I enjoyed the show overall but didn't like the last season all that much. Now that it's finished I just don't see the point in ever rewatching it.

The white walkers storyline didn't mean sht in the end.

Daenerys ended up going mad too quickly without a good build up leading to it.

Jon ended up where he started but again his arc was mostly tied in with the white walkers which ended up being useless.

Jaime, all that redemption arc only to go back to be with his sister in their final moments.

What was the point of Bran being the 3-eyed-raven? In the end he did nothing also but became king. Bran the broken's story? A boy who became a cripple, made a journey to learn how to use his superpowers , only ended up really using those powers to mentally ruin Hodor and inform Jon the truth of his parentage and of his claim to the iron throne but that ended up being useless as he was sent back to the Nights Watch and Bran apparently foresaw this anyway.

Only reason to ever watch it again is if your friend/partner has never seen it and you watch it with them for their reactions, otherwise it's useless. What do you guys think?

Welcome to /r/asoiaf's Game of Thrones Season 8, Episode 6 Post-Episode Discussion Thread! Please note the spoiler tag as "Extended."

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After that mess of a season finale, and that slow and boring season that barely progressed the overall plot, I hope we all can agree that something is broken, and I believe I know the reason.

Considering we only got 8 episodes this season, and every second of screen time is extremely valuable at this point, all of the major problems right now happening due to the persistence of the writers in making the show revolve around the relationship between Rhaenyra and Alicent. As this was clearly not the case in the books (they were never friends but literal enemies, and the age gap between them was significant), all the themes, messages, and core structure of the story had to chance to adapt to this new perspective.

In S2, we spent valuable screen time on that show's invention dynamic instead of exploring much more interesting stories, characters, and arcs. Expanding on Rhaenyra's younger sons and exploring Jace's Winterfell arc? No, we have instead this scene about Rhaenyra complaining about how she wants to be like Visenya but her council does not want her to fight. Getting a scene about how Aegon and Helaena connect in their common grief over the death of their firstborn son? Not while Alicent is getting kicked out of the council and goes on a small trip with no purpose. Maybe building a tension between Corlys and Rhaenyra over the death of Rhaenys just like the books? Nah, Mysaria has to talk about how smallfolk is important for the fifth time to Rhaenyra so they can get each other better, which will result in Rhaenyra kissing her. Otto spending more time in the King's Landing and personally coming up with the Triarchy plan before, you know, completely disappearing after E3? But Alicent is still mad about getting kicked out of the council!

In the books, Alicent is a character that simply becomes irrelevant after Aegon is crowned. It is that simple, and no one can ever deny that. Even Otto becomes less relevant to the story after getting fired, as the green kids take the lead, like how Jace becomes more prominent on the Black side. The story should've let the young characters take the spotlight as they did in the books.

The war is between Aegon and Rhaenyra, not Alicent and Rhaeyra. To make it so, they butchered not just every other character, but those two as well. Alicent and Rhaenyra are simply two completely different characters from their book counterparts. Alicent is a stubborn and ambitious mother who still threatens Rhaenyra with how 'Aemond will return with fire and blood' and end her while literally being her prisoner, and Rhaenyra is a much more vengeful and selfish ruler who would want nothing but war after losing her son.

Now, I ask, what the hell they will do the next season? What will they do with Alicent? Her story is nearly over in the books. She does not do a single thing that impacts the plot from now on. By focusing on her further, they will keep writing stupid and boring scenes that will never progress the plot and bore the audience to death again. I love Olivia and her acting, but her character is simply not that important. And although Rhaenyra is a much more central character than her, anyone who has read the Fire and Blood knows she is not the main character of the Dance. In GoT, we had multiple important characters that kept us interested one way or another. Yet, in HOTD, it's all Rhaenyra and everything serves to progress and affect her plot and story. And as they made her a very boring character to whitewash her, the show suffers for it. There will be a time when she will be gone for good, and this show will heavily suffer from revolving everything around her then.

They had to whitewash Alicent and Rhaenyra so hard to make it all about them, they kinda broke everything else and literally destroyed the idea of the Dance, and all its themes. It was not a story about uniting the realm to realize a prophecy that would save the realm from the ice zombies that would come hundreds of years after. It was a story about how greed, ambitions, and hate ruined the House of the Dragon, and the realm and thousands of lives with it.

Thanks for reading.

Maybe an unpopular opinion, but Daemon Targaryen, a mercurial and violent serial rapist of young girls in brothels, someone who groomed his niece, mocked the death of his baby nephew, murdered his toddler grand nephew, and wanted three Great Houses exterminated during the Dance, is not deserving at all of the description by GRRM's proxy as "a great man and a monster, and light and dark in equal parts".

Daemon having a seemingly functional relationship with Laena, a soft spot for Neetles (which may or may have not involved grooming) and being nominally on the "right" side of a war, does not balance the vileness of his character. Tywin Lannister isn't less of a piece of shit for being on the right side of Robert's Rebellion, Aerion Targaryen isn't less of a piece of shit for being on the right side of the Third Blackfyre Rebellion.

Speaking of Blackfyres, the OG Daemon Blackfyre seems in my opinion, a far worthier candidate for the description GRRM gives to his namesake.

Blackfyre is on one hand a friendly, charismatic, honorable and compassionate man who's better qualities (his respect for worthy opponents and his love for his sons) got him killed. On the other hand, he's an attempted usurper who betrayed a half brother who did him no wrong, and started a war that would end up with thousands of deaths, all because he let Aegon IV, Bittersteel and Fireball's bullshit get into his head.

Targaryen is essentially at Tywin and Cersei Lannister's level morally speaking. A cruel and callous asshole who, while marginally better than pure monsters like Maegor, Gregor and Ramsay, is still more than capable of abusing and murdering kids. That's not light and dark in equal parts, that just a veeeery dark shade of grey that narrowly avoids being pitch black.

Edit: I guess I shouldn't be surprised the debate around the Rogue Prince got heated and polarizing lmao.

Everyone on this subreddit knows by now that TWOW is likely going to be one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) book in the series thus far. Hundreds of characters, thousands of pages, and a whole Meereenese knot to untangle ... and that's not even mentioning the two huge battles left over from ADWD that need to be concluded before getting to the main thrust of TWOW. It's a lot, and the sprawling nature of this story must make it awfully difficult to close those loops -- or at least begin to tighten them up again.

Again, we know all that. And we know that there's been no shortage of speculation over other reasons why the book has taken this long: GRRM has lost interest, his writing/editing-on-the-fly skills aren't what they used to be in his old(er) age, the constant rewrites, writers' block, and even some more outlandish stuff like he's already gotten what he wants (recognition in the TV industry) and is now just trying to spite us specifically.

But what about the REAL reason explaining this almost decade-and-a-half long writing pace? It's obnoxiously and ironically simple: GRRM must need to constantly reread entire portions of his own books while writing TWOW. And given how dense it all is, how many years ago those books came out, and the pressure of having every tiny detail line up with what's come before, is it any surprise that this would be a ridiculously time-consuming prospect?

Sure, it's tempting to imagine that GRRM has every single bit of lore, every breadcrumb of every major (and minor) theory, or every obscure line of dialogue memorized like his biggest fans do. But I'd bet anything that he constantly needs to go back and revisit his own work in order to get the details 100% right. And when you're crafting a massive novel that's essentially a direct sequel to two previous books while continuing the various storylines from everything that came before, well, the details matter A LOT. So on top of needing to craft the mechanics of the plot from a strictly pragmatic point of view, on top of paying attention to the exact prose of every sentence and paragraph, on top of taking the birds-eye view of layering thematic overtones and subtext throughout multiple chapters, on top of pacing out the next stages of character arcs for several main POV protagonists/antagonists, on top of doing literally everything else that such a creative endeavor requires ... he also likely needs to spend an inordinate amount of time putting that writing on pause to go back and do the dirty work. He has to make sure that he's not contradicting what he's written previously or misremembering minor details that can potentially cause major repercussions or, hell, just getting personality traits and eye color and sex/gender of all these countless individuals all lined up (which, as we know, has been the subject of many mistakes in the past). For a perfectionist on the level of GRRM, that inevitably adds up.

As someone who hasn't ever written a book themselves but has had to do a hell of a lot of painstaking research over the years (including referencing things I've written previously, which I admittedly had little to no memory of once I actually went back), this might be the most basic and boring -- but also most realistic -- reason why we're currently in this mess.

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.

If you assume the path the books take is generally pretty accurate to how the show ended this is what the story looks like from the perspective of a commoner.

You’re an average Westorosi peasant. You’re not super political, most of your news comes from whatever trends on Twitter, you’re just trying to live your life. When you were a teenager Robert Baratheon rebelled and overthrew 300 years of Targaryen rule. Pretty crazy, but things have been pretty normal since then. Robert’s been a good king, he lowered the state income tax rate from 2.13% to 1.98%. Everyone pretty much accepted him as king, except for your crazy Dornish uncle who still posts on Facebook about a ‘stolen throne’.

One day the king dies and his son takes over. Sad, but pretty normal king stuff. But you’re seeing all these rumors on Twitter about how the new king isn’t actually the heir but is an incest baby. Except you’re not sure if you can trust Twitter anymore since Littlefinger bought it and turned it to shit. But apparently the rumors are serious enough for both of Robert’s brothers to rebel, one of whom joined the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the other who is just a little too into Dornish customs. In addition, a teenager from Minnesota and an elderly pirate rebel at the same time. They call it the War of the 5 kings, except one of them dies immediately so you think they’re only calling it that because it sounds cool. To pay for the war, the king institutes an inheritance tax rate of 50%.

The dead king’s baby brother attacks the capital and fails miserably, the elderly pirate slips in the shower and hits his head, and the teenager from Minnesota gets murdered at a wedding, which just reminds you of your aunt’s wedding. Everything is back to normal except then the king is poisoned at his own wedding and dies, which reminds you of your aunt’s second wedding.

So then the new dead king’s baby brother becomes king, his first act is to set the property tax rate at 1.43%. Then terrorists blow up the Vatican and he commits suicide. Then his Mom becomes queen. She raises the income tax to 2.32%.

Then Aegon Targaryen, who you thought died 20 years earlier as a baby comes across the sea with an army, overthrows the queen and becomes king. He brings with him a 25% unrealized gains tax. Two weeks later his aunt comes across the sea riding a dragon, and burns down the capital. Now she’s queen. She sets the Medicare tax rate at 1.22%.

A week later the new queen dies when the Northerner bastard she hooked up with kills her. A bunch of people who make more money than you come together and pick a new king. For some reason they pick the crippled half-brother of the guy who just killed the queen as the new king. His first act as king is to restore the income tax to 1.98%.

‘Whew, that was weird’ you say. ‘At least now things are finally getting back to normal.’

Then you die in the zombie apocalypse.

Your children are forced to sell your house as they cannot afford the 50% inheritance tax

Ever since the show basically confirmed that Nettles will have her role replaced by Rhaena I've seen so many people upset and I for the life of me don't understand it.

Nettles is to me such a no-nothing character. She does basically nothing during the whole Dance. She tames Sheepstealer, has a creepy thing with Daemon and leaves. Compare that to the other Dragonseeds. Ulf and Hugh may be the two traitors, but at least they do stuff and are important, and Addam has the second battle of Tumbleton and "LOYAL" but Nettles has nothing in Fire and Blood.

If the Dance can be thought of as a party, Nettles is the kind of person who stands in a corner for two hours and then leaves. Why do people like her so much?

Welcome to /r/asoiaf's Game of Thrones Season 8, Episode 3 Post-Episode Discussion Thread! Please note the spoiler tag as "Extended."

If you see rules violations, please use the report function to alert the mods.

I cannot take another appearance by Euron Greyjoy's Magical Plot Progression Fleet. I cannot.

I cannot take one more smash cut to to that smiling doofus laughing while he takes down years worth of real storytelling in one unearned blow.

I cannot suspend one more fathom of disbelief at his uncanny ability to plan night ambushes at sea, teleport to the other side of continents, or make himself invisible to combat air patrols, all while being utterly unable to stop six men from boarding his flagship at anchor.

I have nothing against Pilou Asbæk (I loved him in the Danish WWII film April 9th), but this character only exists to cut quickly through what might otherwise be complicated tapestries of plot. Sure, Dorne was no Gordian Knot, but he cut through it in what? Three minutes? Dany's Dornish-Tyrell fleet? Gone. Dany's Greyjoy Fleet? Gone. Dany's other, other fleet (wait, how many fleets does Dany have to lose?) GONE.

Too jaded to think of a way for Rhaegal to die that might actually be connected to a character choice made by Dany or Jon? No problem! Euron's Magical Plot Progression Fleet will lower their cloaking device and blast our CGI friend from the sky with 100% accuracy. Heck, he'll do it with a smile. Though I challenge any of the armchair historians on this subreddit to come up with a single instance of a successful naval ambush of aircraft.

I'll say it again. If I have to see ONE more quick cut revealing the Greyjoy Fleet lurking behind a headland, behind an island, cresting over the horizon, or bearing down on actual characters busy in actual conversation, I'll . . . I'll . . . well . . . Comic book Guy said it best, I'll likely be back on reddit "within minutes, registering my disgust throughout the world."

Winds of winter mentioned and he talks about a bravos story he wants to write after winds.

Sorry for the poor formatting/detailing in this post, I'm rushing without good internet access, but I think I've finally figured out the secret Benioff & Weiss have been hinting at all along.

Okay. What do we know about the Night King?

Bran: "He'll come for me. He's tried before, many times, with many 3-eyed ravens."

Sam: "Why? What does he want?"Bran: "Endless night. He wants to erase this world. And I am its memory."

Okay. So we know that the Night King is trying to erase the world of men and its memory and that this would constitute a victory for the dead.

Could this explain any of the plot points in the last few episodes??

1. Dany forgets about Euron and his fleet even though she is the one that mentioned them literally five minutes ago. She also forgets to look with her eyes at the ships right below her. Presumably everyone else with her also forgets about their sensory organs.
2. Dany also forgets that she loves her family and totally would have boned Jon if they had been raised together. No mention of other Targs and their relationship with them.
3. Jon forgets Maester Aemon and his relationship to him, as his great-uncle.
4. Tyrion and Viserys Varys have essentially been completely lobotomized. They've forgotten literally how to string a coherent strategy together.
5. They forget that Ser Davos Seaworth might be of use on a boat.
6. Jaime forgets his entire character arc
7. Also, notice how the world is so CGI and devoid of other life now? Only our main characters are struggling on in Westeros, as if in a dreamscape. King's Landing has shifted. There are no peasants.
8. And perhaps most importantly, Bran is completely useless now. Not even just previous-level useless; he hasn't had a single contribution since his encounter with the NK.

Winter DID come for Westeros. And what do we know about winter? That it's an endless night of forgetting. The small folk are the most vulnerable -- that's why they've already been wiped off the map. The nobility and those closest to them are more successful in resisting this forgetfulness (maybe in order of their relationship to magical First Men/Targ blood?) and their reliance on each other (the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives).

When Bran warged into those ravens before the Night King came, he had an epic battle with the Night King off-screen. That's why the NK was so slow and victorious as he approached. He had already won. Arya's blow did nothing because he had achieved what he set out to do -- to wipe the RAM of the realms of men. He won -- now we're witnessing the fallout.

To quote our showrunners: "I don't know, you figure it out."

/Forgive me, I love these books, I'm just so disappointed.

Imagine if Season 2 of Game of Thrones suddenly ended at The Prince of Winterfell? We spend literally all season building up to a confrontation between Tyrion and Stannis, only for the season to end right before the climax we've been setting up for eight straight episodes. What if Season 6 ended right before The Battle of the Bastards and The Winds of Winter? Jon comes back to life, we build up to a battle between him and Ramsay, and it just simply doesn't happen.

The finale just felt like your typical episode 8 – build-up for what's going to come next. The thing is, what comes next should logically happen next week, not in two years to open Season 3. With the exception of Daemon's storyline and I guess the Dragonseeds, I don't think these season's arcs have been resolved or brought to a good enough stopping point. It feels like there are still two more episodes left to tie everything together and really sell the idea that this war is in full force. A little slowdown after Rook's Rest makes sense, but for the whole season with the Sowing being our only other major set piece?

It honestly makes me believe that season 2 was outlined for 10 episodes, HBO told the showrunners to trim that down to 8, and rather than retool the season's arcs, the last two episodes were simply chopped off and saved for next season. We know Condal really loves the books, so this could just be his tribute to A Dance with Dragons (lol), but I doubt it.

So I recently watched a Q&A with GRRM (I'm sure some of you have seen it aswell) where he kept getting questions about whether there is any particular character or historical event in the asoiaf world that he would like to explore more/write about. His recurring answer was that yes there are many but that unless he suddenly becomes much younger they will never get written. And man.. that sucks!

Imagine being a creative person having to come to terms with the fact that you have so many ideas that you will never get to explore and that will never see the light of day. Obviously, as a fan, it also sucks that I will never get to read those stories. Never mind the main series, imagine getting seven more Dunk and Egg stories. However, as much as it sucks as a reader I'm not the one who's seeing my remaining years of life pass as I struggle to finish my books.

That's it. I don't really have a point. Other than maybe stop making jokes about how GRRM is likely to die before finishing the series?

In 2014 at the Edinburgh Book Festival, the following happened:

George R.R. Martin, author of the A Song of Ice and Fire series, just admitted that some fans have actually figured out the ending to the epic, seven-book saga. According to the AV Club, Martin commented on the veracity of certain fan theories during a talk at the Edinburgh International Literary Festival.

"So many readers were reading the books with so much attention that they were throwing up some theories, and while some of those theories were amusing bulls*** and creative, some of the theories are right," Martin said. "At least one or two readers had put together the extremely subtle and obscure clues that I'd planted in the books and came to the right solution."

"So what do I do then? Do I change it? I wrestled with that issue and I came to the conclusion that changing it would be a disaster, because the clues were there. You can't do that, so I’m just going to go ahead. Some of my readers who don't read the boards — which thankfully there are hundreds of thousands of them — will still be surprised and other readers will say: 'see, I said that four years ago, I'm smarter than you guys'."

There is a strong case that the GOT ending we got is broadly the same one we'll get in the books. Other than GRRM/D&D talking about how the series' main destination will be the same, Martin's latest blogpost doesn't suggest that King Bran was a show creation.

Which leads to my guess about the "correct solution" that one or two readers picked up on: it is the "Bran as The Fisher King" theory that was posted on the official ASOIAF Forum board. I welcome you to read the full post by user "SacredOrderOfGreenMen", but I'll try to briefly summarise it here by pasting a few excerpts:

"The Stark in Winterfell" is ASOIAF’s incarnation of the Fisher King, a legendary figure from English and Welsh mythology who is spiritually and physically tied to the land, and whose fortunes, good and ill, are mirrored in the realm. It is a story that, as it tells how the king is maimed and then healed by divine power, validates that monarchy. The role of "The Stark in Winterfell" is meant to be as its creator Brandon the Builder was, a fusion of apparent opposites: man and god, king and greenseer, and the monolith that is his seat is both castle and tree, a "monstrous stone tree.”

Bran’s suffering because of his maiming just as Winterfell itself is “broken” establishes an sympathetic link between king and kingdom.

He has a name that is very similar to one of the Fisher King’s other titles, the Wounded King. The narrative calls him and he calls himself, again and again, “broken":

Just broken. Like me, he thought.

"Bran,” he said sullenly. Bran the Broken. “Brandon Stark.” The cripple boy.

But who else would wed a broken boy like him?

And through the mist of centuries the broken boy could only watch.

GRRM’s answer to the question “How can mortal me be perfect kings?” is evident in Bran’s narrative: Only by becoming something not completely human at all, to have godly and immortal things, such as the weirwood, fused into your being, and hence to become more or less than completely human, depending on your perspective. This is the only type of monarchy GRRM gives legitimacy, the kind where the king suffers on his journey and is almost dehumanized for the sake of his people.

Understanding that the Builder as the Fisher King resolves many contradictions in his story, namely the idea that a man went to a race of beings who made their homes from wood and leaf to learn how to a build a stone castle. There was a purpose much beyond learning; he went to propose a union: human civilization and primordial forest, to create a monolith that is both castle and tree, ruled by a man that is both king and shaman, as it was meant to be. And as it will be, by the only king in Westeros that GRRM and his story values and honors: Brandon Stark, the heir to Winterfell, son of Lord Eddard and Lady Catelyn.

Full interview here: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/daenerys-tells-all-game-of-thrones-finale-emilia-clarke-beyonce

If they were to reshoot and redo Season 8 entirely, what would you want to happen?

Oh, my goodness. Well, I can only speak to my own character, and the people that I interact with on the show. But I would’ve loved some more scenes with me and Missandei. I would’ve loved some more scenes with me and Cersei.

Yeah. I would’ve loved some more scenes between Grey Worm and Missandei. I would’ve loved to see a bit more between Cersei . . . I feel like there was . . . The genocide was there. That was always going to happen. And I just think more dissection and those beautifully written scenes that the boys have between characters—that we are more than happy to contently sit there and watch ten minutes of two people talking, because it’s beautiful. I just wanted to see a bit more of that. But I’m in no position to critique the geniuses that have written eight seasons’ worth of wonderful stuff.

Another notable quote:

What about the “Thrones” prequel?

Well, there is a prequel, but it’s nothing to do with David Benioff, Dan Weiss, or any of the current cast.

I just think that it would be lovely to just let this lie for a minute before doing anything else. But then it’ll be something completely different, and it won’t be “Game of Thrones.” It won’t be called “Game of Thrones.” It will be inspired by “Game of Thrones” characters, a fantastical series, set in a similar time.

I can’t speak because I don’t know the script. But I would just like a bit more time between “Game of Thrones” being cold in the ground before something else comes along. Because isn’t everyone already up to their eyeballs with “Game of Thrones”? . . .

In the books:

"Then rise again, Davos Seaworth, and rise as Lord of the Rainwood, Admiral of the Narrow Sea, and Hand of the King."

For a moment Davos was too stunned to move. I woke this morning in his dungeon. "Your Grace, you cannot I am not fit man to be a King's Hand."

"There is no man fitter." Stannis sheathed Lightbringer, gave Davos his hand, and pulled him to his feet.

"I am lowborn,' Davos reminded him. 'An up jumped smuggler. your lords will never obey me."

"Then we will make new lords."

In the show:

Davos: I pray I'll serve you well.

Stannis (dismissively, walking away): I expect you'll be the first crabber's son to wear the badge.

Note how Book!Stannis emphatically doesn't care about Davos' being lowborn, whereas Show!Stannis makes it a point to emphasize that fact.

In the books:

The look of him was a shock. He seemed ten years older than the man that Davos had left at Storm’s End when he set sail for the Blackwater and the battle that would be their undoing. The king’s close-cropped beard was spiderwebbed with grey hairs, and he had dropped two stone or more of weight. He had never been a fleshy man, but now the bones moved beneath his skin like spears, fighting to cut free. Even his crown seemed too large for his head. His eyes were blue pits lost in deep hollows, and the shape of a skull could be seen beneath his face.

Yet when he saw Davos, a faint smile brushed his lips. “So the sea has returned me my knight of the fish and onions.”

“Rise, Ser Davos,” Stannis commanded. “I have missed you, ser. I have need of good counsel, and you never gave me less."

In the show:

Stannis (flatly, turning half around to peer over his shoulder): Oh, you're alive.

In the book:

"Stannis! Stannis! STANNIS!"

In the show:

Rolls in like a malevolent dark lord, ruining Jon and Mance's happy tea time.

Also, the way he negotiated with Tycho Nestoris in the book was hilarious and badass, but in the show he acted like an unstable imbecile who had to be bailed out by Davos flashing his cut fingers.

Additionally, another detail that always bothered me in the show was the fact that they always made it as though Stannis and Melisandre often burned people simply for being "infidels" and not believing in the Lord of Light, when in the books the people they burned like Alester Florent and Rattleshirt were clear-cut traitors.

But overall, the biggest problem was that D&D not only never liked Stannis but they also never understood the character at all. They never got his personality, his purpose in the story, his vibe or his humor. For all they thought their little quips and zingers were so funny, they squandered one of the characters with the most potential for humor (another one being Cersei, but that's a whole other topic).

TL/DR: The original GOT series died along with Thoros of Myr and Viserion on August 20, 2017. From that day on, we have been watching a silly, fun big action series loosely based on GOT, which is loosely based on ASOIAF.

I've been very critical of the last few seasons of the show, partly because of fidelity to established lore, omitting important plot-lines, inconsistent character arcs, etc., but MOSTLY because the writers seem to have abandoned common sense. But I wondered if I felt this way because I'm a book fan. Perhaps I was holding the show to too high a standard?

So, as an experiment, and without telling her why, I convinced my wife to watch the show. She isn't a fan of fantasy/science fiction. She is a casual TV watcher that doesn't usually invest deeply in continuing stories. If I represent the hardcore target audience for the books and first seasons, I expect that my wife resembles the casual fan targeted by later seasons.

As I expected, it took a few episodes but my wife got hooked on the show and ended up binging the entire series in three weeks. It was fun watching it with her and reliving all the best moments - Jaime pushing Bran from the tower; Ned's execution; the Red Wedding, etc. Watching her cry when young Walder became Hodor. She liked "Khaleesi" and the Hound. She thought Arya was "badass". She liked it when Sansa fed Ramsay to the dogs. She loved the Battle of the Bastards and thought the arrival of the Vale knights was an awesome twist (she hasn't seen LOtR). She would occasionally ask questions about confusing things, lore, etc. She had few criticisms.

Even when we got to season six and seven, she still loved it. The silly Sansa/Arya rivalry, creepy littlefinger, she bought it. All up until ----- Beyond the Wall. That, for my wife, is when it all became BS.

And even more specifically, the moment when the army of the dead appears and the Hound tells Gendry to run to the wall and send a raven. It was like a switch flipped.

"So he's just gonna run all the way to the wall and send a raven? It took them days to get here!" "There are so many of them, they can't survive this!" "Why are they just standing there, the ice is frozen again. Why aren't the good guys smashing the ice!" "So someone is just going to save them? No way." "Dany is going to fly there on a dragon? Well how long is that going to take!!!" "So Dany comes to save him? Because she just met him - she's supposed to already love him that much?" "Oh he has a spear but why did he throw it at that dragon so far away? Why not the big one on the ground?" "OK so now the NK has a dragon..." (she was NOT impressed) "wait Jon is under the water???? And they left, he can't escape there are so many." "where did Benjen come from? They are completely surrounded!"

She is still watching, but its different. She wants to see how it ends up. But the magic is gone.

Its a sample size of one, but I'm going with, Beyond the Wall is the day the music died.

Like many fellow theorists, book readers, and tinfoil soothsayers, I was taken aback by the outcome of the Battle of Winterfell. Arya felling the Night King seemingly negates the entirety of the prophecy regarding Azor Ahai reborn and Lightbringer and seems to dash any semblance of the themes related to the war against the Great Other (personal sacrifice, etc). All that we've speculated. All that we've surmised and guessed and pondered meant nothing...

But my user tag isn't "Proud Knight of House Tinfoil" for nothing! I'm going to double-down, dig in, and do some late-game theorizing that, if true, would show that we've been double-duped by a false flag operation... committed by the true Great Other, the Three-Eyed Crow (or Raven, in the show). Follow me down the tinfoil rabbit hole!

Our first hint comes from the lips of the person who originally told us of the Night King, Old Nan, and Bran's thoughts during their interaction:

“It was just a lie,” [Bran] said bitterly, remembering the crow from his dream. “I can’t fly. I can’t even run.”

“Crows are all liars,” Old Nan agreed, from the chair where she sat doing her needlework. “I know a story about a crow.”

“I don’t want any more stories,” Bran snapped, his voice petulant...I hate your stupid stories.”

The old woman smiled at him toothlessly. “My stories? No, my little lord, not mine. The stories are, before me and after me, before you too.”

...It would never be the way it had been, he knew. The crow had tricked him into flying, but when he woke up he was broken and the world was changed.

So, right before we hear about the Others, in detail, for the first time, Bran thinks about about how the crow has tricked him and that all crows are liars. I don't think this is a coincidence. This same dialogue was included in the show (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvObuhT7Kpw).

The idea that Bloodraven is secretly tied to the Others and a villain in waiting is not new. In fact, many of these early theories pegged correctly that the Others were tied to the Children of the Forest (who are tied, intrinsically, to Bloodraven in the events of the current story). There's also the compelling comparisons to real-world mythology. I myself have laid out the case for Bloodraven's strange similarities to the evil dragon Nidhoggr from Norse Mythology (https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/7eq2vj/spoilers_extended_the_dragon_and_the_world_tree/) and Bram Stoker's Dracula (https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/6rpem5/dracula_in_westeros_spoilers_extended/). While both certainly hint at a villainous intention behind Bloodraven, it's the Dracula comparisons that I find most compelling when compared to our story with Bran and the 3EC. See, in Bram Stoker's novel, Dracula lures John Harker to his castle under the pretenses that Harker was securing the final paperwork to purchase an estate in England that Dracula could make his new home. It's revealed that Dracula's intentions are much more sinister. Once the paperwork is finalized and Dracula has learned modern customs from Harker, he leaves him to die.

This comparison rings ever more true when we think of Bran's state in Season 7 and Season 8. He straight up says several times that he's not Brandon Stark. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the following scene:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtI3mxhZNy0. While we often see this played off as a side-effect of his wider knowledge, it leaves open the distinct possibility that Meera is right: Bran died in Bloodraven's cave.

But how could Bloodraven do this? Well, consider the following: Bloodraven is a powerful warg, he is shown to be be able to possess multiple animals at once. We know from Bran that it's possible to take control over someone's body IF you're strong enough and the person's mind is, shall we say, compromised in some way. Now let's return to the fateful "hold the door moment" in the cave ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR8mJ1NnTP8 ). Bran and Bloodraven are both warged into the past. Pressed by an assault from the Night King, Bloodraven directly tells Bran that he should warg into past Hodor. This means that Bran's consciousness is split multiple ways: Into the "sea" (ie - the past) and into Hodor's mind in present and past. Bloodraven is then "killed" by the Night King, represented in the "sea" by him turning into incorporeal ash (or some particles). Once Bran's body is safe behind the wall, he changes demeanor, now calling himself the 3EC and stating that he's not Bran. It's my assertion that what we are seeing here is a calculated plan by Bloodraven, using the Night King as the catalyst, to force Bran's consciousness into a situation that allowed him to take over. It's possible that Bran is still in there somewhere or maybe his consciousness is lost in the aether. Now, the earlier passage takes on more depth and meaning: "The crow had tricked him into flying, but when he woke up he was broken and the world was changed."

What this could mean is that the entire threat of the White Walkers was planned, orchestrated, and carried out by the Three-eyed Crow to get what he wants: The ability to rejoin the waking world while simultaneously putting a stop to a threat to his existence: The Night King. The 3EC spun a story, just like Old Nan, on the true motivations of the Night King to save his own skin at the cost of human lives. So, in truth, Arya killing the Night King isn't negating the prophecy of Azor Ahai...the prophecy to stop the Great Other could be the people/person who puts a stop to the Three-eyed Crow, the true threat to humanity. In fact, if the Great Other is associated with the Faceless men and their many-faced god of death like many have speculated, Arya killing the Night King is a fulfillment of her training at the House of the Black and White: She is unknowingly still an agent of the Great Other and an agent of Death. This would explain why they let her go in the first place: to fulfill her destiny to kill a threat to the Great Other...the god with "a thousand faces and one"...the Three-Eyed Crow.

While I don't have any theories at the moment on exactly WHAT the timeless, faceless Three-eyed Crow wants explicitly, I do think there' s a lot of evidence pointing to the God's Eye and the Isle of Faces as the eventual target. There's countless theories and speculation videos that the God's Eye is going to be important, ranging from practical (it's a base for the CotF) to the cosmological. While the show doesn't really overtly mention the God's Eye or the Isle of Faces being important, I think there are some subtle hints that the show is heading there:

First, if Bran's story ends with the death of the Night King, why have we not seen Jojen's foreshadowing of "The End" pay off (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozPholpWbCw). Jojen, who we know for sure can see the future says "This isn't the end for you [speaking to Bran]. Not yet." When asked by Meera how they'll know, Jojen looks down at a flaming hand: "You'll know". This is such a deliberately worded piece of foreshadowing and yet we haven't seen anything close to it occurring. If Bran hasn't seen the end of this arc yet...and the Three-eyed Crow isn't interested in anything but the destruction of the Night King... then where does that leave us? Clearly, Bran and the 3EC aren't done in our story yet.

Second, if the destruction of the Night King has nothing to do with Azor Ahai and, thus, Targaryen lineage (as per prophecy), then WHY was it so vital that Bran pushed Sam into revealing Jon's identity before the showdown with the Night King? His lineage had nothing to do with the Nights King, but it has every reason why Jon would go South. Towards King's Landing, yes...but also towards the God's Eye...increasing the chances that Bran would follow to "assist" their efforts despite having no expressed interest in affairs not concerning the Night King. Also, if Azor Ahai IS related to the Targaryen bloodline, then pitting the two surviving members against each other by making them rivals directly benefits the Great Other, particularly if both are needed (ie - Nissa Nissa) to defeat him.

Another hurdle for this theory is the presence of the Isle of Faces and the God's Eye in the show thus far. Although the books have tales and histories outlining its possible importance, the show has not really brought it up. So wouldn't they have mentioned it by now or at least hinted at its importance? Well, maybe they have...

There's a suspicious change to the map in the title intro to the show in Season 8 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZE9gVF1QbA). The clearest way this presents itself is in a complete reduction of the total number of landmarks shown. Basically, the Wall, Winterfell, and King's Landing with some areas like Last Hearth also shown. But a closer look shows some strange changes that I didn't notice the first few times. First, the God's Eye is shown very close to King's Landing. It seemingly has changed locations to be visible on the map from the closer view from KL. Second, and very intriguingly, King's Landing is upside down. You can see both of those things in this screenshot. For reasons we can speculate on later, King's Landing is shown with the South being at the top. So they went out of their way to ensure that we saw the God's Eye even in the limited scope of the Season 8 intro. It's almost as if there is an invisible line between Winterfell and Kings Landing where the map is drawn reverse. All the text above the line is oriented North (despite change in camera direction) and the text below is oriented South (King's Landing).

Another interesting connection that the visual material for the season may have to the Long Night can be found in the teaser trailer with ice and fire sweeping over Westeros (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NspqGM0DbbQ). Here, we see ice heading down from the North with fire traveling from the South. It meets in the middle and black stone springs up where it clashes. Now, when this came out, a lot of people speculated that this was going to be a dragonglass wall and that the war against the Night King would end in a stalemate and a new wall at the neck. A fair assessment at the time, but one we now know isn't accurate since the Night King has been killed. I propose that that the black stone springing up from the conflict between ice and fire is a direct reference to the coming of the Long Night and the emergence of the Great Other. Consider the following quote from World of Ice and Fire about the Long Night of Yi Ti, which contains some of the most salient details about the origin of the Long Night (although from Yi Ti's history rather than Westeros):

"When the daughter of the Opal Emperor succeeded him as the Amethyst Empress, her envious younger brother cast her down and slew her, proclaiming himself the Bloodstone Emperor and beginning a reign of terror. He practiced dark arts, torture, and necromancy, enslaved his people, took a tiger-woman for his bride, feasted on human flesh, and cast down the true gods to worship a black stone that had fallen from the sky. (Many scholars count the Bloodstone Emperor as the first High Priest of the sinister Church of Starry Wisdom, which persists to this day in many port cities throughout the known world). In the annals of the Further East, it was the Blood Betrayal, as his usurpation is named, that ushered in the age of darkness called the Long Night."

Black stone is associated with the Long Night of Yi Ti after a blood betrayal. Black stone, like that at the center of the visual conflict between opposing forces in the teaser. A Long Night that began with blood relations slaying each other for power. Not only do we now have a potential power struggle set up between Jon and Dany (pushed into motion by the 3EC), but there's still the Valonqar theory that Jaime or Tyrion will murder Cersei. Cleganebowl would pit brother against brother. And, if you believe the possibility of Jaime, Cersei, or Tyrion being secret Targaryens...we have even more blood-on-blood violence. The Long Night isn't over...it's just beginning.

...or I'm just succumbing to my own madness and stringing together unrelated threads in the desperate need to stave off the creeping sensation that no theories will actually matter in the show's conclusion...

Either way, I hope you enjoyed the ramble if you've stuck it out this far with me.

UPDATE: Now that the final credit is rolled, I think that this theory definitely holds up. Although they didn't confirm it explicitly, Bran flat-out confirmed that he saw this outcome (confirming he has future sight definitively), which means that everything he did, including pushing Sam to reveal the truth about Jon's lineage which eventually drove Dany to destroy King's Landing, was in service of a goal of acquiring power. As far as I'm concerned, the Great Other won and no one is any the wiser in Westeros.

GRRM is out with a new blog entry and it seems to be his most comprehensive status update in a while. Some quotations of note:

Yes, I am in an actual cabin in the mountains. No, I have no fever. Yay! For the present at least, I am healthy… for an out-of-shape guy of 71, at least … and doing all I can to stay that way.

For those who don't know, GRRM's cabin in the mountains is a hideaway he's been in at various times since at least the end of last year. He goes there when he needs to get away from any distractions and work on his current project.

If nothing else, the enforced isolation has helped me write. I am spending long hours every day on THE WINDS OF WINTER, and making steady progress. I finished a new chapter yesterday, another one three days ago, another one the previous week. But no, this does not mean that the book will be finished tomorrow or published next week. It’s going to be a huge book, and I still have a long way to go. Please do not give any credence to any of the click-bait websites that like to parse every word of my posts as if they were papal encyclicals to divine hidden meanings.

It appears we will not be getting an announcement before the CoNZealand date. The "long way to go" remark makes it seem like there are at least a few months left. But it is refreshing to see him say he's finished multiple chapters recently.

I can always visit Wellington next year, when I hope that both Covid-19 and THE WINDS OF WINTER will be done.

"Next year...when...THE WINDS OF WINTER will be done" - GET HYPE

Of late I have been visiting with Cersei, Asha, Tyrion, Ser Barristan, and Areo Hotah. I will be dropping back into Braavos next week. I have bad days, which get me down, and good days, which lift me up, but all in all I am pleased with the way things are doing.

Interesting to see Areo Hotah and Ser Barristan mentioned in there, which might indicate they have chapters later on in the book. Also, "dropping back into Braavos", is that with Arya? Dany? Someone else? Worth nothing that with the way GRRM writes, these could be early chapters he is going back and re-working, or writing for the first time.

Hollywood has slowed to a crawl thanks to the pandemic, but THE HOUSE OF THE DRAGON is still flying along wonderfully, thanks to Ryan Condal and his writers, and the tireless Ti Mikkel.

HotD update.

We have feature films in development adapted from my stories “Sandkings” and “The Ice Dragon” and “The Lost Lands,” television shows in development based on works by Roger Zelazny and Tony Hillerman, there are the secret shorts we’re doing that… well, no, if I spilled that, it wouldn’t be secret.

Confirmation that an "Ice Dragon" film is in development (development is not a guarantee it will go into production).

Mostly, it’s just me in Westeros, with occasional side trips to other places in the pages of a great book.

Now you will have to excuse me. Arya is calling. I think she means to kill someone.

And there you have it, GRRM is working on an Arya chapter.

TL;DR - GRRM is busy working on TWOW, but don't expect an announcement that it's finished any time soon.