[BOOK/TV SPOILERS] TWOP n00bs Thread II

[Yago]

They're clever.

[sagaz]

I think you hit the nail on the head. Maybe being on the run will keep them out of harms way for the time being. Maybe. There is all the not-so-subtle hints that these boys have a penchant for foresight and convenient Direwolf goggles. They should both play a big role in the fantasy aspect of the show, but they haven't been able to control these gifts very well yet. Hopefully, we'll get more of that and by the end of the season, controlled their power enough to... I don't know... set a house on fire or find a family member or talk to spirit Sean Bean for guidance.

#DirewolfGoogles

amazing unsullied!

[Nezzer]

Hmmm, lessee now. . . They're trekking north because Maester Luwin said Jon would protect them. But Jon is a captive, about to meet Mance Rayder -- and his right-hand man Benjen. (A show had better give us that or I'm gonna be mad.) With Benjen to lend credibility, Mance will convince Jon of the virtues of fighting for the free people against the crumbling remnants of oppressive feudalism.

So they storm the wall, all in the name of freedom, and, just when victory is assured, Jon is ordered to kill the last two defenders left standing -- Bran and Rickon. OK, Bran isn't standing but he's a pro with a bow. Oh wait... Well anyway, as Jon emo's and dithers, Ygritte offs the littlest Starks, and, since the end of the wall means the end of Jon's pesky vow, prepares to marry him. Thus sealing her own fate (by Osha's hand), since he is destined in the any self-respecting song of fire and ice to marry Dany instead. And since Dany learned a few tricks in the House of the Undying, she is able to bring Bran and Rickon back to life to serve on the Small Council, assuming they win the upcoming parliamentary elections now that Westeros is free and democratic.

So the three-pronged purpose of the trek north is: free Jon from his vow, get rid of the Ygritte impediment, and give Jon lots of things to emo about.

:lmao: :lol: :bowdown:

[Arkash]

Hehehe, interesting reading them speculating on Bran and Rickon (and co)'s story ! =D

[Independent George]

And lo, westeros.org did rejoice:

So we finally met The Unsullied. So that's who we are named after?! I thought that was random humor. I liked them up until the babies part. But they are basically borg. And dang does that slavemaster not like nipples or what?

Ok, only the first two sentences are really relevant to us, but the rest of that paragraph was too good to not quote.

My favorite poster then replies thusly:

Apparently, and yeah, my poor husband wondered why I suddenly said, "Oh Jesus, thanks a lot, guys." and burst out laughing. Here I thought that "Unsullied" was a lot nicer than a lot of the alternatives. So I'm still only right about pig excrement and Dothraki barf

.

They also picked up on the plot hole of "How the heck was Sam supposed to send a friggin' raven?". Mormont sends their radioman on a scouting mission, and then proceeds to blame him for getting cut off during an ambush and failing to signal HQ. That's leadership.

[The Anti-Targ]

What's very interesting about these guys nitpicks on the show are all the rather poorly thought through changes D&D and the rest of the writers have made:

The White Walkers attack, with Sam being left for dead, lots of happiness that Sam is still alive, but much WTF'ing about the whole, how does he get out unscathed and how does he hook back up with his brothers and what's the timeframe, and why is Ghost there and not 100 miles away with Jon etc etc.

How Roose Bolten comes to be at Harrenhal, 200 dead Northmen when Robb et al arive, but how do all those Northmen get to be there? There were no Northern prisoners when last we visited. And how is that any of Catelyn's fault, because no one other than the Northmen know Jaime is free. So the Mountain certainly didn't kill all those people because he knew there would be no consequnces against a free roaming Jaime. "Capture" of a group of ranging Northmen by turncloak sellswords and Weasel soup worked much better.

Worst of all, the manner in which Jon ends up killing Qhorin Halfhand to inflitrate the Wildlings. They are wondering at the wits of Mance being quite so ready to accept Jon. The circumstances in the book are dicey, but somewhat less dubious than the way the TV series handled his faux defection.

Of course Mance being a former Crow is understandibly enamoured of the idea of having another crow defector, especially one of such note. Even the bastard son of the traitorous and dead Warden of the North is a noteworthy defector for PR purposes, compared the the usual murderers, theives and rapers that populate the NW. Mance thinks Jon might not be turned, but Mance can work on him to turn him before he has any real chance to do any damage to the Wildlings.

[Independent George]

Somebody earlier had said that the Unsullied are the most objective measure of the adaptation's strength and weaknesses. They clearly love the show, but the number and the type of nitpicks they're making clearly highlight its weaknesses. I don't much enjoy the show threads here on Westeros or WiC, but I love hearing the Unsullied's take.

[Buckwheat]

Link to their new page

Do not tell me they are jealous of the Unsullied having their name now. :P

Unsullied imposters

in the s2 finale we had Jaqen giving Arya a coin(?) and teaching her "Valar Morghulis", which also was the title episode. Now I wonder, since he showed abilities to change his face, is there any chance that s3 premiere title "Valar Dohaeris" is insinuating that Jaqen was seen in the episode with a new face? Because I just can't figure out what else the title was referring to.

Nice speculation! I guess they must be really confused with the new phrase they did not get explained. Somebody later guesses Qyburn may be Jaqen, which could not be more off though ...

They already speculate on the Jorah/Barristan tension too:

And then there is Barristan Selmy. I don't think he supports slavery, and he probably knows about Jorahs betrayal.

Sooner or later Dany will have to decide between them.

[Abaddon]

What's very interesting about these guys nitpicks on the show are all the rather poorly thought through changes D&D and the rest of the writers have made:

The White Walkers attack, with Sam being left for dead, lots of happiness that Sam is still alive, but much WTF'ing about the whole, how does he get out unscathed and how does he hook back up with his brothers and what's the timeframe, and why is Ghost there and not 100 miles away with Jon etc etc.

It's a bit one-sided to say they're all confused about that scene. One poster wasn't:

I'm going to disagree with you all on Sam's raven job being mysterious. To me it was a big "Ah hah!" moment. I always wondered why Sam was getting dragged around on this ranging up North. Seems to defeat the purpose of making him a steward and having him work with the blind Maester. But wait, blind Maester takes care of the ravens. Mormont wants to be able to send news back to the Wall, (which by the way shows great military sense and a good plan on priorities), so he needs someone to take care of the ravens. Hmmm... blind Maester or fat boy? Close call, but Mormont choose the fat boy. Hence Sam's one job and sole reason to be on the big adventure ranging north of the Wall: Send ravens. Of course, Sam failed. Poor Sam. Meanwhile considering all the frozen blood on Mormonts face and his fellow Nightswatch it looks as though they had quite the night of fighting.

(As an aside, Sam fails in the books too. He gets Ravens off but forgets to attach a message. I like that a little bit better than the show... Sam is trying to do the right thing but is incompetent because he is so terrified. But it's very similar to the book at the end of the day).

And the other "big complaint scene"

How Roose Bolten comes to be at Harrenhal, 200 dead Northmen when Robb et al arive, but how do all those Northmen get to be there?

From a different poster:

For me the scene at Harrenhal was not confusing at all. Robb decided against an attack on Casterly Rock and for a showdown with Tywins forces, last known to be at Harrenhal. But Tywin went to Kings Landing to fight Stannis instead and left only the Mountain and a small force behind. When the Mountain learned that the Northern army is approaching he killed all prisoners (from Riverlands and from Robbs auxiliary forces) and ran.

So it's pretty clear that everything an unspoiled viewer needs to "get" what is going on is there. Could it have been spelled out a little more clearly? Surely, although the line between "telling the viewer everything in explicit detail" and "leaving too much work for the viewer to do" is a fine line.

[Independent George]

The issue with Sam, though, isn't about the fact that the ravens were his job, but about how he could reasonably have been expected to tend to them while he was on shit-gathering duties. He didn't fail to send the ravens here - he was ordered away from the ravens (presumably by Mormont himself), and then got dressed down publicly for failing to teleport back to the raven cages in the middle of the fight.

[Abaddon]

The issue with Sam, though, isn't about the fact that the ravens were his job, but about how he could reasonably have been expected to tend to them while he was on shit-gathering duties. He didn't fail to send the ravens here - he was ordered away from the ravens (presumably by Mormont himself), and then got dressed down publicly for failing to teleport back to the raven cages in the middle of the fight.

Seemed to me like Sam had time to leg it back up to the Ravens when he and Grenn and ... whoever that was heard the horns. And it wasn't "the middle of the night" when that happened, either.

I guess the fighters who were on shit-gathering duties couldn't be expected to do their job either. Or the ones taking a shit. Or the ones gathering cooking. Or the ones sleeping. It's surprising they got anyone to fight at all!

[Sasha Steelsong]

They also picked up on the plot hole of "How the heck was Sam supposed to send a friggin' raven?". Mormont sends their radioman on a scouting mission, and then proceeds to blame him for getting cut off during an ambush and failing to signal HQ. That's leadership.

The Unsullied discussion was classic (especially because I've been waiting for that moment since I saw them named Unsullied), but I'm glad they caught that issue because both my husband and I were like "How exactly was he supposed to send a raven when he was out gathering supplies?" - in the books it makes sense because Sam is in the camp when the Walkers arrive but on the show it was a totall WTF? moment.

[Independent George]

Seemed to me like Sam had time to leg it back up to the Ravens when he and Grenn and ... whoever that was heard the horns. And it wasn't "the middle of the night" when that happened, either.

I guess the fighters who were on shit-gathering duties couldn't be expected to do their job either. Or the ones taking a shit. Or the ones gathering cooking. Or the ones sleeping. It's surprising they got anyone to fight at all!

Fight. Middle of the fight, not night.

Any rangers sleeping, cooking, or taking a shit inside the base camp is expected to take part in the defense. A foraging party sent away from the camp can not reasonably be expected to be a part of the perimeter defense if the attack happens while they're out foraging. The battle lines stand directly between them and the base.

In order for Sam to have been in a position to send the ravens, he had to have run all the way back to base camp, through the middle of the battle, then run back out through the lines again where we catch up to him at the open.

The only way it falls on Sam is if he had never been ordered out as part of the foraging party, but instead decided to abandon his post to follow his friends out to talk about Gilly. Which I suppose is possible, but seems very unlikely.

[iheartseverus]

The only way it falls on Sam is if he had never been ordered out as part of the foraging party, but instead decided to abandon his post to follow his friends out to talk about Gilly. Which I suppose is possible, but seems very unlikely.

This was my thought, exactly! but if so, the show should have had Mormont say a few words to that effect and that would have forestalled all this WTF discussion and confusion.

[Abaddon]

Rather than derail the topic, I am just going to say that I think this is a ridiculously petty complaint and move on.

[CoolOff]

Dany loves her dragons so much I never even imagined her selling one of them. I guess an convenient solution to her problem would be to agree to sell one to the army slavemaster, have the dragon huff some flames on him when it's time to turn it over, then take possession of the guy's money and slaves. That would solve a lot of her problems in one fell swoop. And preferably she'd do it while hissing something in Valerian, like "My name isn't whore. It's Khaleesi."

Pretty much.

[AzureOwl]

Pretty much.

Edited as a precaution.

[sagaz]

I just came to quote that. It has to be a bookwalker, right?

Not necessarily. It only has to be someone smart who passes a lot of time thinking about GoT.

[Abaddon]

Bookwalker speculation is strictly forbidden in this thread. Please stop.

[iheartseverus]

Bookwalker speculation is strictly forbidden in this thread. Please stop.

Abaddon is correct. Our Mods consider it 'negative gossip' about another site to accuse anyone there of cheating, and will not allow it. Our Mods have shut this thread down before for just this reason, and we don't want the thread shut down again. Please cooperate, thanks.