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2 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I hope they at least mention that the Ironborn are attacking the Westerlands. It would be very weird not to at least have that happen off-screen, especially since the Ironborn were prominent for all of GOT. Show fans at least know that the Iron Islands are a presence in Westeros.

Daeron the Daring was not featured/mentioned in season 1 because they didn't know if they would be able to have a season 2 (backlash after the ending of GOT) and they knew the different timejumps/actor changes would be challenging for the casual audience (Sapochnik wanted to change names to make things easier). If the general audience already has a problem to keep track of the characters on screen, it is not surprising they prefer to not add an other Targaryen we won't see on screen in season 1.

So if they are not adapting the conflict, I too hope they at least mention it and name drop the "Red Kraken" and do not repeat the Daeron situation again.

There are already too much battle to adapt, I'm sure some of the battles will be scrapped or combined. For example the Reach campaign:

  • Honeywine -> has to be adapted
  • Submission of the Shield -> scrapped/mentioned only, unless they want to give Daeron/Tessarion more screen time
  • Submission of the west of the Reach (Old Oak & Goldengrove) -> scrapped, although I would like it to be mentioned just so it explains how the Highower host basically by pass Highgarden.
  • Longtable & Bitterbridge -> after Goldengrove the Hightowers travel east towards Longtable and the rose road. I imagine the siege of Longtable & the sack of Bitterbridge will be combined in the show. The death of Maelor Targaryen & Ser Rickard Thorne on the bridge would be even more tragic if we can see the Hightower camp on the other side of the river instead of it being thirty leagues away at Longtable. Also Daeron is a sympathetic character among the greens, having him snap and burning Bitterbridge after learning of his nephew's death only a few hundred yards away from him makes sense to me.
  • Tumbleton 1 & 2 -> have to be adapted separately but they will be filmed together if they are in the same season.

 

1 hour ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I think most of those characters will appear, but I don’t think we’ll see them waging battles on their own. I think we’ll only see them when they’re interacting directly with the main characters

That's my assumption as well at the moment. So long as the audience has two or three characters/banners they can identified by armies then we're good.

 

2 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I could see them sending Alicent to a sept instead of dying from the Shivers too. (I’ve also seen one heartbreaking theory that if Alicent does die from illness, little Aegon may visit her and hold her hand while she dies, like he did with Tyland in the books. That would certainly be emotional to watch).

I've never heard of that ending for Alicent before but I like it. Well so long as they don't have Alicent pushing Jaehaera to kill Aegon III like in the books.

 

3 minutes ago, The Dragon Demands said:

You sound surprised - we all know how low the Greens are capable of stooping.

The green propaganda is a subtle way to show Otto's politicking and him favoring "letters" to "action".

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On 5/11/2023 at 8:57 AM, Lord Varys said:

Thinking about slenderness as a (female) beauty ideal in Westeros:

That shouldn't have been a thing. It wasn't in the real world middle ages but especially in this fantasy world where winters can and do last years and people starve to death in those winters left and right it actually should be very desirable to prepare yourself for winter by eating enough to have fat stores for winter in your very own body.

Also, of course, if you are rich and powerful you would also enjoy and celebrate a plentiful harvest by enjoying as much of the food as you possibly can. A fat lord and a fat king would be a sign that they did their job right. Slender and thin people would show that something was amiss in their lands.

In that sense we would have to conclude that the whole Rhaenyra-Alicent jealousy thing there really doesn't make much sense. It is a bad concept that doesn't seem to fit into the world.

In context, one would also have to conclude that the contempt the Manderlys face for their fatness in the books really makes no sense. It should be opposite. The other Northmen should be jealous of the Manderlys that White Harbor is so prosperous that its lords have the luxury to grow as fat as they are. That wouldn't be seen as decadence or weakness but success. In the North everybody would eat as much as they can when they can eat. Because winter is coming.

The problem with the Manderlys is not that they are fat, it is that they (especially Lord Wyman) are too fat to be of any use. Which is kinda bad seeing as Westerosi culture is a martial one...particularly for the upper class.

Men who are incapable of doing the big muscly, martial things because of the choices that they make (in this case, overeating and under-exercising) are beyond useless; they are a hindrance.

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In the Middle Ages, slenderness was absolutely part of the beauty standard for noble women. Long slender necks, small chests, high slim  waists, slender hips,  slender long fingers, are all part of literary standards espoused throughout the Middle Ages, and are all things that are more easily come by if you are in general a slender person.

For Westeros, it may well be that for commoners, robust women makes sense as an ideal. But for the nobility, the idea that you should be well-padded for the long winters implies you are impoverished and will do some starving, which of course is not at all what most nobility want to imply about themselves. 

 

On 5/22/2023 at 3:21 AM, The Bard of Banefort said:

I was under the impression that most of the cast hasn’t read the source material

My experience with GoT actors is that nearly all of them have looked up  the wiki, or their agents or friends or family have, and so they "know" the general shape of what happens to their character in the material.

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5 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I think most of those characters will appear, but I don’t think we’ll see them waging battles on their own. I think we’ll only see them when they’re interacting directly with the main characters (i.e. Jon Roxton and Unwin Peake with Daeron and maybe Aemond/Criston, Ben and Aly with Daemon). It would be kind of ironic if they ended up shafting the Manderleys again.

I expect that they’ll consolidate the regency around the Hour of the Wolf, which I think is understandable. The post-Dance period works better as reading material, and by that point all the main characters aside from Alicent and Corlys are dead. My prediction is that Aegon will die in the penultimate episode, and Cregan will take over in the finale, which will see Aegon crowned and married to Jaehaera, and end with Viserys’ return. Maybe Tyland will still be alive by then on the show. I could see them sending Alicent to a sept instead of dying from the Shivers too. (I’ve also seen one heartbreaking theory that if Alicent does die from illness, little Aegon may visit her and hold her hand while she dies, like he did with Tyland in the books. That would certainly be emotional to watch).

I hope that they show up but I'm preparing for most of the great non-Targaryen characters to be ignored/shunned aside in order to have 8 or 9 more scenes of Daemon acting like an asshole instead of just admitting to needing Viagra. Okay maybe only 2 or 3 scenes of that. 

I still hope they stick to Criston Cole's death from Fire and Blood. It's the perfect middle finger to him and an ironic death considering how many epic and tragic deaths the main characters of the Dance suffer.  

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23 hours ago, SilverGhost said:

I hope that they show up but I'm preparing for most of the great non-Targaryen characters to be ignored/shunned aside in order to have 8 or 9 more scenes of Daemon acting like an asshole instead of just admitting to needing Viagra. Okay maybe only 2 or 3 scenes of that. 

I still hope they stick to Criston Cole's death from Fire and Blood. It's the perfect middle finger to him and an ironic death considering how many epic and tragic deaths the main characters of the Dance suffer.  

Have to disagree with the bolded/underlined part. I found most of the deaths in the Dance cheap and anticlimactic.

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1 minute ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said:

Have to disagree with the bolded/underlined part. I found most of the deaths in the Dance cheap and anticlimactic.

Daemon and Aemond's dragon duel over the God's Eye. The Queen Who Never Was taking on two dragons and seriously wounding Aegon II and Sunfyre. Rhaenyra getting betrayed and surprised like Ned in the Throne room and being burned and eaten by Sunfyre. Addam of Hull/Velaryon dying at 2nd Tumbleton after rallying the Riverlanders when the way to King's Landing seemed wide open to the Hightower Green Army. Even Hobart Hightower drinking poisoned wine to kill Ulf and Jon Roxton offing Hugh the Hammer with a great line - and then going down fighting. 

Yeah I would certainly agree that a lot of the deaths in the Dance are simple - deaths in battle or from disease with one line of mention. However most of the main characters that the show seems to be focusing on are one who meet rather interesting ones. Cole's always stood out - he was blamed for the conflict and after the battles in the Riverlands which culminated with the Fish Feed the Black army refused to give him an epic death worthy of a song. It's a great "F U" from knights and men who've seen a lot of their allies die and who killed a lot of Lords, knights and men from the Westerlands. After all that bloodshed Cole's death seems like a blow for all those from both sides burned by dragon fire or feeding the fishes.   

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On 5/25/2023 at 8:26 PM, Ran said:

In the Middle Ages, slenderness was absolutely part of the beauty standard for noble women. Long slender necks, small chests, high slim  waists, slender hips,  slender long fingers, are all part of literary standards espoused throughout the Middle Ages, and are all things that are more easily come by if you are in general a slender person.

Unless my medieval studies confuse me, the only descriptions we get of noblewomen in literature is in a courtship context ... and we have that only for a rather limited period compared to the actual length of the middle ages.

That allows us to guess what kind of women were viewed as desirable (to fuck and/or marry) but not how the ideal married noble matron looked like. So I'd reserve judgment on that.

Your examples at best point to the fact that young women are desirable - they tend to be not that fat in any culture (modern times excluded, of course).

On 5/25/2023 at 8:26 PM, Ran said:

For Westeros, it may well be that for commoners, robust women makes sense as an ideal. But for the nobility, the idea that you should be well-padded for the long winters implies you are impoverished and will do some starving, which of course is not at all what most nobility want to imply about themselves. 

Westeros ain't the real world middle ages. The special fantasy seasons thing should influence culture more than it does. It makes no sense for nobility to keep themselves slender or thin if starvation in winter is a specter that haunted this world and culture for millennia. Even if they can be absolutely sure they would not starve in winter - and that's a big in light of the fact that they have no clue how long winter will last and no way of knowing if their food is not going to rot or get otherwise corrupted - then there is literally no way the society could be as stable as it is if the nobility had feasted in winter with their hoarded food while the common people (their own servants included) starved or watched their friends, kin, and neighbors die of starvation.

Also, of course, in a world where entering winter fat and plump might be a real life-or-death situation would definitely espouse other body ideals than we do.

Hell, they would mostly give shit about 'chivalry' and bodily fitness and all that ... at best it would be a means to gain sufficient wealth to get fat and settle down.

On 5/25/2023 at 8:26 PM, Ran said:

My experience with GoT actors is that nearly all of them have looked up  the wiki, or their agents or friends or family have, and so they "know" the general shape of what happens to their character in the material.

Yeah. Not to mention that this is the standard practice for pretty much every actor. They want to know how long their gig is likely to go, what is going to happen to their character so they can include knowledge about that in their portrayal, etc. Depending how the adaptation they do goes they might take more or less inspiration from the source material ... but the idea that they don't check is very unlikely.

On 5/25/2023 at 10:30 PM, SilverGhost said:

I hope that they show up but I'm preparing for most of the great non-Targaryen characters to be ignored/shunned aside in order to have 8 or 9 more scenes of Daemon acting like an asshole instead of just admitting to needing Viagra. Okay maybe only 2 or 3 scenes of that. 

I think we can be very sure that the secondary and tertiary characters remain just that - because with their pacing and the number of episodes they have anything else is just not possible.

On 5/26/2023 at 10:03 PM, SilverGhost said:

Daemon and Aemond's dragon duel over the God's Eye. The Queen Who Never Was taking on two dragons and seriously wounding Aegon II and Sunfyre. Rhaenyra getting betrayed and surprised like Ned in the Throne room and being burned and eaten by Sunfyre. Addam of Hull/Velaryon dying at 2nd Tumbleton after rallying the Riverlanders when the way to King's Landing seemed wide open to the Hightower Green Army. Even Hobart Hightower drinking poisoned wine to kill Ulf and Jon Roxton offing Hugh the Hammer with a great line - and then going down fighting. 

Those deaths are mostly random and pointless. People usually throw their lives away for little or nothing at all. Hobart Hightower is just a complete moron - Ulf wasn't that bad a chap, and their last dragonrider. Killing him was just stupid - even more so getting himself killed in the process.

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1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

I think we can be very sure that the secondary and tertiary characters remain just that - because with their pacing and the number of episodes they have anything else is just not possible.

Those deaths are mostly random and pointless. People usually throw their lives away for little or nothing at all. Hobart Hightower is just a complete moron - Ulf wasn't that bad a chap, and their last dragonrider. Killing him was just stupid - even more so getting himself killed in the process.

On secondary and tertiary characters it risks doing what GOT did with a good number of interesting secondary characters, either not adapting them or giving them a half-heart representation on screen that goes nowhere and removes what made the characters interesting in the first place. I am pretty sure what they will do -- just hoping that is doesn't backfire like in the latter seasons of GOT.

As for the deaths, Hobart's death might seem dumb to the reader but the text gives it a bit of drama and respect. 

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51 minutes ago, SilverGhost said:

On secondary and tertiary characters it risks doing what GOT did with a good number of interesting secondary characters, either not adapting them or giving them a half-heart representation on screen that goes nowhere and removes what made the characters interesting in the first place. I am pretty sure what they will do -- just hoping that is doesn't backfire like in the latter seasons of GOT.

The Dance just lacks arcs and character development. The writers have to make up motivation, nuance, tragedy. Just take the Two Betrayers. Villains without depth in the book. The show has to make them work.

51 minutes ago, SilverGhost said:

As for the deaths, Hobart's death might seem dumb to the reader but the text gives it a bit of drama and respect. 

One kind of gets it why they would want to off them while they were undermining Daeron and the absent Aegon II ... but then Hugh and Daeron are dead and with Ulf they could have taken the throne. Poison could have been queen a fortnight later ... or a blow on the head of a drunken fool.

That move is just nonsensical.

As is Daemon-Aemond or only Rhaenys at Rook's Rest. What were the Blacks thinking? That the Green dragonriders won't fly to war?

Or take Rhaenyra leaving all her prisoners in KL when she flees. Absolutely nonsensical.

The Dance has powerful scenes but it is just style. There is little to no motivational substance there. Especially since the noble sacrifice shtick is overused. Rhaenys does it, Daemon might or it is just murder-suicide, Baela tries it, Addam does it.

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Are we considering the Middle Ages and Renaissance as two different things? Because most of the women in renaissance painting are pudgy by our standards. (For what it’s worth, I thought Viserys was still kind of pudgy for the first few episodes, even if he wasn’t as plump as in the books. It wasn’t until his health started rapidly deteriorating that he became all skin and bones).

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9 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Are we considering the Middle Ages and Renaissance as two different things? Because most of the women in renaissance painting are pudgy by our standards. (For what it’s worth, I thought Viserys was still kind of pudgy for the first few episodes, even if he wasn’t as plump as in the books. It wasn’t until his health started rapidly deteriorating that he became all skin and bones).

Ran would be thinking of 12-13th century courtly love there. Which is but a tiny fraction of medieval literature which was popular only for a short time. And even there and to contemporay romance literature men and women are marked more by clothes and attire than their physical figures. My favorite example for this is the Nibelungenlied.

My issue is basically that is very childish to assume a jealousy issue over fatness would be a thing between Rhaenyra and Alicent. That is a silly modernistic discourse. Ditto with Eustace's fatshaming.

Rhaenyra is the Targaryen mother of the century, producing five strong sons, more than any other Targaryen but the wife of Daemon Blackfyre. Realistically, Alicent should jealous of that, not Rhaenyra of Alicent's slender body.

What could have been a great jealousy angle for book and show is if Rhaenyra felt Alicent stole the love of the people from her, if over time, Alicent was able to make herself more popular with nobles and commoners alike. That could have hurt Rhaenyra who could have shown a more brittle, less accommodating attitude as she grow older. Not Stannis, of course, but more like him than Margaery.

But the biggest issue is the worldbuilding which would give people other priorities. And we kind of see it with Cat judging Jeyne's hips.

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18 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Are we considering the Middle Ages and Renaissance as two different things?

There was a strain of Renaissance development (with the Renaissance generally being categorized as the start of Early Modern Art) in Italy and Germany mainly where fleshier women, more often depicted nude and erotically, was desirable, but there's also plenty of portraiture of actual women that suggests that the very voluptuous beauty standard seen in these artistic nudes was not necessarily what was actually going around.

Think the portraiture of young Catarina Sforza or Biana Maria Sforza, or Giulia Farnese, all considered beauties in their time. None of them were rail thin -- emaciation was for martyrs --  but none of them were voluptuous either.

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 6/17/2023 at 4:46 PM, The Bard of Banefort said:

Rather than doing the two-day strike like all the other subreddits, the mods have basically locked it down indefinitely (quite selfishly, I might add)

Many other subs also locked indefinetely.

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4 hours ago, Aelwen said:

Many other subs also locked indefinetely.

r/HouseOfTheDragon is back up to normal. Why r/asoiaf is still dark ? Is r/Freefolk down too ?

On 6/17/2023 at 3:46 PM, The Bard of Banefort said:

Looks like r/asoiaf has gone off the deep end. Rather than doing the two-day strike like all the other subreddits, the mods have basically locked it down indefinitely (quite selfishly, I might add). I wonder if we’re going to see an influx of people come here now. 

I'm not sure reddit users are inclined to come here, there are still other asoiaf related subreddit out there after all..

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  • 3 weeks later...

HBO social media channels just released a SECOND behind the scenes clip of GRRM explaining story points, which really seem like they should have been released DURING the active airing season of Season One.

Late in Season 1, on October 2nd - LONG after the Stepstones storyline had wrapped up in the first half of the season - they released the first, "GRRM explains the Stepstones". Bizarrely, they didn't release this through their YouTube or Twitter channels, only Instagram. I saved a copy and loaded it to my own YouTube channel (I can't change the Instagram aspect ratio):
 

They just released a second one today, "GRRM explains the Triarchy and Disputed Lands" (this one WAS put out on Twitter, so at least the aspect ratio is right, but not on YouTube) 
 

I get the feeling this was meant to be a series of tie-in clips for every episode.

Well, "series" - no doubt GRRM filmed all his behind the scenes clips in one sitting. He did other recordings for those introduction videos premiere week, on the Hightowers and Velaryons; but those are introduction videos, clearly intended to be released with the premiere.

Why make only TWO clips like this talking about storyverse details? How many MORE of these things is HBO just sitting on, unreleased?

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