#the early books do have actual stories by grrm in them. but he's not in any (except his characters written by other people) since 2008 sigh

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

I was tagged by @mariedemedicis to post 9 books I'm looking forward to reading in 2025.

Masquerade in Lodi by Lois McMaster Bujold. This came out in 2020, but somehow I managed to miss it until reading a newer novella in the Penric and Desdemona series that briefly mentioned it. Downloaded to my kindle app, but haven't had a chance to read it yet.

Penric and the Bandit by Lois McMaster Bujold. The actual most recent P&D book, again it's been downloaded with no time to read it. I did finally catch up to Demon Daughter last month, so hopefully these last two will be read in January!

The Masquerades of Spring by Ben Aaronovitch. A spin-off of the Rivers of London series, set in 1920s NYC. I usually wait for the paperback, but I think this one may be digital only, at least for a long while. But Winter's Gifts was excellent fun to e-read, so I'll get to this one soon.

Stone and Sky by Ben Aaronovitch. The actual next book in the seies, the hardcover is coming out in July, no idea when the US paperback will be, so this might not be a 2025 book for me. Still, I'm looking forward to it!

Buried Deep and Other Stories by Naomi Novik. A short story collection, including works set in the Temeraire and Scholomance series, and also one in her upcoming new series, I'm sure this will be great, hopefully I'll read it before the end of summer.

The Summer War by Naomi Novik. First in a new fantasy series, coming out in September, it looks really interesting.

Wild Cards: Sleeper Straddle by various authors. Croyd Crenson, the Sleeper, has been one of my favorite Wild Cards characters since he was created by (the late great) Roger Zelazny in the first WC book. Looking forward to a book focused on his character, though I'm still waiting to find it in cheap used hardcover (as just about all my new series WC purchases have been). That usually shows up on Thriftbooks within a year of release, so hopefully after February!

Wild Cards: House Rules by various authors. From the description and the authors involved, this looks like it may combine the British Isles vibe of Knaves Over Queens and Three Kings with the time travel and alternate history (AH AU?) shenanigans of Low Chicago, one of my faves of the recent books in the series. This might not be a 2025 book for me (depending on how soon I can find a cheap used copy), but it's definitely on my list.

Wild Cards: Sins of the Father by Melinda M. Snodgrass and Michael Komarck. This one is a graphic novel, and I'm well behind on the Wild Cards GNs (last one I read was like 10 years ago), but I enjoy Snodgrass's writing, the story here should cover some long-running plot danglers, and Komarck's art is always gorgeous, so I'm interested in seeing how they work together in a comic book format. To buy when my budget allows...

Tagging @bidonica, @nanshe-of-nina, @ashenmotive, @norabombay, @child-of-hurin - and anyone else who wants to do it, consider yourself tagged!

[greenerteacups]

oooh please someday tell us what you think of GOT

oh, no, it's my fatal weakness! it's [checks notes] literally just the bare modicum of temptation! okay you got me.

SO. in order to tell what's wrong with game of thrones you kind of have to have read the books, because the books are the reason the show goes off the rails. i actually blame the showrunners relatively little in proportion to GRRM for how bad the show was (which I'm not gonna rehash here because if you're interested in GOT in any capacity you've already seen that horse flogged to death). people debate when GOT "got bad" in terms of writing, but regardless of when you think it dropped off, everyone agrees the quality declined sharply in season 8, and to a certain extent, season 7. these are the seasons that are more or less entirely spun from whole cloth, because season 7 marks the beginning of what will, if we ever see it, be the Winds of Winter storyline. it's the first part that isn't based on a book by George R.R. Martin. it's said that he gave the showrunners plot outlines, but we don't know how detailed they were, or how much the writers diverged from the blueprint — and honestly, considering the cumulative changes made to the story by that point, some stark divergence would have been required. (there's a reason for this. i'll get there in a sec.)

so far, i'm not saying anything all that original. a lot of people recognized how bad the show got as soon as they ran out of Book to adapt. (I think it's kind of weird that they agreed to make a show about an unfinished series in the first place — did GRRM figure that this was his one shot at a really good HBO adaptation, and forego misgivings about his ability to write two full books in however many years it took to adapt? did he think they would wait for him? did he not care that the series would eventually spoil his magnum opus, which he's spent the last three decades of his life writing? perplexing.) but the more interesting question is why the show got bad once it ran out of Book, because in my mind, that's not a given. a lot of great shows depart from the books they were based on. fanfiction does exactly that, all the time! if you have good writers who understand the characters they're working with, departure means a different story, not a worse one. now, the natural reply would be to say that the writers of GOT just aren't good, or at least aren't good at the things that make for great television, and that's why they needed the books as a structure, but I don't think that's true or fair, either. books and television are very different things. the pacing of a book is totally different from the pacing of a television show, and even an episodic book like ASOIAF is going to need a lot of work before it's remotely watchable as a series. bad writers cannot make great series of television, regardless of how good their source material is. sure, they didn't invent the characters of tyrion lannister and daenerys targaryen, but they sure as hell understood story structure well enough to write a damn compelling season of TV about them!

so but then: what gives? i actually do think it's a problem with the books! the show starts out as very faithful to the early books (namely, A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings) to the point that most plotlines are copied beat-for-beat. the story is constructed a little differently, and it's definitely condensed, but the meat is still there. and not surprisingly, the early books in ASOIAF are very tightly written. for how long they are, you wouldn't expect it, but on every page of those books, the plot is racing. you can practically watch george trying to beat the fucking clock. and he does! useful context here is that he originally thought GOT was going to be a trilogy, and so the scope of most threads in the first book or two would have been much smaller. it also helps that the first three books are in some respects self-contained stories. the first book is a mystery, the second and third are espionage and war dramas — and they're kept tight in order to serve those respective plots.

the trouble begins with A Feast for Crows, and arguably A Storm of Swords, because GRRM starts multiplying plotlines and treating the series as a story, rather than each individual book. he also massively underestimated the number of pages it would take him to get through certain plot beats — an assumption whose foundation is unclear, because from a reader's standpoint, there is a fucke tonne of shit in Feast and Dance that's spurious. I'm not talking about Brienne's Riverlands storyline (which I adore thematically but speaking honestly should have been its own novella, not a part of Feast proper). I'm talking about whole chapters where Tyrion is sitting on his ass in the river, just talking to people. (will I eat crow about this if these pay off in hugely satisfying ways in Winds or Dream? oh, totally. my brothers, i will gorge myself on sweet sweet corvid. i will wear a dunce cap in the square, and gleefully, if these turn out to not have been wastes of time. the fact that i am writing this means i am willing to stake a non-negligible amount of pride on the prediction that that will not happen). I'm talking about scenes where the characters stare at each other and talk idly about things that have already happened while the author describes things we already have seen in excruciating detail. i'm talking about threads that, while forgivable in a different novel, are unforgivable in this one, because you are neglecting your main characters and their story. and don't tell me you think that a day-by-day account tyrion's river cruise is necessary to telling his story, because in the count of monte cristo, the main guy disappears for nine years and comes hurtling back into the story as a vengeful aristocrat! and while time jumps like that don't work for everything, they certainly do work if what you're talking about isn't a major story thread!

now put aside whether or not all these meandering, unconcluded threads are enjoyable to read (as, in fairness, they often are!). think about them as if you're a tv showrunner. these bad boys are your worst nightmare. because while you know the author put them in for a reason, you haven't read the conclusion to the arc, so you don't know what that reason is. and even if the author tells you in broad strokes how things are going to end for any particular character (and this is a big "if," because GRRM's whole style is that he lets plots "develop as he goes," so I'm not actually convinced that he does have endings written out for most major characters), that still doesn't help you get them from point A (meandering storyline) to point B (actual conclusion). oh, and by the way, you have under a year to write this full season of television, while GRRM has been thinking about how to end the books for at least 10. all of this means you have to basically call an audible on whether or not certain arcs are going to pay off, and, if they are, whether they make for good television, and hence are worth writing. and you have to do that for every. single. unfinished. story. in the books.

here's an example: in the books, Quentin Martell goes on a quest to marry Daenerys and gain a dragon. many chapters are spent detailing this quest. spoiler alert: he fails, and he gets charbroiled by dragons. GRRM includes this plot to set up the actions of House Martell in Winds, but the problem is that we don't know what House Martell does in Winds, because (see above) the book DNE. So, although we can reliably bet that the showrunners understand (1) Daenerys is coming to Westeros with her 3 fantasy nukes, and (2) at some point they're gonna have to deal with the invasion of frozombies from Canada, that DOESN'T mean they necessarily know exactly what's going to happen to Dorne, or House Martell. i mean, fuck! we don't even know if Martin knows what's going to happen to Dorne or House Martell, because he's said he's the kind of writer who doesn't set shit out beforehand! so for every "Cersei defaults on millions of dragons in loans from the notorious Bank of Nobody Fucks With Us, assumes this will have no repercussions for her reign or Westerosi politics in general" plotline — which might as well have a big glaring THIS WILL BE IMPORTANT stamp on top of the chapter heading — you have Arianne Martell trying to do a coup/parent trap switcheroo with Myrcella, or Euron the Goffick Antichrist, or Faegon Targaryen and JonCon preparing a Blackfyre restoration, or anything else that might pan out — but might not! And while that uncertainty about what's important to the "overall story" might be a realistic way of depicting human beings in a world ruled by chance and not Destiny, it makes for much better reading than viewing, because Game of Thrones as a fantasy television series was based on the first three books, which are much more traditional "there is a plot and main characters and you can generally tell who they are" kind of book. I see Feast and Dance as a kind of soft reboot for the series in this respect, because they recenter the story around a much larger cast and cast a much broader net in terms of which characters "deserve" narrative attention.

but if you're making a season of television, you can't do that, because you've already set up the basic premise and pacing of your story, and you can't suddenly pivot into a long-form tone poem about the horrors of war. so you have to cut something. but what are you gonna cut? bear in mind that you can't just Forget About Dorne, or the Iron Islands, or the Vale, or the North, or pretty much any region of the story, because it's all interconnected, but to fit in everything from the books would require pacing of the sort that no reasonable audience would ever tolerate. and bear in mind that the later books sprout a lot more of these baby-plots that could go somewhere, but also might end up being secondary or tertiary to the "main story," which, at the end of the day, is about dragons and ice zombies and the rot at the heart of the feudal power system glorified in classical fantasy. that's the story that you as the showrunner absolutely must give them an end to, and that's the story that should be your priority 1.

so you do a hack and slash job, and you mortar over whatever you cut out with storylines that you cook up yourself, but you can't go too far afield, because you still need all the characters more or less in place for the final showdown. so you pinch here and push credulity there, and you do your best to put the characters in more or less the same place they would have been if you kept the original, but on a shorter timeframe. and is it as good as the first seasons? of course not! because the material that you have is not suited to TV like the first seasons are. and not only that, but you are now working with source material that is actively fighting your attempt to constrain a linear and well-paced narrative on it. the text that you're working with changed structure when you weren't looking, and now you have to find some way to shanghai this new sprawling behemoth of a Thing into a television show. oh, and by the way, don't think that the (living) author of the source material will be any help with this, because even though he's got years of experience working in television writing, he doesn't actually know how all of these threads will tie together, which is possibly the reason that the next book has taken over 8 years (now 13 and counting) to write. oh and also, your showrunners are sick of this (in fairness, very difficult) job and they want to go write for star wars instead, so they've refused the extra time the studio offered them for pre-production and pushed through a bunch of first-draft scripts, creating a crunch culture of the type that spawns entirely avoidable mistakes, like, say, some poor set designer leaving a starbucks cup in frame.

anyway, that's what I think went wrong with game of thrones.

[jackoshadows]

It's baffling how this fandom keeps theorizing that Arya's subplots and role in the story can be replaced by any Stark, specifically Sansa, and it would be just the same when the show did replace fake Arya with another character - and then GRRM specifically refuted that change several times and pointed to that change on the show as where show canon diverged from book canon!

This is a fandom talking point that GRRM himself has refuted and said 'Nah, you can't do that. That plot specifically needs Fake Arya. The story needs fake Arya in the North and when the TV show replaced her with another character, the TV show then diverges from the books and becomes different canon' .

Also GRRM is not talking about the writing for show Sansa in season 6, 7 or 8 and the direction D&D took her character on the show where the only support she gets is from Littlefinger and the Vale army he rallies to help her. In fact GRRM does not even mention Sansa in this interview. He is talking specifically of 'Fake Arya' and how Fake Arya is important to that plot point in the North.

They (D&D) started making changes even as early as season one. And I remember I had discussions with them back in season one. When I was more involved in the process, when we’d discuss things and the fact that they removed Jeyne Poole was a very early thing. They actually said, oh no, Jeyne Poole is in it. You see the girl that’s sitting next to Sansa in the one scene in the feast at Winterfell. Yes, that’s Jeyne Poole, but you never hear a name and she’s not in it, but I did tell them. ‘Yes, but there’s the butterfly effect’, as I called it, deriving from the famous Ray Bradbury story, A Sound of Thunder, crush a butterfly the Jurassic and suddenly you changed all of human history from that point forward. Unintentionally. A little change in a long narrative can have big changes further on. And now, Gone with the Wind didn’t have to worry about that, cause those two children that they removed never had any impact on the story. And Margaret Mitchell didn’t go on to write 6 more novels in which the children grew up and became the leader of the Ku Klux Klan. Whatever the hell, you know, she might have done with those two boys.

And I think they were both boys, and Rhett’s daughter was a girl. So she didn’t have to deal with the butterfly effect there. You know, when we remove Jeyne Poole from season one, then you don’t have Jeyne Poole to be the fake Arya, as happens in the book. So what do you do then? The butterfly effect has done that. (---)

The butterfly effect can have that, but getting back to the whole issue of canon, the butterfly effect affects the canon. But there’s also sometimes deliberate changes in a show where the showrunners or the writers or the studio, the network, or wherever it comes from, goes in a different direction. So what we’re doing at this point in the history of A Song of Ice and Fire, Game of Thrones, Westeros, whatever you wanna call it. Yeah. We have two canons. We have the show canon, the Game of Thrones canon. And we have the Song of Ice and Fire canon.

GRRM thought Fake Arya was so important he was insisting to D&D way back while filming season one in 2010 to cast Jeyne Poole.

And even D&D realized that the Jon/Arya relationship is so sacred that they didn't even attempt to replicate that with Sansa in the North. They even had show Jon Snow make a suicidal attempt to save his little brother Rickon Stark - which show Sansa advises against because fuck family - but we never got the whole Jon breaking his NW oaths to attack the Boltons for Arya Stark happening on the show with Sansa.

The asoiaf fandom loves appropriating book Arya's plots for Sansa. Jonsa shippers love appropriating her relationship with Jon for their utterly absurd crackship all the while dragging Arya down as 'ugly' 'violent' and 'masculine'.

Non-shippers love to give away all the politicking around Arya to Sansa, take away Arya intelligence and know-how of the North because their sexism only allows them to see one Stark girl as political and leader of the North. It's not about what the author has actually written for these characters, no, it's about which character passes their standard for femininity.

So yeah, one is free to replace Arya with Sansa because one is dissatisfied with Sansa's canonical book story that GRRM has written for the character and instead prefer Benioff and Weiss' show fanfiction or want Arya's book story for Sansa's character because she's conventionally beautiful and a 'real girl' according to the tradfems.

However, keep in mind that GRRM thinks 'Fake Arya' is very important to his story and that's a Northern political sublot that revolves specifically around Arya Stark in the books.

Once again, the Stark sisters and their book subplots are not interchangeable!

[pessimisticpigeonsworld]

Do you think that the Red Keep is haunted (In the books of course), like Harrenhal is said to be? I need someone to discuss ASOIAF lore and concepts with but I don’t have anyone so I’m asking here 😩 I like to imagine that since the Targaryens who are a more magical family built and lived in it for 300 years, the castle would be more susceptible to be affected by all the atrocities and events that have gone on there. The dead all leaving behind an imprint, their spirits and memories haunting the place, echoes of memories from a time long past.

I can imagine some random servant jumping out of their skin as they pass the throne room, later swearing up and down that they saw a figure sitting impaled on the Iron throne, blood dripping down to the floor, but that it disappeared in the blink of an eye. Another one swears they saw a young woman with silver hair standing dangerously close on a windowsill, but that it was too far away to make out who. A woman wearing a dark gown and long black veil is seen lurking around the corners, but her back is always turned to the observer and she slinks away into thin air before anyone has the chance to catch up to her. A woman in a green dress, chains rattling about her wrists as she runs down the corridors. The distant laughter of a little girl running after her black cat. Pounding and clattering behind heard from the Maidenvault at night, despite it being empty at the time. A little girl with silver hair in a white nightgown walking around the halls, looking for her mother to tell her she’s cold. A woman with a long braid being seen amongst the mist of the training yard early in the mornings, when no one else is there, practicing her swordplay. People swearing they saw the fearsome shadow of a dragon flying overheard, even a hundred years after their deaths. If you look at them out of the corner of your eyes, you could catch the portraits of the former Targaryens following your every move, their gazes burning into you. A woman dressed in red and black, crown on her head, seen walking the corridors at night and leaving trails of blood behind her. Hues of green fire illuminating windows of empty rooms as seen from outside, distant yells echoing through the corridors, screaming to burn them all. Worst of all is the little girl in a ragged red dress, hair matted and tangled, body emaciated and eye sockets empty, unspeakable creates crawling all over her tattered body, seen peeking out from behind the corners.

I don’t think it’s actually haunted like this since there’s nothing in canon to support it, but I love the idea so much!

Anon I absolutely love this idea!! I'm a huge fan of horror and this just totally speaks to me! I have to admit, I kinda wish GRRM would go more into the gothic horror themes he has in some parts of the story. The Targaryens definitely have a lot of potential for some great horror stories. I would love to see like a fanfic that focuses on something like this.

I think the idea of Dany encountering spirits of her ancestors when she goes to Dragonstone would be awesome. Especially since she's already had visions of her family members (except Rhaella), so it'd be interesting to see her actually interact with them as she is now.

Jon also has some great potential for horror, especially after his resurrection. Like he could have a connection to the dead and be able to see ghosts or something. I feel like him being literally haunted by Ygritte and Jeor could have some great angst potential.

I could totally see the same thing happening with some of the other houses. I feel like the Starks are a pretty obvious answer, what with their connection to the Others and the Old Gods. Plus Bran is basically already living some gothic shit.

Arya though, I could definitely see her encountering ghosts in the Trident when she returns to Westeros. I think her connection to the Faceless Men could definitely lend some great horror themes, especially if combined with ghostly encounters.

One family that definitely has some major horror vibes is the Boltons. Like the family being haunted by the spirits of their skinned enemies. Guards in the dungeons hearing screaming from unoccupied cells; prisoners having surprise cellmates. The ghost of Roose Bolton hanging over Ramsay slowly driving him to insanity (well more than he already is).

Related to that, Theon also is someone who, like Bran, already has some major gothic horror themes. However, there's still so much more we could lean into. Like him literally being haunted by Robb, Balon, and his brothers. Maybe meeting the original Reek during his time as Ramsay's prisoner.

I think there's soo much potential for this idea anon! These are all just some surface ideas, but I would love to talk about this more lmao!

[brandnewfridge]

re: the leaks, but honestly just the entirety of s2

Listen, I really liked the first season. Even though I think it had some pacing issues that could be solved by using that material for two seasons instead of craming everything into just the one, and despite the fact I found it sloppier than GoT in its prime and I disliked the way they were messing with the family trees. I have rewatched it multiple times. I have discussed it extensively with my father and my friends. I waited eagerly for s2.

And despite everything, I am feeling very disenchanted with the writing for this show. I feel like the problems it suffered last season have increased tenfold, and they added some new ones as well. I understand taking liberties from the source material, and in fact I think its part of the point of the show, since its a heavily biased history text with multiple unreliable sources, but I think there's a difference between that and whatever the hell it is that they're doing.

A good example of this, I think, presents itself very early in the season: Blood and Cheese.

I think having it come from Daemon and a "misunderstanding" is a good idea. Specially with the way it was treated after the fact: the conversation with Rhaenyra, how the other lords + Alys treat Daemon in the Riverlands, etc. It also makes sense that it would be portrayed in F&B the way that it was. However, how they adapted it pales in comparison with what actually happened in the book, which I think makes Halaena's character arc suffer in turn. I think this happened because they didn't show Maelor in the first season and they didn't want to add him in now? Even though I think he wouldnt be that difficult to introduce, and the audience would be able to accept his existence quickly, as Aegon's and Halaena's children weren't discussed that much in the first place. I'm not even sure they're mentioned by name in s1. And also, they're fine with giving a similar treatment to Daeron? Which I think it's strange, since the bulk of relevant characters in the conflict is mainly comprised of Viserys' children, and the complete absence, even in mention, even in passing, of one of them just to namedrop him in s2 is much more jarring than just, showing Jahaera playing with Maelor when Aegon comes in asking for Jahaerys. I don't know.

This is to say, it's not that I'm a book purist and dislike every single new thing they add. I like that the source material gives the adaptation room to breathe, and some of these new additions I do enjoy, at least in theory if not in practice. But they're making very strange changes, to characters, to plotlines, to family trees. The whole Rhaena/Nettles issue, for example.

A point that one of my friends has made is that oftentimes they treat the time that has passed between the airing of s1 and s2 as the time it has passed in-universe, which is very much decidedly not the same. There have been a very busy couple of weeks (as stated by Alicent in that one conversation with Larys in 02x04) in universe, and I think they're not giving the incredibly important things that have happened enough room to breathe per se. If it was time that they worried about, why shorten the season to eight episodes instead of the original ten the first season posessed? While simultaneously adding new plotlines or scenes like the Alicole affair, Daemon getting the Spirit Halloween experience at Harrenhall, or Rhaenyra going to KL to see Alicent, or Alicent frolicking in the woods. I have nothing against these things per se, I think they could add a lot to the story, the characters and their tragedy, but if I'm being honest I'd rather they used some of that runtime differently. It's like they want to stretch this show for as many seasons as they can but they also want to get to the next cool thing as soon as possible while the last one is still happening.

GoT started to shorten the number of episodes in s7.

GRRM has stated in his blog that he will not be attending the writers room for s3.

It's just a shame. Just a damn shame.

[alpaca-clouds]

Wanted: Good Fantasy Books

Hey, tumblr. One question for y'all. I tried to ask this on reddit a couple of time, but it turns out that on r/fantasy the people are quite unable to read and understand English clearly.

I am looking for some new Fantasy books to read. But... I am not willing to put up with the usual stuff. Which is the thing r/fantasy does not get.

I do not like Game of Thrones or anything GRRM has written. I do not think that GRRM is a good writer. I also do not like anything Brandon Sanderson has written, and frankly, I am annoyed that he gets to write his Mormon shit without getting the same kind of backlash for it female Mormon writers got for their stuff.

In fact, out of the big fantasy book series out there, The Witcher is the only book series I ever really enjoyed. Mostly, because it does the thing that pretty much most other big titles refuse to do: It engaged critically with systems of power that exist within the world. To me The Witcher series (the books that is) mainly are a conversation on colonialism, and the patriarchy.

My main issues with the usual fantasy worlds are the following:

A lot of it has basically a medieval or early Rennaissance European culture, without it making any sense, given that usually those worlds did not spring from a world that had at some points Romans or anything like Catholicism. (Mind you: I would be fine with it being set in a somewhat medieval European setting, if the worldbuilding makes sense. But most of the time it doesn't.)

The main characters are often just too young for my liking. I will not care for a main character who is younger than 25. Especially not if they are from a privileged group in that world.

This goes doubly so if the story involves a lot of action. In those cases I want it to make sense that the main character is capable, which usually works best when they are not super young and have trained for a long while.

It is fine though if there are multiple important main characters and one of them is still young.

One exception: If it actually goes a bit more into horror and the main character actually just tries to survive. In those cases I am fine with younger protagonists.

If the world replicates patriarchy, queerphobia and shit, I want the story to actually comment on it.

I most of the time do not enjoy too prominent romances, especially not if those go "will they, won't they". Especially not if those are straight, and one of the partners mainly exists just to be the love interest having little to no agency outside of that relationship.

I want to see creative worldbuilding, not always a copy paste of some tolkienesque stuff.

I am perfectly happy to buy indie books and sp stuff.

[rise-my-angel]

In season 7, episode 1, they showed nice lannister soldiers talking to Arya and humanizing them as fathers that just wanted to go home to their wives and daughter

In season 7, episode 4, Daenerys brutally killed Lannister soldiers and we watched several shots of them screaming in pain and suffering as they were burned alive. Then, she burned alive the Taryls for not bending the knee

Do you think this was intentional? A few episodes later, she kidnaps Jon

It's actually very hard to say how intentional it was. The problem is that so many people cheered Dany on for the Feild of Fire when the framing of Jaime as pov character says otherwise.

Jaime is such a smart character to have in that position. He is watching the potential of horror he murdered Aerys II to prevent, being committed by his daughter on a living dragon. If it was intentional I think they seriously fumbled how they framed Dany to the audience.

They missed the opportunity of having Jon learn that Dany killed Sam's father and brother the exact way her own father murdered Jon's own grandfather and uncle.

It's like they put in the breadcrumbs of where Danys path was going but either forgot to flesh it out or were too lazy too. Ever since season 1, the framing of where Dany was headed has always been there but it was framed in a way that made the audience cheer her on.

And I really liked the concept of Arya breaking bread with Lannister soldiers, people in another time she wouldnt have hesitated to take revenge out on. Showing that most people in these wars are just living their lives and the horrible people shes killed are not indicative of the majority if the population, restoring a bit if they faith in humanity. And I think the idea of the field of fire was good but executed poorly because they still managed to put the audience on Danys side.

I'd like to say it was intentional but very poorly executed in the long run, but it is very hard to give Benioff and Weiss even that much credit because of how hard they fumbled that execution.

Dany in the show and books was always headed for the burning of Kings Landing, but where the boom is clever and tricks you with how it frames Danys story being so isolated so that the reveal when she gets to Westeros is you realise you've only EVER seen her actions framed through her own eyes and you realize how hard you for her own propaganda. You will realize that grrm intentionally does not include multiple povs for Dany because its building you up to when you finally see her through the eyes of POV characters we've spent so many years with, what a monster she doesnt even realize she truly is.

The show struggled with that framing device and needed to stop playing both sides for so long. They needed to pick a lane early on and just commit to the fact that Dany has always been going down a dark path. Instead they tried to have their cake and eat it too, by having the Dark Dany ending but reap the benefits of pushing Danys own personal hero propaganda.

It's so hard to tell if any of it was truly intentional because I dont even think the show understood if theh were being intentional or not.

[ilargizuri]

The Long Night

What I really hated about the Show is that the so-called "Long Night" and the so-called "Long Winter" lasted a few weeks in the Show, when every person who knows something about winter told us in the Books, that it would be a long Winter. Like VERY, VERY Long.

I just saw a Video on YouTube that theorized about the period of the Long Night and they said that it is possible that GRRM actually plans a really long Night where his Characters will grow into adults and do some really important things. Rikkon could be a Man at the End of the Story, Bran be a real King at the Age of his Father, etc.

Now what annoyed me, again, about this Video, is that the Creator also thought that Daenerys and Jon would become real Lovers during that Winter. This is a possibility if Daenerys wants to sit out Winter with her Dragons in the North, sewing Clothes, Blankets and such Stuff near the Hearth with Sansa. And actually govern a community through this Winter, but Govern, is not what Daenerys wants or enjoys or even envisions when she thinks about her Future, because most of the time her "Plans" only include going to Westeros and winning the Iron throne with Fire and Blood!

So Daenerys won't sit at the Fire and wait until Springs comes and the Deep, Deep Snow will melt, actually, That deep, deep Snow will be the Reason the North won't be able to aid her in her War for the Iron Throne if that part is not already over. Because it would take months to get through this Snow, not to mention that the North is low on Supplies, so most likely the soldiers would starve to death, if they tried to march South. So if Daenerys comes North helping them to fight the Others, then it is very likely that the Armies of Daenerys, will starve and freeze to death.

Recently I discovered the explanation about Jon being the Mummers Dragon, which makes some Sense. And Quaithe warns Daenerys to not trust that Person. but so far those People she shouldn't trust were never actively against Daenerys. Tyrion (The Lion) comes to Daenerys's Aid, The Kraken wants to be Daenerys's new Husband, and the perfumed Seneshall is probably Varys, but he isn't planning actively against Daenerys, just not for her. So in general, it is possible that if Jon is the Mummers Dragon, he isn't even actively against Daenerys, so the stabby scene most likely won't happen. BUT Jon mentioned in his Godd Bye Scene with Arya, in the Books, when she gets Needle (I think it was there, but it could be earlier not sure) That they will find Arya in the Snow frozen to Death with Needle in her Hand. So the Picture he paints here, is that they find a Girl/Woman in the Snow, with her Weapon of Choice frozen to Death.

Let's just pretend the War for the Iron Throne is before the War for the Dawn, I mean the book series is not called "Game of Thrones" it is called: "A Song of Ice and Fire." So the War for the Dawn is probably more important than the Squibble-squabble over an uncomfortable Iron Chair. So the Big Final Fight in the Books is most likely against the Others. So IF Daenerys comes North because of Jon and he is the Mummer Dragon, then his Wish for her and aid the North in his War against the Others is what will be Daenerys's Fall. He doesn't even have to do much, all he has to do is win the War and stay in the North when Daenerys goes back too early because it is even colder than when they arrived, she may threaten Sansa and the Starks when they try to stop her for her own Good. But Daenerys doesn't listen, and freezes to Death on her way back to her Throne, And when Spring comes they find a Woman frozen to Death with the Weapon of her Choice, a Dragon. She dies without Issue and a Big Counsel is called to choose a new King, which then either results in the separation of the Seven Kingdoms and Bran becomes King in the North, and so on.

Jon can still become a Stark, still being together with Sansa, maybe even Married to her. They become Lord and Lady of a Castle and Rikkon can still become whatever he wants to be. It is a possibility. Also, Bran could be older than he was in the Show when Winter is over because the Winter in the books will last longer than one Night.

[first-of-her-nxme]

On show!sansa getting book!arya's story: although very likely to be in arya's future, idk if grrm would've revealed that much of the future so early on. I'm more inclined to believe that all this was pulled straight out of d&d's bums. But isn't it so telling (and depressing) (and infuriating) how all these inspiring motifs and exciting elements were given to a quiet and aesthetically feminine character, in detriment to her own canon narrative, and were completely stripped from the one that actually has them in abundance?

Hi Anon!

As usual I apologize for the delay.

I must say that Sansa got big chunks of Arya's book plot that have already been revealed in the books.

For instance, Arya's administrative skills are defined in the very first book but season 1 of Game of Thrones didn't mention it at all.

Then, Arya continued her education in Braavos. She learned cooking, she learned languages, history and politics but the showrunners cut that too. They only showed her figthing.

Also, GRRM has already written Arya's marriage by proxy ( Jeyne Poole's wedding to Ramsay ) so in the books she is Lady of Winterfell now even though she doesn't know it. The Northmen support her.

These are things that have already been revealed. In addition we also get lots of clues, prophetic dreams and so on. They are evenly distributed across the text from the first book till A Dance with Dragons. GRRM is very clever here. Sometimes the riddles we got in the first book only make sense when he completes them with something from the next books.

Of course, you are right, D&D made up lots of stuff too. Still, some things come from the source.

And I completely agree with you, D&D made some horrible decisions. Like you said, they ruined both characters. Sadly, Arya suffered more, they stole her story.

Perhaps, they did it because they liked Sansa and wanted her to be more important. I know that it happens in Sansa fandom too. Many people steal Lyanna's and Arya's characteristics and attribute them to Sansa because they think it makes the character better and more relevant.

If they had followed the books, Arya would have stolen the show. This is going to happen if GRRM ever completes the series. Sansa doesn't have that much to do after her King's Landing episode. While Arya is an important figure in the game even when she is far and away in Braavos.

I like Sansa's softness in the books. I like her ability to keep her feminine "armor" no matter what is happening around her. It's interesting to see her toughen up while she keeps her ladylike exterior. And I like how Arya is getting more feminine and gains confidence in the area that she believed was Sansa's only. Such great character development served on a silver platter by GRRM! And D&D still managed to ruin it. Oh, well.

[maisiestyle]

Jeyne Poole’s Importance to Arya

I love how passionate GRRM is of his canon stories. Especially the Jeyne Poole storyline which he talks about in new interview with History of Westeros before the House of Dragon premiere.

I wrote the books, I presented the story, at least for the first five books. And as we got into it, David and Dan did an amazingly faithful adaption in many ways, but not 100% faithful adaption.

They started making changes even as early as season one. And I remember I had discussions with them back in season one. When I was more involved in the process, when we’d discuss things and the fact that they removed Jeyne Poole was a very early thing.

They actually said, oh no, Jeyne Poole is in it. You see the girl that’s sitting next to Sansa in the one scene in the feast at Winterfell. Yes, that’s Jeyne Poole, but you never hear a name and she’s not in it, but I did tell them. ‘Yes, but there’s the butterfly effect’, as I called it, deriving from the famous Ray Bradbury story, A Sound of Thunder, crush a butterfly the Jurassic and suddenly you changed all of human history from that point forward.

Unintentionally. A little change in a long narrative can have big changes further on. ...] You know, when we remove Jeyne Poole from season one, then you don’t have Jeyne Poole to be the fake Arya, as happens in the book. So what do you do then? The butterfly effect has done that.

GRRM's assistant Ty was onset during Dany's wedding scenes and he also voiced concerns of changes D&D were making that could affect the story later on. D&D ignored him too. We know GRRM wrote his last GoT script for S4 and clearly introduced the Jeyne Poole/FakeArya plotline which D&D later cut out. GRRM then said he had no idea where D&D were going with Sansa's storyline during a Q&A soon after.

GRRM goes on to say in that new interview:

And as I write them, and I’ve said this in a previous blog post, I always knew that things were gonna be different, but as I’m writing, as the stories are coming alive, and the characters are coming alive, taking me further and further away from the show.

So there’s gonna be some very considerable differences, and the book canon is gonna be quite different from the show as we get deeper into it. 

[jonsnowunemploymentera]

Alright, I’m back to making crackpot ASOIAF theories and today’s theory is that Jon Snow will be the subject of the ADOS epilogue; he may not be the actual POV, but will be the main subject (if that makes sense). My reasoning for this comes for a very important (but very vague) hint about ADOS.

Daniel Abraham, he guy who did the comics, stated that there is a throwaway line in AGOT that would be important to the last scene in ADOS.

There are things about this story that only [GRRM] knows, and they aren't all obvious. There was one scene I had to rework because there's a particular line of dialog -- and you wouldn't know it to look at -- that's important in the last scene of "A Dream of Spring."

He reaffirmed this again in 2019:

I know some details about A Dream of Spring because of the conversations we had about A Game of Thrones. I mean, there were things he was setting up in early chapters in A Game of Thrones that are references to the end of the series.

So we wonder, what is this important line of dialogue that will be referenced in the last scenes of ADOS? Well, I have a candidate:

“We should start back,” Gared urged as the woods began to grow dark around them. “The wildlings are dead.”

“Do the dead frighten you?” Ser Waymar Royce asked with just the hint of a smile.

- Prologue, AGOT

This is the very first line in the series. One could say that it’s the series opener. It features a ranging up North headed by Waymar Royce - a hot headed 18 yr old who’s as inexperienced as they come. This prologue mainly introduces the Night’s Watch and the Others (the series main antagonists). There’s also mentions of the wildlings, who have been warring with the Night’s Watch for quite some time.

So why is this important? Well, fans have made the connection between Waymar Royce and Jon Snow. In fact, there’s a very convincing theory out there that Waymar (in this prologue) is meant to be a Jon Snow stand in. And part of the theory is that the Others who come upon Waymar and the ranging party were looking for the Last Hero….they were looking for Jon Snow, whether they knew it or not. Like, how Waymar is described in the prologue is how Jon is described in the next chapter (Bran I). Their personalities are even a little similar in that book. Both are young, rash, hot headed and inexperienced. The difference is Waymar’s story is ending and Jon’s is just beginning. Jon won’t stay that way because he develops as a character throughout.

So think about it. Wouldn’t it be quite fitting for the series closer to mirror the series opener and be about a ranging up north? But this time, it’s not going to feature a fight with the Others since they’ll already be defeated - with Jon Snow being one of the leading figures. There won’t be talk of fighting with the wildlings because the Freefolk have already been brought over - by Jon himself. It won’t feature death (of the ranging party or the emergence of the Others) but will be about life - the new ranging party will be going out to look for signs of spring (life) and not death.

Where the series opener (prologue) is about death and war, the series closer (epilogue) will be about life and peace. Where we have a hot headed 18 yr old Waymar Royce to lead this small party, we’ll have 18 yr old Jon who’s wiser, more capable, and more experienced; Jon is forever 18 since you know, he died (probably) and is essentially stuck in time and what not). Unlike Waymar, Jon will be an agent of reconciliation, spring after winter, life after death; all these things define his arc and leadership.

Plus, Jon’s arc will come full circle. He’ll be a ranger, steward, and builder all at once; ranging to find new land for people to occupy after the WfTD, a builder of new nations, and a steward to rule over the land he has found/conquered. He’ll be the lord commander of a new Watch (but this one looks for signs of spring/life not winter/death). He’ll be the king too (a new version of the king beyond the wall but not a 1:1 of what Mance was since there probably won’t be a wall anymore, so he’ll just be the king). He’ll still be watching and seeing, important motifs in his arc throughout the series.

And it’s not too far fetched to say that Jon may go on a ranging up north sometime in the future. In fact, there might be sufficient foreshadowing.

Far off to the north, a wolf began to howl. Another voice picked up the call, then another. Ghost cocked his head and listened. “If he doesn’t come back,” Jon Snow promised, “Ghost and I will go find him.” He put his hand on the direwolf’s head.

“I believe you,” Tyrion said, but what he thought was, And who will go find you? He shivered.

- Tyrion III, AGOT

So yeah….

The TL;DR of this is that the series epilogue will feature a ranging to go find signs of spring (life) headed by Jon Snow, the Last Hero and the true king; not a stand in like the prologue, but the real deal. And maybe he’ll go further and further up north until he reaches the Land of Always Winter/the Heart of Winter where he will take guardianship/rulership of it. Honestly, I guess I’m just kind of obsessed with the idea of the boy named Snow going north to become the true King of Winter when all is said and done.

[abcdosaka]

this was the moment Sansa became my fav character in the whole series. I always loved Arya and I remember not liking Sansa too much in s1 but this blew my mind as a teenager. Sophie turners acting is just sooo good. i even remember i was actually so pissed the hound got in the way even though I guess he saved her life (sigh)

I’d give anything to have them redo s5-8 and make them actually book accurate bc the way this show brought the story to life was so amazing. obviously there’s some things that are missing that I wish they included in the show and also a general undercurrent of early 2010s misogyny that wasn’t really there in the books but I do feel like sometimes the writing is a bit too detailed. However grrm knows how to write a story compared to the two geniuses running this show

[jackoshadows]

I have always felt that Benioff and Weiss replacing Jeyne Poole with Sansa on the show was when the writing for the Northern plot became extremely moronic and everything that happens there in seasons 6-8  totally careened the show off the tracks. And reading some of GRRM’s more recent interviews only confirms this for me.

This is D&D on why they made the change:

And it’s because of Turner’s strength, Benioff continued, that it made sense to give Sansa a dramatic storyline this season and to use Ramsay’s engagement for that very purpose. In fact, the showrunners first thought about putting Sansa and Ramsay together back when they were writing season 2. “We really wanted Sansa to play a major part this season,” Benioff said. “If we were going to stay absolutely faithful to the book, it was going to be very hard to do that. There was a subplot we loved from the books, but it used a character that’s not in the show.”

It’s very clear now that GRRM thinks the lack of fake Arya is the biggest change that took the show in a very different direction compared to the books. It’s interesting that when he refers to the butterfly effect slowly ballooning into a huge dragon effect he is referring to the lack of fake Arya in the north. Clearly this is important for GRRM because he has been talking about this from 2011 (to D&D) to as recently as 2022.

At a convention in 2013 GRRM said this: 

In a convention panel this year, George said on the record that he had no idea what they were doing with Sansa or where they’re taking her storyline, which now makes sense perhaps. He was not pleased when he was talking about it, so who knows what’s going to happen with her! Knowing GRRM, that could mean they’re going off the canon reservation, and/or that they’re going to be making a lot of shit up

This was GRRM commenting in 2015 about the Sansa in Winterfell plot:

Let me reiterate what I have said before. How many children did Scarlett O'Hara have?  Three, in the novel.  One, in the movie.  None, in real life: she was a fictional character, she never existed. The show is the show, the books are the books; two different tellings of the same story.  

There have been differences between the novels and the television show since the first episode of season one.  And for just as long, I have been talking about the butterfly effect.  Small changes lead to larger changes lead to huge changes.  HBO is more than forty hours into the impossible and demanding task of adapting my lengthy (extremely) and complex (exceedingly) novels, with their layers of plots and subplots, their twists and contradictions and unreliable narrators, viewpoint shifts and ambiguities, and a cast of characters in the hundreds. 

And yes, more and more, they differ.  Two roads diverging in the dark of the woods, I suppose... but all of us are still intending that at the end we will arrive at the same place. In the meantime, we hope that the readers and viewers both enjoy the journey.  Or journeys, as the case may be. Sometimes butterflies grow into dragons.

This is GRRM in August 2022, before the premiere of HOTD (When he started getting more critical of D&D’s adaptation) when asked about whether HOTD was canon or not

It opens a very large area for discussion. And I’ve been asked about this by various other interviewers in various forms and interviews past. And I often respond with the question for the questioner how many children did Scarlett O’Hara have?

They (D&D) started making changes even as early as season one . And I remember I had discussions with them back in season one. When I was more involved in the process, when we’d discuss things and the fact that they removed Jeyne Poole was a very early thing.

They actually said, oh no, Jeyne Poole is in it. You see the girl that’s sitting next to Sansa in the one scene in the feast at Winterfell. Yes, that’s Jeyne Poole, but you never hear a name and she’s not in it, but I did tell them. ‘Yes, but there’s the butterfly effect’, as I called it, deriving from the famous Ray Bradbury story, A Sound of Thunder, crush a butterfly the Jurassic and suddenly you changed all of human history from that point forward.

Unintentionally. A little change in a long narrative can have big changes further on. And now, Gone with the Wind didn’t have to worry about that, cause those two children that they removed never had any impact on the story. And Margaret Mitchell didn’t go on to write 6 more novels in which the children grew up and became the leader of the Ku Klux Klan. Whatever the hell, you know, she might have done with those two boys.

And I think they were both boys, and Rhett’s daughter was a girl. So she didn’t have to deal with the butterfly effect there. You know, when we remove Jeyne Poole from season one, then you don’t have Jeyne Poole to be the fake Arya, as happens in the book. So what do you do then? The butterfly effect has done that.

There is then a discussion in there about how The Expanse was a far better adaptation (I agree!) because the book writers were actually in the writer’s room and involved in the process of combining characters and plots.  And then GRRM says this:

They (Expanse writers Ty and Daniel) would be in the writer’s room and the showrunner, who was not them, initially, would say, we’re gonna remove this person. And you know, Ty or Daniel would say, we could do that. But then when you get to season four, there’s gonna be a problem because you took that other thing.

The butterfly effect can have that, but getting back to the whole issue of canon, the butterfly effect affects the canon. But there’s also sometimes deliberate changes in a show where the showrunners or the writers or the studio, the network, or wherever it comes from, goes in a different direction. So what we’re doing at this point in the history of A Song of Ice and Fire, Game of Thrones, Westeros, whatever you wanna call it.

Yeah. We have two canons. We have the show canon, the Game of Thrones canon. And we have the Song of Ice and Fire canon. And in the book canon, obviously, still writing The Winds of Winter, I’m sure you all know that, and then there’s another book beyond that. And as I write them, and I’ve said this in a previous blog post, I always knew that things were gonna be different, but as I’m writing, as the stories are coming alive, and the characters are coming alive, taking me further and further away from the show.

So there’s gonna be some very considerable differences, and the book canon is gonna be quite different from the show canon as we get deeper into it.

So this is GRRM very clearly spelling it out that replacing Jeyne Poole or fake Arya with Sansa on the show has split wide open the book and the show canon with there being a GOT canon i.e what happened on the show and a book canon i.e the events with fake Arya in the North.

GRRM even mentions how the Jon Snow sequel is tricky because the show’s canon is now different to the books.

Their version of Euron Greyjoy is day and night from my version of Euron Greyjoy and similar changes. There are two different canons. Now, because most of these shows that we’re developing, almost all of them are prequels. I think it’s a single canon. Because all of these prequels can lead up to Game of Thrones at the beginning. The one that’s a little trickier is the Jon Snow show, cause that’s the only sequel. That being said, it’s a little tricky. It keeps me busy and I don’t know what’s gonna come, but we do have, as I say, a number of different shows in development, every one has a different showrunner.

This is why it simply makes no sense when people combine the show and the books when talking about these characters. When certain book plots and show plots are selectively chosen and combined to argue about this or that character’s endings. The one has nothing to do with the other.

As the author himself has made obviously clear, when D&D replaced Jeyne Poole with Sansa, the show split from book canon and became it’s own thing. Everything from that point forwards on the show is Game of Thrones and not A Song of Ice and Fire. To know what happens to book Arya, Jon, Dany, Sansa etc we need GRRM to finish the books with his characters and the story he is telling.

[bohemian-nights]

I agree with everything you say about Nettles. But can honestly I’m not surprised with how Rhaenyra feels about her given G.R Marten sucks at writing women he either writes them as weak and defensless (like early show Sansa and even Laena) or crazy psychopaths (like Daenarys, Cercie and Rhaenyra) he can’t write women properly I don’t think I could see someone who was groomed from an early age get mad at someone like Nettles who was also groomed. But G.R Martin can’t seem to write women and ends up ruining them or having them do something out of realistic standards. Which sucks cause I think Rhaenyra and similar characters have so much potential but it’s ruined by his inability to write women. I think the problem is George R Martin.

-🎈

I can totally see someone being groomed turn around and then get mad/jealous at another woman being groomed by the same man. Especially if she views that woman as being beneath her(which is the case with Rhaenyra and Nettles), but I agree that a some of the women in ASOIF fall into one dimensional tropes/stereotypes.

I think GRRM main problem is that he isn’t the best at writing complex women rather than women as a whole.

I actually think that Rhaenyra’s book characterization makes sense. She’s a woman who seems to never have been told no. Which does not go with the times she’s living in.

She’s a Targaryen so her being entitled or turning “crazy” is kinda their MO. We wouldn’t have a story if she wasn’t who she was 🤷🏽‍♀️ Plus F&B is written like a history book so her character is not as fleshed out as she would be in a traditional novel.

Sansa being an annoying preteen/teenager also makes sense. She is extremely young, naive, and grew up in a sheltered environment. She was raised to be a lady/possible queen consort so her coming off as a weak and defensive at first sight isn’t bad writing per say, but I can see how it falls into a trope.

I wouldn’t call Laena weak just underdeveloped, but again that’s mainly due to the fact that F&B is a history novel rather than a tradition one. Her arc isn’t very important in the grand scheme of things for house Targ. (I’m sorry Laena 😔 rip)

Book!Danaerys has not gone crazy yet so we’ll see what happens/how it happens.

I won’t lie, book!Cersei is written as being straight up evil(and not to mention incredibly idiotic). She’s pretty terrible. Luckily Lena Headey was/is a great actress and brought life into the character cause otherwise 😬

Honestly most people who are in positions of power like (Rhaenyra, Cersei, and Danaerys) are really messed up/evil people. Especially when you factor in the feudal system/medievalish time period ASOIF is set in. I don’t know if GRRM was trying to make a social commentary or not, but he’s not writing them too far off from how they’d really be.

Maybe I’m giving him too much credit🤷🏽‍♀️ Idk he is a male writer so he probably is biased, but I don’t think he’s the worst at writing women. If anything I’d say that the show writers(especially dumb and dumber) are pretty terrible at writing women.

[thephantomcasebook]

To be honest, I'm afraid they won't include Daeron in 2s. I mean, despite the fact that Martin confirmed it, I think the writers will still decide on their own. Because no one from the actors talks about him, no one mentions him. It would be so weird to have another blond guy show up in 2s without any explanation xd. The show set such a tone for Alicent's dysfunctional family by sacrificing book!Helaena that Daeron would look quite strange next to them. Because everyone says "Daeron will be the most normal among them." And it's kinda weird (lol)

Clear the Chickens off the runway, I'll be the bad guy.

The reason that no one mentions him from the cast is because, none of the actors most likely read the source material. They all watched "Game of Thrones" - except for D'arcy who didn't seem to do shit of anything but show up. And, to be fair, when they were cast, the edition of "Fire & Blood" that was on the shelves at the time is drastically different than the one that is out now.

I'll be blunt. The culture of Season 1 production was straight fucked and it, most likely, will fuck the show in the long run. The attitude of the production and the casting process was a giant "Fuck you" to not just the source material, but the fans as well.

Spotchnik has famously - Legendarily - hated the viewing audience and George RR Martin. Why HBO asked him to head this venture is the type of Hollywood foolishness I've come to expect. Spotchnik and some activist producers took over the show and decided that they wanted to tell their own story, not GRRM's ... and it was gonna be about the patriarchy and women's struggles rather than what "The Dance of the Dragons" was really about ... which was the corruption of Power in the hands of any gender.

Olivia Cooke and Emma D'arcy are hold outs and relics of this agenda minded Spotchnik and Hess led narrative. They were chosen, because, the political message that hijacked the project was one that appealed to them and they fit with. So, no, they didn't read any of the books - Cooke binge watched "Game of Thrones" and D'arcy proudly proclaimed not to give a shit about anything. Most likely because they were told they didn't need to, because, fuck the source material ... we're telling our feminist political story.

And the contempt for the fans and GRRM's source material was extremely evident in their press tour interviews.

Now, with Spotchnik giving his walking papers along with his dumb ideas, and GRRM back in the writers room having to emergency rewrite Season 2 and vowing publicly to keep a closer eye on the production from now on. As well as a 50 BILLION dollar in debt Warner Brothers breathing down their neck, I can almost guarantee you that Season 2 is most likely gonna be a completely different animal from Season 1.

Alan Taylor - who is taking over Production - is a extremely experienced "Keep the trains running on time" kinda show runner from the old day of early "Game of Thrones" who is about efficiency and foundation building. I don't see him having any agenda but to make sure everything runs smoothly and as it should.

As a writer myself I feel that Daeron is a perfect fit, because, he's so different from his siblings. I feel that him coming back from the Stepstone Wars via Oldtown is perfect to show a contrast to what perhaps the Greens were like before he left and what they became after he was gone. Daeron is also a perfect foil against Larys Strong who is trying to turn Alicent to the Dark Side and having that contrast with Daeron whose simple every day morality and honor could pull Alicent out of this manic tailspin and bring her prospective.

Condal said that he expects a lot of people to root for Team Green in Season 2 from the stuff that GRRM, Alan Taylor, and he had been working on. And once upon a time, Daeron was a creation that GRRM actually was interested in. Despite editing his character down recently, GRRM still maintains his extreme importance ... and highlighted him in the Blu-Ray features of the Later Seasons of "Game of Thrones".

I think we'll get Daeron in Season 2 ...

But I'm not sure about Alys Rivers, Nettles, or any of the other Dragonseed Riders - I feel they'll be in Season 3.

[horizon-verizon]

Differences Between Cersei and Rhaenyra

(Book Versions)

Thematically, these two have similar experiences and valences to the story concerning queenship, sexual autonomy, and misogyny in a federal context. But they have also some pretty stark differences that affect how they BOTH managed to have their children and become mothers and how they view the persons closest to them while also having different core desires (at least from what I could glean from F&B as well as GRRM's words about So Spake Martin HERE):

(could be wrong, bc we don't have PoVs for Rhaenyra) Rhaenyra did not seem to crave leadership or to at least crave the way Cersei did in childhood, before Viserys I proclaimed her heir; it is after Viserys named her his heir she developed and/or was actually obvious with her ambition and desire for power -- Cersei, from the earliest time of us going back to her childhood, craved to be treated exactly the same as her twin brother but also specifically wanted to have the same power and influence over people as her father partially to make up for the respect she was missing from her family, that developed quickly into a need for dominance...you could say that Cersei was like Saera but had that need even earlier and worse off -- Rhaenyra on the other hand, at least had a lot of love and some sort of respect from both her parents early on

Rhaenyra, unlike Cersei, was both a princess and the officially declared heir for the entire realm -- Cersei was the Consort of the monarch, not in any way able to inherit the throne from her husband or any man by custom; while both in some way get to be in the positions they are in through their father's "work", one is just straight up named an heir to the throne helped by being born into royalty while the other married into royalty through her father's machinations

therefore, Rhaenyra technically should have had more wiggle room to "get away" with "passing" off her kids as her husband's, as her father being king, accepting her children while definitely knowing they weren't Laenor's, and his unequivocal-even if misguided-love for her; Cersei's father only sees her as a tool, there is no real love there and he doesn't know that her children are actually Jaime's...if he did, I think he'd still keep it a secret for the sake of the house's survival and not for Cersei herself, unlike Viserys who I think would do anything to protect Rhaenyra (and as he thinks it should be done, which is to make sure she has a good image that appeals to the lords and concilate with their views of her) but he'd be too disgusted and bitter about it because it's another thing about his family that will dirupt his vision of perfection and Lannister supremacy -> in his mind, possibly undo all that he worked for to bring the Lannisters to their elevated position in the Westerosi social framework AND his own legacy, as sibling incest for anyone but the Targs is extremely taboo in Westeros

Rhaenyra, as soon as she wears her red/black outfit in 111 A.C., has self-advocated/been able to self-advocate and then "practice" autonomous rule as soon as she landed at Dragonstone to build her family away from King's Landing; Cersei never had an equivalent experience except maybe the funeral where she wears the black gown w/red rubies, but that was more her having a private moment of defiance and triumph done publicly and disguised as grief rather than an open and well-understood declaration of autonomy ->

Laenor and Robert Baratheon are two very different people with dif circumstances and relationships with their spouses: Laenor is gay, has not lived with Rhaenyra or was forced to in any way for a long period of time while Cersei was forced to live close to Robert, in spite of Cersei and Laenor being both royal Consorts; Laenor never abused Rhaenyra nor vice versa and I think they had an understanding b/t them concerning the openness of their marriage bc neither was attracted to each other nor felt that they had to perform any sort of conventional gender role as a couple nor individually AND are still content with what they worked with in terms of happiness and power positions; Cersei doesn't want to be the conventional ideal of Westerosi womanhood, she actually wants to eschew it altogether and be a man. Robert has all she wants while he abuses her; Laenor knows that Rhaenyra's sons are not biologically his but he seems to accept them anyway and treats them as good and intimately as an aristocratic father would when he's forced into a marriage and unattracted to said spouse in this aristocratic bubble while Robert doesn't know and never got to know that Cersei's kids aren't his and would probably kill them all to save his own sense of pride and punish Cersei for her sexual disobedience and taking to something the Targs would do -> Robert also abuses or completely ignores his children if mostly by emotional means neglects partly bc he sees them as failing extensions of himself

not only did Viserys know, Laenor's father Corlys definitely knew the boys weren't Laenor's and continued to both name them "Velaryon" with Velaryon names and care for them as grandchildren -- Rhaenyra had support from a different house than her own

From this mixture of elements, Rhaenyra would have been able to keep her kids safe more from her own authority-supported-by-most-of-her-family if it weren't for the green side and Alicent's rumor-mongering and usurpation, and there was much actual, bonafide love motivating several actors. Cersei's support system would probably have attempted to preserve those kids' lives for public image, power, and self-preservation (except Jaime and maybe Tyrion, but the most force & resources should/could/would come from Tywin). Both have had the experience and desire to protect their kids' very lives from threatening external forces and have performed acts to do so--even murder (the greens/Alicent/Vaemond and Robert/Ned; both, wider society) while or after acting to keep the power that was in threat of being taken or destabilized. But, ultimately, they have had different confidences or developed differently as people.

Cersei vs Rhaenyra's Children and the Politics from Their Appearances

*EDITED (9/12/23)*

This post will just be about the "passing kids off and comparing these two' 'strategy' minds or lack thereof".

Despite the argument that Rhaenyra's cheating doesn't equal modern-day cheating, the flavor of feudal monarchist misogyny against female agency, and how Rhaenyra actually didn't have that many options of a safe father for her necessary heirs (scroll down to section D, parts 3-5), there are still some who argue that she should have chosen someone who looks like Laenor or like her, sometimes using Cercei' 's situation with her own kids and Robert.

Because Cersei gets away with it, they presume that Rhaenyra could have as well, completely ignoring how these situations were very different in multiple ways that allowed Cersei to live more "comfortably" (as some see it) than Rhaenyra. Some even say that Cersei "got to pass off her kids as Robert's because they still look like her--as if Cersei chose Jaime, her own brother because she thought ten steps ahead of everyone else, that Rhaenyra herself wouldn't have hoped once her kids would also inherit her own features--at least one, like purple eyes, OR that she had complete control over how her kids would look (again, refer to the first link I gave in the paragraph above).

A)

We could argue all day that genetics gives us children who could inherit "50-50" of their parents' features or something like that, but:

ASoIaF genetics is weirder than real genetics.

The Baratheons (even marrying Lannisters & other houses) tend to yield dark-haired kids, & yet Cersei's 3 kids are all blonde with no Baratheon gray eyes...it's like people forgot the information Ned used to prove that she was fucking Jaime and was passing her kids off as Robert's in the first place, but maybe some people who argue this simply hadn't read the books while they make arguments about the series simultaneously

She actually should be risking herself similar to how some say Rhaenyra was. She's not protected by a royal father, but by an "ordinary" aristocratic man, right?

Wrong!

Tywin Lannister is not that much smarter than Tyrion; it's that he's built a very intimidating reputation from his ruthlessness towards the Reynes, amassed great wealth, sided with Robert at the last minute, and made/maintained important connections (Steffon Baratheon and Aerys II) since he was in his early twenties. Nevertheless, in the world they live in, he has made his house more materially powerful and socially prestigious than it has ever been. Of course, his greatest oversight was to abuse his own kids into their own versions of incompetency so that his house wouldn't be able to continue its stature beyond himself and his brother Kevan, but for the sake of the climate Cersei grew up and developed her Lannister Exceptionalism, what I say still matters.

(For writings about Cersei, click HERE, HERE, and HERE).

We have seen Cersei's mind and how she thinks for many chapters. She is not patient or self-aware enough of her own limits to be good at critical thinking in order to be a good strategist. She's too prideful and full of deluded self-grandeur--her way of self-affirming against the misogyny she received since she was below 10 butting against her need to practice "real", substantive power. The same kind and level and compunction men are allowed. She makes decisions based on what she thinks she deserves more than what would actually help her. So it is mind-boggling how people think that she planned, put much critical thought, or prioritized into who her kids' father should be. *EDIT* Yes she stopped Jaime's talk about going public for the sake of her kids' possible deaths as well as her and their entire houses...but Cersei's kind of stupidity is not the same kind of stupidity that would disable her from understanding this very basic thing. It's why she gets so angry at Jaime--bc the consequences are just too obvious and she feels he's wasting her time. *END OF EDIT*

Cersei makes impulsive decisions that steer her into creating dangerous settings for herself and others (the wildfyre). And she wants them to believe that she is the smartest person there--at least not contradict this notion. She only takes the most superficial actions to mimic certain methods and practices without taking the time to really see how well they apply to the situations she is in, the persons she wishes or does use, etc. Therefore, her rationale is not based on logic and pragmatism; it's all emotional and made to make her feel as if she is doing clever things. She tries to copy what she has heard Tywin do or thinks Tywin would do because she thinks he is the best model to shape her own power-grabbing. Because he is powerful and forces others to mostly bend to his will and direction seemingly without much effort (to the historically excluded Cersei), everything he does is perfect and will work 99% of the time...unfortunately for Cersi, b/c Tywin is a man who is actually way too ferocious and emotional himself...well.

She only chose Jaime as a lover bc he is what she thinks is her ideal self (she believes that women are inherently inferior to men and thus hates herself in a sense) and he was conveniently & physically close (you can read more HERE, as this analysis comes from blankwhiteshield). She didn't have that much access to anyone else her entire life, even as a Consort, because, once more women do not have the same mobility as men (scroll down to "Medieval/Westerosi Noble Male vs. Female Mobility") and she is neither a Tyrell nor a Martell.

Cersei can get away with her kids looking more like her when they should at least have one have dark hair (again, all 3 have her & Lannister eyes and hair..ironic how like Rhaenyra, there are 3 kids) because Robert Baratheon owes his final victory of the rebellion to Tywin and the strongest support for his reign to Tywin Lannister, who has worked towards getting his blood on the throne for years and unlike to let a little blonde hair stop him. Very much like Otto Hightower in terms of ambition and method, but he is also like Viserys I in how he uses his daughter to further his own plans.

On the other hand, while Viserys I's status is definitely protecting Rhaenyra and her children, Viserys, like Tywin, is the one who got his daughter into the mess she is in in the first place through his poor planning and wanting the "easiest" solution. That and there was no universe where Cersei could have married Jaime as Rhaenyra should have been able to with Daemon (Targs have that overall, cultural ability--even with Starks marrying their uncles to nieces twice!); but Cersei pursues a relationship with Jaime anyway...because she wants to, makes her feel more like the "perfect" being, and it's the most convenient.

And, as I already stated, Cersei isn't actually thinking of the real politics when she's with Jaime so much as the fantasies made from her own yearning desire for power and perfection. She only pays attention or gets "rational" when she is caught off guard or forced to make a split decision (Jaime pushing Bran out the window when they are caught).

It's not fair nor truthful to make it as if she were this mastermind or even cares to know real strategy or at least far-thinking when she has never done that except for the wildfyre...which was a disastrous and stupid plan by its execution (ahem, Aerys II).

B)

Ryan Condal and other producers/writers of HotD made the Velaryons historically black with no hint of blue, gray, or green eyes like Milly Alcock, Emma D'arcy, and Paddy Considine. Or vice versa. (Putting purple eyes in either post or contacts for some actors who are willing could have helped here, but the point is that the Velaryons who don't have Targs for direct relatives [Rhaenys being LAenor & Laena's mother] and Targs only share the pale hair part of Valyrian appearance).

Valaena Velaryon (the 3 conquerors' mother) would then be also black or darker skinned. Alyssa Velaryon (Rhaena--rider of Dreamfyre--, Jaehaerys I, & Alysanne's mom) would also be black/mixed/has darker skin. Therefore every Targ is either black/mixed/darker-skinned. They should all display variances of hair texture, eye color, shape of lips, noses, etc., including Jaehaerys, Daemon, and Rhaenyra themselves. However, this change and the inconsistency it brings up are not things that I "hate" in of themselves because we do need more than just white people in our mainstream fantasy until we force people to produce actual black/African fantasies....and there are a lot of them.

What I criticize is that Ryan Condal made it very clear that he sees the race play as a means to make it that much more "obvious" that Rhaenyra's kids aren't Laenor's, which both cheapens the value of how much misogyny plays a role against Rhaenyra as well as cheapens and emphasizes the inconsistency of how the writers use the Velaryons' blackness/darkness into it just being a political tool to audiences. (Entertainment Weekly)

"Once we had that idea, it just felt like everything fell into place," Condal recalls.

And this is what this Cosmopolitan Black critic had to say, but more eloquently than me:

Nowhere in the first season does HotD mention the Blackness of its few Black characters. All we’re told is that House Velaryon has blood from Old Valyria, which means they are really close to the Targaryens and often marry each other to keep the bloodline “pure.” Nothing wrong with that, but since the Velaryons are Black, shouldn’t all Velaryons have Afrocentric features? The casting department didn’t think so, apparently. One of the main storylines in the first season is the denial that Rhaenyra Targaryen’s children are bastards even though they have white skin and loose curly black hair while their “father” is Laenor Velaryon, a white-haired Black man with dreads. The book Fire & Blood (which the show is adapted from) also follows this plot point. But the Velaryons aren’t Black in the book, meaning it’s somewhat believable or at the very least plausible that Rhaenyra’s children are Leanor’s. I know this is a fantasy show, but there’s something really cringe about (1) trying to pass three obviously white children off as Black and (2) making the one Black family on the show the center of a *checks notes* paternity scandal. Even if House of the Dragon were only following the book’s plot point—the question of the legitimacy of Rhaenyra’s children—the decision to cast House Velaryon and thus Laenor as Black means that race and racial connotations needed to be introduced as well. You shouldn’t cast a white character as a person of color and then ignore their racial identity.

Neglecting the story, the implications of introducing race even with the argument of there being African Christians in the medieval era being accepted (though when you go back, it's more of complicated than that), and thus making race more of an object instead of an identity.

While race and genetics in the ASoIaF books are strange, it is not strange enough to eschew skin coloring OR the implications of being the only house that is only/mainly black-skinned altogether and what we readers would expect from that. House Velaryon would have intermarried, for example...have they been marrying each other? siblings, first cousins, and/or second cousins--or more often with other houses? How often for each type of marriage? If the last, why do they all still retain their Aro-leaning features 90% of time, even by ASoIaF standards of genetics? Are the other Valyrian houses exclusively black (Celtigar)? Will Rhaenyra's master-of-coin Bartimos Celtigar also be black (from episode 10, no it doesn't look like it)? If not, then that just further shows how the Velryon-being-black change hasn't been enough to make HotD be a model standout in creating meaningful diversity in mainstream fantasy media.

It is ironic because, with more people showing their kids online, we ourselves are getting to witness that interracial couples often have children in various colorations, from very thin, pale-blond-light-eyed to darker-skinned, darker eyes, coilier hair.

C)

So, if we were to actually introduce black/mixed Rhaenyra, her kids with Laenor should also have inherited the eyes/hair/etc. of Valyrians. Because she would be mixed, they also should be mixed to have some of her features. Even though they aren't Laenor's biologically.

Ironically, despite his own intentions and words, Condal set us up with a reason to believe that Rhaenyra should be even less suspected of having bastards even with the boys' dark hair and eyes. Not only does Rhaenys canonically have dark hair in the actual show, but her cousin Borros has the Baratheon dark hair that canon!Rhaenys supposedly (if we follow true genetics)and likely could have given Laenor to pass onto his own kids. If again, people really want to use real-life genetics as their main crutch. Thereby he also really missed an opportunity to show how "obvious" the greens' slander was not working outside of us looking at Alicent's frenetic movements. See how this change could have actually given a more nuanced revelation and element to the story the writers created?!

With HotD's changes and the logical progression from that Velaryon-are-historically-Black change:

show!Rhaenyra's actually should able to pick any lover of any coloring (as long as they ahve a trustworthy character)

her boys, no matter what would likely have darker skin or be mixed with their array of coloring, because SHE would have that

Laenor, being their official dad, is already black and further showing how their paternity wouldn't be as suspect if it weren't for social manipulation

their appearance wouldn't be as controversial WITHOUT the greens sowing doubt

and she'd have more ability to choose than Cersei, since Rhaenyra in HotD and F&B is still the heir to the throne instead of a regular noblewoman and goes to Dragonstone to rule it independently. Thereby meeting with more people face to face without being as restricted as she would have been as a Queen Consort.

Without the greens, the only reason why anyone would suspect Rhaenyra's kids was bc Laenor was open-secret-gay & chose of his own volition to not be around her as often as people expect married couples to be. Neither which are in either Rhaneyra's control or her fault, and if people argue she should have forced Laenor to stay by order, I don't doubt that some of those people are the ones who would say/have said she should have forced him to have sex with her despite his lack of desire, lack of enthusiastic consent, and inability OR have a slave from any of the Valyrian Free Cities to impregnate her. All of which is rape and/or exploitation of lower-classed persons' bodies.

Give us a pan or something of the courtiers having silent "fun" but doing it so as to not get either Otto's eye or move themselves apart from Alicent's favor. Something that shows the audience that Alicent is trying really hard to smear Rhaenyra out of spite, and therefore puts her in the narrative position of being wrong/villainous for her internalized misogyny through slight ironic mocking.

But if we go through with just the *shrug* of making ASoIaF genetics "that way", still, he's neglected the implications of making the entire Velaryon house black and all other houses white/predominantly white.

So...

HotD tried & failed to recreate meaningful drama and convey the subtle & unsubtle criticisms of many ideologies, historical actions, and social structures that the original story was going for by not thinking of the implications of having mixed/black Velaryon people. They really refused to consider & imagine how the difference in race would change the narrative of the Dance and consequently think of ways to make it still work for the story's purpose of showing how people can manipulate self-images and others' images, especially when it concerns women and women in the pursuit of access to higher powers. it refused to actually work to integrate Blackness. So now there are critical plotholes and missed opportunities in the narrative that just make the story more boring, flatter, and deceptively simpler while still conveying misogynist and racist sentiments--thereby discouraging its audience from engaging in proper insight/observing patterns of social manipulation in the misogyny against Rhaenyra, as well as the show's own different flavors of misogyny in Alicent, Laena, Rhaenys' etc.'s re-writings.

They really want Rhaenyra's actions of sexual autonomy to be either criticized, seen as a flaw of hers, or make her agency thematically subordinate to the misogynist expectations that some may feel should guide Rhaenyra's rule/self-conduct. Therefore, it's encouraging the audience to look at Rhaenyra as a/the negative agent, to comply with the misogynist forces and their logic against her. To judge a female leader differently than a male one, judge her "worthiness" to rule more by her willingness to be as traditional and misogynist against herself. To be more complicit with the status quo.

When really no one should genuinely internalize the need to impress or "prove" one's worthiness to people who already believe your gender, skin, etc. justifies your exclusion from certain positions of power, rights, and privileges. That is like asking nicely or behaving like a "good girl" to heart (not just using it as covers) & expecting the same treatment men have/the same rights. This is how show!Alicent thinks and what gets her into that frantic state that makes her think less clearly than she could, adding to the anxiety and abuse she already receives from her father and Larys Strong.