Master thread on what the Show means for the book plot

[Ghostlydragon]

It's an awful decision. The next Peter Baelish will bribe or manipulate his way into power. And people who remember or read about succession based on bloodline like Gendry's future children will rebel. It's asking for trouble.

[SeanF]

On 10/23/2020 at 9:44 AM, Dalinar said:

Do you think that the sacking/massacre of KL will happen after the war for dawn or before? Does GRRM intend to end the series with Dannys deconstruction like the show did, or will the battle against the WW end the series? Knowing how things unfolded in the show, makes it hard for me to see a scenario where Danny sacks KL and then contiues to fight with the rest of Westeros side by side against the WW and then die. It seems odd and quite frankly stupid. If she gest killed by Jon after the sacking and then the war against the WW happens, then she wont be part in the fight against the WW, and I don't see that happen either. What are your thoughts on that?

Assuming that the burning of Kings Landing is a thing, I would expect it to take place before the fight against the White Walkers, not after.  I'd expect Daenerys to land in the South, not the North, and not to faff around as per the show.  She'll strike for Kings Landing, right away. 

We don't know what the circumstances of the sack/burning will be, but I expect there will be a rationale for it. Perhaps, Daenerys' forces have to fight their way in street by street.  Perhaps she unleashes dragonfire on the defenders;  or the caches of wildfire ignite, or Jon Connington, triggered by the sound of bells, sets the place ablaze in the wake of defeat. 

If the city is sacked, then that will be horrible, but also entirely in accordance with the laws of war, in-universe (and pretty much in line with real world norms at any point prior to 1850 or so;  1945 in the case of Berlin).  Stannis' men would have sacked the city, had they taken it by storm.  The norm would be to offer the defenders the chance to surrender, but quarter would be denied if they refused.  Unless Dany does something really malicious, like refusing to accept an offer to  surrender, and opting instead to slaughter the inhabitants, I doubt if a sack would raise many eyebrows among the Northmen.  

[Lord Varys]

On 10/23/2020 at 10:44 AM, Dalinar said:

Do you think that the sacking/massacre of KL will happen after the war for dawn or before? Does GRRM intend to end the series with Dannys deconstruction like the show did, or will the battle against the WW end the series? Knowing how things unfolded in the show, makes it hard for me to see a scenario where Danny sacks KL and then contiues to fight with the rest of Westeros side by side against the WW and then die. It seems odd and quite frankly stupid. If she gest killed by Jon after the sacking and then the war against the WW happens, then she wont be part in the fight against the WW, and I don't see that happen either. What are your thoughts on that?

I think we can expect something like that long before Dany even gets to Westeros. Aegon will take KL first, one imagines, and his victory could involve at least the slaughtering of Cersei's surviving children and the summary executions of all Lannister/Baratheon/Tyrell loyalists left in the city, possibly done by Kingslanders raising for the Targaryen king.

Then there is the real prospect in the books that Euron might sit the Iron Throne for a time. He won't get it without massive bloodshed. And if he were the guy sitting on the iron chair when Dany shows up, then her doing anything in her power to topple him shouldn't be problematic at all. Even if she had to kill hundreds of thousands of Kingslanders to get of rid Euron it would be probably worth considering who and what Euron is and what he might do to Westeros and the world if he were allowed to live and rule.

The series as such will end with the fight against the Others, of course, since that's the main plot of the books. The idea that we will get childish political squabbles of the sort we got in the show after the War for the Dawn is over. There might still be mortal/human enemies to be dealt with then, but we won't see any infighting on a large political scale among the power bloc which dealt with the Others.

Meaning that there is a chance that Euron, Cersei, Littlefinger or other 'evil characters' might survive the Others to be dealt with then, but we won't get a silly Jon's vs. Dany's claim story after the Others are dealt with. That kind of plot we will get before in the books, with the Dany vs. Aegon plot.

Even with Dany/Aegon it is pretty much impossible to imagine these two bickering about the Iron Throne once they learn/realize about the threat of the Others. And if they were working together to deal with them then this power bloc would not just disintegrate afterwards. Which means we should expect that this Second Dance of the Dragon thing that's going to come will take place before the Others breach the Wall and march down south ... or at least before the news about the threat they pose is believed wildly south of the Neck.

[Rose of Red Lake]

On 11/3/2020 at 5:02 AM, SeanF said:

Unless Dany does something really malicious, like refusing to accept an offer to  surrender, and opting instead to slaughter the inhabitants, I doubt if a sack would raise many eyebrows among the Northmen.

That's probably what will happen anyway. Refusing surrender happened during the Dance and Dany had displayed plenty of bad faith before. She turns quickly on a dime to punishment and anger.

[SeanF]

3 minutes ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

That's probably what will happen anyway. Refusing surrender happened during the Dance and Dany had displayed plenty of bad faith before. She turns quickly on a dime to punishment and anger.

The only bad faith was her breach of contract with the Good Masters of Astapor.  

But, they were trying to sell her stolen property in turn.

[Rose of Red Lake]

On 10/23/2020 at 1:44 AM, Dalinar said:

Do you think that the sacking/massacre of KL will happen after the war for dawn or before? Does GRRM intend to end the series with Dannys deconstruction like the show did, or will the battle against the WW end the series? Knowing how things unfolded in the show, makes it hard for me to see a scenario where Danny sacks KL and then contiues to fight with the rest of Westeros side by side against the WW and then die. It seems odd and quite frankly stupid. If she gest killed by Jon after the sacking and then the war against the WW happens, then she wont be part in the fight against the WW, and I don't see that happen either. What are your thoughts on that?

I agree it's unlikely to happen where she destroys a city and then she gets to hop on a redemption arc like nothing happened and she gets to die a messianic savior. Her ancestors didn't get any sickly sweet writing like that. I don't think some readers realize that corruption by power means. No wiggle room out of that one.

Making humans vs. humans the last fight fits more with the feel of asoiaf anyway. It's also what closed out Lord of the Rings.

[SeanF]

2 minutes ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

I agree it's unlikely to happen where she destroys a city and then she gets to hop on a redemption arc like nothing happened and she gets to die a messianic savior. Her ancestors didn't get any sickly sweet writing like that. I don't think some readers realize that corruption by power means. No wiggle room out of that one.

Making humans vs. humans the last fight fits more with the feel of asoiaf anyway. It's also what closed out Lord of the Rings.

Our grandparents destroyed cities.  In war, it’s no big deal.

[Rose of Red Lake]

4 minutes ago, SeanF said:

The only bad faith was her breach of contract with the Good Masters of Astapor.  

But, they were trying to sell her stolen property in turn.

Nope. She showed bad faith by burning the envoy's tokar in a whimsical display of power. She lets the Yunkai believe she has pledged a truce by giving them a night to consider her offer. She displays violence casually and irrationally. She doesn't deal honorably with her enemies. Expect more of that sort of thing.

[Rose of Red Lake]

Just now, SeanF said:

Our grandparents destroyed cities.  In war, it’s no big deal.

You are so right, the message of the series: millions of civilians must die because a teenager with nukes wants to Make Westeros Great Again.

[SeanF]

1 minute ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

You are so right, the message of the series: millions of civilians must die because a teenager with nukes wants to Make Westeros Great Again.

It’s how we won WWII.  We burned cities.  And you know what?

I’m glad we did it.

 

[SeanF]

16 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

Nope. She showed bad faith by burning the envoy's tokar in a whimsical display of power. She lets the Yunkai believe she has pledged a truce by giving them a night to consider her offer. She displays violence casually and irrationally. She doesn't deal honorably with her enemies. Expect more of that sort of thing.

Never heard of a ruse of war?

And as Gandalf put it “Where these customs hold, it is the practice for envoys to use less insolence.”

In fact, she upheld her side of the bargain with Yunkai.  She spared the lives  of the Wise Masters, in return for their giving up their slaves with severance pay.

 

Edited November 10, 2020 by SeanF

[Dalinar]

47 minutes ago, SeanF said:

It’s how we won WWII.  We burned cities.  And you know what?

I’m glad we did it.

 

You mean Hiroshima? Yeah, but the US werent there to conquer it, but rather stop the violent expanion of Japan. A very wise teacher once told me, to never use WW2 as an analogy or example. It never works.

[SeanF]

15 hours ago, Dalinar said:

You mean Hiroshima? Yeah, but the US werent there to conquer it, but rather stop the violent expanion of Japan. A very wise teacher once told me, to never use WW2 as an analogy or example. It never works.

I cite Hiroshima, Dresden, Hamburg, Cologne etc.

But, I could as easily cite Badajoz, Coimbra, Córdoba, Gerona, etc.

Burning cities in war is not a moral event threshold.  It is part and parcel of war, even the most just of wars.

"Defy us to our worst. For, as I am a soldier,
A name that in my thoughts becomes me best,
If I begin the batt'ry once again,
I will not leave the half-achieved Harfleur
Till in her ashes she lie burièd

Edited November 10, 2020 by SeanF

[BlackLightning]

I think that, by the end of the series, most people will feel that King's Landing needs to be burned. I specifically remember the moment when Arya is leaving King's Landing and wishing that it would be destroyed by water.

I expect Euron to be sitting the Iron Throne and ruling over King's Landing when the war against the Others is completed or drawing to a close. Euron is bad news; he makes Cersei, Tywin, Littlefinger and Lysa look tame.

If he is what I think he is (a greenseer like Bran AND a legitimate sorcerer like Melisandre or Moqorro) who will do what I think he will (summon sea monsters from the depths and/or be a part of the reason why the Others are attacking the realm in the first place), then yeah.

He has to go.

And that's operating under the presumption that there is no widespread greyscale pandemic. Maybe burning the city and everything therein is the best option if it is overrun by monsters and madmen.

 

Edited November 18, 2020 by BlackLightning

[Darryk]

On 10/10/2020 at 9:47 PM, divica said:

I can t accept that they knew bran would be king since season 3 and never made it believable. It is just too bad to be true. At most I can accept that grrm told them a vague ending that they never planned to fully use. And bran being the king at the end was decided only before s8. Anything much different from this is just doesn t make sense to me. 

But this is exactly how D+D operate, they don't set things up in a believable way. They get a kick out of shocking the audience so they avoid foreshadowing or set-up because they don't want the audience to guess what would happen.

It's one of the many frustrating things about them. GRRM can foreshadow an event and still have it surprise the audience when it happens. D+D lack the subtlety, so they avoid foreshadowing and set-up, and just have the event pop out of nowhere, thinking they will shock the audience that way, except it just ends up confusing the audience.

There's a lot in the books to suggest Dany would become tyrannical but they barely set that up in the show, instead portraying her as saint-like right till the end, because they wanted her 180 turn to shock the audience, except instead it just felt jarringly out of character.

 

[Ghostlydragon]

2 hours ago, Darryk said:

But this is exactly how D+D operate, they don't set things up in a believable way. They get a kick out of shocking the audience so they avoid foreshadowing or set-up because they don't want the audience to guess what would happen.

It's one of the many frustrating things about them. GRRM can foreshadow an event and still have it surprise the audience when it happens. D+D lack the subtlety, so they avoid foreshadowing and set-up, and just have the event pop out of nowhere, thinking they will shock the audience that way, except it just ends up confusing the audience.

 

That's very true. And as good as the red wedding was on tv, it's clearly about the shock of it happening.

In the book there's such a sense of dread and impending doom as soon as they get to the Twins.

There's such a difference. It was no surprise Dany and Bran would receive the same treatment where it was all about the shock of where their stories ended.

Oh and look at the faces 

[WolfOfWinter]

Daenerys' arc really is a good illustration of how far a character can go and still have people defend her actions because she's charismatic and says all the right stuff, even when it contradicts her own actions. Cersei kills hundreds of people? Kill the evil bitch. Dany nukes a million people? Meh, she must have a morally sound reason, and btw nuking Hiroshima was also cool and so Dany must be cool too. 

Yikes.

Edited November 22, 2020 by WolfOfWinter

[Angel Eyes]

For me, there are a number of problems in the books, like gross sex scenes, plot contrivance, general cynicism, but the show made them much worse.

1. Plot Contrivance. With how much GRRM complains about the ease that Aragorn does things, he makes a number of things happen because he wanted them to:
   1. Ramsay in Book 2. Like Euron in Seasons 7 and 8, he's mainly a plot device; In his case, for Theon to get captured and make Bran, Rickon, Meera, Jojen, Hodor, and the direwolves flee Winterfell, Rodrik Cassel doesn't understand how there's a Bolton army coming around if he supposedly killed the Bolton in the North and his force is slaughtered to a man. He essentially takes down the Northern power base in a matter of weeks.
   2. Robb and the Blackfish leaving Edmure out of the master plan. Edmure gallivants off on his own with thousands of men and fights a battle, not knowing that the idea was to allow Tywin to chase Robb into a trap; instead, Tywin gets enough breathing room to receive word of Stannis attacking King's Landing and gets back in time to relieve Tyrion and stop Stannis from taking the city.
   3. Jon Snow never once brings up the fact that the White Walkers make wights and therefore it would be pragmatic to try to save the wildlings. Wildlings are easier to negotiate with than wights.
2. Gross and degrading sex scenes. The show actually toned down Jaime's sex scene with Cersei (she's on her period in the books), Cersei refers to Taena Merryweather's privates as a "Myrish swamp", while Sam's penis is described as a "fat pink mast". There's also Daenerys and Jeyne Poole's Stockholm Syndrome.
3. Cynicism.
   1. A Song of Ice and Fire is generally pessimistic about the human condition, with the main protagonists (the Starks) doing a number of idiotic things because they think it's the right thing to do and getting killed or disgraced (Ned telling Cersei to leave, Robb marrying Jeyne Westerling, Catelyn's decisions to capture Tyrion and free Jaime) while the survivors become progressively darker and nastier (Bran robbing Hodor of his free will, Arya becoming a Faceless Man, Sansa being under Littlefinger's tutelage) with others doing horrible things (Tyrion raping a prostitute) and character development setting more up for a fall (Jaime is being led into a trap by Brienne and Lady Stoneheart is not inclined to be forgiving towards him).
   2. Glorification of psychopaths. Ramsay and Littlefinger have come out the victor in nearly everything they've done, rising higher and higher as the book series has gone on.
   3. And all the while everyone ignores the threat imposed by the White Walkers and the wights, including those who are tasked with defending against them.

Edited November 30, 2020 by Angel Eyes

[Rose of Red Lake]

On 11/21/2020 at 1:18 PM, WolfOfWinter said:

Daenerys' arc really is a good illustration of how far a character can go and still have people defend her actions because she's charismatic and says all the right stuff, even when it contradicts her own actions. Cersei kills hundreds of people? Kill the evil bitch. Dany nukes a million people? Meh, she must have a morally sound reason, and btw nuking Hiroshima was also cool and so Dany must be cool too. 

 

The defenses are really something. "This is WAR and Dany needs to USE her weapons" - as if dragons are drone strikes making neat and clean kills. "Dany needed to attack the Red Keep and it would have all be over and she would have won" - again a clean and neat plot to win when that's not how asoiaf works. "Dany killing civilians is something should would never do, but if she did, it would be justified like Hiroshima" - wow so she can never be wrong. Riveting analysis. 

[Dalinar]

On 12/2/2020 at 7:39 PM, Rose of Red Lake said:

The defenses are really something. "This is WAR and Dany needs to USE her weapons" - as if dragons are drone strikes making neat and clean kills. "Dany needed to attack the Red Keep and it would have all be over and she would have won" - again a clean and neat plot to win when that's not how asoiaf works. "Dany killing civilians is something should would never do, but if she did, it would be justified like Hiroshima" - wow so she can never be wrong. Riveting analysis. 

The funny thing is, Cersei gave up - and Danny nuked the civilians afterwards. Hiroshima and Dresden happend during the war, with neither Germans nor Japanese giving up. I mean, can you actually get more evil than Danny? She literally burned 100 thousands of civillians just because. There was no reason behind it whatsoever. 

Edited December 4, 2020 by Dalinar