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14 minutes ago, Gaz0680 said:

Do you really think Arya decided to go to Winterfell after talking with Hot Pie, changed her mind after seeing Nymeria and decided to go to Kings Landing instead but then miraculously ends up near Winterfell??

To be fair to Hallam, the Nymeria scene, while cool, wasn't at all clear.

I'm pretty sure the point is that she realized that Nymeria can't go back, but also realized that she's not like Nymeria, and that's what "Not you" meant, so she can, so she's going to carry on to Winterfell. (And once you get that, the fact that Nymeria has built a new pack, but Arya hasn't, is even more confirmation that she should go home.)

But the scene itself didn't tell me that; I only read it that way because it seems from everything else (even without the preview or spoilers, but obviously they confirm it) that she's carrying on to Winterfell. Taken in isolation, I have no idea how I would have read it, but it may well have been the same way as Hallam did.

Also:

Quote

Arya couldnt have got to KL that fast

Well, that's rarely a good assumption to make with this show. :)

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11 hours ago, El Guapo said:

I am not even sure Dany was the most beautiful woman in that throne room.  I would find it hard taking my eyes off the woman announcing all of Dany's titles.

Can't argue there... Nathalie is breathtaking.

 

3 hours ago, hallam said:

How do you know? She decided not to kill Cersei and go back to Winterfell. Then she met Nymeria and realized she couldn't go back to her old life.

Can't see Arya going to King's Landing. Cersei will die at the hand of her brother, hard to imagine them going against the 'Maggie the Frog' prophecy.

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1 hour ago, falcotron said:

To be fair to Hallam, the Nymeria scene, while cool, wasn't at all clear.

I'm pretty sure the point is that she realized that Nymeria can't go back, but also realized that she's not like Nymeria, and that's what "Not you" meant, so she can, so she's going to carry on to Winterfell. (And once you get that, the fact that Nymeria has built a new pack, but Arya hasn't, is even more confirmation that she should go home.)

But the scene itself didn't tell me that; I only read it that way because it seems from everything else (even without the preview or spoilers, but obviously they confirm it) that she's carrying on to Winterfell. Taken in isolation, I have no idea how I would have read it, but it may well have been the same way as Hallam did.

Also:

Well, that's rarely a good assumption to make with this show. :)

Lol fair point. Teleportation seems to be commonplace now.

i also agree the Nymeria scene wasnt clear. I interpreted it "that's not you" as referring to Nymeria not being able to go back to being a companion for Arya, but also Arya perhaps realising that it may not be easy for herself to go back either. That doesnt mean shes not going to try though.

This is Arya we are talking about, shes not going to give up on something and change her mind because it may be tough.

She made the decision to go to Winterfell based on new information presented to her. I couldnt see Arya just changing her mind on a whim after making that decision to then go back to Kings Landing unless something new and major happened that warranted her going to KL over meeting up with family.

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6 hours ago, Super Mario said:

Can't see Arya going to King's Landing. Cersei will die at the hand of her brother, hard to imagine them going against the 'Maggie the Frog' prophecy.

You must know all the fan theories on that one.

Maggie explicitly says "the valonqar", not "your valonqar".

And everyone, even people who speak High Valyrian fluently, is too stupid to remember that many High Valyrian words with masculine grammatical gender are semantically ungendered: The Prince That Was Promised actually means The Prince or Princess That Was Promised.

So it could be anyone's little brother or little sister. Which means Arya is a candidate. But then so are 80% of the people in Westeros.

In fact, "brother" isn't restricted to humans in English, so why should we expect "valonqar" to be in Valyrian? Ser Pounce is a little brother, so he's a candidate too.

And the thing is, as stupid as all of this sounds—why on earth would Maggie say "valonqar" in Valyrian when the rest of the prophecy is in Common unless there's supposed to be some surprise twist like this? If I said "You will die at the hands of the fraterculus", and I actually meant your little brother rather than someone with the Latin title or nickname or whatever, I'm not even pretentiously showing off that I know Latin, I'm just being a jackass for no reason.

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33 minutes ago, falcotron said:

You must know all the fan theories on that one.

Maggie explicitly says "the valonqar", not "your valonqar".

And everyone, even people who speak High Valyrian fluently, is too stupid to remember that many High Valyrian words with masculine grammatical gender are semantically ungendered: The Prince That Was Promised actually means The Prince or Princess That Was Promised.

So it could be anyone's little brother or little sister. Which means Arya is a candidate. But then so are 80% of the people in Westeros.

In fact, "brother" isn't restricted to humans in English, so why should we expect "valonqar" to be in Valyrian? Ser Pounce is a little brother, so he's a candidate too.

And the thing is, as stupid as all of this sounds—why on earth would Maggie say "valonqar" in Valyrian when the rest of the prophecy is in Common unless there's supposed to be some surprise twist like this? If I said "You will die at the hands of the fraterculus", and I actually meant your little brother rather than someone with the Latin title or nickname or whatever, I'm not even pretentiously showing off that I know Latin, I'm just being a jackass for no 

To be fair to Maggie, she was an immigrant to Westeros, and chances are that it was easy for her to slip back into high Valyrian, since the Common Tongue was foreign to her. Or she was intentionally making fun of/misleading Cersei, and who could blame her for that, knowing Cersei and her manner towards everyone. Prophesies in general are mostly misleading, you don't know the context until the events took place, otherwise it would be painfully simple, and "you will be killed by someone's little brother or sister, literally anyone's little brother or sister" doesn't have the same ring to it as "valonqar would wrap his hands around your throats blah blah blah".

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57 minutes ago, falcotron said:

You must know all the fan theories on that one.

Maggie explicitly says "the valonqar", not "your valonqar".

And everyone, even people who speak High Valyrian fluently, is too stupid to remember that many High Valyrian words with masculine grammatical gender are semantically ungendered: The Prince That Was Promised actually means The Prince or Princess That Was Promised.

So it could be anyone's little brother or little sister. Which means Arya is a candidate. But then so are 80% of the people in Westeros.

In fact, "brother" isn't restricted to humans in English, so why should we expect "valonqar" to be in Valyrian? Ser Pounce is a little brother, so he's a candidate too.

And the thing is, as stupid as all of this sounds—why on earth would Maggie say "valonqar" in Valyrian when the rest of the prophecy is in Common unless there's supposed to be some surprise twist like this? If I said "You will die at the hands of the fraterculus", and I actually meant your little brother rather than someone with the Latin title or nickname or whatever, I'm not even pretentiously showing off that I know Latin, I'm just being a jackass for no reason.

 There is actually a little flaw in this theory: Maeggi said "HIS hands...", thus, I think it should be male after all. This whole theory Arya being valonqar could be real only if she puts on Jamie's or Tyrion's face and kills Cersei, but that's a very poor story for the characters. Jamie should be broken in the end, after all, redemption is a very hard work to do.

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43 minutes ago, Gala said:

 There is actually a little flaw in this theory: Maeggi said "HIS hands...", thus, I think it should be male after all. This whole theory Arya being valonqar could be real only if she puts on Jamie's or Tyrion's face and kills Cersei, but that's a very poor story for the characters. Jamie should be broken in the end, after all, redemption is a very hard work to do.

I get the feeling from the books that Arya's plot arc is to be fixed on killing Cersei and then not doing so but at the last minute. It had looked like we were set for the Hound and Arya to team up and off Cersei together but then for the Hound to stop Arya and do it himself. But they are all going in the wrong direction right now. Unless of course, Cersei heads north. Arya has to have a big payoff for that ninja training and Cersei is the only kill left, the Nights King has to belong to Jon.

On the prophecy thing, we are far from the books because the books revolve around a second prophecy that only Jamie is likely to know, the prophecy that drove Areys mad and Rheagar into rebellion ahead of Robert. I suspect that there is a valonquar in that as well. The business of Jamie sitting on the throne after killing Aegon suggests that he did it to fulfill the prophecy. I rather suspect Tywin was wrong and Tyrion was his only legitimate son. His condition being caused by Tywin's attempt to kill Tyrion in the womb. We might well get that at the start of season 8. Unless of course Cersei is out first.

Whatever else, I am pretty sure that there was a purpose to re-introducing that maid. Perhaps she had a brother killed in the Sept, perhaps she is going to let the sand snakes out. Cersei really did break the cardinal evil overlord rule leaving them to die like that. Surely they carry antidote. I don't think they will get Cersei but they might cause her to abandon KL. 

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2 hours ago, falcotron said:

You must know all the fan theories on that one.

Maggie explicitly says "the valonqar", not "your valonqar".

And everyone, even people who speak High Valyrian fluently, is too stupid to remember that many High Valyrian words with masculine grammatical gender are semantically ungendered: The Prince That Was Promised actually means The Prince or Princess That Was Promised.

So it could be anyone's little brother or little sister. Which means Arya is a candidate. But then so are 80% of the people in Westeros.

In fact, "brother" isn't restricted to humans in English, so why should we expect "valonqar" to be in Valyrian? Ser Pounce is a little brother, so he's a candidate too.

And the thing is, as stupid as all of this sounds—why on earth would Maggie say "valonqar" in Valyrian when the rest of the prophecy is in Common unless there's supposed to be some surprise twist like this? If I said "You will die at the hands of the fraterculus", and I actually meant your little brother rather than someone with the Latin title or nickname or whatever, I'm not even pretentiously showing off that I know Latin, I'm just being a jackass for no reason.

I'm not that much of a conspiracy theorist... the valonqar being her twin Jaime who's only younger by 90 seconds or so rather than the more obvious Tyrion, seems a more than adequate twist

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51 minutes ago, hallam said:

Whatever else, I am pretty sure that there was a purpose to re-introducing that maid. Perhaps she had a brother killed in the Sept, perhaps she is going to let the sand snakes out. Cersei really did break the cardinal evil overlord rule leaving them to die like that. Surely they carry antidote. I don't think they will get Cersei but they might cause her to abandon KL. 

This is my sole hesitation in saying Jaime kills Cersei... re-introducing this maid at that particular time does in fact seem purposeful. Wasn't the girl at the Freys whose identity Arya took to bake pies and kill Walder shown checking out Jaime (Bronn commented on it) at the feast in the season 6 finale? This kind of feels like that. So it would appear this maid has a role to play. I'm thinking it may just be as simple as spreading the word that Cersei & Jaime truly are bumpin' uglies.

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3 hours ago, Super Mario said:

This is my sole hesitation in saying Jaime kills Cersei... re-introducing this maid at that particular time does in fact seem purposeful. Wasn't the girl at the Freys whose identity Arya took to bake pies and kill Walder shown checking out Jaime (Bronn commented on it) at the feast in the season 6 finale? This kind of feels like that. So it would appear this maid has a role to play. I'm thinking it may just be as simple as spreading the word that Cersei & Jaime truly are bumpin' uglies.

Part of GRRM's point is that the Game of Thrones is played by the likes of Cersei in complete disregard for the common folk. So I think it likely some of the common folk are likely to play a role in bringing her down - or trying to. 

D&D are very very fond of their references. Often an episode will have repeated references in a chiasmus, like when Arya washes a corpse for having its face removed and then showing Sansa being bathed before her wedding. The Jamie/Cersei and Grey Worm/Missandrei sex scenes were both with a crippled man. One was the first, the other is implied to be the last. So the occurrence of the maid is obviously significant. But how.

Right now, Cersei seems to hold all the cards and I expect her hand will improve even more this weekend. But she is clearly being set up for a major fall.

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On 8/1/2017 at 4:03 AM, U-238A said:

I'd like to point out to anyone who thinks Euron has a teleporting fleet that in fact, it all makes logistical sense:

Euron's teleporting fleet: The ambush occurs on their way to Sunspear, not in Blackwater Bay like many believe - Ellaria says to Yara "WHEN we reach Sunspear, I'll treat you to a Dornish Red". We do not know for certain that Yara's fleet left at the same time as the Unsullied. I'd say the Unsullied most likely left before Yara did as they have much further to go - so no reinforcements. I don't recall anything that suggested Euron's entire fleet escorted their new prisoners back to King's Landing. He went alone whilst the rest of his fleet sailed for Casterly Rock. It's not unfathomable that his fleet caught up to and overtook an unsullied fleet - after all, they're Ironborn while Unsullied are foot soldiers... Euron was not present nor was he required in the West.

Other points:

Lannister Army vs The Reach: Let's be honest, Show or not, Book or not, the entire Reach is scrambling with no leadership, especially after Tarly defected and would have stood no chance against an organised Lannister army. A small organised well lead army would decimate any larger, leaderless, unorganised army. Besides, it's not as if the entire Reach was there to defend High Garden. Tarly would have likely mustered and defected with a significant portion of that army also. In fact, he could have been playing both sides, allowing Olenna to believe he would defend the Reach for High Garden and then simply defect once they arrived.

Defenceless King's Landing: Cersei is Tywin's daughter after all, she's not stupid. The fact she's Queen right now suggests so. Any bit of reconnaissance would have revealed the bulk of Dany's army sailing away from Dragonstone. And, she likely took the risk of knowing Dany would not simply sack King's Landing as she is not the type to want to be Queen of Ashes. No defence - or at least a large one - required.

My problem is that they've improved the balance of power by strengthening Cersei, but in the process, they've turned Tyrion, who is meant to be known for his tactical nous, look like an absolute amateur. They've done a complete 180 on Jamie's character development which frustrates me more than anything else as his was one of my favourite in the books.

 

The problem is how did they know where these fleets would be and when. How does Euron know that the fleet was there? Euron also decides he's going to get a prize for Cersei even before leaving KL. Did he know who Ellaria and the Sand Snakes were? I mean he killed everybody else, but kept them. So, he knew before hand he was going to capture them. Attacked Yara's fleet, as if Yara and her fleet weren't Ironborn and weren't seasoned seamen that would have put up a fight. So after this and not loosing any ships seemingly. The fleet apears, BACK in KL, meaning they had to have sailed back pass Dragonstone.... Then leave again and sail hundreds or maybe a thousand miles to CR to burn the Unsullied ships!? The Silence was in both locations. You may say, well he didn't have to sail to CR but, whats the point!? The fleet still had to drop him off. Him prancing thru the city wouldn't take much time in caparison to sailing around dorn and up to CR. Even if he took Yara with him to burn the ships at CR, its still unclear how they knew where these ships would be.

Per the book, the reach has more troops then the Lannisters tho. like 35 thousand troops. More then likely knights and commanders... Also, how did this combo of forces outrun ravens and beacon fire? Their forces traveled the length of the reach... hundreds of miles and arrived in front of Highgarden unmolested. Olenna didn't need the tarlys to defend thier lands.

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6 hours ago, Super Mario said:

I'm thinking it may just be as simple as spreading the word that Cersei & Jaime truly are bumpin' uglies.

It doesn't have to amount to that, even. She could simply serve to introduce the idea that Carol is being too careless, and putting herself and Larry in danger by flaunting their sexy time.

Or even just the idea that Carol is confident and not hiding anymore. 

Also, her hairstyle reinforces the influence Carol wields over her court. 

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8 hours ago, Princess_of_Sunspear said:

To be fair to Maggie, she was an immigrant to Westeros, and chances are that it was easy for her to slip back into high Valyrian, since the Common Tongue was foreign to her.

Except that High Valyrian isn't her native language either, so that's like a French peasant slipping into Latin, rather than French. Which could be a hint that she's not actually a peasant, she was a scribe or a noble or something, or that she's hundreds of years old, or something like that, but those seem even more implausible. 

8 hours ago, Princess_of_Sunspear said:

Or she was intentionally making fun of/misleading Cersei, and who could blame her for that

That's a good point. "Being a jackass" is hard to rule out when the person you're being a jackass to is Cersei… Although maybe the most fun way to be a jackass here, and to torture Cersei, would be to give her a bunch of perfectly accurate prophecies and then one inaccurate one, so she spends her life dreading the wrong death?

7 hours ago, Gala said:

There is actually a little flaw in this theory: Maeggi said "HIS hands..."

Ah, good point. So it's only 40% of Westeros, not 80%, and Arya's not included. Except…

7 hours ago, Gala said:

This whole theory Arya being valonqar could be real only if she puts on Jamie's or Tyrion's face and kills Cersei, but that's a very poor story for the characters. Jamie should be broken in the end, after all, redemption is a very hard work to do.

It's not that bad of a story if played right. And the argument that it's a bad story because it doesn't have Jaime doing it rules out Tyrion just as much as it rules out Arya.

7 hours ago, hallam said:

I get the feeling from the books that Arya's plot arc is to be fixed on killing Cersei and then not doing so but at the last minute. It had looked like we were set for the Hound and Arya to team up and off Cersei together but then for the Hound to stop Arya and do it himself. But they are all going in the wrong direction right now. Unless of course, Cersei heads north. Arya has to have a big payoff for that ninja training and Cersei is the only kill left, the Nights King has to belong to Jon.

I couldn't decide whether the books were more likely to do your "Arya decides to kill Cersei, is prevented at the last second, and then has to find a new purpose in her life without her List" story or the "Arya is forced to choose between her List and her family and chooses her family" story. The fact that the show did the latter—this seems like it might be a big enough thing to be part of the skeleton of major character plot beats that GRRM gave D&D. Of course all of the details would be theirs, especially since they had to restrict themselves to the much more limited set of symbols already recognizable in the show (the crossroads Inn, Hot Pie surviving by being more Hot Pie than ever rather than being no one, Nymeria surviving by finding a new pack), but the basic choice could be from the books.

But, on the other hand, Arya going south or Cersei going north isn't impossible. (Nor is another reunion with the Hound.) The general trend to the story is toward drawing everyone together. For example: At some point, the Walkers have to affect KL in some way, which could be, say, Jon making a venture to convince Cersei. If Cersei believes the story but decides to kill first Jon and then Dany before fighting the NK, and Arya overhears Cersei tell Jaime her plans, that's a reason for her to decide to kill Cersei again, and it's also a reason for Jaime to kill her first. (I don't think that's at all the most likely scenario, just one example of a wide range of reasonably plausible ones that could give us your ending.) 

7 hours ago, hallam said:

Whatever else, I am pretty sure that there was a purpose to re-introducing that maid. Perhaps she had a brother killed in the Sept, perhaps she is going to let the sand snakes out. Cersei really did break the cardinal evil overlord rule leaving them to die like that. Surely they carry antidote.

Also, Ellaria is played by D&D's favorite actress in the world, and Tyene is their favorite of the new characters they had to create by merging multiple book characters, so…

But I really don't seem both of them surviving. The two of them getting free, but Tyene getting the antidote too late and dying in her mother's arms, giving her a fresh new reason for vengeance, that seems to fit the whole Dornish "This time it's EVEN MORE PERSONAL" revenge plot too well (especially since the people they're most recently getting revenge for are people they killed themselves, not people their enemies killed, and it's a lot harder to write well).

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12 minutes ago, darmody said:

It doesn't have to amount to that, even. She could simply serve to introduce the idea that Carol is being too careless, and putting herself and Larry in danger by flaunting their sexy time.

Or even just the idea that Carol is confident and not hiding anymore. 

Also, her hairstyle reinforces the influence Carol wields over her court. 

I think we're missing the obvious possibility here. What does an evil mastermind with a mad-scientist henchman without an heir always do? She asked Qyburn to create a clone.

Unfortunately, while the clone came out identical to her, down to the hairstyle and the outfit, she was only one eighth her size. And Qyburn knew his lady wasn't going to accept a dwarf, so he fed the clone to the Frankenmountain and tried again.

The next clone was normal sized, but wasn't identical—in fact, for some reason, she looked exactly like Bernadette, the handmaiden Cersei had assigned to Sansa and used as a spy a few years ago. But at least she was born with the right hairstyle and a simplified version of the outfit, and that was good enough. "I shall call her Mini-but-not-mini-enough-to-be-a-damned-dwarf-Me."

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3 hours ago, falcotron said:

Also, Ellaria is played by D&D's favorite actress in the world, and Tyene is their favorite of the new characters they had to create by merging multiple book characters, so…

But I really don't seem both of them surviving. The two of them getting free, but Tyene getting the antidote too late and dying in her mother's arms, giving her a fresh new reason for vengeance, that seems to fit the whole Dornish "This time it's EVEN MORE PERSONAL" revenge plot too well (especially since the people they're most recently getting revenge for are people they killed themselves, not people their enemies killed, and it's a lot harder to write well).

There is no possible way that Cersei is Tyene or Ellaria's kill. They can't even kill Ser Gregor, he belongs to the hound.

One thing that did just occur to me is that we have not seen Bronn in a very long time and he did have a thing for Tyene. There just aren't very many Lannisters left to kill. Other than Bronn, the only other notable vassal on Cersei's team is Qyburn.

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23 minutes ago, hallam said:

There is no possible way that Cersei is Tyene or Ellaria's kill. They can't even kill Ser Gregor, he belongs to the hound.

One thing that did just occur to me is that we have not seen Bronn in a very long time and he did have a thing for Tyene. There just aren't very many Lannisters left to kill. Other than Bronn, the only other notable vassal on Cersei's team is Qyburn.

I'm not saying Ellaria's actually going to successfully kill Cersei, just that she's going to declare even more eternal vengeance on Cersei, which will go as well as all of her other plans. Except for her own family—she's very good at killing her own family to get revenge on the people who killed her family. So, while failing to kill Cersei, she will manage to kill the only member of her family left, herself.

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6 hours ago, falcotron said:

I think we're missing the obvious possibility here. What does an evil mastermind with a mad-scientist henchman without an heir always do? She asked Qyburn to create a clone.

Unfortunately, while the clone came out identical to her, down to the hairstyle and the outfit, she was only one eighth her size. And Qyburn knew his lady wasn't going to accept a dwarf, so he fed the clone to the Frankenmountain and tried again.

The next clone was normal sized, but wasn't identical—in fact, for some reason, she looked exactly like Bernadette, the handmaiden Cersei had assigned to Sansa and used as a spy a few years ago. But at least she was born with the right hairstyle and a simplified version of the outfit, and that was good enough. "I shall call her Mini-but-not-mini-enough-to-be-a-damned-dwarf-Me."

LOL

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The interesting thing about the Maggie's foretelling that Cercei will be killed by her little brother, is that she is the first born of both her brothers. Jamie is also her little brother. He was born holding on to her heel. I assumed it would be Tyrion for a long time, as was intended. But seeing how Tyrion is now and just weighing in on all the people that want to kill Cercei, I think her death has to be somewhat surprising and by the one person in the world who doesn't have a desire to kill her. Everyone else will be arm wrestling to see who gets to kills Cercei and then tada, Jamie kills her. Besides, he is already the King Slayer, how about adding queen slayer to his list of names?

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The interesting thing about the Maggie's foretelling that Cercei will be killed by her little brother, is that she is the first born of both her brothers. Jamie is also her little brother. He was born holding on to her heel. I assumed it would be Tyrion for a long time, as was intended. But seeing how Tyrion is now and just weighing in on all the people that want to kill Cercei, I think her death has to be somewhat surprising and by the one person in the world who doesn't have a desire to kill her, the only person she trusts enough to let get close to her. Everyone else will be arm wrestling to see who gets to kills Cercei and then tada, Jamie kills her. Besides, he is already the king slayer, how about adding queen slayer to his list of names? The question is, why? What will push him to do it? She is his world, as she always has been. I can not fathom what would push him to do so, except perhaps he wakes up about her.

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On 8/2/2017 at 11:19 AM, AGS Martell said:

The only thing I missed was a kind of expression on Jon's face when he sees Dany for the very first time. He is in front of the most beautiful girl and mother of dragons after all

K Harrington explain what his character was thinking there.  Jon had only heard wild rumors about this woman and had absolutely no idea what he was about to see.  That it was a young woman his own age and attractive was simply a total shock to him.

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