HBO adaptation of Game of Thrones - will this be just for nerds? (NO SPOILERS PLEASE)

well these aren't really plot spoilers they're just things that the book goes more in-depth on. but yeah this is getting into other-thread territory i think

xpost tbf most Qartheen scorn warlocks as weird-looking has-beens with no actual mojo

and this was explicitly mentioned in season 2! ;)

What I was getting at is that I understand why people might not realize magic is back, but there has been enough magic in the past - no debate on the presence of dragons, for example - that these GoT dudes should at least allow for the benefit of the doubt. I mean, in our world there have never been giants or wizards or dragons, but if there were a room in the Smithsonian dedicated to dragon skulls of any size, I'd at least consider the possibility that some of that other magical stuff might have been real, too. Though I suppose they might consider dragons the way we consider dinosaurs - they're dead, so who cares - their dragons flew, breathed fire, coexisted with humans and conquered worlds, which is more than you can say for our terrible lizards.

Maybe it just is that the show has done a poor or incomplete job explaining magic in this world. Whether it was once known to exist or whether people think of it as myth and legend. I do like the show, but I do think if I lived in a land of miracles, I'd pump up my praying a tad.

Do dragons def count as magic? In the same sense as the resurrections + smoke monsters?

Sorry you sort of go into that with dinosaur analogy but I'm confusing myself thinking about it now.

How does the fauna of Westeros relate to our earth's fauna? Is it basically parallel, w/ some variation (direwolves). Do they eg have squirrels called squirrels?

They're called diresquirrels.

wait til you get a load of the direworms

xpost I think a better analogy than dinosaurs v dragons when considering whether "present day" Westerosi might believe in magic would be present day attitudes to disease.

Malaria used to be endemic to the UK. It was called the ague, or marsh fever. It wasn't till the discovery of quinine in the 19C that it was effectively combatted. Yet you say to almost any Britisher that for hundreds of years malaria killed thousands of people in the UK, and they will say: "Bollocks, malaria is a tropical disease. Fairy tales, mate." Things fade from memory and even belief much quicker than you would expect.

Yeah, but in this case they have troves of giant skulls, and no one denies dragons existed! And yeah, fire breathing monsters count as magic. At least they do as this show conceives of them. We've also seen a giant (once) and a bunch of proper mumbo jumbo magic. And snow zombies. But sure, no one knows about most of the snow critters yet. Or at least, lots of people suspect but remain rather nonplussed.

I do enjoy this show a lot, so don't want to come off a complainer. But say we were in the crusades, and there were people conquering in the name of God ... and God was real, or at least allowed/encouraged/enabled miracles. I'd at least reconsider my resistance. But maybe it really is just a matter of lack of communication. I was under the impression that Theon Greydick killed all the ravens up north or something. Are the rest of the ravens still alive? Because for all the shit going down of varying magnitude, this season finale seemed to be the first time we've seen messages sent or received in some time. Like, shouldn't there have been letters streaming south by the hundreds once head Crow nightwatchman was actually attacked by a snow zombie?

Is there another thread? Why would you have a Game of Thrones thread that is spoiler free? Once there's a post that says yes, it exists, what other purpose would a spoiler-free thread serve? Just asking, because I don't want to spoil (more).

There are millions and millions of people who do still believe God is real and allows/encourages/enables miracles, and they offer evidence to prove it …

the nights watch had a lot of people then and didn't know the magnitude of the problem, now they do know and have lost a ton of manpower

Is there another thread? Why would you have a Game of Thrones thread that is spoiler free? Once there's a post that says yes, it exists, what other purpose would a spoiler-free thread serve? Just asking, because I don't want to spoil (more).

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, June 20, 2013 11:23 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes there's a get yer spoilers on thread and theon may have whacked the winterfell ravens but that's hardly all the ravens in the north.

Is there another thread? Why would you have a Game of Thrones thread that is spoiler free? Once there's a post that says yes, it exists, what other purpose would a spoiler-free thread serve? Just asking, because I don't want to spoil (more).

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, June 20, 2013 11:23 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There are millions and millions of people who do still believe God is real and allows/encourages/enables miracles, and they offer evidence to prove it …

― If you tolerate Bis, then Kenickie will be next (ithappens), Thursday, June 20, 2013 11:23 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

good xpost here

There's believing God is real and offering "proof," and then there is a woman who actually births a vagina demon that goes and kills someone. And again, there's believing in dragons based on books, but then there's believing in dragons because there are a bunch of skulls and everyone agrees they were once real because they actually destroyed things. It's one thing to pray someone comes back from the dead. It's another thing to bring someone back from the dead.

tell me about it bro

That's sort of one of the things I like about this show, that everybody goes about their mundane business in a world at least tinged with the preternatural. "Oh, that's just a giant." Etc.

Of course, if someone told me the Replacements were reuniting with Har Mar Superstar on guitar, I wouldn't believe that. We live in an age of dubious miracles.

I think if I were a mildly sceptical Londoner in 1100 I would be really unsure if elephants existed, or if people were bullshitting me. If I did believe in them, I'd likely believe some crazy things about them, probably via some corrupted Pliny tradition.

people were pretty convinced that unicorns existed for the longest time! ppl wrote about them in books, after all.

There's believing God is real and offering "proof," and then there is a woman who actually births a vagina demon that goes and kills someone.

Yeah, but the vast majority of Westeros' population is unaware of the magic stuff attributed to the Red God. Also everyone here is discussing this from a comfortably post-enlightenment vantage point. Reckon in the real middle ages the boundaries between myth, rumour and fact were considerably more hazy.

I do enjoy this show a lot, so don't want to come off a complainer. But say we were in the crusades, and there were people conquering in the name of God ... and God was real, or at least allowed/encouraged/enabled miracles. I'd at least reconsider my resistance. But maybe it really is just a matter of lack of communication. I was under the impression that Theon Greydick killed all the ravens up north or something. Are the rest of the ravens still alive? Because for all the shit going down of varying magnitude, this season finale seemed to be the first time we've seen messages sent or received in some time. Like, shouldn't there have been letters streaming south by the hundreds once head Crow nightwatchman was actually attacked by a snow zombie?

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, June 20, 2013 11:21 AM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

until maester aemon sent the ravens, almost no one except for (untrustworthy) wildlings and nights watch deserters had seen the white walkers

i think theyd been sending letters to king robert about needing reinforcements, etc. but the nights watch is also an ailing institution so that stuff gets ignored or treated like a bunch of crazies. its like the post office or something, has a certain cultural cachet but in reality theres not much political will to prop it up especially when southerners who dont really believe in the white walkers are in charge. and also while its largely staffed by freed prisoners and bastards and shamed lords

or think of the white walkers like climate change even. theres a lot of evidence that its a serious threat to humanity! and yet

so Stannis is Al Gore, you're saying

sure

i don't remember how clear they made it in the show but tyrion is basically the only person in king's landing who takes an interest in the night's watch, being the only one who's actually visited it (at the start of book/season 1)

Yeah, basically. Just a thoughtful bloke I suppose. Though I find it kinda surprising that the Spider doesn't take any interest in their affairs, given that he seems to have a finger in every pie going.

Obviously the Watch doesn't hold any political cachet whatsoever, which explains why, say, Littlefinger, is not at all arsed, but I'd kind of expect Varys to at least stay up on what was going on there. Or does he mention it and I'm forgetting? Been too long.

Yeah, diegetically, the connection between magic and dragons isn't explicit, save possibly for some whacko corners of scholars, and the insistence on the characters' necessary understanding of the connecton kind of isn't logical within the world. As you say, Josh, the dragons are how we view dinosaurs, nevermind the details of fire breathing. (Pterosaurs flew, btw. Did their flight involve magic?)

i think max understands westeros better than GRRM at this point

xpost I used to have a co-worker who would show me pictures of Padre Pio's hands and invite me to deny this was evidence of a stigmatic miracle. Not very far removed. And of course I could not deny it was evidence of a stigmatic miracle (any more than she could prove it was proof of one).

Well, there is the distinction that people and Dragons coexisted and Game of Thrones, and humans and dinosaurs in our world did not. But I'm willing to buy their dragons as our dinosaurs, and their myth become reality the equivalent of us reading something in the Bible that comes literally true. Again, I'm coming at this from the direction of having no idea where this is going. For all I know, once the White Walkers and dragons and magic are confirmed, everything might change.

As to the main point, history is replete with rulers who see no further than their own need to perpetuate their own rule and fail to notice far bigger issues …

Have the White Walkers been assigned a motive yet?

And does the general population really have no idea that the dragon queen not only has three baby dragons but also an army of thousands marching on the throne? I guess I need to be schooled on how far apart all these battles and skirmishes and wars are.

Have the Giants been north of the wall the whole time, or are they newly returned too?

north

dany is on a different continent and not even the part of it that's nearest to westeros. news travels slow, since its only word of mouth really.

the dragon queen doesn't have an army of thousands marching on the throne tho - she has an army of thousands on a different continent entirely, on the far side of a huge desert, and she's not yet made any sort of convincing move towards westeros.

also i doubt the gen pop care either way? the whole continent in which they live is in a state of war - their concerns are more likely to be centred on not dying, maybe making some money, and ideally putting aside enough stocks for the long winter while somehow avoiding their requisition by passing soldiers.

it'd be like a frenchman in 1200 anticipating the mongol conquests

But the dragon queen is not so far away that they did not try to assassinate her, right? The King? He knew she was there, just like the Lannister guy knows she has Dragons.

but the king is not the general population?

But that's the King, most of the general population are illiterate peasants, how would they know/care any of this was going on?

He knew, but the news was pretty delayed because of the messenger's travel, and also his getting the news depended on his having a spy present and in a position to hire and meet with messengers to send the msgs. That was before Ser Jorah stopped spying for Robert, iirc?

Maybe that's what's confused me. Because the previous king knew she was alive and a threat, when she was farther away. Now she is closer (right?) with more soldiers, and dragons, and the higher-ups and King's Lading know about her and them. So they must have spies way out in wherever the fuck she is right now. I understand they've been distracted by the northerners, but they all seem rather blase about the birth-heir to the throne marching their way with an army and dragons. Especially given the previous King was pretty bothered by it. But the capricious, self-interested aspect of the Lannisters is their defining trait, I suppose.

Also the previous king didn't have a big clusterfuck civil war to contend with.

There's a lot in this show of people ignoring voices of reason, because voices of reason get beheaded.