Thread 24667075

Targaryen Edition

ASOIAF wiki: https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Main_Page
Blog: https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/
Old blog: https://grrm.livejournal.com/
So Spake Martin (interviews): https://westeros.org/citadel/ssm/
Book search: https://asearchoficeandfire.com/
SSM search: https://cse.google.com/cse?cx=006888510641072775866:vm4n1jrzsdy
General search: http://searcherr.work/
TWOW samples: https://archive.org/details/411440566-the-winds-of-winter-released-chapters

Old thread:
>>24650530

Bad Books, Bad Threads

>>24667075 (OP)
What an ugly sigil

Walk with me, my sweet summer child, and hear the tale of fat pink masts jutting into sopping wet myrish swamps and black nipples brushing against silk until her cunt became the world while in the privy the princess guzzled arbor gold and shat but the more she drank the more she shat until she was shitting brown water and around her the planks of the ship groaned like a fat man taking a shit while she cursed the gods and nuncle smiled as he broke his fast on black bread, bacon burned black, and mulled wine while capon-grease dribbled down his chin and onto the boiled leather of his jerkin for she was wet with love and did she not know words are wind and dark wings bring dark words and a lannister always pays her debts and mayhaps this is nothing but a mummers farce and useless as nipples on a breastplate and the princess has been fucking lancel and moonboy for all nuncle knows and he is the blood of the dragon for the night is dark and full of terrors but where do whores go and jon snow knows nothing and near enough makes no matter so nuncle smiled and dipped the heel of his bread into clam chowder and prayed for half a hundred more heh har HODOR

>>24667322
Was it Rohanne Webber’s genes that made Tytos retarded?

>>24667374
dang, it's not canon
got excited for a bit

>>24667075 (OP)
>rhaenyra, daemon, helaena, aemond, daeron all die in 130
/tv/ here, and what the fuck is this

>>24667492
dance

>>24667492
Justice

Do you think the other archmaesters are aware that magic is back, and Marwyn is a legitimate mage now?

GRRM can’t finish TWOW because he’s realised the King Bran ending just truly is retarded but he doesn’t want to back down. He’s been spending more than a decade trying to figure out how to make it not-retarded (impossible)

So did George actually, and very stupidly, design a multi-part series based on his own urges instead of a well-thought out plan?
You can argue he's not stupid because he's rich, but in 99.9999% of scenarios, he'd be as poor as the rest of us, only making a living because of our actually marketable skills.

>>24667626
He should just make bran a secret empire of mankind type figure who holds back the red comet from destroying the planet with his psychic powers from his weirwood throne instead of him becoming an actual king

>>24667130
people meme this line so hard but I don't think there's actually anything wrong with it

It's a good mockery of the blood of the dragon- a god-on-earth- nearly shitting herself to death.

>>24667626
Holy shit who fucking cares about the tv show feedback when it's all bullet points with no payoff?

The problem isn't Bran becoming king, the problem is how Bran became king. All D&D had to do was show Bran warging everyone to declare him king and the "weird why the fuck did Tyrion think Bran should be king?" question INSTANTLY gets lampshaded and then bookfags cheer because they get an implicit nod that the CotF tookover Westeros and then showfags learn from bookfags why the ending is good

>>24667914
No, Bran becoming king is just a retarded idea and D&D, shit as they are, were handed an impossible task by being asked to make a satisfying ending out of that. As much as they botched the show in other ways, failing to build up to King Bran in a way that made any sense is not their fault, because it’s not built up in a way that makes any sense in the books either. And man is not going to figure out how to make it make sense in two books in this lifetime.
>All D&D had to do was show Bran warging everyone to declare him king
But that’s even more retarded than the version we got. Point proven, it’s a bad ending that’s never going to work

>>24667909
I just like the meme.
>shitting brown water
We've all been there. Pretty relatable part desu

>>24667909
I think it's iconic

Yeen is literally just an uninhabited Asshai. Neat. I bet it was the brindled niggers who caused the disappearances.

Who wins?

>>24668050
>Queen Margaery Tyrell
Faegons plot is on a direct one way railroad into Arianne’s pussy and then off a cliff into fiery doom shortly after

>>24668050
Euron sweep I'm afraid

Why is there a giant city at Lannisport when the entire region has no rivers of relevance, it’s on the opposite side of the continent from any important trade routes and it gets sacked by Ironniggers every two weeks since the dawn of history?
Gulltown or White Harbour are sitting on a way better position. Even somewhere in the Stormlands or Dorne would be better positioned but there are no major cities there.

>>24668110
The lion does not concern himself with waterways and habitability

>>24668050
Euron takes High Garden while his wife Dany invades Westeros with three adult dragons. Faegon and Dany don't stand a chance

>>24668134
meant to say Faegon and Sansa, but honestly it's still a Euron sweep like the other anon said because Dany will eventually self-destruct especially when she learns about zombie jon

>>24668110
The Gurm does not concern himself with logistics or geography.

Faegon my son
You are man now
You must choose wife and have children

>>24668110
The Westerlands are next to the Reach which is where like a third of the continent's population live. So there'd be plenty of trade with just them

>>24668157
Still, doesn’t explain why it’s so massive when Gulltown has all of the Narrow Sea right there. If they’ve got one and only one significant trading partner Lannisport should be a lot smaller than it is.

>>24668149
>top left
>have children
lol

>>24667075 (OP)
grrm I need help
I was having an argument with a greek chud on int about Targs, he says they go mad because of their genetics while I say they are unique and don't get affected with genetic bullshit so everything that happened (Aerys, Daenerys all the fucked up Targs) was just a circumstance

>>24668050
>Queen Sansa
>Queen Margery
Not happening

>>24667626
This, also it doesn’t jive with the current political climate/GRRMs current political beliefs. The ending was probably envisioned back in 1991, before 9/11, patriot act, and the current surveillance state which GRRM would obviously be against can’t have an ending which essentially endorsed government overreach.

The only way it works is if Bran isn’t an actual “King” more a guiding hand to humanity to lead them on a better path, using his powers to influence lords, kings and the people of Westeros.

>Pornography in a fantasy setting
>Also, morality is all subjective
>No objective good and evil

Worse than just porn.

It promotes atheist morality.

But it sells copies for being porn.

>>24668580

Tolkein has objective good and evil.

Because he believed in God.

His society generally did.

Unlike our dark times.

>>24668581

>Tolkien*

LOTR is a Christian work.

These books are really just porn.

>>24668580
>>24668581
>>24668582
why are you writing haikus?

>>24668149
If he is truly an Aegon that has come to conquer westeros then surely he will have multiple wives.

>>24667075 (OP)
>invent a character called Eric
>he's a Targ
>call him Aeric instead
Behold the extent of Gurm's genius.

>>24668124
>>24668144
I kek'd.

>>24668726
>invent a house that live in a giant garden
>name them Gardeners

>>24668739
>invent a house called Redfort
>make their sigil a red fort

>>24668726
>invent a house with a lion sigil
>name them Lionisters
bravo germ

>2025
>Still no Dunk and Egg 4
We need to know if he fucks Old Nan and if she was hot

>>24668739
>Invent a house called the Kettleblacks
>Their sigil is a black kettle
>Exist so Cersei can accuse Margaery of fucking one while she herself is fucking another one, therefore the pot is calling the kettle black

>>24668149
Bromance with Willas Tyrell is the only way

>>24668761
I KNEEL

>>24668747
its all coming together

>>24668149
YG is going to be outed as a Blackfyre because the Aegon IV genes are going to be activated as he tries to take them all
It’s also going to vindicate Bittersteel because the mainline Targs somehow missed the harem doujin genes

There should be a fatwa aganist all these conservative culture war grifters talking shit about grrm like hes a manifestation of everything they are opposed to and constantly crow about ASOAIF being inferior and pessimistic lotr while not understanding it at all

>>24668726
>Invent Cthulhu worshipping vikings
>Gives them a squid sigil so they are 'squid men'

>>24668862
cope he will never finish the books. He has nothing to say. It’s slop

>>24668862
You have shit taste and your fan art is gay.

>>24668149
>whore with a haunted pussy
>whore
>not a whore
>cursed pussy
Not a contest.

>>24668862
>fatwa
>against conservatives
14. And We have commanded people to ˹honour˺ their parents. Their mothers bore them through hardship upon hardship, and their weaning takes two years. So be grateful to Me and your parents. To Me is the final return.

>>24668947
But Sansa comes as a package deal with a very trustworthy Braavosi

>>24668571
Petyr said there would be a war of three queens after the Lannisters' downfall, so it's probably those two and Daenerys

>>24669098
How? There is no possible scenario where either of one them are in power. Aegon is gonna marry Arianne fucking himself over. And the most Sansa does is fuck Littlefinger over to give an army to one of her brothers.

>>24669158
Aegon hasn't met Arianne yet and we have no idea whether they'll even like each other. If they do like each other, it would still be smarter for Aegon to marry Margaery if he wants to take King's Landing. Currently the Tyrells have power but no legitimacy whereas Aegon has legitimacy but no power
Sansa will probably fuck Littlefinger over eventually but I don't think that will happen until the end of the series

>>24669170
Aegon x Arianne is simply fated because any alternative is going to drag the story out for even longer than it already is.
How many extra chapters are we going to need to link Faegon up with literally anyone else? Especially Sansa.
George is sending Arianne straight into his plot line and he’s got two books to finish, both the Dorne and the YG plot line ultimately being shaggy dog stories that need to get severed before the end anyway, so may as well yoke them both together rather than requiring even more chapters than that to resolve both independently.
>and we have no idea whether they'll even like each other
Literally no one who has gotten married in the books so far did it because they liked the other person. For all we know he could (rightly) think she’s a total slag. It’s still politically expedient because Dorne has spears and getting the Martell stamp of approval is the next best thing for selling his dodgy claim now that getting Daenerys on board is ruled out.

>>24667934
>Bran becoming king is bad because i said so

>>24669267
You could subjectively think it’s actually good I guess. I’m just saying something is holding these books up for so long and it’s very likely George realising he’s made himself a square peg and a round hole with the King Bran arc.
Further evidence for this is that absolutely none of the preview chapters for TWOW engage with this plot line. If it’s “mostly finished” as it has been for a decade now, the bit that he’s constantly fumbling is for certain the Bran part

Bran becoming king is genuinely the least “random” outcome this series could have. Everything else feels like it’s coming out of left field (because they’re not as central as story in the Bran, i.e. Doran Martell sitting the Iron Throne), or too obvious (i.e. traditional protagonists Jon and Dany), or will just incite a “what was even the fucking point?” (i.e. someone already in the line of the succession like Stannis or Jaime lucks out).
It’s the perfect middle ground between subversion and narrative sense.

>>24669296
To take this out further, while Jon and Dany may be the more traditional fantasy protagonists (hot teenagers with royal lineage, loyal pet sidekicks, orphans…), Bran has been the “soft” protagonist from the first chapter on and is clearly the most enmeshed with the magical aspects of the story. In a story about the return of magic, no less.
Admittedly, George has really dropped the ball with giving him chapters, but things may really kick into gear if even a fraction of the “time-traveling Bran” theory turns out to be true.

Really, the only thing that makes more sense than a “King Bran” scenario (from a narrative sense) is for there not to be a King of Westeros any longer by story’s end.

>>24669239
Dorne and the Stormlands combined have no shot at defeating the Reach, Crownlands, and Westerlands. And Aegon doesn't even control the Stormlands yet.
Faegon marrying Margaery would significantly speed up the story as it would give him a free pass to the Iron Throne without needing to fight a long drawn out war. Maybe he'll have sex with Arianne on the side or something
Also Varys has left the Tyrells alive, unlike poor Kevan, so they still have utility to his plans

>>24669239
Agreed on the timing, and the theory that Arianne will shack with FAegon because she resents the idea of her brother returning to Westeros as king-consort to Daenerys and having to bow him, is just too good. So this being her bid to become queen-consort herself, so as not to be outdone by her brother (who she still thinks to be alive and wooing Daenerys out east).
Also, Arianne as the perfect antithesis of Doran who will “lerooooooy jenkins” at the sight of a hot Targaryen prince and ruin everything by throwing Dorne’s lot in with FAegon, even though he doesn’t have any dragons.

>>24669321
Except the Reach already have their hands full with the Ironborn. All he really has to beat are the Lannisters and they’re already doing an excellent job defeating themselves. Plus he’s ultimately fated to lose anyway eventually, the plot just needs to get him into Kings Landing
Regardless, the troops are nice, but the far more valuable thing Arianne would provide is a stamp of legitimacy on his claims about being Rhaegar and Elia’s son - which is a large part of what they originally wanted Daenerys for

>>24669332
The Lannisters are already all dead or out of power. Only the Tyrells and the Faith have power now.
Margaery is very popular with the common people and her trial is going to be rigged to prove her innocence (or else the Faith will lose support). Whereas Tommen is about to lose his crown due to everyone collectively realizing Stannis was right and he's Cersei's bastard.
The power vacuum in King's Landing is exactly what Varys needs to whisk in Aegon and marry him to the Tyrells, therefore securing both Aegon's power and the Tyrell's legitimacy.
Otherwise it will take all of Book 6 to focus on Aegon's war against the Tyrells, which wouldn't be very interesting and would draw out the story to be much longer

>>24669321
>George caring about “muh army sizes” or “muh manpower”
At the end of AGoT, the Westerlands are bodying the Riverlands, are besieging or have raided most of their castles in the west, and have penned up most of their armies in Riverrun in less than a week. (I know it’s retroactively headcanoned as “well the Westerlands just has more levies, they’re more centralized and urbanized…”, and that they caught their enemies by surprise but still). The Westerlands then proceed to go toe-to-toe with the Riverlands and the North for all of ACoK, raising new armies as they please.
I’m obviously caricaturizing the events, but point is George can just write “and then the Lannister forces smashed all of the Tully forces” - regardless of them being evenly matched on paper - if that’s the situation he needs to set up. In this case, in service of Robb heroically undoing all of the Lannister’s victories and raising the siege on Riverrun.

It would be very easy for George to do the same thing for FAegon. The Tyrell army can be smashed beneath the walls of Storm’s End (hence the community’s theory that an Agincourt-type battle will transpire, completely decimating the Reach’s chivalry).

>>24669345
Exactly, Kings Landing is a powder keg just waiting on any half-decent alternative whatsoever before Cersei’s own power base pull the rug out from under her. Aegon doesn’t need a supermassive army, a credible one and a sellable claim is more than enough.
>Otherwise it will take all of Book 6 to focus on Aegon's war against the Tyrells
Except, as mentioned, the Tyrells are already preoccupied with warring against the Ironborn and Aegon overthrowing the Lannisters isn’t really their immediate problem. Plus, all 4 of these plot lines (The Ironborn, Aegon, Dorne and the Tyrells) are on a short fuse anyway because they’re all ultimately going to lose and pave the way for the real main characters so this story can wrap up.

>>24669353
It's not retconned that the Westerlands are stronger than the Riverlands. The Westerlands and Reach were always portrayed as the strongest and wealthiest kingdoms, ever since Book 1. And of the two of them, the Reach is the strongest due to its massive population.
The Riverlands were never portrayed as being particularly strong and Tully is clearly the weakest of the major houses (not counting Greyjoy)

>>24669296
>>24669301
I totally agree but with an *. Hving Bran as the near all powerful tree wizard horror just be king of the continet is a very strange place to end the series which has spent so much time showing the horror of feudalism and the culture of all powerful kings. I think GRRM has his own version of the scouring of the Shire in mind for him. Whate walkers defeated, magic has returned, all powerful magic bran king is in the Gods Eye, but people don't want a creepy broken all seeing god king. Bran would technically be dead if he is forced into becoming the hivemind/carrying it in his head. So I think Bran will be king then fan favourite charaters will go to the Eye of the ogds to chop down all the weirwoods there and kill Bran. It will be framed as a mercy killing and that Bran died a long time ago.
It will probably happen like the first Bran chapter. He doesn't look away when Ned cuts the nightwatch mens head off and he won't look away as he watches his own human head get cut off. His blood will water the stump of the weirwood freshly felled, like the blood watered the oak stump with Ned and the boys.

>>24669361
The Ironborn raiders are a non-issue from the point of view of the Tyrell-Faith regime in King's Landing. The King's Landing regime controls the Reach, Westerlands, Crownlands, most of the Stormlands, most of the Riverlands, and sort of controls the Vale (depending on Littlefinger's cooperation). They'd have no problem whatsoever defeating both Aegon and the Ironborn if they had to.
That's not the issue though. The issue is that the regime in King's Landing is led entirely by Tyrells and members of the Faith, and they increasingly lack the legitimacy of the Baratheon dynasty. So they're going to turn to Varys's fake 'Targaryen' dynasty as the new means to restore legitimacy to their power.

>>24669383
Except this is literally what happened to Robb Stark. He took his army out of the North. The Ironborn swooped in and fucked shit up unopposed. Sooner or later Margaery’s trial is going to be over and Mace is going to have to do the same thing the North did, March his army home and stop the Ironborn from looting the place with impunity. He’s hardly just going to let them run riot while he goes to war to defend… the Lannisters? Not happening.
And more importantly we can absolutely certain that Margaery is not the YMBQ because Cersei is absolutely 300% convinced that she is and everything Cersei anticipates about that prophecy is reliably wrong and self-destructive. Margaery is never going to beat Cersei, in fact it wouldn’t surprise me if the show called it correctly and she does blow up the Sept with the Tyrells inside it. The YMBQ was always going to be someone coming out of left field from Cersei’s POV.

>>24668149
>You must choose wife and have children

>>24669495
>this ugly bitch again
she's too ugly to be Arianne

>>24668519
their retardation is a side effect of incest

>>24669495
Why would the thicc POC princess look like some kind of skinny blue eyed Russian?
She’s supposed to have big fucking titties with big fucking dark wet nipples

>>24668519
ASOIAF isn't CK3, being culturally obsessed with incest doesn't let you ignore its negative effects

>>24668519
Actually lack of inbreeding is their problem
They only went truly off the rails when they started marrying Arryn and Hightower shitbloods.
Aerys breeding his sister actually seemed to stabilise things somewhat. His 3 kids, while pretty crazy, were definitely 10x less crazy than himself despite being inbred while Aerys himself wasn’t.
Valyrians are supposed to be inbred, anything else makes them go apeshit.

>>24669604
Aerys wasn't mad, he had ADHD and BPD.

>>24669589
>blue eyed
colorblind?

Reminder rhaenys cucked Aegon with a singer and the line of anus are mutts

>>24669974
And the line of Aegon IV all descend from jewish bankers, it's a cursed lineage.
Daeron II's descend from Dornishmen, even worse than bankers.

>>24668580
>>24668581
>>24668582
Why do moralfaggots keep shitting up these threads? Read a children's book. Or the Bible or whatever.

>>24670038
>t. Hates racism sexism and antisemetism

>>24669974
>>24669980
I still want to know how the TV show is going to handle Aegon-Visenya-Rhaenys being half-Velaryons...

>>24669439
The Lannisters are already all dead, Mace is effectively the de facto ruler of Westeros at the end of Book 5. He would have to be REALLY incompetent to lose a war against the Ironborn and Faegon
>And more importantly we can absolutely certain that Margaery is not the YMBQ because Cersei is absolutely 300% convinced that she is and everything Cersei anticipates about that prophecy is reliably wrong and self-destructive.
Cersei has already been replaced by Margaery as queen, so seemingly the prophecy has become true. I think it's pretty clear at the end of Book 5 that Cersei has no shot whatsoever at clawing back power, let alone killing Margaery is a giant deus ex machina fantasy explosion.
However knowing GRRM the prophecy will have a double meaning and the YMBQ will represent Brienne marrying Jaime or something

>>24670106
Absolutely none of these spin-offs are going to see the light of day
I expect Flop of the Dragon to get some rushed ending in the next season or two where the plot starts suddenly moving at break next speed to cram it all in before it gets axed, and the GRRM cinematic universe along with it.

>>24670114
And Mace’s power is entirely married (literally) to the Baratheon dynasty. He is their guy, the Reach is the one thing propping them up and in typical fashion you can rely on Cersei to shoot herself in the foot and kneecap her own powerbase for retarded motivations, as happened in the show. Why would Mace get rid of Tommen, a pliable young boy king he already has in the bag, for Aegon that already has his own crew of old men pulling his strings. As you point out, the Reach-Baratheon alliance already has Aegon at the overwhelming disadvantage. It would take someone retarded to throw that away. Enter: Cersei.
> let alone killing Margaery is a giant deus ex machina fantasy explosion.
George has been brandishing this Chekhov’s Gun literally since the second book, someone is going to fire it sometime. The city is canonically packed with Wildfire, she is canonically retarded enough to think it’s an effective weapon against her enemies, she is canonically retarded enough to believe the Tyrells are her enemies. George has literally already laid out the pieces for this and even at its most modest interpretation what happens in the show tells us the Tyrells relevance to the plot is close to over. Rather it’s now time for this grand Dornish conspiracy tangent George went on to come to some kind of purpose.

What magic does Game of Thrones have? Nonsense about how nobles are always bad? If that is the case, what good are the peasants that let them rule?
If medieval society was anything like what George proposes, no one would have survived long enough to complain about it.

>>24670106
Weren't all the casting news going on about non-white Targs? I seem to recall that the actors being spoken of for Aegon were either black or asian.
They don't care at this point. They half-ass the Velaryon raceswap, they'll half-ass anything else they do.

>>24670148
>And Mace’s power is entirely married (literally) to the Baratheon dynasty. He is their guy, the Reach is the one thing propping them up and in typical fashion you can rely on Cersei to shoot herself in the foot and kneecap her own powerbase for retarded motivations, as happened in the show
How would Cersei ever get the power to screw over Mace in her current position? Literally how? Even if Cersei survives her trial, she's not returning to the position of queen, ever. At best she'll be sent back to Casterly Rock as a disgraced whore hated by the entire realm
>Why would Mace get rid of Tommen, a pliable young boy king he already has in the bag, for Aegon that already has his own crew of old men pulling his strings
Because with Cersei's reputation gone, Tommen's legitimacy is gone too. My guess is Tommen will be killed by some rando smallfolk peasants who hate him for being an incest bastard. Regardless of how it occurs, we know Tommen is going to die soon because of the prophecy. That leaves Margaery as a popular queen without a husband
>George has been brandishing this Chekhov’s Gun literally since the second book, someone is going to fire it sometime.
Yeah but it will probably be in the final book when Daenerys and/or Euron burn the city with dragons

>>24670152
>What magic does Game of Thrones have?
>Nonsense about how nobles are always bad?
What are you going on about?
Are you asking about the literal magic that goes on or the reason peasants don't do anything?
They all live pretty average lives, there's rarely any lord that does anything to them. They live their lives, pay their taxes and go to war when called on.

>>24670152
What a strangely worded post. I think I understand what you're saying, but the issue at large is the fact that the number of smallfolk in ASOIAF make no logistical sense and there are too many of them.

Westeros is a good idea on paper, but as soon as the dragons die out the Targaryens should've been struggling to maintain their empire. Dragons are the only way one can enforce the existence of the Iron Throne. Robert's Rebellion then becomes a logical conclusion to a world without dragons, followed by the kingdom splintering rather than being maintained under a new dynasty. I think it should've collapsed some 60-80 years sooner than it actually did, and elaborating on the world building prior to finishing the books was a detriment to George's ability to write a more believable world. And that lack of believability might be why he lost motivation to write. Or just the scrutiny and the uncontrollable, autistic desire to correct all of it now, in book 6 of 7.

>>24670152
The nobles aren't portrayed that negatively and the peasants aren't portrayed that positively.
It isn't even a criticism of the feudal system as no real alternatives are promoted in the books (with the possible exception of Braavos which is really just a glorified shipping port filled with weird cults). It's a dark fantasy series that portrays the world itself as evil and suffering as a reality for everyone regardless of class.
Why does everyone think it's intended as a Marxist work? If George was a fascist IRL instead of a libtard boomer you could easily reinterpret it to be about volkisch Nietzschean struggle or something

>>24670116
I kinda want the shows to continue just so George can witness his legacy being raped some more before he dies of fat

>>24670168
George has already laid the groundwork for that. The trial is going to gather any Tyrells and bannermen of relevance in kings landing in one place within the city, along with a large chunk of Mace’s army. Cersei has already packed the city to the gills with wildfire. Cersei is a crazy enough retard to do whatever it takes to cling to power for any amount of time.
She doesn’t have the men. She doesn’t have the gold. But she does have a bottomless reserve of conveniently place explosives. That is the only way Cersei can deal with the Tyrells, therefore that’s what she is going to do. It’s inevitable from what GRRM has already put in the story.
The problem with how the show did it isn’t that it happened, that much is already predictable from the books. It’s that she suffers absolutely no consequences from doing 9/11 and instead it truly is just an girlboss moment that actually does neatly eliminate all her enemies.
>Tommen's legitimacy is gone too.
How? It’s not like Cersei is the first queen to have been a massive slut, or king for that matter. If he confession included publicly admitting Jaime Lannister was his real dad you might have a point but it didn’t. Fact is Mace has Tommen in the bag, he has the Reach, the Westerlands, the Crownlands and big chunks of the Stormlands and the Riverlands all backing him up. From his POV Aegon is a non-starter. There would be no logical reason for him to dump Tommen, dump the Westerlands and hitch himself to Aegon and his dodgy pisswater prince story when he’s already all but won. The only way the plot can move forward here is if someone torpedos the Baratheon of KL dynasty from the inside - and that’s obviously going to be Cersei.
>My guess is Tommen will be killed by some rando smallfolk peasants who hate him for being an incest bastard.
They already believe that and they already tried to do that to Joffrey on that very basis in book 2. If the rumours about Tommen being an incest bastard were a problem the Tyrells wouldn’t have hitched themselves to Joffrey in the first place. Especially when at first they themselves publicly embraced the rumours and hitched themselves to Renly.
>we know Tommen is going to die soon because of the prophecy.
And for certain it is going to be Cersei’s fault, perhaps as some kind of side effect of blowing up the Sept as happened in the show.
>Yeah but it will probably be in the final book when Daenerys and/or Euron burn the city with dragons
So do you think Cersei is just going to let the Tyrells pull the rug out from under her and not do anything about it?
Regardless, if you don’t think linking up with Aegon is the next step what exactly is it you think the next step of the Dornish plot line even is? Because it’s not Dany. At the point George has written so far for the Dornish it’s literally Aegon or nothing. Granted the characters don’t know that yet, but he does, we do, and he has two books to finish.

>>24670261
huh?

Butterbumps mogs Moon Boy so hard it's unreal

>>24670275
I’ll make it simple
>Why George has set Cersei in a collision course with the Tyrells
1. She’s not going to let them just walk away with the kingdom and not do anything about it.
2. She’s already completely convinced Margaery is THE enemy and is going to take away everything she cares about.
3. She’s already loaded the city with an unfired Chekov’s gun that would resolve both plot lines and set the stage for the next one, her downfall.
>Why there is no credible reason for Mace to defect to Aegon
1. He already has the overwhelming territorial, resources and manpower advantage
2. He already has a pliable boy king in the bag
3. He already thinks the Lannisters are a solved problem.
>Why George has set Arianne on a collision course into Aegon’s bed
1. From the jump she’s established to be an impulsive hothead that automatically trusts hot guys. Which Aegon is.
2. George has set it up so that her dad has given her the power to call the shots on if they back Aegon or not
3. George has set it up so that all the Martell’s still believe Quentyn winning Daenerys is a realistic possibility that could still happen. Something Arianne would hate and would jump at an opportunity to outmanoeuvre and be Queen instead. There is a reason he’s written it so that Arianne doesn’t yet know Quentyn is dead.

Seriously. What’s the alternative. Mace links up with Aegon for some reason and then Dorne and Cersei just…?

>>24670261
>>24670324
The word 'Wildfire' appears a total of five times in all of Cersei's PoVs, four times in one AFFC chapter, and none in ADWD. We literally see her mind and she barely thinks about Wildfire at all.
>Her true plan and thoughts are being secretly concealed by George
There's no evidence. You just want the books to mirror the show for God knows why

>>24670148
>she is canonically retarded enough to believe the Tyrells are her enemies
I mean this is the one thing she's right about??
It was strongly implied in the third book the Tyrells conspired with Littlefinger to kill Joffrey. If anything she underestimated Tyrell treachery by scapegoating Tyrion

>>24670261
>There would be no logical reason for him to dump Tommen, dump the Westerlands and hitch himself to Aegon and his dodgy pisswater prince story when he’s already all but won.
Ideally Mace would keep Tommen as a pawn, but it's irrelevant as Tommen will die soon now that everyone suspects he's a bastard
>If the rumours about Tommen being an incest bastard were a problem the Tyrells wouldn’t have hitched themselves to Joffrey in the first place.
They 'hitched' themselves to Joffrey and then murdered him. They'll abandon Tommen too
>So do you think Cersei is just going to let the Tyrells pull the rug out from under her and not do anything about it?
Yeah, that's what the last two books are about. Cersei tries to outmaneuver the Tyrells and then loses to them and the Faith. I don't want to be mean but did you read the last two books??
>>24670324
It's true Arianne is probably going to try to seduce Aegon. I don't know if that necessarily means she'll succeed

>>24670261
>If the rumours about Tommen being an incest bastard were a problem the Tyrells wouldn’t have hitched themselves to Joffrey in the first place.
Eh, the Tyrells don't really have a moral standpoint. They already tried to usurp the throne with Renly.

>>24670447
Feast and Dance happen at the same time.
Plus, in the chapter you’re talking about, Cersei III: she is literally using it to burn down the Tower of the Hand purely because she’s so mentally ill she believes Tyrion is living inside the walls somewhere. And she starts marvelling at the flames and looking like some kind of pyromaniac nutter to all bystanders.
If she’s willing to burn down the tower of the hand to kill Tyrion (who isn’t even there, she’s just a schizo), why wouldn’t she burn down the Sept to kill the Tyrells? It’s not like rationality or concern for consequences is her strong suit, and it’s already well established that she hates Margaery almost as much as she hates Tyrion.
Does GRRM need to have it announcing itself with bells on in every chapter?
Plus, now apply this logic to position I’m arguing against. When do the Tyrells ever express any interest in Aegon and friends or vice versa? Literally never.

>>24668580
Smiling at the idea of people buying the books for pink masts, Myrish swamps and lords kisses. Would rethink this.

>>24670485
>but it's irrelevant as Tommen will die soon now that everyone suspects he's a bastard
But everyone already suspected he’s a bastard, that’s not a new turn of events, that’s been the story since the end of book 1. Cersei’s drama, while humiliating for the Lannisters, did not even twitch the barometer on that specific issue.
>They 'hitched' themselves to Joffrey and then murdered him. They'll abandon Tommen too
Why? Tommen is exactly the kind of king they want. He’s an irrelevant sock puppet, and even better yet he’s a boy that needs a regent. For lack of Renly they could not ask for a better king.
Granted, Aegon is a sockpuppet too but they don’t know that and he’s already someone else’s sockpuppet.
> tries to outmaneuver the Tyrells and then loses to them and the Faith.
Right, so, having lost, what is the last resort Cersei has that she’s been building up since book 2 and already flirted with using in book 4? The wildfire. I don’t think the show really defied Martin’s plan on this one, because all the pieces are already there. And more importantly the suggested alternative ways to resolve the Tyrell plot just leave Cersei and Dorne hanging loose.
>It's true Arianne is probably going to try to seduce Aegon. I don't know if that necessarily means she'll succeed
He’s an 18 year old boy (supposedly, possibly even younger) and she’s a hot DTF princess. Plus he seems to be quite the impulsive hothead himself.
Plus, it’s JonCon that reached out to try and initiate an alliance with Dorne. Given the Dany alliance isn’t happening it wouldn’t surprise me if he thinks it’s a good idea. But I could see JonCon going either way on this one desu

>>24670497
George usually does not hide the thoughts of characters that are PoVs. That's why the characters who are actually decent players at the Game of Thrones (Petyr, Varys, Renly, Tywin, all the Tyrells) all don't have PoVs. Because if George had given them PoVs, he would have had to hidden their thoughts from the reader and that would go against the point of making them PoVs in the first place.
For you to be right, George would have had to write all of Cersei's chapters deliberately misleading the reader as to Cersei's plans, if she's actually leading this secret grand conspiracy to blow everything up and make herself Empress.

>>24670513
>But everyone already suspected he’s a bastard, that’s not a new turn of events
I don't think you get the point. "Everyone" did not suspect Cersei's children were bastards. Some people did, such as Stannis and his supporters. But "everyone" did not. Otherwise the Baratheon KL dynasty would have ended a long time ago.
Now Cersei has admitted to being a whore, and everyone sees her as such. That obviously makes Stannis's claims a lot more credible.

>>24670520
So what’s the narrative purpose of letting Cersei be a pyromaniac schizo in AFFC Cersei III if it’s not going to be relevant later?
The whole slut accusations business was already a bid to kill Margaery and she’s already recently fixated on the idea of wildfire as a weapon against her enemies. She doesn’t need to plot it months in advance for this to be an idea she has with means she already has available, being a rather impulsive and reckless person anyway. We know all of the following from Cersei’s thoughts. 1) she wants Margaery gone, 2) she thinks burning down national landmarks with wildfire to burn her enemies to death is great 3) she has wildfire all over the city and pyromancers on retainer. There’s stronger for shadowing of this here than there is of R+L=J in Ned’s POV chapters.
>and make herself Empress.
That’s what happens in the show.
In the books she’s probably intending to just say fuck Kings Landing and move Tommens Court to Lannisport, as she already considered. But YG is probably going to swoop in while the peasants cheer before to take the city and be king anyway.

>>24670528
There’s whores everywhere, most of them don’t fuck their twin brothers and many of them fucked Robert. This isn’t really relevant to Stannis’ claims. Anyone who didn’t believe it before probably won’t believe it now and vice versa.

>>24670547
>So what’s the narrative purpose of letting Cersei be a pyromaniac schizo in AFFC Cersei III if it’s not going to be relevant later?
If you're asking why she burned down the Tower of the Hand, it's because she thought Tyrion could be hiding in it, and it reminded her of Tywin's murder.
The narrative purpose? I suppose it shows she's paranoid and obsessed with her father and Tyrion. I don't see how it's evidence she's secretly planning to blow up the sept.
The only reason you have this idea in your head is because it happened in the show, there isn't a singular piece of the text that suggests it

>>24670554
>Anyone who didn’t believe it before probably won’t believe it now and vice versa.
I think marching the queen naked through the streets while rotten fruit is thrown at her probably affected her reputation just a little

>>24670573
Right, and that itself is lunatic behaviour that signals at more behaviour like this later. As you point out the last two books are her trying to beat the Tyrells and failing, humiliating herself in the process.
What is she going to do next? I consider some version of what the show depicts far more likely and supported by the text than just taking the L, that’s the last thing Cersei would do. The trial is getting a bunch of Tyrells, their important bannermen, and a chunk of their army in one place that she already has rigged with wildfire. This is already certain. The question is if Cersei is a desperate enough and a big enough lunatic to think blowing them up is a good idea, and the text supports that.
What do you think she’s going to do next?

>>24670575
Probably but if the Tyrells cared they wouldn’t have already cynically flipflopped on this issue from Renly to Joffrey. It’s evident they don’t care if it’s true or not, they just want a king they can control, which Tommen is.

>>24670588
>What do you think she’s going to do next?
Nothing, because she already lost the game of thrones and is completely at the mercy of her captors.
If she loses her trial, she dies.
If she gets lucky and wins her trial (with whatever Qyburn did to Ser Gregor), she gets to return to Casterly Rock as a disgraced outcast.
If the Faith figure out Robert Strong is some weird mutant then maybe they'll kill her anyway
Or maybe Robert Strong will kill her
Whatever happens, she isn't remaining in King's Landing, and she's absolutely not becoming queen again

>>24670596
But Tommen won't have legitimacy any more because his mother is a whore
I feel like we're arguing in circles

>>24670611
So was Aenys I, so was Aegon III. As you point out, Mace has the lions share of Westeros’ manpower, wealth and resources. Why would he care if the smallfolk think Cersei is a slag when that was already the explicit Tyrell position from the jump before they flipflopped anyway? He has a far army, deep pockets and a king in his hands with Cersei seemingly out of the picture. This whole chain of events is an absolute Tyrell win and they have zero reason to throw it away on the mystery box with Aegon, when it’s already well demonstrated they do not care about the truth of the rumours.
>>24670602
>Nothing
Cersei is not going to do nothing, and just let Margaery take everything she holds dear (Tommen, power, etc.). She is going to do something desperate, as she’s been doing from the jump, and it’s going to blow up in her face, as it always does. Bombing the Tyrells fits her arc perfectly.
>Whatever happens, she isn't remaining in King's Landing, and she's absolutely not becoming queen again
On that we agree because Loras Tyrell is probably going to cut her open and Aegon is going to basically waltz into the city unopposed.

>>24670638
Yeah we're definitely arguing in circles.
>Bombing the Tyrells fits her arc perfectly.
It doesn't matter whether it 'fits her arc' because it's not going to happen.
I don't think there is any value to this conversation so I am going to close the tab now. Have a good night.

>>24670650
I accept your concession

>>24670148
>>24670324
ChatGPT

Thread ruined by AI

>>24667612
The maester elites are secretly pro-magic but work to suppress it so they have a monopoly over its practice

>>24667075 (OP)
Is there any documentation as to how George keeps up with everything ? Is it all in his head ?

>>24670703
He has notes and has Elio and Linda

>>24670703
dos libraries apparently
too stubborn to learn something more easy to use back in the mid 90s

>>24670752
>>24670750
I would've guessed his house was full of sticky notes. Thanks for the random obscurity

>>24667335
>Was it Rohanne Webber’s genes that made Tytos retarded?

No, that was all Lannister.

>>24668579
>This, [King Bran] also it doesn’t jive with the current political climate/GRRMs current political beliefs. The ending was probably envisioned back in 1991, before 9/11, patriot act, and the current surveillance state which GRRM would obviously be against can’t have an ending which essentially endorsed government overreach.

Nonsense, GRRM is an old hippy and Leftists love surveillance states and government overreach.

>>24669604
>Valyrians are supposed to be inbred, anything else makes them go apeshit.

True.

>zoomies now think anyone stringing over three coherent sentences together is just a bot or using AI
grim. bad times ahead.

>>24670891
>t. AI

>>24668950
You don't respect your parents tho.

>>24669974
>Reminder rhaenys cucked Aegon with a singer and the line of anus are mutts
That unironically makes them better desu.

>>24670883
>Aenys I
>100%
Tower fingers made this

>>24670883
>Dyanna Dayne
Her parents really hated her, huh?

Where do whores go?

>>24671574
Tysha is Septa Lemore

>>24671574
they go to worldcon and say to old men they gonna die, ooops not whores but trans'

The ending of the show had a strange effect on the ASOIAF fan base. I’m not talking about how it deleted it from pop consciousness.
Like you used to have shitloads of people that were absolutely convinced Jon and/or Dany was going to rule in the end and that it would be this awesome Targ restoration. The show absolutely beheaded those hopes, now everyone knows that’s not going to happen and that the endgame is King Bran. Dany fans, in particular, a completely adrift - everything the naysayers were saying all along was proven true, she does go crazy and turn into a megalomaniacal tyrant. Jon’s plot is proven to be strictly localised to the North and the shit with the Others and the wildlings. I remember Faegon used to be extremely unpopular but it seems like since the end of the show that’s heavily shifted to be more favourable, part out of criticising any and all changes made to the books and part out of searching for a new good Targ contender.

>>24671657
>I’m not talking about how it deleted it from pop consciousness
That's the most fun of it, finale just totally annihilated years of development from memory of men, something that Ingsoc would be just proud of
>Like you used to have shitloads of people that were absolutely convinced Jon and/or Dany was going to rule in the end and that it would be this awesome Targ restoration. The show absolutely beheaded those hopes, now everyone knows that’s not going to happen and that the endgame is King Bran
One slop took place of another, king bran would be endgame for asoiaf legacy rathen than decent ending, as said Stranger Above particular reason why grrm cant finish his books is king bran, you just cant deliver such trop in 2 books and expect people to enjoy it, martin really just put himself in corner and theres no way back anymore

Hear me out, by judging the tempo of Winds preview chapters, i think next Dany chapters be like this:
First two chapters captured Dany will travel to Vaes Dotrak
In third chapter there will be introduced new characters and Dosh Khalin
Fourth chapter will be dedicated to conflicts among new dotraki characters
And in fifth chapter will tie up Dotrakian knot, and rest of story will be devouted for untying it till Dreams come up
Seems to me Dany destined to die of old age in Essos and never set a foot in Westeros ever again

>>24671657
Meh. I’m always baffled when someone implies that you can infer the course of the remaining books from the show. I’ve always felt it was obvious that George has no idea where the story is going (even admits as much by saying he’s a “gardener”). Other than a few neat ideas he’s already semi-committed to as the culmination for certain arcs (I.e. Stannis will sacrifice Shireen, King Bran), he really is at the mercy of his writing for the rest. He’s even described his writing process as play-testing different narratives for his POVs in the manner of a D&D campaign.

All that to say, I highly doubt that Dumb & Dumber got any more out of GRRM than “Stannis will sacrifice Shireen at some point, and Bran will be king, and hm… maybe we’ll have a stand at Winterfell but I’m not sure”.
It’s plainly obvious when the show made story decisions that GRRM would’ve never abided by, such as:
>Dany needs to go to Westeros => D&D’s solution is just to have her win against the Slaver cities with dragons (even though the problem she was facing was guérilla war that couldn’t be solved by dragons) and hands control over to Daario, and jumps on a ship to Westeros
>Jon needs to be resurrected => D&D’s solution is just to have Melisandre resurrect him (no sacrifice even needed) and Jon wakes up with no changes to his personality at all
>need to set up some tension between Dany and Jon and others => D&D’s solution is just to make Dany the bestest queen who commits to fighting the Others immediately (forgot completely that she hates Starks) but then goes mad over some bells
GRRM couldn’t live with himself if he side-stepped all the moral ambiguities of his story in an effort to streamline it and give himself an “out”.

>>24671787
>tl;dr
The showrunners took the easy way out at every turn, so it’s impossible for the show and GRRM’s story (if it ever came out) to have more than surface-level similarities.
>Dany’s Meereen difficulties are solved because the showrunners say so, so she can leave everything in Daario’s hands without feeling guilty
>Jon is resurrected and isn’t changed at all, still mopey and doesn’t even press his claim when he learns of his Targaryen lineage
>Others are handwaived in 3 episodes because the showrunners can’t be fucked to go through an entirely new arc
>Tyrion doesn’t become a borderline villain consumed with hatred for Cersei and Jaime, becomes “le voice of reason” in the “good guy camp”

>>24671657
it reminds me of how quickly Battlestar Galactica got forgotten. More people know it from The Office mug now.

fAegon is doomed because Cersei obviously is the stand-in for fAegon in the show as soon as she got the Golden Company. It could've been really funny if D&D had just had Harry Strickland show up with a blue-haired kid with no lines, did NOTHING, and then died without being acknowledged once.

>>24671798
>Tyrion doesn’t become a borderline villain consumed with hatred for Cersei and Jaime, becomes “le voice of reason” in the “good guy camp”
I always wonder how people mistake Tyrion for darker person and those predictions of villainous imp have no ground. Actually Tyrion never does something that bad in his "dark" DwD chapters, in his actions he still stays the same Tyrion, even in his thoughts he didn't change much except for more whining

>>24671842
He killed Shae in cold blood in the book. In the show he only fights back after she lunges at him with a knife.

>>24671842
That’s because Tyrion is pretty much powerless for the entirety of the book. Still, people always bring up his “raping” of the bedwarmer in Illyrio’s manse. Then he manipulates FAegon into wheeling west towards Westeros, rather than waiting for Dany, because he thinks he can inflict the most damage on his sister that way.
Then he’s constantly thinking about strangling Penny the dwarf when they end up together (to be fair, she tried to stab him).
Not to mention, constantly reveling in how he’ll make Cersei, her children, Jaime, and the entirety of King’s Landing pay.

>>24671862
>Penny the dwarf
She's the one I'm most worried about, poor girl caught in Tyrion's web

>>24671842
>he’s a good boy, he dIndu nuffin

>“You’re brave. Little people can be brave.”
>My giant of Lannister, he heard. She is mocking me. He almost slapped her again. His head was pounding.
>“I never meant to make you angry,” Penny said “Forgive me. I’m frightened, is all.” She touched his hand.
>Tyrion wrenched away from her. “I’m frightened.” Those were the same words Shae had used. Her eyes were big as eggs, and I swallowed every bit of it. I knew what she was. I told Bronn to find a woman for me and he brought me Shae. His hands curled into fists, and Shae’s face swam before him, grinning. Then the chain was tightening about her throat, the golden hands digging deep into her flesh as her own hands fluttered against his face with all the force of butterflies. If he’d had a chain to hand… if he’d had a crossbow, a dagger, anything, he would have… he might have… he…

>>24671787
Point is the few elements that are guaranteed to be George original, particularly King Bran, completely took the kneecaps out of the Jon/Dany endgame fantasies that used to be pervasive in some form or another. The show put those to bed for good, in the short term there was a lot of cope about how King Bran must be a D&D invention but that too was put to bed by word of god.
ASOIAF ending theories have never been the same, any and all tinfoil is on the table now, Jon/Dany endgames and related ships are moribund. Dany fags got the most raw deal of them all because whether or not she becomes Mad King 2.0 was already an extremely divisive issue from the start, with strong foreshadowing in the books, that the show seemingly vindicated despite many fiercely denying it for years beforehand - some copers still do.
On the obverse the final season was so bad that it brought back into question many theories that were briefly taken to be borderline canon because they appeared in the show. Like Sandor Clegane surviving and coming back or Benjen being Coldhands.
But the brute logic that if Bran then not Jon/Dany was truly revolutionary given the things that used to be widely expected about the ending.

>>24671871
Sounds like ptsd to me

>>24671869
GRRM loves his fighting dwarfs, in battle every mentioned dwarf becomes ultimate slayer, i wouldn't worry about Penny, at least for battle of Meeren. Like in Wolf Of Wall Street brokers discuss how would they invite some dwarfs and them in their orgy, thats roughly how Martin comes up with his dwarfs, besides one particular pow from preview chapter saw in vision some dwarfs amusing "people"

I Daenerys SLURPborn, jobber of Westeros, kneel before:

Drogo-sama, who ass fucked me so hard I wanted to commit suicide until I liked it.

Viserys-sama who got killed by Drogo-sama (I was too scared to help him).

Doreah-sama, who teached me how to sexually please brown-skinned men.

Drogon-sama, Viserion-sama and Rhaegal-sama, who are the only reason I'm relevant in any way and not trapped in dosh khaleen.

Robert-sama, Jaime-sama and Gregor-sama, who made a short work of my jobber family.

Seven-sama, who nuked the shitty empire of my ancestors.

Aegon-sama, who not only has a better claim to the throne but also a real army rather than a bunch of eunuchs.

Harpy-sama, whom I can't defeat and had to ask Hizdahr-sama to help.

Hizdahr-sama, who cucks me with random bedslaves he still owns.

Jorah-sama, who I hope will have enough of blue-balling and rape me.

D&D-sama, who spoiled that I will go crazy and job in the end killing all interest in my books.

Gurm-sama, who will never finish my books, making me stuck in Meereen for all of eternity.

>>24672490
>Gurm-sama, who will never finish my books, making me stuck in Meereen for all of eternity.
>Meereen
Um Daenerys-san, I’m afraid it’s so, so much worst

>ADWD is the canonical end of ASOIAF
>Jon is dead
>Daenerys is stranded shitting brown water in the middle of the Dothraki sea
>Tommen, first of his name, king of the Andals etc. Won bigly
>The Iron Isles successfully achieved their bid for independence.
Is it really so bad if he doesn’t write more?

>>24672636
Don't forget the most important part:
Arianne got away with it and the source of her fear (Quentyn) is gone.

>>24671842
>and those predictions of villainous imp have no ground
The author called him a Villain

>>24672636
>What about the Others? The Great Other? The Long Night? Maybe even the Deep Ones, krakens, the Great Other, heckin Euron, the heart of winter, the comet from Yi Ti?
>What about them?
>That's what I said! Baba boom!

>>24672636
I think what grrm has a great talent for is mysteries, so not seeing how that unfolds would be a shame. It would be a bit like Lost, learning there's not actually anything inside the mystery box.

There's some nice characterization and dialogue though, so not a complete loss, but it's not really what makes him stand out.
A lot of it is just kinda mid shlock, like it makes sense this comes from a geek(not even a nerd) who read too many superhero comics, without the conclusion it'll just be slightly above slop like moorcock, eddings, brooks.

I think I'll be happy either way though.
He finishes, and I get to see how it turns out.
He doesn't finish, and self-entitled shits who harass him don't get to see how it turns out, which might be even better.

Also reminds me of:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7lp3RhzfgI

>>24673190
I think his skill at mysteries is precisely why it going unfinished isn’t really the worst thing that could happen. You can solve mysteries in a satisfying why that makes them even better, or you can botch it and retroactively ruin the mystery.
This is how the show was able to delete its own pop culture momentum. It was all about the mysteries and suspense, then when it was over normies were collectively like “Wait… that’s it?” and wondered what was even the point of caring in the first place.
If they refused to continue the show without source material and he just never finished the source material, so basically if the show ended around season 5. If that happened he’d go down as one of the legendary GOAT fantasy writers, people used go unironically debate if he’s better than Tolkien because they were just that drunk on the suspense.

>>24671838
>Cersei dies dramatically in the penultimate episode
>Faegon shows up outta nowhere in the finale, no lines, no introduction. Just standing around beside Harry Strickland.
>Gets burned by Daenerys one scene later off camera
This would have been absolute kino

I have serious doubts Jon is dead considering how GRRM never fails to make clear his distaste for Gandalf coming back at basically every convention he goes to these days.

>>24673747
The only thing he didn’t like about Gandalf’s resurrection is he came back unchanged.

>>24673892
That's what he used to say in the past. Lately he complains about him coming back period.

>>24673747
the Jon wolf man wilding personality cult arc would be so kino if only George were to stop being such an old fat lazy fuck head.

>>24673892
>>24673919
>Gandalf’s resurrection is he came back unchanged.
lol, he's also said he doesn't like how different gandalf the white is, seeing it as a completely different character from gandalf the grey(a character he really likes)

>>24667909
There's many reasons why it works, but for some tiresome reason this series attracts a lot of retards who want to shit on it without knowing anything about it.

>>24668050
The north and the vale are very well protected and winter is coming, they'd win using russia tactics

>>24668862
Tradlarping or trannyism are the two dark paths for failed men, especially autistic failed men, online because they have the allure of a collective, even if that collective is entirely built on fake bullshit. To have genuine knowledge and maturity requires work and those fags will never work to know what they're talking about.

>>24668862
I hope they all shit brown water until they die. Their retardation is nauseating.

So what character-driven fantasy stories have you guys been able to fill the void that ASOIAF left in you?

>>24673892
But he didn’t come back unchanged, he came back even wiser and more powerful.

>>24674091
GRRM said he reads LotR once a year, which means he's read it 50+ times at this point. I wonder how the interpretation of events gets morphed by that much time and that many rereads.

>>24674502
None. It has ruined fiction for me.

>>24674672
fuck man, maybe the problem is that grrm doesn't have time to write because he's busy reading lotr all the time

>>24674672
>he reads LotR once a year
>it doesn't light a fire under him
>doesn't get his creative juices flowing

>>24674672
feels weird because I haven't been able to get a single reread of LotR done since I read it when I was 13. And it seems pretty common for younger people to say they dislike the prose of LotR

>>24674781
You think he isn't just a liar?

>>24673747
>I have serious doubts Jon is dead

He's not, the entire point of the Varamyr prologue is to setup Jon Snow being (accidentally) brought back to life (with no side effects) by Melisandre.

>>24671862
>Penny the dwarf

>>24668862
Fags invite that behavior by acting like asoif is anywhere near as good as lotr, conan, etc

>>24670489
Renly was a real Baratheon and went up against his unpopular heathen brother. His situation and Tommen's aren't even remotely comparable. If Cersei's escapades become fully public, the (already weak) throne will irrecoverably lose any and all legitimacy.

>>24675207
The Tyrells never had any evidence that Joffrey was a fake Baratheon anyway. They supported Renly purely because he was their guy. Proven in how they immediately flipped to Joffrey, then probably murdered Joffrey when it became clear he wasn’t going to he their guy so his 10 y/o brother could be their guy instead. They do not care one iota about legitimacy, they care about winning.

>>24675207
Renly was the younger brother and nobody really knew that Stannis had switched religion.
And, because George doesn't care about religion, none of the characters particularly care that Stannis switched religions.
They say something about denouncing him for switching, but it never goes anywhere.

>>24675281
Stannis didn’t even switch religions until he burned all the idols on Dragonstone. Which happened after the Tyrells declared for Renly. Before that he just had this weird witch lady hanging out in his entourage that converted his wife.
Plus Renly was already a hardcore Tyrell shill even while Robert was alive.

There's no way the released winds chapters are even canon at this point

>>24674882
I remember her. One hot midge.

>>24675334
He does rewrite a lot, but the Theon, Aeron and Arianne chapters are probably the most unchanged.

>>24675258
>They do not care one iota about legitimacy, they care about winning
Winning depends on maintaining at least a semblance of legitimacy, though. Otherwise, any wannabe will just revolt at the first sign of trouble.

>>24675488
>Otherwise, any wannabe will just revolt at the first sign of trouble.
And they do, sometimes.

Legitimacy is enforced by however shouts the loudest.

>>24675488
But Robert had literally zero legitimacy while Viserys had all the legitimacy but only one was king in fact.
>Otherwise, any wannabe will just revolt at the first sign of trouble.
That’s what happens in Westeros anyway

>>24675503
Robert's rebellion was only possible because the Targs lost their dragons, which were their primary source of legitimacy, plus the Mad King going out of his way to alienate anyone who mattered.

>>24672636
What about the baby orcs in their little cribs?

>>24675531
Dragons weren’t a source of legitimacy, they were a source of brute kratocratic power. When Aegon showed up he had literally zero legitimacy, he just bludgeoned everyone into submission and wiped out several houses that actually did have ancient legitimacy like the Hoares, the Gardeners and the Durrandons.
The source of legitimacy for anyone is legal continuity with pre-existent dynasties. The Targs only had any legitimacy after they had already subjugated everyone with Dragonfire for several generations long enough to be considered one.
Robert’s Rebellion wasn’t even the first dragonless rebellion anyway, by this point there had already been like 5 Blackfyre risings in the space of a century. And unlike the Blackfyres Robert’s rebellion didn’t even pretend to be about legitimacy, it was just about getting rid of the Targs. Hence why they installed Robert and banished the actual legitimate heirs from Westeros.

>there are people who believe Faegon is legit when Illyrio has the sword, has a statue of himself as a young man that looks exactly like Faegon, almost everyone on the Shy Maid including Tyrion is using a fake name and the Golden Company is full of blatant phonies pretending to belong to extinct houses.
Boggles my mind

>>24675790
It truly doesn't matter if he's loud enough.

>>24675799
In universe yeah I guess but it’s the people IRL reading the books who buy it that I don’t get. YG’s whole entourage consists of Varys and Illyrio, two of the dodgiest bullshit artists on the planet, and an army of dudes with phoney identities.
One of the recurring motifs of chapters about him is that they’re always full of bullshit and replete with characters pretending to be someone else. Even Tyrion, in the POV chapters where he’s with this crew, is pretending to be someone else.

>>24675790
It's definitively spelled out in Book 2 that there would be a Targaryen pretender in the future with the 'cloth dragon on stilts' prophecy
Also in the same book, Varys directly states his philosophy that power is an illusion and the only thing that matters is creating said illusion
I don't know why anyone would claim Aegon is legit other than to be a contrarian

>>24675503
>But Robert had literally zero legitimacy

House Baratheon was founded by the Targaryens and they intermarried several times, Robert's grandma was a Targ.

>>24667288

>>24675790
>There are people who believe Aegon is fake when everyone literally tells you exactly who he is
Conspiracy theorists are insane

>>24667075 (OP)
>Rereading GoT again
>Tyrion is taken prisoner by Catelyn
>Three of the goons in their party are named Kurleket, Lharys, and Mohor
>Larry, Curley, and Moe
This shit is embarrassing sometimes.

Is it just me or is Jon no longer being a POV in winds such a low iq take?

There virtually no chance he’s not a POV, not seeing his internal conflict, after the betrayal, and especially once he learns who is parents are would be extremely lame.

>>24669321
If Varys murders Tyrells at the same time as Kevan he makes it obvious that there's a third party

>>24669353

Tywin can't raise armies as he pleases, Westerlands are stronger than the Riverlands, Jaime's army gets smashed and then Stafford's recruits get smashed, and then his own army takes heavy losses at the battle of the Fords and he's actually in a seriously bad position

It's after this that he forms an alliance with the Tyrells to beat Stannis and then uses the Red Wedding to take out Robb, at this point Lannister power military is significantly reduced by approaching 2/3rds and they're basically entirely dependant on the Tyrells

>>24670463
Assuming Littlefinger was telling the truth, the Tyrells only killed Joffery because they didn't want Margery married to a mini-Caligula and aren't actually the Lannisters' enemies outside of that.

Considering Joffery dies immediately after eating Tyrion's pie it's entirely possible that Tyrion was the target and Littlefinger is manipulating Sansa in some way (possibly to make her distrust the Tyrells).

>>24675207
Doesn't matter that Stannis is unpopular or that he doesn't follow the Faith of the Seven, that isn't even Westeros's only religion

Stannis was ahead of Renly in the line of succession, it's a naked power grab by the Tyrells

>>24676403
That’s true.
By the end of the rebellion there were still 2 Targs ahead of him in the line of succession, his claim was always even worse than Renly’s. They call him the usurper for a reason, he wasn’t legit at all, he just won and that’s what really matters.

>>24676673
Jon’s dead
He’s not coming back, that’s a show invention.

>>24675790
>>24675887
It's been so long without a new book that theorists have started going full circle just to have something to theorize about

>>24676954
>Aegon actually is legit
>Ashara Dayne and Ned Stark actually are Jon’s parents
>Cersei actually did fuck Moon Boy
Love theories that blatant red herrings are actually true

People scratch their heads about what was even the point of R+L=J in the show but I don’t think George knows what’s the point of it in the books anymore either.
The original story function of this twist in his original 3 book time-skipped outline from the 90s is that it would clear the way for Jon x Arya romance. But that’s probably not happening anymore.

>>24677029
The plan is the same. It just involves a different sister.

>>24677105
If Jonsa was going to happen D&D would have been gagging to put it in the show.

>>24676924
>2 Targs ahead of him in the line of succession
Only Viserys.
Women get sent to the bottom of the succession list

>>24677149
If women can’t inherit then they can’t pass on claims they don’t have either, which would rule Robert out too.

>>24676673
>i was betrayed and im le edgy now grrrr i am le wolf, this is not like when Gandalf was resurrected cuz im angry!
Its gonna suck

>>24677029
The twist is simply what if aragorn didn’t want to become king and just went back to being a ranger at the end and his bloodline of kings and rightful heir status didn’t matter

>>24677170
Jon should just stay dead
Expectations would he subverted bigly and the audience would be absolutely trolled epic style.
If George does this the 13+ year wait would be well worth it.

Every time I see someone try to predict the plotlines for Winds, it always come across as so unoriginal. It’s just them checking off boxes of what they think needs to happen to set up Dream and the confrontation with the Others, with everyone positioned in Westeros.
This video from Quinn was probably my most recent encounter with that:
>https://youtu.be/eZu39i09pOU?si=mI_WAQVk5rjeV8OV
Just him listing him off straight-forward arcs for the different POVs, no originality whatsoever. Just him caving to the most popular theories (FAegon takes KL, Arya returns to Westeros, etc.) and bowing to the “needs” of the story every time, in that all the POVs need to be in their places for the climax.

That sort of theorizing for Winds always strikes me as so antithetical to the way GRRM actually writes. His POVs don’t “obey” the needs of the story most of the time, which to be fair is why he’s in this mess now as every storyline gets more and more convoluted. But the upside is that you’re treated to these massive surprises to catch you off-guard, like Stannis arriving at the Wall (which I don’t think anyone could’ve predicted after reading Clash, the way people are trying to predict Winds now).
I guess my point is that if Winds were to unfurl the way these youtubers are theorizing, it would be the most straight-forward, boring book yet. Just every POV obeying to the needs of the story, without any distractions along the way. Dany racing to Westeros because she knows she’s in a book and the climax is nearing, Jon defeating the Boltons because he knows he needs to tie off every WO5K plotline, etc.

Get me?

>>24677518
The youtube community surrounding this book series is so sad.

>>24677555
it's not like these threads are any better

>>24676924
>They call him [Robert] the usurper for a reason, he wasn’t legit at all,

True, as there were still two Targaryens in front of him but because of his Targaryen ancestry, Robert could be presented to the nobility as a valid alternative while still kinda maintaining the line of succession, Jon Arryn spinning it as a "family dispute".

>>24677149
>>2 Targs ahead of him in the line of succession
>Only Viserys.
>Women get sent to the bottom of the succession list

In this case, Daenerys would come before Robert in the line of succession as she was the last Targaryen.
Assuming everyone was alive and all children were recognized/legitimized, the line of succession would be:

- Aerys
- - Rhaegar
- - - Aegon
- - - Jon Snow
- Viserys
- - - Rhaego
- - - Rhaenys
- - Daenerys
*new dynasty*
- Robert
- - Gendry
- - Joffrey
- - Edric
- - Tommen
- Stannis
- Renly
- - Mya
- - Bella
- - Myrcella
- - Barra
- - Shireen

>>24677426
Jon stays dead and stannis actually was azor ahai all along (biggest subversion ever because everyone 100% thinks he’s a false messiah, both in universe and out)

>>24677749
Rhaenys would inherit before Rhaego. Even if women are dead last they would still inherit before a male who’s claim comes from their mother when theirs comes from their father. Same principle by which Daenerys would inherit before Robert

Listen, folks, nobody was closer to Rhaegar than me. Nobody. We were best friends, the best, people don’t even know how close we were okay? I fought for him, I bled for him — and by the way, I would’ve won at the Trident, a hundred percent, if not for the fake news maesters, the liars, who said I lost. Total lie. Total disaster. No-no get those damn bells down!

Robert? He wasn’t even that strong, believe me. They say he had a big hammer, huge hammer — overrated hammer, folks. I had a sword, a beautiful sword, and I swung it better than anybody. People are always saying, ‘Jon Connington, you’re so loyal, so brave,’ and it’s true. Rhaegar told me, he said, ‘Jon, you’re the best Hand I’ve ever had.’ He told me that, I promise you, he really did.

And now, now we’re bringing Aegon back. The real deal, folks, the true king, not one of these fake dragon queens with her little lizards. We’re gonna make Westeros great again, believe me. The Griffin’s coming home, and everyone’s going to be very, very happy — except the Lannisters, who are weak, very weak, and the Baratheons, who are losers, total losers. Sad!

>>24668050
Queen Arya is endgame, sorry salsakeks.

>>24667626
he can keep Bran as king and make it a cautionary tale about the surveillance state