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Season 8: News, Spoilers And Leaks


AEJON TARGARYEN

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2 hours ago, Suzanna Stormborn said:

Lolz

Dae the Evil Bae

Maybe the producers will depict her like Sauron, commanding the Numenoreans to bring her victims to be burned before her.

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14 minutes ago, CrypticWeirwood said:

Then she needs to confess to her own parents' unnatural relationship too. 

Cousins aren't incest. No crime, no foul.

Maybe it was a D&D mistake... viewers knew they were 1st cousins and regard it as incest, just of a lesser degree as the one with her brother Jaime. That Tywin was married his 1st cousin doesn't come into play much in the show. So, they had Lancel refer to it as "unnatural" (without using the word "incest") But once they got to Cersei's trial they couldn't have her confess to anything but adultery, and so went by the books that cousins isn't incest.

Anyways, in the show - Cersei refers to brothers and sisters as a Targ thing, but they might as well argue the same for them as royals (exceptionalism) last season and this season Varys' remark that Targs might be into aunt and nephew, but the North doubtful, which falls in line with what we can gleen from the little we know about the time it happened in the North and involved a great deal of turmoil, with none of the issue ever getting close to the seat of Lord or Lady of WF.

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1 hour ago, TNTW said:

I never once, from the books, or from the show, ever got the impression that Dany was going mad, or anything close to it. She struggled to find balance at times. She always wanted to be just. She felt she had to show ruthlessness, even while crying inside. And she wasn't wrong. She had to present a tough exterior, or she would never be taken serious. Book Dany questioned her sanity. A crazy person doesn't do that.

No, neither have I. People are tossing the word "mad" around indiscriminately. She might be tough, judgemental, harsh, overreactive, spiteful, cruel, vengeful, and tyrannical—even merciless and brutal and vicious—all without becoming so unbalanced as to be considered insane.

But considering that Joffrey the Mad Kinglet was never “technically” insane, either, we probably shouldn't use not being insane as some sort of proxy for fitness to rule. He was a murderous psychopath, but he wasn't insane as that term is normally used.

It's impossible not to see Dany's continued "mine by right" proclamations as any different in substance from Joffrey's petulant "I am the King!" proclamations.  Both deserve the same rebuke, the selfsame rebuke that Tywin gave his grandson when he told him that “Any man who must say ‘I am the King’ is no true king.” It's no coincidence that Joffrey was in his own way just as pretty on the outside as Daenerys is.

Martin has more than just one lesson here for all of us to contemplate.

 

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43 minutes ago, CrypticWeirwood said:

Then she needs to confess to her own parents' unnatural relationship too. 

Cousins aren't incest. No crime, no foul.

They are, and as the World book tells us, and is repeated in the main series, the incest includes clan kin including aunts/uncles and cousins. And then polygamy was also sometimes an option.

  • The tradition amongst the Targaryens had always been to marry kin to kin. Wedding brother to sister was thought to be ideal. Failing that, a girl might wed an uncle, a cousin, or a nephew; a boy, a cousin, aunt, or niece. This practice went back to Old Valyria, where it was common amongst many of the ancient families, particularly those who bred and rode dragons. "The blood of the dragon must remain pure," the wisdom went. Some of the sorcerer princes also took more than one wife when it pleased them, though this was less common than incestuous marriage. In Valryia before the Doom, wise men wrote, a thousand gods were honored, but none were feared, so few dared to speak against these customs.
    This was not true in Westeros, where the power of the Faith went unquestioned. Incest was denounced as vile sin, whether between father and daughter, mother and son, or brother and sister, and the fruits of such unions were considered abominations in the sight of gods and men. With hindsight, it can be seen that conflict between the Faith and House Targaryen was inevitable.

You are correct about the Lannister's had their unnatural relationship because Martin has said Tywin did this basically emulate the Targs to keep the bloodline pure, and it was against societal norms (especially for non-Targs) because the expected practice was to increase loyalties and land holdings by building marriage alliances. Blood purity is extremism, and sexist as fuck, the opposite of the balance the canon story is trying to tell. The Targs got away with it because of dragons (Doctrien of Exceptionalism), and Tywin did because he established himself a feared tyrant. There are lessons in GRRM's stories that the show just flies right past because they can't be bothered. Well, Varys mentioning it recently, and Benioff confirming the feeling, is just more show back-mining source material (throwbacks- woooo-hoo! Aren't they cool:rolleyes:)... and also now very apparent this is why the show decided to keep Bran off screen for an entire season. He would have found out way too soon for show shock and awe plans.

Respond or don't, I don't care because this will be my only post on the subject here. I am so baffled of this topic that incest is somehow normal or right in this society, when it isn't, it is the opposite and brings a downfall to a dynasty. If it was, it wouldn't be a crime, wouldn't be shunned by those like the free folk, and we would see more of it around the in-universe 'globe', but we don't. I have read a lot of work by GRRM, and there are a few stories where incest is touched on, and in every single one of those stories it leads to something bad, negative, a dying of clans, etc. This has ZERO to do with real world relations, so just take that off the table, unless you want to debate the real world mechanics of shadow babies and dragons hatching from petrified eggs. Incest in this story is not something to root for no matter who you are rooting for.

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1 minute ago, The Fattest Leech said:

They are, and as the World book tells us, and is repeated in the main series, the incest includes clan kin including aunts/uncles and cousins. And then polygamy was also sometimes an option.

Incest is not merely having sex with people you're related to. You've never had sex with anyone you aren't related to. Everyone is related to everyone.

Incest is a crime. Nothing else. Sex between two people whose marriage would be illegal because they are too closely related to marry is the crime of incest.

It's dangerous to pretend that your own personal ideas, even when you dress them up fancy and call them "morals", apply to other people's laws, crimes, and punishments. That's the High Sparrow's whole problem: he's a bigot who thinks his own rules apply universally. What's next, it's illegal for the Dothraki to go shirtless?

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1 minute ago, CrypticWeirwood said:

Incest is not merely having sex with people you're related to. You've never had sex with anyone you aren't related to. Everyone is related to everyone.

Incest is a crime. Nothing else. Sex between two people whose marriage would be illegal because they are too closely related to marry is the crime of incest.

It's dangerous to pretend that your own personal ideas, even when you dress them up fancy and call them "morals", apply to other people's laws, crimes, and punishments. That's the High Sparrow's whole problem: he's a bigot who thinks his own rules apply universally. What's next, it's illegal for the Dothraki to go shirtless?

Ah jeesh, this ol'line again.

Yeah well, people like GRRM seem to be able to tell the difference. He has even clarified that the Starks and Karstarks are no longer the same blood-family, so, I am going to have to side with the author on this one :dunno:

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3 minutes ago, CrypticWeirwood said:

Incest is not merely having sex with people you're related to. You've never had sex with anyone you aren't related to. Everyone is related to everyone.

Incest is a crime. Nothing else. Sex between two people whose marriage would be illegal because they are too closely related to marry is the crime of incest.

It's dangerous to pretend that your own personal ideas, even when you dress them up fancy and call them "morals", apply to other people's laws, crimes, and punishments. That's the High Sparrow's whole problem: he's a bigot who thinks his own rules apply universally. What's next, it's illegal for the Dothraki to go shirtless?

Except that in Westeros, in several regions, the legality of it is not determined by royal law, but religious and social custom.

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1 minute ago, sweetsunray said:

Except that in Westeros, in several regions, the legality of it is not determined by royal law, but religious and social custom.

Cousin marriage is not incest. Brothers and sisters, that's incest.

I happen to have close personal friends who are the children of cousins. You know why? Because they aren't from Peoria: they're from other parts of the world where this is completely common to this day. To tell these wonderful children that they are the product of an incestuous coupling is evil and hurtful and wrong.

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38 minutes ago, CrypticWeirwood said:

No, neither have I. People are tossing the word "mad" around indiscriminately. She might be tough, judgemental, harsh, overreactive, spiteful, cruel, vengeful, and tyrannical—even merciless and brutal and vicious—all without becoming so unbalanced as to be considered insane.

But considering that Joffrey the Mad Kinglet was never “technically” insane, either, we probably shouldn't use not being insane as some sort of proxy for fitness to rule. He was a murderous psychopath, but he wasn't insane as that term is normally used.

It's impossible not to see Dany's continued "mine by right" proclamations as any different in substance from Joffrey's petulant "I am the King!" proclamations.  Both deserve the same rebuke, the selfsame rebuke that Tywin gave his grandson when he told him that “Any man who must say ‘I am the King’ is no true king.” It's no coincidence that Joffrey was in his own way just as pretty on the outside as Daenerys is.

Martin has more than just one lesson here for all of us to contemplate.

 

Back to "Mad" or not. I read quite an interesting essay today on Dany's arc, as well as the evidence that George strongly sets Dany up as a Shakespearean tragic character: like Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello and Lear. One of the crucial points is that indeed for almost the majority of their plot, such characters are NOT mad or insane. They have supernatural encounters relaying information (Hamlet's father, Macbeth's 3 witches, etc for Dany that's her birth in MMDs magicked tent, the HotU, Quaithe's glass candle appearance), but it's important there's always evidence that there is evidence that there is an external trigger for it. There is external conflict from lesser charachters such as Jorah proposing she'd buy the Unsullied to have an army that wouldn't loot, while Selmy voices disapproval over using slaves. It's important that they are "special", do something extaordinary that no one has done before them: Dany's dragons, freeing the Unsullied and still get them to follow her. There are also supposed to be missed opportunities the character has no control over: YG deciding to go West because of a jape of Tyrion (when he learns of it later, Tyrion can barely believe Jon Con agreed to that, and thinks it foolish) and Quentyn dying of his burns, so that it's highly likely that Dorne will back Aegon, and by the time Dany arrives at Westeros, another so-called Targ is loved and welcomed, which she desperately needs to be her destiny (she sees all the doors at Westeros as red doors). And ultimately there needs to be an internal conflict: Dany wants companionship and love and family, but her path of power is one of loneliness and isolation where she increasingly fears betrayal.

The very end of such a shakespearean tragic character might be a fit of "madness" of grief or jealousy or rage, but it is not insanity in a clinical sense, but rather more akin to a mental breakdown where all reason is lost for a moment and the characters takes things too far and seals his or her own fate.

https://themanyfacedblog.wordpress.com/2019/04/19/daughter-of-death-a-song-of-ice-and-fires-shakespearean-tragic-hero/

If the series only revolved around Dany, I would agree with the hero term. Of course, she is not the sole main POV, and GRRM rejected any producer proposing to do only Dany's story before D&D got him to agree. This implies he models the other POVs after other literary type of heroes, and in their story (except for Tyrion's) she may not be the hero, but villain.

Anyway, the point very much is that Dany isn't supposed to be "mad", except perhaps at the very end of her arc, and that only in the sense of a moment of "temporary insanity at the most", which is something that could happen to anyone, and isn't clinical.

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1 hour ago, CrypticWeirwood said:

Cousin marriage is not incest. Brothers and sisters, that's incest.

Cousins is incest for wildlings in this story. It is not for the Starks, though 1st cousin marriage happens but once in the 300 year old lineage we have. Take it up with George how insulting it is to your friends that wildlings consider any marriage to someone of the same village as incest.

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3 hours ago, Torienne said:

I felt exactly the same.

D&D are experts in writing brothel-scenes and rapes and and just pure sex, not to mention all the cock jokes. But when they have to deal with love, they are extremely helpless. I found the knighting of Brienne had much more love and erotical tension than the actual sex scene between Jamie and Brienne. "Its hot in here...." - how childish can you be.  

I too feel almost no 'sense' of the love Jon has for Dany.  Actually, I cannot even remember when Jon said he loved her - did he say it to her, or did he say he loved Dany to Sansa?   I come out believing Dany loves Jon more than he loves her, and this is before Jon knew the complications.  And for comparison, I totally believed Jon was attracted to Ygritte.  

I did accept the Jaime and Brienne scene.  Jaime has very little experience with women, other women who are not his sister, so his flat lines were cute to me. 

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Is it my impression or with the episodes so far and all the leaks we know of there aren t any epic fights?

Maybe cleganbowl will be epic, but it feels too litle for the last season of GOT...

10 minutes ago, lakin1013 said:

I too feel almost no 'sense' of the love Jon has for Dany.  Actually, I cannot even remember when Jon said he loved her - did he say it to her, or did he say he loved Dany to Sansa?   I come out believing Dany loves Jon more than he loves her, and this is before Jon knew the complications.  And for comparison, I totally believed Jon was attracted to Ygritte.  

I did accept the Jaime and Brienne scene.  Jaime has very little experience with women, other women who are not his sister, so his flat lines were cute to me. 

He pretty much said it when he was injured in season 7 and when he went to sleep with her...

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2 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

Maybe it was a D&D mistake... viewers knew they were 1st cousins and regard it as incest, just of a lesser degree as the one with her brother Jaime. That Tywin was married his 1st cousin doesn't come into play much in the show. So, they had Lancel refer to it as "unnatural" (without using the word "incest") But once they got to Cersei's trial they couldn't have her confess to anything but adultery, and so went by the books that cousins isn't incest.

Anyways, in the show - Cersei refers to brothers and sisters as a Targ thing, but they might as well argue the same for them as royals (exceptionalism) last season and this season Varys' remark that Targs might be into aunt and nephew, but the North doubtful, which falls in line with what we can gleen from the little we know about the time it happened in the North and involved a great deal of turmoil, with none of the issue ever getting close to the seat of Lord or Lady of WF.

They also said that aunt-nephew incest was a big no-no among the Starks, when The World of Ice and Fire had several half-uncle/niece marriages in the Stark family tree. Hell, Ned's parents were first cousins, once removed, for goodness sake.

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3 minutes ago, Vaith said:

They also said that aunt-nephew incest was a big no-no among the Starks, when The World of Ice and Fire had several half-uncle/niece marriages in the Stark family tree. Hell, Ned's parents were first cousins, once removed, for goodness sake.

I already discussed those half-uncle/niece marriages. It happened in the same generation. The nieces were sisters and the heirs of the eldest son of Lord Cregan. Their half-uncles were 2 of the 4 sons of Lord Cregan's 3rd wife. One of those half uncles became Lord of WF, but he had no issue with his nice. The second one, who married the eldest niece (who was widowed, because of him? no idea) had four children with her, including twin boys. The twin boys seem to have never managed to come off age. Only 2 daughters of this marriage survived and wed into House Umber and House Cerwyn. NONE of this issue ever married back into the family. We also know that these half uncles ruled WF during great turmoil, and it's been suggested that the skipped 4 daughters of Black Ally, 2nd wife of Lord Cregan might have rebelled in some way (as a Dunk & Egg story during this time could take place there, or a novella).

Regardless: basically it happened once in the history of the last 300 years, was a power-grab or consolidation, where Black Aly's 4 daughters got shafted. None of the issue or descendents in House Umber or House Cerwyn is considered to be potential Stark heirs when Robb mentions his will. And the tumoil suggested around this era, heavily points that this was a black page in Northern and Stark history.

So yes, it happened, ONCE, and it backfired and none of the descendants considered.

This is my speculation: the third wife of Cregan Stark was also a Stark, Lynara Stark, but not a close relation somehow. She likely was a young wife to an already much older Lord Cregan, and it seems that in this generation she and her eldest sons wanted to do a Maegor, except without doing a harem, just marrying the nieces who were first in line to inherit: a granddaughter comes before the brother of her father. Consider it an experiment on applying Targ-exceptionalism on their own bloodline. While Lord Cregan got to live an old age, 3 of the 4 sons by the 3rd wife ended up being Lord of WF. The 1st died without issie. The 2nd had issue but did not survive the 1st brother. The 3rd brother got to be Lord after the 1st, but he died unwed and without issue in a Skagosi revolt. So, the 3rd brother (and 4th child) still must have been young. And when he died, finally the youngest of them all became Lord of WF. He wed an Alys Karstark (who are already centuries removed from the Stark line, and not considered cousins anymore). It seems to me that the North revolted against these avuncular marriages and Stark brothers who experimented how much they could afford to copy Targs. They failed. And it was never done again. I think it is therefore safe to say that it is indeed a big no-no.

It is only 4-5 generations later that you have a cousin marriage between Rickard and Lyarra Stark, which is the only one we know of in the Stark lineage at present.

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2 hours ago, lakin1013 said:

I too feel almost no 'sense' of the love Jon has for Dany.  Actually, I cannot even remember when Jon said he loved her - did he say it to her, or did he say he loved Dany to Sansa?   I come out believing Dany loves Jon more than he loves her, and this is before Jon knew the complications.  And for comparison, I totally believed Jon was attracted to Ygritte.  

I did accept the Jaime and Brienne scene.  Jaime has very little experience with women, other women who are not his sister, so his flat lines were cute to me. 

No, he has never said it. Other people have said for him. I agree with you.  

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Here’s something that don’t sound too bad. Kinda supports the Spanish Sofia leaks but in a less fanficy way. https://medium.com/@jorywea/episode-5-of-game-of-thrones-50a613585e99. I actually don’t mind this version.

There’s another article that supports the Spanish leaks, almost word for word, in a translated sense. Claims he has a different source and unaware of Sofia’s leak but released after the initial Spanish one.

There’s debate on the veracity of the leaks and claims that a lot of this is misinformation campaign by HBO.

So are any of the leaks accurate? Are they all just misinformation sprinkled with some truth to add credibility?

 

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