HBO have confirmed R+L=J with this infographic:
Books A Song of Ice and Fire (Books) | TV show? What TV show?
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Confirmed? It wasn't supposed to be open to interpretation in any way. It was confirmed in the episode.
If you had no books.....would it have really been confirmed? Plenty still don't know he's a Targ, just Neds nephew, obviously these are pure show watchers.
It's pretty much massively obvious, but I'm not sure it would be to me if i didn't already pretty much know.
It's pretty much massively obvious, but I'm not sure it would be to me if i didn't already pretty much know.
I would rate them pretty similar myself. Actually I'd probably give AFFC 7.5 and ADWD 7.
Jesus ASOS was fecking incredible wasn't it??
AFFC is a good book imo but it felt like a punch in the face for fans really which is why it's so unpopular I think. To wait 5 years just to get a book without a single chapter from Jon, Dany, Bran, and Tyrion..
They dropped enough hints that even Amol should have understood it. I mean they kept showing old scenes where they talked of R having taken L, and they showed the scene with Littlefinger and Sansa in the crypts several times. Short of a neon sign on the freaking Tower, it was all there.
Cersei and Jaime were great POVs from established characters in AFFC, it's when Sansa 'got good', the sheer amount of new energy that was introduced in Dorne and the Iron Islands was part of what made it great- the other being the thematic brilliance with Brienne stumbling through the Riverlands seeing the effects of war and atrocities
It would have definitely felt like a let down for readers at the time for the reasons you say- plus being the one after ASOS! However, as a recent reader of the books it was great. I couldn't put it down
I didn't know there was so much hate for AFFC. But I read the two books together so I probably didn't feel the need for chapters for other POV's. I liked the narrative of the book though.
It's all about opinions, I really liked the North/Stannis/Davos parts of ADWD as well as Tyrion's chapters where he is on the verge of going mental but Penny acts as a balance and Aegon's rise, but in general the Meereen/Dany stuff wasn't for me. If it wasn't for Dany/Barristan my mark would have been a lot higher
Euron and Aegon will be major characters and have a big impact in TWOW, so without Dorne and the Iron Islands being introduced properly in AFFC it would have really damaged the overall plot going forward
But why have you put that on spoiler? :O
Future speculation
It might be pretty obvious but since I've read the sample chapters and have seen quotes from GRRM it's only fair to spoiler just in case anyone has an issue
On Aegon, we can expect a second 'dance of the dragons' between Aegon and Daenerys based on GRRM's comments
The guy may not complete another book and I'm not sure your posts merit a spoiler. One about Euron and Aeron in AFFC too.
I'm not even sure Aegon is real to be honest.
Most definitely fAegon, he beats us to death with premonitions.
Although, you can interpret 'mummer dragon' as one being manipulated, so....
Although, you can interpret 'mummer dragon' as one being manipulated, so....
I also have an open mind on it. Problem is, he has stated he doesn't want nor enjoy writing fantasy in the traditional sense where the good guys all team up to fight the bad guys. That's not me claiming anything, that's what he has stated. To then three quarters of the way throug his book series decide that actually he will have a good vs evil story is short changing his readers. It's like an artist painting most of his painting in fair colours, oranges and reds and then just splashing a load of black right in the middle and claiming it's contrast. Its BS and looks really out of place.
I'm not upset. What did I say that made you assume I was upset?
I read all of them together so it's hard to distinguish between them all.
IMO SoS is the best book. But then it was the payoff of the setup of CoK and so benefitted from the excitement of closing a lot of stories and opening up a lot of new ones. In the sense that CoK was a setup of SoS, I believe the last two books were done to setup the final two books and put things organically in place for them to payoff the story lines. Also, SoS went so fast paced with its stories, these two books were needed to calm things down and and sort of regroup everything and make sure that GRRM doesn't lose control of certain plots within each other.
There was a serious threat of certain plots going way too far ahead of others by the end of SoS and we needed that step back to expand other facets of the story and world.
I don't know the exact text of what GRRM said but I think he said that kings alone can't guarantee happiness in the kingdom. Aragorn could be a good guy but that doesn't mean the kingdom he ruled was always happy and wanted to know what did Aragorn do to guarantee that, and he also took exception to wars being portrayed as some sort of final deciding battle between good and evil and how the good side of the battle was filled with good looking guys and evil looking orcs were brutal and ugly.
My personal favourite will always be Tolkien and I think GRRM is being a dick towards Tolkien because a large portion of Tolkien's work was written while Tolkien was at war and he probably put a chivalrous side to war due to the place he was in mentally and physically. But in general, GRRM's work depict wars and kingdoms more realistically than Tolkien even though it's a fantasy world and he's also right that Tolkien inspired a lot of fantasy writers to copy similar settings to LoTR. I'm not sure if GRRM ever objected to good vs evil in one war, just not all wars as in Tolkien's works. Every war in Tolkien is always good vs evil and if evil triumphs there's a period of destruction and if good triumphs, there is happiness forever. He was just making a point that war itself is evil and it takes two sides to declare a war. Writers talk a lot, so I don't really mind what GRRM said, but that doesn't mean he can't write the final battle as good vs evil in this case.
George RR Martin is a hippy. He nearly went to prison because he protested against the Vietnam war. So, him being completely anti war and anti monarchy makes complete sense. It also makes sense that he would want to beat his readers around the head with his views as that's what hippies do.
I don't think he is insulting to Tolkien. He acknowledges his influence on the genre and often times nooks down any comparisons between himself and the former. I just don't think he likes that type of story narrative.
It's hard not to call him a lying hypocrite when in every interview he bangs on about no good vs evil in his story and how distinguishing an entire race by one character trait is wrong, then he goes and does exactly that with The Others.
It's not the story he promised nor is it the story I expect.
He still appreciates him, just doesn't agree with him.
Imagine the meltdown if this turned out to be what happens?
I think I'd do a Tommen.
I'm a firm believer in reading the book as the author gives us. I'm not too bothered about spoilers or fan theories. There are some books I like and some books I dislike, but it's good to read the book like the author intends it to. I hate when authors change endings based on the popular feeling. If GRRM makes others are heroes, then so be it. I just hope it is not because people in the internetz sussed out the ending he had planned and he wanted to change it, or because he wouldn't want a war where it's plain good vs evil. I think GRRM does that as well, he killed Ned Stark when it was easy to let him take the black and join the watch and kept Arya Stark alive when it was easy to kill her at any point after escape from King's Landing.
Don't get me wrong, I was just being silly. I will accept whatever GRRM delivers, though now I'm emotionally invested in certain characters and a narrative that I'd like to see eventuate.
I'll be honest, I'll be pretty upset if Jon doesn't end up boning either Dany, Val or Sansa. Lad needs a break.
There will surely be some level of moral ambiguity to the Others in the books.
I cannot see them being portrayed as purely evil. 'doing bad things to survive' maybe, or they are just part of a conflict that humans play their part in.
It would be disappointing if they are just ' the orcs of mordor'
I cannot see them being portrayed as purely evil. 'doing bad things to survive' maybe, or they are just part of a conflict that humans play their part in.
It would be disappointing if they are just ' the orcs of mordor'
I haven't read what Martin said about Tolkien, would just say it's probably a little unfair to criticize him for this, given Tolkien was very much a man of his time who did his writing before the 1960s and the growth of postmodernist theory which made everyone question everything.
Even still I recall some of Tolkien's ideas being less black and white then initially seems - all the races of Middle Earth are corruptable, even the ultimate awesome Elves, the Noldor, are led into a series of disastrous wars due to little more than Feanor's pride. The Dwarves aren't really portrayed as good or bad, while his depiction of the weakness of men is perhaps the main point of LOTR. I also seem to recall a scene from, I think, The Two Towers, where Faramir captures or kills one of the men of Harad and speculates that he is just an ordinary man like himself, sent off to fight in a war he doesn't understand.
Obviously these subtleties are off-set by the apparent happy ending and the idea that a King's legitimacy seems to rest entirely on his blood, but I think Tolkien sewed the seeds for the more nuanced approach taken in the genre since.
Jon fancies the pants off of her in the books.
My brain blanked for a minute there.
Nah, I see her dying rather then Jon having sex with her. I can't see Sansa who is quite young and I don't know about Dany in the books.
Jon is gonna bang Sansa and pretend she's Ygritte whilst he buries his face in her ginger muff.
Jon and Sansa is a non starter I think.
Rewatched the episode yesterday and I must say that R+L=J reveal is my favorite moment in the entire show. When the scene breaks in Tower of Joy and goes to Jon, such a powerful scene.
FFS.
Please don't tell me you pulled the racist card about imaginary beings.
Are tolkiens orcs also just misunderstood?
Ends here.
She is an utter bitch who somehow ended up married to one of the good guys.
I noticed that also, it is either way over the top or a wonderful troll attempt.
Copycat
Just rewatching some of the best bits. The ToJ scene really was incredible. The music and cut to Jon was justPossibly my favourite scene in the whole series.
No. Tolkien quite clearly wrote them as evil races. But then we are not talking about Tolkien. We are talking about George R R Martin who very much dislikes how Tolkien portrayed orcs as evil as a race.
It's exactly like a real life race though. All of George's work symbolises or mirrors real world issues and things. For example Dragons are nuclear weapons,
How is it way over the top? I'm just saying that classing a mythical race as evil just for very little reason is the wrong thing to do. Just like it was wrong for the British Empire to class Africans as a lesser being.
Comparing fiction to real life when fiction is quite clearly inspired by real life is not over the top, it's exactly what you should do in life.
PURE speculation.
IF, and I repeat, IF the books play out the same as the show, then what we see is that the Others are not some organically occurring species, instead they were created for a purpose. IF that is the case, then it would seem that purpose was to help the CotF to defeat mankind. They actually might be very single-minded in that pursuit. Whether that makes them evil or not, well people may see that differently. IF, it plays out like that, then to me, the others seem like a weapon that the creators no longer can control or that has grown beyond their control. But they are still trying to carry out their purpose.
Originally I thought they might be some sort of cleansing agent if you will, they come back when mankind gets too corrupt or strays too far down the wrong path, they come along and force mankind to find a new path. But I was totally pulling that out of my backside.
Originally I thought they might be some sort of cleansing agent if you will, they come back when mankind gets too corrupt or strays too far down the wrong path, they come along and force mankind to find a new path. But I was totally pulling that out of my backside.