I fell in love with the first book, liked 2nd (not as much) and disliked third.

She may be the most one-note actress I've ever seen. I think the writers have realized this and that's why all her scenes are the same.

I felt similar

it is a shame what they've done with Dany on the show. She's about as deep as Bronn.

Good read that speaks to the question of "what's the point of the R+L = J reveal?".

One of the youtube videos I watched made the opposite conclusion. Basically if Jon, a bastard, managed to do all this great stuff then hey that's great! shows how stupid class system is and anyone can do anything regardless of upbringing. But with GRRM's reveal and now Jon is actually the uber child it kind of shows that class is an important factor and who you are at birth is a huge deal. IDK food for thought I guess. BTW ever since looking up Preston Jacbos due to the threads... holy **** there's a lot of youtube channels on GoT. My front page is full of them now. Rawrist is my favorite so far.

Finished half of the Tyrion articles, thanks again for linking that. Guy is super long winded but he has some interesting insight. FWIW from what I've gathered from his posts we would be in agreement with Tyrion's story in ADWD. I enjoyed it, I love Tyrion (please don't ruin that GRRM) and I thought the worldbuilding it provides is interesting but ultimately it's just that... world building and nothing more. As Poorquentyn puts it: It's a storyline, not an arc.

I still think that really very little of what Tyrion does in ADWD was intended. I think during the 5 year gap he probably just shows up at Dany's doorstep, this whole adventures with Tyrion saga was unplanned and it shows. It's nice worldbuilding but moves the plot forward almost not at all.

Jawhoo: I haven't reread ADWD yet but I really hope that my second reread improves the experience. So far I've got AFFC second reread >>>>>>>>> AFFC>>>ADWD.

I am very surprised that Djawadi was not included in GOT's Emmy noms. He killed it in the last episode.

I'm only halfway through Preston's season recap, and while I can agree that some of his takes on the books are logic less mishmashes, I agree with his overall take on this season. Very exciting, beautiful, great largely great acting, and a storyline that when examined past surface level makes little sense. And that goes for almost all of the major storylines. I think we're getting more exciting scenes as the show runners bust through to the end game, but so much is starting to make no sense after you think about it.

Preston is just hating because inside he feels it reaffirms his book knowledge and position as a critic, I just know that's whats driving the prick. He lost all credibility after calling episode 10 the worst of the season.

I will LMAO if when Winds of Winter comes out alot of these hated storylines in the show come true.

It's a huge mistake to not embrace the show at this point. Whether you accept it or not, the odds on Martin finishing the books are very slim, and when he dies the ending dies with him. Chances are the show is the only way we are getting our conclusion to the story

I'm not sure how to respond to that, since his review is explicitly book agnostic (and he even says up front that he's not going to reference the book at all). what he is doing is calling out all the inconsistencies and dropped plots. if you can respond to his actual criticisms, ok, but I think he is right on with a lot. (and he is far from the only person questioning lots of it). for instance

- Davos out of the blue going from hating black magic to embracing it, and for some reason decided that Jon needs to be saved, and switching from hating kings to wanting Jon to be king

- Sansa going from the key to the North (per Roose) to apparently not mattering at all to the North (this literally went from being a massive plot point to...eh screw it)

- the entire disaster of Sansa not telling Jon about the knights of the Vale (for reasons which aren't even referenced)

- the entire Arya story (more on this below - but you'll recall that for the entire week after being stabbed people came up with all sort of theories to explain what was going on bc it didn't make any sense only for none of those theories to come true, the explanation is just that none of it needed to make sense)

- all the time spent on machinations b/w the High Sparrow and Marg and Marg needing to bang Tommen to have a baby and wait why did they bother going down this road at all when they knew they were going to blow up all of them? so bizarre. this isn't scheming gone wrong, it's plots invented for no reason.

well, again, it's not so much where characted end up that are hated, it's how the showrunners get there. 2 examples:

Jon: I think there is a solid chance Jon ends up as KOTN (or Lord of Winterfell), but I think there is zero chance GRRM gets there similar to how the showrunners get there (moody failure who stumbles into it due to Sansa and Littlefinger rescuing him without him even knowing about it). If Jon ends up as King, it's because he's an actual hero who will give people actual reasons to follow him.

(I know some folks think it is consistent that Northern Lords would rally behind Jon bc he charges like a maniac and they respect that but I really disagree with that point. GRMM would/will certainly give more logical steps to achieve that end)

Arya: I think 95% she drops her training from the Faceless Men and goes back to Westeros and starts her list, just like happens on the show. but there is no chance she gets there bc the Waif (for reasons unstated) decides that she wants to kill her (despite this entirely being against the ethos of the Faceless Men), and gets stabbed in her gut 10 times and despite this escapes via parkour, and then gets a backslap for (reasons unstated) that she is now "no one". literally none of that makes any sense and it's completely inconsistent with how we've been told the Faceless Men work

I'd say I embrace 2 things:

1) that the show and books are different stories. there are just so many differences and dropped characters and changes to think about it any differently, IMO. If all you are about is "the ending" - ok, but I think we can all guess with some degree of certainty that dragons will battle white walkers and win, so boom there's the end. but the story is so, so much bigger than that and I care about the resolutions of so much else, and those questions can't even be answered by the show bc the stories don't exist.

2) that I love the show, but in a way that's getting closer to how I enjoy The Walking Dead. Very fun watch and super entertaining, as long as you don't think about it. (which is markedly different than early seasons of GOT)

What odds would you lay that he doesn't finish the books?

disagree with most of your points Kneel, cept the part with the knights of the vale and Davos not being true to his character (before he sees Shireens toy)

And Braavos? To me the least defensible series of scenes.

oh yeah that too, lol.

Basically what I'm saying is the sansa+lf part with Jon is fine to me (cept the knights bull****, im talking about the aftermath which is far from over imo).

and showing the sparrow and margaery plot when they still blow up is also perfectly fine with me.

yeah, I guess wrt to Sparrow/Marg - I thought that was one that was really interesting as we were watching. I just would have either preferred to see real resolutions/at least added color to what they were all planning OR to have instead spent time adding depth/color to other plotlines

but that is a different critique than the others I listed, and since it was a good plot in real time...ok

in some ways both their storylines also lead to Tommen's suicide

Preston is correct with a lot of criticisms (a lot were made here before his video) but he doesn't get a lot of key plot points either. He especially doesn't understand feudal succession and seems to be convinced that it is actually the will of God.

His argument on Sansa not being important is completely flawed. His major point is that right after Sansa runs away Umber shows up, so apparently all the houses don't care. Umber is one house. How someone can not see how Jon and Sansa running around the North gathering to attempt to kill Ramsay is not good for Ramsay is beyond me. Ramsay wanting to kill Jon and Sansa makes PERFECT sense. No idea wtf Preston is going on about here, it's really stupid.

Jon being made KOTN makes sense as well, as I already laid out itt. It making sense and it going down way differently in the books aren't at all at odds with each other. The show can make sense and it can go down completely differently in the books too. Pretty much guaranteed actually. I think the major plot points in the show are all correct in this regard, but due to Sansa being with Jon the show has to do stupid stuff like have her not tell Jon about the knights of the Vale. Still some poor decisions made by the show though.

Preston on Cersei is beyond awful too. Here's my prediction on what happens if Tommen dies from back in May:


Pretty much exactly what happens and it should come as no surprise. Preston comes up with a ton of bad logic for why it shouldn't be possible. For example who is Qyburn to crown Cersei? Won't the smallfolk be upset at her? Aren't there other people who are better fit to be ruler?

None of that **** matters. Mandate of Heaven is not a real thing.







But yeah he's right on the Arya stuff and Jon ressurection.

I agree that Cersei grab power in that vacuum makes sense. No problem with that.

do you guys think theyll have the same budget for ~7 episodes seasons?

They might pump up the insane endgame battles/CGI with that.

Pretty sure Jon and Arya will end up married. Their interactions were always weird. Which probably leaves one or both of Dany and Sansa dead. Idk.

Wrong sister imo. Jon's got a thing for redheads. He paid for but didn't sleep with Ros, he fell in love with Ygritte and he had a weird boob touch session with Melisandre. All signs point to Sansa.

Only relative jon is banging is dany

https://m.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/commen..._between_arya/

Not a novel theory apparently

Whoever wrote that post is clearly disturbed. Whether they are more disturbed if they were or weren't trolling Irunno.