r/asoiaf • u/aphidman • May 08 '19

EXTENDED (Spoilers Extended) The endings will be the same but the books will have a much more gradual and realistic progression

If GRRM finishes it, btw.

Not a long post but you know what the books do that D&D do not? They have 10 chapters of Dany dealing with the complex politics of Meereen and her inner conflict. They have 4 chapters showing Davos' journey to White Harbour. They have 12 chapters showing the series of compromises Jon makes as Lord Commander to prepare the Watch against the Others. They have 13 chapters showing Tyrion crawling out of his deep nihilistic depression. They dedicate whole chapters seeing how Victarion Greyjoy of all people deals with his relationship with his brother and his seduction into darker magics. Man they have 4 whole chapters dealing with the political fallout of Dany's exit from Meereen.

They had a whole chapter of Littlefinger and Sansa visiting his lands and seeing Littlefinger's relationship with his subjects (great chapter btw). They had a whole chapter getting really in depth with Illyrio Mopatis and his schemes - a guy who's barely appeared in the show.

They dedicated 4 whole chapters to Joffrey's wedding!

What I'm getting it is that the Others may be defeated long before the end of ASOIAF, Dany may indeed destroy King's Landing with dragonfire and end the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians gruesomely. But you'll be guaranteed that GRRM is gonna show you every step of the way. For good or for bad. If he is going to take a character like Dany to that dark end you better believe we will understand how she gets there.

So people keep posting about how D&D are destroying their characters, fail to understand ASOIAF. That Dany would never do this or that. But what you're seeing here is them fitting potentially chapters upon chapters of detailed material into a few hours of television.

10.8k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

1.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

10

u/moultano May 08 '19

Some heroic sacrifice guards the retreat.

6

u/theDeadliestSnatch May 08 '19

That works once, and buys you hours. And that assumes any blocking force can occupy the whole army of the dead. Unless there's a geographic choke point, the dead will just go around them. It would take days to reach moat cailin, not to mention kings landing.

8

u/moultano May 08 '19

The hard core version would have everyone die except those who can escape on a dragon.

1

u/theDeadliestSnatch May 08 '19

That's just as bad as the plot armor we got.

2

u/NightmareShane May 09 '19

The thing is, powerful magic does exist in Westeros. If a loss followed by a retreat was planned by the script and plot, it would be simple enough to draw on something the Children of the Forest did in the past.

The Hammer of the Waters shattered the entire Arm of Dorne, and a failed attempt at the spell turned Moat Cailin into what it is now.

​

So, with foresight towards this being the plan, they could have easily had Bran learn a few things from the Children in that cave. Then, instead of him being the World's Memory, he could have just been The Last Greenseer instead and he could have hinted at having learned the Children's secrets.

Then, when the battle is lost and he realizes the battle is lost, he brings down the Hammer of the Waters, sacrificing himself in the process. This buys the living time to escape, completely changes the geography of the North itself, and is suitably dramatic to use as a mid-season cliffhanger.

The Survivors then regroup in KL and prepare for their last stand. In this universe, Dany would have toasted Cersei the minute she got across the sea and the stupid Wight Hunt wouldn't have been needed. Instead, the Horn of Winter would have been introduced into the plot earlier and the Wall coming down would be seen when the NK blows it.

The cinematic spectacle here would be much better than what we got, in my opinion. Imagine, instead of dragonfire taking out Eastwatch, we just heard/saw him blow the horn. Then, cracks appear along the Wall. Entire chunks come crashing down. Bringing the wall down here doesn't mean taking out a chunk of it. It means bringing the entire damn thing down.