When you play the Game of Thrones...

[The Glyphstone]

As an aside, is it true that the TV series doesn't use flashbacks or dream sequences? Because that would make it hard on them later in the series where dreams become more important.

I dunno about flashbacks, but they've had at least two dream sequences. Freakin' creepy three-eyed bird...

[Dienekes]

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That seems unlikely given how often the boo notes how much Jon looks like Eddard and Arya.

As an aside, is it true that the TV series doesn't use flashbacks or dream sequences? Because that would make it hard on them later in the series where dreams become more important.

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That's noted in the theory since Arya is stated to having looked like Lyanna. So apparently, Ned, Arya, Lyanna, and Jon all had similar features.

Personally, I dislike the theory since it implies that Lyanna was a complete ***** who let the kingdom go to war because she just had to have her piece of man meat. So it's ok for her to bed an already married men but she gets to talk down about her soon to be husband because Robert probably wouldn't have been faithful. That doesn't make sense.

Now it's possible that she made a mistake, or didn't think about the implications of going off with Rhaegar. But she honestly didn't leave once her brother and father were killed? By the Old Gods girl, if that is true I don't even care that you died, and you should feel ashamed that your idiocy plunged the kingdom into war.

[carabaldo]

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That seems unlikely given how often the boo notes how much Jon looks like Eddard and Arya.

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Jon is resembling Eddard and Arya because they are his uncle and cousin... it can be.
and besides, that makes him a royal blood (the stronger one, after daeneris)... very near to Melisandre.
boy oh boy how I am waiting the new book (and its translation in italian)

this discussion is getting a spoiler festival

[Axolotl]

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Jon is resembling Eddard and Arya because they are his uncle and cousin... it can be.
and besides, that makes him a royal blood (the stronger one, after daeneris)... very near to Melisandre.
boy oh boy how I am waiting the new book (and its translation in italian)

this discussion is getting a spoiler festival

You could even say it's "A Storm of Spoilers" I apologise for that pun.

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Surely there'd be some resemblence to the Targaryens though? I don't know how violet eyes and white hair work but I'd assume there'd be some resemblance.

[BRC]

You could even say it's "A Storm of Spoilers" I apologise for that pun.

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Surely there'd be some resemblence to the Targaryens though? I don't know how violet eyes and white hair work but I'd assume there'd be some resemblance.

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I always assumed that the Violet Eyes and White hair were recessive traits only maintained by the Targaryen's obsessive inbreeding.

[VanBuren]

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I always assumed that the Violet Eyes and White hair were recessive traits only maintained by the Targaryen's obsessive inbreeding.

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It's already been established that darker hair is a fairly dominant trait anyway. Even if it's not at the Baratheon level, it should easily overpower the fragile Targaryen genes.

[Cristo Meyers]

Same here.

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If you were paying attention, one of the ingredients for his poultice was bread mold, most likely penicillin. That should have been able to prevent most infections (and was understandably used in real folk healing for quite a long time). Drogo refused to continue wearing the thing, and that's why it festered as it did. That makes more sense for GRRM's style: a character being reckless and stubborn ruins the very thing that would have saved them.

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Didn't he also make his own? I could've sworn I remembered something about him wearing a different one made of mud or something...

Play that scene with your sound muted, and you'll see why. Someone on another forum described it best, if the dog was mute, it would just look like Ghost needed to pee. Without the growling it doesn't actually get across that something is wrong. It's one of those things that really doesn't translate as well to tv as you would expect.

And when a dire wolf needs to go out, you let him out...

...otherwise they're likely to take the door off of the hinges.

[Zocelot]

Ah man, I made A Clash Of Kings into an acronym and couldn't help but laugh. Surely GRRM saw that when he named his book.

[VanBuren]

Ah man, I made A Clash Of Kings into an acronym and couldn't help but laugh. Surely GRRM saw that when he named his book.

ACoK?

...

It's what I think it is, isn't it?

[DomaDoma]

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Personally, I dislike the theory since it implies that Lyanna was a complete ***** who let the kingdom go to war because she just had to have her piece of man meat.

As though that kind of thing has never happened in this series. And hey,

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Rhaegar isn't blameless either, regardless of any vague prophecy business that may be involved.

[Klose_the_Sith]

Book Spoilers (also, I'm now up to episode 8. Woo, caught up! )

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Robb scenes make me too sad. I'm not sure I'll be able to watch much more of this without shedding manly tears for the heresy still to come.

That said ~

"A green boy, he'll run back to Winterfell with his tail between his legs at the first taste of battle"

Even Tywin Lannister couldn't have predicted that he'd need to have Robb murdered, for fear the Young Wolf would win the war (and he almost did, too ). Bloody coward lion, at least the North has honourable victories, not Red Weddings.

[hamlet]

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That seems unlikely given how often the boo notes how much Jon looks like Eddard and Arya.

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Actually, it's mentioned quite often how much Arya looks like Lyanna, and how much Lyanna and Ned looked alike and how unlike Ned the other children are. It's one of Catlyn's gripes against Jon Snow, that he looks more like Ned than Robb, Bran, or Rickon. Arya, Ned, and Jon all have the Stark look, as did Lyanna.

As for the Targaryen look in Jon, it's mentioned in the first book that Jon had unique, or at least interesting, eyes being deep grey/blue/purplish. It's very briefly mentioned in one of the very early chapters, and yeah, it's not a lot to hang one's coat on, but it's there.

The morality of Lyanna and Rheagar's supposed fling? I don't know. People don't always act rationally, or consistantly with their own morality. Love/lust can make humans do stupid and silly things. Yeah, objectively, given the info we have, it was a dumb thing to do that exacerbated an already bad situation and plunged the kingdom into war. However, I don't think we have all the information we need in order to make that judgement call. There's a lot we're missing, and I think we're going to get it, or at least a taste of it, in Dance With Dragons.

The Tower of Joy incident is pivotal, and it's hidden quietly for a reason. I suspect that's going to be one of those reveals that hits the audience like a Mack Truck at 80mph.

[valadil]

I'm starting to like Drogho, I love it when he gets pissed off and starts proclaiming threatening stuff, it's awesome

I love how he can speak gibberish and sound like he means it. (Assuming that gibberish was made up for the show. Somebody correct if me I've accidentally implied that some language I've never heard before is legit and not made up for the show.)

GreatJon was the Greatjon. Didn't expect they'd screw that up, and they didn't. Although I did expect him to be physically bigger. Jon Umber is supposed to be an enormous man. Not overly important, the personality was right.

Everyone is sized down a bit. Otherwise it would be impossible to find actors. I think Robert Baratheon was originally 6'6" and he didn't really stand out at that height. Greatjon towered over everyone, but didn't strike me as all that massive. The internet tells me Greatjon's actor is 6'5.5", which seems reasonable given the 6-10 inches everyone else (except Sansa!) lost.

[hamlet]

The internet tells me Greatjon's actor is 6'5.5", which seems reasonable given the 6-10 inches everyone else (except Sansa!) lost.

No offence intended to her, but that girl is frighteningly tall! At 14, I think she's nearly as tall as I am at 6'4"!

[Eldan]

I love how he can speak gibberish and sound like he means it. (Assuming that gibberish was made up for the show. Somebody correct if me I've accidentally implied that some language I've never heard before is legit and not made up for the show.)

Don't worry, it's made up.

[Dienekes]

As though that kind of thing has never happened in this series. And hey,

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Rhaegar isn't blameless either, regardless of any vague prophecy business that may be involved.

True but

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Rhaegar's a Targ, I expect him to act like a selfish arse.

[Mathis]

I love how he can speak gibberish and sound like he means it. (Assuming that gibberish was made up for the show. Somebody correct if me I've accidentally implied that some language I've never heard before is legit and not made up for the show.)

Actually it's a language, a "real" one. They hired a linguist fellow to create a language for the Dothraki culture. So it's not a language you'll find on earth, but it's definitely a proper, working language with it's own grammar and syntax. So if you start to listen, as in really listen to what they are saying instead of just reading the subtitles you can start making out certain repeated words and phrases and start to make out what certain words mean and sound like.

[valadil]

Actually it's a language, a "real" one. They hired a linguist fellow to create a language for the Dothraki culture. So it's not a language you'll find on earth, but it's definitely a proper, working language with it's own grammar and syntax. So if you start to listen, as in really listen to what they are saying instead of just reading the subtitles you can start making out certain repeated words and phrases and start to make out what certain words mean and sound like.

Makes sense and I thought there was a good chance of that. Because it sounded like it could be legit I thought it could have been real world as well. At any rate, I suppose the actor knows what each of his words means (even if he couldn't fluently speak the language without a script) and that helps him lend weight to the words.

[TheSummoner]

Heh, maybe that's why he has so few speaking roles so far... Cuz he has to put three times the effort into his lines as anyone speaking English would.

[Mathis]

Heh, maybe that's why he has so few speaking roles so far... Cuz he has to put three times the effort into his lines as anyone speaking English would.

Haha! Possibly. Jason Momoa, the guy who plays Drogo actually did say in an interview that he had a hard time reading for his lines to begin with. I mean, who wouldn't with a language that doesn't really resemble any other language he has ever heard. I think the actors speaking Dothraki are doing a good job though, and I think I'm starting to really like the ones who play the smaller roles there. Especially Amrita Acharia, the girl who plays Irri who is one of Daenerys' closest maids. Some of the looks she has given the other characters just scream passion and genuinely good acting.

[VanBuren]

True but

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Rhaegar's a Targ, I expect him to act like a selfish arse.

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I've been getting the sense that Rhaegar might have actually made a decent king, perhaps the best out of everyone who has had a shot at the throne so far.

Not to set the bar too high or anything, though.

[Cog]

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I've been getting the sense that Rhaegar might have actually made a decent king, perhaps the best out of everyone who has had a shot at the throne so far.

Not to set the bar too high or anything, though.

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There's some good hints that he'd have been competent, but I'm not convinced that such alone is a plus. Tywin would have been competent too, but that doesn't mean you'd want him ruling...

[VanBuren]

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There's some good hints that he'd have been competent, but I'm not convinced that such alone is a plus. Tywin would have been competent too, but that doesn't mean you'd want him ruling...

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Well, versus Robert, Cersei, Aegon, Joffrey and Cersei...

And don't forget there's a part in AGoT where Dany is saving all the women of the city by taking them as slaves instead of seeing them raped, and it reminds Jorah somehow of her brother. The not Viserys brother.

[Dienekes]

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I've been getting the sense that Rhaegar might have actually made a decent king, perhaps the best out of everyone who has had a shot at the throne so far.

Not to set the bar too high or anything, though.

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Between everyone other than Robert praising him for everything he ever did I also have gotten that feeling.

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There's some good hints that he'd have been competent, but I'm not convinced that such alone is a plus. Tywin would have been competent too, but that doesn't mean you'd want him ruling...

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Honestly, I don't think Tywin would be that bad a king, after the war on which he gained dominance anyway.

[hamlet]

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I've been getting the sense that Rhaegar might have actually made a decent king, perhaps the best out of everyone who has had a shot at the throne so far.

Not to set the bar too high or anything, though.

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A theme carried through even in the Dunk and Egg stories with Baelor Breakspear.

[Axolotl]

Just noticed a post on the last page I wanted to respond to.

I don't quite agree.

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Tyrion loses everything, but he gets revenge on his dad, so that's a victory, and what he loses was basically his lost cause of trying to do good despite the fact that nobody wanted him to.

Jaime losing his hand feels like a blessing in disguise to me. It forces Jaime to grow in ways he wouldn't have before. Paradoxically his strength was a crutch.

Sansa isn't in a 'pit of misery' with Littlefinger. You don't get to find out what her new status quo is until the next book but it isn't as bad as King's Landing was for her.

Arya similarly has achieved something, it just isn't obvious what until A Feast For Crows.

The Red Wedding is 75% through A Storm of Swords. The actual ending stretch I find mostly positive.

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Why Tyrion loses everything doesn't change the fact that he does lose everything. Sure he gets revenge but he still goes from having control over Kings Landing to being hunted all over Westeros and beyond as a regicidal traitor, he still fails.

Jaime does get character growth, and that's good. But he still loses the one thing that allowed him to affect the world. Now sure it's interesting to watch him grow as a character but he's impotent character that we're following.

Sansa spends most of the book in Joffrey's court and is forced to marry Tyrion. The two chapters she does get after leaving have her almost get raped and almost murdered by her aunt (who is the murdered). She still spends the whole book suffering.

Maybe Arya has achieved something, but her goal was to rejoin her family, which she spends over two books failing to do, and every step closer she gets a whole new problem stopping her appears.

And now I've just started with book 4 my main response to most chapters is apathy, only one of the characters I really enjoyed is still being followed and I find the Jaime chapters interesting, he never seems does anything. Two whiole subplots start being shown (the Greyjoys and the Dornes) and I just don't care, although I care about Sam becoming a maester even less. Other PoV's are added so I can see Brienne run around not doing anything and Cersei doing her level best to destroy her son's rule. Granted this is just my personal response and I've only just started but from what I've read so far I fear the whole book will just be 900 pages of nothing happening.

[valadil]

And now I've just started with book 4 my main response to most chapters is apathy, only one of the characters I really enjoyed is still being followed and I find the Jaime chapters interesting, he never seems does anything. Two whiole subplots start being shown (the Greyjoys and the Dornes) and I just don't care, although I care about Sam becoming a maester even less. Other PoV's are added so I can see Brienne run around not doing anything and Cersei doing her level best to destroy her son's rule. Granted this is just my personal response and I've only just started but from what I've read so far I fear the whole book will just be 900 pages of nothing happening.[/spoiler]

Book 4 discussion below. May spoil.

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Take a break. Seriously. Books 1-3 can be read consecutively but you should hold off before 4. When GRRM meant for the series to be 6 books long he was treating it as two trilogies. You're at the beginning of the second trilogy and expecting a continuation of the first.

Book 4 is also supposedly the low point in the series. While 3 had some high notes/partial victories, most of the characters you followed are dead. GRRM has to start up new characters and plots. It's really hard to care about those darned Greyjoys when you want to know what Tyrion is up to. Take a break and when you pick it up again, treat Feast like a whole new series.

[Seerow]

Completely unrelated to the current discussion, I just found this quote on the official forums (apparently sniped from one of those people over on the unspoiled discussion at TWOP) that I thought was hilarious and had to share:

Tywin Lannister doesn't get ducks in a row, he slits their throats by the flock-full and personally field dresses them while delivering a speech about how stupid and disappointing and weak everyone else is.

[Klose_the_Sith]

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Take a break. Seriously. Books 1-3 can be read consecutively but you should hold off before 4. When GRRM meant for the series to be 6 books long he was treating it as two trilogies. You're at the beginning of the second trilogy and expecting a continuation of the first.

Book 4 is also supposedly the low point in the series. While 3 had some high notes/partial victories, most of the characters you followed are dead. GRRM has to start up new characters and plots. It's really hard to care about those darned Greyjoys when you want to know what Tyrion is up to. Take a break and when you pick it up again, treat Feast like a whole new series.

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I preferred Feast to Storm, and read them sorta consecutively (1 - break - 2, 3, 4) - but like this threads already seen, I'm pretty much the lowest of the low in GRRM's audience. I don't care for the symbolism or foreshadowing and have trouble predicting even the most obvious of plot outcomes. All I really wanted was for Robb to survive, because he'd worked harder to earn more than anyone else who was about.

I also found the Ironmen pretty sweet, mostly just cause of their religion. I could really get a sense of these half crazed sea monks smashing cudgels together and getting too caught up in their fervour to care about the outside world.

[Lord Raziere]

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@ Klose: There is symbolism in ASoIaF? I just read a good story man....