#and why i dropped grrm's books

[visenyaism]

Sorry if you’ve been asked this but what do you think of all the rot in asoiaf? Obv some of it is related to the problems with monarchy but I feel like a lot of it isn’t and it just leaves me curious. Like cold hands or people killed by the others idk what that symbolizes there. Jon is in a land in which rot is in stasis from the cold and it’s creepy as shit. And then there’s stuff that could have multiple interpretations like dany by proxy of selmy experiencing bio warfare with the corpses like I know some people see it as the fall of old ghis but I wondered if maybe it was a sign to dany about breaking the wheel and doing as her ancestors did. Idk I know it’s a nasty series and sometimes grrm is just doing stuff so that it’s gross but I feel like rot comes up SO much and I people are usually talking online about like Tywin when it comes to rot.

Oh one of my favorite things about the asoiaf series is how heavy-handed george rr martin is with the rot symbolism. and (at the risk of sounding like an mfa vomited on my keyboard) the way that the political, pestilential, societal, and climatological aspects of the rot symbolism all interconnect.

In a society founded on so many feudal evils that has perpetuated for centuries, something has to give. It is a recurring theme in these books that violations of human decency under feudalism cause cataclysmic societal collapse represented through literal and metaphorical pestilence.

There’s the sociopolitical collapse in the riverlands caused by war of human decency and norms like guest right and prohibitions on kinslaying or cannibalism just dedicating away as times get hard. broken men. bodies left to rot in the sun for the crows to feast on. There’s the fermenting wildfire under every major street in Kings Landing. There’s the familial/relational decay of incest especially the targaryens and the lannisters. The people who hold power and that society rot, despite everyone’s best efforts at keeping up appearances: Robert Baratheon the “war hero” dies of a very nasty festering stomach wound he got in a drunken hunting accident, Tywin gets shot on the privy and his corpse putefies in the sept.

The climate stuff is also very salient. The series starts during late summer and as things get worse and worse in the world declines into the autumn where the summer fruit and all of the abundance is literally rotting through the hands of the characters. (see: renly’s peach vs doran’s blood oranges!) The cold up at the wall keeps the rot at bay for a while, but it does not entirely stop it. Coldhands’ hands are still blackening. Things are still unraveling at the hinges of the world. that’s pretty representative of the way that the violence of the border wall and the penal colony stationed there to patrol it are not sustainable. The decline of the night’s watch from a once proud order to a penal colony full of cruel and often impoverished convicts dropped off there by circumstance is a symptom of the society that sends people up there. But something still has to give. The wall will fall down and the existential crisis will come, it’s just slowed.

Critically, there is also the forgotten parable of Old Valyria: a society founded on extreme cruelty and slavery which eventually experiences cataclysm coming up from the very tunnels they send the enslaved into to die for the empire. A lot of what Daenerys experiences in Essos is an extension of that commentary on slave societies to me. Like. as the slavers try and reconquer places dany has liberated, people fleeing the violence, bring disease like the bloody flux with them. The rot creeps back. (important: disease and rot in the series is not always something people get for being morally bad. it often happens to people who just have no choice but to live in these places.)

But that’s why I think the way Volantis is described really ties a lot of those elements of the rot symbolism together. This is a society that has founded itself up from out of the corpse of old valyria. The city maintains some veneer of old glory, but the fountains are dry and the paint is chipping. The people there eat food that is so sweet it literally causes your teeth to rot out if you were to consume it every day. In terms of climate, I think it’s relevant that it is described as extremely, almost disgustingly, humid, and everything is excessively perfumed to cover up a tangible smell of decay.The air is quite literally cloying and difficult to breathe. You feel dirty after walking through it. The evil of slavery is rotting the city to its core in the same way that the evil of feudalism and the wars for the iron throne is affecting the city of king’s landing.

To wrap allllll this up. Rot is a signal that obviously societal collapse is coming, but it’s also transitional: the empire of old ghis brought about its downfall, and then valyria found itself on the same principles which brought about its own downfall, and then the Targaryen went to westeros and engineered their collapse in Kings Landing while the freehold did the same essos. I think the climatological and disease aspects of it are really heavy-handed symbolism that something has to give in the societies and we’re at the point in the series where that’s about to happen.

I think the ultimate arc of the series ends in some form of significant societal collapse, but instead of building upon a rotten foundation again people are going to have try and hope for something new and gather the courage to build that.,quite literally dreaming of the spring.

[pessimisticpigeonsworld]

On the "Choose a Side" Discourse

With HBO leaning veryyyy heavily into "pick a side" for their promos, the "no team" people are crawling out of the woodwork. I want to preface this post by saying that I'm not saying people shouldn't have favorite characters who aren't mine, nor that people should just be totally invested in fandom discourse.

I already made a post about the issues with the arguments of the "no team" people, so I'll just summarize my thoughts from that real quick. A majority of their arguments and metas are thinly veiled anti Rhaenyra thoughts. That's still true of this new wave of this group.

Now, one thing I will agree with them on is: GRRM did not write this story to be one of choose a side. However, that is not because the Blacks and the Greens are equally bad or the Targaryens are all evil. No, it's because the Greens were always in the wrong and GRRM makes this abundantly clear to us in F&B.

Let's look at some facts from the Dance. While male primogeniture is tradition, it's not the law; the king's word is law, something ASOIAF has established time and again. The Greens took the throne through underhanded ways. They left Viserys' body to rot for days while they prepared for Aegon's coronation to prevent Rhaenyra from learning and coming to KL. They forced the smallfolk to attend and most didn't cheer for Aegon, with some even calling for Rhaenyra while most were confused and angry.

Aemond drew first blood by killing the unarmed thirteen year old envoy, Lucerys Velaryon. A majority of the realm declared for Rhaenyra; 53 houses supported her, while only 28 supported Aegon. The Greens committed the greatest atrocities of the Dance: Aemond burning the Riverlands and Daeron massacring Tumbleton. They also committed the greater number of atrocities.

The Greens also lost the war. The Blacks weren't just fighting for Rhaenyra, they fought for her heirs as well. This is why they swore to her and Jacaerys; later for Aegon III after the deaths of his older brothers. The Black forces continued to fight after Rhaenyra's murder and took KL. Aegon was murdered by his own men when the Blacks were marching on KL; in other words, the Greens knew they were beat, so they killed Aegon in an attempt to save themselves. Since Aegon left no heirs aside from Jaehaera, Aegon III was crowned and married to Jaehaera. The Blacks won the war.

Aegon the Usurper's bloodline is destroyed with the deaths of Jaehaera and Gaemon Palehair. This is the final affirmation of the Greens being in the wrong. GRRM's books punish usurpers by wiping out their bloodlines; Maegor and Robert Baratheon being the most obvious examples. Aegon and all the Greens have no descendants, their bloodline is dead.

Rhaenyra's bloodline, on the other hand, continues all the way through to the main series. Daenerys Targaryen, the most powerful character in the series, is her descendant, as is Jon Snow (unconfirmed as of now in the books) who is another of the key five. Rhaenyra may have died, but her faction won the war and her bloodline will save the world through her two greatest descendants (alongside the rest of the key five).

The Dance of the Dragons is, ultimately, a story of the damage the patriarchy does and how misogyny is destructive to the world. The Dance caused the death of the dragons and a great loss of power for women in the realm. Queen consorts after Rhaenyra had markedly less power and there was a drop in female leaders of the great houses. The loss of the dragons caused the weakening of magic in the world as a whole.

The Dance isn't about who your favorite war criminal is, nor is it about the evil of the Targaryens. It's about misogyny; something HOTD seems to have forgotten. Even before they started pushing TB vs TG so hard, they still missed the point.

It doesn't matter that Rhaenyra isn't a perfect, or even a good, person. It doesn't matter that Rhaenyra is non-conforming, plays the political game, and exploits her father's favor. Rhaenyra could have been as pious and well-behaved as Naerys and the Greens still would have usurped her. Rhaenyra could have had children with Laenor, and still the Greens would have usurped her. HOTD tries to paint the usurpation as partially being on Rhaenyra and her choices, but nothing Rhaenyra could have done would have been good enough.

The Blacks are the protagonists of the Dance. Are they perfect? No. Are they heroes? No. GRRM loves his gray characters, the Blacks are no exception. If you people want a story with black and white morality and perfect protagonists, go read another book. Just because people aren't perfect and don't operate exclusively in what's right according to our modern standards doesn't mean they aren't the protagonists.

In conclusion: there isn't a TB vs TG discourse in the Dance because the Greens are the antagonists and completely in the wrong. The point of the Dance is that the misogyny of the Greens damaged the realm. Rhaenyra is the rightful queen, there is no actual argument for Aegon or any of his allies.

Rhaenyra is the rightful queen to Westeros, go cry to George if you don't like it.

[greenerteacups]

oooh please someday tell us what you think of GOT

oh, no, it's my fatal weakness! it's [checks notes] literally just the bare modicum of temptation! okay you got me.

SO. in order to tell what's wrong with game of thrones you kind of have to have read the books, because the books are the reason the show goes off the rails. i actually blame the showrunners relatively little in proportion to GRRM for how bad the show was (which I'm not gonna rehash here because if you're interested in GOT in any capacity you've already seen that horse flogged to death). people debate when GOT "got bad" in terms of writing, but regardless of when you think it dropped off, everyone agrees the quality declined sharply in season 8, and to a certain extent, season 7. these are the seasons that are more or less entirely spun from whole cloth, because season 7 marks the beginning of what will, if we ever see it, be the Winds of Winter storyline. it's the first part that isn't based on a book by George R.R. Martin. it's said that he gave the showrunners plot outlines, but we don't know how detailed they were, or how much the writers diverged from the blueprint — and honestly, considering the cumulative changes made to the story by that point, some stark divergence would have been required. (there's a reason for this. i'll get there in a sec.)

so far, i'm not saying anything all that original. a lot of people recognized how bad the show got as soon as they ran out of Book to adapt. (I think it's kind of weird that they agreed to make a show about an unfinished series in the first place — did GRRM figure that this was his one shot at a really good HBO adaptation, and forego misgivings about his ability to write two full books in however many years it took to adapt? did he think they would wait for him? did he not care that the series would eventually spoil his magnum opus, which he's spent the last three decades of his life writing? perplexing.) but the more interesting question is why the show got bad once it ran out of Book, because in my mind, that's not a given. a lot of great shows depart from the books they were based on. fanfiction does exactly that, all the time! if you have good writers who understand the characters they're working with, departure means a different story, not a worse one. now, the natural reply would be to say that the writers of GOT just aren't good, or at least aren't good at the things that make for great television, and that's why they needed the books as a structure, but I don't think that's true or fair, either. books and television are very different things. the pacing of a book is totally different from the pacing of a television show, and even an episodic book like ASOIAF is going to need a lot of work before it's remotely watchable as a series. bad writers cannot make great series of television, regardless of how good their source material is. sure, they didn't invent the characters of tyrion lannister and daenerys targaryen, but they sure as hell understood story structure well enough to write a damn compelling season of TV about them!

so but then: what gives? i actually do think it's a problem with the books! the show starts out as very faithful to the early books (namely, A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings) to the point that most plotlines are copied beat-for-beat. the story is constructed a little differently, and it's definitely condensed, but the meat is still there. and not surprisingly, the early books in ASOIAF are very tightly written. for how long they are, you wouldn't expect it, but on every page of those books, the plot is racing. you can practically watch george trying to beat the fucking clock. and he does! useful context here is that he originally thought GOT was going to be a trilogy, and so the scope of most threads in the first book or two would have been much smaller. it also helps that the first three books are in some respects self-contained stories. the first book is a mystery, the second and third are espionage and war dramas — and they're kept tight in order to serve those respective plots.

the trouble begins with A Feast for Crows, and arguably A Storm of Swords, because GRRM starts multiplying plotlines and treating the series as a story, rather than each individual book. he also massively underestimated the number of pages it would take him to get through certain plot beats — an assumption whose foundation is unclear, because from a reader's standpoint, there is a fucke tonne of shit in Feast and Dance that's spurious. I'm not talking about Brienne's Riverlands storyline (which I adore thematically but speaking honestly should have been its own novella, not a part of Feast proper). I'm talking about whole chapters where Tyrion is sitting on his ass in the river, just talking to people. (will I eat crow about this if these pay off in hugely satisfying ways in Winds or Dream? oh, totally. my brothers, i will gorge myself on sweet sweet corvid. i will wear a dunce cap in the square, and gleefully, if these turn out to not have been wastes of time. the fact that i am writing this means i am willing to stake a non-negligible amount of pride on the prediction that that will not happen). I'm talking about scenes where the characters stare at each other and talk idly about things that have already happened while the author describes things we already have seen in excruciating detail. i'm talking about threads that, while forgivable in a different novel, are unforgivable in this one, because you are neglecting your main characters and their story. and don't tell me you think that a day-by-day account tyrion's river cruise is necessary to telling his story, because in the count of monte cristo, the main guy disappears for nine years and comes hurtling back into the story as a vengeful aristocrat! and while time jumps like that don't work for everything, they certainly do work if what you're talking about isn't a major story thread!

now put aside whether or not all these meandering, unconcluded threads are enjoyable to read (as, in fairness, they often are!). think about them as if you're a tv showrunner. these bad boys are your worst nightmare. because while you know the author put them in for a reason, you haven't read the conclusion to the arc, so you don't know what that reason is. and even if the author tells you in broad strokes how things are going to end for any particular character (and this is a big "if," because GRRM's whole style is that he lets plots "develop as he goes," so I'm not actually convinced that he does have endings written out for most major characters), that still doesn't help you get them from point A (meandering storyline) to point B (actual conclusion). oh, and by the way, you have under a year to write this full season of television, while GRRM has been thinking about how to end the books for at least 10. all of this means you have to basically call an audible on whether or not certain arcs are going to pay off, and, if they are, whether they make for good television, and hence are worth writing. and you have to do that for every. single. unfinished. story. in the books.

here's an example: in the books, Quentin Martell goes on a quest to marry Daenerys and gain a dragon. many chapters are spent detailing this quest. spoiler alert: he fails, and he gets charbroiled by dragons. GRRM includes this plot to set up the actions of House Martell in Winds, but the problem is that we don't know what House Martell does in Winds, because (see above) the book DNE. So, although we can reliably bet that the showrunners understand (1) Daenerys is coming to Westeros with her 3 fantasy nukes, and (2) at some point they're gonna have to deal with the invasion of frozombies from Canada, that DOESN'T mean they necessarily know exactly what's going to happen to Dorne, or House Martell. i mean, fuck! we don't even know if Martin knows what's going to happen to Dorne or House Martell, because he's said he's the kind of writer who doesn't set shit out beforehand! so for every "Cersei defaults on millions of dragons in loans from the notorious Bank of Nobody Fucks With Us, assumes this will have no repercussions for her reign or Westerosi politics in general" plotline — which might as well have a big glaring THIS WILL BE IMPORTANT stamp on top of the chapter heading — you have Arianne Martell trying to do a coup/parent trap switcheroo with Myrcella, or Euron the Goffick Antichrist, or Faegon Targaryen and JonCon preparing a Blackfyre restoration, or anything else that might pan out — but might not! And while that uncertainty about what's important to the "overall story" might be a realistic way of depicting human beings in a world ruled by chance and not Destiny, it makes for much better reading than viewing, because Game of Thrones as a fantasy television series was based on the first three books, which are much more traditional "there is a plot and main characters and you can generally tell who they are" kind of book. I see Feast and Dance as a kind of soft reboot for the series in this respect, because they recenter the story around a much larger cast and cast a much broader net in terms of which characters "deserve" narrative attention.

but if you're making a season of television, you can't do that, because you've already set up the basic premise and pacing of your story, and you can't suddenly pivot into a long-form tone poem about the horrors of war. so you have to cut something. but what are you gonna cut? bear in mind that you can't just Forget About Dorne, or the Iron Islands, or the Vale, or the North, or pretty much any region of the story, because it's all interconnected, but to fit in everything from the books would require pacing of the sort that no reasonable audience would ever tolerate. and bear in mind that the later books sprout a lot more of these baby-plots that could go somewhere, but also might end up being secondary or tertiary to the "main story," which, at the end of the day, is about dragons and ice zombies and the rot at the heart of the feudal power system glorified in classical fantasy. that's the story that you as the showrunner absolutely must give them an end to, and that's the story that should be your priority 1.

so you do a hack and slash job, and you mortar over whatever you cut out with storylines that you cook up yourself, but you can't go too far afield, because you still need all the characters more or less in place for the final showdown. so you pinch here and push credulity there, and you do your best to put the characters in more or less the same place they would have been if you kept the original, but on a shorter timeframe. and is it as good as the first seasons? of course not! because the material that you have is not suited to TV like the first seasons are. and not only that, but you are now working with source material that is actively fighting your attempt to constrain a linear and well-paced narrative on it. the text that you're working with changed structure when you weren't looking, and now you have to find some way to shanghai this new sprawling behemoth of a Thing into a television show. oh, and by the way, don't think that the (living) author of the source material will be any help with this, because even though he's got years of experience working in television writing, he doesn't actually know how all of these threads will tie together, which is possibly the reason that the next book has taken over 8 years (now 13 and counting) to write. oh and also, your showrunners are sick of this (in fairness, very difficult) job and they want to go write for star wars instead, so they've refused the extra time the studio offered them for pre-production and pushed through a bunch of first-draft scripts, creating a crunch culture of the type that spawns entirely avoidable mistakes, like, say, some poor set designer leaving a starbucks cup in frame.

anyway, that's what I think went wrong with game of thrones.

[rhaenin-time]

So I've been organizing my accumulated files and sources 💀 and I got distracted rereading The Second Sex. And reading through through a book from 1949 at the front end of second-wave feminism really reminded me of how... Patriarchy 101 GRRM's feminism is. It's not just textbook. It's (in these days) beginner textbook.

Which is why it's so disturbing how many people don't see it. Especially with Fire and Blood, because it honestly feels like he could have been reading the Second Sex or it's like while writing it — it's that overt.

I mean, this is just from the intro:

And it's not like the show dropped it. I won't credit them with holding onto it on purpose. Those themes and dynamics made their way over because they are at the heart of the narrative. Particularly with Alicent and Rhaenyra. How they differ. And why Alicent is the way she is.

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We see why both men and women, why Alicent, treat Rhaenyra and later (we get traces of) Baela the way they do. Why Alicent acts the way she does.

In this case, I highly encourage you to think of how "woman as other" so often also means "woman as object" rather than subject. And how Rhaenyra dared act outside of the prescribed "appropriate" actions for an object, thereby stepping into the role of subject

🐲🐲🐲

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If we want to get metaphorical with my emoji use, Rhaenyra dared grow wings and breathe fire. She dared be a dragon, instead of a snake. And so when she died the dragons died.

I think my biggest gripe with the show — and don't mistake me, I still have many others — is that Fire and Blood clearly wants you to think about why Rhaenyra and the other women are portrayed the way they are. About how what the above ^ effects not just their lives, but the narrative around their lives. How they are received and perceived both in and after their lives.

But HotD cuts it out. They "trimmed" the misogyny back and in doing so made it easier to ignore if you're inclined. And by cutting out how overt the misogyny was, they encourage those who would not otherwise think about how the patriarchy works, how it shapes and is shaped by the people in it, to do exactly what Fire and Blood is telling you not to do.

HotD could have been an incredible vessel to introduce people to the basic concepts of how patriarchy works. It could have been Feminism 101 for people who otherwise have little sense of the subject outside of how it's been coopted.

Instead, we get people thinking in a way that Fire and Blood, albeit imperfectly, is trying to tell you is wrong.

[nogoodsheepstealing-greatgrandma]

Team Green: Sorry your faves are boring 😊🤷‍♂️ Sure you're supposed to root for the Blacks but the Greens are just more fun. Jace is boring I'm here for my angsty disaster mess 💚

You realise that's bad writing, right? This is a family civil war drama. One side of that family civil war shouldn't be populated with blank slates. If no effort is made into making Rhaenyra and Daemon's children as fleshed out as Alicent's children then that is bad writing.

Some people find the Lannisters more fun than the Starks, but the Starks are still fleshed out characters (and considering in the books Jace is 14/15, Luke is 13, Joffrey, Baela & Rhaena are 12, Aegon the younger is 9 and Viserys is 7 - these kids ages almost map straight onto the Starklings so they were so meant to be our Targlings). It didn't have to be a zero sum "you can only have ONE side that's interesting". The show is poorer for it. Game of Thrones was a disaster in many ways, but at least the different sides of the conflict had equal screen time and attention.

How hard would it have been to flesh out Jace, or at least give him a half-decent haircut? He could have been a mirror to Jon Snow (they technically have the same initials). One is a bastard who does not know he's a targaryen prince, the other is a targaryen prince who discovers he is a bastard. In a world that hates bastards, that insists they are 'wanton and treacherous by nature', there was plenty of potential to explore some complicated emotions, to give weight to how he feels about being a bastard. The whispers that would have followed him, the scrutiny he would have felt, the internalised guilt and shame, his protectiveness over his little brothers and wish to spare them the truth. Maybe after Alicent confronted Aegon over the pig there could have been a shift where Aegon turns his bullying away from Aemond and towards Jace (more in keeping with book canon). Maybe Jace could feel anxious about lessons with Criston Cole due to his open hatred of him. Maybe he could be equal parts devoted to and resentful of his mother over his parentage, maybe he could be driven to perfectionism to prove himself worthy.

The show made Jace more violent in the fight with Aemond than in the book, by changing who started the fight (from Aemond to Rhaena and co.), by narrowing the age gap to make Jace more of a match for Aemond, and by having him draw a knife instead of a wooden toy sword. But they didn't earn that moment. How much more satisfying would it have been if both Aemond and Jace were given equal emotional weight in the build-up to the fight? If the hurt and anxiety at discovering he was a bastard had been building and building until it burst out. The entire reason the show changed the age dynamic between Rhaenyra and Alicent to make them peers and best friends was supposedly to make their conflict more dramatic - why would you then drop that approach with their kids? How does it make the civil war story better if one half of the next generation of characters aren't really characters?

They didn't even have to put much effort into Baela, as GRRM already had her brimming with personality on the page, but they just... ignored that and made her a non-entity. Oh she gets one punch in, and there's a blink and you'll miss it background shot of her trying to hit Aegon (at this point I don't think the actors were even directed to do that I think they just took it upon themselves). Meanwhile Baela in the books is wild and fearless and deliberately provocative and quick to anger and fiercely defensive of her loved ones and wrestles squires in the training yard and has a pet monkey and sneaks out in search of adventure and brings home 'unsuitable' friends. Including a legless beggar, a blacksmith's apprentice whose muscles she admired, a street conjurer, twin prostitutes and an entire troupe of mummers. And she alarms everyone due to being 'overly fond of boys' and gets epic lines like this when it is suggested she marry Lord Rowan:

“I’ve bedded two of his sons. The eldest and thirdborn, I think it was. Not both at once, that would have been improper.”

She could have been an absolutely chaotic presence onscreen. Rhaena meanwhile is a little more like Sansa to Baela's Arya, but would have needed more work to flesh her out onscreen. Her insecurities and wish for a dragon seemed promising at first, but they were dropped as soon as Aemond lost his eye. Because that was ultimately the narrative purpose she served - to provide a new reason for the fight to start that wasn't Aemond hitting and pushing a toddler into a pile of dragon poo. She helps Aemond's image by being the one to start the fight instead of him, and from then on she becomes a voiceless non-entity. We watch Aemond fly away victoriously on Vhagar, we don't see Rhaena tearfully watching the last link to her mother vanish over the horizon.

Considering the prominent role of bastards during the dance (especially the dragonseeds), the uninterest in exploring bastardy in Jace makes little sense. Considering the centrality of gender to the story (and considering a certain event involving key players during the dance), the lack of effort into Baela and Rhaena makes zero sense (the show doesn't even bring up their right to Driftmark in an episode dedicated to discussing the rightful heir to Driftmark).

Considering especially that in fantasy black women are so often consigned to minor Missandei roles, the fact that we were robbed of Baela and Rhaena as main characters particularly stings. Baela in particular was an easy fan favourite in the book, and its a role that black women and girls so rarely get to play. If you had told me before the show that Helaena would be a fan favourite over Baela, I wouldn't have believed it. And don't get me wrong, I like that they fleshed out Helaena in the show, like Rhaena she didn't have much of a presence in the book. But it is so typical that the relative non-entity that they kept white gets to be fleshed out, while the more fleshed out character that they made black becomes a non-entity. And Helaena is skinny now, of course (all love to Phia Saban, but I am mourning plump Helaena).

And don't get me started on Kylo Raemond.

[lizzie-queenofmeigas]

The debate of whether Daemon would have killed the Strong boys to put his sons on the throne will never be settled until GRRM produces a version of the Dance with POVs from every character. That I am sure of. People have made up their minds on what they wish to believe and won't believe otherwise.

My reasons for thinking that he wouldn't have done so boils down to these questions: If Daemon really planned on murdering the boys then why didn't he attempt to do so during those ten years while he lived with them and raised them on Dragonstone? There was not even an accidental death or death induced by some illness for which he could be suspected. Why did he let them grow instead of taking them out one by one when they were vulnerable children? Forget the Strong boys. None of Alicent's children and grandchildren were harmed until the Dance broke out either. And the Greens were a greater and immediate threat to his children than Rhaenyra's sons. He should have started somewhere if his ultimate objective was to place his sons on the throne. Was Book Daemon planning on killing them all in one big Red Wedding style spectacle?

We already know Book Daemon is capable of cruelty. We know that he is many things but foolish, sloppy and incompetent aren't among them. No one who has read the book can deny this unless they are delusional canon deniers like Ryan Condal and show apologists. If he wanted to get rid of the boys there were multiple chances for him to do it. And if you believe that he was confident enough to think he could get away with murdering Rhaenyra's sons after she became Queen then he would have been so before as well. But nothing happened to the boys.Bodies began to drop only after Lucerys' death.

We have this fact before us and all we can do is derive our conclusions from it. The only valid and logical conclusion I can come to is that if he wanted his stepsons dead then they would have died long ago and wouldn't have been hale and hearty until the Dance began. That he didn't intend on killing them. I came across no reason to believe otherwise.

P.S. This is purely in the context of book canon. FlopD has derailed completely and cannot be taken seriously.

My thoughts exactly. Green stans keep going on about how Daemon would have killed the Velaryon boys or the Green kids. No he wouldn't have. Thinking that is a great insult to Daemon's intelligence and honestly says a lot about their own intelligence.

[azureflight]

HotD is not a prequel to GoT. It's a soft reboot for the tv franchise.

WARNING: The author is overdosing on copium and hopium, smoked directly from a colossal tin foil hat. Beware.

We have all groaned at the mention of the prophesy in the very first episode of the first season of HotD. "Why even bring that up?" was the common, understandable response. After all, that whole TPTWP/Azor Ahai thing went absolutely nowhere in GoT. There was no need for anything from any of them, they stupidly gave WW a dragon which allowed them to pass the Wall in the first place and then it turned out WW were not a big deal as Arya solo-killing one dude with a dagger they had since season 1 episode 2 was all it took.

The complete meaninglessness and worthlessness of the whole prophesy and the sheer weakness of an anti-climax that was the Others (White Walkers) threat is one of the main complaints people had with the entire S8 of GoT, especially the book fandom. And it always felt like a stupid twisting of the knife to keep talking about it in HotD, since we know it goes nowhere and means nothing.

Now, we know that's not how it's gonna go in the books. Not only is GRRM on the record talking about it, but 2D are also on record bragging about making it all up on their own. But this is the show and it's already not following the books, so talking about it in show canon is moot.

Unless...

Unless of course, HotD is the start of a second, separate show canon, distinct from GoT.

Now, when I first heard it in season 1, I assumed, like many others, it was a misguided attempt at making references to the OG show in order to hype up the audience and create connective tissue to get us into this new story. And indeed, as HotD repeatedly brought it up again and again, I too have rolled my eyes so far back I almost went blind.

But with the first episode of season 2, now HotD did something else. It didn't just allude to a prophesy that went nowhere, to a threat that was a big fat nothing. Instead, it straight up contradicted GoT.

The infamous "Beyond the Wall" episode was first broadcasted in 2017. Fire & Blood got published in 2018 and came with a specific passage, a letter from Alysanne to Jaehaerys, about how her dragon refused to cross the Wall. This info was not available before in any books, thought it was speculated by the fandom as a possibility. The book directly went against GoT, it felt like GRRM saying "no, wtf, no."

GRRM also gave HotD the info about Aegon I being a dreamer and the whole conquest being motivated by a prophesy about the Long Night, and TPTWP.

HotD did not have to include any of this. Targaryens and their dragons and Dany was good enough hooks for GoT/asoiaf audience. No one knew about Aegon I being a dreamer or having a prophesy, so no one would be upset by such an "omission" either. Indeed, including this bit of info earned them only derision and rebuke, continues to do so.

So why persist? They talked about it again and again in season 1, but by the time they sat down to write the scripts for season 2, the feedback was out there, not only from online fandom but also from professional critics in the industry. This prophesy is not crucial or fundamental to Dance's story neither, they could skip, tone down, ignore. But they don't. They changed so much from the books, a borderline fanfic at this point, yet they insist upon talking about this and hyping it up against the collective negativity of the fandom. Why?

HotD is the first spin off from Got/asoiaf IP that HBO purchased. S8 was such a massive let down, what had been an iconic cultural cornerstone for a decade, almost instantly dropped from discussions, unless it was to talk about "shows with shit endings." There was talk of "remaking" it, almost as soon as the last episode aired, which was of course nonsense, but it explains the mood.

HBO sat down and commissioned bunch of spin offs, not only to milk a popular franchise, but also to keep it alive after a massive blow. And GRRM was particularly backing HotD, talking about how Dance was a story he always wanted to tell.

Now, with HotD's success, we have Dunk&Egg coming, as soon as 2025 if all the news is to be believed. A script is being developed for the Conquest, there is talk of reviving Nymeria's show. HotD did its job of salvaging the IP after what could have been a franchise killer of a garbage ending to GoT.

Thinking on it in very general terms, everyone agrees that asoiaf books will eventually get another shot at adaptation. Of course they will, everything does. Reboots and remakes never die. But when, where, how, is the question, and I think we have the answer.

HotD is where it starts. This show is not a mere prequel to "Game of Thrones". It is the starting point of a new show universe for asoiaf franchise. And the first thing they did to set it all up and signal that commitment, is to talk about the prophesy, the Long Night, and how that's not gonna go like it did in the GoT.

HotD brought up Aegon I's prophesy upon hearing it from GRRM, keeps talking about TPTWP, keeps alluding to the super important threat of WW and now went out of its way to inject that "dragons cannot cross the wall" lore bit, not because they have a bizarre compulsion to make references to a failed plot line that pisses everyone off, but because they are specifically developing towards another shot at that plot line, one that promises to be better.

HotD is not a GoT prequel. It is the first installment of the new asoiaf-show universe. D&E, the Conquest, and maybe even Nymeria when it arrives, will follow this new canon, and all of them will eventually lead to another adaptation of asoiaf novels.

When? No idea. Harry Potter and the deathly Hallows Part 2 was released in 2011. A remake of the novels, now in tv series format, is currently being developed and projected to release at 2026. Apparently 15 years is seen as enough. Will it be longer for asoiaf? Maybe. Shorter? I do not think so.

But it is coming. We always knew it would eventually, some how, come, but I think we now know how and where it's coming from.

[jackoshadows]

I feel like GRRM is stuck on Bran Stark. Bran being hard to write is why, despite being one of the central characters of the books, he only has half the POV chapters of Jon Snow. And why he is unable to finish The Winds of Winter and is doubtful of even finishing by 2025.

As a serial procrastinator, I can sympathize with a tendency to put off the hardest task with excuses, while eagerly completing the easiest first.

It's clear that GRRM loves writing Tyrion and Arya. He has an entire novel's worth of material in Braavos for Arya and I feel like the difficulty will be in editing it and cutting it down to fit into TWoW. Similarly Tyrion is most probably done as well, considering all the mentions of him writing Tyrion chapters in his notablog posts. So he's most likely done with the Tyrion and Arya POV chapters. They are the easiest characters for him to write.

Tyrion being done would mean that the Essos plot is largely dealt with as well considering Dany's POV would intersect with Tyrion's at some point and he can't fully finish Tyrion until Dany's is mostly done as well. In May 2012 he mentioned writing Dany's Essosi chapters.

WINDS OF WINTER. Yes, I’m working on that too. At the moment, I am writing about the Dothraki. More than that, I sayeth not, you know I don’t like to talk about this stuff.  - Daenerys POV (Essos)

In June 2020, he mentioned Barristan and more chapters in the North.

In between tapings, I return to Westeros. Of late I have been visiting with Cersei, Asha, Tyrion, Ser Barristan, and Areo Hotah. I will be dropping back into Braavos next week. - Cersei, Asha (North), Tyrion, Barristan (Essos)

He has also mentioned writing Victarion chapters.

We also know that the two battles - battle of fire in Essos and the battle of ice in the North - is already written and was simply moved from ADwD to TWoW.

With all this being intricately tied together into one giant plot - Stannis Vs Boltons at Winterfell, Theon and Asha with Stannis, the pink letter to Jon, Jeyne being send to the Wall, GRRM writing about how we will be getting 'Direwolves Vs Ramsay's hounds' etc. - means most of this is also done. GRRM has also mentioned writing Melisandre - the only POV at the Wall now that Jon Snow is dead - chapters. Which means the North/Wall is also mostly done.

“I think we’re gonna start out with a big smash with the two enormous  battles,” Martin says (Essos and North).  In addition, Martin says, “We have more deaths, and we have  more betrayals. We have more marriages.” Let the speculation begin. As  he’s noted before, Martin says the Dothraki are coming back into the  story (“in a big way”), and he says “a lot of stuff is happening at The  Wall.” - GRRM

August 2020:

My life is at home, on hold, and I am spending the days in Westeros with my pals Mel and Sam and Vic and Ty. And that girl with no name, over there in Braavos. -  The Wall/Mel, Sam, Victarion, Tyrion, Arya

So there's also Sam/Oldtown/Euron chapters - Sam is another character he loves writing. So that section of the story - possibly Euron's attack on Oldtown seen through Sam and Aeron POV chapters - has also got attention.

What about KL and the Riverlands?

November 2020:

Of late I have been spending a lot of time with theLannisters. Cersei and Tyrion in particular. I’ve also paid a visit to Dorne, and dropped in to Oldtown a time or three. In addition to turning out new chapters, I’ve been revising some old ones (some very old)… including, yes, some stuff I read at cons ages ago, or even posted online as samples. I tweak stuff constantly, and sometimes go beyond tweaking, moving things around, combining chapters, breaking chapters in two, reordering stuff. - Cersei (KL), Tyrion, Sam(Oldtown)

June 2022

WINDS, you say?   Yes, still working.   Finally finished a clutch of Cersei chapters that were giving me fits.   Now I am wrestling with Jaime and Brienne.   The work proceeds, though not as fast as many of you would like. - Cersei(KL) Jaime, Brienne (Riverrun, Lady Stoneheart)

So GRRM has recently (recent for us asoiaf fans lol!) finished Cersei, Jaime and Brienne chapters as well. So that's Essos, the North, the Wall, Oldtown, King's Landing and the Riverlands.

What's missing is Bran and Sansa in the Vale in terms of major POV characters. The Vale may just be an instance of being too isolated and unconnected from the rest of the plot until Littlefinger makes his move or GRRM may find writing LF's plotting a bit hard to tackle.

However, it's Bran that stands out for me in not being mentioned, considering this is the penultimate book and the threat from beyond the Wall has to be a big part of this book.

It has been my intention from the start to gradually bring up the amount of magic in each successive volume of A Song of Ice and Fire, and that will continue. - GRRM

“ And it is important that the individual books refer to the civil wars,  but the series title reminds us constantly that the real issue lies in  the North beyond the Wall. Stannis becomes one of the few characters   fully to understand that, which is why in spite of everything he is a   righteous man, and not just a version of Henry VII, Tiberius or Louis   XI.” - GRRM

From all his interviews here and there, I can think of 3 reasons why the Bran chapters are hard.

This is where a lot of the hard core high fantasy happens. And we know that there's a backstory with Hodor that involves some complex time travel shenanigans - not going to be easy to write for someone in his seventies. Even more complicated in terms of causal loops and temporal paradoxes if it's Bran's consciousness that's doing the time traveling.

Age. GRRM has admitted before that he finds Bran the hardest to write as a disabled little boy. Bran's grown up a couple of years and yet he's still a little boy - Arya's age in AGoT.

Isolation with few fun side characters. GRRM really loves that world building and writing for those tertiary characters surrounding his main character. Arya meeting fun new characters everywhere she goes, her arc in Braavos, Dany in Essos, Jon's colorful and fun side characters, Tyrion traveling through Essos. One reason for why the series blew up from a trilogy into this unfinished mess is because GRRM enjoying writing for the side characters more than the main characters. Brienne got 8 chapters traversing the Riverlands searching for Sansa while Bran languished with 3 chapters in ADwD. Thus far Bran's world is very isolated and disconnected and has the least side characters - Meera, Jojen, Summer, Bloodraven and Coldhands. Of these, only 3 speak.

I think therefore that having written everything that GRRM can of the characters he does enjoy writing and finishing off the political plot points, he has finally turned his attention to Bran Stark. This is hardest part, involves a lot of sticky notes and attention to detail and needs to cover a lot of ground, bringing the Others back into the story in a big way.

I wish him luck. It's not going to be easy to write plots and details that he thought of some 30 years ago but I hope that he gets to finish a decent chunk of Bran chapters so that TWoW can finally be published.

[kingsmoot]

Oh it's definitely a lot of speculation! I am fairly certain the timelines line up that GRRM was openly supportive of the S2 writing before the "cut 2 episodes" directive and that his fallout with Condal began sometime after, though. It's also true that Condal's original statement about the cut season tried to frame it as a "creative" decision rather than a financial one. It wasn't until later that I think Hess(?) admits that it "wasn't [our] decision".

GRRM definitely didn't go as hard as he could have but I think the way he kept teasing the post and the fact that he followed through with it is already really bad on it's own. GRRM seems to think it's a noble cause and that he's "saving" the show, but the reality is he's whipped up a frenzy of hate as a means to bully the writers. I understand his frustrations as the author, and I get that he helped Condal get the job but... It's Condal's now! To accuse him of having "no plan" while he is likely in the midst of petitioning for a bigger budget to actually accommodate his plan, after he's already had the rug ripped out from him last season, feels really cruel. It's hard to extend empathy to George when he's extending so little to the person HE picked to handle this adaptation.

I also agree that GRRM probably talked to Condal the most and that's likely why he's the target of his ire. But idk... GRRM has a lot of experience working in television and it feels like he should be more understanding of Condal's position. He gives passing mention to the constraints of writing for television, but it still feels like he expects Condal to have the same creative freedom of an author rather than a showrunner. GRRM was supportive of S1 and at least supportive of the untampered plans for S2 - so to turn on Condal so severely is just baffling.

GOT ended a failure and Execs need results to feel that ASOIAF properties are worth the continued investment- and even that isn't enough, given S1 was a massive success and the budget still got cut. GRRM's resistance to making big-picture sacrifices is why he ~can't~ be a showrunner. He CAN and SHOULD make creative suggestions- in his capacity as an Executive Producer. But the showrunner (Condal) has every right to reject those ideas if they do not make commercial sense. It's not all about creative integrity- it's show business, and it's Condal's job to consider both. Cutting characters and combining storylines is the most common way that this manifests!

Sorry to rant in your inbox about this... I took a break from socials post-season because the hate was so bad and I was just starting to poke my head back in when this dropped. As someone who really enjoyed S2, I'm... exhausted! But it's great gossiping about it with people who aren't just using George's post as further fuel to keep shitting on the show.

Hope your foot is okay<3

oh, please don't apologize!! this is interesting and a topic that i want to engage with, i appreciate you coming to my inbox!! (and thank you, my foot is fine now, i just hate medical procedures and wanted a distraction while waiting around being anxious at urgent care)

and yes i agree with everything you've said, i was just chatting with my friend @intomyth about how if nothing else (and there is a LOT else) it is irresponsible of george to point at one single person in front of his rabid fanbase and say definitively "i'm mad at this guy about this adaptation. the things i'm mad about are his fault." because, like... show AND book fans have proven over the years that they will create targeted cyber harassment campaigns over nothing (like twitter accusing liv of sleeping her way into this role just because they are rabidly misogynistic chronically online alicent antis who have lost all sense of decorum and perspective and do not perceive olivia cooke as a real human being with a job that she does well and not the evil bitch hag queen of westeros who stole rhaenyra's throne since none of that is REAL!!!) so i cannot imagine the kind of harassment they will concoct when they feel like they are raising their sword and shield in george's defense and with his blessing.

all in all while i can try to understand and/or speculate on george's personal feelings, i think his conduct was inappropriate. i don't personally agree w any of his "criticism" of the show in his blog post (bc it wasn't actually criticism...) and i think publishing it at all was the wrong move. it was rude and unprofessional and most of all strange.

and i am ALSO exhausted, dude!!!! i loved s2.1 - 2.5 and thought 2.6 - 2.8 were a total bust but at the end of the day... hotd is fun tv. that i like watching. in my free time. which i (like most working adults) have little of. the vitriolic hate tornado that has been built up around the dragons and incest show is very strange to and uncomfortable for me. do you guys watch tv like your life depends on it because someone is like... threatening you? is this how you earn your rent money? are you being forced by clandestine and inescapable circumstances to watch a show that makes you so angry it's permanently altering your health record? what gives, dude? what happened to watching tv because it's fun and you like it?

[lilith-91]

Why do you think grrm is "pro Rhaegar"?

I mean, because he's serving cunt in life and in death lol

Jokes aside, he's a central figure in the books. Many characters are still obsessing over him 20 years after his death, he was so beautiful that Cersei (!) gave a fleet to a guy just because he almost looked like him.

Two viewpoint characters are in love with him (Cersei and JonCon). Other three idolized/respected him (Dany, Jaime and Barristan)

Ned, another viewpoint character, compared Robert and Rhaegar and ROBERT come out lacking (against the guy who "kidnapped and raped" his sister, basically)

Jaime calls him "King" and says Robert was no true King.

Wyman Manderly says Rhaegar Frey is a smirking worm “with a dragon’s name" (he was offended lol)

Daenerys is compared multiple times to him in a positive way

And look at what happened to the rebellion's leaders. Robert was butchered by a pig, Tywin was Killed by his own son while shitting, Jon Arryn was poisoned by his wife…..and the guy who died as a warrior (and with a tragic poetic death) was Rhaegar lol

"Rubies flew like drops of blood from the chest of a dying prince, and he sank to his knees in the water and with his last breath murmured a woman's name.”

Annnd……he wasn't a rapist. Lyanna and Rhaegar's relationship was consensual, as i've said here

He wasn't perfect or a hero, no. Nobody is perfect in this series. "The human heart in conflict with itself" and "Love is death of duty" very much defines Rhaegar. The struggle between his marriage to Elia and love for Lyanna, his conflict with his father, the prophecy and the threat of the Others. He couldn’t anticipated that the Lannisters would betray his father, or that his wife and children would both be killed.

He made mistakes like....99% of asoiaf characters. He's a conflicted character with flaws and virtues.

He wasn't the "spawn of Satan" like many people want to believe. GRRM will never acknowledge the nonsensical fandom headcanons and he's not gonna change his books.

So yeah, he’s 100% pro-Rhaegar and the fandom will get a rude awakening with the next books

[visenyaism]

tbh I'm kinda sick of grrm being the word of god rn. when it comes to the books sure absolutely. but like when it comes to the 10 shows he options to hbo a year with little to no source material and is very hands-off with like idk babe yeah ofc it didn't turn out how you wanted it. I understand why he doesn't want to be involved in the shows because he's old with a life in the us. but if this is how you feel about it then you either gotta stop selling the damn shows or get ok with it being a separate thing from your stuff. idk maybe this is cope because I liked s2 for the most part, like it was flawed for sure but I enjoyed it. and now he's gonna post his Ten Commandments and no one will ever be allowed to say that they enjoyed it online ever again without death threats

i dont want to speculate on his recent behavior until that blog post he’s been ominously hinting at drops and we know all the information so i will be pointedly silent for now

[creganofhousestark]

(Screenshots because I’m one hundred percent sure i will be blocked for stating facts that go against the op’s headcanons if i were to reblog my opinions under their post and then will proceed to rant away about the eViL aRyA sTaNs whose crime is, well, reading the books, you know?)

So, i had the misfortune of coming across this one post by @agentrouka-blog when i was going through the main tags and, god! The amount of bs i have to wade through in the name of fandom experience is concerning at this point.

Whenever did Sansa cover for Arya? When she was declaring her as a traitor to a bloodthirsty Cersei Lannister that it was her sister with the traitor’s blood and not her after her father’s imprisonment? Or when she threw Arya under the bus at Trident?

“She blames Sansa for things she never did” dude there was never one moment where Arya blamed Sansa for things she never did. Hell, Arya didn’t blame Sansa enough. Guess it’s time to reread AGoT lol. Sansa “it’s your butcher boy’s fault for dying because he attacked the prince” is blameless y’all *mic drop*

“Violently attacks her because that’s her opportunity to blow off steam after a traumatic 4 days” yes because your sister is basically accusing of treason when the reason behind her actions was purely defense. Apparently you must be level headed in the face of your your sister refusing to be honest in a moment when the outcome (which is Mycah living or dying) depends on her word. If Sansa’s really as smart and intelligent as stansas claim then Joffrey’s actions at the Trident should’ve opened her eyes. Ned was the Hand of the King, the King’s BFF. She was under no pressure to maintain diplomacy. Hell, Ned was right by her side, reassuring her and encouraging her to speak her truth. What would’ve happened if she were honest? The betrothal would’ve been called off? Ned would’ve lost his spot at worst? Big loss, the North would have minded it’s own business as usual….and Sansa’s southern dreams would have shattered. In that moment Sansa chose her dreams and fantasies over her sister and remain blind to the kind of a monster Joffrey was.

Moreover, being focused and worried about herself and her desires is not necessarily a flaw, Sansa’s just more human. She’s got five heroes to compete against, which is why she may appear more flawed than Arya. But honestly it’s all subjective. Arya’s character is simply rich and has a hell lot more depth, that’s all.

Mostly Ned’s favouritism BRO NED CHOSE TO GIVE UP THE HONOUR HE VALUED hell he chose a traitor’s death for her and, goddammit there’s not one moment where he favoured one over the other. Do not talk about the damned flowers scene in Sansa I, Ned would’ve grinned and thanked Sansa for the same bleeding flowers. Sansa was just pissed that Ned didn’t reprimand his child for behaving like a typical 9 year old child. Which, nobility or no, is quite common in that society. Hell, we have textual evidence of Catelyn playing with LF and Lysa making mud pies at 12. It’s almost as if Sansa can’t stand anything short of Sansa 2.0 from her sister.

Arya’s miles better. Just ask GRRM. He wrote the books.

Anyways, thanks agentrouka for reminding me how brilliant of a writer George Martin is. The man picked stereotypical heroes and gave their stories not-so-stereotypical twists as their arcs progressed. An exiled powerless princess who earned it all and more through her blood sweat and tears, a non conformist noblewoman who’s gone through an extraordinary number of trials, a powerful noble dwarf unwanted by his own blood, a disabled boy with unparalleled magical potential and a bastard from two powerful, magical families who was practically thrown aside.

[agentrouka-blog]

Why do you think the names that both Elia and Rhaegar uttered before dying are not revealed by Martin? Like in tHotU, Dany watches R say a woman's name before dying but though I always assumed it was Lyanna, nowhere is it confirmed, not even by Robert, even though he must've heard it. Elsewhere, Varys tells Tyrion that he found out via his little bird network that Elia screamed a name when Gregor went to kill her. It's never been specified who's name it was but Varys does allude to it being someone in connection to Tywin or that's my understanding of it but I'm pretty dense at understanding aSoIaF mysteries.

So, why the secrecy...I ask you?

There is no secrecy regarding Elia.

"Why forget?" Tyrion smiled. "I've promised to deliver his sister's killers, alive or dead, as he prefers. After the war is done, to be sure." Varys gave him a shrewd look. "My little birds tell me that Princess Elia cried a . . . certain name . . . when they came for her." "Is a secret still a secret if everyone knows it?" In Casterly Rock, it was common knowledge that Gregor Clegane had killed Elia and her babe. They said he had raped the princess with her son's blood and brains still on his hands. (ACOK, Tyrion IV)

In the context of the conversation it's absolutely clear that they are referring to Gregor Clegane. Because that's a controversial truth, given he still serves House Lannister as he did then. Implying (rightfully) her death was ordered by them.

Rhaegar is more subtly handled.

Rubies flew like drops of blood from the chest of a dying prince, and he sank to his knees in the water and with his last breath murmured a woman's name. . . . (ACOK, Daenerys IV)

The popular interpretation is that it was Lyanna's name, though why Dany would not state it as such is unclear. She is well aware of the story, especially in its romanticized form. Maybe because it was not Lyanna's name.

Given both instances happen in the same book, they might reference each other. Elia screams the name of her attacker to alert her surroundings. Rhaegar might be murmuring the name of someone else who motivated his actions that led to his death. Someone related to the prophecy that guided him, perchance.

GRRM has been heavily implying but not yet revealing Rhaegar's true motivations. If the name is relevant at all, it will come to light in the context of the prophecy, I am sure.

[gojuo]

Finally decided to drop the show lol I just can't with what the show runners are doing.

honestly if I get to choose how hotd was adapted I would have preferred it taken to an animation studio that knows to respect the source material, like the teams that worked with 86 and The Apothecary Diaries which are both light novels? You would feel the love, care, and respect the teams for those shows. esp 86, there were scenes and anime OG scenes that made the story even better than the LN, ofc they are not perfect adaptations, but if the same love and care was given to hotd and not this bs bias and etc, I won't even consider dropping it.

(also not me thinking that Yuichi Nakamura/Gojo's VA would be the perfect Aegon? 😂)

the latest leaks are sssooooooooo baddd omg i can't believe how bad it is 😭😭 why do producers/writers of adaptations think i want to see their made up shit storylines like i read this thing for GRRM not for YOU. why tf do they feel the need to change the canon? changing the source material is the fastest way for me to lose interest and ngl i feel the same on dropping the show bc i already don't watch tb scenes and i've pretty much stopped caring about show team green as well except aegon so what's the point? imma just be watching the 3 minutes of tgc screentime and that's about it.

ugh yes, animated asoiaf has always been my dream :( it's the best visual adaptation medium for these books in my opinion. very sad to think GRRM probably believes tv is the ultimate tool for it :( the colors, the geography, the castles, the outfits, the dragons, the fantastical elements like white hair and purple eyes etc. would all be better adapted in animation than live action. aggghhhhhhhh what a missed opportunity man 😞

[lemonhemlock]

If Jon had no reason to believe the wall will fall soon, why should Dany drop her war with Cersei if there’s no urgency? Shouldn’t he help Dany overthrow Cersei so D can take control and command all of the armies of Westeros to come North?

The Wall did fall, though, since the Army of the Dead reached Winterfell, so I'm not sure what you mean. I haven't seen the last two seasons in quite a while, but wasn't that one of his concerns which drove him to see Dany on Dragonstone? D&D did make the urgency of fighting the Others his main motivation in brokering peace with Cersei.

In any case, we don't know GRRM's intended order for these last epic stand-offs, but, if you ask me, it doesn't make narrative sense for Cersei to be the final boss. No matter how much cunt she serves, she is not a bigger threat than the Night King. (I know he doesn't exist in the books, just saying). So, whatever Cersei's fate will be, I suspect it will materialize before the final battle between the living and the dead.

If we do go by show logic where themes don't matter, it seems pretty reasonable not to want to waste time on petty wars when life itself is at stake.

[lizzie-queenofmeigas]

Rhaelya is despised and you and your fellow ten shippers doubling down on why that shit stain and his hypocritical unwashed northern teenage slut are so hated sends me. Have you considered that you and your lot's sociopathic lack of empathy, inability to pick up on both subtext, context, and social EQ, and cringe screeching every time people refuse to wank off to rhaegar and becky with the blue roses and make valid critiques of their narcissistic sociopathy is why they're so hated. Anyway, I'm really happy those books will never be finished and the only purpose their relationship served was producing Daenerys murderer. Very based of them actually. Although I will say it was also very based of GRRM to make Becky a hypocritical narc who complained about infidelity and was bastardphobic toward a baby all for her to slut herself out to a married man with kids and then promptly get knocked up and drop dead after shitting a bastard baby out lmaooooo. Her bleeding out on the same bed she probably fucked a married man is some of the best karmic justice and use of poetic irony I've seen in a bit, only a former Catholic could have envisioned that one I fear. GRRM was fully in his bag.

Behold, the height of stupidity.