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falcotron

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Everything posted by falcotron

  1. Yeah, he played Richard I at least twice, but to be fair, he's played just about everyone in English history (starting with Aethlstane, the king before whom there was no such thing as English), so he had to double up somewhere.
  2. Speaking of Doctor Who, David Bradley (Walder Frey), after playing First Doctor actor William Hartnell in the 50th anniversary docudrama An Adventure in Space and Time, is now playing the actual First Doctor in this year's Christmas special. A friend of mine who doesn't watch GoT regularly wanted to know why Ashildr was impersonating the Doctor at the start of this season. Also, someone posted a list of GoT/DW crossovers earlier, but only included connections from the 2005 series. Most of the older cast members were on the classic (1963-1989) series or involved in the "wilderness years" between 1989-2005 in some way, just because most British actors old enough to play an older person were on the show at some point in its 26+ years. Rather than list them all: Earliest (I think): Julian Glover (Pycelle) playing Richard the Lionheart in The Crusade in 1965 (he's also Scaroth in City of Death, maybe the most famous one-off villain in the classic series, the one who was unstuck in time and secretly had a head made of green spaghetti). Last: RIchard E. Grant (Izembaro) playing the Ninth Doctor in the 2003 animated pilot Scream of the Shalka. Most crossovers: Richard E. Grant (Izembaro), Jim Broadbent (Archmaester Ebrose), and Jonathan Pryce (High Sparrow) as Ninth Doctor, Tenth Doctor, and Master in the 1999 semi-official parody The Curse of Fatal Death. Also, the shortlist for the Eighth Doctor included Jonathan Pryce (High Sparrow), Liam Cunningham (Davos), and Tim McInnerny (Robett Glover).
  3. Has anyone mentioned DIana Rigg joining Victoria this season? I've only watched the first episode, but it's pretty strange casting. Diana Rigg is basically written as Olenna Tyrell. The real Duchess of Buccleuch was 30 years old, deeply religious, a "lifelong romantic", and an agreeable woman who became Victoria's best friend. It's also the only role I've seen her in since her return from retirement in 2013 (for Doctor Who) where she's basically just playing Olenna. It seems like a waste, given her range. But maybe she'll do more with it in later episodes. I think the only other actor Victoria and GoT have in common is Guy Oliver-Watts, who had a minor recurring role as Sir James Hayter in S1 of Victoria, and was a unnamed Lannister general this year, although I think his scenes were cut from all but the last episode. (Victoria and Doctor Who, on the other hand…)
  4. 1 hour ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

    Useful is not all it's cracked up to be. I'd love the details. I'm a total history nerd. Feel free to send them in a PM if you like.

    If I were smart, I would have just started at Plantagenet England, realized that it fit pretty well, and have been done. But instead…

    The most famous cadet house traditions are the early modern HRE ones, I'm pretty sure GRRM didn't borrow from there, because the reason they're famous is all the the wacky results that still persist to modern times, like the British royal house being a cadet branch of a cadet branch of a Wettin duchy and the German imperial house being a cadet branch of the County of Hohenzollern. There doesn't seem to be anything like that in Westeros.

    So, next, medieval France, which is the original basis for most other European systems (since they had strict primogeniture before anyone else, so they needed it). The heraldic rules fit, and the few descriptions we get of cadet houses seem to work, but there's a huge problem: In France, if you can't acquire a new territory through marriage or conquest to give to your second son, you almost always split off a new fief within your main holdings for him. In Westeros, acquiring territory through marriage seems to be actively discouraged rather than encouraged. Conquest may be about as common as in France (like House Lannister of Darry) but that's not very common. And we don't see subdivision every generation—it's rare enough that it's presumably something you only do if you really like your second son or are really worried about him rebelling, rather than it being expected.

    Norman England directly brought over the French appanage traditions, but William immediately ran into the problem of his heir trying to overthrow him twice, so he ended up leaving everything to his second son, William II. Meanwhile, William II and Henry I were trying to flatten out the aristocracy and shrink all the old and new earldoms down, so nobody wanted to subdivide their domains either, because that would just make it easier for the kings to turn everyone into little more than barons. But when it did happen (often after acquiring new territory—e.g., Edward II conquered north Wales and part of Scotland, then his son gave York and Lancaster to his cadets), they followed the French rules. Which is basically the same thing we see in Westeros.

    And if you assume that GRRM borrowed this system for cadet houses, everything works, including the heraldry.

    What about bastard houses? They weren't very common in Plantagenet England, but they were common a few centuries later. And if you look at the Westerosi heraldic pattern—the father's arms quartered on a plain field with a baton sinister—that was invented by the King of Arms standardizations in the late 16th century. At that time, it was clear that bastards were not considered cadets—this was explicit with Charles II's bastards. Appanage was pretty much dead at that point, but if it had still existed, I don't think it would have applied to bastards. At that time, appanage was pretty much dead anyway, but also, Charles II's bastards were explicitly not called cadets.

    So, my guess is that Westeros's cadet house system is borrowed from Norman to Plantagenet England, but its bastard system is borrowed from Stuart England.

    As you can see, there's a lot of guessing here, but I think it all fits.

    1. Lady Blizzardborn

      Lady Blizzardborn

      Very cool! Thank you for sharing all of that with me.

  5. Bah, limited screen time is no excuse. The books for this part of the story don't exist, so it shouldn't take more than 0 minutes for this entire season. In fact, just turn off your TV and look at the blank screen for 0 minutes, and you've got a 100% faithful adaptation. Why can't HBO just release that? It would certainly save on budget! Personally, I care more about whether the show is enjoyable than whether it's identical to the books (which I generally like much better, but it's not like they're sacrosanct scripture), even before we got to the point where the books don't exist. So I'd rather watch the 48 minutes of this actual episode than the 0 minutes of the faithful adaptation. But real true book snobs should try it the other way.
  6. I'd say the possibilities, in decreasing order of likelihood, are: Bronn fishes him out of the water downstream. Tyrion points him out and the Dothraki fish him out and take him prisoner. He washes up on his own somewhere unconscious but inexplicably alive, and has to do the long crawl back to civilization that every male character does on this show (most recently Theon) even though he's actually only a few miles from KL and can march half a continent in under a week. He washes up on his own somewhere unconscious and also amnesiac and builds a new life for himself as a happy smallfolk farmer until he's implausibly spotted by Tarly months later in episode 7 and brought back to work for his sister, still without his memories. He drowns but comes back to life so now he can challenge Euron to a new Kingsmoot. The Lannisters are secretly descended from the legendary fish-people of the sunken ruins of whichever Rhoynar city that was, so Jaime discovers he can breathe underwater. D&D actually killed off one of their favorite characters in the middle of S7 with his arc left unfinished.
  7. Come on, it's going to be hot. A bloodless undead fire wight, what part of that isn't hot? I mean if you skip the bloodless, undead, and wight parts, it's fire, and fire is hot. Dany: My dragon, Viserion, is dead. Jon: Speaking of dead, have I mentioned the Army of the Dead in the last 3 minutes? Dany: And I'm sad about this. Jon: <grim silence> Dany: Because I have emotions. Jon: I too have emotions. About the Army of the Dead. Dany: So we'll have sex now. Jon: <grim silence> Dany: Oh, Daenerys Targaryen, Stormborn, Unburnt, Mother of Dragons. Jon: <grim silence> Tyrion: You know, Jon, most people couldn't pull off looking so brooding while having sex with a beautiful girl, but somehow it works for you. Dany: Oh, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea. Tyrion: You guys forgot we were here, didn't you? All that intense concentration, I guess. Which is not how people normally do this, but whatever works for you. Dany: Oh, Queen of Meereen, Breaker of Chains. Tyrion: Also, calling out your own name and titles is weird enough, but doing it in that flat monotone is even weirder. You could at least get a little breathy or something. Davos: Hey, Missandei, that reminds me, I've been meaning to ask what sex is like back on Naath. Missandei: I really can't tell if you're being creepy, or are just really into ethnology. Davos: I'm not sure myself. All I know is, as long as King Snow is getting laid, nothing else matters. Tyrion: Now that's creepy. Also, how did you survive all those years under Stannis? Davos: King Baratheon? He used to nail Melisandre on the map table. Tyrion: Remind me not to take my lunches at the map table anymore. Dany: Oh, Protector of the—we're done. Jon: <grim silence> Dany: As I was saying, if you will bend the knee, I will defend the North with my three dragons. Missandei: Two dragons, my Queen. Dany: Oh, yes, that is the thing I was having emotions in regard to. Jon, did we have sex because of that? Jon: I think so. Have I mentioned the Army of the Dead?
  8. I literally forgot that one had happened by the end of the episode. I asked my friend, "So, now that Theon is the entire pro-Dany Ironborn faction, he's obviously going to have to meet one of the Starks, how do you think that will go?" and only remembered halfway through the last word…
  9. 8/10. Best episode since S5, and gives me renewed hope for enjoying the end of the series. Only the "No I won't bend my damn knee" once-again-but-more-stupid part really drags it down for me. Most of my other non-trivial problems were with the battle, which was overall so much fun that I can forgive them.
  10. Didn't Tarly say the gold was at the front of the train, and had already crossed through the gates into King's Landing, before the battle even started?
  11. Still pissed off about the whole bend the knee argument, lots of nits to pick with the battle, a few minor things elsewhere in the episode—but overall, this was the best episode since S5. It was actually fun to watch, and I didn't even have to turn my brain off to enjoy it. Which is especially nice after it looked like things were getting worse week by week over in the first half of the season.
  12. Now he's a drowned man, and he can challenge Euron in a Kingsmoot for the Iron Isles.
  13. The battle looks cool as hell (and so far, they seem to be doing only about half of the "tactics they're almost surely going to do wrong" predictions instead of the 80%+ I expected), but: Dany is spending all her time setting the supply train on fire. Never mind that this does nothing to help the battle, that supply train is all of the food (and gold, but she was too late for that) that she went there to recover. Is she planning to feed her armies on charcoal?
  14. Hey, who should fire this artillery piece? Our best artillery expert? No, let's use our best swordsman.
  15. DIckon: "I didn't like having to kill a bunch of my old friends in battle." Well, maybe if anyone had thought of calling out Olenna to surrender when she was clearly going to lose, instead of just immediately assaulting the castle walls and making things as bloody as possible for no reason… but no, who could possibly be clever enough to think of something as innovative as parlaying?
  16. They have this thing in Westeros called "jokes". The wiki should explain the concept.
  17. "King Snow. No, that doesn't sound right. King Jon?" Come on, Davos, did you used to work for a guy named King Baratheon? Are you coming to treat with Queen Targaryen about her war with Queen Lannister? Every idiot, even in a country like America that hasn't had a monarch in centuries, knows that Kings go by their given name (or a regnal name that replaces it), not by their last name. How could Davos get that wrong?
  18. Dany: "I'm not going to ally with you yet, but I demand that you listen to my top-secret strategy session, so now I pretty much have to ally with you or kill you."
  19. Ack, spoke too soon. This was my favorite episode of S4, and then they go right back into rehashing the "Bend the Knee" "No I can't bend my damn knee" conversation, and even dumber than last time. Is the Rant thread open yet?
  20. Wasn't Old Nan's story about the Last Hero uniting the First Men and the Children in the show? This would have been the perfect time to mention him again, and confirm that Old Nan's stories are true. If that was only in the books, then I'm an idiot, and never mind. Anyway, still the first non-stupid scene on Dragonstone since Stannis left it, so I'm happy.
  21. The Arya at the gates scene was kind of cool, but some of the lines are silly. Why ask "Which Lady Stark?" when she already knows Sansa is alive and well at Winterfell? What other Lady Stark did she think it might be?
  22. I'm not saying Ellaria's actually going to successfully kill Cersei, just that she's going to declare even more eternal vengeance on Cersei, which will go as well as all of her other plans. Except for her own family—she's very good at killing her own family to get revenge on the people who killed her family. So, while failing to kill Cersei, she will manage to kill the only member of her family left, herself.
  23. I think we're missing the obvious possibility here. What does an evil mastermind with a mad-scientist henchman without an heir always do? She asked Qyburn to create a clone. Unfortunately, while the clone came out identical to her, down to the hairstyle and the outfit, she was only one eighth her size. And Qyburn knew his lady wasn't going to accept a dwarf, so he fed the clone to the Frankenmountain and tried again. The next clone was normal sized, but wasn't identical—in fact, for some reason, she looked exactly like Bernadette, the handmaiden Cersei had assigned to Sansa and used as a spy a few years ago. But at least she was born with the right hairstyle and a simplified version of the outfit, and that was good enough. "I shall call her Mini-but-not-mini-enough-to-be-a-damned-dwarf-Me."
  24. Except that High Valyrian isn't her native language either, so that's like a French peasant slipping into Latin, rather than French. Which could be a hint that she's not actually a peasant, she was a scribe or a noble or something, or that she's hundreds of years old, or something like that, but those seem even more implausible. That's a good point. "Being a jackass" is hard to rule out when the person you're being a jackass to is Cersei… Although maybe the most fun way to be a jackass here, and to torture Cersei, would be to give her a bunch of perfectly accurate prophecies and then one inaccurate one, so she spends her life dreading the wrong death? Ah, good point. So it's only 40% of Westeros, not 80%, and Arya's not included. Except… It's not that bad of a story if played right. And the argument that it's a bad story because it doesn't have Jaime doing it rules out Tyrion just as much as it rules out Arya. I couldn't decide whether the books were more likely to do your "Arya decides to kill Cersei, is prevented at the last second, and then has to find a new purpose in her life without her List" story or the "Arya is forced to choose between her List and her family and chooses her family" story. The fact that the show did the latter—this seems like it might be a big enough thing to be part of the skeleton of major character plot beats that GRRM gave D&D. Of course all of the details would be theirs, especially since they had to restrict themselves to the much more limited set of symbols already recognizable in the show (the crossroads Inn, Hot Pie surviving by being more Hot Pie than ever rather than being no one, Nymeria surviving by finding a new pack), but the basic choice could be from the books. But, on the other hand, Arya going south or Cersei going north isn't impossible. (Nor is another reunion with the Hound.) The general trend to the story is toward drawing everyone together. For example: At some point, the Walkers have to affect KL in some way, which could be, say, Jon making a venture to convince Cersei. If Cersei believes the story but decides to kill first Jon and then Dany before fighting the NK, and Arya overhears Cersei tell Jaime her plans, that's a reason for her to decide to kill Cersei again, and it's also a reason for Jaime to kill her first. (I don't think that's at all the most likely scenario, just one example of a wide range of reasonably plausible ones that could give us your ending.) Also, Ellaria is played by D&D's favorite actress in the world, and Tyene is their favorite of the new characters they had to create by merging multiple book characters, so… But I really don't seem both of them surviving. The two of them getting free, but Tyene getting the antidote too late and dying in her mother's arms, giving her a fresh new reason for vengeance, that seems to fit the whole Dornish "This time it's EVEN MORE PERSONAL" revenge plot too well (especially since the people they're most recently getting revenge for are people they killed themselves, not people their enemies killed, and it's a lot harder to write well).
  25. You must know all the fan theories on that one. Maggie explicitly says "the valonqar", not "your valonqar". And everyone, even people who speak High Valyrian fluently, is too stupid to remember that many High Valyrian words with masculine grammatical gender are semantically ungendered: The Prince That Was Promised actually means The Prince or Princess That Was Promised. So it could be anyone's little brother or little sister. Which means Arya is a candidate. But then so are 80% of the people in Westeros. In fact, "brother" isn't restricted to humans in English, so why should we expect "valonqar" to be in Valyrian? Ser Pounce is a little brother, so he's a candidate too. And the thing is, as stupid as all of this sounds—why on earth would Maggie say "valonqar" in Valyrian when the rest of the prophecy is in Common unless there's supposed to be some surprise twist like this? If I said "You will die at the hands of the fraterculus", and I actually meant your little brother rather than someone with the Latin title or nickname or whatever, I'm not even pretentiously showing off that I know Latin, I'm just being a jackass for no reason.
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