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HBO - Song of Ice&Fire Series -Varsity Thread - no TV only whiners (1 Viewer)

Gr00vus said:
Right, and in this universe, those things happened because a guy travelled back to a time he before he was born, mind ####ed a kid into becoming a halfwit by having his pal yell at him to hold the door and witness his own death at the hands of zombies so he could save said kid 40 years later. One instance of that is dumb enough, whether or not it becomes common or overused subsequently. It already pokes holes in the believability of the whole universe being presented.
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If this came across at all like something that was contrived late to close off a loose end I *might* agree with you.   The fact that this was always the design and that it made for a powerful and poignant moment for the characters and the implication of it maybe shows that this isn't the show/books for you?

 
Drifter said:
If this came across at all like something that was contrived late to close off a loose end I *might* agree with you.   The fact that this was always the design and that it made for a powerful and poignant moment for the characters and the implication of it maybe shows that this isn't the show/books for you?
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If that was the plan, then it's quite possible your conclusion is correct. There are lots of other ways it could have gone down that would have been powerful/poignant without opening up the whole time travel thing (not really that compelled by "hold the door" while we're at it). As it is, this part doesn't come across as one of Martin's shining moments for me.

 
Rented the books on tape since I'll have a few weeks of working from home.  I'm about 3/4 through the first book and I forgot just how good it was!

 
What do we think Arya's end game is in the series?

Does she truly become no-one, and lives her life as a faceless man, fading into oblivion?  Will she be faced with giving the gift to one of her family members?

If she does not stick with the faceless men, does she get the gift?  I can't really see the character having a happy ending - she does not want to be a wife/mother/High Lady, but if she is not a faceless man, I don't know what her role would be within the realm.  Maybe she joins up with the Brotherhood Without Banners?

 
Sinn Fein said:
What do we think Arya's end game is in the series?

Does she truly become no-one, and lives her life as a faceless man, fading into oblivion?  Will she be faced with giving the gift to one of her family members?

If she does not stick with the faceless men, does she get the gift?  I can't really see the character having a happy ending - she does not want to be a wife/mother/High Lady, but if she is not a faceless man, I don't know what her role would be within the realm.  Maybe she joins up with the Brotherhood Without Banners?
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Think I posted it in the other thread, but I was thinking she might bend the Faceless Men to her will somehow.  Power structure doesn't seem all that layered.

 
Sinn Fein said:
What do we think Arya's end game is in the series?

Does she truly become no-one, and lives her life as a faceless man, fading into oblivion?  Will she be faced with giving the gift to one of her family members?

If she does not stick with the faceless men, does she get the gift?  I can't really see the character having a happy ending - she does not want to be a wife/mother/High Lady, but if she is not a faceless man, I don't know what her role would be within the realm.  Maybe she joins up with the Brotherhood Without Banners?
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Whatever happens, I hope she gives the business to sticky longstockings.

 
I doubt people will like it, but my own guess is that Arya becomes a Faceless Man and that she (irony alert!) murders Tommen, who is, of course, innocent.  Or possibly, for even greater nastiness, possibly Gendry.  To have Arya become an assassin solely as a means to work through her "list" seems incompatible with everything they're telling us about the Faceless Men.  Meanwhile, in order for the end game to work, the decks kind of have to be cleared as far as candidates for the Iron Throne. 

 
Ramsay Hunt Experience said:
I doubt people will like it, but my own guess is that Arya becomes a Faceless Man and that she (irony alert!) murders Tommen, who is, of course, innocent.  Or possibly, for even greater nastiness, possibly Gendry.  To have Arya become an assassin solely as a means to work through her "list" seems incompatible with everything they're telling us about the Faceless Men.  Meanwhile, in order for the end game to work, the decks kind of have to be cleared as far as candidates for the Iron Throne. 
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I like your thought. 

It'd also be interesting if Littlefinger hired the faceless men to off Jon or Sansa and they stick Arya with the job. Seems like she's still not all in on completely giving up her identity.

 
I'm picturing a dramatic end to the Faceless Men at the hands of Arya with her saying something like "A girl has a name... It's Arya Stark, daughter of Ned Stark" as she drives Needle through Jaqen's eye.

 
Scoresman said:
I'm picturing a dramatic end to the Faceless Men at the hands of Arya with her saying something like "A girl has a name... It's Arya Stark, daughter of Ned Stark" as she drives Needle through Jaqen's eye.
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I don't know about anything that dramatic, but I highly doubt she becomes a true believer at any point. They've gone through great lengths to show she still retains her identity as a Stark throughout her training process. 

 
Sinn Fein said:
What do we think Arya's end game is in the series?

Does she truly become no-one, and lives her life as a faceless man, fading into oblivion?  Will she be faced with giving the gift to one of her family members?

If she does not stick with the faceless men, does she get the gift?  I can't really see the character having a happy ending - she does not want to be a wife/mother/High Lady, but if she is not a faceless man, I don't know what her role would be within the realm.  Maybe she joins up with the Brotherhood Without Banners?
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One takeaway from last night was that she's far from ready, and I can't imagine her character, so driven by revenge, ever fully losing her identity as a Stark. The confusing part is that J'quen is apparently buying her act, just because she answers his obvious questions correctly and takes a beating. 

 
Spurred by the Arya conversation, I looked up what the dwarf lady (child of the forest?) on the hill said to her way back when to see if it presented any clues, but there's not much to go on:

I see you. I see you, wolf child. Blood child. I thought it was the lord who smelled of death ... You are cruel to come to my hill, cruel. I gorged on grief at Summerhall, I need none of yours. Begone from here, dark heart. Begone
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But reading more of it she said this about Sansa, the second part of which is interesting:

I dreamt of a maid at a feast with purple serpents in her hair, venom dripping from their fangs. And later I dreamt that maid again, slaying a savage giant in a castle built of snow.
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I wonder who the giant ends up being.

 
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CletiusMaximus said:
One takeaway from last night was that she's far from ready, and I can't imagine her character, so driven by revenge, ever fully losing her identity as a Stark. The confusing part is that J'quen is apparently buying her act, just because she answers his obvious questions correctly and takes a beating. 
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Yeah - watching her reactions to the play shows she is still very much a Stark.

 
Ramsay Hunt Experience said:
I doubt people will like it, but my own guess is that Arya becomes a Faceless Man and that she (irony alert!) murders Tommen, who is, of course, innocent.  Or possibly, for even greater nastiness, possibly Gendry.  To have Arya become an assassin solely as a means to work through her "list" seems incompatible with everything they're telling us about the Faceless Men.  Meanwhile, in order for the end game to work, the decks kind of have to be cleared as far as candidates for the Iron Throne. 
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There's a chapter in ADWD that implies Faceless Men can not take contracts on people whose names they know.

 
Redwes25 said:
I was wondering if they would introduce Cold Hands now with Bran fleeing from the White Walkers.  It would make sense for how they could escape.  
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I was talking about this possibility with a coworker this morning. Unfortunately, Coldhands has been dead a very long time so it's unlikely that it's Benjen. But that doesn't mean that Bran and Meera don't run into Benjen. Personally, I'm hoping for a giant/mammoth vs wight battle.

 
Gr00vus said:
Spurred by the Arya conversation, I looked up what the dwarf lady (child of the forest?) on the hill said to her way back when to see if it presented any clues, but there's not much to go on:

But reading more of it she said this about Sansa, the second part of which is interesting:

I wonder who the giant ends up being.
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Perhaps literal.  Sansa did just lie to Jon about the origin of her information.  Maybe we get a Wildlings/Jon vs. Sansa/Littlefinger army where Wun-Wun gets taken out by some knitting needles to the eye.

 
Gr00vus said:
I'm hoping for more of a Miss Piggy Hiya chop myself.
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Too cartoonish for GOT.  She seduces him, and when the boiled leather hits the floor, the fangs of Ramsay's dogs burst forth from her fun bits and turn his giant shvantz into a dozen masks for the Faceless Men.

 
The shame of it is, in a world full of dragons and red priestesses and flaming swords and money and deceit and whatnot, Sansa really hasn't much to offer at this point unless Ramsay knocked her up.  Sure, she could turn into the next coming of Cersei, but she's way behind.  She's started playing the game, and as we know, when you play the Game of Thrones...

 
Bob Sacamano said:
The shame of it is, in a world full of dragons and red priestesses and flaming swords and money and deceit and whatnot, Sansa really hasn't much to offer at this point unless Ramsay knocked her up.  Sure, she could turn into the next coming of Cersei, but she's way behind.  She's started playing the game, and as we know, when you play the Game of Thrones...
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That was another problem I had with this episode. Unless she's playing an incredibly deep game bordering on so genius normal folks like me can't even begin to figure it out, it sure seems like she didn't learn a whole lot from Cersei, Littlefinger and Ramsay about how to play this game given how she handled Littlefinger here. She reverted right back to petulant season 1 Sansa throwing the righteous indignation out there and turning a very dangerous guy against her rather than taking the opportunity to use him to clean up the Ramsay mess. I thought they were building her up to be a player, but it looks like she's really destined to play the stupid, helpless damsel in distress thing for the whole story. Kind of a letdown.

 
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Gr00vus said:
That was another problem I had with this episode. Unless she's playing an incredibly deep game bordering on so genius normal folks like me can't even begin to figure it out, it sure seems like she didn't learn a whole lot from Cersei, Littlefinger and Ramsay about how to play this game given how she handled Littlefinger here. She reverted right back to petulant season 1 Sansa throwing the righteous indignation out there and turning a very dangerous guy against her rather than taking the opportunity to use him to clean up the Ramsay mess. I thought they were building her up to be a player, but it looks like she's really destined to play the stupid, helpless damsel in distress thing for the whole story. Kind of a letdown.
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And it will be her downfall. When the starks finally learn that there is no benefit to honor in westeros then and only then will they regain winterfell

 
things I am willing to believe

-dragons

-two bros sitting in a tree and whipping around to the past to see stuff 

-a woman who ####s out a ghost and then ages 80 years by taking off a bracelet

-a guy coming back from the dead by the hands of the aforementioned witch chick who #### out a ghost

-some guy gradually getting a stone arm 

-humans who can allegedly control wolves or something 

-faceless people 

-seriously, dragons. Good with the dragons 

things I am unwilling to believe

-that tree guy maybe doing something (but probably not) that affected an event in the past 

 
Capella said:
things I am willing to believe

-dragons

-two bros sitting in a tree and whipping around to the past to see stuff 

-a woman who ####s out a ghost and then ages 80 years by taking off a bracelet

-a guy coming back from the dead by the hands of the aforementioned witch chick who #### out a ghost

-some guy gradually getting a stone arm 

-humans who can allegedly control wolves or something 

-faceless people 

-seriously, dragons. Good with the dragons 

things I am unwilling to believe

-that tree guy maybe doing something (but probably not) that affected an event in the past 
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I think the problem people have with it has to do with the fact that we haven't really seen what limitations Bran and the Raven's powers had. If they can affect events in the past why hasn't the raven gone back to stop the creation of the white walkers?

Magic systems in fantasy worlds need rules to abide by in order to be believable and what we saw Bran do may not be against the rules depending on where they take all this, but it's something we never thought was possible and creates a ton of questions. 

 
Scoresman said:
I think the problem people have with it has to do with the fact that we haven't really seen what limitations Bran and the Raven's powers had. If they can affect events in the past why hasn't the raven gone back to stop the creation of the white walkers?

Magic systems in fantasy worlds need rules to abide by in order to be believable and what we saw Bran do may not be against the rules depending on where they take all this, but it's something we never thought was possible and creates a ton of questions. 
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:goodposting:

Exactly.

 
Scoresman said:
I think the problem people have with it has to do with the fact that we haven't really seen what limitations Bran and the Raven's powers had. If they can affect events in the past why hasn't the raven gone back to stop the creation of the white walkers?

Magic systems in fantasy worlds need rules to abide by in order to be believable and what we saw Bran do may not be against the rules depending on where they take all this, but it's something we never thought was possible and creates a ton of questions. 
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Who set the rules though? You? Not trying to be a #### but who cares what you thought was possible. These people are trying to tell a story here. 

 
Bran didn't actually "do" anything. He didn't wake up and say "Hey! I think I'll go back and affect a past event". I don't think he can do that. He had no control over what was happening. This seemed to me like an extraordinary confluence of events (him warging into Hodor AND being in both the past and present AND in the presence of strong magic - not just his own, but also in all those around him - AND being in an extremely stressful situation) that was pre-destined. I don't think he can make a decision to go back and stop the White Walkers from being created, or be his own grandfather, or teach "Johnny B Goode" to Chuck Berry. 

On the Sansa prophecy, in a sense she's already fulfilled it (in the books). Remember the snow castle she built in the Eyrie and her run-in with Robert Arryn?

I think one of the things Martin does with prophecy is that it's fluid and can be fulfilled in multiple ways, depending on who's looking and when. 

 
Capella said:
Who set the rules though? You? Not trying to be a #### but who cares what you thought was possible. These people are trying to tell a story here. 
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Of course it is their story to tell.  I think a few of us are saying that when you introduce these time loop thingies it never seems to end well.  They hinted that it might be coming with Ned seemingly reacting to Bran in the flashback, but I was hoping they would mainly stick to viewing the past and warging (which still might be the case) 

For me it now means that Bran and the Raven were overpowered for the story.  IF they can change things in the past, that is a trump card or is dumb if they don't use that power.  IF they can't change anything it introduces that "it's a time loop and everything was set up to happen as it happened and was always happening" nonsense that basically takes all the power away from the characters. Just something I never like seeing in stuff.  Not a huge deal - for 5 seasons I didn't like the Bran stuff, I started to come around to it this season, and will probably go back to it being blah for me.  It's just one plot of many.   

 
Capella said:
Who set the rules though? You? Not trying to be a #### but who cares what you thought was possible. These people are trying to tell a story here. 
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The writers.  If there are no rules to the world they created, the story falls apart. Why hasn't three eyed raven taken over the world with this power?  Why not write in a wizard out of nowhere who can kill every single white walker by snapping his fingers or something equally powerful. 

I'm not saying what Bran did broke the rules.  I like Uruk-Hai's take on it above, but I can see why people are kind of going WTF.    

 
Scoresman said:
The writers.  If there are no rules to the world they created, the story falls apart. Why hasn't three eyed raven taken over the world with this power?  Why not write in a wizard out of nowhere who can kill every single white walker by snapping his fingers or something equally powerful. 

I'm not saying what Bran did broke the rules.  I like Uruk-Hai's take on it above, but I can see why people are kind of going WTF.    
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Good thing the story isn't over I guess.

 
Scoresman said:
The writers.  If there are no rules to the world they created, the story falls apart. Why hasn't three eyed raven taken over the world with this power?  because he doesn't want to? I don't know?  Why not write in a wizard out of nowhere who can kill every single white walker by snapping his fingers or something equally powerful. lol wat

I'm not saying what Bran did broke the rules.  I like Uruk-Hai's take on it above, but I can see why people are kind of going WTF.    
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There are no rules, just right. 

Seriously the entire premise of this show is that it is stupid and unbelievable. Just go along for the ride. 

 
So what "rules" govern Dany's immunity to fire?   What about Melisandre's shadow monster?   How did the Dragon eggs survive?  How do the Faceless Men change their faces?  How did Qyburn resurrect Zombie Gregor Clagane?  As far as I know neither the show nor the books has never grounded any of its magical elements. 

 
Ramsay Hunt Experience said:
So what "rules" govern Dany's immunity to fire?   What about Melisandre's shadow monster?   How did the Dragon eggs survive?  How do the Faceless Men change their faces?  How did Qyburn resurrect Zombie Gregor Clagane?  As far as I know neither the show nor the books has never grounded any of its magical elements. 
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All of those things happen in real life.  Especially the crotch smoke.

 
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