Books: A Song of Ice and Fire *SPOILERS* Part XV

[The Macho King]

Agreed about Jaime.

Which ones are confusing?

Mainly Varys and Tyrion. And maybe "motivations" isn't the right word. Their arcs just kind of... falter.

 

[Make]

Tyrion has been a complete mess for a couple of seasons now. I hope this is just D&D not knowing how to write for him.

 

[Corto]

Please stop trying to read the tea leaves. There is absolutely nothing to support GRRM tossing aside the Others only to move on to another lesser-stakes conflict in Cersei or MQD. Nothing. In fact, the exact opposite is supported in-book: the conflict with the Others and the pursuit of the throne will inevitably converge. There is certainly evidence to support a MQD turn, but that doesn’t mean it comes at the cost of quite literally every other plotline in the story, as has happened in the show.

We have no idea how GRRM’s books will end. We can surmise very vague plot points from this ****hole season, and that’s about it.

We can safely assume basically all major characters have the same endings (he said as much).

He also heavily hinted that the end game in ASOIAF is about human conflict, human relations and human heart - meaning that the end game is among humans and their politics and wars.

In the end, what makes ASOIAF such a writing phenomenon was not a greater non-human arch-enemy, but the politics and the betrayals and how GRRM pulls one on the audience who think Ned is your average fantasy hero.

Also, the last book was supposed to be called "A Time for Wolves", before he expanded to seven books.

So, yes, IMO, the end game in the books WILL be the human conflict, Dany going Mad Queen and whatever happens in episode 6.

Of course, it will be written more in depth and will seem a more natural development, but yes - that will be the end game in the books, humans.

 

[Corto]

Mainly Varys and Tyrion. And maybe "motivations" isn't the right word. Their arcs just kind of... falter.

Varys wants a good ruler. In the books, he's similar, except he supports fAegon. We don't know how that ends or whether fAegon is a Blackfyre.

Tyrion is split between his family, his people and his current monarch and the side he was forced to choose.
I do think it could've been done better, but please do remember that book Tyrion has spent ADWD drunk and whining about where whores go, and has been a shell of his first-three-books self.
He still thinks Dany can not go mad queen and betrays Varys - and he's wrong.
Freeing Jaime is a debt he pays for the person he loves most in the world and he hopes he can help him stop a bloodshed.

Again, it could've been done better, but I'm fine with it.

Honestly, this episode was fine. Dany going nuclear makes sense, Jaime and Cersei going out together, all fine.
The Hound helping Arya to realize there's more to life than revenge, etc. All good.

My complaint was episode 4, that just felt like moving pieces and done sort of half-as*edly.
And my two biggest and only real complaints remain the Dorne plot and the show Euron.

...

Also, as far as Dany going Mad Queen. Basically everything that's been in the books so far has been in the show. Crucifying the masters, dragons killing children.

She lost the Dornish. Highgarden forces. A lot of her Unsullied. A lot of her Dothraki. She lost Drogo and Doreah, Barristan and Rakharo (on the show). She lost Jorah and Missandei. Lost Daario (for different reasons).
She snapped and went with the fire bit because she can and because every time she turned to that she ended up winning. Dothraki tent, Loot Train attack, whatever. Crucifying the masters. Dragon killing children, etc.

The books are stuck somewhere where the show was at the end of season 5. What we saw in the books at that point, we saw in the show. And the show did a good job of showing how alone Dany felt, unloved and betrayed.
In the end, the ending does make sense and is sort of fitting that someone who thinks they are entitled to rule over people simply because they were born to a conquerer's bloodline should go mental in these conditions.
I expect the books will give us a much better journey to Dany's "burn them all" and to Jaime going back to Cersei - but the books have the luxury of showing us the POV of said characters, their thoughts and reasoning.

 

[MadDevil]

Tyrion has been a complete mess for a couple of seasons now. I hope this is just D&D not knowing how to write for him.

Well, at least they cut the Tyrion wandering around wondering where whores go and the silly Penny stuff.

 

[Brodie]

Verys' motivations make no sense because his actual purpose was adapted out and the showrunners ran with the less plausible "serve the realm" concept for him. That makes it logical for him to flip and flop between claimants as he sees fit.

In the books Verys is clearly set up as the equivalent of Littlefinger (except not ruled by emotions), backing a king of his own creation to attain ultimate power from the cloisters. Verys won't be alive by this point in WoW/DoS if they ever get written

 

[The Macho King]

Verys' motivations make no sense because his actual purpose was adapted out and the showrunners ran with the less plausible "serve the realm" concept for him. That makes it logical for him to flip and flop between claimants as he sees fit.

In the books Verys is clearly set up as the equivalent of Littlefinger (except not ruled by emotions), backing a king of his own creation to attain ultimate power from the cloisters. Verys won't be alive by this point in WoW/DoS if they ever get written

Varys seems to be less personally ambitious than Littlefinger, but I get your point.

 

[discostu]

Varys' arc would make more sense if Jon was a more credible leader. This is a case where I think an actor performance has let the show down.

I think we're supposed to believe that Varys sees Jon as such a strong leader that he's willing to risk everything to get him there.

 

[The Macho King]

Varys' arc would make more sense if Jon was a more credible leader. This is a case where I think an actor performance has let the show down.

I think we're supposed to believe that Varys sees Jon as such a strong leader that he's willing to risk everything to get him there.

That's part of it, but not all of it. Some of it is built for dramatic tension. Robb was followed because he was good at winning battles. Jon's battles are all "set pieces", and therefore very dramatic, and there's not much drama in just winning by planning well, so Jon has to always almost lose. Kit sucks, but honestly the writing hasn't done him any favors in that regard either.

 

[Brodie]

I am pretty confident that the book version of the sack of King's Landing would lean much more heavily toward an anti-nuclear critique of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki... where Dany's POV sees her as a liberator pursuing a scorched earth campaign to win the peace while everyone else just sees an atrocity. This is hard to portray on TV

 

[RandV]

If the end goal in ASoIF is for Dany to go down the 'burn them all' route I suspect Faegon will be the one holding Kings Landing. The show and especially Lena Headey have always put in a bit extra to humanize Cersei, I mean in this last episode she looked like the sympathetic good guy. In the books where we get in her head she's not nearly as competent and is growing increasingly paranoid and insane.

 

[discostu]

That's part of it, but not all of it. Some of it is built for dramatic tension. Robb was followed because he was good at winning battles. Jon's battles are all "set pieces", and therefore very dramatic, and there's not much drama in just winning by planning well, so Jon has to always almost lose. Kit sucks, but honestly the writing hasn't done him any favors in that regard either.

Agreed. He's been written as being pretty dumb and impatient. He's very dismissive of political concerns.

I tend to think of him as being a junior version of Ned, but, Ned demonstrated enough smarts on the other stuff.

I'm really curious now they handle Jon's arc next week, and if we're supposed to believe he's the perfect leader.

 

[The Macho King]

Agreed. He's been written as being pretty dumb and impatient. He's very dismissive of political concerns.

I tend to think of him as being a junior version of Ned, but, Ned demonstrated enough smarts on the other stuff.

I'm really curious now they handle Jon's arc next week, and if we're supposed to believe he's the perfect leader.

Ned was naive, not stupid. And he was naive because he'd been so far removed from politics and backbiting for 20 years, so his naivety was understandable. Hell - if anything he was killed because he figured shit out too fast and just didn't have the bearings to know what to do with the information.

Jon is stupid. First - he should know how dirty politics are played now because we have 8 seasons of plots and assassinations in the 7 kingdoms. And we've had similar situations in the Night's Watch. And f***, his little sisters are now an assassin and basically Machiavelli. His ignorance and stupidity are unforgivable.

 

[Make]

I always thought Ned was smarter in the books than in the show. There were subtle things like manning Moat Cailin before all hell broke loose in King's Landing that showed he wasn't just naively charging into KL politics without any safety measures for his people. He knew things might turn ugly and made sure his people (the North) would be ready. There were also the inner dialogues of doubting Robert's nature already during the journey to KL that showed he had some smarts. Even his fatal flaw in trusting LF was reasonable considering Catelyn vouched for him.

 

[The Macho King]

I always thought Ned was smarter in the books than in the show. There were subtle things like manning Moat Cailin before all hell broke loose in King's Landing that showed he wasn't just naively charging into KL politics without any safety measures for his people. He knew things might turn ugly and made sure his people (the North) would be ready. There were also the inner dialogues of doubting Robert's nature already during the journey to KL that showed he had some smarts. Even his fatal flaw in trusting LF was reasonable considering Catelyn vouched for him.

I mean - I'm being less generous to him, but I don't even think that him dying was off the table as a possible outcome for Ned, it was just a risk that he would accept. I *do* think Regicide was outside of his predicted outcomes, but everything up to and including that was on the table.

Robert getting gored is what made the situation untenable.

 

[Emperoreddy]

The Mad Queen Dany chapters in the books are going to be LIT as **** and an amazing read. Her inner monologue while she does all these things would be quite something.

I wonder if we actually get her POV for the actual sack though. George could do something similar to the show and tell it through other POV characters and check in with Dany after it’s over b

 

[Corto]

I wonder if we actually get her POV for the actual sack though. George could do something similar to the show and tell it through other POV characters and check in with Dany after it’s over b

Wouldn't be the first time. Ned's execution is from Arya's POV. Some important battles we don't even see (Whispering Wood).
So, definitely possible.

 

[Ainec]

Books aren't coming

House Martin

 

[Rabid Ranger]

Books aren't coming

House Martin

I think we'll get The Winds of Winter but it will be a ghost writer for the last one. There's just no way Martin will live long enough. Shoot, I might not live long enough.

 

[SettlementRichie10]

We can safely assume basically all major characters have the same endings (he said as much).

He also heavily hinted that the end game in ASOIAF is about human conflict, human relations and human heart - meaning that the end game is among humans and their politics and wars.

In the end, what makes ASOIAF such a writing phenomenon was not a greater non-human arch-enemy, but the politics and the betrayals and how GRRM pulls one on the audience who think Ned is your average fantasy hero.

Also, the last book was supposed to be called "A Time for Wolves", before he expanded to seven books.

So, yes, IMO, the end game in the books WILL be the human conflict, Dany going Mad Queen and whatever happens in episode 6.

Of course, it will be written more in depth and will seem a more natural development, but yes - that will be the end game in the books, humans.

This is all speculation until the books come out. We have just as much evidence to support an endgame with the Others, considering the stakes surrounding that conflict.

Personally, I think this will all converge and develop naturally, as you said. George can write a satisfying ending about human conflict without unceremoniously dismissing the largest threat in the story. These things are not mutually exclusive.

Asoiaf is a phenomenon because George writes very believable and interesting characters. Full stop. Politics and intrigue and betrayal alone are nothing unique to Asoiaf.

 

[RandV]

We can only speculate at this point. I could certainly be wrong but an optimistic take could be that it's taking this long because he's laying the ground work to finish not just Winds of Winter but the entire series. It took him 5 years to write A Feast for Crows, because that ended up being 2 books and he had to split them. Dance took 6 years to write because even though it was 'mostly' written he got writers block on the plot point in Mereen.

The difference now is that it's been 8 years since the release of his last book, and more importantly the end goal is in sight. There's going to be pressure on him from the business side to get this series finished, and while he's prickly about it I'm sure Martin doesn't want to leave his work unfinished either. The best way to accomplish this now that we're at the point we are is rather than stick to his meandering writing ways to work closer with his publisher/editor to keep things on track and plot out the finish.

What he does have going for him here is that he has no problem writing chapters that aren't going to appear in the next book to be released - the difficult part for him is working out how to tie up all the plot threads. We've had enough time pass now that based on his prior work rate he can have Winds more or less completed now but is holding it back while he starts writing chapters for and works out the plot points of Dream.

Not sure if this is something I'd really bet on but just a counterpoint to the pessimistic 'Winds of Winter is never getting finished' take.

 

[RandV]

This is all speculation until the books come out. We have just as much evidence to support an endgame with the Others, considering the stakes surrounding that conflict.

Personally, I think this will all converge and develop naturally, as you said. George can write a satisfying ending about human conflict without unceremoniously dismissing the largest threat in the story. These things are not mutually exclusive.

Asoiaf is a phenomenon because George writes very believable and interesting characters. Full stop. Politics and intrigue and betrayal alone are nothing unique to Asoiaf.

Seeing what we have with the show I think I have it more or less worked out. I'm thinking the Others will be defeated first and the story will end cleaning up who will rule what, but it's not going to be a 'the Whitewalkers were a red herring, the real story was always about the Throne' thing that you're getting from the TV thread.

A key point of distinction between the two is the Night King. I think the Others being a creation of the Children of the Forest will stick, but with the show creating the Night King they created a single point of emphasis on the threat where they could drop all the history and lore and defeat it with an assassins Valyrian steel dagger. The Night King doesn't exist in the same way in the books, the "Others" were beings that were sealed in a tomb who got let out because Mance Rayder went digging for treasure - this isn't in the show. It's also been implied that the Others are directly related to the wonky winter weather schedule.

With the Others rising to strength Westeros is due for another "Long Night". The winter in the books is going to be far more dreadful than the occasional slight dusting they showed in the show, it will threaten everyone and the only way out is to tie together all the prophecies and build up and end the threat once and for all. This is basically the "Winds of Winter" which seems like it should be two books, especially since you got a number of chapters that couldn't be fit into Dance dumped into it (Dance+Feast+these chapters maybe should have been 3 books).

Which finally leads us to A Dream of Spring. People have been going back and forth on the influence The Scouring of the Shire has on the series, and I think it would similar to that but not really the same thing. Rather this is the Song of Ice and Fire, Jon and Dany's story that will eventually intertwine, and Dream isn't about who sits the Iron Throne but rather the conclusion of this 'song'. That you don't just get a happy ending after defeating the big bad guys, rather it's how Jon and Dany cope in the aftermath leading to a "bittersweet" ending - like Dany goes nuts and burns everything so Jon has to kill her

 

[Trap Jesus]

If a lot of these plot points are what GRRM actually had planned, I wouldn't be surprised if the reception the show has been getting sent his writer's block into overdrive. I know he's said in interviews before that people "discovering" certain plot points or arcs doesn't change the way he writes, but have to wonder when the reception is this poor that it might.

 

[Ainec]

If a lot of these plot points are what GRRM actually had planned, I wouldn't be surprised if the reception the show has been getting sent his writer's block into overdrive. I know he's said in interviews before that people "discovering" certain plot points or arcs doesn't change the way he writes, but have to wonder when the reception is this poor that it might.

I think George can see that people are livid over the writing of the show and not the overall character arcs

 

[The Mighty Duck Man]

I think George can see that people are livid over the writing of the show and not the overall character arcs

Except that isn't the case, or isn't solely the case. Many people are furious that Dany went Mad Queen and are furious Jaime went back to Cersei. There's a lot of criticisms coming from a lot of different angles.

I don't think it changes anything. He knew people would be furious about the Red Wedding too, he doesn't and shouldn't care.