Amph A Song of Ice and Fire Discussion Thread

Euron had his brother killed in the books, only a slight difference from the show. He didn't care.

As for Reese, I have no problem with him trying to kill his father, but find it hard to believe Roose would let it happen. Our that a Karstark would sit by as well. Roose is far too smart to underestimate his son, and everyone knows Reese well enough to know he's too unstable to hitch your hopes to.

 

"It is forbidden for ironborn to spill the blood of other ironborn, but drowning is acceptable by some.[7] The finger dance is a common and dangerous game played between the ironborn."

From AWOIAF.

 

Spoiler

well, if TWOW theories are true, Jon's resurrection will be MUCH more spectacular than burning some hair. I'm personally in the camp that, since Shireen and Melisandre are at Castle Black when this all goes down, that Melisa-blah-blah will burn Shireen for her king's blood to resurrect Jon. The tension in the TV scene was good. The resurrection ritual itself? Blah. I'm hoping the book will be better. And the book could convey Jon 's soul residing in Ghost's body, if that's true, much more efficiently.

 

Urron Greyiron(Redhand) seemed to disagree... and Balon did claim his actions were inspired him... "I am the Greyjoy, Lord Reaper of Pyke, King of Salt and Rock, Son of the Sea Wind, and no man gives me a crown. I pay the iron price. I will take my crown, as Urron Redhand did five thousand years ago."

I just mean the Ironborn may have some 'don't kill fellow Ironborn' rule... but when someone breaks it there doesn't seem to be many consequences to it... Urron Gryiron pulls his own dishonorable Red Wedding type action and instead of being loathed... he's seen as a good example of a true Ironborn.

 

F%^#$%#

Spoiler

It's been confirmed that Rickon is coming back this season. It looks like he very well could be the "gift" to Ramsay next week, as Osha intended to take Rickon to the Umbers, a loyal seat of the Starks. What in the hell would the Umbers give up Rickon to Ramsay Bolton??? It had better not happen, or I'll be furious beyond belief. I was so looking forward to Davos going to Skagos to find him! They'd better be combining the craftiness of the Manderlys with the Umbers. Maybe they're handing over a fake Rickon? Who knows. If it's really him and we get introduced to him and have him immediately, sadistically killed off, I will be royally furious

 

Spoiler

They give him fake Arya Rickon to wed shed skin and it turns out... he's Mance!

 

I'm more excited for the Tower of Joy finally being shown on screen. That's something we've all been waiting five years to see!

 

At this point I much prefer the vagueness in the books. I wish the show had done a Tower of Joy at the appropriate moment-- when Ned was unconscious and full of opium. It wouldn't even have had to be an actual scene; voiceovers would have sufficed. But that's an opportunity long gone, and the show is a shadow of what it was in season 1 (though that probably was just the strength of the book material for the most part).

 

So, the Tower of Joy bit this week was a total red-herring -- also, I'm possibly not remembering correctly, but wasn't the battle with Arthur Dayne pitched and ending up stairs and right outside of where they found Lyanna? The show's version was... surprisingly low-budget.

Also...

Spoiler

Yes, Rickon's been delivered to Ramsay as a gift from the Umbers...

 

Spoiler

Miriedis is going to go Hulk-mode on D&D

 

Who knew Darth Maul would show up in this week's episode.

 

THIS
IN NO WAY
WILL HAPPEN
IN
THE
F$&*@$*%$
BOOKS

 

Nope. Showruners fully admit it's an alternate universe fanfic now, will be completely different from books from now on..
“People are talking about whether the books are going to be spoiled – and it’s really not true,” Benioff told EW. “So much of what we’re doing diverges from the books at this point. And while there are certain key elements that will be the same, we’re not going to talk so much about that – and I don’t think George is either. People are going to be very surprised when they read the books after the show. They’re quite divergent in so many respects for the remainder of the show.”
“What makes the books so great is that George doesn’t make meticulous blueprints for every beat of this story and then fill in the blanks dutifully going from A to B to C, fleshing out an outline,” Weiss added. “At a certain point, we realized we were going to outpace the books and we kind of choose to see it as a great thing on both sides – there’s this amazing world George has created and now there are two different versions, and there’s no reason we can see why you can’t be thrilled and surprised and dismayed by both of these different versions of this world.”
Just view it as that, a horrible AU fanfic and it becomes... well not bearable, but... livable...

 

We were right. Holy crap, we were right...it's just fanfiction written by men with the minds of hormone-addled teenagers that just want to watch the world burn

Because how dare we want a faithful adaptation?!

 

I have a friend who every week says how BRILLIANT the writing is and how AMAZING the show is. I just... I can't fathom that...

My worst fear is D&D will have made Martin change his plan for the books to match THEIR vision or he dies and they decide to finish the books...

 

YOU BETCHA SONNY BOY

 

Only one thing I seriously enjoyed: Ser Arthur Dayne
Duel-wielding those swords like a freaking Jedi
Beautiful
Just as badass as I hoped
And that joy lasted for...oh...three minutes
but whatever

 

Oh crap, I forgot that Dayne had a greatsword! I'll still enjoy the fight scene because it looked cool but dang it, now it's messed up for me

 

Meh. Tower of Joy scene was OK, not great. Ser Arthur Dayne was actually pretty good until he turned into Sensei Arthur Dayne.
Incidentally, and correct me if I'm wrong, but are Dayne and the other Kingsguard knight wearing their white cloaks at the start of the scene? Presumably they threw them off for the fight - so they weren't travelling incognito after all (which was speculated upon when the trailers came out).

As per usual, nothing too offensively stupid overall, but I've had enough of filler scenes created for the show where nothing happens at all. Remember Tyrion and Jaime talking about 'Orson Lannister' (Gunk gunk gunk kill the beetles) in S4? This time it was what seemed like half an hour of Tyrion talking to Grey Worm and Missandei about how they should talk about something. Then that silly scene between the High Sparrow and Tommen. Come on.

Wasn't all bad - Varys is always good value, Arya's storyline is continuing well, as is Jon's. Rickon and Osha are back, that could go either way.

One nerdy gripe over a specific detail - Bran says the Three-Eyed Raven/Bloodraven has been inside the tree for a thousand years, and Bloodraven doesn't dispute this at all. Brynden Rivers was born roughly 150 years before the events of ASOIAF, was the Hand of the King 90 years earlier, and disappeared on a ranging beyond the Wall after having been banished to the Night's Watch by King Aegon V, then rising to the position of Lord Commander. He's probably been in that tree for about 50-60 years max, not a thousand.
Oh, whatever. They're not going to pursue the character that deeply in the show, even if the books do.

I thought S6 might be more fun without having an instalment of ASOIAF I'm constantly comparing it to, but it's actually just annoying trying to second-guess what's been made up by the showrunners and what's based upon GRRM's plans.

 

Okay so this is a MAJOR
UNCONFIRMED
RUMOR
I just read so let's pray it doesn't come true but this is from filming reports in Ireland oh dear god please don't let this be true--

Spoiler

so apparently Jon, Sansa, and Ramsay are going to have a big battle for Winterfell at some point, and Rickon will be murdered on the battlefield (set report showed a male child on a cross? or something? upside-down Bolton style?) by Ramsay in order to demoralize the Stark troops. Don't know anything else about it

I saw another post by a guy who claimed to be an extra on the set of the battle. Circumstances are different but:

Spoiler

Rickon is basically going to be the sacrificial lamb for the Battle to rouse the Stark anger, regardless of method, if these spoilers are correct

 

Spoiler

That really just sounds like rampant speculation, based upon a shot of a flayed body burning upside down on a Ramsay-style cross. It cropped up in spoiler shots months ago, and was included in the trailer more recently.

Until recent revelations threw a more crucial character into the mix, the prevailing theory was that it was the corpse of Stannis Baratheon. If Stannis had been elsewhere, theorists would have found someone - anyone - else, so I'm inclined to take the more recent theory with a good few grains of salt. Boba Fett was a clone of Anakin Skywalker for a long time, after all, on good authority.

That said, anything's possible, but I'm inclined to follow the Great Northern Conspiracy view of events, and I think Rickon's appearance is more likely to be a part of that than just another gruesome development. The whereabouts and welfare of Rickon and Osha are still unknown in the books, but the attempts to locate them are propelled by Stark loyalists, so one would expect that the show couldn't really go too far away from that general direction, even if the details are drastically different.

 

I had never seen this so.....

 

So, the show is Legends?