falcotron

Rhaegar is definitely described as honorable, kind, wise, etc., but he's also described as obsessively consumed with his prophecy, and more so every year of his life. If the prophecy implies that he has to commit bigamy (which, again, is not traditionally a problem for Targaryens, even if it's not very common nowadays) or adultery to save the world, I could see him being very torn up over whether/how he should break it to Elia, but I don't think he'd hesitate at all over his decision to go ahead with it. As for Lyanna, when are we ever told that she's a paragon of virtue? We're told that she's "too wild" and "has the wolf in her" and isn't a "proper lady". Even by the people who loved her most, Robert and Ned. Besides, this is not even open for question. It's a simple historical fact that Rhaegar took Lyanna and ran off for the Tower of Joy. If he's too honorable to have eloped with her for a polygamous marriage, surely he's too honorable to have abducted her to rape her or to murder her for blood magic or any of the other alternatives. Sure, and that leaves an opening for an interesting character conflict. To Howland or Mel or whoever else breaks the news, it will be the most wonderful thing in the world--imagine, you're secretly the rightful King, and the Prince That Was Promised, and the Third Head of the Dragon, what could be better than that? But all Jon hears is, wait a second, that means I'm even farther from my dream of being acknowledged as Ned's trueborn son; I'm not even Ned's son at all? That would make sense if Jon was like Little Griff, or Alaine, intentionally disguising himself until it's time to reveal his true identity. But clearly, that's not the case here. Are you suggesting that knowing his parentage will magiclally change his hair color, or that Howland or whoever has been secretly disguising Jon without his knowledge or anyone else's for his whole life, or what? So you think the promise Lyanna extracted from Ned on her deathbed was "protect all the children of the Targaryens, who murdered our brother and father and kidnapped me"? Somehow, that doesn't seem in character given that Lyanna is a human being and not from Bizarro World. You mean the same Lyanna's tomb which was recently dramatically pointed out to Theon in the books and to Sansa on TV? Also, how is that the only way left? Why keep harping on the fact that the as-yet unseen Howland Reed is the only survivor from the Tower of Joy encounter? Sure, it isn't guaranteed that he knows anything, but "the long-awaited Howland probably knows something because he was there" seems a lot less of a stretch than "the long-awaited Benjen probably knows something because he was the brother of someone who was there".

I was so sure I understood that last one. When I was reading the book, Quality Inn (or Comfort Inn, or one of the others in the same chain) had those "Where Do You Go" ads, showing a businessman on a business trip in business New York, a family with two young kids going to not-trademarked-Disneyland, etc. But then they didn't have one with a group of working girls going to Vegas for convention season. More seriously, I think there are forums out there for people to discuss GoT without ASoIaF. And, even on this forum, if you go to the "no spoilers" threads instead of the "book spoilers" threads, there's a lot less cross-contamination. But I personally find it interesting to compare and contrast the two, and try to speculate on which storylines will converge and which won't, and so on. Yes, it means you have to deal with some people who always compare and contrast by saying "one is the best thing ever written, and the other is worse than Cleopatra 2525", and who speculate on which storylines will converge by saying "D&D are stupid, so they will do the stupidest thing possible, except that they can't possibly do what they very obviously set up to do in the next episode because that's not what happened in the books and therefore it's impossible". But there are still interesting discussions that happen around them--often started by people who are "book purists" but aren't insane about it.

This is still early in her transformation; they need us rooting for her at the start, so they can gradually make her actions more brutal and less justified until there's finally a point (hopefully a different point for different viewers) where we stop being able to go along for the ride and start being shocked at what she's become. That's how you write Breaking Bad (or at least Falling Down), instead of Revenge of the Sith.

How is that at all relevant to the discussion? You just finished insisting that we should ignore the books to talk about the show. And you also were suggesting that Rhaegar+Elia or Robert+Lyanna are the only theories that make sense. So how does what the book says about Ned have anything to do with anything? (I could argue that it doesn't fit the evidence perfectly, which is because every single person who knows Ned thinks there's a mystery in the first place, but again, it's not relevant, so let's not get into it.) Says who? A wedding under the Old Gods doesn't need anyone officiating or any specific ceremony. And that's not just from the books; Jon himself even discussed that fact on-air (with Ygritte). The Seven might require a Septon or some holy gizmos or something, but there's no reason it would be particularly difficult for Rhaegar to get them to the Tower of Joy, when he got half the Kingsguard there. So why do you keep saying that R+L=J is impossible because it would mean he's a bastard, if you think that it doesn't even matter if he's a bastard? I suspect Rhaegar did marry Lyanna, because (a) he may have believed it was important that the Third Head of the Dragon be a Targaryen rather than a Sand, ( B) Lyanna wasn't the kind of girl who would put out without being married, and/or © on top of the prophecy, they actually loved each other, and getting married is what people in that world do when they're in love and want to have children. But maybe he didn't. (Maybe it's even significant that the Tower was in Dorne, where people often fall in love and have children without marrying?) But the fact that it's possible they didn't get married certainly doesn't prove that they couldn't have gotten married, and, even if that were true, that wouldn't prove that R+L=J is either impossible or meaningless. The Maesters who Rhaegar summoned from around Westeros to examine Elia after her difficult childbirth and recovery don't have first-hand knowledge? How much more first-hand can you get than examining the patient directly? But R+L=J has a ready-made and blindingly obvious answer for that question: Lyanna was afraid Robert would do something to a Targaryen baby, and when she asked Ned to promise something, it was to make sure Robert didn't find out about her son. Some of the more far-fetched theories like Ned+Ashara have ready-made answers as well. Neither Rhaegar+Elia nor Robert+Lyanna has any such answer. We're told that Rhaegar believed he needed three Targaryen children to be the Dragon with Three Heads and save the world, and that he became obsessed with that prophecy. When he was told Elia couldn't have another child after the first two, he summoned all the best Maesters to get a second opinion, and they all told him the same thing. And then, for some reason, he either abducted or, more likely, eloped with Lyanna. And that pissed off Lyanna's fiance and her family, and incited a rebellion that got his first two kids and himself killed, negating any chance of him achieving his prophetic goals. So, the only part that's at all theoretical is that the "some reason" he ran off with Lyanna was to produce that prophesied third child. It's certainly possible that child was not Jon, or that they never conceived, but the idea that he was trying to produce the Third Head of the Dragon, and that doing so led to the destruction of all of his endeavors, is almost so far beyond doubt that it's silly to call it a "theory". We have a little less information on TV than in the books, but everything we do have fits in with the same facts and points in the same direction. So, yes, I agree with this theory. But this theory is circumstantial evidence in favor of R+L=J, and strong evidence against R+E=J or Robert+L=J, so I'm not sure why you bring it up.

Well, except for the obvious unlikelihood of the Princess having a secret fourth child that nobody knew about, and that child somehow finding its way to Ned Stark, who never went anywhere near her during the War. And, more importantly, the show has never given us any reason to suspect R+E=J as a possibility. You could just as well argue that the show has never given us any reason to doubt that Tywin+Joanna=Jon, and he's really the secret heir of Casterly Rock ahead of Tyrion. There was no reason to give us any doubt, because it wasn't a plausible possibility in the first place. If you're just going to selectively ignore the vast majority of my post, including the very first paragraph, I'm not sure why you're bothering to respond. Again: * Son of a polygamous Targaryen marriage is not a bastard. * Who cares about inheritance? You really think the throne is going to be settled by an orderly inquiry into bloodlines at the end of the show? Jon would still have, among other things, "king's blood" and "the blood of the dragon" and everything else that's relevant for magical purposes. The twincest means that Joffrey is not even vaguely related to Robert. The question of him being a bastard doesn't even come into it. If I try to claim Bill Gates' fortune on the basis of the fact that I'm not a bastard, people aren't going to check whether it's true that I'm trueborn, they're going to notice that my father is not even vaguely related to Bill Gates and ignore my claim. Again, who cares? You think if Tommen dies, Cersei or Margy or anyone else is going to sit down and work out from the precedents whether the throne should go to Gendry or to some third cousin of Robert's that nobody's ever met? As long as nobody has any intention of backing Gendry for the throne, it doesn't matter whether bastards come after trueborn sons, or after all trueborn relatives no matter how distant, or outside of the succession entirely. On the other hand, someone has intention of using Gendry as a sacrifice because he has "king's blood", and she's pretty sure that he counts for that. So, even if Jon were a bastard, he would presumably count as a King as far as religious/magical stuff is concerned, just as Gendry does. What sort of thing are you talking about? Having sex with Rhaegar? If you believe that it's impossible that Lyanna eloped with Rhaegar, the only other possibilities are that he abducted her (and do you think telling a rapist "But I'm betrothed, and I won't break that bond" is going to make any difference?), or that every single person who's talked about Robert's Rebellion, from Ned to Dany, was making up the whole story. (Also, notice that everyone is absolutely sure that Ned stopped sleeping with other women once he and Cat were married; Lyanna was never married.)

I believe that she expects them to find and search the bones that look like a dragon's leftovers, and that finding the carefully-placed ring will confirm that she intentionally parted company from Drogon here, and possibly point out the direction in which she traveled. Of course she only traveled a few meters before being picked up by Jhaqo's khalasar, and I'm pretty sure that if Daario is a good enough tracker to follow their path from there, he would have been able to spot the signs of their circling Dany like 1930s movie Indians from the bone pile. Plus, I'm pretty sure they're taking her to Vaes Dothrak, given that it's literally the only settlement, and almost the only landmark, within an entire third of a continent. But she didn't know that would happen. Also, her searchers aren't exactly the smartest people in her entourage, so maybe they'll need the clue. (Actually, I'd love to see the story of Jorah and Daario searching for clues written like a Sherlock Holmes story, with Jorah as a Watson too dumb to realize that Daario is even dumber than him. "Which is it to-day?" I asked,--"glue or paint fumes?" He raised his eyes languidly from the centerfold magazine he had opened. "It is paint fumes," he said, "--a seven per-cent solution. Would you care to try it?" "No, indeed", I answered, brusquely. "My constitution has not got over the fighting pits yet. I cannot afford to throw any extra strain upon it." He smiled at my vehemence. "Whatever, brah, that just means more for me. And I'm already wicked high." Then he paused, and asked, "Dude, what were we doing again?" I have always found it a frustrating habit of his, to ask me to provide my interpretation before revealing to me all of the deductions I had missed, but I have found no recourse but to play along with his game.

Yes, if Rhaegar married Lyanna, that would be polygamy, and the Faith doesn't like that. Sure, he believed he needed to conceive three Targaryen children to save the world, and his ancestors didn't care that the Faith didn't like polygamy, and there have been at least two Kings on the Iron Throne whose fathers had multiple wives, but the Faith doesn't like it, so he might as well just give up and let the world die. Of course the Faith doesn't like adultery and fornication any more than it likes polygamy, but who cares about that, getting some hot Stark action is a lot more important than something like saving the world, so he ignored that one and knocked her up anyway. And then he somehow convinced three members of the Kingsguard to stay out of the war just to protect his mistress and their bastard love child. That makes a whole lot more sense than a secret marriage. Besides, who says Jon has to inherit anything? He can be AAR, or Warden of the North, or Prince Consort to Queen Dany, or all kinds of other things without having to inherit anything. Unless you're expecting an ending where everyone realizes Jon is secretly the Rightful King so they all decide to stop fighting and live happily ever after the end? After giving birth to Aegon, Elia was bedridden for six months, and the Maester said that she could probably never conceive again and if she did it would kill her and the child. Rhaegar summoned the best Maesters in Westeros for a second opinion and they all agreed. But we can ignore all that because and assume that she somehow had another child, because ...? Then the only problem left is how and why this impossible child was kept secret from everyone, and somehow ended up in the hands of Ned Stark, but I'm sure you have a solution for that too? That one's even sillier. How, within the timeline, could Robert have gotten Lyanna pregnant? And, if she had, why would Ned hide that fact from, among other people, Robert? At this point, you may as well suggest that Jon was secretly Cat's son but she somehow bore without knowing, or that he was Ned and Wylla's son and Ned tricked Robert into secretly legitimizing him without realizing it, or that there is no father, it was the midichlorians. Either R+L=J with a secret marriage, or Jon is a bastard but it doesn't matter (or maybe it matters for magical reasons but not political reasons, and Robb's legitimization is good enough for that).

You're right, that's a good point. Not only was he driven to religion out of pragmatic reasons deriving from his non-religious fanatical devotion to his right and duty to be King, he followed his religion exactly as far as necessary to accomplish his real goals. He is, in effect, using R'hllor the same way he used, say, the Iron Bank. I just meant that at this point, show-Stannis clearly actually believes that the Lord of Light is real, and grants Mel's powers, and has chosen him according to the prophecy, etc. (otherwise, he killed his daughter for absolutely no reason); with book-Stannis, it's not clear whether that's the case. Yes. And if (as it seems likely) it turns out that the Lord of the Light, the prophecy, and the necessity of sacrificing Shireen to empower AAR are all real, it's just that Stannis wasn't AAR, that makes it an even better story. He saved the world, but against his will, and he would certainly see it as a tragic outcome. (Unless there's an afterlife, in which case he's not going to sit around moping, he's going to kick R'hllor's ass.)

I think that's exactly the wrong word for him. He told one character that honor is irrelevant to duty, and another that what is right is more important than what is honorable. This season, he went even farther, calling Jon honorable as an insult. This isn't just a matter of semantics. Honor is about your own personal dignity, and that doesn't matter to Stannis at all. He would much rather be the most ridiculed King in history than not be King, because it is both his right and his duty to be King, and that's all that matters. Of course the way he acts doesn't always match what he says. Especially when we first see him, both on TV and in the books. His anger at Renly goes beyond stubbornness in virtue of the truth. And it doesn't come across as righteous anger at an outrageous treason any more than as personal jealousy; rather, he sounds like a man whose honor has been slighted and who's demanding satisfaction. Of course that may just be because our PoV doesn't really understand Stannis yet, but it's an intriguing idea that Stannis is trying not to be honorable and failing. The show definitely plays the religious angle differently from the books; instead of being a non-religious fanatic who gradually comes to pragmatically use religious fanaticism, he's a non-religious fanatic who gradually transitions to a true religious fanatic. But it's interesting that both journeys take him to the same place: it's the fanaticism that ultimately matters to his story, not what he's devoted to.

So are you now saying that they're actually examples of bad guys, and bad guys do conquer and hold the world? My point is that they're neither good guys like Robb or Aragorn, nor bad guys like Joffrey or Sauron. They are grey, like most real people (but they aren't like normal people, either). Anyone asking where the good guy is who's going to conquer Westeros and save the world is asking the wrong question. I brought up Timur because I think most of the great empire-builders thought like him, even if they weren't all as aware of it and/or open about it. There is no thought to enriching or glorifying themselves at the expense of the empire (or, conversely, of sacrificing themselves to enrich the empire); the way to enrich or glorify themselves is by enriching or glorifying the empire. As for Caesar and Napoleon, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Certainly things were more complex for them because of their backgrounds, which encouraged them to see themselves as servant rather than master of the empire. But I don't see why that stops them from over-identifying with the empire (after all, the same was true of Timur, who insisted he was no Khan, Caliph, or Sultan; he was just a general and a servant of god), or forces them to be either good or bad, or takes away any blame or credit.

I think it's quite plausible that in the books, someone will try to call a Great Council to resolve things once and for all, but it will fail to work (possibly because of the "who do you invite" problem), and the chaos will continue. Remember that Cat already suggested a Great Council way back when the war started. And Alicent Hightower tried to call a Great Council halfway through the Dance of the Dragons. Both of those went nowhere because Renly/Rhaenyra had overwhelming military superiority at the time. But halfway through the Baratheon succession war, we're not even going to have clear factions, much less one that's a clear winner. On TV, while they could do that, I don't think they will. It'll be one of those book plots that's fascinating because it gives us more background detail in GRRM's world and reveals some interesting new characters but doesn't actually accomplish anything, and those are exactly the kinds of things the show cuts. Your hypothetical scenario was that Tommen dies soon. In the books, that means we've got fAegon, and possibly Margy and/or Cersei trying to claim some kind of unprecedented inheritance from Tommen. In the show, it's the same without fAegon. So, who are all these potential contenders? Are various third cousins going to suddenly decide they can fight off the rest of Westeros? Is Mace Tyrell going to march into Winterfell and declare the himself Protector of the Commonwealth? There's really nobody else who can even dream about sitting the Iron Throne without a Council putting them there.

Personally, I loved Dance the second time I read it--but it's a very different book from Storm, and that's a perfectly good excuse for why the show diverged so much farther than it had in previous seasons. If you just read Dance (and, to a lesser extent, Feast) for the plot, it sucks. A bunch of the strands just tread water, and the ones that seem to go somewhere all end abruptly and pointlessly, and it's ultimately just 1000 pages of setup of a series of cliffhangers that will be resolved in a later book that you have no reason to believe is going to be any better. But if you read it for the themes, the character moments, and the world-building, it's head and shoulders above Storm. Quentyn's story doesn't work as an epic story, but it definitely works as a satire. Tyrion's journey down the Rhoyne is boring as a Tyrion story (in fact, Tyrion almost gets in the way of it being enjoyable for the first half), but it's the first time Essos as a land devastated by the Curse, the Doom, the Century of Blood, etc. really came alive for me (far better than what we saw from Dany's earlier journeys). And so on. And that means you can't possibly adapt it the same way you'd adapt Thrones or Storm. But you can't just completely transform the series into a different kind of show between season 4 and season 5. (When you're writing 1000-page novels that take centuries to come out and are aiming at an audience of thousands of thoughtful readers, maybe you can get away with that--although even then, it's a stretch; look at how many people complain about Dance...) So, what option is there, other than to try to extract only the parts of the story that fit into the Storm mold, and adjust everything else to fit? They obviously screwed up some parts of that. The first half of the Cersei storyline is so much better when it's clear that she's fooled herself into believing her own slander of Margy (e.g., Osney will obviously be able to seduce her, because I slept with him, and she's a huge slut). If there's no Dorne storyline worth extracting, just don't do Dorne (especially since Jaime's storyline was one of the more adaptable parts of Feast). And dealing with Manderly and friends would have been a much better way to get across the difference between Roose's subtle evil and Ramsay's blatant monstrousness than having Roose just lecture him. But there are parts they did well. The second half of Cersei's plot was perfectly condensed. Arya... well, that one was easy to get right, so I won't give them too much credit there, but they got it right. Tyrion's journey was far more interesting, plotwise, than in the books. The Meereen story had just enough to highlight Dany's real choice, force her to make it, show her failing to make it, and get her on her way. And what they gave us, while it's not perfect, and not the same thing as the books, is not just better than most other fantasy ever on the screen, it's far better than a faithful adaptation of the plot of Feast and Dance would have been.

I'm pretty sure they'd call a Great Council and argue it out. There's plenty of precedent, and the nice thing about a Great Council is that everyone pretty much has to come to agreement, because they know if they walk out without having picked a King they've guaranteed a war of succession (or guaranteed the continuation of an existing one, as when Rhaenrya did it). And they aren't gathering to dispassionately work out the lineage and the relevant laws and traditions, they're gathering to pick a King, and then rationalize it after the fact, Otherwise, the only possible outcomes for the Council of 233 would have been Queen Vaella the Feebleminded or King Aenys Blackfyre. So, it's true that there are no true-born descendants of Ormund Baratheon and Rhaella Targaryen and Gendry is the closest if bastards are considered. On the other hand, who says that descendants of Ormund and Rhaella matter, as opposed to going back to the next offshoot of the Targaryen line (I think that's Egg's younger sister Rhae's family?), or even going farther up the Baratheon line? At any rate, unless there were someone who wanted to push Gendry (in which case they could use that as a rationale), none of that would probably come into the discussion at all. The real problem is that it would be hard to even agree on who to invite. There are no Starks, it's unclear who represents the Lannisters or the Arryns, pretty much nobody will want Euron to have a say. In fact, I suspect that may come up as a plot point in the next book.

What you're saying is, "Bad guys may conquer the world, but they can't hold it". I'll agree with that, at least usually. But how does that contradict "Good guys don't conquer the world"? The people who conquer the world and hold it (at least for their lifetimes)Saul, Alexander, Julius Caesar, Napoleonall of them did things that are pretty hard to justify if you want to see them as Great Noble Heroes; all of them also did some pretty impressive good things for their subjects that no Dark Lord of Evil Evilness would even consider. And what they did generally was not really "enlightened self-interest" in the normal sense that they calculated that making the realm stable and rich would keep them in power, but it often was self-interest in a twisted sense that they identified themselves with their realms to an abnormal degree. (Timur even made that explicit. When the Spanish diplomats told him he was clever for focusing on the roads because it kept the merchants and pilgrims happy, he told them that was a reason for merchants and pilgrims, not a reason for him; he kept the roads strong for the same reason he kept his bones strong.) If you're looking for an Aragorn instead of a Babur, you're going to be disappointed.

GRRM told D&D that they die in the books. They told the world that he told them that. He confirmed it. So, unless he changes his mind somewhere between now and the time he finishes the book, I think it's safe to say that they die.

Next week, on Game of Thrones: Jon lets slip to Sansa that he's not really her half-brother, he's just her cousin (even though they were raised as brother and sister since she was born). And then he takes her to the theater to see the new Tyroshian play, Les Demifrères Dangereuses, and this happens.

No, they definitely exist. But Littlefinger does not have that kind of fandom. I've never seen a single person say that. When the first episode implied his plan, every unsullied person I know immediately understood that LF was sending Sansa to Winterfell, and the only argument was whether he was overconfidently assuming his protege Sansa could take down the Boltons or callously using Sansa as a pawn to mislead the Boltons. Many book fans refused to believe it, of course, but not because they think he's a nice guy. It's just because that's not what happens in the book. And, if you press them, because it would be a stupid plan unless he had the whole Vale behind himwhich he does on the show, but that can't possibly be true because that's also not what happens in the books.

Oh, and if you really want to give Dany an ironic ending: She valiantly defeats the White Walkers, ends serfdom, makes everyone smile and share a Coke, and brings a plague that wipes out 80% of the already-diminished population of Westeros, leading to a complete civilization collapse across the continent the likes of which haven't been seen since Sarnor. The Pale Mare was bad enough in Yunkai and Meereen; imagine what it could do against a population who don't have the resistance that comes from surviving multiple waves in recent decades (or even intensive commerce with people who have), who are weary from 7 years of war after war after war, who are on the edge of starvation, and who have suffered such a breakdown in civil authority that nobody can effectively maintain a quarantine…

Nah, if everyone's dead, it has to be Jaime killing the last King or Queen then sitting on the throne to keep it warm for whoever comes to claim it, just like he did last time, only this time nobody shows up.

Sure, but I think if they're going to do the Rickon story at all, the fact that the story they'll be adapting is already Davos's story is already good enough reason to include him, so they don't need those other story-external justifications. And, now that I think about it, they can find him story-internally, even without Wex Pyke and the Manderlys. IIRC, TV Osha and Rickon were originally heading for the Wall with Bran, but after the close call at the farm, Bran suggested they go to the Umbers. And I remember Bryan Cogman making a point of telling everyone that the TV Greatjon wasn't at the Red Wedding and is still alive and free. And they skipped the whole plot with the Greatjon's uncles on different sides at Winterfell.

The couple of deaths I was referring to being moved forward from WoW to the finale are Stannis and Shireen. I suppose that, if the Pink Letter is true, you could argue that Stannis's death already happened, at least in Jon's PoV and for the readers. But, given the Theon preview chapter, I'm assuming that we're not going to actually know that Stannis is dead until WoW.

I'm not sure why they need the Davos-finding-Rickon story. In the books, it's all about getting Manderly's faction to openly declare against Bolton; in the show, there's no such faction, nobody to declare for, and if they already have Sansa they don't really need Rickon. And, story-external, GRRM clearly wants to explore Skagos, and to get another shot at writing Osha, but neither of those are too important to the show. But if they hear the story from GRRM and it sounds interesting enough, they'll probably find a way to fit it in. Especially if you're right and they can drag Theon into that story, giving him a much more satisfying redemption arc than they could do with just Sansa. But meanwhile, you really think they're going to find Bran too, rather than him just becoming the next Bloodraven Tree Monster? PS, you forgot Arya in your list of other plots that could fill the gap next season.

They moved a couple deaths forward from WoW (along with all kinds of other things from WoW), and skipped many deaths from the books. I don't see how that qualifies as upping the body count to be shocking.

There aren't supposed to be any good guys. Good guys don't conquer the world. Neither do honorable guys like Robb, or grimly duty-bound guys like Stannis, or any other possible substitute that some other fantasy stories try to pass off as goodness. Meanwhile: Part of the reason ASoIaF (and GoT) works is that there is no main protagonist. The story mostly focuses on the people who could end up sitting the Iron Throne or uniting the disputing factions or weaving a spell to save the world, but don't, ultimately coming to realistic endings—usually meaning pointless and often anticlimactic. Most of the best stories in history end up a lot more like Asha's or Quentyn's than like Aragorn's, but very few fantasy writers even touch on those kinds of stories, much less focus on them, and that's part of what makes this series stand out. Arya is different because she's obviously not going to save the world. She's a different story that originated from the same place as Robb's and Bran's more traditional stories, which serves to show how much wider the world is. She's also even more clearly not a good guy. You can see Jon, Oberyn, or Tyrion as flawed heroes if you want, but it's hard to see her as a force for anything other than either vengeance or (less likely) dispassionate death.

Comparing Xena to Vikings is like comparing Tromeo and Juliet to the modernized Othello with Julia Stiles that I forget the name of. Vikings tries very hard to be good and fails badly. Xena tried very hard to be fun and succeeded pretty well. When Rob Tapert created Xena, he had three goals: To make an over-the-top, intentionally anachronistic, tongue-in-cheek series. To prove that you can do fantasy with virtually no budget. To get into Lucy Lawless's pants. Which one of those did he fail at? That being said, a Rob Tapert (or even Sam Raimi) adaptation of ASoIaF would be pretty bad…