(Spoilers All) The True King

[MorpHDoc]

I was going to read every single post in this thread, but once I saw there are 18 pages, I abandoned the idea.

First of all, Stannis's Army was tired, hungry, cold, outnumbered etc etc how can you attack a caste with freaking big walls with only men on feet? In the show, he stood no chance.

In the books? It is a similar situation (winter etc.) but he has few Northmen behind him, but I think they will desert him.

Anyways, I do think Stannis is alive. Brianne will find Sansa and Theon, take them all to the CB and make Stannis take black. Then Sansa and hopefully Jon will ask Davos to look for Rickon.

Or Stannis is dead. But that would be shit. I somehow wish him to become Lord Commander and fight against the White Walkers...afterall, he may be AA...(probably not, but who knows).

[Mithras]

Yeah said the guy how said Jon is dead and in far less ambiguous terms

He said "Jon Snow is dead" and that is precisely true. Compare that to "The Hound is dead".

[~~~~~~~~~~~~~]

If Martin confirms that Jon Snow is dead, I'm throwing out the books and the show can go chase itself. I've had it. How can you go so far in one direction and decide, nah, just kidding, he's a goner. To hell with that scene and David Nutter (good name) & D&D too. Especially OLLY. WTF, Ghost isn't shown locked up and the last words Jon says is Olly?

So, they don't want to leave us any hope. Melisandre miraculously arriving at the wall faster than Superman on speed means nothing? A week or two ago when I read where Kit Harington said that his character wasn't safe, I felt myself cringe. I allowed myself to think that he wouldn't be allowed to spoil the show like that and he was just building suspense.

Well, the hype has reached a saturation point and if this is a storyline where in the end everyone dies but the fucking walkers, I could have spent my time reading another series of books 6 times.

[RoamingRonin]

If he is really dead then wow... What a disaster. Even if they got everything right about his character up until that point that still wouldnt change how awful that death scene was. It's just like how they handled the Hound.

I see a pattern: Brienne ruins death scenes.

[David Selig]

WTF was this nonsense. These were some of dumbest minutes of TV I've ever seen.

How the hell did Stannis expected to win this? No cavalry, few men, no food and no siege equipment and apparently the Boltons had 5 times more men and they were mounted too. The Boltons didn't even had to attack at all, they could have just waited for Stannis' men to die out of hunger.

And how the hell did Brienne found Stannis with no Bolton men around? Did Ramsay say "Whatever, guys, don't bother looking for Stannis, it's not like he's the main threat or anything."

Well, at least it's over. Not that whatever D&D come up won't be just as dumb most likely...

[Lord Varys]

Mithras,

you can't expect Catelyn to listen to reason. George has said multiple times that she isn't the same person she once was, so there is really no reason why she would want to believe (or accept) that Jaime had nothing to do with Robb's murder. She has Roose's own word for it, after all.

Not to mention that Brienne would have told Catelyn that she and Jaime supped with Roose at Harrenhal, and that Roose let Jaime go. Brienne cannot ensure Cat that Jaime had no clue about the Red Wedding as she wouldn't know what Jaime and Roose talked while she wasn't there - not to mention that Jaime's conversation with Roose effectively decided the Red Wedding - it was the assurance Roose got from Jaime which convinced Roose to go through with the plan.

Brienne, on the other hand, was Cat's sworn sword once, and she had reason to trust her once. I imagine whatever remnants of her personality are left recognized as much - as well as the fact that she could not expect her to stay true to a corpse.

But even that did not restrain her from killing Brienne or using her as a tool to get to Jaime. I don't see Catelyn allowing Jaime to get off the hook the same way Sandor escaped Beric's clutches. She'll do whatever the hell she wants - and we don't really know yet if Cat is through with Brienne after she has brought Jaime to her. If she really believes Brienne lied to her she can (and would) still hang Brienne. Nobody is going to object. We see how easy those guys hang people.

As to Stannis:

Has anybody thought how good a parallel the botching of his character is to Cersei's walk? I mean, you can practically see how he looses more and more mental clothes and hair after he burns Shireen, people continue to defect, Selyse kills herself, and - most importantly - Melisandre abandons him. The man is walking joke, charging against his enemies naked without any weapon and with defeat written all over him.

Oh, and has anybody ever thought how they fucked up Mel, too. I mean, the woman is absolutely devoted to Stannis. She would never abandon him under any circumstances. I imagine she would even throw herself in front of an arrow or a spear aimed at him. What are is the audience supposed to believe about her now? The pitiful fan fiction fantasies of a large group of readers prior to ADwD that Mel is inherently evil, an agent of the Others, a devious woman who intentionally leads Stannis astray? I really don't get that at all.

[ThePrunesThatWasPromised]

GRRM is a master of misdirection. He got y'all thinking Stannis was the Mannis when Ramsay was the Mannis the whole time.

[Dany's Golden Fleece]

If Martin confirms that Jon Snow is dead, I'm throwing out the books and the show can go chase itself. I've had it. How can you go so far in one direction and decide, nah, just kidding, he's a goner. To hell with that scene and David Nutter (good name) & D&D too. Especially OLLY. WTF, Ghost isn't shown locked up and the last words Jon says is Olly?

So, they don't want to leave us any hope. Melisandre miraculously arriving at the wall faster than Superman on speed means nothing? A week or two ago when I read where Kit Harington said that his character wasn't safe, I felt myself cringe. I allowed myself to think that he wouldn't be allowed to spoil the show like that and he was just building suspense.

Well, the hype has reached a saturation point and if this is a storyline where in the end everyone dies but the fucking walkers, I could have spent my time reading another series of books 6 times.

Of course their is hope. She is called Daenerys Stormborn ;-) .

[David Selig]

Mithras,

you can't expect Catelyn to listen to reason. George has said multiple times that she isn't the same person she once was, so there is really no reason why she would want to believe (or accept) that Jaime had nothing to do with Robb's murder

Jaime has committed plenty of very serious crimes outside of that (including crippling Bran), so it would be beyond idiotic to let him go even if she's somehow convinced he had nothing to do with the RW.

[Saltire Knight]

“In a book, you can present that kind of ambiguity,” Weiss said. “In a show, everybody sees it for what it is. It’s that rule: ‘If don’t see the body then they’re not really dead.’ Like when we cut Ned’s head off, we didn’t want a gory Monty Python geyser of blood, but we needed to see the blade enter his neck and cut out on the frame where the blade was mid-neck—it was longest discussion ever of where to cut a frame; two hours of talking about whether to cut at frame six or frame seven or frame eight. And that’s all by way of saying we needed Ned’s death to be totally unambiguous. I remember reading the book and going back and forth, like, ‘Did I miss something? Was [Ned] swapped out for somebody else?’ There’s a level of ambiguity because you’re not seeing something starkly represented. In the book, you can write around things to preserve a certain level of mystery that you have to commit to on screen.”

Whether Stannis is alive or dead I think we can definitely agree that they deliberately made his death ambiguous.

[Stannis' shadow babies]

Oh, and has anybody ever thought how they fucked up Mel, too. I mean, the woman is absolutely devoted to Stannis. She would never abandon him under any circumstances. I imagine she would even throw herself in front of an arrow or a spear aimed at him. What are is the audience supposed to believe about her now? The pitiful fan fiction fantasies of a large group of readers prior to ADwD that Mel is inherently evil, an agent of the Others, an devious woman who intentionally leads Stannis astray? I really don't get that at all.

THIS is one of the things that bothered me the most. She is absolutely convinced, but it takes nothing for her to abandon him?? JFC, the more I think of it, the more disappointed I am with the writing of this season and especially Stannis' arc.

[Dany4eva]

I am so glad he is dead.

[jet199]

I just had a though (I don't think Stannis is dead so I ain't going to start theorising from that point) that Mel's visions (which is in both the books and the show) of Stannis leading the fight against the "darkness" might not actually be a vision of Stannis fighting the Others but Stannis fighting the Night's Watch or the Greyjoys.

[OldGimletEye]

Of course their is hope. She is called Daenerys Stormborn ;-) .

Well, of course, we know the official position of the Khaleesi National Party, but what about Bran Stark? Or has he been officially made an unperson, by the KNP's central committee?

[Cas Stark]

Stannis is dead.

There was no reason that Talisa was from Volantis, except because.

LF never saw Arya in season 2.

Stoneheart is not going to be on the show.

People should stop deluding themselves that the show is subtle. It isn't. They don't do subtext, they don't do plot twists anymore either.

The only reason Jon Snow isn't dead is because they can't get around it, it's too big of an event.

[Cladinator]

It's hard to say.

With D&D's obsession with blood and violence you'd think that they'd have shown it.

[Pies are coming]

WTF was this nonsense. These were some of dumbest minutes of TV I've ever seen.

How the hell did Stannis expected to win this? No cavalry, few men, no food and no siege equipment and apparently the Boltons had 5 times more men and they were mounted too. The Boltons didn't even had to attack at all, they could have just waited for Stannis' men to die out of hunger.

And how the hell did Brienne found Stannis with no Bolton men around? Did Ramsay say "Whatever, guys, don't bother looking for Stannis, it's not like he's the main threat or anything."

Well, at least it's over. Not that whatever D&D come up won't be just as dumb most likely...

And what makes you think Stannis expected to win?

[RoamingRonin]

Well, of course, we know the official position of the Khaleesi National Party, but what about Bran Stark? Or has he been officially made an unperson, by the KNP's central committee?

The options were always Jon, Dany and Bran. Choose one or two or all three but Stannis was never an option.

Never.

[dbunting]

People keep saying that Stannis wouldn't have attacked Winterfell after losing half him men, horses and such. Yeah he would, he would do it no matter what. That's who he is, he marches forward, only forward. Remember the line, what happens to things that do not bend...? They break.

[Cas Stark]

People keep saying that Stannis wouldn't have attacked Winterfell after losing half him men, horses and such. Yeah he would, he would do it no matter what. That's who he is, he marches forward, only forward. Remember the line, what happens to things that do not bend...? They break.

Well yeah because Show Stannis was dumb as dirt. Doesn't even bother waiting until dark or thinking up some type of subterfuge?

Nope. Walks up in broad daylight to get slaughtered. Greatest military commander in Westeros. What a joke.