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[Book Spoilers] EP509 Discussion


Ran
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So I'm a straight man, and I definitely objectify women.. but no one has a problem with Trystane getting the seat on the small council? I know Dorne has been off from the start, but still..

Edit-that bothered as much as Stannis when I was watching & my phone sucks.

A lot of people do have a problem with the scene. Doran is sending his only heir to the place where both his sister and brother got killed and trusting only the word of the guy who horned his King and killed the other one. Sending Trystane along with Myrcella will give KL back the one important hostage they had and now they won a new one. Look how that end up for Sansa Stark :dunno: If next season, somehow, Dany joins Dorne, they will be neutralized by the fact KL can kill him at any moment. It's a very stupid move specially considering when Arianne asks his father to send her, Doran tells her "no, you're my heir and the future of Dorne. I cannot". He sends her to a very different mission.

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She's terrible. Do you see what she's calling people? She is openly calling people 'retards' and 'c*nts' and telling people to 'go f*cking die'. Obviously uncensored though. Unbelievable. I won't buy another book she's associated with. If I'm GRRM I am dis-associating myself from her ASAP.

Is there another site where rational fans of the books and show can discuss same without devolving into a D&D hate fest and whinefest about show spoiling books that probably won't even be finished?

Seriously. I used to love this site, but it's tit-for-tat with some of the same repetitive characters calling D&D pervs, idiots, etc. etc. etc. It's gotten personal against them, too, and it's sick.

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A lot of people do have a problem with the scene. Doran is sending his only heir to the place where both his sister and brother got killed and trusting only the word of the guy who horned his King and killed the other one. Sending Trystane along with Myrcella will give KL back the one important hostage they had and now they won a new one. Look how that end up for Sansa Stark :dunno: If next season, somehow, Dany joins Dorne, they will be neutralized by the fact KL can kill him at any moment. It's a very stupid move specially considering when Arianne asks his father to send her, Doran tells her "no, you're my heir and the future of Dorne. I cannot". He sends her to a very different mission.

This. Such an obvious plot hole. Doesn't make any sense.

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It's really sad that the arguments eventually diverge into "but GRRM also have women raped and children hurt in the books". Wouldn't that be an "ad hominem" argument? Blaming others for your mistakes or saying "but they do worst!" is the worst and most desperate tricks when something is debated.



No one here is saying that GRRM writes flowers and rainbows for his characters, whether male or female. Sansa has been beaten by the back of a sword of her legs, children were burnt and butchered, Cersei was made to walk naked, one woman was raped 50 times (two, actually), etc, etc. In fact, many people who had a problem with the now infamous Sansa scene wondered why not cast Jeyne Poole for this, implying the scene, with the proper context, could have worked right.



This is a plain underestimation of the readers and people who complain in general. We're not softy wallflowers who faint with blood. I have no problem with gore and rape in any media. The problem is the characterization. If I have a movie about a woman who starts from zero and gets her dream job and suddenly, she gets raped on screen because "omg, shocking!" and then, she becomes empowered by the rape, it will feel very random. It will feel like many tv shows (I'm looking at you, Shonda Rhimes!) in which all of their narrative is based on disgrace after disgrace yet, the characters shake it off by the next season.



GRRM does hurt his characters. Jeyne Poole is broken by what is happening to her. She's not "omg, I'm killing Ramsay! Revenge!!". Sansa has definitely learned her lessons, she doesn't trust people so easily anymore. She does with LF because she has no other choice. The show gave her more choices and next season, she forgot. With Stannis is the same. The show has portrayed Stannis as the guy who ate the glue of his books rather than surrender his castle. And, not even one week passde after they were attacked and killed Shireen? Not to say that they have made Ramsay so incredibly impossible to defeat so Stannis would have to make this decision.



Readers aren't getting spoiled. We're having our theories confirmed. A great number of us is convinced Shireen will get burnt. The show confirmed. But Stannis won't do it. Because it's geographically impossible and unlike in the show, in the books, people need weeks or months to travel. Stannis was facing a blizzard the last time we saw him. Is he going to cross through it back to the Wall to say "please, burn my child so the blizzard I can't defeat but I just did because I got here alive can go away"?.



I'm very very sure that GRRM said something of the likes of "Shireen will die in name of Stannis' cause after they believe his chances are doomed". That is definitely not the same as "Stannis will burn his own daughter". And that would make more sense with the man who GRRM has created. Because yes, I can see how people would believe -in the book universe- that Stannis would want that to happen. And maybe it's too late for Stannis to realise how much he's losing on the way of the Throne. The guy who doesn't bend (allegedly) might eventually break when he finds out his daughter is dead in name of his own cause.


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I don't know, and this is only a rough guess, but the answer to your question is probably:

* HBO offered GRRM money

* GRRM likes money

Should not take someone with a degree in nuclear physics to point that out.

It seems that degree is needed to understand rhetorical questions, however.

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It's really sad that the arguments eventually diverge into "but GRRM also have women raped and children hurt in the books". Wouldn't that be an "ad hominem" argument? Blaming others for your mistakes or saying "but they do worst!" is the worst and most desperate tricks when something is debated.

No, that's no an ad hominem argument actually. Those retorts aren't blaming GRRM, they are pointing out the hypocrisy of the argument that faults D&D for doing the exact same thing GRRM does.

No one here is saying that GRRM writes flowers and rainbows for his characters, whether male or female. Sansa has been beaten by the back of a sword of her legs, children were burnt and butchered, Cersei was made to walk naked, one woman was raped 50 times (two, actually), etc, etc. In fact, many people who had a problem with the now infamous Sansa scene wondered why not cast Jeyne Poole for this, implying the scene, with the proper context, could have worked right.

This is a plain underestimation of the readers and people who complain in general. We're not softy wallflowers who faint with blood. I have no problem with gore and rape in any media. The problem is the characterization. If I have a movie about a woman who starts from zero and gets her dream job and suddenly, she gets raped on screen because "omg, shocking!" and then, she becomes empowered by the rape, it will feel very random. It will feel like many tv shows (I'm looking at you, Shonda Rhimes!) in which all of their narrative is based on disgrace after disgrace yet, the characters shake it off by the next season.

GRRM does hurt his characters. Jeyne Poole is broken by what is happening to her. She's not "omg, I'm killing Ramsay! Revenge!!". Sansa has definitely learned her lessons, she doesn't trust people so easily anymore. She does with LF because she has no other choice. The show gave her more choices and next season, she forgot. With Stannis is the same. The show has portrayed Stannis as the guy who ate the glue of his books rather than surrender his castle. And, not even one week passde after they were attacked and killed Shireen? Not to say that they have made Ramsay so incredibly impossible to defeat so Stannis would have to make this decision.

Readers aren't getting spoiled. We're having our theories confirmed. A great number of us is convinced Shireen will get burnt. The show confirmed. But Stannis won't do it. Because it's geographically impossible and unlike in the show, in the books, people need weeks or months to travel. Stannis was facing a blizzard the last time we saw him. Is he going to cross through it back to the Wall to say "please, burn my child so the blizzard I can't defeat but I just did because I got here alive can go away"?.

I'm very very sure that GRRM said something of the likes of "Shireen will die in name of Stannis' cause after they believe his chances are doomed". That is definitely not the same as "Stannis will burn his own daughter". And that would make more sense with the man who GRRM has created. Because yes, I can see how people would believe -in the book universe- that Stannis would want that to happen. And maybe it's too late for Stannis to realise how much he's losing on the way of the Throne. The guy who doesn't bend (allegedly) might eventually break when he finds out his daughter is dead in name of his own cause.

This is all conjecture. 1) Sansa's arc isn't complete. 2) Stannis' actions won't be known until and *if* TWoW is released. Better argument though, rather than just the whining about things you don't like because feminism.

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A lot of people do have a problem with the scene. Doran is sending his only heir to the place where both his sister and brother got killed and trusting only the word of the guy who horned his King and killed the other one. Sending Trystane along with Myrcella will give KL back the one important hostage they had and now they won a new one. Look how that end up for Sansa Stark :dunno: If next season, somehow, Dany joins Dorne, they will be neutralized by the fact KL can kill him at any moment. It's a very stupid move specially considering when Arianne asks his father to send her, Doran tells her "no, you're my heir and the future of Dorne. I cannot". He sends her to a very different mission.

As Robert Jordan would say, RAFO. Or in this case, Watch and Find Out. I don't know if that's the entire plan, but I suspect there's more to it. Show-haters love piling on when a plot hasn't even finished, and then their criticisms are just forgotten when it is explained later. (See, e.g., Littlefinger sending Sansa to Winterfell.)

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No, that's no an ad hominem argument actually. Those retorts aren't blaming GRRM, they are pointing out the hypocrisy of the argument that faults D&D for doing the exact same thing GRRM does.

This is all conjecture. 1) Sansa's arc isn't complete. 2) Stannis' actions won't be known until and *if* TWoW is released. Better argument though, rather than just the whining about things you don't like because feminism.

The point JCRB is making is precisely that it is NOT the same thing, even if the action is the same or similar -- books make it organic, believable, consistent with the characterization, and the show doesn't. And it is not just an opinion of some feminist book purists - if you check out professional reviews, you'll see that this criticism is quite widespread...maybe, just maybe because it is actually well deserved, don't you think?

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You're now rooting for a guy who flays and castrates people for fun, hunts women for sport before RAPING THEIR CORPSES, and is as prolific a psychological torturer as a physical one, over a guy who made a difficult decision to sacrifice a loved one to save the realm from an existential threat?

Ramsay is a psychotic, evil, sociopath, who revels in being the Patrick Bateman of Westeros. But he never pretends to be anything else. He isn't trying to push evil as being for some sort of greater good. He also only targets prisoners (under which heading we can include Sansa) and those at the bottom of the feudal food-chain, which means to some extent, you know where you stand with him. He isn't going to wake up one morning and start torturing his Captain of the Guards or something.

TV!Stannis is trying to push a horrendously evil act as a righteous one - because a God who sends forth demons told him to. People who could follow the Boltons (if only on a better you than me principle) couldn't follow Stannis without knowing that they might be next. With Gods and Demons, all bets are off, and if Stannis is prepared to do this to his own daughter, what will he do to you? Literally, it's got to the point where the only reason anyone would want to support TV!Stannis is because they can't yet escape him.

Ramsay it is.

I see that you have 10k+ posts. Were they all knee-jerk reactions?

Put it this way. I've been on this forum for nigh on a decade, and was a fan long before there was even talk of an adaption. Nothing I have ever encountered, either in the books, or in the TV show so far, has done so much to shatter my faith in where this story is heading.

Edited by Roose Boltons Pet Leech
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TBH, I'm indifferent to the show.



I do like the books better even though the misery porn trend in literature today is starting to become as tedious and cliche as living happily ever after. Life may not be a song, but its not a thrash metal concert either. Its a bit of both.


And yes, GRRM is starting to overwhelm me with every character needing their own backstory, the counting of Castle Blacks stockroom and every ships name and meaning in the Ironborn fleet, but its still a fabulous work.



I knew the show would deviate and there would be changes, however there is still good material aplenty to have chosen from, and the HBO formula is just so obvious. Its like watching a dejected kid trying to figure out what shocking thing he/she can do next for attention and to piss the parents off.



Arya is my favorite, but I called it years ago that sex will likely end up being her weapon as much as Needle and Nymeria as the books point to her growing beauty as well as the open environment she is growing up in, and I've prepared myself for that.



I'm actually indifferent to Stannis, and Shireens canon death would not surprise me at all, but I don't think it will be at the hands of Stannis. I don't think Stannis is a good guy, but somewhere in between. He is like every by-the-book, teeth-grinding administrator who never deviates from policy, though there are times that the right thing is to stray from rigidity. And this is where I think Stannis will wake up. Everyone is worried for Edric, but in the end it will be Shireen, and I think that will be Stannis's eye opener into Mel, but of course, she will have left him behind to bestow destiny on Jon.


Edited by Alia of the knife
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As Robert Jordan would say, RAFO. Or in this case, Watch and Find Out. I don't know if that's the entire plan, but I suspect there's more to it. Show-haters love piling on when a plot hasn't even finished, and then their criticisms are just forgotten when it is explained later. (See, e.g., Littlefinger sending Sansa to Winterfell.)

Littlefinger sending Sansa to Winterfell never made any sense. Just like JCRB pointed out upthread, Prince Doran sending Trystane to KL didn't make any sense. Yes, there is some kind of laughable explanation for the viewers, but this explanation doesn't withstand any scrutiny.

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What exactly isn't believable about Ramsey Snow's marriage to Sansa? Bolton's would want to secure their hold on the north through the marriage, and Ramsey would most definitely consummate the marriage in the most disgusting way possible (see Jeyne Poole in book). This wasn't an argument about characterization. It was an argument about how awful it is to depict violence against women, and then an argument about how D&D are pervs who have the hots for Sophie Turner, etc. etc. etc.

The reviewers complaining that I've read haven't once addressed the fact that marriage/rape in feudal times was extremely common. Don't want to derail re: rape, but once Sansa was promised to the Boltons, this was the *inevitable* result.

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What exactly isn't believable about Ramsey Snow's marriage to Sansa? Bolton's would want to secure their hold on the north through the marriage, and Ramsey would most definitely consummate the marriage in the most disgusting way possible (see Jeyne Poole in book). This wasn't an argument about characterization. It was an argument about how awful it is to depict violence against women, and then an argument about how D&D are pervs who have the hots for Sophie Turner, etc. etc. etc.

The reviewers complaining that I've read haven't once addressed the fact that marriage/rape in feudal times was extremely common. Don't want to derail re: rape, but once Sansa was promised to the Boltons, this was the *inevitable* result.

Littlefinger's giving Sansa away isn't believable. He has been acting for a number of seasons as being obsessed with her. Sansa's believing that she can exert revenge on Boltons on her own isn't believable. She has done nothing in the previous seasons that showed she was planning revenge or that she considered herself capable of taking back Winterfell populated by the army of her enemies.

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What exactly isn't believable about Ramsey Snow's marriage to Sansa? Bolton's would want to secure their hold on the north through the marriage, and Ramsey would most definitely consummate the marriage in the most disgusting way possible (see Jeyne Poole in book). This wasn't an argument about characterization. It was an argument about how awful it is to depict violence against women, and then an argument about how D&D are pervs who have the hots for Sophie Turner, etc. etc. etc.

The reviewers complaining that I've read haven't once addressed the fact that marriage/rape in feudal times was extremely common. Don't want to derail re: rape, but once Sansa was promised to the Boltons, this was the *inevitable* result.

Why was she promised to the Boltons?

Sansa Stark is wanted by the Iron Throne for regicide. The Boltons have an agreement with the Lannisters, marrying Sansa to Ramsay is an open declaration of defiance.

Why is Littlefinger marrying her to the Boltons? They aren't controllable. They don't need him, they have their own army and they're in Winterfell. Once she's married, she is out of his reach.

If he thinks they will lose to Stannis, why isn't he waiting until after the battle?

And, what's he going to do after Stannis wins, when he's supposed to provide Sansa's head on a spike? Why would Stannis make a deal with LF, he hates turncloaks and always hangs them.

The entire thing makes no sense except the show wanted to do it so they will force it to work out despite it's absolutely being illogical on the part of every player involved.

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Littlefinger's giving Sansa away isn't believable. He has been acting for a number of seasons as being obsessed with her. Sansa's believing that she can exert revenge on Boltons on her own isn't believable. She has done nothing in the previous seasons that showed she was planning revenge or that she considered herself capable of taking back Winterfell populated by the army of her enemies.

You know, I don't think it's the best character arc on the show, but I think the groundwork was laid in Season 4 when Sansa lied for Littlefinger to the Lords of the Vale (unprompted, btw). She has an odd relationship with LF as he saved her, and she saved him, and she trusts him, as is evident with the Brienne of Tarth moment in the inn, so she obeys him when he says to go to Winterfell. She trusted him. I think that was fairly believable.

I don't buy that LF was obsessed with her *for her*. He loved Cat, and that didn't stop him from orchestrating her downfall. LF isn't the type to love someone more than himself. So, plenty believable.

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Bolton's are treacherous, and Lannisters are weak. Securing northmen > appeasing Lannisters.

All LF has to say is, Cersei is on her way out. Done and done.

Not that big of a stretch *at all*.

Okay, back to episode 9. We can agree to disagree, but it's not as cut and dry as you make it out to be.

Edited by Spilt Pea Soup
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