#asoiaf spoilers for ts

[hellsbellschime]

How do you think GOT would change if Robert and Cersei had at least 1 child who was very visibly Robert's? With his hair, face etc. Definitely younger than Joeffrey though, possibly younger than Tommen too. Instead of writing that Letter to Stannis, Ned would have crowned a 7 y/o?

That would certainly be interesting, LOL and GRRM probably specifically didn't do that because it would make things too much of a clusterfuck. I mean frankly, he created a nearly identical problem with Rhaenyra and her kids and then just killed off all of her illegitimate kids so she and Daemon's kids could inherit, so I reckon the same thing would have happened with Cersei if she had a legitimate child with Robert.

[janiedean]

Saw some takes from green stans that the show creator is being too pro black team by not killing Laenor and choosing younger actor for the strong boys and adult actor fron the green childs so it will looks like adults bullying teenagers. While i also see a take fron the black stans swears that the show creator hates the black team SO MUCH by making the greens more dimentional. Thoughts?

(Me myself is not invested in this show so i just watch all of these discourse between green &black stan with popcorns. Love Jace so much though)

I mean, with the premises that:

I think both of those takes are massively idiotic

I am a black supporter since book days not just because jace velaryon > anyone else's faves but mostly because a) rhaenyra was right she was the heir she should have gotten the throne end of story b) any green except haelena in the book was either on my 'you bore me' or 'god I hate you' list so like why would I support the side on which I don't like anyone except one character who barely has any input on what happens poor girl

so like take it the way it is, but argument 1 is stupid because:

daemon actually comes off worse-ish in the show because like in the book he never killed his wife and wasn't implied to/was actually in love with laena way more than it was shown in the tv series and he killed vaemond bc rhaenyra asked him it wasn't his idea just to say the first three things that come on top of my head so like at most they're making rhaenyra look better but we still didn't get to the worst thing team black does so jury's out on that

laenor not dying was... wow THEY DIDN'T KILL THEIR GAYS?? like they had a gay character they decided to take a thing that in the book is not specified bc they said the boyfriend killed him and that IT WAS RUMORED DAEMON WAS BEHIND IT BUT WE JUST DON'T KNOW BECAUSE SOURCES WHAT ARE THEY so they took it and they turned it into he actually gets to be happy, like... wow after they had to kill off joffrey bc the story didn't advance otherwise they decided to not let laenor be miserable and that's the issue? pls come on

the actors' ages is ridiculous because like.... yo aegon was two years old in episode three when viserys tried to marry off rhaenyra to jason and episode five was even later and the timeskip was some ten years so like... aegon and aemond are older than jace who's the eldest of rhaenyra's kids so if they look older it's... just... sensed???? because they are?? also aegon looks his age and the velaryon kids are all accurate, the one who looks older is aemond but honestly considering the shit he pulls most likely next ep or in the finale i 100% guarantee you that it doesn't matter how he looks he's gonna be the worst anyway so like the problem with aegon and aemond is that they're both legit pos and I'll get to it in a second not how old they are, if ppl want to stan their side fair enough but own up to it

like tldr if they think the narrative is pro black it's because rhaenyra's right??? sorry but she is

on to why the other argument is stupid af which will clarify stuff I said before:

saying the creator is pro greens because he gave alicent a personality that's not thrift shop c*rsei written like in the main show is ridiculous because like book alicent has the depth of the shallowest pool in existence and sounds like the wicked witch of the west at every corner, which was why I detested her, and the show did a vast improvement in making her a deeper, way more interesting character and explaining her motivations/showing why she is that way and giving her nuance, like sorry that's improving on the source material which can always happen nothing is perfect (same for viserys tbh show!viserys > book!viserys) so that's imvho ridiculous also because I don't see how making alicent more nuanced like that means that they want you to stan the greens since the narrative is openly stating that viserys wanted rhaenyra to reign and that should have been the end of the question

same for aegon and aemond like... I mean they're both terrible and they were in the book and one thing aegon is most likely gonna do two seasons from now from what I'm gathering is imvho a level of fucked up you don't come back from at any point and he's an asshole before anyway and aemond... I mean I loathed him from the beginning but next episode most likely you're gonna see why as far as I'm concerned he deserves to rot so like I think the show is doing a good job of fleshing them out aemond def. had his moment when he claimed the lizard, but like the thing is that you can flesh them out as much as you want but it doesn't make them any less terrible so idg what's so bad about the writers wanting to have characters in the show and not caricatures differently from what the last seasons of got was like... I hate the greens except haelena but I'm really glad they're not making them cartoon villains thanks I'm watching a show for adults I want my nuance

like complaining that the ppl on the opposite side are actually nuanced characters is the stupidest shit I ever read and honestly I'm really glad they did what they did with alicent because honestly if I had to stand through ten episodes of fakewoke girlbossing the way they did with both c*rsei and show s*nsa I'd have suffered and I want to be entertained not to suffer

also you have excellent taste because jace > everyone else's faves thanks I'm planting my flag on that hill but tldr: the show is black-biased in the way the narrative is because again rhaenyra was crowned heir and she was right end of that shit but it's not doing anything to make the blacks look better™ and honestly if they don't pull punches on the thing I'm dreading that should be in the finale if my calculations are right I don't wanna hear any green stan complaining they get whitewashed because honestly Said Thing is... well y'know the red wedding is the most horrific wtf is this shit moment in asoiaf, okay that Thing is that for f&b imvho so if they actually don't tone it down I dare anyone to say they're making them look better bc there's no way you look good after that shit, the greens being actually well-written characters doesn't make them any less awful (okay maybe alicent is less awful than in the book but still) and it just makes for good writing, laenor deserved to fuck off to the free cities and anyone who says shit about my poor velaryon children gets muted as far as I'm concerned xD and that's my two cents

[theloupgaroux]

Daemon saying he spared Rhaenyra because she was a child but LAENA WAS EVEN MORESO A CHILD THAN RHAENYRA AND HE MARRIED HER DJDHDNNSBDBDJD

I didn’t really like a lot of this episode. Daemons been so dull and cold after the jump. Where’s the warrior from the books.

Really felt for Aemond this ep- defending his sister, going on his own (totally ignored) to claim a dragon, and then having four family members attack him at once for it. Like he’s a shit in the books but in the show I saw him approach Jace after the funeral and clearly want to reach out to him and just good for that little boy. He’s doing his best when his dad doesn’t love him and his moms a psycho. Show Aemond and Helaena, I like them both.

Baela and Jace djdjejsjdbdbdjsjjsjs

Corlys defending the boys when Rhaenys is being shitty about them. Come ON Rhaenys. You know your son. And those two boys are the boys that Laenor chose to be his heirs. Accept and love those munchkins. They need you.

[viscardiac]

it's been a Dayne day for some reason. you could even say a Day-ne. (ba dum ts). ALRIGHT BUCKLE UP FUCKOS IT'S TIME FOR VISCARDI'S NEW FAVE DELUSION (Dayne edition)

Fire and Blood cuts off at a particular point in Targaryen rule, the end of Aegon III's regency. He rules as king for 20 more years, before an early death. Then, his son, Daeron I, takes over, and The Bullshit™ with Dorne begins. Dornish takeover, which results in Dorne being brought into the Seven Kingdoms by his cousin nephew whatever Daeron 2 (electric boogaloo) later on.

Now. The Daynes are just. Overall. we don't really know jackshit about them. GRRM says he can't divulge their words bc it's a huge ass spoiler. My reasoning is bc they do become relevant later on, esp with the choice of Dyanna Dayne as wife to then Prince Maekar. Shit happens in Dorne and in court and i think that might be the reason why there's a postpone of the release of F&B2, aside from the obvious TWOW ordeal. I do think that's also why the choice of where to cut off might be there and not at the end of the dance or after his reign. F&B2 likely does contain context that helps with some of the unsolved things still going on in ASOIAF.

Anyways. We have Lady Dyanna Dayne, who gives birth, aside from Aegon, Aemon, and Daeron, to the three people of interest for this, Aerion, Daella, and Rhae. According to Aemon, Rhae and Daella have had children, and Aerion has had a wife, his cousin, Daenora, and with her, he had a son, whose "ill fated" name was Maegor. Aerion died guzzling down greek fire as we all know, but the fates of 1) Daella, 2) Rhae, 3) Daenora, and 4) Maegor are unknown aside from "existed" and "procreated" in the women's case. Those four are the only unnacounted for trueborn Targaryens we got. Everyone else was given a final location, like in Saera's case, where she was known to be in Volantis.

We have no idea who do Rhae and Daella are married to, if they indeed do get married. In Maegor's case, we don't even know if he made it past infancy. Daenora herself could have gotten married again, she was young when Aerion got himself killed.

My working theory here is that one of those folks married into house Dayne. Whoever those folks married, they're unnacounted for in the main tree. They were not given the name Targaryen. And it would have made sense to a certain degree that it was into Dyanna's house. It could have been any of them, but I sure as fuck would like if it was baby Maegor because it would be Particularly Funny.

I might be wrong, and i might not be, who knows. Something is UP with the Daynes and it happened after the conquest of Dorne.

Note: I do not account this as a secret targ theory because they're Not Targs. Whoever married into the house had their kids named Dayne and so on and so forth amen.

This has been me for this Day-ne's bullshit. Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

[melrosing]

A lot of fans are saying them knowing prophecy and not doing anything makes no sense but tbh it does. Everyone believes magic is bullshit except for certain physical magic that they’ve actually seen ( people controlling fire and shadow) and even that is rare and in far away lands

it still makes sense to me: some Targaryens did try and support the Night’s Watch for example, suggesting that they understood where the danger was coming from and that that would be the first frontier. and sure, some clearly just weren’t equipped morally or otherwise to do a fucking thing. that’s just people for you.

but also like… you’re fighting something that hasn’t even started to happen - how do you prepare yourself against a threat you only know from dreams? look how vague Dany’s dreams are. look how vague the instructions Viserys gives Rhaenyra are lol. like??

and you can kind of see a similar thing with the Starks - they have also carried bits and pieces down through their line to prepare them for what’s coming, e.g. their house words/the idea that there must always be a Stark in Winterfell/the North being the staunchest supporters of the NW/Brandon the Builder etc. but Ned had no idea there were ice zombies making their way downtown. neither do any of the Starks but Jon. and Benjen I guess RIP. like premonitions of doom do not come with an instruction leaflet

Ultimately I think House Targaryen and House Stark are the ones in the know but…. they also just aren’t really. what the fuck you do about an eternal winter and an ice zombie invasion is always going to be a difficult question to answer, but it helps to at least know what the question is

[eugeniedanglars]

the parallels to game of thrones really are astounding though. complete with one of the last episodes making a fan-favorite couple canon only to totally forget about that plot point afterwards, defeating the overarching villain before the finale and consequently having nothing to do in the last episode, and me giving up on the show halfway through its run in favor of composing an elaborate and much better version in my head where everything is beautiful and nothing hurts

[thelegendofclarke]

i just...

i have absolutely no idea why they hyped this season as The Season of the Starks™ tbh.

we literally saw them all together twice...

once when they were arguing in the Godswood, and once where they were saying goodbye to two members of their family (possibly forever).

there was no “the pack survives” or “in winter we must protect ourselves — look after one another” or “we have to trust each other”...

there were no one on one moments, nothing showing the importance of their bond, nothing showing their love and dedication to each other until it came to saying goodbye.

the Starks are supposed to be “the heart” of the story, and family is at the heart of the story of the Starks... when they took away the Starks, they took away the heart.

[joannalannister]

Has the show's final season changed any of your theories regarding the books' endgame?

Not really. I think the only thing that’s ... "changed" isn’t the right word for me, that’s too solid ... I think the only thing I’m giving more consideration to because of the show is Bran as King in the North at the end of the books. I still feel there’s a strong possibility that Rickon is King in the North at the end, as I’ve discussed previously, but I’m giving more weight to the idea that Bran could be a mystical King figure in the end.

"David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss] told me [Isaac Hempstead Wright] there were two things [author] George R.R. Martin had planned for Bran, and that was the Hodor revelation, and that he would be king. So that’s pretty special to be directly involved in something that is part of George’s vision." [source]

The telephone game is strong here, so I don’t believe that this is evidence that it will happen exactly as D&D portrayed. I still believe that the realm is splitting up into multiple kingdoms at the end of the books, so I really do not think Bran is going to be king over the entire continent, but as I said, I’m giving more weight to the idea of Bran as KitN. Idk if he'll be a political king, idk if he'll be a shaman king and leave the day to day stuff to someone like Wyman Manderly or Sansa when she is older, idk if he’ll be like a legendary King Arthur, like, a magical person who isn’t around right now (by right now I mean in the aftermath of the war for the dawn) but who will return if Westeros has need.

I’ve been thinking about Jon's ending, but my thoughts there are more influenced by Windhaven than the show.

Note: I'm not willing to debate this topic, and any wank that comes from it will result in an immediate block. Furthermore, this post is not an invitation to send me questions about the show; speculation about the books is as close as I am willing to come to it.

[him-e]

Not that GRRM is in any way exempt from sexist writing, but I think D&D’s fundamental issue is that they got the game of thrones vs the war for the dawn the wrong way round. I’m fairly sure book!Dany embracing ‘fire and blood’ is not going to mean good things for the people of KL, but she’s ultimately not bad. I could see her being ripped apart by it and *then* doing everything she can to save the realm in penance. But bc they wanted Cersei as final boss we got this shit instead.

D&D’s fundamental issue is that they got the game of thrones vs the war for the dawn the wrong way round

yeah I know this is the general consensus right now, even among people who recognize the echo of George’s writing here and there—that they got things in the wrong order for shock value or because they desperately wanted to shoehorn the game of thrones back into the narrative as the final climax. But I guess I’ll have to play the devil’s advocate on this, because I do wonder if GRRM isn’t going to pull the ultimate subversion on us. 

No, I don’t think the Others’ threat will be dealt with in a single chapter or won’t matter or will be framed in a way that makes the cosmic threat secondary to the game of thrones. However, imo it’s completely POSSIBLE that A Dream Of Spring will be structured in a similar way as GoT8—first half is the war for the dawn, second and final half is dealing with the ashes and with human evil again (possibly, in the form of Euron Greyjoy who, by then, will have aligned himself with Cersei and acquired a dragon via Dragonbinder / awoken the Drowned God / stolen some eldritch power from the defeated Great Other—remember he’s set to literally kill gods and become one himself?).

But I think we shouldn’t knee-jerk rule out the possibility that this latter half will ALSO deal with Dany’s descent into tragedy and it will happen AFTER she did all the appropriate heroic stunts in the war for the dawn, similar to how it is in the show, just… much more nuanced and better written, as usual. It’s too big of a character trajectory to be solely D&D’s work. It cuts too deep not to be Martin’s, imo. I mean, so far D&D’s changes to the story have been aimed to simplify things, dumb down fan faves’ unpleasant traits (see: Tyrion), play tropes straight, and normalize complex, potentially unsavory narratives into more cliched storytelling. Why would they intentionally go for an anticlimax like this, complicating everything, when they could have just made a final season that wraps the game of thrones up in its first episodes and then steadily progresses towards its natural climax, the war for the dawn, if that’s what happens in the books? Why would they go for Dany going full MacBeth when they could have her sacrifice her life to defeat the White Walkers, as everyone keeps repeating will be her destiny in the books? That’s a great story. It’s shocking enough and heartbreaking enough to the casual audience. IT’S THE PATH OF LEAST RESISTANCE. Why would these lazy storytellers reject the path of least resistance?

As far as I’m concerned, I’ve read every possible version of “Dany will have a dark phase and fight to death F!Aegon and maybe accidentally pulverize King’s Landing but then she’ll redeem herself in the war for the dawn and die a hero”, and the more I think about it, the more it sounds like a fanfiction now. A wonderful fanfiction that someone should DEFINITELY write, ESPECIALLY NOW, but still–it sounds like wanting to have your cake and eat it. There’s literally zero subversion in this narrative. It plays safe. It only has fake edges. GRRM said the ending is bittersweet, but this isn’t bittersweet, it’s… stereotypically triumphant, though obviously beautiful and meaningful. I used to believe it SO HARD MYSELF, like I believed all the wonderful meta and spec I’ve read in the last years. But now I have to wonder. 

The problem since season 5 has been that we’re looking at the show and saying that it’s butchering book arcs and getting it all wrong and upside down when we have no fucking clue what these books will be about. We thought we did, we made up incredibly detailed scenarios about them, but no one here is George RR Martin and nobody is really capable of writing and thinking the way he does, for better or worse, so acting like our well-established theories are canon is… idk, kind of arrogant, imo.

Like take Jaime’s arc for example. The book fandom always thought that dying with Cersei and fighting in the war for the dawn would be mutually exclusive, because the WftD is supposed to be the final climax, so how can Jaime be alive to be in it if he’s ALSO meant to fulfill the whole murder-suicide schtick with Cersei? And yet the show made it possible because the WftD isn’t the final chapter of the story. Same goes for all the characters who survive the WftD. We all assumed the WftD would be the endgame point for these characters’ arcs, but what if it isn’t? What if Martin has MORE, and crucial, character development in store for them AFTER it?

Look, I’m not trying to get d&d off the hook—I’m mad at them like everyone else is right now—nor I’m saying that TWOW/ADOS will play EXACTLY like this, and I’m sure that whatever happens in the books Martin will write it out in a nuanced way. That the show’s problem has always been in the execution is nothing new. But if there’s even a 2% chance that these naked plot points will happen in the books too, I need to consider it, and brace myself for it. 

Because at the end of the day, the heart of Asoiaf is neither the game of thrones NOR the war against the Others, it’s the human heart at conflict with itself. So there’s literally zero guarantee that the WftD “has” to be the final climax. There would, if asoiaf were a more traditional narrative.

BUT IT ISN’T.

As a final note, I recommend taking a look at this Twitter threat I’ve recently read which summarizes my own thoughts very well.

[rebeccasjack]

ughhh but like Cersei really got to die in the arms of the man she loves who lbr never stopped being an extension of her even tho she tried to kill him an EPISODE ago and Missandei gets beheaded IN FRONT OF GREY WORM WHO CANT EVEN STOMACH WATCHING; make it make sense P L S

[laufire]

omg, apparently the “who is manipulating whom” is being read literally by the political!jon people*, despite the fact that the guy spent the entire episode (yes, I gave in and watched it smh) ~brooding about having fallen in love with his aunt, and then went ahead and stupidly revealed to her he’s a threat to her rule** (not to mention the face he pulled when Sam was framing not telling Dany yet as “smart” and Jon was like... “no man I’m fucked up over this okay” lol) I CANNOOOOOT xDDD

*that theory remains the single, most amusing piece of fandom nonsense I’ve ever read in my entire life. like, UP THERE. no one else has ever pulled all their muscles when they tried to reach so high.

**maybe it’s the book-reader in me and how I remember the Young Griff plot being handled, but I find the idea of Jon having a realistic claim to the throne that anyone would actually take seriously in-verse quite preposterous. and that’s without getting in how discussions about who “deserves” the throne more make me root for the Night King lol.

[ayrennaranaaldmeri]

sansa:  *thinking about joffrey, a fucking sadistic psychopath who murdered her father, tormented her, threatened her, and ramsay bolton, a fucking sadistic psychopath who raped her, murdered her brother*  yeah i guess you were the best out of those, but we’re never gonna work k?   tyr*on: *thinking about joffrey, a fucking sadistic psychopath who murdered her father, tormented her, threatened her, and ramsay bolton, a fucking sadistic psychopath who raped her, murdered her brother* lol yikes, thanks, i think? demons: uwuw #otp: u were the best of them!!!,  WUUW s*nrion endgame otp 4 LYFE. 

[janiedean]

ffs i can't stop thinking about it BUT

EPISODE 8 OF THE LIZARDS SPOILERS LOOK AWAY IF YOU DON'T WANT THEM

... listen like the way daemon went and cut off vaemond's head just like that the moment he threatened rhaenyra's childrens' heritage openly when the previous three episodes he's been basically malewifing all around with women he actually respected is like... jfc I mean I'm nowhere near a daemon™ stan and the one thing I respect most about the man is happening in S3 probably so whatever but the more I think about it the more I keep on thinking but what if ryan condal had been doing the main series we would have had jaime actually well-written and I'm about to blow a fuse in anger

[theloupgaroux]

Please have Laenor and Harwin both caring for Rhaenyra together when she’s giving birth because that’s one of my fave things in Fire and Blood

[samueltanders]

kyberling replied to your photo “Found footage of Nikolaj after receiving every script for Game of...”

I wonder if you guys realize the same fate will probably be on store for book jaime as well. GRRM never said he story is about redemption

EXCEPT HE DID?! GRRM literally said that jaime’s story is about redemption and if it's possible for someone like him:

I want there to be a possibility of redemption for us, because we all do terrible things. We should be able to be forgiven. Because if there is no possibility of redemption, what's the answer then?

The fact is that D&D scrapped every single one of Jaime’s book storylines after ASOS so they could have him be the humanising factor for c*rsei, his character on the show is different to the one in the books because the writers refused to do said book plot points which cause him to grow as a character and refused to let jaime get out of his relationship with c*rsei, so no, I don’t think the same fate will be in store for book!jaime. In fact i think that jaime will survive past c*rsei, this is a very good meta on what i think will happen tbh.

[brynnmclean]

Sometimes I wonder what Westeros would be like if it had the consequences (curses) for oathbreakers that Tolkien's Legendarium does.