Game of Thrones & House of the Dragon

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dwk
Joined: Sat Jun 12, 2010 6:10 pm

Re: Game of Thrones

#26 Post by dwk » Wed Jul 10, 2013 7:33 pm


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dwk
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Re: Game of Thrones

#27 Post by dwk » Fri Jul 19, 2013 9:19 pm

This In Memoriam montage (massive spoilers for all three season) played before the Game of Thrones Comic Con panel.

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domino harvey
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Re: Game of Thrones

#28 Post by domino harvey » Wed Apr 16, 2014 4:24 pm

(Spoilers for Seasons 3 and 4 and/or Book Three)
SpoilerShow
I'm waiting to start season four until I finish the books (about to start A Feast for Crows) but I've already read the big thing that happened this week on the show and my basic life lesson takeaway from this series is never go to a wedding
Also, free advice: don't pick up the fifth book and look at the back cover, as there is a HUGE GIANT spoiler in the very first line of description that I wish I hadn't seen. There could be more spoilers than that but I violently stopped looking at it!

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mfunk9786
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Re: Game of Thrones

#29 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Apr 16, 2014 5:37 pm

How many books still have to be published, two of them?

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EddieLarkin
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Re: Game of Thrones

#30 Post by EddieLarkin » Wed Apr 16, 2014 5:44 pm

Yes, 2 more is the plan, though the author has implied a few times that he can't help it if he ends up needing 3. I read the first 4 books a couple of years before the show started and find it quite underwhelming in comparison. It's good fun and great to see some of the major events come to life on the screen, but so far has fallen short matching the books' scope and superior plotting. I don't know if I just had my expectations way too high though.

For any fans of the books, make sure to check out the 3 novellas currently published (soon to be collected in an illustrated anthology detailed here). They are just as entertaining as the main series and inform some of the events that happen therein, despite being set around 100 years in the past.

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jindianajonz
Jindiana Jonz Abrams
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Re: Game of Thrones

#31 Post by jindianajonz » Wed Apr 16, 2014 5:57 pm

Also keep in mind that when Martin originally planned the series as a trilogy, but once he finished the first three felt that he'd need three more. Then when he was writing the fourth book, he found it was too long and split it into two. So his track record for predicting the end hasn't been very good.

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EddieLarkin
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Re: Game of Thrones

#32 Post by EddieLarkin » Wed Apr 16, 2014 6:03 pm

I believe his original trilogy is still what we're getting, but across 7 books instead of 3. When he was writing A Game of Thrones, it was intended to include all of the major events that happen in what we now know as the first 3 books. So in effect, those first 3 are Part 1 of his original envisioned trilogy. Part 2 is books 4 and 5, and Part 3 will be books 6 and 7. Hopefully.

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movielocke
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Re: Game of Thrones

#33 Post by movielocke » Thu Apr 17, 2014 3:52 am

from what I've heard, book five doesn't even end where he thought his original book two would end, so it looks like it will take three books to resolve that as well.

I read the first couple books back in high school, reread them in college and have listened to three of them on audio book. I haven't reread the fourth and fifth book, though. Personally, I love the TV show, I think it is a phenomenal adaptation, and I cannot wait for the show to overtake the books so that I can finally find out what happens to the various storylines. Waiting 11 years to find out what happened next with Bran and Jon and all the rest pretty much killed a lot of the joy from the books. Martin's writing is superb, but most of what makes it great--the dialog and intrigue--is translated more or less verbatim by the show. And the show loses most of his weaknesses as a writer, namely his tendency to get lost in epic catalogs of minutia and endlessly repetitive "Tour Westeros!" plot threads, where we see the latest miserable village--the equivalent of visit the planet of the week on star trek.

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Shrew
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Re: Game of Thrones

#34 Post by Shrew » Thu Apr 17, 2014 1:51 pm

Also, free advice: don't pick up the fifth book and look at the back cover, as there is a HUGE GIANT spoiler in the very first line of description that I wish I hadn't seen. There could be more spoilers than that but I violently stopped looking at it!
Had you not finished Book 3 yet when you read that? I think that's the only way the first line on my book (the paperback) could be considered a spoiler.

The show's big test will be next season, adapting books that have less of the relentless plotting that makes the first 3 so fun. It could either make something great and lean by simplifying much of the chaos, or get bogged down trying to manage all of it.

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domino harvey
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Re: Game of Thrones

#35 Post by domino harvey » Thu Apr 17, 2014 2:22 pm

I'm in the midst of book four now with hopes to use the Easter weekend to finish the last two books so now I'm hoping I just misread that line in my panic to not get something spoiled!

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Shrew
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Re: Game of Thrones

#36 Post by Shrew » Thu Apr 17, 2014 4:17 pm

Yeah, (here's some not really "spoilers" about the structure of books 4 and 5, nothing to do with the plot)
SpoilerShow
If you haven't realized yet, book 4 only focuses on some of the characters, with the rest coming back in book 5. So Daenerys's story in book 5 picks up shortly after the events in book 3. This is also why there's no way these two books don't get combined and condensed in the next TV season, as there's no way they can let half of their most popular actors go away for a full year.
It's easy to get worked up into spoiler panic with this series, but with so much labyrinthine plotting and so many characters, a lot of the time it's just a misinterpretation of some reference to past minor events long forgotten.

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jindianajonz
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Re: Game of Thrones

#37 Post by jindianajonz » Thu Apr 17, 2014 8:10 pm


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domino harvey
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Re: Game of Thrones

#38 Post by domino harvey » Thu Apr 17, 2014 9:29 pm

Even hovering over the link reveals the spoiler, so don't click the spoiler box unless you know what happened (though given the proliferation of this event on popular media sites this week, it will be hard to avoid this spoiler for much longer)

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jindianajonz
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Re: Game of Thrones

#39 Post by jindianajonz » Thu Apr 17, 2014 9:49 pm

domino harvey wrote:so don't click the spoiler box unless you know what happened
Which is how spoiler boxes generally work :wink:

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Murdoch
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Re: Game of Thrones

#40 Post by Murdoch » Mon Jun 02, 2014 11:02 pm

SpoilerShow
Well that was... traumatic. I'm gonna go watch Scanners now.

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knives
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Re: Game of Thrones

#41 Post by knives » Tue Jun 03, 2014 2:07 am

Yeah, took awhile to go to sleep last night. This show is good at, if nothing else, refusing proper catharsis.
SpoilerShow
The Mountain died also though, right?

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EddieLarkin
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Re: Game of Thrones

#42 Post by EddieLarkin » Tue Jun 03, 2014 6:00 am

If they're sticking to the books,
Minor book spoiler, likely future episode spoiler withinShow
no.

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jindianajonz
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Re: Game of Thrones

#43 Post by jindianajonz » Tue Jun 03, 2014 9:15 am

EddieLarkin wrote:If they're sticking to the books,
Minor book spoiler, likely future episode spoiler withinShow
no.
Book spoilersShow
Well, technically yes, but....

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tenia
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Re: Game of Thrones

#44 Post by tenia » Tue Jun 03, 2014 4:46 pm

SpoilerShow
Most precise answer should be : not yet.

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movielocke
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Re: Game of Thrones

#45 Post by movielocke » Tue Jun 03, 2014 5:48 pm

book 1, Book 4, Book 5Show
What is dead may not be dead.
Gregor becomes this, what Bran saw in book 1:
Over them both loomed a giant in armour made of stone, but when he opened his visor, there was nothing inside but darkness and thick black blood.

I interpret that to mean that the experiments Qyburn is doing on Gregor's mostly dead/dying corpse in book 4 result in "Robert Strong" from Book 5 and the manner Qyburn accomplishes it is blood magic similar to what Miri Maz Dur does in book 1 and the blood magic that Melisandre does (shadow baby, leeches) in Book 2.

What happens to Gregor is different from the resurrection magic used to create wights/zombies by the white walkers.

And it is different from the resurrection magic used to create Beric Dondarrian.

And I've always thought the "what is dead may never die" Iron Born mouth-to-mouth resuscitation ritual is a remnant of similar resurrection magic in their religion's past.

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jindianajonz
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Re: Game of Thrones

#46 Post by jindianajonz » Tue Jun 03, 2014 6:12 pm

Movielocke,
All BooksShow
I'm under the impression that there are essentially two bodies of magical force at war with eachother in westeros: The magic of the The Old Gods/the White Walkers/The Children of the Forest/Warging/The Drowned God, and the magic of the Red God/The Seven/Melisandre/Thoros of Myr/Dragons/Valyria/The Targaeryons. I also get the feeling that Westeros originally held to the first body of magic, but subsequent invasions from across the narrow sea have pushed this magic back beyond the wall and replaced it with the magic of Valyria.

I've also seen it theorized that the Maesters of Westeros conspire against magic of all kinds and are working to keep it out of the world. Qyburn is a rogue Maester, but I'm not convinced that he is actually practicing magic- I got a sense that his work is more scientific than magical in nature, though I may be wrong on this since there isn't much evidence on how exactly he is going about his experiments. Either way, I think the the magic of Melisandre is at the very least the same magic that Thoros of Myr uses to keep Dondarion alive, so I can't see Qyburn practicing one but not the other.
Last edited by jindianajonz on Tue Jun 03, 2014 6:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Mr Sausage
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Re: Game of Thrones

#47 Post by Mr Sausage » Tue Jun 03, 2014 6:20 pm

Just to emphasize: could everyone follow other members here and say whether they're spoiling the show or the books, because otherwise there's no way to tell.

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movielocke
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Re: Game of Thrones

#48 Post by movielocke » Tue Jun 03, 2014 6:24 pm

speculation on the nature of magic in the books and showShow
Hmm. I don't think it's going to boil down into such groupings. I think it's more that there are underlying "wild" laws of magic and different cultures tap into them differently resulting in different outcomes. These groups will ally and fight each other in various formulations in the future as much as they have in the past. I, for one, think the Children of the Forest might actually be much more "bad" than has been suggested so far in either book or show.

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jindianajonz
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Re: Game of Thrones

#49 Post by jindianajonz » Tue Jun 03, 2014 7:21 pm

more book spoilersShow
movielocke wrote:I think it's more that there are underlying "wild" laws of magic and different cultures tap into them differently resulting in different outcomes.
That's kind of what I am getting at, except rather than a single underlying law of magic, I think there are two different pools of magic that people tap into in a wide variety of ways. Martin has framed his world as a conflict between a number of dualities- Stark vs Lannister, Old Gods vs the Seven, Red God vs the Drowned God, Magic vs Maesters, north of the wall vs south of the wall, Eastern Kingdoms vs Westeros, and if you subscribe to certain theories, Varys' Order vs. Littlefinger's Chaos. Even the conflict of the four titular kings in Clash of Kings can be defined by a sequence of separate binary questions: Is Joffrey legitimate or not? Should rightful Stannis or capable Renley succeed Robert to the Iron Throne? Should the North stay part of the Seven Kingdoms or secede? I don't see the conflict as a four way battle, but rather as a series of two way battles all happening at the same time. And don't forget that even the title of the series, A Song of Ice and Fire, suggests that this story is ultimately about the different conflicts between sets of two opposing forces.

I don't mean to say that everything in this series can be easily lumped into two large but discrete groupings (Martin has said he wants to avoid the Tolkien trope of having handsome good guys in white and ugly bad guys in black); instead I like to think of the books as a circular pie that Martin keeps halving in a variety of different ways to yield a large number of individual pieces. But since the title suggest that two of the most prominent groupings we see will be the forces of Ice and the forces of Fire, I tend to think the magic of this series will loosely follow this pattern.

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dwk
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Re: Game of Thrones

#50 Post by dwk » Tue Jun 03, 2014 8:00 pm

Knives, Tenia's answer is correct and not too spoilery. A more spoilery answer is
I expect the show to mention this in episode 10Show
Oberyn's spear was covered with poison that slowly, and painfully, kills the Mountain.

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