Well, I'm still not convinced The Prestige didn't involve time travel.
Well, I'm still not convinced The Prestige didn't involve time travel.
It is on the whole probable that we continually dream, but that consciousness makes such a noise that we do not hear it. Carl Jung.
It's almost never been an either/or question though. The tension between reading various story events as the results of Dany's personal qualities and her material circumstances has been a constant pleasure of the show. In fact, it's arguably only *after* ridding Westeros of the existential threat (the Night King) that anyone (including Dany) had the wherewithal to thoughtfully separate the two. Remember, before the events that occurred mid-way through the season, she'd been convinced by her advisors to hold off on annihilating Cersei mostly for the sake of preserving humanity itself.
“Every level he goes to, he is going to compete. They will know who he is at every level he goes to.” -- ED on EDLC
Bran can't see the future, but he can affect the past. We saw with Hodor and we saw it with Ned. The books have many instances of people hearing 'voices' (Varys, Ned, Mad King), and at one point Ned clearly hears a voice he identifies as Bran's. I also find it curious that Varys calls his secret givers, his 'little birds' - Ravens/Crows aren't exactly little, but they are obviously birds.
Frankly, other than Jon not being executed immediately after killing Dany, Bran's ascension to kingdom was the most baffling development in the finale. Well, that and the fact that the council would actually listen to Tyrion, after all most in Westeros would have undoubtedly perceived him as a drunk and evil betrayer before he left Westeros (thanks to Cerci and the traveling play) and knew him only as the hand-of-the-mad-queen when he returned. Surely they would have blamed him for some of the destruction she leveled.
I still think this is a twist that Martin is holding for the books.
Last edited by puca; 05-22-2019 at 07:50 AM.
For those not knowing what this means:
He better finish.How will it all end? I hear people asking. The same ending as the show? Different?
Well… yes. And no. And yes. And no. And yes. And no. And yes.
I am working in a very different medium than David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss], never forget. They had six hours for this final season. I expect these last two books of mine will fill 3000 manuscript pages between them before I’m done… and if more pages and chapters and scenes are needed, I’ll add them. And of course the butterfly effect will be at work as well; those of you who follow this Not A Blog will know that I’ve been talking about that since season one. There are characters who never made it onto the screen at all, and others who died in the show but still live in the books… so if nothing else, the readers will learn what happened to Jeyne Poole, Lady Stoneheart, Penny and her pig, Skahaz Shavepate, Arianne Martell, Darkstar, Victarion Greyjoy, Ser Garlan the Gallant, Aegon VI, and a myriad of other characters both great and small that viewers of the show never had the chance to meet. And yes, there will be unicorns… of a sort…
Book or show, which will be the ‘real’ ending? It’s a silly question.
What would you say.....ya do here?
I think a key issue here is the difference between people who have read the books and those who have just watched the show.
The show purposefully strayed from the books, as many felt that was its strength. From what I’ve been told (I have not read the books) the books were more testosterone driven, more concrete, and blunt, while the show was more nuanced, more complex, less direct.
I think those who read the books found Dany’s turn more obvious, more fully explained from the beginning, because that’s how it was in the books. But the show, being more subtle, didn’t make it as obvious, so those only watching the show were more upset with the turn, as it seemed to come from nowhere.
Hoping to change my username to 75769024
Grey Worm not executing Jon is pretty straightforward. The second Dany and Drogon are gone, his forces are royally screwed. Though they didn't touch on it, no way the Dothraki stuck around a city reduced to ashes to take orders from some Unsulllied guy. They're surely off raping and pillaging with a new Khal. Grey Worm's on a continent that wants him dead in a city with no supplies and no defenses. Basic self-preservation dictates he holds hostages and negotiates for boats. If Jon wasn't his hostage, he'd have been overrun. If the lords of Westeros can agree on anything, it's that they'd like his head on a spike.
And it's a major plus for Tyrion to be in chains and obviously at odds with Grey Worm. That demonstrates how he broke from Dany. It's why I wish Tyrion had given Grey Worm a verbal beatdown. Also, a large percentage of the Westerosi big wigs are either Winterfell veterans or have ties with Winterfell veterans. He knows a whole bunch of them. He was/is married to Sansa. Yara was in the room on multiple occasions where he urged Dany not to burn down KL. His credit's pretty good with that group. About the only one there who's got an issue with him is Robyn Arryn, who didn't get to toss him through the Moor Door.
Anyway, Martin loves writing Tyrion more than any other character. If he ever finishes the books, Tyrion's getting all the best lines.
I'm not a system player. I am a system.
And the fact that they didn't even bother to show the initial reaction tells me the writers knew it would be unbelievable as well. I mean, how do you just skip over her army finding out Jon killed her?
Does he not care about the lives of his soldiers? He's nominally in charge at the moment. The Northmen are camped on his doorstep. Everyone just saw the dragon fly away. Grey Worm is screwed six ways to Sunday. He was raised to have some discipline. Just because his gave into his bloodlust in sacking KL doesn't mean he's now incapable deeper thought. Jon is the only thing keeping his men alive. It's not a universe of one-dimensional, unthinking characters.
Any number of ways they could have written the reaction scene. Easiest would have been he's with Tyrion when Drogon flies off, and the Imp lays it out for him.
I'm not a system player. I am a system.
Agreed. You skip over it the same way you skip over Sansa and Arya reacting to Jon's parentage. Showing the reaction would have begged for even more time and exposition to get back to the intended destination.
In a certain way, I've come to understand the last few seasons as essentially this:
1) This wasn't their world; It's GRRM's world. They did not want to veer further from GRRM's prescribed path than was necessary to produce a completed representation of his work. I could see a number of reasons for this. The more time they spent on the far side of GRRMs published material, the less it would reflect both the published and to-be-published story in meaningful ways. From a quality standpoint, since the writers are not GRRM, it could only go down from where the books left off in terms of quality. Rather than try to give the 2nd half of the story the same degree of depth and complexity as the 1st and either fail to do so or succeed and, in doing so, broaden the gap between the show and the books, they bee-lined it through the necessary plot points to wind it down. Essentially, this was them admitting that they were not and could not be GRRM's replacement.
2) They wanted to get on with their lives -- and allow the actors to do the same. The longer the series goes on, the more likely it is that crucially important actors start dropping out. As lucrative as the show is, not everybody is going to want to do it forever, assuming they're physically capable.
Games are won on run differential -- scoring more than your opponent. Runs are runs, scored or prevented they all count the same. Worry about scoring more and allowing fewer, not which positions contribute to which side of the equation or how "consistent" you are at your current level of performance.
Self-preservation is not a trait that Grey Worm or the Unsullies had shown up to that point. I think it is a leap of logic that Grey Worm would have thought all of that through when he discovered that Dany was dead at the hands of Jon. I think his immediate reaction would have been to slaughter Jon on the spot. At that point you have to figure the Unsullies out manned the rest of the forces (absent the Dothraki) by quite a large margin. I'm thinking that if he wanted to Grey Worm could have taken Westeros.
Besides Robyn and the Knights of the Vale, I can't imagine that Yara was a fan. Wasn't Yara still loyal to Dany even after the burning of Kings Landing? And then there is Sam, whose father and brother were burned alive while Tyrion was the hand of the queen. And simply being a Lannister would be enough for most of the others to mistrust Tyrion.
Agreed.
I still haven't heard a good explanation why Bran was a good choice to be King. In fact his abilities would give me great pause - a little too 'big brother' to me. Not to mention who knows what he can warg into.
Although warging into Drogon may be the only way they are going to stop the Dothraki ravaging Westeros.
Board Moderators may, at their discretion and judgment, delete and/or edit any messages that violate any of the following guidelines: 1. Explicit references to alleged illegal or unlawful acts. 2. Graphic sexual descriptions. 3. Racial or ethnic slurs. 4. Use of edgy language (including masked profanity). 5. Direct personal attacks, flames, fights, trolling, baiting, name-calling, general nuisance, excessive player criticism or anything along those lines. 6. Posting spam. 7. Each person may have only one user account. It is fine to be critical here - that's what this board is for. But let's not beat a subject or a player to death, please. |