think it is ghosts - they're mentioned so often it'd be almost strange if they didn't exist in a story where every other sort of magic does seem to exist.

So far the ghost mentions are all in history, but there's something else in the present story, which is spirits of the air. Sandor uses the phrase in an early chapter, and Dany I think is gifted a potion claimed to reveal spirits of the air. When Cersei questions Qyburn about the supernatural, he remembers studying the impression left by a woman who had just left her seat, theorising that something of the spirit is left when people die.

The actual 'spirits of the air' quotes are in the first book, but I think GRRM hasn't abandoned them, just hints at them with things like whispers in the wind, and the wind being like ghostly fingers ruffling hair (happens to Jaime a lot for some reason, irrc).

ETA    Another good one: Sweetrobin is haunted by the Marillion - don't think that could be BR or Bran, because it's too purposeless - a voice of the dead, not the living.

ETA2  There's a line from Arya's thoughts when she's trying to identify some soldiers (with their victims) - there could be a hidden truth or foreshadow placed in it.

Quote

I don't need to see the lion, I can see all the dead people, who else would it be but Lannisters?

52 minutes ago, Alester Florent said:

Nor do I think either of them was ever as appalling as Cersei in the first place either. Almost everything that's wrong with Jaime is down to Cersei's influence. The worst thing he ever does is push Bran out of a window, because (he thinks) Cersei told him to. Tyrion is repulsed by the murder of Barra, an innocent child. Both Jaime and Tyrion have some sense of decency.

I hate this take. It's pure scapegoating.

And Tyrion was not repulsed by Jaime's attack on Bran. Neither of them are bothered.

2 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

Sorry but this is a weak and even weird argument imo. I mean, it’s weird b/c assigning this type of subjective knowledge about Cersei’s feelings to Jaime doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. He’s just jealous, as you said. He doesn’t want to share her w/ anyone. Just b/c he uses the words “Cersei’s love” doesn’t mean a thing. He used to think she loved him as well, and she never really did. 

Not weak. Not weird. Jaime is a witness to Cersei's loving behaviour to her child.

She did love Jaime: How could I ever have loved that wretched creature? she wondered after he had gone.

I don't get it why people are so fixated on Cersei being incapable of love, to the point of dismissing all the evidence in the text as 'narcissism', or 'animalism' or whatever. Shall I add 'false memories' to the list? Might be a problem for the author when he's developing his 'love is a poison' theme that Cersei against all his intentions is immune.

Cersei loved her babies so much that Jaime was jealous -

Quote

The boy had been a squalling pink thing who demanded too much of Cersei's time, Cersei's love, and Cersei's breasts.

16 hours ago, Alester Florent said:

So here's a better question: why are you bending over backwards to try to defend Cersei? 

Because we're all grown-ups now and we can handle a bit of nuance. It's only doing justice to the author. Besides - if you've ever given a free pass to any of a million remarks along the lines of I can't believe Cersei is soooo dumb, and evil, what a stupid evil bitch etc (and we've all passed by remarks like that) - well then, you can smile on by at Boltons and me too.