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SPOILER WARNING If you only watch the show, this thread will spoil you of future events in HBO's Game of Thrones. Thread contains discussion of all books of the series A Song of Ice and FireClick Here for the spoiler-free thread. |
On August 02 2012 23:09 Telcontar wrote:
Jon is not dead. I know GRRM has no qualms with killing off main characters, but he has been building Jon up so much as one of the main characters of the series, that permanently writing him off at this point makes no sense at all. Most likely he'll reside in Ghost for a while (supported by the very existence of ADwD's prologue), and then either return to his old body (fixed by Melisandre), or become a 'good wight' like Coldhands. I still firmly believe he is Rhaegar and Lyanna's son, and he'll be the one to drive the winter back with his aunt, Daenerys' help. His will be the song of ice and fire.
Problem with GRRM is exactly what you wrote your first sentence prior to but. We don't know his limits; for all we know Jon is dead. Otherwise the only way I see GRRM keeping him alive is by Melisandre.
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Jon can't die due to plot armor. There is nobody at the wall to continue the story. If Sam was still there, he might have been able to carry things, but the only PoV character at the wall other than Jon is Melisandre, and she lacks the access to the Night's Watch that Jon has to continue telling their story.
Possible outcomes:
1) Jon is heavily wounded but survives
2) Jon is saved/ressurected by Melisandre
3) Jon is saved/ressurected by the CotF/Bloodraven/Bran
4) Jon's body dies and he wargs into ghost for a while (which would make sense given the prologue)
5) Jon dies and Patchface becomes a PoV char and the next king in the north. I know, I know, oh, oh, oh.
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On August 02 2012 18:48 Telcontar wrote:
I agree that people are overreacting over the whole false death thing, but it's not just Cat. And your list contains characters that haven't been confirmed as dead.
Gregor - Ser Robert Strong.
Sandor - Implied that he's still alive.
Brienne - Not confirmed that she's dead.
Jon - Very likely to come back in some form.
It's not that it doesn't make sense in the world GRRM has created (look at Beric), but he's leaving a lot of the characters' fates murky, so that he can bring them back later should he feel like it. Just makes their (supposed) deaths feel cheap somehow.
Gregor is dead, it's his headless (?) reanimated husk, made by Qyburn, that "lives" as Robert Strong.
Sandor - total fan theory that he's alive, but even if so, his story in ASOIAF is over.
Brienne - is alive as many people have said. In fact, if you pay attention to the chapter where she "dies", you can see it very blatantly says that she does not. Catelyn asks her "swear your sword to me, or get the noose [...] sword or noose" and at the end of the chapter it says something like "as the noose tightened, Brienne shouted a word" (awful paraphrase), the word was obviously sword. So really she never died.
Jon - will come back, but in his case it's just an established part of the mythos. As a warg, he can live his second life inside Ghost, which was the entire point of ADWD's prologue, and might have actually already warged into Ghost at the end of his last chapter ("Jon never felt the fourth stab. Only the cold.")
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On August 03 2012 02:44 Kyuukyuu wrote:
Sandor - total fan theory that he's alive, but even if so, his story in ASOIAF is over.
Unless he is chosen to be the champion of the Faith and fight Robert Strong. Might be a bit too cheesy, but their power struggle needs a conclusion.
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On August 03 2012 02:46 moopie wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2012 02:44 Kyuukyuu wrote:
Sandor - total fan theory that he's alive, but even if so, his story in ASOIAF is over. Unless he is chosen to be the champion of the Faith and fight Robert Strong. Might be a bit too cheesy, but it would be nice for him to put the mountain down.
I see his story arc ending the way the priest's did, giving up all his rage and bitterness etc etc. I think that's where he was headed as an anti-hero character anyway.
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Just because some septon wants to apply some philosophical metaphysics to it about calling the guy dead and reborn does not make it a resurrection any more than any real world people who decide to refer to themselves that way. Sandor was not resurrected in any way that can be discussed seriously as an instance of characters coming back to life.
The main reason I do not like the idea of him as the champion of the faith against the frankenstein who uses his late brother's body as a chassis is that it would completely go against everything the septon who saved him said about Sandor being a new man. He is supposed to have given up his old nature and his desire to kill his brother, which this wouldn't even truly be anyway, was the core of who he was. Sure, they could latch onto the notion that this isn't him killing his brother and call it righteous to kill an 'unholy monster' while wrapping it in some kind of "the faith uses it's servants according to their abilities when necessary" etc. but it still throws away the main topic of a whole chapter with everything that septon had said about him.
I'm 60/40 on if Brienne shouted Sword vs. Oathbreaker. Sword is the simple, easier to say while you are starting to be strangled, etc answer that demands the majority likelyhood but Oathbreaker would have a stronger impact and more likely demand an interruption to the sentence already being carried out. I also want to like Oathbreaker more because it does not make Brienne someone who somewhat shallowly gave in to the unjust demands of the brotherhood's "trial" but rather challenges Lady Stoneheart's claim to righteousness. That seems a bit more like Brienne than giving in at the last moment to save her own life at any cost.
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GRRM confirmed recently that she said "sword". source
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Ahh, and combined with the matter of saving Pod it makes sense as something she would be willing to do.
I need to find the transcript or video for this partial Tyrion chapter. I had only heard the reading of the half a Victarion chapter he shared.
Edit: And there is a part of an Arianne chapter floating around too? I didn't realize I had been under a rock on these things. Failure.
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Just read all 5 books in like a month and a half, holy fuck I'm addicted. O_O
Is the next book going to be another 7 years?
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Just finished reading book 5! :D
I don't really think that Jon died. His free folk friends and Melissandre will have made sure that he survived at least 4 stabs. What's with many false deaths? Davos, Aegon, Brienne, Stannis (Ramsay's letter in Jon's final chapter), Theon and Mance Rayder were found to be still alive in Book 5.
I REFUSE TO BELIEVE THAT HE ACTUALLY DIED!
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United Kingdom16710 Posts
On August 03 2012 19:49 xsksc wrote:
Just read all 5 books in like a month and a half, holy fuck I'm addicted. O_O
Is the next book going to be another 7 years?
Hopefully it'll only take 2~3 years for the next one. You never know with GRRM though.
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HBO is probably putting a little pressure on him, so that will probably shorten the writing time.
I don't think it is a matter of time/quality. The first three books were written relatively quickly, and they are far better than the last two.
Or maybe HBO will just negotiate the right to write their own ending.
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On August 04 2012 00:50 zalz wrote:
HBO is probably putting a little pressure on him, so that will probably shorten the writing time.
I don't think it is a matter of time/quality. The first three books were written relatively quickly, and they are far better than the last two.
Or maybe HBO will just negotiate the right to write their own ending.
Well they already fucked the pooch on this past season... They might as well make it their own creation now.
Eh... the last two books seemed to be just the calm before the storm. Plus he wanted to fit in all that content into those two books to avoid going above the 7 books so they seemed to drag on a bit.
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On August 04 2012 00:50 zalz wrote:
HBO is probably putting a little pressure on him, so that will probably shorten the writing time.
I don't think it is a matter of time/quality. The first three books were written relatively quickly, and they are far better than the last two.
Or maybe HBO will just negotiate the right to write their own ending.
That'll never happen.
However, I did just read that apparently he's told the plot to two of the show producers, so that if he dies they can finish it. He won't let another author take over, though.
So that's bittersweet assurance.
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On August 04 2012 01:49 Dosey wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2012 00:50 zalz wrote:
HBO is probably putting a little pressure on him, so that will probably shorten the writing time.
I don't think it is a matter of time/quality. The first three books were written relatively quickly, and they are far better than the last two.
Or maybe HBO will just negotiate the right to write their own ending. Well they already fucked the pooch on this past season... They might as well make it their own creation now.Eh... the last two books seemed to be just the calm before the storm. Plus he wanted to fit in all that content into those two books to avoid going above the 7 books so they seemed to drag on a bit.
Yeah, I don't doubt that he has reason for writing what he wrote, I am just saying that it was bad compared to the first three books.
The first three books told a surprisingly compact story for their size. You read about all these things happening, and though the books were big, they never felt like they could be any shorter.
These last 2 books are bloated. Everything grinds to a halt, most obviously Danny's storyline.
I know that he is setting up for the last two books, but that doesn't make it more interesting, it just explains why everything is boring.
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At least one of the theaters of war was not ready to be extended, Dany, so the whole thing turned into a bit of a quantity and quality trade. I got a similar sense about Cersei. It doesn't take that long to establish what she is as a leader and show her downfall. I still do not understand what purpose at least one of her chapters served (Cersei). Dany and Cersei both accomplished in a whole book about what could have been covered in a couple chapters each the way things flowed in the first three books. The issue with Dany regressing in maturity/wisdom was downright grating and probably the most obvious tell that something was up with the progress timeline.
The asterisk is the end of book 5 with Dany and end of book 4 for Cersei, it does seem like he tried to set himself up to be able to move forward "properly" after this stall.
What the show decides to do with books 4 and 5 will be interesting and potentially telling as well. Obviously they have to blend them together, but could they blend them together all while making it only one season? I think they could.
On the other hand, without an extension Jaime, Jon, Arya and Bran might not have been able to develop some good things and Dorne might have gone on as something you only hear about (which may or may not be worth wanting, but there it is).
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The progress timeline was halted partially because GRRM couldn't figure out a way to get all these people to Meereen, and the order in which they would arrive. You had Tyrion, AegonGriff, Marwyn the mage, Victarion, and Quentyn, all journeying toward Dany - the "Meereenese knot" that GRRM had problems with while writing ADWD. I think that's why you have quite a lot of boring Dany chapters, because she does have to stay put while everyone arrives.
The main problem I had with ADWD was that Quentyn's storyline really served no purpose. His POV chapters, his arrival, his death, all would have had no impact on the story if they had happened.
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On August 06 2012 07:44 Kyuukyuu wrote:
The progress timeline was halted partially because GRRM couldn't figure out a way to get all these people to Meereen, and the order in which they would arrive. You had Tyrion, AegonGriff, Marwyn the mage, Victarion, and Quentyn, all journeying toward Dany - the "Meereenese knot" that GRRM had problems with while writing ADWD. I think that's why you have quite a lot of boring Dany chapters, because she does have to stay put while everyone arrives.
The main problem I had with ADWD was that Quentyn's storyline really served no purpose. His POV chapters, his arrival, his death, all would have had no impact on the story if they had happened.
Not entirely true, otherwise how would the dragons have escaped?
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On August 06 2012 08:56 ZasZ. wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2012 07:44 Kyuukyuu wrote:
The progress timeline was halted partially because GRRM couldn't figure out a way to get all these people to Meereen, and the order in which they would arrive. You had Tyrion, AegonGriff, Marwyn the mage, Victarion, and Quentyn, all journeying toward Dany - the "Meereenese knot" that GRRM had problems with while writing ADWD. I think that's why you have quite a lot of boring Dany chapters, because she does have to stay put while everyone arrives.
The main problem I had with ADWD was that Quentyn's storyline really served no purpose. His POV chapters, his arrival, his death, all would have had no impact on the story if they had happened. Not entirely true, otherwise how would the dragons have escaped?
Any number of ways. It sounds like they could have even blasted their own way out if they wanted. They had dug themselves caves right through the masonry, had broken their chains and were melting steel with their breaths.
That could also be a self contained issue as well. Had it not been extended then they might not have needed to be mothballed for a book in the first place. That ties back to Dany's little loop of regressing but then seeming to head back towards being wiser and hardened at the end of 5 too. Had they not needed to be mothballed for story purposes and she hadn't 'abused' them by sticking them in a pit then she wouldn't have needed to realize how dumb and self betraying that all was at the end of book 5.
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On August 06 2012 08:56 ZasZ. wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2012 07:44 Kyuukyuu wrote:
The progress timeline was halted partially because GRRM couldn't figure out a way to get all these people to Meereen, and the order in which they would arrive. You had Tyrion, AegonGriff, Marwyn the mage, Victarion, and Quentyn, all journeying toward Dany - the "Meereenese knot" that GRRM had problems with while writing ADWD. I think that's why you have quite a lot of boring Dany chapters, because she does have to stay put while everyone arrives.
The main problem I had with ADWD was that Quentyn's storyline really served no purpose. His POV chapters, his arrival, his death, all would have had no impact on the story if they had happened. Not entirely true, otherwise how would the dragons have escaped?
Sure, but making an entire long-winded character complete with his own POVs seems kind of unnecessary for something like that. I guess he also showed how loyal Dorne was to Targaryen rule, but that was sort of obvious anyway :/
edit: oh and also the whole sun's son Quaithe warning bit...
I guess I just wish he could have done more things instead of introducing a bunch of new characters via his POVs, then sitting around in Dany's court doing not much, then dying because his plan was really dumb. 
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EPT
