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*UNMARKED SPOILERS ALL BOOKS* Game of Thrones |OT| - Season 6 Offseason Thread

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Fuzzy

I would bang a hot farmer!
Of all the places I expected to see a debate about Targs being able to burn, I never thought it would be a book readers thread. Seriously what the fuck, did people skim through the books or something?
KuGsj.gif
There's a lot of stuff brought up in this thread that makes me question that also.
 
Of all the places I expected to see a debate about Targs being able to burn, I never thought it would be a book readers thread. Seriously what the fuck, did people skim through the books or something?
KuGsj.gif

I am a wiki reader...not a book reader

So...I don't know everything I guess
 

Euron

Member
So what do people think the big battle next season is going to be? Since the Battle of Meereen looks to be cut and if anything Winterfell will just be Littlefinger's men entering and slaugtering everyone, I'm guessing it will be the
Battle of Oldtown
 

Speevy

Banned
Everyone thinks their favorite is Azor Ahai. There seems to be one for every region.

No doubt the red priestess from last season never heard of Stannis.
 
Sue the Fury from WoTW:

I just realized I left a phrase out of the descriptions, because I had to add everything in so quickly. Pretty much everything is there but I’d left out this bit because I didn’t think it was that significant when I was summarizing the casting breakdowns- only now I realize it is another clue.

Of the Legendary Fighter, it says, “He carries a hugely famous sword on his back.” I’d left out that last bit in my hurry.

Dayne wears Dawn on his back, it’s mentioned in the ToJ story. I was pretty sure that this was Arthur Dayne anyway, but that’s one more clue.
 

Massa

Member
So what do people think the big battle next season is going to be? Since the Battle of Meereen looks to be cut and if anything Winterfell will just be Littlefinger's men entering and slaugtering everyone, I'm guessing it will be the
Battle of Oldtown

Battle for the Wall between Dany and her dragons and Benjen's white walker army.
 

bengraven

Member
What's funny is that this will likely lead to Jon discovering Benjen anyway.

So technically Olly wasn't wrong.

So what do people think the big battle next season is going to be? Since the Battle of Meereen looks to be cut and if anything Winterfell will just be Littlefinger's men entering and slaugtering everyone, I'm guessing it will be the
Battle of Oldtown

I'm betting on Oldtown as well. Sam vs. his father vs. pirates. I doubt they gain any respect for each other - just the opposite - his dad will probably try and have him killed. Maybe he'll join Daarion and sail to Mereen.

Everyone thinks their favorite is Azor Ahai. There seems to be one for every region.

No doubt the red priestess from last season never heard of Stannis.

If this is correct in my case, then the prophecy has an awesome twist.

My favorite character (outside of the leads) is
Melisandre
 

NeoGiff

Member
It's happening!

At this stage it'd be a joke if it was anyone else other than Dayne..

We also got some anonymous information specifically about
the Dayne scene we're all hoping for
. Since it's not verified, it won't be published any time soon, but the fact that it hasn't even appeared on Reddit etc. says a lot.

Of course, it could all be a Littlefinger-esque ruse designed to hype us up for nothing.
 
Of all the places I expected to see a debate about Targs being able to burn, I never thought it would be a book readers thread. Seriously what the fuck, did people skim through the books or something?
KuGsj.gif

I know Targs can burn, i included it as more a "what will the show do" question. It's a lot more unclear in the show.

(Also am a wiki reader)
 

Zabka

Member
Everyone thinks their favorite is Azor Ahai. There seems to be one for every region.

No doubt the red priestess from last season never heard of Stannis.

I like to think that prophecies in ASOIAF are like the one for the Stallion that Mounts the World. The ingredients are there for it to happen, possibly for multiple people, but they just keep fucking it up.
 

Iksenpets

Banned
At this stage it'd be a joke if it was anyone else other than Dayne..

We also got some anonymous information specifically about
the Dayne scene we're all hoping for
. Since it's not verified, it won't be published any time soon, but the fact that it hasn't even appeared on Reddit etc. says a lot.

Of course, it could all be a Littlefinger-esque ruse designed to hype us up for nothing.

Don't know if you can answer, but
just a description of the flashback scene, or is this somehow even weirder than that?

I'm totally shocked we're getting the flashback. Are we going to get young Howland, too? A Lyanna? Is Sean Bean going to be back, or will they cast a young Ned? Also I have to wonder if Dawn is really important now, and if so how it will tie into the future story.

Also, on that casting tape:
I wonder if Varys, given that he isn't in Meereen in the books, is taking Marwyn's place. Maybe he ends up as an advisor to Tyrion. Also, the priestess's mention of mummers makes me wonder if Arya will tie into this, given that they are apparently casting an acting troupe for her.
 
Thousands of years of practice say otherwise. In a society where sex outside of marriage is formally considered sinful and contraception is not widely available (seemingly; "moon tea" showed up midway through the books, but there's no mention of it in the first few, where tons of prostitutes who you would think wouldn't want kids have them), the only way to guarantee having no children is to not have sex.

Got a source that says for thousands of years no brother had sex? Because I seriously doubt it.

And it is pretty evident sex outside marriage is not a big deal for men, especially in the north, they even have regional names for kids born from it. Snow, Stone, Flowers, Sand etc.
 

Apt101

Member
I think the show has set up Melisandre to stumble back upon the Lord of Light in the same way Thoros of Myr did. Her faith is now shaken (she certainly looked defeated), she finds John Snow bled out and believes him to be a good and worthy man, speaks the old words, and voila. The books have her in a very different state of mind at this point though - still arrogant and conniving. I wonder how much the stories will diverge in regards to Mel.

I also think the prophecies are horseshit; there is no Azor Ahai reborn - in fact there may never have been an AH to being with, just a legend. The Night's King, Bran the Builder, et cetera, are folklore and amalgamations of historic figures. There is going to be a point in which it becomes clear that investing faith and hope in gods and prophecies is pointless, and the only real course of action is to fight.

Now I patiently wait another year (hah, if only) for GRRM to finish TWoW.
 

Speevy

Banned
Just for kicks, I looked back at episode 10 and counted the men in the Bolton army. I rounded up in all cases to be generous.

Each cluster of soldiers would appear to have about 30 men. Each row has about 10-12 of these clusters. Some of these clusters are comprised of smaller groups spread out differently. There are four of these rows, but to be fair, let's call it five since there are different formations and different clumping.

So counting 30X12X5, we get about 1,800 cavalry men.

Stannis' army is almost impossible to count, but if we are to assume from character statements that he started with 6,500 men, lost 500 storm crows at the beginning, then lost another 3,000 plus all his horses, he's down to 3,000. Now let's assume half of his men died of starvation. So he's down to 1,500 horseless men.

Yeah...they did a really bad job of conveying this battle.
 
Just for kicks, I looked back at episode 10 and counted the men in the Bolton army. I rounded up in all cases to be generous.

Each cluster of soldiers would appear to have about 30 men. Each row has about 10-12 of these clusters. Some of these clusters are comprised of smaller groups spread out differently. There are four of these rows, but to be fair, let's call it five since there are different formations and different clumping.

So counting 30X12X5, we get about 1,800 cavalry men.

Stannis' army is almost impossible to count, but if we are to assume from character statements that he started with 6,500 men, lost 500 storm crows at the beginning, then lost another 3,000 plus all his horses, he's down to 3,000. Now let's assume half of his men died of starvation. So he's down to 1,500 horseless men.

Yeah...they did a really bad job of conveying this battle.

“Creatively it made sense to us, because we wanted it to happen” - David Benioff
 

Marz

Member
Just for kicks, I looked back at episode 10 and counted the men in the Bolton army. I rounded up in all cases to be generous.

Each cluster of soldiers would appear to have about 30 men. Each row has about 10-12 of these clusters. Some of these clusters are comprised of smaller groups spread out differently. There are four of these rows, but to be fair, let's call it five since there are different formations and different clumping.

So counting 30X12X5, we get about 1,800 cavalry men.

Stannis' army is almost impossible to count, but if we are to assume from character statements that he started with 6,500 men, lost 500 storm crows at the beginning, then lost another 3,000 plus all his horses, he's down to 3,000. Now let's assume half of his men died of starvation. So he's down to 1,500 horseless men.

Yeah...they did a really bad job of conveying this battle.

For something that was the big conclusion to the season and had been hyped up for parts of 2 seasons they didn't even show the battle just an overhead view of the start and then a cut to Stannis using his sword as a crutch.
 

Speevy

Banned
If Stannis loses the Battle of Winterfell, there are more implications in the book than the show since there are more people involved. Like the Freys, Manderlys, Karstarks, right?
 

NeoGiff

Member
Don't know if you can answer, but
just a description of the flashback scene, or is this somehow even weirder than that?

I'm totally shocked we're getting the flashback. Are we going to get young Howland, too? A Lyanna? Is Sean Bean going to be back, or will they cast a young Ned? Also I have to wonder if Dawn is really important now, and if so how it will tie into the future story.

It's just a description of the
flashback
. There's no point in giving more information than that. But in saying that, you or I could easily have come up with the exact same thing and it's be just as exciting. It's just due to the nature of the scene's legendary potential that this is even remotely exciting at all. Going forward, anything about any potential flashbacks should be taken with a grain of salt. Nothing is confirmed at this point, and everything is most likely bullshit (as great as Hardhome in the show was, remember that rumour about Tormund's sacrifice etc.?).
 

Sean C

Member
Got a source that says for thousands of years no brother had sex? Because I seriously doubt it.

And it is pretty evident sex outside marriage is not a big deal for men, especially in the north, they even have regional names for kids born from it. Snow, Stone, Flowers, Sand etc.
Maester Aemon. It's an oath of chastity. Everyone understands that; Sam's show-only nitpicking is silly, and not to be taken seriously.

Did you miss the huge stigma attached to bastardy? It happens (obviously), but it's not supposed to.
 

NeoGiff

Member
The end point isn't what matters, its how we get there. I doubt even the most ardent Stannis the Mannis fans expected him to win or even live through the end

This. I'm an ardent Mannis fan, but I don't expect him to make it past the halfway point in TWOW. Which is fine. He's had a great arc, and I can see it wrapping up nicely and in a way that makes sense.
 
Even if it would look odd I would still want Sean Bean to come back and play young Ned in the tower of joy. Also whoever they cast as Howland should play him in the present as well.
 

Iksenpets

Banned
This. I'm an ardent Mannis fan, but I don't expect him to make it past the halfway point in TWOW. Which is fine. He's had a great arc, and I can see it wrapping up nicely and in a way that makes sense.

Yeah, that's my feeling. Stannis goes down, but in a way that's much more sensible to his arc than crazily sacrificing his daughter and then having everything immediately fall apart in every possible way so that he can die. I think the show just isn't interested in his post-Winterfell campaign, and didn't have the bandwidth to do both Stannis and the Northern lords at the same time, so it needed to end Stannis so it could pivot to the Northerners.

I'm still leaning toward the idea that Stannis' death comes later in the Riverlands, and that his "Do your duty" line to Brienne may be taken directly from that. His impact on future plots is probably just something they can write around.

Even if it would look odd I would still want Sean Bean to come back and play young Ned in the tower of joy. Also whoever they cast as Howland should play him in the present as well.

Agreed. I think we can all suspend disbelief well enough to accept Ned 20 years ago still looking like current Sean Bean. And they could always put some sort of weirwood vision blur on things and use makeup to make him look a bit younger.
 
I think they did Stannis' arc pretty well in the show they just rushed/fucked up the final act to his arc which left a bad taste in the mouth of many. We were all lovin the mannis arc until the last few episodes.
 

eot

Banned
It won't though, there's literally no way Stannis will lose in the books.

He's in a shit position in the books, his men are resorting to cannibalism. Of course it's more complicated, what with the Manderleys and everything, but I'd only give Stannis 30/70 of getting out of the north alive.
 

Iksenpets

Banned
I think they did Stannis' arc pretty well in the show they just rushed/fucked up the final act to his arc which left a bad taste in the mouth of many. We were all lovin the mannis arc until the last few episodes.

Well yeah, that's the problem. They did it well for five or six episodes to try and make up for last time, but then had to immediately pivot to craziness and catastrophe to fit the end in. It ends up feeling like the first half of the season was only there to make the last two episodes more shocking, rather than being any authentic character development.
 

Speevy

Banned
I think they did Stannis' arc pretty well in the show they just rushed/fucked up the final act to his arc which left a bad taste in the mouth of many. We were all lovin the mannis arc until the last few episodes.

What they could have done is put all the Gendry stuff from season 3 in the beginning of the season, then by the end of season 4, he's already about to march on Winterfell.

Then season 5 would have given him plenty of time to face the choice of himself vs. the red woman.
 

Moff

Member
the show did not portray stannis much differently up until the point where it surpassed the books. at least I did not like him up until the end of ASOS, he was always supposed to be an unlikable leader with no charisma. everything else would have been common and boring. after he decided to save the realm to gain the throne, then he became likeable, despite his flaws. he nodded once, lefter for winterfell and got caught in a snowstorm. that's the point we have reached in the books and I don't see a completely different stannis in the show up until that point. non-reader reactions reflected that well, they felt the same way I did when I read it. I find it hard to belive that book mannis fans saw that differently when they read AGOT, ACOK and the majority of ASOS, because as I said stannis was not intended to be likeable or charismatic in those books. that's the whole point, you know, make an unlikeable character likeable, it's a good arc, it's interesting writing.

now the show made mistakes, I hated the "20 men" idea the first time ramsay mentioned it, I believe I was among the few here who mentioned it back then, but it's not really relevant to the arc of stannis' character. it was a budget decision that made for bad tv. the important part is that, like the battle in the snowstorm we will read in the books, is that it left stannis in a postion where he has to make a very difficult decision. but until we really compare stannis' arc in the books with the arc in the show, I think we should wait for it to appear in the books. and as I said before, I do not think stannis had a bad arc in the show after it surpassed the books.

he was confronted with a very difficult decision and he chose the one that gave him and his army still a shot. I still believe it's important that stannis will be faced with that decision in the books as well, because it is very important for his arc. if melisandre and selyse would take that away from him and do it behind his back I feel something important would be lost. will he die anyway for a mistake someone else made?
I really like the idea that he made a decision so save his men and they abandon him as a reaction, including melisandre who always pushed him to do it, which makes this important for her character's arc as well. and it led stannis to his certain defeat.

Again, the show is very flawed, beside the 20 men I disliked how rushed it all was, but in the end, the non-readers understood and accepted it. just compare the reactions in this thread and the other. the non-readers did not shit nearly as much on that as people in here, when in other dumb scenes like the sand snakes the reactions were very much the same.
but here it's still criticized and heavily discussed, a scene that was not even in the books, yet. which makes me all the more believe that readers are simply not liking the idea that something was spoiled for them they did not expect, especially since it happened to a fan favorite.
again, despite the flaws I think stannis' arc was interesting and well done, which is why I expect it to happen similarly in TWOW.
 

Iksenpets

Banned
What they could have done is put all the Gendry stuff from season 3 in the beginning of the season, then by the end of season 4, he's already about to march on Winterfell.

Then season 5 would have given him plenty of time to face the choice of himself vs. the red woman.

I think you could have left season 3 alone. They could have cut the Craster's Keep mission from season 4 and had the battle of the Castle Black in like episode 6 or 7 instead of 9. You'd probably have to drop the Iron Bank stuff, too, to get the timing right. But then yeah, you could've had three or four episodes of Stannis at Castle Black in season 4, so that almost all of season 5 could've been his march on Winterfell. Their desire to push the Battle of Castle black to episode 9 in season 4 actually led to a lot of weirdness in the pacing. Mance's execution and Jon's election had to be rushed through early in the season to catch things up, whereas they really could've both been handled by the end of season 4.
 

Iksenpets

Banned
Man I'll really miss Dillane, he IS Stannis.

Yeah, he's so perfect for the role. I wish we could've seen him playing something a bit closer to the book character, because he could've knocked that out of the park, too, but he handled everything they gave him flawlessly.

Season 6:
So with flashbacks for Tower of Joy and the Young Starks playing in Winterfell, what are our odds of getting the Tourney at Harrenhal and the Knight of the Laughing Tree in a flashback, too? I figure if we're going full on R+L=J reveal through flashbacks, we would need to story of how they met? And Tower of Joy would already require casting Howland and Lyanna, so they would really only need to add in a Rhaegar to have all the necessary characters.
 
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