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[Book Spoilers] EP510 Discussion


Ran
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Wouldn't be surprised if the show did do this. After everything they've done in these last 10 episodes I wouldn't even be surprised if cars are invented next season and it turns out they can kill the white walkers.

Everything makes creatively makes sense to David and Dan cause you know, they want it to happen.

Even if the show goes there, It would make little sense. Ned has called Jon his blood. So, unless here Elia is Ned's cousin, that means she had sex with a Stark.

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Take out the evidence from Jon CON and there is nothing to discount it. JonCon does not have first hand knowledge and his name telegraphs that he is there to retcon Jon.

Would you believe a statement from a character called Jon Fibbington? How about Jon Misleadington?

D&D didn't have that info when they guessed the name of Jon's mother. GRRM added it after they bought him the big steak with butter.

JonCon reporting a smokescreen left by Rheagar to conceal the birth of a third child would make a lot more sense than all the effort being taken to conceal the birth of a bastard.

Again...

...what???

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I watched a scene from season one and then one from season five. The decline in the quality of the dialogue is tremendous. I have to wonder at this point do they even care about turning in a solid adaptation? I've had increasing problems with the show since the second season - the issues in S1, bar the lower production quality, seem like trivialities now - but I must confess I never really expected it to get this bad.



Even the smallest of changes seemed to be befuddling and have an absurd impact on the quality of the episodes. Do they honestly think that Ramsay Snow is a better chief villain than Roose Bolton? Why on earth did they think having two random servants - an old woman and man - were a quality replacement for Lady Dustin and Wyman Manderly and Alys Karstark? Do they also truly think that having Dany frown and read lines dramatically, forcing Clarke to turn in the same limited performance every year, is working? Is cutting Bowen Marsh and the pink letter wise? Did they really feel replacing the political aspects of the Wall with Thorne and Olly was a worthwhile venture?



So many bamboozling choices, so many failed scenes.


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Lady Stoneheart being left out is one of those things that could have happened in a 13 show but not a ten show format. Honestly in the end this series will be remembered for it's big moments. Ultimately, GoT will probably end up being average. That's it.

Same reason Penny and Fake Targaryen story was left out. Her story wasn't really needed on the show to be honest. It's more of a spin off. I'm perfectly fine with the show leaving them all out.

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We haven't seen anything in the show to challenge R+E=J. In fact almost no mention of Elia at all. Folk can read whatever they like into the books. Their interpretations are no more credible than Mel's interpretations of what she sees in the flames. I have heard all the nonsense about bloody beds and rooms full of blue flowers. Its all tosh. Bastard is bastard and bastards can't inherit.

Well I guess you could interpret that differently then most of us...Provided you have a reading level that struggles with GRRMs material. Are you speaking support of or in denial of R+L=J?

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I watched a scene from season one and then one from season five. The decline in the quality of the dialogue is tremendous. I have to wonder at this point do they even care about turning in a solid adaptation? I've had increasing problems with the show since the second season - the issues in S1, bar the lower production quality, seem like trivialities now - but I must confess I never really expected it to get this bad.

Even the smallest of changes seemed to be befuddling and have an absurd impact on the quality of the episodes. Do they honestly think that Ramsay Snow is a better chief villain than Roose Bolton? Why on earth did they think having two random servants - an old woman and man - were a quality replacement for Lady Dustin and Wyman Manderly and Alys Karstark? Do they also truly think that having Dany frown and read lines dramatically, forcing Clarke to turn in the same limited performance every year, is working? Is cutting Bowen Marsh and the pink letter wise? Did they really feel replacing the political aspects of the Wall with Thorne and Olly was a worthwhile venture?

So many bamboozling choices, so many failed scenes.

Bamboozled, yes.

In a programme that is supposed to represent some kind of political thriller, the Northern Lords and the underlying menace in Winterfell would have been a tremendous story line. But noooo, torture and rape is the focus we get for the North Remembers storyline. I could spit, it's so bad.

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Precisely. The show has never given us any reason to doubt R+E=J as a possibility.

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.

The show has given us evidence against R+L=J: bastard is bastard and bastards can't inherit.

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.

If being a royal bastard makes a claim to the throne the twincest doesn't matter

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.

and Gendry is in line.

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.

If Ned wouldn't do that sort of thing, why expect it of Lyanna?

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.)

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Even if the show goes there, It would make little sense. Ned has called Jon his blood. So, unless here Elia is Ned's cousin, that means she had sex with a Stark.

Another failure of imagination on your part.

Ned never says Jon is his son, he always says 'of my blood'. As with the bloody bed, sometime the literal meaning is the significant one.

The reason I predicted that another actor would play Jon before the episode aired and the EW piece came out is that if R+E=J then he should look Targarean. His Stark appearance is due to blood magic that has something to do with the death of Lyanna and is the cause of the bloody bed and the 'of my blood' phrase of speech.

Jon Connington is added to the story for no other reason than to muddy the waters.

I believe that the book scheme is actually a switch of appearances similar to a glamor and fake Aegon is the other person. So his appearance will suddenly change. But Kit Harrington is SOL because there is no fake Aegon in the show.

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Another failure of imagination on your part.

Ned never says Jon is his son, he always says 'of my blood'. As with the bloody bed, sometime the literal meaning is the significant one.

The reason I predicted that another actor would play Jon before the episode aired and the EW piece came out is that if R+E=J then he should look Targarean. His Stark appearance is due to blood magic that has something to do with the death of Lyanna and is the cause of the bloody bed and the 'of my blood' phrase of speech.

Jon Connington is added to the story for no other reason than to muddy the waters.

I believe that the book scheme is actually a switch of appearances similar to a glamor and fake Aegon is the other person. So his appearance will suddenly change. But Kit Harrington is SOL because there is no fake Aegon in the show.

So, what do you think Ned meant with "you're of my blood"? That he somehow took his own blood and Elia's and cloned the kid? It means they are related by blood.

And not, Ned didn't use Lyanna's blood to make the kid look "Starkish". That's... preposterous, tbh. Why would Ned raise Rhaegar and Elia's son and use his sister's blood to help them? Why would he risk his own marriage by presenting the kid as a bastard if such kid is not related to him by blood?

Jon Connington's con is Aegon. He's the one conned into believing he's raising Rhaegar's child. He's not part of the con with full knowledge.

Glamours in the book work with some magical artefact. Unless Ned managed to insert some jewel stone into Jon Snow, I don't see how he never noticed he needed to walk around with a necklace that made him look blond when he took it off.

Edited by JonCon's Red Beard
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So, what do you think Ned meant with "you're of my blood"? That he somehow took his own blood and Elia's and cloned the kid? It means they are related by blood.

And not, Ned didn't use Lyanna's blood to make the kid look "Starkish". That's... preposterous, tbh. Why would Ned raise Rhaegar and Elia's son and use his sister's blood to help them? Why would he risk his own marriage by presenting the kid as a bastard if such kid is not related to him by blood?

Jon Connington's con is Aegon. He's the one conned into believing he's raising Rhaegar's child. He's not part of the con with full knowledge.

Glamours in the book work with some magical artefact. Unless Ned managed to insert some jewel stone into Jon Snow, I don't see how he never noticed he needed to walk around with a necklace that made him look blond when he took it off.

I'm not sure why you're even bothering to argue, his argument is ludicrous.

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It makes Arya's reveal and revenge that much sweeter. That's why it was done.

I disagree. Trant is an a-hole but for all we know is that he is following orders. To him maybe he felt he had no choice but to beat Sansa and kill (?) Syrio. It felt like the show had to make him worse for the murder to be more shocking or understandable. That's besides the point. This is about Arya's development of becoming a single minded,cold, calculating,ruthless assassin. Not about hurray! Arya killed some really despicable person that deserved to die. I think that actually detracts to what she is becoming and also detracts from why she killed him. Most people are like "yay that pedo beating prick got his" instead of "for Syrio!". It's also supposed to be sad about what she is becoming.

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I disagree. Trant is an a-hole but for all we know is that he is following orders. To him maybe he felt he had no choice but to beat Sansa and kill (?) Syrio. It felt like the show had to make him worse for the murder to be more shocking or understandable. That's besides the point. This is about Arya's development of becoming a single minded,cold, calculating,ruthless assassin. Not about hurray! Arya killed some really despicable person that deserved to die. I think that actually detracts to what she is becoming and also detracts from why she killed him. Most people are like "yay that pedo beating prick got his" instead of "for Syrio!". It's also supposed to be sad about what she is becoming.

Completely agree. What they did with Trant was to blacken the character, because grey isn't something they 'get'.

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I have to admit that the manner in which they set us up in episode 9 and completely trolled us on Stannis was rather masterful.

Here's a guy who many favored. He has the birthright, he has magic on his side, he saved the wall and he had the heartwarming moment with Shireen. They built him up. Then they undid him completely.

I didn't feel the decision to burn Shireen was well supported but it was done well enough to remove all supporters among fans. He went from well-supported to nothing in a single moment... and it set an expectation of triumph. Add that they had the preview of melting and Mel triumphantly saying it worked. They had the shot of Stannis drawing his sword. It really made you think he was ready to go kick some Bolton ass in episode 10.

Then they hit you with desertion. Then they hit you with Selyse's suicide. Still I thought he might figure it out. Then they hit you with Boltons riding out before he could get remotely set up. Then they panned back and showed you how outnumbered he was.

It was complete destruction of his character in #9 followed by complete turn about of fortune in #10.

Bravo, really.

I rated this episode a 7. It's growing on me as time passes. I might have to raise the rating.

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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.

Jon would be a third child.

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.

The show hasn't done anything at all yet except cast doubt on N+?=J. And that is what I would expect. Jon's parentage isn't ever an issue until FTW. He has no reason to doubt Ned and when he joins the watch he gives up his family anyway.

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.

It would be in Westeros. Besides which, the Targarean line has been utterly discredited by Aerys.

I don't care if you write war and peace, being a bastard matters so deeply to Jon that he joins the watch. That is one heck of a problem.

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 think it highly unlikely. I did not say impossible. I think it is a lot more likely that a maester would make an error when they tell Elia she can't have more children than that Rheagar or Lyana would break character.

And rules are different for men and women in Westeros.

You might not like R+E=J but it does not require any character to act out of character and the timing works just as well as any other theory. It does not warrant casual dismissal like the suggestion that Stannis or Renly is the father and Lyanna the mother.

My theory had a concrete prediction that seems to have been confirmed by the showrunners: Kit is not in the next season. It also provides hooks to explain the rest of the backstory.

Yes, everyone in Westeros getting the cause of Robert's rebellion wrong sounds just like what would happen in a GRRM book. Cat starts the war of the five Kings because she mistakenly thinks Tyrion tried to kill her son.

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:lmao: I'm the troll! You've been doing nothing other than trolling on this thread and on the poll thread!

This thread is for people to discuss the show. The haters trolling it have their own thread, the rant and rave thread. Not content to spew their bile there, they infect every thread on this sub with repetitive D&D suck comments, displacing those of us who enjoy the show and want to discuss it. So you're the troll, not me.

Edited by Spilt Pea Soup
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Jon being Ned's bastard fits the evidence perfectly. But the book makes it rather clear he isn't.

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.)

A secret marriage does not save R+L=J. It isn't recognized by the laws of the old gods or the new.

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.

As you point out, Jon really doesn't need anything to be AAR or anything else. Being the third son through a bigamous marriage isn't really a step up from being a bastard.

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.

I discount the 'evidence' from the maesters because none of it is first hand and the maesters predictions can be wrong.

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?

As for why the child would be kept secret, that is a fact all the theories have to explain.

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.

My theory is that it comes comes to the prophecy that seems to have driven Rheagar to self-destruction.

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.

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