THE GAME OF THRONES/ASOIAF SPOILER THREAD (WARNING: SPOILERS)

I'd bet it all on it being catelyn's reanimation. Closes the dondarrion story nearly and you can't kill her, have her body in a river for what viewers will interpret as 10 months, then go through all the events of season 4 before dondarrion showing back up to give his life for a character we've thought was dead for a year now.

Also gives them a chance to start the hunting of the freys path for the brotherhood that took place mainly in the background of the books.

maybe both will get in there, they both make sense. that'd be a doozy to go out on.

yeah they'll probably have multiple cliffhangers

i feel like davos's redemption / convincing stannis to head for the wall has to be in the finale, they're already setting it up with having him learn to read. thats one of my fav scenes from the book too even though its kind of small and underwritten compared to the other things going on at the same time

Mance Rayder's army approaching wall with mammoths, giants, etc

― lego maniac cop (latebloomer), Monday, May 6, 2013 4:42 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

this would be lame imo

feel like no one really cares about where mance rayder's army goes atm

OTOH if it ends with redhaired northling whatshernameagain getting owned that would be pretty huge, feel like they're def building to that now that i think of it

well she gets killed during that battle in the books, so i'm assuming they're heading there

ya i think they'd have to actually do the battle, not just have ominous approaching, to make that satisfying

that'll be next year presumably? His story this year's gotta end with him splitting from the wildlings and rejoining the watch.

actually looking at the wiki, yeah I think this season must end with the skirmish b/w the wildling raiders and the skeleton crew at the wall. Just not enough time to build to that big battle and it gives Jon something to do next year.

I just want to see some giants riding mammoths dammit

another question is how much of dany's stuff they are going to cram in. will they settle with the defeat of yunkai or will she get as far as meereen?

there's only four episodes left! they just started marching to yunkai! remember there's a whole season after this one based mostly on storm of swords' back half so meereen will be most of dany's story in season 4.

the viper vs mountain thing, i say this a lot, absolute highlight of the entire series for me, crazy thrilling in the book

― max, Monday, May 6, 2013 4:18 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

seconded, i was reading this part in a laundromat and i had to contain myself i wanted to scream 'omg omg omg' so much.

yeah that's hands down the most intense scene in the books to date

You're forgetting the scenes with Ser Pounce in them

thirding viper vs mountain, its one of the best executed rug-pulled-from-under-you scenes in the books

i feel like davos's redemption / convincing stannis to head for the wall has to be in the finale, they're already setting it up with having him learn to read. thats one of my fav scenes from the book too even though its kind of small and underwritten compared to the other things going on at the same time

― ciderpress, Monday, May 6, 2013 4:59 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

thats a fav of mine too

i feel like the show has criminally underserved davos who is a totally underrated character in the books.

agreed

Fourthing viper vs mtn, unforgettable scene that leaves you fucking shaking.

With the show, I'm in a p nice place at this point where between the changes/composites they're making and my faded memory of what actually happens in the books, I'm in just the right amount of suspense.

Love the Viper, which makes me think that they'll be saving his fight vs. Mountain to the back half of S4.

I don't think that Cat's going to be shown resurrected this season, because presuming that RW is happening in episode 9, I don't think her return is going to be that powerful if it happens just an episode later. But bugger all if I know of a more logical place for it to take place (maybe we see Nymeria dragging her body from the river)?

You're forgetting the scenes with Ser Pounce in them

QFT.

i feel like the show has criminally underserved davos who is a totally underrated character in the books.

I thought Davos was a big fan fave in the books?

But yes, he's offscreen far too much on the show. >=(

oh davos might be a big fan fave, idk, i just read them all a year ago and don't know much about what the ~fandom~ hive mind thinks.

Fandom loves Davos, Tyrion, and Arya, thinks Catelyn is the antichrist, and are uncomfortably invested in the relationships between Arya/Gendry, Sansa/Hound, and Jamie/Brienne.

So not only can we be impatient with GRRM for writing so slow, but his publishers for taking their goddamn sweet time too. I remember when I asked about the ADWD paperback at a store in March, they told me it had just been pushed back a fourth(!) time until May. Just went on the B&N website to see that it has now been pushed back again, until October. Jesus.

With the show, I'm in a p nice place at this point where between the changes/composites they're making and my faded memory of what actually happens in the books, I'm in just the right amount of suspense.

― Moron Tabernacle Chior (Jon Lewis)

ha this is exactly where i am also, i read the first three books in between season one and season two and it really hampered my ability to enjoy season two. either the changes they made annoyed me (and this is rarely the case) or it was too condensed or they just couldn't pull stuff off on the show ('blackwater' comes to mind). there was also a certain deliberate bleakness in book two, martin making it clear how brutal the war is for the powerless and that knights are generally little more than effective murderers that in the show just gets reduced to so much corny grit. there's also some fleshing out of characters (stannis esp) and backstory stuff that was more easily understood to be missing in an adaptation. this season enough time has passed that i don't mind as much and i think at the same time they've improved enough at adapting that i've either enjoyed the changes or enjoyed seeing how the show has strengthened or brought to life certain aspects of the book (snow and ygritte esp).

was joffrey a weird murder-sex perv in the books? thats a big change in characterization i think

I don't think he was shown doing anything quite that horrible, but it's not really much of a stretch.

idk! hes clearly shown to be a horrible kid but hes also pretty clearly just a fucked up kid w/ father issues and too much power, not like a budding sex murderer

yeah, in the books I think there's more of a sense of his sadistic tendencies belonging to a spoiled and cruel child, where the series has gone for the full-blown psychopath. idk, i kind of feel like making his lack of empathy congenital is a bit of a waste, e.g. you lose the motivation for him deciding to have Bran killed, which in the books is about wanting to fulfil his father's wishes. His relationship with his mother also seems different -- in the books there's much less of the sense that she's ever attempted to be a restraining hand, but the series makes a big deal of him threatening her for getting in his way.

I used to think that the characterisation change was partly a result of the ageing-up and so the need to deal with adolescent development in a different way (which i think kind of explains some of the Robb-Talisa story, given the jeyne westerling stuff is supposed to happen when he's sixteen but in the show he'll be 18 by then and given the super-sexy treatment it'd take a lot of explaining if an 18-year-old king surrounded by camp followers for 2 years was that kind of romantically/sexually naive). but joffrey isn't aged up by more than a year, so. i guess it's just "incest corrupts the mind" + "this is what a psychopath looks like on television"

totally, well put

yeah i'll admit that i was a lil taken aback at the whole crossbow thing---i remember him being cruel, but not delighting in cruelty a la the bastard

ionoman we don't get any POV closeups but iirc it's p clear from day 1 that IT'S A GOOD LIFE is playing 24/7 in king's landing once lil joff gets his crown

Ha that's true

in the books sansa was to be wed to some random tyrell cousin, right? also i don't recall cersei being told to marry loras

loras's brother. another sensible write-out/merge, actually adds to the pathos of it

loras was already in the kingsguard at that point, so it wouldn't have been an option - cersei's marriage to someone is suggested though iirc

sansa thought for a second she was going to be wed to loras and then margaery was all "haha no silly he can't marry anyone, we want you to marry my older brother willas, he is sweet and gentle and likes puppies and can't walk due to a riding accident"

Loras was like the third son, and outside of cock, mainly interested in serving in the Kings Guard, so no marriage intrigue there. Sansa was to marry one of his else brothers, who happened to be lame in a leg but smarter than most of the Tyrells.

I wanted her to marry Willas, I think that might have been her only chance not to end up with a horrible life.

i wanted her to elope with the hound

i did too kinda

You guys are my sworn enemies.

getting rid of all that crap with the drunk knight was definitely a good move

The weird thing is that they introduced him right at the beginning of S2, but then he never came back as far as I know (haven't seen any of S3 yet).

You guys are my sworn enemies.

getting rid of all that crap with the drunk knight was definitely a good move

Dontos is supposed to make a return - maybe next series?

surely it'd be quite a significant departure if they dropped the Alayne Stone story entirely -- I'm kind of curious how they'd manage to do it given how much they've decided to have Varys know.

Varys could likely have known all that though - he doesn't give a shit because it suited his agenda. The problem is the Lannisters knowing.

is the lorays being gay stuff ever made explicit in the books at all?

IIRC there's no actual sex scene but multiple ppl talk about Renly and Loras boning

yeah, it's not on screen but it's implied many times. i think one of the main differences in their sexual relationship is that in the books margaery never actually joins the two for a menage? it's just 'joked' about?