HBO's adaptation of Game of Thrones - Thread 2. There are a lot of nerds.

He was pretty much forced to do so by his asshole dad?

He was forced to take the black or his dad would arrange for him to have “an accident”.

Jon made the mistake of thinking that he could tell people about his parentage without the attending repercussions (he's the rightful heir to the throne, people knowing that is damaging to Dany's claim to the throne). He has to either keep it a secret and renounce his claim or if he's going to tell people he has to stake his claim. he has the stark habit of not being very smart with the wielding of power and information (see ned stark). dany's actions will probably spur him into action in the finale but it's too late for all the burned folk in king's landing

A big shout out to Lena Headey who made $1,000,000 an episode this season for standing at a window drinking a glass of wine. An icon. pic.twitter.com/n44MAQsK0b

— James Potter (@dontforgetjames) May 13, 2019

also robb stark

"I'm going to kill joffrey and the lannisters"
"who will be the king then?"
"don't know, not me, i'll be going home to winterfell"
"..."

once he got to the Wall, it was pretty well established that his circumstances were highly unusual, as the majority of nightswatch were either peasants, bastards, or criminals

with the occasional younger sons of noble families (uncle benjen) ... probably modeled to some extent on the way that in medieval times younger sons would join the church.

when i think about it a bit of a pivotal scene was jon telling dany about his parentage. her being solely concerned with this meaning he was the rightful heir. and silly ol' jon being more concerned about the whole incest thing and not interested in claiming the throne.

this is true but there’s a bit more to it than that for Benjen - why was Ned the only Stark left? Because his dad and brother were burned and Lyanna died - Benjen is hardly the spare son in that scenario.

what was it Roz said upthread about Jon being like the mediocre white man failing upward?

I think Benjen joined the nightswatch prior to the dad/brother/sister death? Pretty sure Ned was older than Benjen?

No, he joined after, he was a child when all that happened. Always assumed it was because he knew about Jon.

ooooh ... well, Ned was next in line to succeed, it wasn't like Benjen had any other obligations

he did end up instrumental in his nephew's ascension to 3 eyed ravendom

No I mean that Benjen was that after everyone else died, there’s no logical reason for him to dutifully saunter off to the wall when they should have married him off to someone?

tbf to Jon, he did organize the forces to destroy the Night King, brought Dany into the battle, etc. Not a complete failure just because he's bad at politics.

the Night King that was destroyed through the teamwork of his disabled brother and his younger sister?

he was fairly decent as commander of nights watch tho ... well, except for the part where he didn't see the conspiracy/assassination coming ...

the Night King that was destroyed through the teamwork of his disabled brother and his younger sister?

None of them would have even been there if he hadn't told everyone about the threat and convinced them to come. I mean, who knows where Bran and Arya would have been if Jon hadn't been crowing about the Night King to everyone who would listen?

I'm not saying he's a total waste of oxygen ... just that he's mediocre as a leader

definitely bad at battle tactics/strategy -- and ppl have already covered the politics/communication stuff

tbf to Jon i think part of his character is people trying to thrust him (sometimes successfully!) into leadership positions he doesn't wish to ascend to, it's kind of a running joke i think. did he even really want to lead the night's watch? i don't recall.

no, dude never wanted to be in charge ... and that's why he isn't totally stupid.

It is weird and chilling that they decided not to show Dany's face during the fire bombing. I wondered if it was possible she'd been warg'd (but that is simply too far-fetched). If it was just a direction decision it's a strange but effective one

Buddy of mine, making up a hack story line in our discord, had this to say:

"Think about it, the children of the forest created the white walkers to destroy humanity, but now they're defending a human from the white walkers? Doesn't make any sense.

What happened was that after the first Long Night when men defeated the white walkers and pushed them back, the children of the forest realized they needed a more powerful weapon to kill humanity, so they kidnapped a human and made the 3ER. The first attempt to kill humanity was King Aerys, the 3ER fucked with his mind and made him start screaming to burn them all over and over again, but it was thwarted by Jaime Lannister. Now Bran is doing it with Dany."

Seems very implausible, and doesn't explain why Bran worked so hard to stop NK unless the children of the forest are also at risk from the white walkers, but, what can you do.

I hope the final shot is Bran staring at the camera with glowing blue eyes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crPp0zizRDI

Jon is the James Comey of GOT: a dumb Boy Scout hung up on bullshit concepts like loyalty.

everyone in the show is being warged by benioff and weiss--it explains everything.

I disagree with this thread, I've been thinking for a while that Jon Snow is the greatest human being ever depicted in fiction.

kinguddanorf!

se@n t. c0llins, the most avid GOT defender I (used to) follow on Twitter, claims to earnestly find Jon a moving and fascinating character

The whole thing with a non-heir son joining the night’s watch is analogous to families sending their children to become priests, isn’t it?

I don’t buy the “Dany goes pure napalm because it’s her destiny to be queen” idea. She’d have deposed Cersei or executed her without burning the city! We don’t need to justify it with actual history, either — I am pretty sure Westeros has had cities sacked or burned, she just did it more strongly

I hadn’t realized it but the plot mirror in the episode is Sandor: he knows the keep will burn and fall and Arya doesn’t need to personally take out Cersei, but he’s incapable of just letting things play out because he never made it past the damage his family did and he’s playing it out when he knows he’ll die. He’s incapable of letting it happen without a confrontation as much as Danerys is incapable of taking the city under a surrender

kudos to fgti on also picking up the lack of Danerys shots during the firebombing

alien to that world, is _not_ continuing the legacy of your family to rule if you are a member of the ruling class and you are the designated family member to do so. Like, it was a big weird deal when

...when Edward VIII abdicated in (checks wiki) 1936?

my coworker said he cant wait for Jon Snow to kill Danerys in the finale. ?!?
i was like rmde dude Jon Snow hasn’t done a decisive goddamn thing in the past, what, two seasons at least. balls to that.
If anyone kills her it’ll be Sansa or Arya.

I reckon yr coworker is correct tbh

I think we should’ve all predicted this turn of events given Grimes/Elon Musk sideplot last year, tbh

A stabby ball of Jon / Sansa / Arya stuck in the doorframe.

That trailer for the last episode has somebody saying that was Emilia's final scene. Showing her walking. So I guess they probably film out of sequence or that would be too much of a spoiler?

& thinking of spoilers does GRRM look forward into the future of Westeros anywhere? I have seen reference to prehistory several times just wondering if there is anything looking forward to centuries after the current contemporary whenever that is. Though sounds like he hasn't caught up with where the tv series has.

I'm looking forward to the point where Westeros finally invents the internal combustion engine, the microwave oven and the internet.

I think they have, but that it's kept secret by the Maesters of Oldtown. That weird Sam epilogue of book four has to go somewhere!

^^^ there is a kind of iceberg plot in the deep background of the books that does involve the technological development of westeros and seemed just at the point of surfacing when they stalled. haven't seen the show since s3 but it seems to have shed it. if show euron feels somehow vestigial this is probably why.

So I guess they probably film out of sequence or that would be too much of a spoiler?

yes

It's funny to see that trailer for the making-of documentary. When the LotR films came out on DVD, accompanied by all those documentaries and extra scenes with the greenskeepers and the costume designers and the effects people, those stories were such an integral part of the whole exercise. Now, though, because I only watch things on box sets on the TV, or streamed over the internet, I don't see those extras anymore, so I haven't really seen any of the behind-the-scenes stuff.
Although I probably will buy the DVDs of GoT when the whole thing is done and you can get them all in one big lovely special edition cardboard dragon, if only so that I don't end up having to rely on the version they release in ten years' time with new effects and whatever terrible filters they will have then.

^^^ there is a kind of iceberg plot in the deep background of the books that does involve the technological development of westeros and seemed just at the point of surfacing when they stalled..

I hadn’t realized it but the plot mirror in the episode is Sandor: he knows the keep will burn and fall and Arya doesn’t need to personally take out Cersei, but he’s incapable of just letting things play out because he never made it past the damage his family did

I don't agree with this at all. Season 6 and 7 Sandor had definitely moved on. He was perfectly happy to hang around helping to build Ian McShane's sept, and only left there to rejoin the Brotherhood after some of their rogue members slaughtered the village. Nothing on-screen in season 8 indicates that he had gone back to wanting revenge on his brother no matter the cost.

It seemed to me that seeing the village slaughtered proved to him that finding peace was impossible

xp I would buy that except for the fact he goes up the stairs to confront him! Right after saying the building is coming down!

he just wanted to see his weird head

hmm, relatable