#Got and ASOIAF

[fedonciadale]

You know, when Jonerys happened last season and we were screamed at that “Jonerys is fucking canon”, we did not say, that GRRM would never write Jonerys. We argued from the show, that the romance was not depicted as such and that “no first kiss” and other things were huge red flags. We argued from the foreshadowing of the books, that there might be something like Jon manipulating Daenerys for her dragons. We never disputed that Jonerys happened. We only disputed what it could mean. That maybe, just maybe sex does not equal love.

The answer was always: Oh, they just didn’t write the romance as well. BAD WRITING! And anyway. Jonerys is canon.

Now, it has become clear, that whatever Jon’s feelings in season 7, he is not into Daenerys (or not any more, question is still pending). Dany has become Dark - as we have predicted for literal years (and been called delulu and worse for it).

Now their answer is: Daenerys would never blow up King’s Landing on purpose. It is just BAD WRITING.  It is not canon, because we do not accept it and the books will be different anyway.

Bad writing this, bad writing that. At one time the romance is accepted at face value, but another time DarkDany is not accepted.

Listen, I am not argueing that the writing is good. It is not. I am just argueing that we should accept that we get the major plot points from the show, and that means all of them: Sansa and Jon reuniting as first of the Starks and taking back Winterfell, Jon trying to enlist help from Daenerys and Jonerys as a result (however that relationship will be in the books), and finally DarkDany.

If episode 6 won’t go my way, you probably will hear me complaining about bad writing (which I have done for ages). You will not hear me yelling that the books will be different. You might read here that I have no clue how GRRM will reach that ending, but as long as GRRM does not renounce his claim that “the major characters (which I take as PoV characters) will end at the same place in the show and the books” I’ll try to look at how the books might reach there.

[moosebuckle-ficrecs]

Ship Spotlight: Renly/Loras

The Show/Books: Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire

The Pairing: Renly Baratheon and Loras Tyrell

The Gist: True Love...and then one dies.

hearts and bones: Explicit rating; 28,237 words. Summary: Loras is gliding the razor carefully over his chin now. Renly hates this part; Loras is too close for too long, concentrating on his task with a focus that makes it too easy to stare at him. And Renly has done far too much staring. He could probably provide a tally of Loras’s eyelashes by now (a staggering lot), or identify which side of his lower lip Loras bites when he’s concentrating (the left), or number the tawny flecks in his eyes (eight in one eye, five in the other). He could probably even find the freckle just under Loras’s eyebrow in the dark. With his tongue. Gods. (Renly POV until the end)

And Turns To Gold In The Sunlight: Explicit rating; 3,626 words. Summary: Loras and Renly, and their story -- in part. (Loras POV)

we form a tarot pack: Teen And Up rating; 2,146 words. Summary: This is how you find out that you’re in a relationship: one hot day, you both skip class to go hang out by the pool at your apartment complex and on the way over, Loras just grabs your hand without any preamble. (AU, Renly POV)

I’ve only watched a little of Game of Thrones, and I probably will never fully commit to it, not with the direction they’re going. I also haven’t read A Song of Ice and Fire, but it’s on my to-do list. I get down and dirty with the shipping, though. Loras/Renly slays me. These are my three favorites.

[pristinely-ungifted]

It's great GREAT great that the Prince of Dorne, Oberyn Martell, the Red Viper is being OPENLY portrayed as bisexual. He's awesome and I'm super excited about that. He's also POC which is even better, because I really did not see the Dornish as being white people. So I'm super DUPER excited. 

But, oh, you know. He gets killed before we can even really get to like his character, so what's the fucking point. Maybe the show will change it and he'll live. I can dream. 

[promptdreamergraphics-blog]

"'And who are you,' the proud lord said,

'That I must bow so low?'

Only a cat of a different coat, that's all the truth I know.'

In a coat of gold or a coat of red, a lion still has claws,'

And mine are long and sharp, my lord, as long and sharp as yours.'

And so he spoke, and so he spoke, that Lord of Castamere,

And now the rains weep o'er his hall, with not a soul to hear.

Yes now the rains weep o'er his hall, with no one there to hear."

--The Rains of Castamere

[fedonciadale]

Do you trust D&D to bring the story to a satisfactory end the way GRRM intended it? Honestly I don't have much faith, but I also know that I can be a pessimist and I'm quite disillusioned with hollywood. I still think that most the GOT producers (not just D&D) are veteran Hollywood showrunners, and probably the only one looking out for the story in it's orginal form is GRRM, the rest are there to sell. I think they may yet take some license with the ending, like have D@ny redeemed in the end or

(2) have her skip the antagonist arc. I definitely don’t trust Sansa in their hands, they seem to have a very one dimensional opinion on what defines a ‘strong’ woman, that is if a woman acts like a man, dresses like a man and yells and fights then she’s stong - the only exception being a woman that rides dragons and walks through fire nude. They definitely ruined Jon and Tyrion - I honeslty can’t see book Jon and Tyrion behaving like D@nys posse. I just think they dug the whole too deep and last     

(3) season put the stamp on it being offcialy a hollywood cliche. People enjoyed it just because it’s GOT but when I pointed out the difrence between s7 and the earlier seasons with all the intricate plot and politics and complex character dynamics (instead of D@ny worshippers) they wholeheartedly agree. I think the showrunners are going to relay on the guaranteed fandom and probably some really good battle sequences and CGI. Unfortunately I think the character and political plots are not going to    

(4) half way decent. What really upseting me though is that this might be the only available source for us. I wouldn’t be nearly as worried, I woudn’t be watching the show at all if I thought there was chance for the final two books to be released.             

Dear nonny,

honestly, you voice my very own fears. I don’t trust D&D with halfway decent character description of women. They think strong woman = badass woman who fights which is exactly what GRRM did not.

And you are absolutely right about them dumbing down and whitewashing several characters. I still love Jon, but I’m not so blind that I don’t see the show has him far less grey and Tyrion is unrecognisable. The women on the other hand are much darker, Arya in season 7 really gave me shivers, and BookSansa would not have fed Ramsay to his dogs I’m sure. And let’s not even start about Bran....

And like you I would much prefer to get the elaborate meal of the last books, but I also want to know how it ends, damn it!

The reason I somehow trust that season 8 will at least satisfy me are the following:

- The final plottwist was designed in the mind of GRRM which means that it is a good twist, and even with a bad execution it might still be interesting enough to have the audience shaken.

- The only character and PoV they did actually justice is Da€nerys. Her PoV was translated very well to the screen, her aloofness, lack of friends, her worshippers, triumphant music, her loneliness, the way she wants to be a hero etc. etc. So, if they don’t give her the ending GRRM had in mind, it would be a waste of all the build-up and the whole “drawing the rug under the audience’s feet” - and they live for that, they love to do that. So if DarkDany happens in the books, as I think it will, they won’t skip it, and they won’t tone it down. People say that D&D like Da€nerys, because she gets everything, but I don’t think so. She gets everything because the story lets her get everything, and the fall of Icarus is inevitable

- Season 6 was way better than season 5. It still had plot-holes of gigantic proportions (knights of the Vale, cough, cough), but you were really drawn into it. I mean I knew that they mainly hadn’t let Sansa tell Jon about the Knights of the Vale because they needed the surprise moment in the BotB (and were too lazy or too intent on teasing Starkbowl for the next season to at least give a half decent explanation afterwards - which is possible after all), but that barely diminished the emotional impact of the cavalry charge in BotB. And the man responsible for episode 9 and 10 of season 6 is Miguel Sapochnik who’ll come back for season 8. So I trust him to do two very decent TV episodes. So, if they keep the pattern season 8 could be better than season 7.

- I tend to take actors’ statements with a huge grain of salt.... but most of the actors said that the end surprised them and that they would not have guessed it. That Nikolai Coster-Waldau said that he liked the ending actually gives me hope. He didn’t say that it was breath-taking, stunning etc. He said he like it. And I trust Nikolai.

- Anyway there will be some nice scenes I’m sure. I mean we had “Field of Fire 2.0.” in season 7 and this was really my favourite, and I’d watch that again. And Alan Taylor will not be returning - Thank God!

So, no, I don’t trust D&D enough, but there are some things that cause me to have hope and that’s GRRM, how Da€nerys’ PoV was put to screen, Miguel Sapochnik and Nikolai. And let’s be honest: DarkDany in season 8 would go down as a really excellent twist, a twist long in the build-up and the making and yet still somewhat invisible and under the radar to an audience that is used to see Da€nerys the (accidental) slave liberator as a hero.

Thanks for the ask! And sorry it took me so long, I’m so behind with my asks!