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

Good job consolidating Rory and Biter - I forget what happens in the books, they follow Brienne onto some hill or something?

Brienne runs into Gendry and the brotherhood and ends up assaulted by those two, or something like that and I believe barely survives? who knows, that book is so bad.

They meet Brienne at the Inn at the Crossroads, which has been taken over by children and Gendry. Brienne kills Rorge, is attacked by Biter, passes out, and is picked up by the brotherhood without banners.

I dropped the show and started reading book four instead. I'm mainly interested in the world and the backstory, and the show skimped on that to make place for all the rape. I liked most of book four, but I'm quite amused at how GRRM ever thought this strategy would be okay with his audience. Waiting five years, and then half the story has been held back, to make place for four Dorne-chapters which is basically Arianne trying to do something but being imediately foiled. Like, what was he thinking? Just write until it seems like a book, release, keep on writing. Man, it is weird.

Oh I guess that's how Brienne ends up there

Can't help thinking of the Simpsons "I call the big one Bitey" when Biter is mentioned

Similarly, next episode I am for sure going to be thinking "His name is Robert Paulsen"

http://insidetv.ew.com/2014/05/21/game-of-thrones-spain/

TV’s most globe-trotting series is preparing to add another country to its passport. Sources say HBO’s Game of Thrones is looking to film part of season 5 in Spain. The HBO fantasy hit is currently scouting locations in the Andalucia region of the country and is deep in talks with a local film commission.

[...]

While fans of George R.R. Martin’s novels will certainly have their theories, we cannot reveal which part of the increasingly expansive world of Game of Thrones that Spain will help depict.

That's the flimsiest SHHHH I've ever seen.

Spain feels a little too on the nose tbh

Everything about Dorne is on the nose

it could be Braavos

Aah yeah, kind of assumed they'd already filmed on location after the Daavos speech scene.

Good point. I always pictured Braavos as Venice, though.

Mixed with Amsterdam.

Yeah, where would they film Braavos in Spain? Could be Pentos and the roads that Tyrion are travelling on. But nah, it's Dorne.

Aren't we getting close to the point in the story where Arya goes to Braavos?

i always thought of highgarden/the reach as spain but iirc nothing happens there in the books ever

isn't Highgarden more like France to Dorne's Spain?

the reach does seem more frenchy. tbh tho you can make a very strong case for everywhere in westeros being britain with dorne then tacked on the bottom, which i imagine is m/l exactly what the creative process was. dorne being spanishy seems p straightforward. braavos being broadly venetian seems right too. pentos they have already filmed of course, altho i don't know where that was.

as for book action in the reach, we have the oldtown chapters i guess. it is funny the odds and ends that the show is going to have to find a way to deal with or ignore. the stuff in oldtown as an example seems like it is going to be consequential at some point, but who's to say they can transplant that elsewhere.

She probably will be/should be in Braavos by next season, but it's probably going to be Dorne that is set in Spain

Looking forward to seeing Areo Hotah and Arys Oakhart, what rich characters

Looking forward to seeing Arianne Martell/whichever starlet they cast as her nakked.

Which one is she? The main princess?

I'm probably the only person who found the dorne stuff a snooze but got into the Ironborn business.

Yeah, Doran's eldest and the heir to Dorne.

I have completely forgotten the machinations of that plot. A coworker is reading books 4 & 5 together, alternating chapters. I don't know that it would clarify the narrative but it might make the sloggiest parts a little easier to take.

In AFFC, Arianne abducted Myrcella to make her queen because she was mad at her father for wanting to disinherit her several years before. It didn't make a ton of sense, and didn't amount to a lot.

i always thought of dorne as sicily - deep south, sun-bleached, full of vengeful princes

She only thought Doran wanted to disinherit her -- he's supposedly in on Varys's Targaryon restoraton scheme and was saving her Aegon.

Well, Doran was saving her for Viserys. Once Viserys died he wanted Oberyn to marry Daenerys instead. Haven't read the Dorne-chapters from ADWD yet.

You're right -- Viserys.

You can make a very strong case for everywhere in westeros being britain with dorne then tacked on the bottom

Or everywhere in Westeros being Britain through a mirror, with the Lands of Always Winter being tacked on the top.

http://i.imgur.com/S4INh.png

Stereotyped European climates/cultures extra, no charge.

Making King's Landing, what, Liverpool?

http://winteriscoming.net/2014/05/23/characters-confirmed-game-thrones-season-5-new-details/

i wonder if they could've done the dorne and iron island storylines outside the main series, like mini series spinoffs on one-off specials or something. i guess that gives them even less material for the main series but there is something narratively satisfying about the idea imo.

The Sand Snakes, Oberyn Martell’s bastard daughters (with ages ranging 18-25):

I see the producers are keeping their options open.

braavos is more like amsterdam than venice i think

venice

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bravo

there is no deeper shame as an american than to have some canadian drop some james fenimore cooper knowledge on you in a rebuttal

I think it is very much meant to be an amalgamation of the two. The layout is much more Venice, and it's a trading post which is much more like middle age Venice. On the other hand, it's religiously tolerant, and the placement of the free cities are obviously meant to be like the Hanseatic League, right?

Is this streaming anywhere?

Next week there better be mammoths

gloomy gray banking capital filled with canals!

as well done as the fight itself was, i didn't love how it just seemed to suddenly happen. it could've used a bit more in-episode build up. also jorah's dismissal very similar, a really significant moment that just happened and was hurried past. but hey we did get what i am gonna assume was some kind of bizarre internet fan service thing with misandry and grey worm.

also needing more build up imo is next week's fite. i feel like the show needed something more visual than a passing reference to the hordes descending. we got a couple of scenes of stannis on a ship en route to blackwater and that did the job. i am sure they could've done something similar, mance and ser bones surveying an abandoned craster's or something, like the police in holy grail.

maybe i am misremembering, but the revelation of sansa's identity already seems like a significant departure from bookplot? i guess they must have something in mind for those characters to burn their wheels with for next season. something that involves sansa joining christian death apparently.

lannister beetle smashing simpleton = grrm right?

Oberyn's death was one of the most shocking moments in the whole series, and not just because of the way he died, but because you get a good understanding of the character and his death has meaning; he didn't (really) get his vengeance. He's been ok on the show but you don't really get that sense of him in the same way, there were more scenes of him in brothels than talking about his sister. It all felt very superficial. Still, his scene with Tyrion where he talks about the Martells and their father (wtf) visiting Casterly Rock was great.

but the revelation of sansa's identity already seems like a significant departure from bookplot?

ADDITIONAL SPOILER WARNING FOR ACCIDENTAL TOURISTS

sooo...judging by the other thread, the remaining major death of this season is going to be poorly received by the tv crowd. episode 10 is probably going to be "hooray, at least this guy isn't going to die" followed by "wtf that guy's dead now?? fuck this i'm out" followed presumably by...well...the opposite of a major death i guess. and will that improve matters for the 'fuck this' folks or will it prove to be the last push for ppl with one foot out?

misandry

lol her name is spelled Missandei.

yes

but now we'll never get to find out what the story with the Lannisters' finances is!

I'm curious as to whether they'll do that final, awful Tysha revelation with Tyrion and Jaime.

yeah this is yet another instance where the show spent more time with a character (tywin) than the books did and so theres more potential for attachment that isn't there in the books with oberyn or tywin or even robb stark

Possibly of importance here is the fact that the tv show comes out staggered, whereas for many people I'm sure that the spate of deaths / apparent deaths in the latter part of Storm of Swords would have been covered in 1 or 2 reading sessions, making it a kind of blitzkrieg where you come round afterwards rubbing your eyes and wondering wtf just happened and who's actually still alive. Maybe the TV show is giving people too long to think about this stuff.

Assuming episode 9 is almost entirely at the wall, finalé is gonna be pretty packed this year, huh?