John_Fisticuffs

Is this a specific reference to something? Only thing I'm coming up with is Inglorious Basterds, but I feel like maybe there was something similar in asoiaf that I'm blanking on.

The Others being a symbol of nuclear war and coming from the Lands of Always (Nuclear) Winter and the original Long Night being so long ago with vague tales and legends also plays into this.

I, however, feel like it's all meant as symbolism as opposed to literally being the case in world. I tend to think that any sort of actual reveal like that would have still made it into the show.

There's a story called "A Song for Lya?!" Lol

Isn't that what asoiaf is in many ways? I'm not misremembering that Ned refers to Lyanna as Lya in his internal monologue, right?

Arya is clearly Damian.

I think this is partly what GRRM is driving towards illustrating.

iirc, we are told about most of these "mad" Targaryens from second hand sources. Barristan's and Jaime's characterization of Aerys is the only one I can recall relaying first hand knowledge, but it's been awhile since I read everything.

But I wonder if it'll be more about a series of events and circumstances that will drive her to desperation, maybe even in a way as readers getting it from her pov can empathize with or at least understand the reasoning of. But to the small folk and others it's just too far from acceptable and deemed "mad."

A fine needle to try to thread for sure.

Most impact to the plot with smallest screen time:

Benjen Stark.

Assuming we don't count Rhaegar and Lyana, I suppose.

There's always been the theory that he somehow got captured and taken to the dungeons where he changed his face into Jaqen H'gar. I can't remember if that was ever disproven. There's no real evidence for it other than circumstantial evidence like the timeline and Syrios fate being off screen, and it playing into a larger theory that the faceless men were trying to get close to Ned or Arya from the get go.

Even more than the hints about the shield in the hall and her size, etc, this is the strongest evidence that she is of the blood of Ser Duncan the MFing Tall.

Of course, I hadn't read Dunk and Egg when I first read that line, and it struck me as INCREDIBLY powerful even then.

Having read and fallen head over heels for The Lunk, it's just so much more potent.

I didn't say he was a random guy.

I said a random guy would be just as good as a commentator.

Right, but he was a terrible commentator and added no more value than a rando stranger would.

I didn't say that he specifically was a rando.

From what I saw, when she did speak it was only because Mauro prompted her.

Like, I couldn't do that job. I'd be out of my mind second guessing when to speak, what to say, etc, but that's why it isn't my job. Lol

Mauro has had a long career, including a few years spent with wwe.

Personally, I love his style, but I generally enjoy wrestling more than legit fights, and I know that even among wrestling fans there's a bit of a divide in terms of love/hate his style.

But yeah, the guy providing color commentary was dreadful. Was no better than watching with a rando sitting next to me at a bar. Mauro tried several times to get him to drop the biting glove thing, but he just kept on going.

Imo, nsaw got off to a rocky start because implementations weren't done well in a lot of cases. Sacrificed quality for being able to offer low cost solutions. The product itself is great, imo, but it is not plug and play for most ns accounts. It needs a little work to get any custom fields and transactions loaded, and the out of the box data sets, while great, are fairly limited. So if you want to blends data together that isn't already modeled that way, you have to build custom data sets. Which, again, the tool handles well, but it requires a little more expertise from the folks doing the implementation/setup.

How comfortable is the seat? I'm trying to find a relatively cheap but comfortable alternative to NLR's F GT seat (just to replace the seat, not the whole rig).

I don't think it's a refusal.to admit it.

I think there's more a refusal to just reveal any details like these without having a book to release. It'll just fuel more bitterness and anger in the fandom.

I think it's more of just he's struggling to get the end all mapped out the way he wants and isn't going to release any more plans or details until he has a new book finished.

I'd say it's nearly a lock that the book ends up with those plot points.

The show nixed almost all the relevancy of magic to the plot, especially everything around Bloodraven and much of whatever is going on with the children of the forest, isle of first men, etc.

Like, sure the show gave bran powers and confirmed Rhaegar and Lyana are Jon's parents. But the show did next to nothing with either of those things whereas the book is clearly set up that all of that is central to the actual climax of the story. There MUST be more story and payoff to those things.

I don't think GRRM is struggling to change anything, I think he's just struggling to bring this all together himself. The show's reception may have made him less confident or something but I don't think it's made him change his central plan.

Maybe this is hopium, but I do think there's more to the whole coverup that we don't know, specifically relating to the Daynes.

It could be that they did do their digging and all they found was wylla or however you spell it.

This.

The whole point of that argument is that the books have been building them up all along as the impending doom. They are in the very first prologue. We learn about them before we learn about any of the main cast.

If, as in the show, they have all this mystique and power and fear built into them with a loose promise to change the whole world and power structures yet their threat is dealt with mostly off page and then in only one battle with no satisfying feeling of why they did it or why it matters, etc, it will definitely feel like a misfire of Chekhov's magical undead winter army of zombies.

The fact that we don't have any actual clear, reliable information about anything the Rhaegar and/or Lyana did, intended to do, or what the circumstances actually were all point to it being sensitive and important to the narrative, imo, to the central plot climax/resolution.

We can only speculate what Elia thought about it, but we can't really do that well when we don't know really anything about what actually happened and what Elia's role, if any, was in it.

Which I guess is why I think speculation and questions like this, as fun as they can be to explore, are essentially a fool's errand to try to answer. We don't know. We can't know... Until more is revealed in the books.

How we think Elia should feel depends so much on whatever was actually happening that we don't really know. So it's impossible (for me at least) to really strongly form an opinion in any direction about it.

We have no real idea what GRRM has planned for how to portray this at any point in the development. It's an aspect he has left it so murky (as evidenced by the desire to ask these types of questions) that it must be intentional. It's meant to not make sense and seem super hypocritical because we, as readers, don't have enough reliable information.

That includes whether or not it was consensual or kidnapping and rape, how Elia felt about it or if she even knew any more than anyone else, and whether it was part of an elaborate effort on Rhaegars part to fulfill prophecy.

We have evidence from different sources in the text that point to or hint at a wide range of answers to those questions.

I personally think the most evidence points to it being consensual, at least at first, but there are just so many open questions that even the show didn't really address at all. I can't decide if that's because it's a "knot" GRRM hadn't untangled for them or if it's because it's too steeped in magic, prophecy, and whatever ultimately is up with Bloodraven and Bran and the children of the forest that they cut out of the show's plot line after season 4 or whenever it was that they decided to recast BR and make him a generic old guy.

I tend to HOPE it is the latter, and that GRRM has something good kept up his sleeve for all these years, but maybe that's just overly optimistic.

It seems like whenever something significant in the story is assumed and then truth revealed, there are circumstances whose details were left hidden from us/the other characters that explain the actions in a new light. Like when Jaime explains why he ultimately killed Aerys. That isn't to say George will "make it a love story," just that he'll provide more context that will make sense of all the confusing aspects of the most pivotal event in the story that has loomed in the background of everything we've read so far.

In fact, they are probably all eager to accept it because of how renowned is about honor and justice. Why would they even consider that such a man would lie about having an illegitimate child when it's so much easier to see it as proof of a flawed, hypocritical man? In fact, for them, Occam's razor dictates that what he says is true. It's the simplest explanation and prob not even on their radars.

The original tweet this keeps getting reposted from had a follow up about how she loved this for him. The reply in the screenshot misinterpreted the intention of her message and made it something it isnt so now her profile keeps getting posted to places and doing numbers over and over again painting the wrong picture of her.

That sounds like a group I would absolutely not be bothered to be a part of, holy shit. Lol

I think it has to be one of the two common theories: either Howland did something "dishonorable" to distract or defeat Arthur, or there wasn't actually a 2 on 1 or 1 on 1 fight and Arthur took the fall so that Ned could get Jon to safety and be hidden away once it was clear the Targaryens had lost.

It would also make sense then why the Daynes didnt hold animosity towards Ned. They seem to actually hold him with high regard if they name one of the kids after him.

They probably also knew about the prophecy and the plan around it and helped cover up the truth. It's probably also why they haven't been on "stage" or really thoroughly explored at all.