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[book spoilers] where is all the Westeros prophets and magic


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We seem to have most if not all of Essos magic thru Dany, Thoros, and Melisandre, but where all the prophets/magic from Westeros? Have D & D backed themselves into a corner they can't get out of? So much of the story is based off of prophecy, and the most important ones have been either left out, or have water down versions given to other characters. I am sure I forgot some but off the top of my head....



No Patchface, so none of his "songs". What does Shireen do all day waiting for Davos? Well at least the Greyjoy's have mention the Drowned God.



No Coldhands, so how are Bran and co going to eat let alone fight off wights and NW men? and how did Sam find the Black Gate? Was there a Black Gate? I don't think Sam even went back down w/ them. So no alternate NW vows.



No Ghost of High Heart (or even High Heart) they took her telling of Ayra's smelling of Death and gave it to Melisandre.


No near miss of Nymeria, or even the Ayra's dreams of her or rumors of wolves in Riverlands. No foretelling of Ayra's brothers or sister. Let only all the Targaryen backstory around her.



Where is Ghost? Have we seen him since Jon went w/ the Wildlings? Nothing saying of his wolf dreams either. Did the show Wildlings even know him as a warg? wasn't that part of the reason most of them accepted him in? IS Bran the only warg?



Maggy the frog, seems to be cut out of both sides. Since she wasn't Robb's wife grandmother, and now Cersie seems to make all about what Tyrion said. One of the major reason she hated Tyrion, and Margaery were because of Maggy, and we have not heard of that or any prophecy.




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I understand most of the changes, but out of the ones you mentioned, I am quite curious about Maggy the Frog. I would have imagined that prophecy coming up by now. They still have time to do it, I guess, but they might just get rid of it.



Another major prophesy/prophesying event that you didn't mention was Dany's House of the Undying. I was disappointed that they cut all of those prophecies out. I really enjoyed reading those in the book and hypothesizing what they meant.



The only thing I can figure is that D&D are afraid that doing too many prophecies in the show will be too much of a spoiler for later events. That's the only reason I can think that they've cut out so many prophesy events.



And I've read in several places that the only warging/dreams that will be shown are going to be Bran's, so as not to confuse exclusively show watchers. Anytime we see a dream or a warging moment through the eyes of the warged animal/person, it will be Bran doing it.


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I understand most of the changes, but out of the ones you mentioned, I am quite curious about Maggy the Frog. I would have imagined that prophecy coming up by now. They still have time to do it, I guess, but they might just get rid of it.

Another major prophesy/prophesying event that you didn't mention was Dany's House of the Undying. I was disappointed that they cut all of those prophecies out. I really enjoyed reading those in the book and hypothesizing what they meant.

The only thing I can figure is that D&D are afraid that doing too many prophecies in the show will be too much of a spoiler for later events. That's the only reason I can think that they've cut out so many prophesy events.

And I've read in several places that the only warging/dreams that will be shown are going to be Bran's, so as not to confuse exclusively show watchers. Anytime we see a dream or a warging moment through the eyes of the warged animal/person, it will be Bran doing it.

A lot of this stuff is internal to a characters mind.

So difficult to translate it to visual narrative, could be voiceover but , for me, that does not work.

Bran's Warging has been around since season 1, I do wonder if the unsullied audience gets it yet even with some characters explaining it!

We seem to have lost Arya's warging also... I hope not for good.

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My .02 --> I've been saying for a while now, they have to start the Jon/Ghost warg relationship. Preferably Arya's too!. They are just waiting way too long to introduce it.



I can only speak for myself, but it just puts me off so much that something so central to the Starks (the warging) is just brushed aside, yet we can spend lots and lots of time on whores, etc. (Yes, we have Bran's warging but we're going to need to see Jon's ability before long.) I have no issue with T&A on the show but they don't drive the plot or add to character development -- and it's at the expense of important story elements.



It's a complicated story as it is -- the choices they've made on what to exclude/include have just utterly baffled me. I enjoy the show, and will watch it faithfully -- but it but it isn't turning out to be what I'd hoped it would. All the elements that *I* consider important, but are being excluded, I justshrug and say 'eh.



Different mediums, I guess, :-)

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When I was still unsullied, Bran's dreams confused me. Adding Arya or Jon's dreams would have killed the show. The prophesies are so cliched tropish. I would have cut the Azor Ahai crap too. Melisandre's visions are okay because she misinterprets them. THotU would have been too confusing onscreen. The valanqar prophesy might work.

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THotU couldn't be shot for many reasons: budget, and most of it would have been giant spoilers for the audience. I totally get why they changed it, and loved all the new stuff they gave us.

While I love the valanqar business, especially since I think Cersei has it wrong, and it will be Jamie, other thing are available to drive Cersei's narrative, so I can see how it's not required.

Too many prophecies would lose the audience and break the show. The Unsullied are barely keeping their heads above water as it is. Thankfully, GRRM kills a lot of characters to make room for new ones. :D

What will disappoint me would be if they skip the Stark warging. Although I haven't given up hope, especially since Bran's scene in ep2 with the Hodoring deer, is a great setup for a similar scene where when the dreamer wakes, we see it's Jon or Arya, and not Bran. That would be an amazing surprise at this point for everyone, including book readers.

Warging just seems to be a big deal in all three of their story lines....... So I hope we see it soon.

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@ OP, Ghost is still North of the wall, he obviously didn't climb the wall with Jon. Looks as though Jon and others will be heading to Crasters keep next episode, perfect time for Jon and Ghost reunion.

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They did introduce Quaithe (Laura Pradelska) in season 2 but did not use her , that I remember, to do Quaithe-like things.

Never talks to Daenerys at all.

Thought for the Eastern stuff Quaithe was going to be a cypher, of sorts.

Not a lot of time spent on it, but some, poor Laura Pradelska , I wonder if we will ever see her again?

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My .02 --> I've been saying for a while now, they have to start the Jon/Ghost warg relationship. Preferably Arya's too!. They are just waiting way too long to introduce it.

I think it will be fine if they delay Jon's warging to be a shock moment at the point of the NW stabbing.

But for that to work, they will need to establish Arya's abilities.

My ideal setup would be for Arya to have a wolf dream at the end of this season (preferably Nymeria witnessing LSH), then have Arya warg into the cat at the end of next season, just before the Jon incident.

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I wouldn't have thought that including warging for Jon and Arya would be that confusing for unsullied, you see a scene from an obvious wolf's POV then one of them wakes up from a dream, simples ;-)

I think its sad that a lot of the prophecies are not included, but for a visual medium it would be massive spoilers, even for us book readers as the prophecies have many different interpretations, it would be hard to show them while keeping details vague. I suppose an important one for character development coming up is Maggy's prophecy to Cersei, as said above it is important to show why Cersei hates Tyrion and Margaery so much. But I don't see them introducing it this season, there is so much going on as it is.

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Given that Bran is probably going to be wedded to the tree this season (as they have cast Bloodraven), they have the opportunity to use his scenes to fill in some prophecy missing so far.



If you think about it, it will probably make more sense in a TV format to show things through Bran's eyes to info-dump Westeros history via the weirnet to the viewers without:



a) spoiling the plot as visual medium is not as subtle as book prophecy would be


b) confusing the shit out of the non-book audience


c) ensuring that his character arc doesn't advance beyond the published books at this point


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I think they also want to avoid LOST/battlestar gallacta syndrome, where people start noticing how things don't match up or that prophecies aren't fulfilled. It's probably smarter to never establish the expectations that come with prophicies



There is a pretty strong argument that grrm is going to have this problem.


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Just because it hasn't been there yet doesn't mean it won't come in to play eventually. They have a good bit of space in the next two seasons to fill out to avoid catching up with the books, for instance I think that's why they've sped up Bran's storyline, using his abilities, they can reinsert a lot of the foreshadowing they missed. The one thing that does concern me is the absence of the other direwolves, and lack of warging abilities for the other Stark kids. I really hope they address this soon because the idea of it being cut out bothers me. There was a scene last season where Robb's wife seems to be aware of his wolf dreams, but that's the sole reference I remember.

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I can only speak for myself, but it just puts me off so much that something so central to the Starks (the warging) is just brushed aside, yet we can spend lots and lots of time on whores, etc. (Yes, we have Bran's warging but we're going to need to see Jon's ability before long.) I have no issue with T&A on the show but they don't drive the plot or add to character development -- and it's at the expense of important story elements.

It's a complicated story as it is -- the choices they've made on what to exclude/include have just utterly baffled me. I enjoy the show, and will watch it faithfully -- but it but it isn't turning out to be what I'd hoped it would. All the elements that *I* consider important, but are being excluded, I justshrug and say 'eh.

Pretty much my feeling as well. I get a lot of why some characters were left out, or changed to play parts of another. IIRC I read that GoT has the record w/ 50 speaking characters. I believe the book has at least 3x that many. The opening Oberyn scene in the Whorehouse was great. They told you all of what you needed to know in one scene instead of 3 or 4, but others just take time away from other stories for no point what so ever.

When I was still unsullied, Bran's dreams confused me. Adding Arya or Jon's dreams would have killed the show. The prophesies are so cliched tropish. I would have cut the Azor Ahai crap too. Melisandre's visions are okay because she misinterprets them. THotU would have been too confusing onscreen. The valanqar prophesy might work.

Had not heard the term unsullied for uninformed viewer, I like it. I understand your point, but disagree. Having Arya or Jon Waking up after showing warg dream works just as well as when Bran wakes up after one. Having Cersei tell someone the story of Maggy the Frog/ visions would work just as well as Varys telling how he go cut, and is a much bigger part of the story, w/ much more impact on what/ and who Cersei is, and what her thinking is. Not saying that Varys part isn't important, but w/ so much still missing as of aDwD did we really need to here it?

While I love the valanqar business, especially since I think Cersei has it wrong, and it will be Jamie, other thing are available to drive Cersei's narrative, so I can see how it's not required.

She does have it wrong, it will be Stannis, The Little brother, she doesn't even think about.

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I wouldn't have thought that including warging for Jon and Arya would be that confusing for unsullied, you see a scene from an obvious wolf's POV then one of them wakes up from a dream, simples ;-)

I think its sad that a lot of the prophecies are not included, but for a visual medium it would be massive spoilers, even for us book readers as the prophecies have many different interpretations, it would be hard to show them while keeping details vague. I suppose an important one for character development coming up is Maggy's prophecy to Cersei, as said above it is important to show why Cersei hates Tyrion and Margaery so much. But I don't see them introducing it this season, there is so much going on as it is.

On the subject of warging: I agree. It wouldn't be that confusing, particularly since we've already seen how it works (Bran). I think we'll see Jon and Arya warging, but only as soon as it becomes truly relevant, which means: Jon's last scene of ADWD and Arya with the cat in Bravos. Remember how so many people on this board thought that they would cut Ramsay? Or the entire back story of Rhaegar and Elia? Well they didn't. They only waited to introduce them until they became truly relevant.

On the prophecies: There are to main problems with showing the prophecies / green dreams on the show:

1) logistical issues (needs more actors, more time shooting, editing, more special effects etc.)

2) it's either going to confuse the hell out of viewers ("Wtf is up with the blue rose?") or it's going to spoil everything, e. g. Dany seeing a man with a wolf's head instead of a human head - she doesn't know Robb Stark, so she doesn't know who that guy is, but the viewers certainly do!

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Pretty much my feeling as well. I get a lot of why some characters were left out, or changed to play parts of another. IIRC I read that GoT has the record w/ 50 speaking characters. I believe the book has at least 3x that many. The opening Oberyn scene in the Whorehouse was great. They told you all of what you needed to know in one scene instead of 3 or 4, but others just take time away from other stories for no point what so ever.

Agree. I didn't mind Oberyn's opening scene as well - in fact, I liked it. Now we, the audience, get that he's a sexual/sensual being and that Dorne is different than KL, in that sex really isn't a big deal, no matter your preferences. It gave us just what we needed to know in one scene, you're right.

Now... use the other time you have for furthering the plot, ADDING something to the characters, (prophecies, warging *cough, cough*) etc... I think just mentioning the whole Cersei prophecy would take 5 seconds of air-time, yet give an additional depth on the Cersei/Tyrion dynamic.

I mean, it's kinda sad that the running joke about HBO is T&A. Is that really what they want people to remember about this awesome production?

(PLUS... there's enough legitimate book-sex that if they really feel the need to add more t&a -- how about draw from the books? Dany's had girl on girl playtime as has Cersei. There's a million different scenes they could draw from instead of letting us know (again) that Bronn digs whores (just one example).)

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The prophecies have been cut because D&D (as well as most modern showrunners/filmmakers/audiences) privilege shock value over suspense. They want things like the RW, Dany's betrayals, and Cersei's eventual murder to come as a total surprise to the unsullied, rather than building up tension before those events.

As for the Stark children's warging, I think they removed it in order to make Bran's storyline seem more special (though at the same time they've done very little to make Bran's storyline seem interesting). But I'm guessing that once Bran bonds with the weirwood this season or next, D&D will use him to "awaken" his brothers' & sisters' latent abilities.

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They did introduce Quaithe (Laura Pradelska) in season 2 but did not use her , that I remember, to do Quaithe-like things.

Never talks to Daenerys at all.

Thought for the Eastern stuff Quaithe was going to be a cypher, of sorts.

Not a lot of time spent on it, but some, poor Laura Pradelska , I wonder if we will ever see her again?

I hope we'll see her in Meereen next season. The warning she gives to Dany in that vision is one of my favourite scenes in ADWD, and I hope to see it in the show:

The glass candles are burning. Soon comes the pale mare, and after her the others. Kraken and dark flame, lion and griffin, the sun's son and the mummer's dragon. Trust none of them. Remember the Undying. Beware the perfumed seneschal.

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