Darryk

She's not supposed to be entirely likeable. The show's actually doing a good job of foreshadowing what she becomes later. At least she feels like a well-rounded character.

This show is so nuanced and well written. The characters are believable and the dialogue is solid. All very much the opposite of a certain other show I can think of. My only gripe is every time they mention the Prince that was Promised or any of that stuff I get a jab of pain from remembering how GoT screwed up / flat out ignored that entire story thread.

Football: Maradonna Tennis: Federer The rest I don't know anything about.

Interesting that they're portraying Laenor as more traditionally masculine than he is described in the book. It's the reverse of what they did with Lloris in GoT, where they made him somewhat effeminate in the show despite him being one of the greatest knights in the realm in the book. I reckon Viserys has delusions of grandeur about being a dreamer.

Can anyone with medieval knowledge tell me if the trick Daemon pulled during the tourney (tripping the guy with has lance) was pure bollocks or something that would actually happen in a medieval setting?

I really enjoyed it, felt much more true to GRRM's world than the latter seasons of GoT. Aegon dreaming of the Long Night was quite a dramatic reveal, the speech gave me chills (until I remembered how crap the Long Night was in season 8) The tourney seemed rather untrue to medieval history. Would what Daemon did (tripping the horse) be allowed?

So far my issues with the series are a) it looks fake, the production value doesn't seem that high for what the budget is b) bad dialogue c) I don't like the sidelining of Rand since he's my favorite character in the books and I believe his struggles with trauma is the heart of the books, but that's just a personal thing on my part. I don't have much hope of these issues being resolved, why would these things change if it's the same showrunner?

I feel like this story may have run its course. Every season is kind of a repeat of the same story arc, with maybe a few new things thrown in like Soldier Boy this season.

I badly want to see Homelander get beat down but feel like the show has no one worthy to replace him with, as opposed to GoT / ASOIF where Joffrey's death was satisfying and not a huge loss because there were other compelling antagonists still around.

Well I'm finally caught up and damn this season has been a wild ride. I didn't like the introduction of the temporary superpowers cause I thought it was a cheat but now that I see there's a massive price to it I accept it more. I like how there was this sense of hope when Soldier Boy first appears like "finally, someone who can take on Homelander" then you gradually find out he's even worse.

I agree that Bran and Arya would benefit the most from it, but I would add Jon to the list of people who benefit. Five years makes him a more experienced Lord Commander who's potentially found out more about the White Walker threat. I also agree Stannis would be the biggest problem. No sense for him to stay stuck at The Wall for five years. I don't think Cersei would've been a problem, we don't need to see her toxic thought processes, we can easily imagine how bad her leadership would've been. Ultimately I would've liked a five-year gap because I like epic stories that span years. That's one of the things I like about The Expanse.

When I first read the books (after season 2 of the show) I was very sympathetic to him because I had the much more likeable Peter Dinklage version in my head. But on re-reads I've become more aware of how reprehensible at times. Like in book 5 where he says he wants to "rape and kill" his sister, and he bangs a prostitute who is described as being barely aware of what's going on. He's clearly meant to be Richard III, but GRRM said in an interview that he liked Richard III, so who knows where Tyrion is going to end up.

I was thinking the other day that The Expanse may be the best sci-fi / fantasy series I've seen, mainly because it maintained the same serious tone and atmosphere throughout the series without ever descending into schlock. The Mandalorian, I feel, is starting to descend into schlock, I can see the signs. Hopefully they turn it around in the third season, but Book of Boba Fett showed signs of the inevitable slide into cheesiness and schlock that besets Star Wars in general. Game of Thrones, obviously, got so caught up in its own popularity and became very smug and self-indulgent near the end, with gross fan service (the bad kind) and the cringeworthy Ed Sheeran cameo. The Expanse never lost direction or descended into schlock. That makes it unique amongst sci fi / fantasy series.

I also think he will die much earlier in the books. Theon too.

But surely the heir has to be on the Targaryen side? Personally I think Bran will be elected king by a Grand Council of all the lords in the realm. Why he'll be elected, I have no idea.

I enjoyed the finale, although it didn't really feel like the end 'cause I know the books go on. But in some ways I got some things from this finale that I wanted to get but didn't from the GoT finale. The scene where Holden gets offered the role of President gave me feelings that I wanted to get from GoT but instead got the anti-climax of Bran becoming king. Then the part where Holden resigns was also great, a very Jon Snow moment.

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven..” - John Milton.

I have a hunch Jaime will die far earlier in the books, and that they significantly expanded his role in the series because everyone liked Nikolaj so much.

But this is exactly how D+D operate, they don't set things up in a believable way. They get a kick out of shocking the audience so they avoid foreshadowing or set-up because they don't want the audience to guess what would happen. It's one of the many frustrating things about them. GRRM can foreshadow an event and still have it surprise the audience when it happens. D+D lack the subtlety, so they avoid foreshadowing and set-up, and just have the event pop out of nowhere, thinking they will shock the audience that way, except it just ends up confusing the audience. There's a lot in the books to suggest Dany would become tyrannical but they barely set that up in the show, instead portraying her as saint-like right till the end, because they wanted her 180 turn to shock the audience, except instead it just felt jarringly out of character.

I think Tyrion is GRRM's Richard III, and since GRRM is a Ricardian (he believes Richard III was framed) he'll use Tyrion as an outlet for his Richard III fanboyism. So a good chance Tyrion does end up as Hand at the end, despite all he's done, IMO.

I just hope the white walkers do more damage than taking over one castle in the North before being destroyed at Winterfell. I imagined an apocalyptic scenario where they ravage their way through the seven kingdoms, maybe even getting as far as King's Landing. Or at least have a proper long winter where the white walkers are roaming about and people are hiding away in their castles, starving.

Not to mention one of them turning on his own King in the North cause he interrupted his rape.

We should've known they'd muck everything up back in season 2 when they completely bungled Cat's motivations for freeing Jaimie.

I think GRRM painted a massive target on his back with that quote, because he's obviously going to need to do the same thing as Tolkien in his book. It's pretty hard to include every minutiae of detail, and at some point you have to leave things to the reader's imagination. Like Bran being king for example, GRRM is not going to write another book showing how Bran rules, we'll just have to assume he rules wisely because of his sage powers. He probably was referring to Dany and Jon with that quote, ie. he shows how hard it is for them to rule, but it's easy to do that when you're still in the middle of the story. At some point you have to wrap things up and the "he/she ruled wisely for the rest of his days" cliche becomes inevitable at that point.

I think Jon's ending sort of echoes Frodo from LOTR, or at least would have if D&D hadn't botched it. He echoes Frodo in that he saves the realm but not for himself, and has to leave in order to find peace because he's been so wounded by his experiences. Frodo does get a happy ending in the end; sure, he doesn't get to stay in the shire, which is sad, but he's going somewhere he can find peace. Maybe after the white walkers are defeated, north of the wall becomes a place where Jon can find peace, not having any responsibilities and not having to answer to anyone. The scene between him and Ygritte in the cave may be foreshadowing his ending. Maybe this is what GRRM is going for but D&D botched it by having Jon be a character who doesn't make any decisions for himself anymore and just does what other people tell him. In the books, he will probably choose to go north of the wall himself. Bran's ending, I agree, I can't see how GRRM could consider that a happy ending for Westeros. Westeros is the central character of this story and the one that really should get a happy ending, if all the sacrifice and death throughout the story is to be worth it. But how is an all-seeing god-king on the throne a happy ending? He knows all his subject's secrets and can spy on them at any time. Sounds more like the beginning of a dystopian science fiction. Maybe GRRM will make it work. He certainly won't end up king because of some half-baked election. Maybe a Great Council will be involved but it will be a GREAT council of lords, not a dozen or so randoms. Tyrion's ending, I think we should have seen that coming. Tyrion has always been compared to Richard III, and GRRM has admitted to being a Ricardian, in that he believes Richard III was framed for the murder of the princes, and would have been a great ruler (he may have been being tongue-in-cheek when he said that Richard was framed, but I definitely get the impression he admires him), so I guess Tyrion's fate is a sort of wish fulfilment for GRRM, in terms of how he wishes Richard III's story had gone.