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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 May 17 2016 20:07 zatic wrote: There is also King's cum magic, arguably the most impressive display of magic in the show so far.
Ahh, the legendary Cum Sprites! True enough.
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On May 17 2016 05:19 Wuster wrote: Interesting, Brienne gaining the power of teleportation too. Although, I guess it's plausible Sansa sends her away to help her Tully relatives. The people writing this story seem to be done with that 600 mile distance between winterfell and the castle black. Or all the really long distances in general. But with a horse, it is possible to make distance in less than 2 weeks, its not crazy. But they maybe should address it. OR just say fuck it, people can haul ass if they are not on foot.
Still, they are so done with extended travel story lines. They just need to find a way to say “3 weeks later”.
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On May 17 2016 23:41 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On May 17 2016 09:13 Cricketer12 wrote:On May 17 2016 09:08 TheFish7 wrote:On May 17 2016 00:34 Sent. wrote: Maybe she gains fire immunity whenever she sacrifices a human life? Remember that she burned a witch before entering Khal Drogo's pyre in s1 Yes this is my theory as well. The only true magic in this series is Blood Magic. This is what allows her fire immunity, not her Targaryen bloodline (although the Targs of Valyria probably had in-depth knowledge of blood magic) I think sacrificing Drogo and Mirri Maz Dur was what allowed her dragons to hatch as well. Possibly Drogo, Rhaego, and Mirri Maz Durr's souls are inhabiting the dragons now in some way. I once got to see GRRM speak and I asked him if a human sacrifice was needed to birth a dragon. He said "There are things in the books that certainly would lead you to think that... but I'm going to elect to dodge that question right now" I also think a human sacrifice of some kind is necessary to forge a Valyrian steel sword... That seems very likely. Although if any human sac will do then valyria shouldnt have any problem as they had slaves If I recall correctly the legendary forging of Lightbringer required the sword to be tempered by stabbing the forger's wife with it. AA did kill his wife ti create lightbringer. But we dont know if wife killing if for LB or all Valyrian swords. We also dont know if LB even needed a wife or if any human would do.
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United States41987 Posts
On May 18 2016 02:43 Cricketer12 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 17 2016 23:41 KwarK wrote:On May 17 2016 09:13 Cricketer12 wrote:On May 17 2016 09:08 TheFish7 wrote:On May 17 2016 00:34 Sent. wrote: Maybe she gains fire immunity whenever she sacrifices a human life? Remember that she burned a witch before entering Khal Drogo's pyre in s1 Yes this is my theory as well. The only true magic in this series is Blood Magic. This is what allows her fire immunity, not her Targaryen bloodline (although the Targs of Valyria probably had in-depth knowledge of blood magic) I think sacrificing Drogo and Mirri Maz Dur was what allowed her dragons to hatch as well. Possibly Drogo, Rhaego, and Mirri Maz Durr's souls are inhabiting the dragons now in some way. I once got to see GRRM speak and I asked him if a human sacrifice was needed to birth a dragon. He said "There are things in the books that certainly would lead you to think that... but I'm going to elect to dodge that question right now" I also think a human sacrifice of some kind is necessary to forge a Valyrian steel sword... That seems very likely. Although if any human sac will do then valyria shouldnt have any problem as they had slaves If I recall correctly the legendary forging of Lightbringer required the sword to be tempered by stabbing the forger's wife with it. AA did kill his wife ti create lightbringer. But we dont know if wife killing if for LB or all Valyrian swords. We also dont know if LB even needed a wife or if any human would do. Or if he ever existed. My point is that there is certainly precedent for blood magic being involved in forging mythical swords.
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On May 18 2016 00:26 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On May 17 2016 05:19 Wuster wrote: Interesting, Brienne gaining the power of teleportation too. Although, I guess it's plausible Sansa sends her away to help her Tully relatives. The people writing this story seem to be done with that 600 mile distance between winterfell and the castle black. Or all the really long distances in general. But with a horse, it is possible to make distance in less than 2 weeks, its not crazy. But they maybe should address it. OR just say fuck it, people can haul ass if they are not on foot. Still, they are so done with extended travel story lines. They just need to find a way to say “3 weeks later”.
I don't necessarily mind. Skipping 7 chapters of Brienne wandering around meeting people devastated by war got old really fast. The book had Tyrion / Jon taking over 2 weeks of hard riding to make it to Castle Black during Summer. So I think it should take a lot longer now. But like I said, I don't mind them cutting down on the travel scenes.
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On May 18 2016 02:49 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On May 18 2016 02:43 Cricketer12 wrote:On May 17 2016 23:41 KwarK wrote:On May 17 2016 09:13 Cricketer12 wrote:On May 17 2016 09:08 TheFish7 wrote:On May 17 2016 00:34 Sent. wrote: Maybe she gains fire immunity whenever she sacrifices a human life? Remember that she burned a witch before entering Khal Drogo's pyre in s1 Yes this is my theory as well. The only true magic in this series is Blood Magic. This is what allows her fire immunity, not her Targaryen bloodline (although the Targs of Valyria probably had in-depth knowledge of blood magic) I think sacrificing Drogo and Mirri Maz Dur was what allowed her dragons to hatch as well. Possibly Drogo, Rhaego, and Mirri Maz Durr's souls are inhabiting the dragons now in some way. I once got to see GRRM speak and I asked him if a human sacrifice was needed to birth a dragon. He said "There are things in the books that certainly would lead you to think that... but I'm going to elect to dodge that question right now" I also think a human sacrifice of some kind is necessary to forge a Valyrian steel sword... That seems very likely. Although if any human sac will do then valyria shouldnt have any problem as they had slaves If I recall correctly the legendary forging of Lightbringer required the sword to be tempered by stabbing the forger's wife with it. AA did kill his wife ti create lightbringer. But we dont know if wife killing if for LB or all Valyrian swords. We also dont know if LB even needed a wife or if any human would do. Or if he ever existed. My point is that there is certainly precedent for blood magic being involved in forging mythical swords. I agree 100%. My point was that that wouldnt be a problem as Valyrians had slaves
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On May 18 2016 00:26 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On May 17 2016 05:19 Wuster wrote: Interesting, Brienne gaining the power of teleportation too. Although, I guess it's plausible Sansa sends her away to help her Tully relatives. The people writing this story seem to be done with that 600 mile distance between winterfell and the castle black. Or all the really long distances in general. But with a horse, it is possible to make distance in less than 2 weeks, its not crazy. But they maybe should address it. OR just say fuck it, people can haul ass if they are not on foot. Still, they are so done with extended travel story lines. They just need to find a way to say “3 weeks later”. I think Martin screwed up with the distances, Westeros is simply too big imo. The fact that people meet in taverns randomly in such a gigantic world doesn't really make any sense, it would be like meeting someone when you are going from Prague to Marseilles, just like that.
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On May 19 2016 08:05 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On May 18 2016 00:26 Plansix wrote:On May 17 2016 05:19 Wuster wrote: Interesting, Brienne gaining the power of teleportation too. Although, I guess it's plausible Sansa sends her away to help her Tully relatives. The people writing this story seem to be done with that 600 mile distance between winterfell and the castle black. Or all the really long distances in general. But with a horse, it is possible to make distance in less than 2 weeks, its not crazy. But they maybe should address it. OR just say fuck it, people can haul ass if they are not on foot. Still, they are so done with extended travel story lines. They just need to find a way to say “3 weeks later”. I think Martin screwed up with the distances, Westeros is simply too big imo. The fact that people meet in taverns randomly in such a gigantic world doesn't really make any sense, it would be like meeting someone when you are going from Prague to Marseilles, just like that.
I disagree. Reducing the size of Westeros would likely take away from the conflict. It would reduce army sizes, remove geography, etc. It's a novel; chance meetings unlikely to happen in real life are an inherent part of it. Even then, chance meetings do happen in life, it's not all that unlikely.
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On May 19 2016 08:05 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On May 18 2016 00:26 Plansix wrote:On May 17 2016 05:19 Wuster wrote: Interesting, Brienne gaining the power of teleportation too. Although, I guess it's plausible Sansa sends her away to help her Tully relatives. The people writing this story seem to be done with that 600 mile distance between winterfell and the castle black. Or all the really long distances in general. But with a horse, it is possible to make distance in less than 2 weeks, its not crazy. But they maybe should address it. OR just say fuck it, people can haul ass if they are not on foot. Still, they are so done with extended travel story lines. They just need to find a way to say “3 weeks later”. I think Martin screwed up with the distances, Westeros is simply too big imo. The fact that people meet in taverns randomly in such a gigantic world doesn't really make any sense, it would be like meeting someone when you are going from Prague to Marseilles, just like that. There is one main northern road in Westeros from Kings Landing all the way up to the wall. In times of peace, that road would be used almost exclusively for any north-south travel. Inns and and Taverns pop up along that road and anyone traveling would run into anyone else traveling unless they purposely went off the road to avoid being seen. Even those who want to avoid being seen will still want to travel near the road because they'll need it for bridges and directions and possibly for food at the inns and taverns along the way.
So it's not shocking that people run into each other in the books while traveling.
The show is a bit different with random people running into each other all over the place even as they are trying to avoid being seen. Brienne is magically lucky in the show, but completely helpless at finding her targets in the books.
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Westeros is supposed to be roughly the size of South America, no? Even in a random stop on the one road they have, there's bound to be competing taverns. I suppose it's not that big a coincidence for people to meet up in the same one but the show stretches it way too much.
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What? South America? Lol. I doubt it. That would mean the distance between Dorne and the Wall is about 10,000 km... I understood Westeros to be about Western Europe sized. Still pretty big, but at least you can travel on foot from Malaga to Hamburg in about two months, as opposed to about a year.
EDIT: actually scratch that. It is supposed to be S.A. sized. And it's 1000 leagues (approx 5500 km) from King's Landing to the Wall. So yeah, that makes the show transportation times even more ridiculous. Wikipedia thinks that horses travelling long distances can do about 65 km per day. So that means King's Landing to the Wall should take about 3 months. Littlefinger snapped his fingers and teleported to King's Landing from Winterfell in the blink of an eye (and while Winterfell is still a long way from the wall (approximately one Peru worth of distance if I guess roughly), it should take at least 2 months.
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France7248 Posts
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On May 19 2016 10:43 Spaylz wrote:Show nested quote +On May 19 2016 08:05 Biff The Understudy wrote:On May 18 2016 00:26 Plansix wrote:On May 17 2016 05:19 Wuster wrote: Interesting, Brienne gaining the power of teleportation too. Although, I guess it's plausible Sansa sends her away to help her Tully relatives. The people writing this story seem to be done with that 600 mile distance between winterfell and the castle black. Or all the really long distances in general. But with a horse, it is possible to make distance in less than 2 weeks, its not crazy. But they maybe should address it. OR just say fuck it, people can haul ass if they are not on foot. Still, they are so done with extended travel story lines. They just need to find a way to say “3 weeks later”. I think Martin screwed up with the distances, Westeros is simply too big imo. The fact that people meet in taverns randomly in such a gigantic world doesn't really make any sense, it would be like meeting someone when you are going from Prague to Marseilles, just like that. I disagree. Reducing the size of Westeros would likely take away from the conflict. It would reduce army sizes, remove geography, etc. It's a novel; chance meetings unlikely to happen in real life are an inherent part of it. Even then, chance meetings do happen in life, it's not all that unlikely. That's not the problem: in a medieval setting, having a kingdom the size of South America would mean that it's completely and utterly ungovernable. Most noblemen would basically never, ever, meet. If you need 6 month to get a message back from somewhere in your kingdom, you can't govern it whatsoever. And having such complex intrigues and politics between places that are at the very best 3 months apart (and probably much more if you are not a horseman) makes very little sense altogether.
I don't think the story works whatsoever at all if the Tully's or the Lannister govern lands the size of Argentina.
On top of that, Westeros would have to be a bit deserted for army sizes to make any sense. France had several million people in the middle age; and all its armies put together would have been already a formidable force in Martin's world. Considering Westeros is many many times bigger than France, well...
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Ain't westeros just fantasy Britain? I don't think the size is too different.
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Yeah, if I were GRRM I would retcon the size of Westeros. Europe is plenty large enough for everything that happens there. Having vast distances may sound pretty awesome, but we are talking about a kingdom roughly 5 times the size of the Roman empire at its largest... and the Roman empire had plenty plenty plenty of problems quashing rebellions. How do you do that when distances are a factor 5 larger, but your tech is roughly the same?
E: actually, distances are only a factor sqrt(5) larger (assuming roughly the same shape, and both roughly circular), but even so, it's a serious issue.
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On May 21 2016 06:39 Hyperbola wrote: Ain't westeros just fantasy Britain? I don't think the size is too different. Well, it shouldn't be really. But Martin made Westeros the size of South America, which is completely incoherent. Oh well...
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On May 21 2016 06:45 Acrofales wrote: Yeah, if I were GRRM I would retcon the size of Westeros. Europe is plenty large enough for everything that happens there. Having vast distances may sound pretty awesome, but we are talking about a kingdom roughly 5 times the size of the Roman empire at its largest... and the Roman empire had plenty plenty plenty of problems quashing rebellions. How do you do that when distances are a factor 5 larger, but your tech is roughly the same?
He's already said he regrets making the wall 700 feet tall, cuz that obviously presents nonsense scenarios. IIRC he said he made Westeros that big to account for the drastic climate difference between the North and Dorne.
But given the magical seasonal patterns, I think he overthought what it would take for 'realistic' weather patterns.
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On May 21 2016 06:36 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On May 19 2016 10:43 Spaylz wrote:On May 19 2016 08:05 Biff The Understudy wrote:On May 18 2016 00:26 Plansix wrote:On May 17 2016 05:19 Wuster wrote: Interesting, Brienne gaining the power of teleportation too. Although, I guess it's plausible Sansa sends her away to help her Tully relatives. The people writing this story seem to be done with that 600 mile distance between winterfell and the castle black. Or all the really long distances in general. But with a horse, it is possible to make distance in less than 2 weeks, its not crazy. But they maybe should address it. OR just say fuck it, people can haul ass if they are not on foot. Still, they are so done with extended travel story lines. They just need to find a way to say “3 weeks later”. I think Martin screwed up with the distances, Westeros is simply too big imo. The fact that people meet in taverns randomly in such a gigantic world doesn't really make any sense, it would be like meeting someone when you are going from Prague to Marseilles, just like that. I disagree. Reducing the size of Westeros would likely take away from the conflict. It would reduce army sizes, remove geography, etc. It's a novel; chance meetings unlikely to happen in real life are an inherent part of it. Even then, chance meetings do happen in life, it's not all that unlikely. That's not the problem: in a medieval setting, having a kingdom the size of South America would mean that it's completely and utterly ungovernable. Most noblemen would basically never, ever, meet. If you need 6 month to get a message back from somewhere in your kingdom, you can't govern it whatsoever. And having such complex intrigues and politics between places that are at the very best 3 months apart (and probably much more if you are not a horseman) makes very little sense altogether. I don't think the story works whatsoever at all if the Tully's or the Lannister govern lands the size of Argentina. On top of that, Westeros would have to be a bit deserted for army sizes to make any sense. France had several million people in the middle age; and all its armies put together would have been already a formidable force in Martin's world. Considering Westeros is many many times bigger than France, well...
Points taken. But about communication; most of it is done by raven. I reckon they can travel relatively fast. It would take a few weeks at the very most for one message to be delivered.
For some reason, I always thought Westeros was a reversed UK. Maybe I'm confusing it with some other fantasy novel that did that?
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On May 21 2016 14:13 Spaylz wrote:
Points taken. But about communication; most of it is done by raven. I reckon they can travel relatively fast. It would take a few weeks at the very most for one message to be delivered.
For some reason, I always thought Westeros was a reversed UK. Maybe I'm confusing it with some other fantasy novel that did that?
Westeros is a reversed UK but bigger like "the size of South America". I see it as taking UK distance and mutuality by 10 or 100 for each distance. 1 mile in RL into 10 or 100 mile in AGOT unvierse. If you get what I'm trying to say.
So King Landing maybe on the equator, Wall will be something like the Arctic circle, Dorne will be most of South Africa in terms of positioning?
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On May 21 2016 14:13 Spaylz wrote:Show nested quote +On May 21 2016 06:36 Biff The Understudy wrote:On May 19 2016 10:43 Spaylz wrote:On May 19 2016 08:05 Biff The Understudy wrote:On May 18 2016 00:26 Plansix wrote:On May 17 2016 05:19 Wuster wrote: Interesting, Brienne gaining the power of teleportation too. Although, I guess it's plausible Sansa sends her away to help her Tully relatives. The people writing this story seem to be done with that 600 mile distance between winterfell and the castle black. Or all the really long distances in general. But with a horse, it is possible to make distance in less than 2 weeks, its not crazy. But they maybe should address it. OR just say fuck it, people can haul ass if they are not on foot. Still, they are so done with extended travel story lines. They just need to find a way to say “3 weeks later”. I think Martin screwed up with the distances, Westeros is simply too big imo. The fact that people meet in taverns randomly in such a gigantic world doesn't really make any sense, it would be like meeting someone when you are going from Prague to Marseilles, just like that. I disagree. Reducing the size of Westeros would likely take away from the conflict. It would reduce army sizes, remove geography, etc. It's a novel; chance meetings unlikely to happen in real life are an inherent part of it. Even then, chance meetings do happen in life, it's not all that unlikely. That's not the problem: in a medieval setting, having a kingdom the size of South America would mean that it's completely and utterly ungovernable. Most noblemen would basically never, ever, meet. If you need 6 month to get a message back from somewhere in your kingdom, you can't govern it whatsoever. And having such complex intrigues and politics between places that are at the very best 3 months apart (and probably much more if you are not a horseman) makes very little sense altogether. I don't think the story works whatsoever at all if the Tully's or the Lannister govern lands the size of Argentina. On top of that, Westeros would have to be a bit deserted for army sizes to make any sense. France had several million people in the middle age; and all its armies put together would have been already a formidable force in Martin's world. Considering Westeros is many many times bigger than France, well... Points taken. But about communication; most of it is done by raven. I reckon they can travel relatively fast. It would take a few weeks at the very most for one message to be delivered. For some reason, I always thought Westeros was a reversed UK. Maybe I'm confusing it with some other fantasy novel that did that? Sure. But look, the first book starts with the king and the Lannister traveling to Winterfell and back, and Cercei is in a huuuuge carriage, right? You don't go at more than 5-6 km an hour with a huge carriage on medieval roads. And you don't travel more than 8 hours a day with horses. That gives you 40 km a day, probably more like 25 since roads are never straight, you need to stop from time to time etc. If the distance between Winterfell and King's Landing is 2500 km, the journey takes 100 days. That's over 3 months and half traveling all the time. And 3 months back.
The King left his kingdom for 8 months to go spend a couple of nights in Winterfell?
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