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MeerkatHero posted:What makes Lyanna a stronger candidate to have been the Knight of the Laughing Tree than, say, Howland Reed himself? Height, having any skill at jousting, financial resources to procure a suit of armor, narrative purpose to give Rhaegar a reason to fall for Lyanna.
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Jul 16, 2011 23:18
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I think the Mereen chapters were ultimately a huge troll wherein GRRM lays out an argument against the abolition of slavery.
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Jul 16, 2011 23:27
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MeerkatHero posted:So yeah, I like the idea that Lyanna is the Knight. But I'm not completely convinced. Dude, it's a fantasy book series, not a CSI investigation where we can use genetic testing to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Lyanna Stark was the true Knight. If anything ADWD further strengthens the argument that Lyanna was the knight, because in our tree flashback of her she's once against acting boyish and beating up on her little brother. Lyanna was like Arya, she looked like her, and enjoyed playing the fighter. The narrative goes: Lyanna stands up for Howland (her father's vassal), fights in the tourney (we know she liked boyish things, we know from Brienne that in tourney armor a woman can disguise herself and her voice as a man pretty well), wins and demands justice for her vassal, and then disappears. Rhaegar is dispatched to find the missing knight by Aerys, he discovers a beautiful warrior woman who fights for what is right, and later Rhaegar names her Queen of Love and Beauty for a good reason instead of just a lark. The entire story of Game of Thrones can be thought of as starting at the Harennhal tourney. Rhaegar and Lyanna fall for one another, kick off Robert's Rebellion, and give birth to the child who seems destined to become The Prince that was Promised/Azor Ahai. The whole chapter-long flashback takes on a lot bigger significance if it gives us the origin of R+L=J rather than just a cool adventure Howland once went on.
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Jul 17, 2011 01:47
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not joseph stalin posted:Bael the Bard was a king beyond the wall who went south to steal a Stark daughter. Mance named himself Abel. Bael => Abel. Pretty cool. Oh goddammit, how did I miss that one?
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Jul 17, 2011 02:06
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We came so close to finally witnessing how to play "Come Into My Castle" in this book!
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Jul 17, 2011 07:21
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Elindale posted:It is known. Honestly one of the few passages I enjoyed in the book was when Irri and Jhiqui were arguing over their favorite gladiators. "It is known." "It is NOT known!" Really though, Irri and Jhiqui would have done a better job running that poo poo hole city than Dani, it probably would have been better reading too.
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Nov 5, 2011 01:40
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Kekekela posted:Theon's still got a penis A flayed penis 
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Nov 8, 2011 07:23
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Dany is never actually going to reach Westeros is she? It's the ultimate long-term troll, the side plot that was only vaguely connected with the rest of the story will never actually go anywhere. Dany dies of dysentery and her dragons are so blindsided by Ros' beauty that they accidentally fly into an active volcano. Also everyone starves to death because they've been too busy fighting each other instead of storing food for the upcoming long winter. Fantasy tropes subverted everywhere!
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Jun 14, 2012 05:29
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Remember way back in the first book when Gregor was raiding the riverlands and Ned ordered Tywin to take responsibility for the actions of his bannerman? What does that say about Ned when his own bannermen were running a rape/torture/mutilation/flaying/human hunting carnival over in the Dreadfort?
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Jun 22, 2012 00:07
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I want to read Meera masturbating herself with a weirwood tree that Bran has warged into. We'll be breaking new ground with the Arboreal fetish demographic.
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Jun 27, 2012 03:20
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The more he raped, the more he was aroused, but the more he was aroused, the more he needed to rape.
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Jun 28, 2012 00:05
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Oh god, you weren't kidding. The top three best selling Kindle titles are from this Shades of Grey trilogy.
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Jul 7, 2012 21:19
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Plutonis posted:Oh snap, should we be glad GRRM has no son to poo poo on the franchise even more with even worse books? It turns out GRRM has a secret son, and he also wants to write "books" with Kevin J Anderson.
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Jun 4, 2013 23:58
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His plan wasn't even that impressive. After AFFC people acted like old man Martell was this super badass for plotting out some elaborate revenge scheme against those who wronged him. When in realty he just sat around stewing on his gouty rear end for 16 years before enacting his great scheme: send your heir through pirate infested lands with minimal protection to offer to marry a Targ that he knows virtually nothing about. And then...something.
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Aug 4, 2013 06:16
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The theme of this series is failure. Everyone and their plans will end in complete and utter failure. GRRM is playing the long troll.
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Aug 4, 2013 06:50
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Alhazred posted:In one scene of the show Littlefinger makes it clear that if one of his prostitutes don't stop crying over the murdered baby he will sell her to some very unpleasant people who will use her in such a way that death will be a welcome release. So it is not very ambiguous whether or not if it is consensual sex. It isn't. Now we know where whores go!
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Aug 11, 2013 04:43
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Turns out this paragraph was originally written for Feast For Crows.
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Feb 28, 2014 00:03
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I could see Mance writing the letter to trick Jon into coming south with an army of wildlings, at which point Mance dramatically reveals himself and takes the wildling army from Jon.
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Jul 1, 2014 23:58
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Krinkle posted:I loved book dorne. I felt bad that DwD retroactively makes it pointless and sets up doran for some huge misplays but then I saw good ol' preston jacobs's latest video and I hope preston is right and quentyn is alive for some dumb reason. Like skipping out on the bill from the merc company is the only goddamn reason I can think why they'd have to but whatever. Even if his supposition that they're pretending to mourn Quentyn but the body is actually the tattered prince who cares? If the tattered prince is dead they owe nobody anything so they wouldn't have to pretend. I'm the exact opposite, I thought Dorne was boring as poo poo in Crows, but then became entertaining retroactively in ADWD because it was revealed as another episode of GRRM trolling his fans' expectations. Everyone loves to see familiar themes in ASOIAF, and then assume some grand/just plot payoff must be inevitable, because that's what generally happens in the dumb fantasy fiction that we enjoy. Ned was a good and honorable man who did forgiving and honorable things and in any other fantasy book he would be rewarded for that. In ASOIAF it just gets him the axe and ruins his family. People read about war-hating Old Man Dorne never doing anything for vengeance and being hated by his family for not taking actions, but then the mere act of him dramatically revealing that he has a secret plan involving Targs makes everyone assume it must be an awesome plan and will surely work. Nope! It was a poo poo poorly thought out plan, which is really what we should have expected from him based on past lack of action. People assume that because Sansa starts wearing black in the show or starts making occasional intelligent observations about politics in the books that clearly she's going become some sort of master genius political manipulator. But there's no reason to assume that will happen. Dany's the classic hero with all these prophecies so of course she's going to heroically conquer Westeros and defeat the evil walkers. Or maybe she'll just gently caress around in the rear end end of nowhere for the entire series, because she's never been an especially intelligent or capable ruler.
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Apr 21, 2016 17:51
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Wait, you mean Doran's fantastic plan of "I have a plan" which was much beloved by fans desperate to find anything of interest in AFFC actually turned out to be lovely and meaningless?
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Apr 23, 2016 04:39
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emanresu tnuocca posted:People seem preoccupied with the show revealing Doran is basically a pointless character but everyone kinda glossed over the fact that according to the show Sansa has a less important role to play in the plot than Jeyne Poole. I bet the author who loves reading his fan's reactions to bad and random things happening to their favorite characters actually has an awesome/redemptive/morally just arc planned out for my favorite character!
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Apr 23, 2016 19:47
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Evil Fluffy posted:"Jon is actually Robert's bastard" might displace "Varys is a merman" as the worst theory. Hey "Roose is an immortal skinchanger" was disproved but we can still hold out hope for the Varys merman connection.
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May 2, 2016 17:25
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I love that after seeing the head of House Umber dump a severed wolf's head on the table and turn over Osha and Rickon to be raped and flayed to death by Ramsay multiple viewers have reached the conclusion that this is actually a secret gambit by Umber to backstab House Bolton.
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May 9, 2016 23:55
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Smiling Jack posted:Yeah, ten years before the books they wipe out the ironborn fleet and storm his castle, kill two of his sons and take the third hostage and then say "welp, you've learned your lesson, keep on being king, ok bye" Well this kind of matches King Robert's style for ruling the seven kingdoms. Beat up your enemy, then let them go their way if they promise not to do it again/acknowledge you as being in charge. His hold on the throne was so tenuous that was probably all he could realistically do.
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May 23, 2016 17:49
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It really is exceptional looking back that pretty much every awful thing that has happened in the north could have been prevented if the Starks just stayed home at the start of the series.
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May 23, 2016 17:55
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geeves posted:Just read the summary. quote:When it was chosen in the voting, he said “The Greyjoys have it, you sick motherfuckers.” Also warned that any children had to be taken out of the room and that it would appeal to Ramsay fans. Wait there are really Ramsay fans out there? He sort of worked at being a character so cruel that it brought readers back around to feeling sympathy for Theon "child murderer" Greyjoy, but by himself he's just another stock crazy-murder-rape-man straight from a law and order SVU episode.
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May 30, 2016 02:02
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Maegaery is a decent person (in contrast with just about every other rear end in a top hat human being in King's Landing) but ultimately she wants power. She was willing to marry an extremely gay man who was banging her brother, a child sociopath, and a the even younger brother of her previous died child husband. She wants to be queen and hold power, but is just more pragmatic and intelligent about it than Cersei. Once she saw Loras was going to crumble soon anyways, she realized waiting it out in jail was a lost cause, and was perfectly willing to let the church win this round so she could get back to being Queen.
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May 30, 2016 19:57
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Evil Fluffy posted:Marg saw that her brother's been tortured and broken by the Faith Militant. She's going to personally kill the High Sparrow when the time comes if she has the opportunity to do so. Nah I don't see this at all. Margaery is kind and relatable so of course GRRM has a horrible fate set up for her. Cersei is also effectively plot-unkillable until Tommen kicks the bucket. People complain about certain characters having plot armor but I'm surprised I haven't seen that complaint lodged more at Cersei. She stupid, vain, paranoid, vengeful, has spent the entire series making enemies out of everyone she meets and constantly makes terrible decisions. It's more the intertia of the "your kids have to die before you" prophecy that keeps her trucking along making the lives of everyone around her miserable. Sure she had her walk of shame, but on the show she was back to manipulating Tommen and the Tyrells almost immediately, and in the book the timely death of Kevan will get her right back in the seat of power after a couple chapters of being sidelined.
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May 30, 2016 22:38
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Shageletic posted:I went around researching stab wounds (my poor internet history) after the ep ended, and you can apparently survive it, and plenty of people do. Worst risk is losing too much blood. The body is hella resilient. I'm sure the Waif took great care to sterilize the knife beforehand, and Braavos' strict water purity requirements guarantee that no bacteria could have possibly entered her abdominal cavity after her dunk in the canal. And certainly none of her vital organs would be at risk, after all Arya is a huge fatass so the dagger probably never got past her huge abdominal fat layer. Not that it matters though, a quick course of Augmentin prescribed by her local maester should clear any possible infection right up! Gotta watch out though, the Faceless Men prescription drug plan has really high copays (which along with the long wait times at the local apothecary is the major theme of Arya's arc next week).
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Jun 8, 2016 04:47
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kcroy posted:His dad hunts for sport for gently caress sake. Every day he is around people butchering animals for food. But his curiosity about babies makes him a monster? You seriously have problems dude.
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Jun 9, 2016 13:34
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Intel&Sebastian posted:If that's really LF's endgame, why leave an extremely throne-adjacent job like Master of Coin to go cause all sorts of poo poo? The only thing I can think of is that he had advanced knowledge about the Iron Bank being pissed but nothing much after that makes sense. Why not sit tight and try and negotiate with them to better your position? And it's not like he's doing it on the sly since they decided to bet on Stannis. Too many psychos around that might randomly murder him. There was a scene early on where he talked about power with Cersei and she demonstrated that she could just have her guards stab Littlefinger if she really desired it. Better to put a little space between yourself and all the crazies in Kings Landing.
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Jun 28, 2016 01:42
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So basically the sole plot function of Greyjoys in this series was to move Daeny from Mereen to Westeros. Now they can all die.
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Jul 24, 2017 19:07
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bloom posted:Bankers going against high-minded principles to make some money? This show has jumped the loving shark. Can you imagine the outrage if it came out that multiple international corporations cheerfully profited and supplied the nazi war machine?
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Aug 1, 2017 21:06
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That's why the plot demands Dany needs to die. Jon has to be forced into taking the role of hero king and accepting his birthright and only Dany kicking the bucket tragically enables that.
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Aug 28, 2017 17:41
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Why not have Melisandre give up her life to cast a shadow cloak on Arya? Or Arya disguise herself as a Walker or anything clever beyond jumping in from off frame? I’m just waiting for Bran to give a bullshit “my sight showed me that we had to do everything exactly this way or we would have lost” explanation.
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Apr 29, 2019 16:51
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TommyGun85 posted:NK might be the biggest failure in the history of anything. Dude has an army of the undead, an ice dragon, is immune to fire and has been planning his invasion for 8000 years and then he gets shanked by a little girl while staring at a crippled boy in a wheelchair under a tree. In his first real battle south of the wall! And not even a multiday battle, literally a couple hours after encountering his first army his 8000 year crusade utterly disintegrates.
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Apr 29, 2019 18:06
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One of the major themes of both the books and the show (back when it still had themes) is that power is its own authority. Bloodlines and legitimate successions are a fig-leaf you drape over the process after the bloodletting is done to distract the commoners from the fact that power is ultimately wielded by whoever seizes it and the people they in turn choose to reward.
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May 6, 2019 04:43
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The show seems to rushing as quick as possible to fulfill every checkbox on the “this is how the story ends” outline GRRM handed them. This whole episode was either secondary characters exiting the story or setting up the endgame for every other character in the laziest way possible. The actual storytelling linking this outline is complete poo poo when it even exists. Daeny need to be here and angry, Sansa needs to be here and scheming, Arya and The Hound needs to be here and cynical, Jaime needs to be here with cryptic motivations etc
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May 6, 2019 15:37
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Jaime will stab the Queen to prevent Kings Landing from being burned. Its like poetry, it rhymes.
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May 6, 2019 17:54
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The crazy dragon lady wasn't blockading the city nor was she pillaging the countryside. Why are the peasants seeking refuge inside the city that is going to be a battleground? Holy poo poo the optics on this ending are terrible with regards to how it presents women in power. They're all crazy and need to lectured by powerful men on how to properly rule lest they get everyone murdered through their overly emotionally ways.
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May 13, 2019 06:48
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