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Rant & Rave Season 8 [Spoilers]: When you are cool like a cucumber, as evil as the mother of madness, but never as perfect as the pet!


The Fattest Leech

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2 hours ago, Angel Eyes said:

Ah, yes. I forgot about her.

 

Well, about the "cocks matter": they're not wrong per se; Balon Greyjoy gave up on Theon entirely after his favorite toy was sent to Pyke, and this was while they were (mostly) still following the books. And let's not forget that Jon was proclaimed King in the North over his legitimate sister Sansa in Season 6 despite being a bastard and being a Leeroy Jenkins.

But they are wrong about the children of mad parents turning mad; Myrcella and Tommen were mostly well put-together considering they were the children of Cersei, if a bit weak-willed in Tommen's case.

This is why I think that book-Dany will be more like Rhaenyra than Aerys. She won't suddenly become mentally ill; she'll be hardened due to repeated losses and betrayals. 

I had always thought of Cersei as the Rhaenyra parallel, but I'm warming up to idea of her being more like Alicent Hightower. (She already schemed to put a pretender on the throne after her husband's death). Rather than fleeing to Casterly Rock, I could easily see Aegon deciding to hold her captive in the Red Keep. Then we could still get her account of what's happening in King's Landing. It would also be an ironic parallel to Sansa, who had been Cersei's prisoner. 

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6 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

This is why I think that book-Dany will be more like Rhaenyra than Aerys. She won't suddenly become mentally ill; she'll be hardened due to repeated losses and betrayals. 

I had always thought of Cersei as the Rhaenyra parallel, but I'm warming up to idea of her being more like Alicent Hightower. (She already schemed to put a pretender on the throne after her husband's death). Rather than fleeing to Casterly Rock, I could easily see Aegon deciding to hold her captive in the Red Keep. Then we could still get her account of what's happening in King's Landing. It would also be an ironic parallel to Sansa, who had been Cersei's prisoner. 

I've always had a huge amount of sympathy for Rhaenyra.  I think anyone can become hardened by warfare and betrayal.

A show storyline of Daenerys gradually become brutalised by war, and willing to adopt methods that she would not previously have contemplated, would have been believable (Let's face it, we were doing things by 1945 that we would not have dreamed of doing in 1940).  That kind of darker turn is far more the sort of thing I'd expect to see in the books than the nonsense the show gave us.

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On 3/29/2020 at 10:11 PM, SeanF said:

We can see for ourselves that the last four seasons are not a faithful adaptation of those parts of the story we know about.

1.  Sansa's Vale storyline is excluded and she is given two other characters' stories.  She will play no part in defeating the Boltons..

2. Dragons are far too small to burn a city in the books

3.  Tyrion is completely whitewashed

4.  Jon Con, Aegon and Arianne are excluded

5. Stannis was vilified,

6.  The Night King is a show invention.

7.  Euron has nothing in common with the character with the same name in the show.

8. Jon never goes to Hardhome.

9. Jaime has split with Cersei 

10. Lady Stoneheart is excluded,  Robb's wife is still alive.

11.  Margaery and her brother are never taken prisoner by the Sparrows.

13.  Most elements of magic and prophecy were eliminated from the show.

14.  Porne.

15.  Frey pies are Lord Manderly's idea.

16.  The wight hunt

17.  The military strategies that make no sense, in order to keep Cersei alive to the end.

18.  Varys does not support Daenerys.

19. The "secret annulment" and diary entry making Jon the rightful king.

20. Cersei does not kill Pycelle or Ser Kevan

etc. etc.

Dany suddenly turning batshit at the end and slaughtering thousands of the Smallfolk for no apparent reason might still  be part of the story, but I'd be surprised.

It may be faithful, compared to the film adaptation of Nightflyers, which Martin was most unhappy with.    But,  my idea of a faithful adaptation of source material is something like the 1995 BBC version of Pride and Prejudice.

All of this.

And in a recent interview with magazine Fast Company, the franchise creator George RR Martin has given his thoughts on the differences between his books and the show, and how season eight wasn't "completely faithful".

Speaking about what can be lost in a book-to-screen adaptation, the author admitted: "It can be… traumatic. Because sometimes their creative vision and your creative vision don't match, and you get the famous creative differences thing – that leads to a lot of conflict."...

And speaking more specifically about Game of Thrones, he said: "The [final] series has been... not completely faithful. Otherwise, it would have to run another five seasons."

https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/ustv/a29331023/game-of-thrones-george-rr-martin-season-8-not-completely-faithful/

Here he is again: "How will it all end? I hear people asking. The same ending as the show? Different? Well… yes. And no. And yes. And no. And yes. And no. And yes."

He often talks about butterflies turning into dragons, that's not "the same."

Benioff/Weiss are clearly not into "the same" and have never been averse to controversy with their carefully cultivated "we don't care" image.

We can also look at what Benioff/Weiss have been saying. They have often and consistently said they are not going to be faithful.

They said before they were going to do "the spirit of the books" - and we know how well they do with that. And here, note they keep saying WHAT IF:

WEISS: It’s kind of nice for him because — obviously through necessity we’ve pulled out ahead — the show has become so different that people will have no way knowing from watching what will or won’t appear in the books. And honestly, neither do we.

BENIOFF: We don’t. And George discovers a lot of stuff while he’s writing. I don’t think that final book is written in stone yet — it’s not written on paper yet. As George says, he’s a gardener and he’s waiting to see how those seeds blossom...

WEISS: It wasn’t like something where five years ago one of us said, “I think this has to happen and I know this is right.” [The final season storyline was] something that gradually unfolded with neither of us wanting to plant a flag in the ground right out of the gate. Because what if you’re wrong? What if there’s a better idea out there and you planted a flag on the second- or third-best idea? So it was always more a “What if…” conversation than an “I think that…” So by the time we got to the place where we were outlining we already knew most of the big things.

https://ew.com/tv/2019/04/09/game-of-thrones-season-8-showrunners-interview/

"What if" is making shit up. And @The Dragon Demands has some quotes upthread where they said they wrote the plot to the actors, not the book characters.

Also, they called Sansa's season 5 plot "a bold departure" from the books, and GRRM said he had "no idea what they were doing" with her, and wished they'd used his story.

There were lots of 180's with many characters that we know about. For example, at nearly every turn, they had Jaime do the complete opposite of the book character.

The complete and utter whitewashing of Tyrion, they stopped at nothing to erase his book personality and deify him. He was their self-insert, so he had to be perfect.

And so many more fundamental changes to characters and story. All these changes... and yet the ending is the same? It's not even possible. Butterflies turned into dragons.

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20 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Maybe the showrunners were full of it and Dany will go down as the savior of Westeros, but I also remember when all the hardcore ASOIAF fans were absolutely certain that Bran would spend the rest of his life in that cave, and anyone who disagreed or thought that would be anti-climatic had clearly misread the text  :dunno: 

Oh, I'm still saying that. There is no indication in the text that Bran will get out of the cave during the series. Perhaps this might happen when everything is over, but I'm still not holding my breath for that one. I cannot see a (demi-)god becoming a king. What would be the point of that? And what would Bran's motivation be for that? He has transcended humanity and would have no interest in involving himself with day-to-day politics.

I can see him as some kind of devine guardian of Westeros, as a power who makes his voice heard and his will felt whenever somebody tries to play the game of thrones again ... but him sitting a throne and wearing a crown, etc. just feels wrong.

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11 hours ago, Angel Eyes said:

Well, about the "cocks matter": they're not wrong per se; Balon Greyjoy gave up on Theon entirely after his favorite toy was sent to Pyke, and this was while they were (mostly) still following the books. And let's not forget that Jon was proclaimed King in the North over his legitimate sister Sansa in Season 6 despite being a bastard and being a Leeroy Jenkins.

The book Balon gives up Theon because he has already decided that Asha will be his heir. He has chosen her, and was unwilling from the start to change his mind about that one. The fact that Theon's mind was poisoned by the filthy ways of the greenlanders only added injury to that. But he could have come back a true Ironborn and Balon would have still stuck with Asha.

9 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

This is why I think that book-Dany will be more like Rhaenyra than Aerys. She won't suddenly become mentally ill; she'll be hardened due to repeated losses and betrayals. 

I had always thought of Cersei as the Rhaenyra parallel, but I'm warming up to idea of her being more like Alicent Hightower. (She already schemed to put a pretender on the throne after her husband's death). Rather than fleeing to Casterly Rock, I could easily see Aegon deciding to hold her captive in the Red Keep. Then we could still get her account of what's happening in King's Landing. It would also be an ironic parallel to Sansa, who had been Cersei's prisoner. 

This is the wrong way to view things. All the historical characters are, if anything, variations of the main characters, not the other ways around. Rhaenyra is based on the depiction of Catelyn and Cersei/has parallels with those characters. Both have a number of children and are greatly affected by the deaths/injuries those children suffer. Rhaenyra seems to sink in the same kind of depression Cat does after Bran's fall, and she snaps out of that after Jace dies, just as Cat gets her act back together when the second attempt on Bran's life takes place. Cersei got pretty deranged after the losses of Joffrey and Tywin, but might also be able to get her act back together after her walk (or not, we'll have to wait and see).

Dany doesn't show up in the historical pieces at all, aside from, perhaps, in the first Daenerys during the reign of Jaehaerys I. She doesn't have any children yet, and is likely not going to have any until near the very end of the series, if ever. She is not going to be affected by this 'mother story'.

And if Cersei ended up a prisoner early on in TWoW it would be a waste of her character and a neutralization of House Lannister and the Westerlands (which aren't spent yet). That is not very likely to happen.

George clearly tries to use the 'mad queen' character with Cersei - she is the one who is going to go nuts and who will only live to destroy as many people as she can to avenge herself and to drown her own guilt in blood (since it is very likely she will be (in)directly responsible for the deaths of either Tommen and/or Myrcella).

We won't get two versions of that character - whatever Dany will become it is not going to be Cersei. And to be very clear - it is also quite clear that Dany was not supposed to be the mad queen in the show, either. There was the plot line about Cersei's pregnancy and the loss of her child which would have driven her over the edge - meaning that she would have had nothing to live for at the end and would have tried to burn down the city (or would have burned it down). They scrapped that in favor of having the dragon queen run amok - that got them better visuals. There was also talk about Dany and Jon having a child in some of the audio commentaries - something that makes it almost impossible to imagine that Jon would kill Dany for any reason if she was the mother of his child.

If you go back to the season where Dany has her bonding scene with Asha and the other women it is quite clear that even back then she wasn't set up to be evil. And the same goes for the second to last season - in fact, if you remember the boat sex scene we get a hint as to who the final villain had supposed to be - Tyrion - who looks rather grim when he watches Jon and Dany having sex. He would have betrayed Dany for love, one imagines. And chances are that he might indeed turn out the one who betrays her for love. He is the one character who is emotionally unstable enough to do something like that - and we are talking about an author here who wrote 'Weekend in a War Zone'. George did not only write stories where the guy whines about being the guy who was dumped by the girl or never got her, he also is the one who who wrote stories where the protagonist relished at the thought of killing his rival.

Arianne could very well be some sort of Alicent parallel - one imagines that she is going to play a or perhaps the crucial role in instigating the Second Dance of the Dragons because she will blame Dany for the death of Quentyn and convince Aegon to reject all proposals Dany might make (or actively sabotage such proposals).

8 hours ago, SeanF said:

I've always had a huge amount of sympathy for Rhaenyra.  I think anyone can become hardened by warfare and betrayal.

A show storyline of Daenerys gradually become brutalised by war, and willing to adopt methods that she would not previously have contemplated, would have been believable (Let's face it, we were doing things by 1945 that we would not have dreamed of doing in 1940).  That kind of darker turn is far more the sort of thing I'd expect to see in the books than the nonsense the show gave us.

That is a story we'll get for any character, though. This kind of thing is not making any of the good guys 'a villain' who has to be put down. That story would just not work in this setting. I mean, let's assume the book plot would play out the way it did in the show - would anyone give a damn about the burning of KL and the butchering of 'innocents' who turned their back on humanity and imagined the alliance of the good guys to the Others?

Not in this world. They would, perhaps, shed some crocodile tears and then get their act together and move on. Most, if not all, people would be happy they had a strong and powerful leader now, who would rule unquestioned, allowing them to rebuild without incidents and further civil wars/rebellions.

George has already told us that TWoW is going to become a very dark book, likely the darkest book so far. And we cannot reasonably expect things in Westeros to ge this dark in that book because of Dany - she won't even arrive there yet. If the story takes such a dark turn without her, then whoever will be her enemies upon her arrival will likely be worse than she could ever become (or exactly as worse as she is). I mean, we are not in TWoW but we already have the Brotherhood That Butchers, we have Manderly the Cannibal, we have Arya, we have clansmen who want to bathe in Bolton blood before they die (we can imagine what they would do to the people if Winterfell were sacked...). How much worse can it get? And, quite frankly, Dany will have less problems with winter wherever she is, nor is she going to have to deal much with a country that's already wartorn. Whatever challenges she is going to face in Essos are not likely to be much of a strain on her, with the possible exception of the Dothraki challenges ahead.

What could be hard is her eventual landing in Westeros since I expect some sort of devastating naval battle before that happens, but that's not exactly in the near future right now.

And in general:

This idea of Dany getting more brutal during war is a plot that's very difficult to localize. When and where is this going to happen? How long could this Second Dance go on? How brutal can it be? And how connected will all this be with the Others? Anything done with the intention to save mankind can hardly be construed as being 'bad' - and the chances that we'll get a Daenerys who is for some reason suddenly obsessed with the Iron Throne or a country she has never even seen is just not very likely.

1 hour ago, Le Cygne said:

All of this.

And in a recent interview with magazine Fast Company, the franchise creator George RR Martin has given his thoughts on the differences between his books and the show, and how season eight wasn't "completely faithful".

Speaking about what can be lost in a book-to-screen adaptation, the author admitted: "It can be… traumatic. Because sometimes their creative vision and your creative vision don't match, and you get the famous creative differences thing – that leads to a lot of conflict."...

And speaking more specifically about Game of Thrones, he said: "The [final] series has been... not completely faithful. Otherwise, it would have to run another five seasons."

https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/ustv/a29331023/game-of-thrones-george-rr-martin-season-8-not-completely-faithful/

We can also look at what Benioff/Weiss have been saying. They have often and consistently said they are not going to be faithful.

They said before they were going to do "the spirit of the books" - and we know how well they do with that. And here, note they keep saying WHAT IF:

WEISS: It’s kind of nice for him because — obviously through necessity we’ve pulled out ahead — the show has become so different that people will have no way knowing from watching what will or won’t appear in the books. And honestly, neither do we.

BENIOFF: We don’t. And George discovers a lot of stuff while he’s writing. I don’t think that final book is written in stone yet — it’s not written on paper yet. As George says, he’s a gardener and he’s waiting to see how those seeds blossom...

WEISS: It wasn’t like something where five years ago one of us said, “I think this has to happen and I know this is right.” [The final season storyline was] something that gradually unfolded with neither of us wanting to plant a flag in the ground right out of the gate. Because what if you’re wrong? What if there’s a better idea out there and you planted a flag on the second- or third-best idea? So it was always more a “What if…” conversation than an “I think that…” So by the time we got to the place where we were outlining we already knew most of the big things.

https://ew.com/tv/2019/04/09/game-of-thrones-season-8-showrunners-interview/

"What if" is making shit up. And @The Dragon Demands has some quotes upthread where they said they wrote the plot to the actors, not the book characters.

Pretty much that. The production process of FaB very much shows how things change (back in TSotD Queen Rhaena was likely not a lesbian yet, and actually in love with Androw Farman), and one can also see how the main story changes when one checks the reports on old ADwD chapters from years before the book was finished - both Dany and Tyrion chapters come to mind there.

And how much the scrapping of the five-year-gap changed the story cannot really be fathomed at that point. After all, for quite a few of our characters being five years older would greatly affect the kind of things they could do, the kind of stories they could live through, the decisions they could make.

We would get a completely different Rickon, Bran, Arya, Sansa, Jon, Dany in such a setting. And so on.

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2 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

All of this.

And in a recent interview with magazine Fast Company, the franchise creator George RR Martin has given his thoughts on the differences between his books and the show, and how season eight wasn't "completely faithful".

Speaking about what can be lost in a book-to-screen adaptation, the author admitted: "It can be… traumatic. Because sometimes their creative vision and your creative vision don't match, and you get the famous creative differences thing – that leads to a lot of conflict."...

And speaking more specifically about Game of Thrones, he said: "The [final] series has been... not completely faithful. Otherwise, it would have to run another five seasons."

https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/ustv/a29331023/game-of-thrones-george-rr-martin-season-8-not-completely-faithful/

Here he is again: "How will it all end? I hear people asking. The same ending as the show? Different? Well… yes. And no. And yes. And no. And yes. And no. And yes."

He often talks about butterflies turning into dragons, that's not "the same."

Benioff/Weiss are clearly not into "the same" and have never been averse to controversy with their carefully cultivated "we don't care" image.

We can also look at what Benioff/Weiss have been saying. They have often and consistently said they are not going to be faithful.

They said before they were going to do "the spirit of the books" - and we know how well they do with that. And here, note they keep saying WHAT IF:

WEISS: It’s kind of nice for him because — obviously through necessity we’ve pulled out ahead — the show has become so different that people will have no way knowing from watching what will or won’t appear in the books. And honestly, neither do we.

BENIOFF: We don’t. And George discovers a lot of stuff while he’s writing. I don’t think that final book is written in stone yet — it’s not written on paper yet. As George says, he’s a gardener and he’s waiting to see how those seeds blossom...

WEISS: It wasn’t like something where five years ago one of us said, “I think this has to happen and I know this is right.” [The final season storyline was] something that gradually unfolded with neither of us wanting to plant a flag in the ground right out of the gate. Because what if you’re wrong? What if there’s a better idea out there and you planted a flag on the second- or third-best idea? So it was always more a “What if…” conversation than an “I think that…” So by the time we got to the place where we were outlining we already knew most of the big things.

https://ew.com/tv/2019/04/09/game-of-thrones-season-8-showrunners-interview/

"What if" is making shit up. And @The Dragon Demands has some quotes upthread where they said they wrote the plot to the actors, not the book characters.

Also, they called Sansa's season 5 plot "a bold departure" from the books, and GRRM said he had "no idea what they were doing" with her, and wished they'd used his story.

There were lots of 180's with many characters that we know about. For example, at nearly every turn, they had Jaime do the complete opposite of the book character.

The complete and utter whitewashing of Tyrion, they stopped at nothing to erase his book personality and deify him. He was their self-insert, so he had to be perfect.

And so many more fundamental changes to characters and story. All these changes... and yet the ending is the same? It's not even possible. Butterflies turned into dragons.

Do you have a link to where they talked about George's reaction to Sansa's season five plot? I would love to read that. 

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2 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Do you have a link to where they talked about George's reaction to Sansa's season five plot? I would love to read that. 

It’s two separate things. D&D&C said it was a bold departure, and Martin said what he said on NaB iirc.

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57 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Do you have a link to where they talked about George's reaction to Sansa's season five plot? I would love to read that. 

This is after the Santa Fe summit (after they met with GRRM), fyi the blog owner is a writer for Watchers on the Wall:

"In a convention panel this year, George said on the record that he had no idea what they were doing with Sansa or where they’re taking her storyline, which now makes sense perhaps. He was not pleased when he was talking about it, so who knows what’s going to happen with her! Knowing GRRM, that could mean they’re going off the canon reservation, and/or that they’re going to be making a lot of shit up."

https://starkalypse.com/post/87703459951/might-be-useful-to-keep-in-mind

Here's some more, the book story he's writing for Sansa is different:

Q - Sansa’s story, in particular, has really deviated from the books. Ramsay Bolton — that marriage obviously was with a different character. When they start deviating like that, did you initially have any emotional reaction, even though you worked in Hollywood for many years yourself?

GRRM - Well, yeah — of course you have an emotional reaction. I mean, would I prefer they do it exactly the way I did it? Sure... Some of the deviation, of course, is because I’ve been so slow with these books. I really should’ve finished this thing four years ago — and if I had, maybe it would be telling a different story here...

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-features/george-r-r-martin-on-the-stark-sisters-and-ending-game-of-thrones-813890/

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1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

The book Balon gives up Theon because he has already decided that Asha will be his heir. He has chosen her, and was unwilling from the start to change his mind about that one. The fact that Theon's mind was poisoned by the filthy ways of the greenlanders only added injury to that. But he could have come back a true Ironborn and Balon would have still stuck with Asha.

This is the wrong way to view things. All the historical characters are, if anything, variations of the main characters, not the other ways around. Rhaenyra is based on the depiction of Catelyn and Cersei/has parallels with those characters. Both have a number of children and are greatly affected by the deaths/injuries those children suffer. Rhaenyra seems to sink in the same kind of depression Cat does after Bran's fall, and she snaps out of that after Jace dies, just as Cat gets her act back together when the second attempt on Bran's life takes place. Cersei got pretty deranged after the losses of Joffrey and Tywin, but might also be able to get her act back together after her walk (or not, we'll have to wait and see).

Dany doesn't show up in the historical pieces at all, aside from, perhaps, in the first Daenerys during the reign of Jaehaerys I. She doesn't have any children yet, and is likely not going to have any until near the very end of the series, if ever. She is not going to be affected by this 'mother story'.

And if Cersei ended up a prisoner early on in TWoW it would be a waste of her character and a neutralization of House Lannister and the Westerlands (which aren't spent yet). That is not very likely to happen.

George clearly tries to use the 'mad queen' character with Cersei - she is the one who is going to go nuts and who will only live to destroy as many people as she can to avenge herself and to drown her own guilt in blood (since it is very likely she will be (in)directly responsible for the deaths of either Tommen and/or Myrcella).

We won't get two versions of that character - whatever Dany will become it is not going to be Cersei. And to be very clear - it is also quite clear that Dany was not supposed to be the mad queen in the show, either. There was the plot line about Cersei's pregnancy and the loss of her child which would have driven her over the edge - meaning that she would have had nothing to live for at the end and would have tried to burn down the city (or would have burned it down). They scrapped that in favor of having the dragon queen run amok - that got them better visuals. There was also talk about Dany and Jon having a child in some of the audio commentaries - something that makes it almost impossible to imagine that Jon would kill Dany for any reason if she was the mother of his child.

If you go back to the season where Dany has her bonding scene with Asha and the other women it is quite clear that even back then she wasn't set up to be evil. And the same goes for the second to last season - in fact, if you remember the boat sex scene we get a hint as to who the final villain had supposed to be - Tyrion - who looks rather grim when he watches Jon and Dany having sex. He would have betrayed Dany for love, one imagines. And chances are that he might indeed turn out the one who betrays her for love. He is the one character who is emotionally unstable enough to do something like that - and we are talking about an author here who wrote 'Weekend in a War Zone'. George did not only write stories where the guy whines about being the guy who was dumped by the girl or never got her, he also is the one who who wrote stories where the protagonist relished at the thought of killing his rival.

Arianne could very well be some sort of Alicent parallel - one imagines that she is going to play a or perhaps the crucial role in instigating the Second Dance of the Dragons because she will blame Dany for the death of Quentyn and convince Aegon to reject all proposals Dany might make (or actively sabotage such proposals).

That is a story we'll get for any character, though. This kind of thing is not making any of the good guys 'a villain' who has to be put down. That story would just not work in this setting. I mean, let's assume the book plot would play out the way it did in the show - would anyone give a damn about the burning of KL and the butchering of 'innocents' who turned their back on humanity and imagined the alliance of the good guys to the Others?

Not in this world. They would, perhaps, shed some crocodile tears and then get their act together and move on. Most, if not all, people would be happy they had a strong and powerful leader now, who would rule unquestioned, allowing them to rebuild without incidents and further civil wars/rebellions.

George has already told us that TWoW is going to become a very dark book, likely the darkest book so far. And we cannot reasonably expect things in Westeros to ge this dark in that book because of Dany - she won't even arrive there yet. If the story takes such a dark turn without her, then whoever will be her enemies upon her arrival will likely be worse than she could ever become (or exactly as worse as she is). I mean, we are not in TWoW but we already have the Brotherhood That Butchers, we have Manderly the Cannibal, we have Arya, we have clansmen who want to bathe in Bolton blood before they die (we can imagine what they would do to the people if Winterfell were sacked...). How much worse can it get? And, quite frankly, Dany will have less problems with winter wherever she is, nor is she going to have to deal much with a country that's already wartorn. Whatever challenges she is going to face in Essos are not likely to be much of a strain on her, with the possible exception of the Dothraki challenges ahead.

What could be hard is her eventual landing in Westeros since I expect some sort of devastating naval battle before that happens, but that's not exactly in the near future right now.

And in general:

This idea of Dany getting more brutal during war is a plot that's very difficult to localize. When and where is this going to happen? How long could this Second Dance go on? How brutal can it be? And how connected will all this be with the Others? Anything done with the intention to save mankind can hardly be construed as being 'bad' - and the chances that we'll get a Daenerys who is for some reason suddenly obsessed with the Iron Throne or a country she has never even seen is just not very likely.

Pretty much that. The production process of FaB very much shows how things change (back in TSotD Queen Rhaena was likely not a lesbian yet, and actually in love with Androw Farman), and one can also see how the main story changes when one checks the reports on old ADwD chapters from years before the book was finished - both Dany and Tyrion chapters come to mind there.

And how much the scrapping of the five-year-gap changed the story cannot really be fathomed at that point. After all, for quite a few of our characters being five years older would greatly affect the kind of things they could do, the kind of stories they could live through, the decisions they could make.

We would get a completely different Rickon, Bran, Arya, Sansa, Jon, Dany in such a setting. And so on.

What could I imagine a hardened Daenerys doing?  I could imagine her executing captured enemy soldiers out of hand;  wiping out the Great Masters of Meereen when she returns to the city;  wiping out the remaining slavers who fought against her.  Or (in show terms) executing the Tarlys, although as I've argued, I can't imagine any medieval ruler doing differently.

I think it would be totally out of character for her to murder thousands of the Smallfolk at random, so far out of character that only a complete psychological breakdown would explain it;  I think she would continue to extend mercy towards the women and children of her enemies, unless the women were very active opponents of hers. I would find it unimaginable that she would order rape as a tactic of terror. 

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56 minutes ago, Le Cygne said:

This is after the Santa Fe summit (after they met with GRRM), fyi the blog owner is a writer for Watchers on the Wall:

"In a convention panel this year, George said on the record that he had no idea what they were doing with Sansa or where they’re taking her storyline, which now makes sense perhaps. He was not pleased when he was talking about it, so who knows what’s going to happen with her! Knowing GRRM, that could mean they’re going off the canon reservation, and/or that they’re going to be making a lot of shit up."

https://starkalypse.com/post/87703459951/might-be-useful-to-keep-in-mind

Here's some more, the book story he's writing for Sansa is different:

Q - Sansa’s story, in particular, has really deviated from the books. Ramsay Bolton — that marriage obviously was with a different character. When they start deviating like that, did you initially have any emotional reaction, even though you worked in Hollywood for many years yourself?

GRRM - Well, yeah — of course you have an emotional reaction. I mean, would I prefer they do it exactly the way I did it? Sure... Some of the deviation, of course, is because I’ve been so slow with these books. I really should’ve finished this thing four years ago — and if I had, maybe it would be telling a different story here...

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-features/george-r-r-martin-on-the-stark-sisters-and-ending-game-of-thrones-813890/

Very interesting. Thanks!

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42 minutes ago, SeanF said:

What could I imagine a hardened Daenerys doing?  I could imagine her executing captured enemy soldiers out of hand;  wiping out the Great Masters of Meereen when she returns to the city;  wiping out the remaining slavers who fought against her.  Or (in show terms) executing the Tarlys, although as I've argued, I can't imagine any medieval ruler doing differently.

I think it would be totally out of character for her to murder thousands of the Smallfolk at random, so far out of character that only a complete psychological breakdown would explain it;  I think she would continue to extend mercy towards the women and children of her enemies, unless the women were very active opponents of hers. I would find it unimaginable that she would order rape as a tactic of terror. 

From what I can recall, Corlys Velaryon and Larys Strong made the decision to assassinate Aegon II because he refused to pardon the lords who defied him, and instead wanted them executed. He also planned on executing Baela, who hadn't even fought in the war, but was Daemon's daughter (she did fight Aegon on dragonback, but that was when he was attacking Dragonstone, where she had been living for years). If we use Aegon II as a precedent, then Dany will probably want to wipe out all of the houses who defied her, possibly down to the last man, like Aerys did with the Darklyns and Tywin did with the Reynes and Tarbecks. If Jon kills Dany (which I suspect he will), it will probably be to save Arya, thus completing the "treason for love." In the show, he killed her to save Sansa, but the show basically switched the Jon-Arya relationship for Jon-Sansa (similar to how they made Arya have a closer relationship with Sandor than Sansa did, unlike in the books).

ASOIAF does generally seem to come down on the side of mercy. Tywin wiped out the Reynes and Tarbecks, but his precious legacy is in ruins. Neither Aerys nor Maegor showed any mercy, and they were assassinated. Even Daeron II decided to bring down the hammer on the Blackfyre supporters, and yet it still failed to prevent four more rebellions. The only time I can think of mercy not working was for Balon Greyjoy, who did launch a second rebellion. But it did work for, say, Jaehaerys and the Baratheons. 

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Jon didn't kill Dany to save Sansa. The line that was put to him was "your sisters" and it was only one of many points that were made.

Jon: That's her decision. She is the queen. I'm sorry it came to this.

Tyrion: And your sisters? Do you see them bending the knee?

And of course none of it made any sense at all. There's no way this is from the books at all. GRRM would have had to lose all writing ability.

"Look what you made me do" man murdering a woman plot is the worst. Well, next to an "I Spit On Ramsay's Grave" plot. Total trash.

Script actually had the gaping kinslayer wishing he had more time with her, because he loved her so. I mean, he's dumb, but come on.

I really don't think we can take this craptastic final season and conclude anything other than they strayed from any sort of proper story at all.

The show did (barely) manage to pull off that Arya was special to Jon. He caressed her face, sobbed, said come see me. And he didn't forgive Sansa per the script.

Nothing they did was done well, but Arya is the one Jon loved on the show, too. Sansa betrayed him, she almost killed him twice, and this was not lost on him, dumb as he was.

As for Sandor, he lost his story because Sansa lost hers. And he abandoned Arya in hell to commit suicide by zombie, and she didn't even bother to say don't throw your life away.

(And I hate calling them by their real names. If only they had made up different names for the characters in their "version" it would be easier.)

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22 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

From what I can recall, Corlys Velaryon and Larys Strong made the decision to assassinate Aegon II because he refused to pardon the lords who defied him, and instead wanted them executed. He also planned on executing Baela, who hadn't even fought in the war, but was Daemon's daughter (she did fight Aegon on dragonback, but that was when he was attacking Dragonstone, where she had been living for years). If we use Aegon II as a precedent, then Dany will probably want to wipe out all of the houses who defied her, possibly down to the last man, like Aerys did with the Darklyns and Tywin did with the Reynes and Tarbecks. If Jon kills Dany (which I suspect he will), it will probably be to save Arya, thus completing the "treason for love." In the show, he killed her to save Sansa, but the show basically switched the Jon-Arya relationship for Jon-Sansa (similar to how they made Arya have a closer relationship with Sandor than Sansa did, unlike in the books).

ASOIAF does generally seem to come down on the side of mercy. Tywin wiped out the Reynes and Tarbecks, but his precious legacy is in ruins. Neither Aerys nor Maegor showed any mercy, and they were assassinated. Even Daeron II decided to bring down the hammer on the Blackfyre supporters, and yet it still failed to prevent four more rebellions. The only time I can think of mercy not working was for Balon Greyjoy, who did launch a second rebellion. But it did work for, say, Jaehaerys and the Baratheons. 

Aerys went further though.  He didn't just kill the males of fighting age (which I would see as period-typical) but the women and children as well, which I think is unusual.  Could I envisage Dany killing males of fighting age?  Yes I could.  But I'd see her adhering to the norm of sparing women and children, unless those women were very active opponents of hers.  Rhaenyra, after all, spared Alicent Hightower, despite having every reason to hate her.  Even if Daenerys did execute a female opponent, I'm sure she would avoid the hideous punishments that Aerys came up with for Lady Darklyn.

Dany's problem is that she tried mercy and leniency at Meereen, and Yunkai, and it blew up in her face. The Great Masters and Wise Masters treated it as evidence of cowardice and weakness. Her decision in A Storm of Swords to leave these wounded tigers in a position to hurt her, proved to be a terrible miscalculation in A Dance with Dragons.

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16 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Aerys went further though.  He didn't just kill the males of fighting age (which I would see as period-typical) but the women and children as well, which I think is unusual.  Could I envisage Dany killing males of fighting age?  Yes I could.  But I'd see her adhering to the norm of sparing women and children, unless those women were very active opponents of hers.  Rhaenyra, after all, spared Alicent Hightower, despite having every reason to hate her.  Even if Daenerys did execute a female opponent, I'm sure she would avoid the hideous punishments that Aerys came up with for Lady Darklyn.

Dany's problem is that she tried mercy and leniency at Meereen, and Yunkai, and it blew up in her face. The Great Masters and Wise Masters treated it as evidence of cowardice and weakness. Her decision in A Storm of Swords to leave these wounded tigers in a position to hurt her, proved to be a terrible miscalculation in A Dance with Dragons.

Maybe D&D didn't do any of the work to make her turn logical because they didn't want to deal with her loss of popularity....so they convinced themselves that doing it out of the blue would work because 'subverting expectations/shock and awe' so, she will be popular and a marketing focus right up until the very end........also, let's face it, they were lazy writers.  The vast majority of the show's plot holes and continuity errors could have been fixed EASILY, very, very easily, with a little more attention to detail and changes in a few lines here and there. 

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34 minutes ago, Le Cygne said:

Jon didn't kill Dany to save Sansa. The line that was put to him was "your sisters" and it was only one of many points that were made.

Jon: That's her decision. She is the queen. I'm sorry it came to this.

Tyrion: And your sisters? Do you see them bending the knee?

And of course none of it made any sense at all. There's no way this is from the books at all. GRRM would have had to lose all writing ability.

"Look what you made me do" man murdering a woman plot is the worst. Well, next to an "I Spit On Ramsay's Grave" plot. Total trash.

Script actually had the gaping kinslayer wishing he had more time with her, because he loved her so. I mean, he's dumb, but come on.

I really don't think we can take this craptastic final season and conclude anything other than they strayed from any sort of proper story at all.

The show did (barely) manage to pull off that Arya was special to Jon. He caressed her face, sobbed, said come see me. And he didn't forgive Sansa per the script.

Nothing they did was done well, but Arya is the one Jon loved on the show, too. Sansa betrayed him, she almost killed him twice, and this was not lost on him, dumb as he was.

(And I hate calling them by their real names. If only they had made up different names for the characters in their "version" it would be easier.)

After that exchange, Tyrion said "Do you see Sansa swearing eternal loyalty to a queen she neither likes nor trusts?" Then when Tyrion asks why Jon thinks Sansa told Tyrion his secret, Jon says "She doesn't get to choose!" Tyrion replies, "But you do."

I know the script said that Arya was his favorite sister, but the show didn't really do a great job of showing that. I guess it all comes back to how condensed the last season was. But either way, I think it's fair to say that the bond between Jon and Arya in the books trumps any of those with their other siblings. And Jon's last "mission" before he died was to go save (f)Arya.

If you want show-names for all the characters, there's already a helpful glossary: https://www.thefandomentals.com/book-snob-glossary/

I agree that man-kills-woman-to-save-the-world is an outdated trope. But if it does happen in the books, Jon will be very different. He'll be resurrected wolfman Jon, who will probably grow even more detached from the world as the series progresses. 

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I see no difference that that line adds. The big line is YOUR SISTERS (plural). The rest is the logistics of how it will play out.

How it will play out is Sansa (in charge) makes the choice opposing what Jon wants. The showrunners called Sansa Littlefinger!

She betrayed Jon, badly. And he didn't forgive her. He's really stupid on the show, but it didn't escape even him, dumb as he was.

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19 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Maybe D&D didn't do any of the work to make her turn logical because they didn't want to deal with her loss of popularity....so they convinced themselves that doing it out of the blue would work because 'subverting expectations/shock and awe' so, she will be popular and a marketing focus right up until the very end........also, let's face it, they were lazy writers.  The vast majority of the show's plot holes and continuity errors could have been fixed EASILY, very, very easily, with a little more attention to detail and changes in a few lines here and there. 

Yeah, don't underestimate the power of marketability. I went on the HBO store site the other day, and they have a filter that allows you to view merchandise based on the character. Even now, Daenerys has twice as much merchandise as everyone else, even Tyrion. And then there's another category just for dragon merch.

They also turned Tyrion into St. Tyrion and had Jon remain completely unchanged by death. So I definitely agree that fan popularity played into their decision-making.

41 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Aerys went further though.  He didn't just kill the males of fighting age (which I would see as period-typical) but the women and children as well, which I think is unusual.  Could I envisage Dany killing males of fighting age?  Yes I could.  But I'd see her adhering to the norm of sparing women and children, unless those women were very active opponents of hers.  Rhaenyra, after all, spared Alicent Hightower, despite having every reason to hate her.  Even if Daenerys did execute a female opponent, I'm sure she would avoid the hideous punishments that Aerys came up with for Lady Darklyn.

Dany's problem is that she tried mercy and leniency at Meereen, and Yunkai, and it blew up in her face. The Great Masters and Wise Masters treated it as evidence of cowardice and weakness. Her decision in A Storm of Swords to leave these wounded tigers in a position to hurt her, proved to be a terrible miscalculation in A Dance with Dragons.

I see what you mean about Meereen and Yunkai, but I'm not sure if that's the way GRRM intended for us to see it. The reason why I say that is because he reportedly read the "Meereenese Blot" essays, which argued that Dany did achieve lasting peace in Meereen, and was very pleased by them, saying that the author was someone who "got it." I guess that leads us into another conversation about author intentionality and whether GRRM succeeded there.

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7 minutes ago, Le Cygne said:

I see no difference that that line adds. The big line is YOUR SISTERS (plural). The rest is the logistics of how it will play out.

How it will play out is Sansa (in charge) makes choice opposing what Jon wants. The showrunners called Sansa Littlefinger!

She betrayed Jon, badly. And he didn't forgive her. He's really stupid on the show, but it didn't escape even him, dumb as he was.

I think my problem is that I don't really see what Sansa did as a betrayal, although I guess I was supposed to, based on the script. It would probably help if we had actually gotten to see the scene of him telling Sansa and Arya about R+L=J. 

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4 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I think my problem is that I don't really see what Sansa did as a betrayal, although I guess I was supposed to, based on the script. It would probably help if we had actually gotten to see the scene of him telling Sansa and Arya about R+L=J. 

Telling Tyrion about Jon wasn’t the only time Sansa betrayed him. She also betrayed him when she failed to  tell him about the Vale army. 

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