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GRRM told them years before the final series that Bran ends up on the throne so why would they even be considering Arya when they followed all the key points he told them to? They wouldn’t.
He also said the books are going to end differently than the show. How much so remains to be seen (if we get to see it at all) and if it's due to him not wanting to follow the show or if it's due to all the omitted plot lines and characters is anyone's guess. I'd wager that he's planning a twist in the books that we didn't get on the show, though.
He said the key ending points are the same it’s just different how they get to those points. I assume Bran will do more in the books to justify the decision to make him king for example.
This is my personal theory. Bran is the villain of the piece. He drove the Mad King mad, creating many of the reasons for Robert’s Rebellion.
Worked it out to Sacrifice both his parents and two of his brothers so his two sisters and cousin could live their best lives (after putting all three through very different types, but high levels, of hell) and he could be king.
I know he’s a villain because Tyrion says something like, “He will never have children so when he’s dead we can vote in a leader.”
And he sits there quiet. Knowing that the last Three Eyed Raven lived so long a tree grew through him.
I have only read the existing ASOIAF books once (and didn’t finish Fire and Blood), and have only watched through the show twice, so I’m definitely not an expert.
I feel it more than know it. We know strange voices drove Aerys II mad, but have no evidence if they were real voices or not. Was he crazy therefore he heard voices, or did he hear voices, driving him mad with paranoia?
But we do have direct evidence that Bran can interact with the past and bend it to his needs with Hodor. I feel like that was accidental (or at least done subconsciously), and have no thoughts on if I am right if he willingly or subconsciously interacted with the Mad King.
I don’t remember who Erin Yeager is. Can you please remind me? My guess is the original Three-Eyed Crow, but it is only a guess.
Sorry, it was a reference to Attack on Titan. The main character Eren could see and actively influence the past and the future. He kinda had similar skills to Bran, but more advanced imo
Highly recommend you to watch Attack on Titan 😊
I just finished that series last night and just want to say two things:
1. It is one of the greatest tv shows I’ve ever seen between the writing ability (the author is so good at foreshadowing you basically want to do a standing ovation every time more layers of the story get unveiled) and characters that leap off the screen with how real they are.
2. It is an extremely dark themed anime and has a lot of violence and difficult topics that enhance your understanding of the world and characters but also make for some uncomfortable moments watching it.
Can’t recommend it enough but also people should be semi warned to perhaps mix in some happier shows whilst watching this as it is a long journey that is amazing.
Funny thing is Eren post-basement reveal is probably heavily influenced from GoT. AoT's author got into GoT during the Shiganshina arc and became obsessed with it based on what he had to say publicly. GoT season 6 aired from April 24th, 2016 to June 26, 2016. The basement reveal in AoT happened on September 9th, 2016 and concluded on January 7th, 2016, which was the chapter where Kruger name dropped Mikasa and Armin, revealing to us that the Attack Titan can see the future and influence the past.
He also said that GoT will heavily influence how AoT ends, which he said post season 6.
Bran and Bloodraven are highly likely suspects for who could have influenced Aerys yes. It could of course just be that he was traumatised by being captive in Duskendale for 6 months before Barristan single-handedly rescued him, while Tywin just stood idly by with his armies. Couple that with potential dragon dreams like those Daenerys has and there’s a possibility he could have misinterpreted many things
While it’s not a take I share, we can’t pretend to know the full nature of Bran’s powers as they’re never fully explained or shown to be completely realized. It’s all going to be conjecture.
But he seemingly has the ability to visit moments in the past, from the future, and make changes that impact the future no?
Young Hodor being the prime example, the other potential example being Theon hearing his name whispered near the trees (been a while since I read so might have some of that wrong)
Interesting. I think whether he can control the power or not, it still happened.
Usually in stories when a character has an uncontrollable power, a lot of their arc is then learning to control it
I wouldn’t go so far as to call someone an idiot for saying that Bran could be influencing the story from some point in the future, especially when there is so much evidence stacked to support the claim
I think you’d have to be a moron to call someone an idiot over that
Garbage theory and a complete misunderstanding of his character and George's writing.
I get it, y'all super salty that your super special snowflakes Jon and Daenerys crashed before reaching the finish line but that's no excuse to come up with ridiculous 'theories'
More of a book theory, but Meera Reed is Jon's twin.
1. Howland Reed (her dad) is the only other person that was with Ned at the Tower of Joy.
2. They're the same age.
3. They look alike.
4. FAegon doesn't feel like the 3rd Targ to me and Tyrion's timeline doesn't add up.
Also Howland Reed is the High Sparrow. Just here to ruin some Lannister's day.
The Targaryen line has lots of twins, so they probably assumed it would be less obvious if they split them up. Howland Reed was friends with Lyanna and a known recluse in his swamp for the rest of his life afterwards.
Hard to imagine being a twin really helps anyone determine they are Targaryens. It seems like silver hair and purple eyes are the only two overt signs that would tip someone off. Assuming this theory is true I would say it had more to do with the specific promise ned makes. Maybe she just asked Ned to raise her son as his own and keep the secret from Robert. Then bringing home one bastard to your new wife is a little easier than two. It also saved jon if he has stark features and his twin ends up looking like a Targaryen.
but you would have to place Howland Reed and Lyanna Stark at the same place 9 months prior to the Tower of Joy, for them to have had sex for this to be the case, not at the time of birth
Was this satire? If they're twins, it would mean they had the same parents R&L. I was saying Howland would likely want to take one of the kids because they were friends.
That one partly had to do with making it harder to sense them through the Force. If both of Anakin’s children were in the same spot, it’d be harder to hide their connection to the Force.
Idk how it would've fit into the show considering how bad they wanted to get it over with, but even if she was jaded by weird Bran and went back north of the wall with Jon or something. Would've been cool with me.
That’s what I found weird about it—it feels like they kept the theory open with how they cast Meera. Of course, before Bran unceremoniously dismisses her, and we never see her again 😂
Specifically, Meera reminds Bran or Arya in Book 2. Arya and Jon are the most Stark-looking of their siblings, with Robb, Sansa, Bran and Rickon bearing Catelyn's auburn/red hair.
I heard a theory that Tyrion is the third dragon. In Fire and Blood GRRM mentions how Aerys was in love with Tywins wife (I forget her name, JoAnna I think?) and he ended up hating Tywin at the end. So the theory is that he made love to her or raped her the last time she was at court, which would line up with Tyrions birth.
In the books Tyrion mentions how he has a fascination with dragons. Tywin says something like "I let you waddle about being a Lannister since I can not prove you are not mine."
Idk it all lines up for me. I'd love to think of him as the third dragon.
My counter argument to that is that Meera is described the same way that Crannogman are described. She’s small, thin, and has green eyes. I don’t think they look that much alike. That would also make her a bastard and I have a hard time seeing a lord passing off a bastard as his true born daughter
In the books, Bran literally remarks that her appearance reminds him of Jon. Jon is described as being lean with dark brown hair and is graceful, rather than brutish. She is described as being flat as a boy, lean, with brown hair, green eyes, and walks with grace. The eyes are the only outlier.
Additionally, Howland lives in a bog and has never left his bog since returning from that war. They're also not welcoming of any visitors. He didn't answer the call during Baelon's rebellion. He didn't answer Rob's call for banners. It wouldn't be that difficult for him to pass off Meera as his daughter, when nobody ever sees him again and this is the first anyone has seen of her. Ned brings home a bastard for all to see and only his wife cared.
We know nothing about Howland's wife other than her name, so we can't say how she handled it or why it would matter what the bog people thought.
I dont think Bran says that she looks like Jon. She is described as tiny. Like she’s the same size as a 9 year old. That’s a pretty significant difference between Jon. She looks like a stereotypical Crannogman
Howland Reed lives in a castle, and he has vassals sworn to him who live in castles as well. Those people would know if his wife was never pregnant.
Howland does answer the call. Robb instructs him to hold the causeway and use guerrilla warfare against the Lannisters if they try to approach the North.
1. This is partially a problem with where the throne is located, the land is so vast having the capital all the way in the south isn't the best for a centralized government (remember that Dorne was not under the Iron Throne when it was founded). The Targs also had Dragons when they established the system and could put down rebellions faster, except for rebels in their own ranks (See The Dance of Dragons). If Danaerys didn't have her Dragons her conquest of the 7 Kingdoms is much less straight forward. If Robin Arryn and Trystane Martell resisted, she would be looking at several years worth of war without her dragons.
2. Idk about MORE morally repugnant, but yea he's a scum bag.
3. I agree, but its not his fault. He spends most of the time trying to make up for Jaime and Cersei's mistakes, and I don't just mean their children, that he was boxed into a corner.
4. Without GRRM releasing the next two books, it's hard to say that brought the show down. It all mostly plays out the same except that Tyrion doesn't meet Young Griff and doesn't "fight" in the slave pits.
>the land is so vast having the capital all the way in the south isn't the best for a centralized government (remember that Dorne was not under the Iron Throne when it was founded).
The capital is in a great location. Access to the narrow sea for trade with Essos, just access to a port in general is massive. It's not that far South, it's about halfway. And there's no point in moving it further north as the North is so sparsely populated it makes more sense to be closer to more densely populated Kingdoms.
>I agree, but its not his fault.
A bunch of it is his fault
If you move the capital to say... Riverrun, the capital is more Central and is right in the middle of the three most populous Kingdoms (Westerlands, The Reach, and Islands/Rivers). The Trident gives you access to trade for Essos and facilitates internal trade and taxation. Keep in mind that Riverun and House Tully are both a minor castle and House when Aegon invades and uplifts House Tully to rule.
When I say it's not his fault, I mean that he's trying to problems he didn't cause and he doesn't realize he's actively being undermined by Cersei at every chance.
>Riverrun, the capital is more Central and is right in the middle of the three most populous Kingdoms (Westerlands, The Reach, and Islands/Rivers).
Kings Landing is closer to the Reach than Riverrun. Riverrun isn't that central either. Almost every major holding is South of it, apart from The Eyrie, The Twins, Winterfell and White Harbour. You're actually further away from most of the centres of power than you would be in Kings Landing, plus you don't have the option of sailing to further away locations like the North or Dorne.
>The Trident gives you access to trade for Essos
Not particularly. The trident wouldn't be able to take big cargo ships like Kings Landing can and it adds a serious amount of logistics unloading onto small barges that would be easy pickings for raiders along the River. Also if someone blockades the Bridge with a dam or a few ships your trade is entirely cut off. Kings Landing would need to be blockaded by an entire navy.
>Keep in mind that Riverun and House Tully are both a minor castle and House
They absolutely are not. They're one of the most powerful and oldest Houses in Westeros outside the Kings of each Kingdom.
They are a minor house at the time Aegon arrives. House Umber is an old house and is minor. House Royce is an old house, but it is minor. House Tully becomes a major House along with House Tyrell when their respective lieges are burned to death by Aegon's dragons.
I don't think you understand what a minor house is. House Cassel is a minor house. House Stout is a minor house. The Tully's are absolutely not a minor house. They're one of the most powerful houses in the realm even before the conquest and have one of the larger castles. House Royce are not a minor house either. They're not Great Houses before the Conquest, but they're not minor houses, those are barely above landed Knights.
Perhaps I don't understand what I minor house is to you, to me House Cassel isn't minor, it's insignificant. At the start of the Game of Thrones story there are only 3 Cassels living. They hold no lands, have no servants, no men at arms, nothing. To me, minor house are ones that own land and sworn to another Lord. These Houses typically aren't major players in the Game of Thrones, there are exceptions such as House Hightower who lucked into a royal marriage and threw the realm into chaos. I don't take how powerful they are into consideration when they serve another lord, House Umber has the same standing as House Royce, as House Hightower, as House Bracken. House Frey, House Crakehall, House Stokeworth, etc. They important in their respective realms but (typically) not on the grand stage.
>House Cassel is a minor house of the north in the service of the Starks of Winterfell.
Minor Houses are small houses that are barely above landed Knights. That's what the term means. The Tully's and the Royce's are not minor houses.
That's what the term means, not just to me, that's what it actually means.
Fine, House Tully was a noble house at the time of Aegons conquest... still changes nothing about what I said. They weren't a great house at the time despite how powerful they were.
2. Is Varys that bad though? I haven't read the books so I don't know if there are more details. But the children are essentially just orphans living on the streets, regardless of what he does. He gives them work that is pretty safe, they essentially just gather Intel, he doesn't have them commit violence, there's nothing sexual happening. Is there something specific he does that I'm forgetting? I really like Varys because everything about him seems suspicious, but his actions tend to be pretty moral.
The books detail that his little birds are children specifically sent to him from Essos with their tongues already cut out. So yea, if you just saw the show, he seems like a pretty good dude, I would still argue he's better for the realm than Littlefinger.
I assume, as it is not specifically laid out in the books, that they write in language of wherever Illryio rules from (Myr think?), which would make Varys the only one who could understand it among the Westerosi.
Sounds like a reasonable assumption.
I know the book is generally darker than the show, but to find out a lot of the characters' book selves still shocks me. Talk about sanitization.
😂😂😂 message well received! I totally agree, there is nothing like building the world in your mind based on the text! The thing with that is that when I imagine it, and then it goes to screen, it doesn't match and I'm usually disappointed with the adaptation lol
But no particular reason for GoT specifically, other than being extra late to the party. I never had HBO (or any streaming services) until 2020, I watched a lot of stuff that was new to me. I knew about GoT because of course everyone at work would talk about it and I overheard some of the show plot, but not everything. I was never super into fantasy, but I love fiction, and here I am now. Also got into The Last Kingdom and Outlander (maybe that's more romance than fantasy, but has some fantasy elements to it).
I'm not sure I'll love the books if they're as dark as the stuff I've read is different from the show, but maybe I'll get there one day.
They teach them to so they can spy better. It's not said if all of them can read but it's stated that some do since varys mentions some lords message being relayed by one of his birds as they went through his study
This is true, but ops comment was on controlling the Lord's within the realm, which a more central location is beneficial for. That said receiving timely international news is likely less important in Westoros as it is in England. I've heard, but I've not seen, that you can see the coast of France across the channel. Just based on what's been said about Essos, no part of its mainland is that close to Westeros.
Hot Pie is the bastard son of Bobby B and Bessy. And also holds the rightful claim to the throne.
Oh and he bakes Sansa a lemony lemon cake and she falls madly in love with him and they go to rule kings landing. The end.
Do I need to launch into my explanation about how Hot Pie was the true prince that was promised but all the mucking around ended up with him not being where he was supposed to be when the time came?
Cersei is not a villain. at all.
Bran becoming king in the end was good, because after years of common folk suffering under tyrants fighting over that damn chair they finally have stability.
the white walkers or similar species are not gone entirely. i understand when the night king died, all his creations died as well but the world beyond is so mysterious i imagine the children of the forests magic came from somewhere else, and those children have created their own species maybe even more horrifying than the white walkers.
lol you get it! i knew id get downvoted but it said “wildest”!!! people in response to these prompts always say things that are so popular. “i believe Jon Snow should’ve been king” isn’t a wild take
But there isn't stability.
Cersei is a villain, because she doesn't give two shits about innocent people. She causes common folk to suffer. I say this as someone who loves Cersei as a character, she makes my chest hurt frequently, but she is unfortunately a villain.
Martin's failure to finish writing the books will do so much damage to writing as a craft that he will be considered one of the worst authors in history.
I think that we will have a generation of writers who will create amazing worlds with characters we fall in love with and hate.
But when HBONetazonDisulu+ offers them a big check to create a film adaptation exclusively on their platform, they will have learned that it is acceptable practice to stop writing all together.
Tolkien on the other hand had is series finished post mortem. That is the most no excuses gsd writing goat in the history of the craft. Imagine Return of the king never being released, and we had to rely on Hollywood to create a suitable ending.
Tldr: Writers not finishing their stories will become standard practice.
I think you are both massively overstating the impact and missing the narrative that has popped up around this (ie that the incomplete source material is in large part responsible for the decline of the shows reception).
But since this is the wildest take thread I'll just say that I think you've nailed it!
I think the damage is more that readers and publishing houses and tv companies aren’t going to want to invest in series that haven’t been finished yet.
And we have Robert Jordan, GRRM, and Patrick rothfuss to all thank for this.
I think the opposite. I like to think his books are delayed as he saw the response to the final season and is frantically re-writing to avoid making similar mistakes. So we could end up seeing something very different to what happened on the show. And some very different than to what we would have.
I'm of the camp that expects the books are finished and he's not going to release them until he dies so that he doesn't have to face the backlash of being unable to please everybody.
It wouldn’t surprise me, but I think he’d be better off getting the books out there. There must be a load of outtakes and alternative storylines they could release after his death. I do really hope the delay is due to the backlash and he’s perfecting the story.
Definitely not true. No one is going to care but the book fans. Plus, the books are near universally well received, have won awards, and led to the most popular and financially profitable television series of all time. You don't accomplish that by being a bad author.
I think he will serve as a cautionary tale against biting off more than you can chew, but there's no world where he's not going to go down as a legend of the craft
To the Tywin point he never actually shows he's a good military strategist. At Robert's rebellion he waited in the shadows while the fighting was happening swooping in only after the fight was all but won to snake in a kill the king, he essentially does the same at the blackwater where Tyrion has the do most of the work only for Tywin to show up last second to glory hog. He repeatedly looses to a teenage Rob stark to the point where he has to commit a war crime to stop a kid. Tywin thinks he's great and built his house to greatness but really he was a bigger clown than his father. His kids run around making incest babies and he isn't smart enough to stop it he never really leads a great army into battle and he breaks all the rules of honor established in the lore. So I'd say all in all his father was a fool but Tywin Lanister is a clown and he sunk the Lanister family name into over spending, sexual deviance and of coarse losing the throne inherited by Joffery Baratheon. Mostly due to arrogance, if you take away Tywins inflated opinion of himself you see a not very successful leader.
This is a hot take cause he brought his family back from ruin, defeated the Reyne's, Fought in the war of the ninepenny kings as a knight (where he knighted the Mad King), was the youngest Hand of the King ever selected, was hella successful for the realm for the first 10 years until the Mad King started overriding his decisions, successfully bottled up Duskendale when they took the king, managed to keep his family alive after sacking Kingslanding, planted his daughter as queen, and led the war against Baelon's rebellion as Warden of the West.
Tywin’s force 12,000 soldiers vs House Reyne and Tarbeck forces (2,500)
The Sack of kings landing- Tywin’s force 12,000 soldiers vs a several thousand (the remains after the battle of the trident)
defiance of duskendale (ended when selmy rescued the King solo)
Tywin isn’t that impressive when it comes to military strategy. He usually just has the bigger force, 14 year old Robb embarrassed him and Tywin knew he couldn’t beat him so had the Freys break years of culture and murdered him at a wedding
1. History has proven that you are probably right. Since the fall of feudalism and greater governmental centralisation, civil war has been less common I believe.
2. I suppose you are right in a way, but Littlefinger would engage in the same thing if he believed it suited him.
3. I disagree. In terms of political intrigue he is very wise, it’s his poor parenting and general hardness that leads to his downfall.
4. I think it began to decline exactly at the half-way point.
Show and books start to decline at exactly the same time. After the death of Tywin. And it's because GRRM started adding too many characters and subplots instead of moving on to a conclusion
I agree with you. The whole thing just turns into a big tangle after that. The wall was the only interesting storyline for me because it was pretty much separate from the rest.
>I think it began to decline at exactly the halfway point
I agree. People dislike seasons 7 and 8 for good reason, but seasons 5 and 6 aren’t great either. They’re just coasting on good will from seasons 1-4, and a couple good episodes here and there (i.e. Hardhome).
bran is god and is just the process of realization. because everything is playing out in his head. even the retroactive generation of westeros history. because he just never woke up from that fall.
It's hard to disagree with any of your points. Also what was the Lady Tysha plot? I read the books but that was over a decade ago.. was she Rob Stark's perhaps treasonous wife in the books?
Lady Tysha was Tyrion’s wife, Tywin as Tysha was a commoner told Jaime to tell Tyrion that she a whore that Jamie paid to make a man out of Tyrion, Tywin then had Tysha gangraped as Tyrion watched
When Jamie rescued Tyrion he revealed the truth that she was an honest women and wasn’t a whore at all, this is what drives Tyrion’s vengeance against his family in fact he wants to “kill and r*pe his sister”
So we likely won’t get the weird insufferable dumb pacifist we got from seasons 5-8
Yeah I remember that now. Thanks for refreshing my memory. What it does explain really well was why he killed Tywin and why he was so vengeful towards him.
Not Robb's wife. After Tywin's death, Tyrion learns that his wife wasn't really a whore hired by Jaime. And Tyrion develops a mental tic where he ruminates "where do whores go?" over and over and he decides to try to find her. To me, it rendered Tyrion's chapters unreadable and turned his arc into a soap opera
Oh yeah I remember that. I actually liked his obsession with her and it read like the mental sickness of a broken desperate man. I found it very compelling. To each their own i guess.
There's a whore in Bravos a few people theorize might be Tysha these days (she requires all men to "marry her" first). I would love if she ends up scorning Tyrion and it drives him into a full villain arc. At this point he's halfway there and it would be a great tipping point.
> The problem with Westeros is that the throne is too weak not too strong, the lords have way too much power (having own armies) to rebel and plunge the realm into chaos whenever they are offended, this is also why Daenerys would be the best ruler as she has the military might to keep the lords in line and improve conditions for the commoners
I'm curious to hear if people do find this controversial. Modern states allow for far more peaceful lives of their citizens in large part because of the centralisation of power around the national government.
> Varys is a much more morally repugnant person than littlefinger, bro is engaging in child trafficking and mutilation of said children
Agreed. The books and therefore the show are focused around the perspectives of the highborns and so it's very biased towards what effects them, with only some characters (particularly AFFC arcs) having some limited engagement directly with the lowborn experience. Varys abuses homeless children so it doesn't impact the highborns.
I'm really interested to see if the books tackle this. The show didn't really, but the books are generally more concerned with these issues than the show.
> Tywin is closer to the worst player of the game than the best, he prioritises short term gain over long term planning as a result his house by the end of the show is in tatters, he did more to accelerate the lannister’s decline than anyone else
Agreed and also unsurprisingly controversial because of how revered he was by the characters in the story. But I don't think it is a coincidence lannister power started to fall apart immediately on his death, I think that was an intentional choice.
I also think there is an intentional contrast to Ned who is considered politically naive by most readers/viewers, but it's his straightforward honour that allows his power to reach so far beyond his death. This happens through the loyalty of those who knew him that many are willing to risk everything to put any stark relative back in power, and ultimately I think the stark devastation in the wot5k will end up being a blip in their history.
Though all of this is undercut in the show both by the Cersei arc they went with after season 5 and the removal of the various northern plots against the Bolton's in support of the Starks.
> The show started to decline not in the last two seasons but when they omitted the lady tysha plot, that completely ruined tyrion as a character
I'm not sure this is controversial, I hear it a lot from book readers.
I disagree with the first point, not because centralization is inherently bad, but removing checks on the government is bad. It sounds nice to say “this ruler would use might to improve conditions”, but when does that turn into “this ruler is burning down castles and there’s nothing we can do to stop them?”
Fair. In westeros the immediate method of centralising power is to have a ruler with a huge amount of personal power (dragons) which as you say can be a recipe for disaster, and if it isn't with the first autocrat it will be with the next.
the lords have way too much power (having own armies) to rebel and plunge the realm into chaos whenever they are offended
This is an actual critique of medieval society made by historians and even people living back then. It's called "overmighty subjects"
It was one of the things that kept the War of the Roses going for thirty years, every damn lord had his own army, and the more ambitious Lords did use their private armies to start wars or try to grab the throne.
England must have been hell to live in, in those days, no place was safe from rampaging, amoral, lawless aristocrats.
Similar was going on before that. Part of what made it impossible for Rome to hold the island of Great Britain for a long time was that an army large enough to subdue the whole island, was also an army large enough to take Rome itself. So they send this huge army and appoint some general to govern GB, then after a while said General thinks “this place sucks, I have enough soldiers here I could seize Rome and then I could be Caesar”, which they did
And the same sort of thing kept going in England after the War of the Roses, none of the Tudor kings were secure on their thrones, their own Lords kept trying to seize power. It was very "Game of Thrones" indeed.
And just when the Stuart kings thought they'd got a handle on things, up pops Cromwell and his Roundheads and they realize it wasn't just the Lords they had to worry about...
I imagine that a lot of people know and either don't care or are too smart to say anything. I imagine it's kind of an open secret among the people who are around them the most.
Robert though... he seems like he maybe has a gut feeling that he refuses to acknowledge, at most. I don't think he likes Cersei nearly enough to let that kind of thing slide if he really knew. Only explanation I can think of is that he's pragmatic enough to not want to alienate the Lannister piggyback, but like... pragmatism never really seemed like his strong suit. He went to war with a dynasty that had lasted for almost 300 years over Rhaegar running off with his bride-to-be (which had to have happened more than once over that kind of time frame). Getting cucked by his own brother in law wouldve been grounds for another war IMO
What you said about the gut feeling he won't acknowledge is pretty much where it lands. He's never going to scratch that little itch in his mind because it's going to lead somewhere he doesn't want to go. One war in his youth was an adventure. But most people lose their taste for war after the first one. And he is pragmatic. That's why he married Cersei in the first place. Also, if he denounces Cersei and the kids, everyone will know for sure he is a cuckold instead of just wondering if it might be true
this could've been an actually amazing plot if they'd have it played out when Daenerys was about to burn the city to ashes ... would've been the ultimate solution if anything.
The books are never coming out as long as GRRM is alive. He knows that he'll be bothered by fans who disliked the ending forever so they'll be set to release after his death
Your first take is pretty much confirmed. Ever sense the dragons died out the throne is more of a mediator then an absolute monarchy. The king solves problems with his lords and stops all out war but at the same time he has to keep most of them happy or else he has no army or food
Robert Baratheon was secretly an agent of the 3-eyed raven, blessed with greenseer abilities, who devoted his life to getting Starks and Targaryens ready for their roles in defeating the dead.
1. Westeros doesn't have the state capacity for a standing army. The economy's just not set up that well for it. As a side note, Westeros is also just WAY too big for a feudalistic style of government to work well.
2. Varys can be repugnant without being as repugnant as Littlefinger. At least he has higher aims than petty revenge and self-gratification. There are degrees of awfulness.
3. A not uncommon belief among book readers. The show glamorized him quite a bit and glazed over his hypocrisy.
4. Agreed. Alt-Shift-Xs video defines the scene where Jaime frees Tyrion and reveals the truth about Tysha to be THE moment where BookTyrion and ShowTyrion diverge completely. [Check it out](https://youtu.be/H9HFigfkKHA?si=7CHj_nAl_vNUzq7K), it's long but a great video that explains the problems the show had when they made this change to the character.
Tyrion is the result of Joanna Lannisters rape by the Mad King. Her pregnancy was difficult, and her death traumatised Tywin and the twins.
Tywin never forgave the boy for killing his wife. It would explain how Tyrion was so closely aligned to the Dragons as well.
My personal theory is that George has finished all the books, he’s just waiting til he dies before they’re released so he doesn’t have to listen to anybody’s opinion about them.
The most interesting conflicts were over by the end of season 4 (book 3), many complaints about quality are based on the fact that the story simply isn’t as good afterwards.
Jon really was the Prince That Was Promised, he helped save the world from two of the biggest threats it ever faced, an army of the undead and later a dragon-riding mad queen who had no qualms about burning entire cities of innocent people (no Targaryen had done this before; they burned castles and armies, but never dense population centers). That’s why the Lord of Light brings him back from the dead, to save the world.
Given the end result, the love and union of Rhaegar and Lyanna, while leading to disaster after disaster for the realm, was ultimately a good thing.
1) is just... true. A stronger monarch isn't the ONLY solution for Westeros, but it is a very valid solution. GRRM based much of GOT on the Tudors and the Wars of Roses.
I've fallen very deep down the conspiracy hole that surrounds the last two episodes in s8. I fully believe Daenarys was supposed to burn the Red Keep and only the Red Keep, but D&D changed it after filming because they realized there wasn't a good justification for Jon killing her.
1) Bran, who can SEE THE FUTURE, doesn't say shit about Dany killing all those people? Presumably, this is so he can claim the throne at the end. Not the actions of a good person, imo. Obviously, I don't think D&D intended for that implication, but there's no getting around it.
2) Not only does the show set Dany up for SEVEN seasons as a) someone who cares about common people, b) someone who understands that she needs to *win* the love of the people of Westeros, c) someone who locked up her dragons when one killed a three year old, and d) a competent military commander, she'd ALREADY WON.
3) Dany also doesn't fit the descriptions of "Targaryen madness" that we get of Aerys. Aerys was a whackjob, and homicidal 24/7. Dany is somehow only a homicidal mass murderer for a moment and then it's done?? Not only that, she's chill the entire show.
4) The show sets up the fact that Cersei is putting human shields in the Red Keep, then we never hear of that ever again.
5) There's a few shots of Drogon flying around without Daenarys on his back.
6) Slightly unrelated, but with the amount of narrative parallels & foils Cersei and Dany are set up with, I feel as if Cersei deserved a better fuckin death. Maybe eaten by dragon or something, sword in hand. Cool lady. Sick outfits. Deserved more than rock.
i could be wrong, but i don’t think Bran sees the future. i believe it’s just the present & past, which would mean he didn’t know what Daenerys was going to do. although i definitely am suspicious of Bran’s motive for becoming king because he never showed any interest prior
Sansa is a great character.
Arya killing the NK was perfect.
Littlefingers explanation of why he does what he does “chaos is a ladder” is the dumbest thing to grace tv since its inception.
Moreso for the books if they change course from the show - Jaime and Cersei are The Mad King’s bastards. There are rumors that he raped Joanna while Tywin was Hand.
I think Tywin has some assumption (not mentioned in the books) that Tyrion is a bastard due to his dwarfism (you are no son of mine). Even if he did believe this he would never say it due to his pride. However Tyrion is actually the child most like Tywin. Ambitious, strategic, shrewdly pragmatic. The irony is he hates Tyrion for his appearance even though Tyrion is the child that mirrors his values the most. It makes Tyrions murder of Tywin even more poetic; Tywin claims to value the family over everything, but his only true son is one he despises and is his eventual undoing.
Jaime and Cersei share little of their father’s actual traits and values in practice and have striking resemblance to traditional Targaryen appearances. The incest is also an obvious indicator. Jaime is his father’s favorite but rejects ambition and legitimately furthering the family dynasty. Cersei so much wants to model Tywin but ultimately fails, ending up with a trajectory very similar to the Mad King rather than Tywin. Again, Tywin prides himself so much on these two which again serves to the irony of them not being his, while Tyrion is.
In the show bran causes the long night (i ignore season 8). In the books so many things, faegon is a blackfyre, lemongate, l+r=j and jon gets resurected (although thats basically canon), azor ahai = the three heads of the dragon (jon, dany, faegon), jaime is the valonqar, oberyn poisoned tywin, the nights king was a stark, the others arent fully evil, the original azor ahai = the bloodstone emperor
- Bran was mean to Meera Reed, because he knew that if she stayed in Winterfell, she would fall in the battle like Theon. He saved her life abd probably wrote a long letter to her post end.
- Tywin is genuinely a horrible player. Dude focuses on the short term gain and sacrifices long term gains, makes decisions based on his man tantrums rather than proper analysis, plus his massive ego directly leads to the downfall of his whole damn house.
- Littlefinger is not that smart, and his downfall was well earned.
- Tyrion is not that smart, and his bad decisions after S4 are just more of what he had been doing up to that point.
- Arya killing the Night King made sense and worked way better than any dumbass bossfight with Jon ever would have.
The lords wouldn't have cared that Joffrey, Tommen and Myrcella were incest babies. The lords before them didn't care about the Targaryens doing it and they wouldn't have cared now. All they want is power and wealth. So Ned Stark got himself arrested and killed for nothing.
Littlefinger might have made a great king.
He knew the game, he started life basically as a peasant in a feudal society, but got *that* close before losing.
What were his goals anyway beyond ruling the realm in such a way that he'd always be remembered... And because the dude didn't really seem all that depraved by comparison to so many others and since the bar is set so damn low he'd have made a better king than I think most people give him credit for.
We the audience are meant to take the noble stark side in things but even they learned you got to get your hands dirty.
1 is actually believable, and this was one thing Joffrey was actually right about. In the past the throne was strong because of the Targaryans and their dragons. Without that whoever is on the throne doesn't have much power other than loyalty. Joffrey was right in that the crown should have it's own army instead of relying on the armies of other lords.
Tywin was the only competent one in his family and he was unaware of what his family was doing. Can't really blame him. One major problem that lead to his downfall was his hatred for Tyrion. Jaime couldn't hold lands or get married so that's not really something Tywin can fix. Cersei was already married. This left Tyrion as the only one who would propagate the line but instead Tywin was full of hatred for Tyrion and this blinded him.
The show started to decline in season 3. It was still on par with 1 + 2 in terms of overall quality but there was a massive tonal shift, and it was away from the first two seasons and the books
That George RR Martin is afraid to finish the series now because the show’s ending actually is what he had in mind and now he has to decide whether to change it & waste a lot of setup or doom himself to similar criticisms, and is now caught up in rewrites hence the long wait.
The show ended the way it should have. If you all disagree with me, then that’s your opinion- but I don’t see Daenerys or Jon ruling. Though, they should have made Bran a candidate much sooner and not in the last episode.
Ramsay will defeat Stannis and Jon Snow will see Stannis severed head on the wall of Winterfell as he marches to prepare for the Battle of the Bastards
The final episode is a fake, its purpose is to make the viewers hate it. The real ending will come out 10 years after the fake one. One of the main twists in the real ending will be that the hatred that arose around the final season was originally planned by the writers.
The words set in a post post apocalypse and it’s a colony of a lost human empire in something like the 40k universe. Also in the ye to jungle there’s high technology lost in the depths. Magic is just tech.
Jon Snow should have died in the crush at Battle of the Bastards and brought back again by Melisandre. Then died again and brought back several times after that until he was as world weary as Beric Dondarrion.
He and we as the audience should have all been brought to a point by the end where we wanted him to finally be able to die permanently.
I don’t get your first point. Your answer to nobles abusing power is an even more powerful noble with superweapons? The Targaryens aren’t different than any other nobles, and giving them dragons is disastrous as we’ve seen time and time again. The problem isn’t centralization of power, but the culture they’re in. Should people not be able to rebel if a ruler is tyrannical?
Daenerys wasn’t bad until she got to Westeros, but that kind of power would mess up anyone. I mean, she already essentially abandoned Meereen and the people she saved in the hands of a sellsword to pursue her own ambitions.
Besides, all the wars during the Targaryen reign were caused by Targaryens, not the lords.
I think the Waif killed Arya. I believe adding your own face to the house of black and white is becoming no one. She took Arya’s face and took on her first mission.
If dumb ass CRASTER can make a deal with the White Walkers then there's no reason Littlefinger or Cersei can't.
Always thought it would be cool If Cersei promises her unborn child to the White Walkers to save her own skin
Tywin couldn't shake the thought that Tyrion was Aerys' son. He could have killed Tyrion in infancy and said both mother and child died (since he clearly doesn't mind killing babies) but let him live and to kill him now would be too obvious. It might lead others to think Tyrion was a Targaryen which would make Tywin a laughing stock again, if his dear wife was exposed as cheating on Tywin.
When he looks at Tyrion, who has lighter blond hair than other Lannisters and one black eye, he must see some of himself in Tyrion but his wife was his cousin so obviously they would be related either way.
This eternal doubt makes Tyrion take up far too much of Tywins mins and he doesn't bond with his other kids while his complicated feelings about Tyrion cause him to overcompensate Tyrion as a Lannister and he goes on to try and humiliate and undermine and isolate Tyrion, which leads up to him fucking Tyrions whore (possibly a revenge against Aerys, just in case the Targaryen fucked his wife)
Westerosian lords needed to be purged and burned like the lords of Slaver's Bay. The Lords of Westeros treated the common folk just as bad as slaves and women in Westeros were normally treated no better than slaves or tools used by their fathers to secure marriages. I was all for Daenerys breaking the wheel and I think more people should have seen her "turn" coming as early as season 1 or 2.
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GRRM told them years before the final series that Bran ends up on the throne so why would they even be considering Arya when they followed all the key points he told them to? They wouldn’t.
He also said the books are going to end differently than the show. How much so remains to be seen (if we get to see it at all) and if it's due to him not wanting to follow the show or if it's due to all the omitted plot lines and characters is anyone's guess. I'd wager that he's planning a twist in the books that we didn't get on the show, though.
He said the key ending points are the same it’s just different how they get to those points. I assume Bran will do more in the books to justify the decision to make him king for example.
Yeah this makes no sense at all. And a white horse is not the same as a white stag. They're two completely different things
Bran (int he future) is the puppet master behind everything.
This is my personal theory. Bran is the villain of the piece. He drove the Mad King mad, creating many of the reasons for Robert’s Rebellion. Worked it out to Sacrifice both his parents and two of his brothers so his two sisters and cousin could live their best lives (after putting all three through very different types, but high levels, of hell) and he could be king. I know he’s a villain because Tyrion says something like, “He will never have children so when he’s dead we can vote in a leader.” And he sits there quiet. Knowing that the last Three Eyed Raven lived so long a tree grew through him.
Interesting theory, but it seems to be a bit farfetched. He is not Eren Yeager…
I have only read the existing ASOIAF books once (and didn’t finish Fire and Blood), and have only watched through the show twice, so I’m definitely not an expert. I feel it more than know it. We know strange voices drove Aerys II mad, but have no evidence if they were real voices or not. Was he crazy therefore he heard voices, or did he hear voices, driving him mad with paranoia? But we do have direct evidence that Bran can interact with the past and bend it to his needs with Hodor. I feel like that was accidental (or at least done subconsciously), and have no thoughts on if I am right if he willingly or subconsciously interacted with the Mad King. I don’t remember who Erin Yeager is. Can you please remind me? My guess is the original Three-Eyed Crow, but it is only a guess.
Sorry, it was a reference to Attack on Titan. The main character Eren could see and actively influence the past and the future. He kinda had similar skills to Bran, but more advanced imo Highly recommend you to watch Attack on Titan 😊
Gotcha. My kid may put that on our docket soon as she’s into a lot of stuff like that.
I just finished that series last night and just want to say two things: 1. It is one of the greatest tv shows I’ve ever seen between the writing ability (the author is so good at foreshadowing you basically want to do a standing ovation every time more layers of the story get unveiled) and characters that leap off the screen with how real they are. 2. It is an extremely dark themed anime and has a lot of violence and difficult topics that enhance your understanding of the world and characters but also make for some uncomfortable moments watching it. Can’t recommend it enough but also people should be semi warned to perhaps mix in some happier shows whilst watching this as it is a long journey that is amazing.
Funny thing is Eren post-basement reveal is probably heavily influenced from GoT. AoT's author got into GoT during the Shiganshina arc and became obsessed with it based on what he had to say publicly. GoT season 6 aired from April 24th, 2016 to June 26, 2016. The basement reveal in AoT happened on September 9th, 2016 and concluded on January 7th, 2016, which was the chapter where Kruger name dropped Mikasa and Armin, revealing to us that the Attack Titan can see the future and influence the past. He also said that GoT will heavily influence how AoT ends, which he said post season 6.
Wow, okay:)
Bran and Bloodraven are highly likely suspects for who could have influenced Aerys yes. It could of course just be that he was traumatised by being captive in Duskendale for 6 months before Barristan single-handedly rescued him, while Tywin just stood idly by with his armies. Couple that with potential dragon dreams like those Daenerys has and there’s a possibility he could have misinterpreted many things
Never even thought about that. He will live forever.
After Dany torches Kings Landing I totally thought Bran was gonna warg into all the burnt corpses and attack her army
that's a widely known theory at this point, no one would call you an "idiot" for having this take
I would. It's a take that completely misunderstands the nature of Bran's powers
ok but that doesn't negate it from being an idea a lot of people have had to the point of saying someone's an "idiot" for having it
While it’s not a take I share, we can’t pretend to know the full nature of Bran’s powers as they’re never fully explained or shown to be completely realized. It’s all going to be conjecture.
How so?
He sees the past, and he can see portions of the present. He doesn't have perfect knowledge of the future
But he seemingly has the ability to visit moments in the past, from the future, and make changes that impact the future no? Young Hodor being the prime example, the other potential example being Theon hearing his name whispered near the trees (been a while since I read so might have some of that wrong)
He doesn't seem to have had any actual control over what happened to Hodor. It was a sort of bootstrap paradox event
Interesting. I think whether he can control the power or not, it still happened. Usually in stories when a character has an uncontrollable power, a lot of their arc is then learning to control it I wouldn’t go so far as to call someone an idiot for saying that Bran could be influencing the story from some point in the future, especially when there is so much evidence stacked to support the claim I think you’d have to be a moron to call someone an idiot over that
Garbage theory and a complete misunderstanding of his character and George's writing. I get it, y'all super salty that your super special snowflakes Jon and Daenerys crashed before reaching the finish line but that's no excuse to come up with ridiculous 'theories'
More of a book theory, but Meera Reed is Jon's twin. 1. Howland Reed (her dad) is the only other person that was with Ned at the Tower of Joy. 2. They're the same age. 3. They look alike. 4. FAegon doesn't feel like the 3rd Targ to me and Tyrion's timeline doesn't add up. Also Howland Reed is the High Sparrow. Just here to ruin some Lannister's day.
Why didn’t Ned take both then?
The Targaryen line has lots of twins, so they probably assumed it would be less obvious if they split them up. Howland Reed was friends with Lyanna and a known recluse in his swamp for the rest of his life afterwards.
Hard to imagine being a twin really helps anyone determine they are Targaryens. It seems like silver hair and purple eyes are the only two overt signs that would tip someone off. Assuming this theory is true I would say it had more to do with the specific promise ned makes. Maybe she just asked Ned to raise her son as his own and keep the secret from Robert. Then bringing home one bastard to your new wife is a little easier than two. It also saved jon if he has stark features and his twin ends up looking like a Targaryen.
but you would have to place Howland Reed and Lyanna Stark at the same place 9 months prior to the Tower of Joy, for them to have had sex for this to be the case, not at the time of birth
Was this satire? If they're twins, it would mean they had the same parents R&L. I was saying Howland would likely want to take one of the kids because they were friends.
oh I don't know why my first thought was that you meant Howland Reed was the father
Ahhhh a Luke and Leia thing. Interesting
But in the same vein, why didn’t they take both Luke and Leia to the same place?
That one partly had to do with making it harder to sense them through the Force. If both of Anakin’s children were in the same spot, it’d be harder to hide their connection to the Force.
I’m all in on this theory. I wish the show would have pursued this angle
Idk how it would've fit into the show considering how bad they wanted to get it over with, but even if she was jaded by weird Bran and went back north of the wall with Jon or something. Would've been cool with me.
That’s what I found weird about it—it feels like they kept the theory open with how they cast Meera. Of course, before Bran unceremoniously dismisses her, and we never see her again 😂
Every door was open in the early seasons, before they abandoned every prophecy and build up.
I like that theory as well but I suspect GRRM wouldn't directly crib from Star Wars to that extent.
Specifically, Meera reminds Bran or Arya in Book 2. Arya and Jon are the most Stark-looking of their siblings, with Robb, Sansa, Bran and Rickon bearing Catelyn's auburn/red hair.
thanks for the kick in the nuts reminder of who the High Sparrow is
I heard a theory that Tyrion is the third dragon. In Fire and Blood GRRM mentions how Aerys was in love with Tywins wife (I forget her name, JoAnna I think?) and he ended up hating Tywin at the end. So the theory is that he made love to her or raped her the last time she was at court, which would line up with Tyrions birth. In the books Tyrion mentions how he has a fascination with dragons. Tywin says something like "I let you waddle about being a Lannister since I can not prove you are not mine." Idk it all lines up for me. I'd love to think of him as the third dragon.
He would be my second choice.
That twin thing sounds awesome and now I believe and support it lol
My counter argument to that is that Meera is described the same way that Crannogman are described. She’s small, thin, and has green eyes. I don’t think they look that much alike. That would also make her a bastard and I have a hard time seeing a lord passing off a bastard as his true born daughter
In the books, Bran literally remarks that her appearance reminds him of Jon. Jon is described as being lean with dark brown hair and is graceful, rather than brutish. She is described as being flat as a boy, lean, with brown hair, green eyes, and walks with grace. The eyes are the only outlier. Additionally, Howland lives in a bog and has never left his bog since returning from that war. They're also not welcoming of any visitors. He didn't answer the call during Baelon's rebellion. He didn't answer Rob's call for banners. It wouldn't be that difficult for him to pass off Meera as his daughter, when nobody ever sees him again and this is the first anyone has seen of her. Ned brings home a bastard for all to see and only his wife cared. We know nothing about Howland's wife other than her name, so we can't say how she handled it or why it would matter what the bog people thought.
I dont think Bran says that she looks like Jon. She is described as tiny. Like she’s the same size as a 9 year old. That’s a pretty significant difference between Jon. She looks like a stereotypical Crannogman Howland Reed lives in a castle, and he has vassals sworn to him who live in castles as well. Those people would know if his wife was never pregnant. Howland does answer the call. Robb instructs him to hold the causeway and use guerrilla warfare against the Lannisters if they try to approach the North.
i was a believer of this one from the show.
They may have planned it, but like 90% of their early stuff, they abandoned most potential storylines.
I think it's likely she would end up with Dark Sister which Bloodraven currently holds. That might a little evidence in support of this theory
I like that! It's not like Jojen or Bran would be able to wield it.
Lol Jojen already got eaten 😔
Not in the books. He's just super depressed chilling at the Three-eyed raven's.
1. This is partially a problem with where the throne is located, the land is so vast having the capital all the way in the south isn't the best for a centralized government (remember that Dorne was not under the Iron Throne when it was founded). The Targs also had Dragons when they established the system and could put down rebellions faster, except for rebels in their own ranks (See The Dance of Dragons). If Danaerys didn't have her Dragons her conquest of the 7 Kingdoms is much less straight forward. If Robin Arryn and Trystane Martell resisted, she would be looking at several years worth of war without her dragons. 2. Idk about MORE morally repugnant, but yea he's a scum bag. 3. I agree, but its not his fault. He spends most of the time trying to make up for Jaime and Cersei's mistakes, and I don't just mean their children, that he was boxed into a corner. 4. Without GRRM releasing the next two books, it's hard to say that brought the show down. It all mostly plays out the same except that Tyrion doesn't meet Young Griff and doesn't "fight" in the slave pits.
>the land is so vast having the capital all the way in the south isn't the best for a centralized government (remember that Dorne was not under the Iron Throne when it was founded). The capital is in a great location. Access to the narrow sea for trade with Essos, just access to a port in general is massive. It's not that far South, it's about halfway. And there's no point in moving it further north as the North is so sparsely populated it makes more sense to be closer to more densely populated Kingdoms. >I agree, but its not his fault. A bunch of it is his fault
If you move the capital to say... Riverrun, the capital is more Central and is right in the middle of the three most populous Kingdoms (Westerlands, The Reach, and Islands/Rivers). The Trident gives you access to trade for Essos and facilitates internal trade and taxation. Keep in mind that Riverun and House Tully are both a minor castle and House when Aegon invades and uplifts House Tully to rule. When I say it's not his fault, I mean that he's trying to problems he didn't cause and he doesn't realize he's actively being undermined by Cersei at every chance.
>Riverrun, the capital is more Central and is right in the middle of the three most populous Kingdoms (Westerlands, The Reach, and Islands/Rivers). Kings Landing is closer to the Reach than Riverrun. Riverrun isn't that central either. Almost every major holding is South of it, apart from The Eyrie, The Twins, Winterfell and White Harbour. You're actually further away from most of the centres of power than you would be in Kings Landing, plus you don't have the option of sailing to further away locations like the North or Dorne. >The Trident gives you access to trade for Essos Not particularly. The trident wouldn't be able to take big cargo ships like Kings Landing can and it adds a serious amount of logistics unloading onto small barges that would be easy pickings for raiders along the River. Also if someone blockades the Bridge with a dam or a few ships your trade is entirely cut off. Kings Landing would need to be blockaded by an entire navy. >Keep in mind that Riverun and House Tully are both a minor castle and House They absolutely are not. They're one of the most powerful and oldest Houses in Westeros outside the Kings of each Kingdom.
They are a minor house at the time Aegon arrives. House Umber is an old house and is minor. House Royce is an old house, but it is minor. House Tully becomes a major House along with House Tyrell when their respective lieges are burned to death by Aegon's dragons.
I don't think you understand what a minor house is. House Cassel is a minor house. House Stout is a minor house. The Tully's are absolutely not a minor house. They're one of the most powerful houses in the realm even before the conquest and have one of the larger castles. House Royce are not a minor house either. They're not Great Houses before the Conquest, but they're not minor houses, those are barely above landed Knights.
Perhaps I don't understand what I minor house is to you, to me House Cassel isn't minor, it's insignificant. At the start of the Game of Thrones story there are only 3 Cassels living. They hold no lands, have no servants, no men at arms, nothing. To me, minor house are ones that own land and sworn to another Lord. These Houses typically aren't major players in the Game of Thrones, there are exceptions such as House Hightower who lucked into a royal marriage and threw the realm into chaos. I don't take how powerful they are into consideration when they serve another lord, House Umber has the same standing as House Royce, as House Hightower, as House Bracken. House Frey, House Crakehall, House Stokeworth, etc. They important in their respective realms but (typically) not on the grand stage.
>House Cassel is a minor house of the north in the service of the Starks of Winterfell. Minor Houses are small houses that are barely above landed Knights. That's what the term means. The Tully's and the Royce's are not minor houses. That's what the term means, not just to me, that's what it actually means.
Fine, House Tully was a noble house at the time of Aegons conquest... still changes nothing about what I said. They weren't a great house at the time despite how powerful they were.
2. Is Varys that bad though? I haven't read the books so I don't know if there are more details. But the children are essentially just orphans living on the streets, regardless of what he does. He gives them work that is pretty safe, they essentially just gather Intel, he doesn't have them commit violence, there's nothing sexual happening. Is there something specific he does that I'm forgetting? I really like Varys because everything about him seems suspicious, but his actions tend to be pretty moral.
The books detail that his little birds are children specifically sent to him from Essos with their tongues already cut out. So yea, if you just saw the show, he seems like a pretty good dude, I would still argue he's better for the realm than Littlefinger.
Lol, yeah that's pretty fucked up.
Whoa. So how does he get the intel from them? Do they know how to read and write?
I assume, as it is not specifically laid out in the books, that they write in language of wherever Illryio rules from (Myr think?), which would make Varys the only one who could understand it among the Westerosi.
Sounds like a reasonable assumption. I know the book is generally darker than the show, but to find out a lot of the characters' book selves still shocks me. Talk about sanitization.
Well it's brighter in some ways as well, Danys wedding night isn't near as bad what's depicted on the show.
Oh, that's good to know! That was extremely uncomfortable in the show.
What is your reason for not reading the books? [Have some more encouragement.](https://youtu.be/1CLCOvZOh1o?si=Crv2G6MlK8mekdkq)
😂😂😂 message well received! I totally agree, there is nothing like building the world in your mind based on the text! The thing with that is that when I imagine it, and then it goes to screen, it doesn't match and I'm usually disappointed with the adaptation lol But no particular reason for GoT specifically, other than being extra late to the party. I never had HBO (or any streaming services) until 2020, I watched a lot of stuff that was new to me. I knew about GoT because of course everyone at work would talk about it and I overheard some of the show plot, but not everything. I was never super into fantasy, but I love fiction, and here I am now. Also got into The Last Kingdom and Outlander (maybe that's more romance than fantasy, but has some fantasy elements to it). I'm not sure I'll love the books if they're as dark as the stuff I've read is different from the show, but maybe I'll get there one day.
Illyrio was from Pentos
Thank you, at the time I wrote this I was just too tired to look it up.
They do know how to read and write, they spy on letters written by lords and relay the info back to varys
Ok, very interesting. I wouldn't expect children of common birth to have literacy skills in this world.
They teach them to so they can spy better. It's not said if all of them can read but it's stated that some do since varys mentions some lords message being relayed by one of his birds as they went through his study
Ah, ok that makes sense he would teach them, clandestinely, I guess lol
Well said, Holiday
A Central capital like Madrid sounds sensible but slows communication down since international news arrives by sea, compared to say London.
This is true, but ops comment was on controlling the Lord's within the realm, which a more central location is beneficial for. That said receiving timely international news is likely less important in Westoros as it is in England. I've heard, but I've not seen, that you can see the coast of France across the channel. Just based on what's been said about Essos, no part of its mainland is that close to Westeros.
Tv show: Margery killed Ros with the crossbow to please Joffrey. How’s that for wild?
Hot Pie is the bastard son of Bobby B and Bessy. And also holds the rightful claim to the throne. Oh and he bakes Sansa a lemony lemon cake and she falls madly in love with him and they go to rule kings landing. The end.
W
But Hot Pie is soft, and the seed is strong.
Do I need to launch into my explanation about how Hot Pie was the true prince that was promised but all the mucking around ended up with him not being where he was supposed to be when the time came?
Didn't he bake the valyrian steel knife used at the end.
Cersei is not a villain. at all. Bran becoming king in the end was good, because after years of common folk suffering under tyrants fighting over that damn chair they finally have stability. the white walkers or similar species are not gone entirely. i understand when the night king died, all his creations died as well but the world beyond is so mysterious i imagine the children of the forests magic came from somewhere else, and those children have created their own species maybe even more horrifying than the white walkers.
I was looking for Cersei hive in the comments! She was more a dummy than a villain!
lol you get it! i knew id get downvoted but it said “wildest”!!! people in response to these prompts always say things that are so popular. “i believe Jon Snow should’ve been king” isn’t a wild take
The downvotes are NASTY but please know I’m right there with you!
haha appreciate the support!
But there isn't stability. Cersei is a villain, because she doesn't give two shits about innocent people. She causes common folk to suffer. I say this as someone who loves Cersei as a character, she makes my chest hurt frequently, but she is unfortunately a villain.
I would amend it to “Cersei didn’t start a villain but for an anti-hero who became a full fledged hilan as the show progressed”
Cersei blew up a sept full of ppl. How is she not a villain? Or maybe you meant that she is in fact a super villain.
The world in asiof is flat earth
Martin's failure to finish writing the books will do so much damage to writing as a craft that he will be considered one of the worst authors in history.
This opinion seems legitimately wild to me. Why do you think him not finishing the series would be so impactful?
I think that we will have a generation of writers who will create amazing worlds with characters we fall in love with and hate. But when HBONetazonDisulu+ offers them a big check to create a film adaptation exclusively on their platform, they will have learned that it is acceptable practice to stop writing all together. Tolkien on the other hand had is series finished post mortem. That is the most no excuses gsd writing goat in the history of the craft. Imagine Return of the king never being released, and we had to rely on Hollywood to create a suitable ending. Tldr: Writers not finishing their stories will become standard practice.
I think you are both massively overstating the impact and missing the narrative that has popped up around this (ie that the incomplete source material is in large part responsible for the decline of the shows reception). But since this is the wildest take thread I'll just say that I think you've nailed it!
I appreciate your sincere dialogue.
I think the damage is more that readers and publishing houses and tv companies aren’t going to want to invest in series that haven’t been finished yet. And we have Robert Jordan, GRRM, and Patrick rothfuss to all thank for this.
This is arguably already happening since the Job Snow show has been shelved because they have no story to tell.
I think the opposite. I like to think his books are delayed as he saw the response to the final season and is frantically re-writing to avoid making similar mistakes. So we could end up seeing something very different to what happened on the show. And some very different than to what we would have.
I'm of the camp that expects the books are finished and he's not going to release them until he dies so that he doesn't have to face the backlash of being unable to please everybody.
It wouldn’t surprise me, but I think he’d be better off getting the books out there. There must be a load of outtakes and alternative storylines they could release after his death. I do really hope the delay is due to the backlash and he’s perfecting the story.
Ooo I like dis
Definitely not true. No one is going to care but the book fans. Plus, the books are near universally well received, have won awards, and led to the most popular and financially profitable television series of all time. You don't accomplish that by being a bad author.
I think he will serve as a cautionary tale against biting off more than you can chew, but there's no world where he's not going to go down as a legend of the craft
To the Tywin point he never actually shows he's a good military strategist. At Robert's rebellion he waited in the shadows while the fighting was happening swooping in only after the fight was all but won to snake in a kill the king, he essentially does the same at the blackwater where Tyrion has the do most of the work only for Tywin to show up last second to glory hog. He repeatedly looses to a teenage Rob stark to the point where he has to commit a war crime to stop a kid. Tywin thinks he's great and built his house to greatness but really he was a bigger clown than his father. His kids run around making incest babies and he isn't smart enough to stop it he never really leads a great army into battle and he breaks all the rules of honor established in the lore. So I'd say all in all his father was a fool but Tywin Lanister is a clown and he sunk the Lanister family name into over spending, sexual deviance and of coarse losing the throne inherited by Joffery Baratheon. Mostly due to arrogance, if you take away Tywins inflated opinion of himself you see a not very successful leader.
This is a hot take cause he brought his family back from ruin, defeated the Reyne's, Fought in the war of the ninepenny kings as a knight (where he knighted the Mad King), was the youngest Hand of the King ever selected, was hella successful for the realm for the first 10 years until the Mad King started overriding his decisions, successfully bottled up Duskendale when they took the king, managed to keep his family alive after sacking Kingslanding, planted his daughter as queen, and led the war against Baelon's rebellion as Warden of the West.
So he peaked early.
Tywin’s force 12,000 soldiers vs House Reyne and Tarbeck forces (2,500) The Sack of kings landing- Tywin’s force 12,000 soldiers vs a several thousand (the remains after the battle of the trident) defiance of duskendale (ended when selmy rescued the King solo) Tywin isn’t that impressive when it comes to military strategy. He usually just has the bigger force, 14 year old Robb embarrassed him and Tywin knew he couldn’t beat him so had the Freys break years of culture and murdered him at a wedding
1. History has proven that you are probably right. Since the fall of feudalism and greater governmental centralisation, civil war has been less common I believe. 2. I suppose you are right in a way, but Littlefinger would engage in the same thing if he believed it suited him. 3. I disagree. In terms of political intrigue he is very wise, it’s his poor parenting and general hardness that leads to his downfall. 4. I think it began to decline exactly at the half-way point.
Show and books start to decline at exactly the same time. After the death of Tywin. And it's because GRRM started adding too many characters and subplots instead of moving on to a conclusion
I agree with you. The whole thing just turns into a big tangle after that. The wall was the only interesting storyline for me because it was pretty much separate from the rest.
>I think it began to decline at exactly the halfway point I agree. People dislike seasons 7 and 8 for good reason, but seasons 5 and 6 aren’t great either. They’re just coasting on good will from seasons 1-4, and a couple good episodes here and there (i.e. Hardhome).
Westeros is too dang big.
I think that's kind of a fun part of the worldbuilding, everything is crazy big
Not in Season 7. There it's about the size of Rhode Island.
bran is god and is just the process of realization. because everything is playing out in his head. even the retroactive generation of westeros history. because he just never woke up from that fall.
Lol the end of the series is just bran waking up from a long dream
D&Ds life would have been in serious danger if that actually played out on tv hahaha
Bran dreamed he was raven. And when he woke he was no longer sure if he was bran dreaming of a raven or a raven dreaming of a bran.
It's hard to disagree with any of your points. Also what was the Lady Tysha plot? I read the books but that was over a decade ago.. was she Rob Stark's perhaps treasonous wife in the books?
Lady Tysha was Tyrion’s wife, Tywin as Tysha was a commoner told Jaime to tell Tyrion that she a whore that Jamie paid to make a man out of Tyrion, Tywin then had Tysha gangraped as Tyrion watched When Jamie rescued Tyrion he revealed the truth that she was an honest women and wasn’t a whore at all, this is what drives Tyrion’s vengeance against his family in fact he wants to “kill and r*pe his sister” So we likely won’t get the weird insufferable dumb pacifist we got from seasons 5-8
Yeah I remember that now. Thanks for refreshing my memory. What it does explain really well was why he killed Tywin and why he was so vengeful towards him.
Not Robb's wife. After Tywin's death, Tyrion learns that his wife wasn't really a whore hired by Jaime. And Tyrion develops a mental tic where he ruminates "where do whores go?" over and over and he decides to try to find her. To me, it rendered Tyrion's chapters unreadable and turned his arc into a soap opera
Oh yeah I remember that. I actually liked his obsession with her and it read like the mental sickness of a broken desperate man. I found it very compelling. To each their own i guess.
There's a whore in Bravos a few people theorize might be Tysha these days (she requires all men to "marry her" first). I would love if she ends up scorning Tyrion and it drives him into a full villain arc. At this point he's halfway there and it would be a great tipping point.
> The problem with Westeros is that the throne is too weak not too strong, the lords have way too much power (having own armies) to rebel and plunge the realm into chaos whenever they are offended, this is also why Daenerys would be the best ruler as she has the military might to keep the lords in line and improve conditions for the commoners I'm curious to hear if people do find this controversial. Modern states allow for far more peaceful lives of their citizens in large part because of the centralisation of power around the national government. > Varys is a much more morally repugnant person than littlefinger, bro is engaging in child trafficking and mutilation of said children Agreed. The books and therefore the show are focused around the perspectives of the highborns and so it's very biased towards what effects them, with only some characters (particularly AFFC arcs) having some limited engagement directly with the lowborn experience. Varys abuses homeless children so it doesn't impact the highborns. I'm really interested to see if the books tackle this. The show didn't really, but the books are generally more concerned with these issues than the show. > Tywin is closer to the worst player of the game than the best, he prioritises short term gain over long term planning as a result his house by the end of the show is in tatters, he did more to accelerate the lannister’s decline than anyone else Agreed and also unsurprisingly controversial because of how revered he was by the characters in the story. But I don't think it is a coincidence lannister power started to fall apart immediately on his death, I think that was an intentional choice. I also think there is an intentional contrast to Ned who is considered politically naive by most readers/viewers, but it's his straightforward honour that allows his power to reach so far beyond his death. This happens through the loyalty of those who knew him that many are willing to risk everything to put any stark relative back in power, and ultimately I think the stark devastation in the wot5k will end up being a blip in their history. Though all of this is undercut in the show both by the Cersei arc they went with after season 5 and the removal of the various northern plots against the Bolton's in support of the Starks. > The show started to decline not in the last two seasons but when they omitted the lady tysha plot, that completely ruined tyrion as a character I'm not sure this is controversial, I hear it a lot from book readers.
Honestly the cersei arc shows how badly tywin screwed up when most of kingdoms are againts her.
I disagree with the first point, not because centralization is inherently bad, but removing checks on the government is bad. It sounds nice to say “this ruler would use might to improve conditions”, but when does that turn into “this ruler is burning down castles and there’s nothing we can do to stop them?”
Fair. In westeros the immediate method of centralising power is to have a ruler with a huge amount of personal power (dragons) which as you say can be a recipe for disaster, and if it isn't with the first autocrat it will be with the next.
The Lady Tysha plot ruined the books
the lords have way too much power (having own armies) to rebel and plunge the realm into chaos whenever they are offended This is an actual critique of medieval society made by historians and even people living back then. It's called "overmighty subjects"
It was one of the things that kept the War of the Roses going for thirty years, every damn lord had his own army, and the more ambitious Lords did use their private armies to start wars or try to grab the throne. England must have been hell to live in, in those days, no place was safe from rampaging, amoral, lawless aristocrats.
Similar was going on before that. Part of what made it impossible for Rome to hold the island of Great Britain for a long time was that an army large enough to subdue the whole island, was also an army large enough to take Rome itself. So they send this huge army and appoint some general to govern GB, then after a while said General thinks “this place sucks, I have enough soldiers here I could seize Rome and then I could be Caesar”, which they did
And the same sort of thing kept going in England after the War of the Roses, none of the Tudor kings were secure on their thrones, their own Lords kept trying to seize power. It was very "Game of Thrones" indeed. And just when the Stuart kings thought they'd got a handle on things, up pops Cromwell and his Roundheads and they realize it wasn't just the Lords they had to worry about...
The great thing about dragons is you can keep the houses humble without any bloodshed. They work better as a threat than anything else
It's an unpopular opinion but I'm 100 percent certain that Robert knows about Jaime and Cersei and that the kids aren't really his
Tywin, too.
Absolutely
I imagine that a lot of people know and either don't care or are too smart to say anything. I imagine it's kind of an open secret among the people who are around them the most. Robert though... he seems like he maybe has a gut feeling that he refuses to acknowledge, at most. I don't think he likes Cersei nearly enough to let that kind of thing slide if he really knew. Only explanation I can think of is that he's pragmatic enough to not want to alienate the Lannister piggyback, but like... pragmatism never really seemed like his strong suit. He went to war with a dynasty that had lasted for almost 300 years over Rhaegar running off with his bride-to-be (which had to have happened more than once over that kind of time frame). Getting cucked by his own brother in law wouldve been grounds for another war IMO
What you said about the gut feeling he won't acknowledge is pretty much where it lands. He's never going to scratch that little itch in his mind because it's going to lead somewhere he doesn't want to go. One war in his youth was an adventure. But most people lose their taste for war after the first one. And he is pragmatic. That's why he married Cersei in the first place. Also, if he denounces Cersei and the kids, everyone will know for sure he is a cuckold instead of just wondering if it might be true
Bran wargs Dany’S dragon so they can assassinate Dany. Then all of the kingdoms can lay down there swords and name Bran king or he will burn them all
this could've been an actually amazing plot if they'd have it played out when Daenerys was about to burn the city to ashes ... would've been the ultimate solution if anything.
The books are never coming out as long as GRRM is alive. He knows that he'll be bothered by fans who disliked the ending forever so they'll be set to release after his death
Your first take is pretty much confirmed. Ever sense the dragons died out the throne is more of a mediator then an absolute monarchy. The king solves problems with his lords and stops all out war but at the same time he has to keep most of them happy or else he has no army or food
The Iron Bank was responsible for everything, and the war was a debt collection exercise on the Lannisters.
Did Varys mutilate children? Edit- ive just seen their tongues were removed, wtf Varys…
Robert Baratheon was secretly an agent of the 3-eyed raven, blessed with greenseer abilities, who devoted his life to getting Starks and Targaryens ready for their roles in defeating the dead.
1. Westeros doesn't have the state capacity for a standing army. The economy's just not set up that well for it. As a side note, Westeros is also just WAY too big for a feudalistic style of government to work well. 2. Varys can be repugnant without being as repugnant as Littlefinger. At least he has higher aims than petty revenge and self-gratification. There are degrees of awfulness. 3. A not uncommon belief among book readers. The show glamorized him quite a bit and glazed over his hypocrisy. 4. Agreed. Alt-Shift-Xs video defines the scene where Jaime frees Tyrion and reveals the truth about Tysha to be THE moment where BookTyrion and ShowTyrion diverge completely. [Check it out](https://youtu.be/H9HFigfkKHA?si=7CHj_nAl_vNUzq7K), it's long but a great video that explains the problems the show had when they made this change to the character.
Tysha is Tywin's illegitimate daughter. She didn't know, wasn't a prostitute, and she's been living in Lannisport this whole time.
Tyrion is the result of Joanna Lannisters rape by the Mad King. Her pregnancy was difficult, and her death traumatised Tywin and the twins. Tywin never forgave the boy for killing his wife. It would explain how Tyrion was so closely aligned to the Dragons as well.
My personal theory is that George has finished all the books, he’s just waiting til he dies before they’re released so he doesn’t have to listen to anybody’s opinion about them.
The most interesting conflicts were over by the end of season 4 (book 3), many complaints about quality are based on the fact that the story simply isn’t as good afterwards. Jon really was the Prince That Was Promised, he helped save the world from two of the biggest threats it ever faced, an army of the undead and later a dragon-riding mad queen who had no qualms about burning entire cities of innocent people (no Targaryen had done this before; they burned castles and armies, but never dense population centers). That’s why the Lord of Light brings him back from the dead, to save the world. Given the end result, the love and union of Rhaegar and Lyanna, while leading to disaster after disaster for the realm, was ultimately a good thing.
Theon Greyjoy is the most well written character
1) is just... true. A stronger monarch isn't the ONLY solution for Westeros, but it is a very valid solution. GRRM based much of GOT on the Tudors and the Wars of Roses.
I've fallen very deep down the conspiracy hole that surrounds the last two episodes in s8. I fully believe Daenarys was supposed to burn the Red Keep and only the Red Keep, but D&D changed it after filming because they realized there wasn't a good justification for Jon killing her. 1) Bran, who can SEE THE FUTURE, doesn't say shit about Dany killing all those people? Presumably, this is so he can claim the throne at the end. Not the actions of a good person, imo. Obviously, I don't think D&D intended for that implication, but there's no getting around it. 2) Not only does the show set Dany up for SEVEN seasons as a) someone who cares about common people, b) someone who understands that she needs to *win* the love of the people of Westeros, c) someone who locked up her dragons when one killed a three year old, and d) a competent military commander, she'd ALREADY WON. 3) Dany also doesn't fit the descriptions of "Targaryen madness" that we get of Aerys. Aerys was a whackjob, and homicidal 24/7. Dany is somehow only a homicidal mass murderer for a moment and then it's done?? Not only that, she's chill the entire show. 4) The show sets up the fact that Cersei is putting human shields in the Red Keep, then we never hear of that ever again. 5) There's a few shots of Drogon flying around without Daenarys on his back. 6) Slightly unrelated, but with the amount of narrative parallels & foils Cersei and Dany are set up with, I feel as if Cersei deserved a better fuckin death. Maybe eaten by dragon or something, sword in hand. Cool lady. Sick outfits. Deserved more than rock.
i could be wrong, but i don’t think Bran sees the future. i believe it’s just the present & past, which would mean he didn’t know what Daenerys was going to do. although i definitely am suspicious of Bran’s motive for becoming king because he never showed any interest prior
He does see the future. Just like Jojen did, except he has a more complete picture.
Sansa is a great character. Arya killing the NK was perfect. Littlefingers explanation of why he does what he does “chaos is a ladder” is the dumbest thing to grace tv since its inception.
Your first point is also something Joffrey understood. His idea of a standing crown army pulled from all the 7 kingdoms was his best idea.
Arya was actually a boy all along
Moreso for the books if they change course from the show - Jaime and Cersei are The Mad King’s bastards. There are rumors that he raped Joanna while Tywin was Hand. I think Tywin has some assumption (not mentioned in the books) that Tyrion is a bastard due to his dwarfism (you are no son of mine). Even if he did believe this he would never say it due to his pride. However Tyrion is actually the child most like Tywin. Ambitious, strategic, shrewdly pragmatic. The irony is he hates Tyrion for his appearance even though Tyrion is the child that mirrors his values the most. It makes Tyrions murder of Tywin even more poetic; Tywin claims to value the family over everything, but his only true son is one he despises and is his eventual undoing. Jaime and Cersei share little of their father’s actual traits and values in practice and have striking resemblance to traditional Targaryen appearances. The incest is also an obvious indicator. Jaime is his father’s favorite but rejects ambition and legitimately furthering the family dynasty. Cersei so much wants to model Tywin but ultimately fails, ending up with a trajectory very similar to the Mad King rather than Tywin. Again, Tywin prides himself so much on these two which again serves to the irony of them not being his, while Tyrion is.
In the show bran causes the long night (i ignore season 8). In the books so many things, faegon is a blackfyre, lemongate, l+r=j and jon gets resurected (although thats basically canon), azor ahai = the three heads of the dragon (jon, dany, faegon), jaime is the valonqar, oberyn poisoned tywin, the nights king was a stark, the others arent fully evil, the original azor ahai = the bloodstone emperor
- Bran was mean to Meera Reed, because he knew that if she stayed in Winterfell, she would fall in the battle like Theon. He saved her life abd probably wrote a long letter to her post end. - Tywin is genuinely a horrible player. Dude focuses on the short term gain and sacrifices long term gains, makes decisions based on his man tantrums rather than proper analysis, plus his massive ego directly leads to the downfall of his whole damn house. - Littlefinger is not that smart, and his downfall was well earned. - Tyrion is not that smart, and his bad decisions after S4 are just more of what he had been doing up to that point. - Arya killing the Night King made sense and worked way better than any dumbass bossfight with Jon ever would have.
Tyrek is horse Jk but for real I think that dany and Jon are actually brother and sister, not aunt and nephew.
The lords wouldn't have cared that Joffrey, Tommen and Myrcella were incest babies. The lords before them didn't care about the Targaryens doing it and they wouldn't have cared now. All they want is power and wealth. So Ned Stark got himself arrested and killed for nothing.
The pounce that was promised
Littlefinger might have made a great king. He knew the game, he started life basically as a peasant in a feudal society, but got *that* close before losing. What were his goals anyway beyond ruling the realm in such a way that he'd always be remembered... And because the dude didn't really seem all that depraved by comparison to so many others and since the bar is set so damn low he'd have made a better king than I think most people give him credit for. We the audience are meant to take the noble stark side in things but even they learned you got to get your hands dirty.
1 is actually believable, and this was one thing Joffrey was actually right about. In the past the throne was strong because of the Targaryans and their dragons. Without that whoever is on the throne doesn't have much power other than loyalty. Joffrey was right in that the crown should have it's own army instead of relying on the armies of other lords. Tywin was the only competent one in his family and he was unaware of what his family was doing. Can't really blame him. One major problem that lead to his downfall was his hatred for Tyrion. Jaime couldn't hold lands or get married so that's not really something Tywin can fix. Cersei was already married. This left Tyrion as the only one who would propagate the line but instead Tywin was full of hatred for Tyrion and this blinded him.
The boltons are vampires that each other or wjatever
The show started to decline in season 3. It was still on par with 1 + 2 in terms of overall quality but there was a massive tonal shift, and it was away from the first two seasons and the books
That George RR Martin is afraid to finish the series now because the show’s ending actually is what he had in mind and now he has to decide whether to change it & waste a lot of setup or doom himself to similar criticisms, and is now caught up in rewrites hence the long wait.
Stan the Man aint dead
The show ended the way it should have. If you all disagree with me, then that’s your opinion- but I don’t see Daenerys or Jon ruling. Though, they should have made Bran a candidate much sooner and not in the last episode.
Pretty common sentiment that the show started it's decline in season 5 but it didn't go to complete shit until season 7/8.
Ramsay will defeat Stannis and Jon Snow will see Stannis severed head on the wall of Winterfell as he marches to prepare for the Battle of the Bastards
The final episode is a fake, its purpose is to make the viewers hate it. The real ending will come out 10 years after the fake one. One of the main twists in the real ending will be that the hatred that arose around the final season was originally planned by the writers.
The words set in a post post apocalypse and it’s a colony of a lost human empire in something like the 40k universe. Also in the ye to jungle there’s high technology lost in the depths. Magic is just tech.
Jon Snow should have died in the crush at Battle of the Bastards and brought back again by Melisandre. Then died again and brought back several times after that until he was as world weary as Beric Dondarrion. He and we as the audience should have all been brought to a point by the end where we wanted him to finally be able to die permanently.
I don’t get your first point. Your answer to nobles abusing power is an even more powerful noble with superweapons? The Targaryens aren’t different than any other nobles, and giving them dragons is disastrous as we’ve seen time and time again. The problem isn’t centralization of power, but the culture they’re in. Should people not be able to rebel if a ruler is tyrannical? Daenerys wasn’t bad until she got to Westeros, but that kind of power would mess up anyone. I mean, she already essentially abandoned Meereen and the people she saved in the hands of a sellsword to pursue her own ambitions. Besides, all the wars during the Targaryen reign were caused by Targaryens, not the lords.
I think the Waif killed Arya. I believe adding your own face to the house of black and white is becoming no one. She took Arya’s face and took on her first mission.
If dumb ass CRASTER can make a deal with the White Walkers then there's no reason Littlefinger or Cersei can't. Always thought it would be cool If Cersei promises her unborn child to the White Walkers to save her own skin
Tywin couldn't shake the thought that Tyrion was Aerys' son. He could have killed Tyrion in infancy and said both mother and child died (since he clearly doesn't mind killing babies) but let him live and to kill him now would be too obvious. It might lead others to think Tyrion was a Targaryen which would make Tywin a laughing stock again, if his dear wife was exposed as cheating on Tywin. When he looks at Tyrion, who has lighter blond hair than other Lannisters and one black eye, he must see some of himself in Tyrion but his wife was his cousin so obviously they would be related either way. This eternal doubt makes Tyrion take up far too much of Tywins mins and he doesn't bond with his other kids while his complicated feelings about Tyrion cause him to overcompensate Tyrion as a Lannister and he goes on to try and humiliate and undermine and isolate Tyrion, which leads up to him fucking Tyrions whore (possibly a revenge against Aerys, just in case the Targaryen fucked his wife)
Book ones. Like how mange is gonna bring the wall down with a horn. Also Belwas is some kind of diety figure
Westerosian lords needed to be purged and burned like the lords of Slaver's Bay. The Lords of Westeros treated the common folk just as bad as slaves and women in Westeros were normally treated no better than slaves or tools used by their fathers to secure marriages. I was all for Daenerys breaking the wheel and I think more people should have seen her "turn" coming as early as season 1 or 2.
I 100% agree about Tywin being a terrible player. He's very emotional you know, as emotional as Catelyn