Doran's shameless manipulation of Arianne

[Rose of Red Lake]

Do people think the Martells are going to excel at anything? People already think Arianne is a bimbo or a poor copy of Margaery. Doran gets written off too.

I think he's more of a mix between Littlefinger and Ned, who both have strengths and weaknesses.

This is the House who made Aegon the Conqueror look like a fool. I think they're going to do something similarly competent....in the end.

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

18 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

Do people think the Martells are going to excel at anything? People already think Arianne is a bimbo or a poor copy of Margaery. Doran gets written off too.

I think he's more of a mix between Littlefinger and Ned, who both have strengths and weaknesses.

This is the House who made Aegon the Conqueror look like a fool. I think they're going to do something similarly competent....in the end.

Most people generally take the story at a surface-level reading. I consider this to be strange and some sort of mental gymnastics, because we know for a fact that the plot of AGOT is basically a giant LF conspiracy, the key the details of which are revealed explicitly in ASOS. And GRRM's other stories are conspiratorial by nature. Like The Hero, or And Seven Times Never Kill Man, or a bunch of others I could name. I am simply suggesting that books 2-5 are also filled with crazy tinfoily conspiracies. That's what Occam's razor dictates, ironically.

[Rose of Red Lake]

3 hours ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

Most people generally take the story at a surface-level reading. I consider this to be strange and some sort of mental gymnastics, because we know for a fact that the plot of AGOT is basically a giant LF conspiracy, the key the details of which are revealed explicitly in ASOS. And GRRM's other stories are conspiratorial by nature. Like The Hero, or And Seven Times Never Kill Man, or a bunch of others I could name. I am simply suggesting that books 2-5 are also filled with crazy tinfoily conspiracies. That's what Occam's razor dictates, ironically.

The general feeling is that politics is petty and unimportant because the "zombies are coming" but I love this aspect of the story. The historical fiction aspect, which involves the "juicy stuff" as GRRM calls it, the betrayals, backstabbing, and conspiracies. It would be just another generic fantasy novel without it. So big thumbs up from me for paying attention to the puppetmasters pulling the strings. This still relates to themes of "what makes a good ruler" because a good ruler has to have a handle on this stuff, unless they just want to be an ineffectual puppet. I'm curious to see how much Arianne catches on to Varys' conspiracy, because I think Sansa exposing LF will come eventually as well, and these two could have parallel storylines. 

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

On 3/14/2019 at 12:10 AM, Rose of Red Lake said:

The general feeling is that politics is petty and unimportant because the "zombies are coming" but I love this aspect of the story. The historical fiction aspect, which involves the "juicy stuff" as GRRM calls it, the betrayals, backstabbing, and conspiracies. It would be just another generic fantasy novel without it. So big thumbs up from me for paying attention to the puppetmasters pulling the strings. This still relates to themes of "what makes a good ruler" because a good ruler has to have a handle on this stuff, unless they just want to be an ineffectual puppet. I'm curious to see how much Arianne catches on to Varys' conspiracy, because I think Sansa exposing LF will come eventually as well, and these two could have parallel storylines. 

Also, the zombies are the result of puppet masters as well, like everything else in the plot. We are supposed to think the Others are super evil when they are clearly human. They aren't really acting any more evil than other human characters so far, like Tywin for example. They are just killing people. And we don't know their motives.