Amph A Song of Ice and Fire Discussion Thread

I can't believe Jello successfully managed a Frozen reference for GoT. It's like the most innocent thing ever to the most immoral.

 

So Olly is Brutus, Jon is Caesar. Is Dollurus Edd Marc Antony?

 

What's next, Darth Other singing "Let It Go"?

 

i hope they don't bring jon back in the show, but i'm sure they will. the show has split from the books so much already, now is the perfect time for it to just go completely its own way. it would be nice to still have no idea what is going to happen in the winds of winter when it is released in 2018.

 

Okay, let's start some other discussions. What deaths in the TV show/books moved you the most? Their characterization doesn't have to be good or bad or well-developed per se, but which ones made you choke up a little and mourn their passing?

TV Show and book:
1. Ned Stark, obviously. Not much to talk about since I knew the twist immediately (it was the event that everyone was talking about in 2011 and it got me interested in the books).
2. Maester Luwin. What a kind man. He loved the Stark children and did his best to protect them and I'm so glad he found out they survived before he passed.
3. Red Wedding. Just...the Red Wedding. I mourned a lot of the side characters that died in the books (Dacey and Smalljon, you poor things), and even though I didn't care for Talisa, I pitied her as she died. A knife wound to the womb made my skin crawl and awoke all my sympathies.
4. Yoren. You were a hard man but an honest one.
5. Oberyn. He's a complex dude we don't get too see much of, but come on, he's cool as hell and his accent is sexy. I knew it was coming but I still was sad.
Eh there are probably more but I can't think of them right now.
6. Maester Aemon, nearly forgot about him. "Egg, I dreamed that I was old." That made me tear up.

TV Show only
1. Rodrik Cassel. He died offstage in the book but the TV series showed it and my god, they made me care a lot about him. He faced his death with dignity (and insults towards Theon haha), trying to comfort the Starklings as he bent his head over the block. Good man.
2. Jojen. I cared quite a bit about Jojen for a variety of reasons, but in the books, it's implied he's seen his death in a greendream. Yet he resolved to help Bran reach the three-eyed crow and didn't try to subvert his destiny (yet if at all). A wise, good character, for all we've seen of him. I'm so mad that the TV show killed him off. I was swearing at the screen when it happened.
3. Shireen. My little Minister of Education, how could they do this to you? She's probably going to die in the books in the future, but the sweet girl deserved better.
4. Same goes for Ser Barristan the Bad@$$. Take comfort in that he's still kicking in the books, I guess.
5. Myrcella. Didn't see a lot of her on the show, but I moderately cared about her in the books. She loved her uncle Tyrion despite his deformities, was quite a clever girl (if her cyvasse playing with Trystane was any indication) and everyone said she was quite kind. I'm curious to see what's going to happen to her in the books, so I'm sad that her development will go no further in the show.

I'll think of more later. I'm going to bed.

 

Question: A few books ago Tyrion had a navy built to defend King's Landing from Stannis's fleet. Iirc, the King's Landing navy was stolen. Did we ever learn what happened to all those ships and their opportunistic crews?

 

Tyrion sacrificed most of the royal fleet in the Battle of the Blackwater. Cersei had a new fleet built in A Feast for Crows. Aurane Waters, her Master of Ships, fled with them to the Stepstones after her arrest to set himself up as a pirate.

 

Zero chance of that happening, they'd actually have to read.

 

I'm going to have to watch the episode again - perhaps it was my mood yesterday morning and the circumstances under which I watched it (potentially running late for work after three days of night shift), but I really enjoyed it, thanks to Arya's, Cersei's and Jon's scenes.
Cersei's walk of shame was far grimmer than I expected - I was expecting something a bit more raucous and cartoonish, but the slow pacing, the restrained direction and that eerie version of the Rains of Castamere really did it justice, and it was extremely faithful to the book.
Arya's scenes were suitably creepy and horrifying - all the scenes in the House of Black and White have been dealt with really well, IMHO.

Spoiler

In terms of adapting elements of the 'Mercy' preview chapter from WoW for TV, I think they did quite nicely with something so literary.

Jon's assassination - OK, it's not exactly as it happened in the books, but there was something about the simplicity of the scene which made it work, and using that little tease about Benjen in the 'Previously On', something that we all suddenly wondered about, just as a simple plot device, actually didn't seem like a cheap trick, so much as a cruel joke, which fit, somehow. There was something about that sudden shot of the wooden sign saying 'TRAITOR' which reminded me of the beautifully grotesque way in which the Red Wedding was dealt with in Season 3 (same director, FWIW).

But, of course, there was also plenty of junk in that sixty minutes. The Winterfell/Stannis/Brienne plotline I can't get my head around, maybe it'll come good, somehow.

And after all the pre-season hype about the locations and new characters, Dorne has been an utter disaster from start to finish, topped off with that moronic scene between Jaime and Myrcella. Seriously? Hell, the way the scene was being played until the nosebleed, I half expected Myrcella to put the moves on her father-uncle. Myrcella being poisoned by Ellaria was telegraphed well in advance, as ham-fistedly as everything to do with the Dornish plotline has been handled. Then, despite Dorne being a major part of the story to come in the books, the final scene of Ellaria poisoning herself almost came across as some sort of lame closure to Dorne's vengeance upon the Lannisters. I don't think we'll be seeing them again in the show. What a waste.

Oh well. Here's hoping the next new material we get about Westeros will be in print form. I'm not sure how well a season of GoT would go down with ASOIAF fans if the show is almost completely venturing into unseen territory, even if it's based on material provided by GRRM. Stuff 'spoiling', it'll just be confusing - largely about what to hate

 

The Dorne plot in the book was boring to me too, until the twist at the end when Doran revealed his plans regarding Daenerys. But even that would have been better than the garbage we got with Jaime, Bronn and Tyene. At least we got to care a little bit about Arys Oakheart before he stupidly got himself killed.

 

I'm more pissed at the Dorne plotline for wasting Alexander Siddig!

 

Yeah he barely appears this season. WTH?

 

At least we know why he was in a wheelchair. He injured himself during a particularly vicious game of racquetball with Chief O'Brien.

 

Does the show ever mention that he has gout?

 

No, they either sort of went with Genius Cripple or Handicapped Badass without mentioning the gout.

 

All I can recall is a snide remark from Ellaria about he can't walk because he has no spine. Up until then, I wasn't even sure if he was meant to be in any way infirm.

 

I think Doran's gout was mentioned last season, when Tyrion met the Dornish entourage.

 

Is there any chance the next book could be published before season 6 starts ?

 

Yes, though I don't know how likely that is. GRRM said he wants it out before season 6, but I don't think he specified how much he has left to do.

 

No. There is no chance further books will be finished at all. They will probably publish the partial manuscript of Winds of Winter at some point, along with notes about how the books unwritten portions were supposed to have went.

 

WoW will be out at some point. I'm not confident about the last book.