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Oldtown and that library


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3 minutes ago, Dragon_Rider said:

 

Varys didn't teleport.  They're just having major time jumps between scenes, without a text explicitly stating the time jump.  I wish they didn't eschew the convention of having text on the screen stating "3 months later..."

 

Oh I know that of course, but I still like to poke fun at the way it comes off. The show has never really addressed travel time or time passed, which is also in the spirit of the books so I can dig it, but it can still be jarring despite knowing how it's supposed to play out.

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Sam and the receptionist REALLY reminded me of Jonathan Pryce's "Sam" in Terry Gilliam's 'Brazil' film - when Sam visits the Ministry, and has to deal with the awful purposefully bewildering bureaucracy.  The eye glasses for one thing seemed really 'Brazil', and Sam's cheerfulness :D

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Are all those books chained to the shelves? If so nice symbolism. The Citadel will be presented as a bureaucratic nightmare. Knowledge is their power and they keep it locked away from others. Sam won't be dealing with red tape, he'll be dealing with black chains. Sam's storyline next season could be him trying to get into a specific book to find a way to defeat the white walkers but the Maesters don't believe him and deny him access.

 

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1 hour ago, Adam141414 said:

Is becoming a Maester, the equivalent to holding an M.D and PhD. 

They are the doctors, in addition to world historians with in depth knowledge of law & everything else. 

 

 

I don't think so. I never quite get the time it takes to forge just one link of the chain but I always imagine that it can take as long as a PHD. You see, PHD takes about 4-5 years. But that is not counting the master, the undergrad, the high school, etc etc. We take about 20 years from nothing to PhD. In westeros they go to the citadel when they are fairly young, I'd say 20 and then by the time they are 30 they have a whole chain. I'm just guessing, though.

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5 hours ago, rodrigobraganca said:

I don't think so. I never quite get the time it takes to forge just one link of the chain but I always imagine that it can take as long as a PHD. You see, PHD takes about 4-5 years. But that is not counting the master, the undergrad, the high school, etc etc. We take about 20 years from nothing to PhD. In westeros they go to the citadel when they are fairly young, I'd say 20 and then by the time they are 30 they have a whole chain. I'm just guessing, though.

This amount of time seems approximately correct. Aemon started studying when he was ten, and had completed his chain by nineteen. 

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6 hours ago, amyzing1 said:

I haven't read the books, so I I was hoping one of the readers would have more insight. But I had to rewind and take a closer look. Nice that it is all coming together and Sam will be he one to put it all together for us all. The Citadel - where all information and history *should* be stored. However, the gatekeeper didn't know about LC Mormont or Maester Aemon and just crossed their names out rather than giving them an end date and entering new LC names and Maester names. Pretty odd if it intended to be the sacred place to learn the history of everything in GoT world. No one will ever know that anyone took over those two positions, so are we expected to believe the "watch ended" when those two names were crossed out? And the Crows were disbanded at that time, White Walkers are entering south, no reports to the Citadel about them (hello Sam and Gilley, wanna mention that first thing?). 

As far as I can recall, the library was not really the eventful part of Sam's arrival at the Citadel.

The scene was a nice touch though and reminded me of the tree of life or the librarian movie.

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9 hours ago, direwoofwoof said:

Can we take a moment to appreciate the beauty of that library? Samwell looked like he was going to faint. Loved the snarkiness if the receptionist guy too. :)  

RIGHT? Like seriously I almost started crying when he saw that library. It was so spectacular and the music was absolutely perfect. 

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7 hours ago, Mandzipop said:

I just kept thinking of Hogwarts.

Hah - I thought of the crystal mage libraries at the end of Dark Souls 1 & 3. Perhaps they all borrow from each other.

But yes, it was an amazing scene.

Other then Bran and the Night King, what Sam reads in Old Town is what I remain interested in in this story. I've long since stopped giving a damn about the characters - but I want to know how the magical elements of the world work and if there is a surprising interconnected logic to it. I'll probably be disappointed - but fingers crossed.

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8 hours ago, Shireen Purratheon said:

Like the Library of Congress meets the Library at Alexandria in the biggest university in the world. With as fast as word gets around, how did nobody at the Citadel know the Old Bear was dead?

I also loved seeing the white ravens in the air as they're looking out across the city. That was a fun touch. 

Yeah, considering Tyrion knew it when he was sailing to Essos it's a little unbelievable that the entire Citadel did not know.

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3 minutes ago, SuperMario said:

Yeah, considering Tyrion knew it when he was sailing to Essos it's a little unbelievable that the entire Citadel did not know.

What would have been really funny would be having him say their records show Eddison Tolett to be the acting Lord Commander and show Sam's confusion. 

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10 minutes ago, Shireen Purratheon said:

What would have been really funny would be having him say their records show Eddison Tolett to be the acting Lord Commander and show Sam's confusion. 

Haha. It wouldn't have surprised me.

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8 hours ago, Adam141414 said:

Is becoming a Maester, the equivalent to holding an M.D and PhD. 

They are the doctors, in addition to world historians with in depth knowledge of law & everything else. 

 

 

Undergraduate 4years. MDPHD program in the US is 8. Add 5-7 for residency/fellowship, depending on specialty. Training is just shy of 20 years after graduating high school. 

I know this because I was almost done becoming a MuDPHuD before a car accident stole my career and gave me time to screw around on this forum.

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I love how Sam refuses to leave Gilly and stands up to the Night's Watch, his family, "her family", ect.

However, "where you go, I go" should be updated to include "... unless I have to ditch you guys for a library, because all of the books!, peace out"

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1 hour ago, Shireen Purratheon said:

This amount of time seems approximately correct. Aemon started studying when he was ten, and had completed his chain by nineteen. 

It isn't 9 years, more like 20. See above...

Very nice comparison though. We are like Maesters. Teachers, researchers, healers, advisors... packing around a heavy burden of years of training and experience. Not uncommon to see us packing around giant backpacks full of papers/books/devices resulting in a similar stoop to the one from a heavy chain.

Also... when you dedicate your life to knowing so much, it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that things that do not fit with your worldview are not correct. The Citadel is supposed to be the repository of knowledge. If they can't keep up with events and remain a trusted source for current knowledge, then their value is undermined. They do not take challenges to this lightly and will be slow to accept and incorporate new information that shows that they were wrong in the past. The WOIAF is an exceptional example of this. The books also have several characters  (I can't find the spoiler button and am writing on my phone, so trying to be vague rather than spoilery) who get in trouble/are tucked away bc they challenge the paradigm.

Unfortunately this is also true in medicine. New thinking is applied as quickly as the Titanic changing course to avoid an iceberg. To treat patients, you have to be confident that your training was based on good knowledge and be able to act quickly. If you constantly second guess, you won't be effective. It leads to arrogance that the things you spent 20 years (11-15 for a regular MD) learning are the only truth and your efforts must have made you more qualified than whomever is challenging you.  However, to incorporate new knowledge, you have to be able to have a flexible mindset that lets you question the paradigm without becoming paralyzed.  This is the reason why MDPHDs are a thing and the training is heavily subsidized by the NIH.

 Maesters,  doctors, and MDPHDs oh my

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10 hours ago, Shireen Purratheon said:

Like the Library of Congress meets the Library at Alexandria in the biggest university in the world. With as fast as word gets around, how did nobody at the Citadel know the Old Bear was dead?

I took it to mean that they are overly bureaucratic, not ignorant. They likely did hear that the Old Bear was dead, but because word did not come from the official maester of Castle Black they ignored it.

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10 hours ago, DarkerStar said:

I thought it was hilarious that Olenna knew what Cersei did in this episode but the Citadel didn't know what happened in the North 2 years ago. I knew after seeing Horn Hill and how awesome it looked that Oldtown and Highgarden would look absolutely incredible. I was not disappointed that view was stunning.

Tyrion knew all the details as to how the `Old Bear died so King's Landing had clearly received a raven from maester Aemon about the events. Jon spend half of season four sending ravens to all the northern houses informing them that he's the Lord Commander now and asking them for support. Weird that nobody thought of informing the Citadel or that they didn't find out from other sources. 

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