The Bard of Banefort

Yeah, except Jon just looked tired the whole time instead of in love with anyone. Sansa was the nag, Dany was the psycho, and poor ol’ Jon was stuck in the middle.

I know, but it’s better than nothing at all.

If you believe all publicity is good publicity then it is. All of those people are going to watch the show, just like how all the Freefolk people will watch HOTD and all the Star Wars haters watched Kenobi. We arguably know more about HOTD than TROP because they’re following a written story, whereas we don’t really know what they’re doing with the LOTR lore at this point. But I’ve only seen a few videos about the former. (Of course, there are other things to consider, like the demographics for YouTube and how well it matches the target audience for HOTD). I’ve seen all the data for HOTD’s online traffic, I just haven’t seen many people actually talking about it beyond us.

George breaks a lot of promises. In his defense, I don’t think he makes any of them with the intention of breaking them, but unfortunately once it’s happened enough times, you can’t take someone at their word anymore. Book readers feel used, and I don’t think there are many new readers anymore (a friend of mine showed me a picture of the fantasy section from his recent trip to the bookstore, and all they carried of ASOIAF was a few paperback copies of AGOT. It was sad to see). At this point, I’d like him to just put out some more DnE and FnB II. One day we’ll get a cobbled together version of his notes and drafts for TWOW/ADOS, but for whatever reason, he just can’t bring himself to finish the story. It wouldn’t surprise me if the moderator for the SDCC panel bans any questions about future books.

Yeah, a lot of people missed that Tyrion bringing us Sansa and Arya was what turned Jon against Dany. Up until then, he was able to rationalize what she did, even if he didn’t agree with it. The show kind of switched around the book relationships, making Sansa the sister Jon was ultimately closer with instead of Arya (just like how the show emphasized the Hound’s relationship with Arya instead of Sansa), but in the books it will probably be to save Arya, who will do something to cross Dany. But this is a problem with both the acting and writing. Jon and Dany’s romance was both underwhelming and unconvincing, and even though Jon and Sansa had good screen chemistry, all they ever did was argue with each other. I can kind of understand the dumb incest-shipping fan wars when you consider how they pitted Sansa and Dany against each other as Jon’s “two women” (especially with the way they tried to make Jon and Sansa look like Ned and Cat). But it was all just so. . . bleh.

I keep hearing that HOTD is getting more online traffic than TROP, and I’m wondering what they’re seeing that I’m not. There are new videos on YouTube every day complaining about TROP. I’ve been trying to find more HOTD videos to watch because it’s better than nothing, and the results have been bare.

Any chance they’ll release the script for the Harrenhal stage play in book form? It’s going to be so lame if it comes out before TWOW, but I’m willing to bet it will. That’ll certainly affect George’s reputation as a writer.

Some DotD thoughts: Corlys chose to legitimize his “grandsons” as his heirs rather than have his not-grandson Joffrey be his heir. . . but he also passed over his 100% trueborn granddaughters in the process. By doing so, he chose the heir that did not descend from his departed wife, Rhaenys. Addam and Alyn may have publicly been acknowledged as Laenor’s bastards, but Corly knew better. It’s a shame he preferred erasing his wife’s memory over having a female heir (at this point, Corlys had no way of knowing that Alyn and Baela would eventually wed). We’re told that Viserys was an amiable peacemaker, and I wonder if this was the product of him having grown up around so much tragedy. After Aemon’s death, Jaehaerys and Alysanne only had Baelon, Viserys, Daemon, Gael, and Rhaenys around. Then Jaehaerys alienated Rhaenys and he lost Gael and Alysanne. So by the time of his death, the only family Jaehaerys had left to comfort him was Viserys and his wife and daughter (I doubt Daemon was much of a comfort). I can see how Viserys would have started trying to placate and comfort people from an early age, first his father after Alyssa’s death, then his grandparents. He had to fill the hole left by eleven dead children. It also explains why he couldn’t bring himself to get rid of Daemon.

That’s the weird thing. I keep hearing that HOTD is racking up numbers online, etc., but I don’t know anyone in real life who’s interested in this show. Even the Reddit community for it is pretty small (and also kind of crazy, if we’re being honest). I wonder if it’s just all the Targ stan accounts that keep it in circulation.

Further proof that Bran isn’t going to be an evil god-king: he’s Summer. Jon is resurrected, aka a Ghost. Grey Wind is a bit harder, but I guess it also has a bit of a ghost-y feel to it.

This is why I think Arya might actually sail off into the sunset in the end. George likes to foreshadow the fates of characters with historical characters, and I think he could have added Elissa Farman to FnB for that reason (much like how he added another Daenerys who died of something called “the Shivers”). Arya did start talking about going “west of Westeros” back in S7.

HOTD is also going to set some people off. Right now it’s just the anti-woke people complaining that Corlys is black and that Rhaenys mentioned sexism in the trailer, but I’m sure there’ll be a bloc of people upset that the Asian character is a sex worker, and that two gay men die in the first season.

I’m actually kind of bummed that they’re doing the entire lead-up to the Dance in one season. That’s the part of the story I found most interesting. I wish they at least gave it two seasons—maybe go up to Jace’s birth/Daemon’s marriage to Laena in the first season, then start with Laena/Laenor’s deaths at the beginning of season two with the older actors. I don’t know how they’re going to fit in Rhaenyra’s relationships with Criston/Laenor/Harwin/Daemon all in one season (along with the births of five children, at least one of whom will be close to adulthood by the end of the first season) in one season. I’m also curious how they’ll manage to not make Viserys and Alicent’s marriage seem creepy now that they widened the age gap between them so much.

See, that’s what I want too. If they’re going to bring the old characters back, then go wild with it. Make it fun.

I think Tyrion’s tragedy is that he thinks he wants his family dead, which is what will prompt him to push Dany towards violence, but once Jaime dies, he’ll be forced to realize that he still loves his brother and helped kill him. And then he’ll turn on Dany.