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

I was a bit disappointed not to get white spiders the size of hounds.

with no real goal than just the compulsion to envelop life.

understand what you're saying in general but thats still p much exactly what they are, they've merely revealed now that the walkers happen to possess rudimentary vicious emotions

totalitarian death cults can organize politically too!

can someone explain to me quickly how the high septon suddenly has enough power to imprison the king's mother, wife and brother-in-law without any resistance

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, June 2, 2015 11:30 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

a lot of it turns on the fact that the king is an ineffectual child who doesnt understand how to wield power, cearsi was using the kings power by proxy so that explains the wife and brother in law getting locked up part, then the high septon just sort of took her under that precedent, and since she alienated all potential allies and the king is in his room depressed shes stuck, it speaks more to a power vacuum than the sparrows having any real power imho, and will likely conclude with the tyrells seizing the iron throne since they have actual resources

tho i guess theres a larger show wide theme of religion gaining in strength too as winter appraoches

the natural loser in that trend would be secularism as embodied by the lanisters

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OP93UmgcfI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Peasants'_War

can someone explain to me quickly how the high septon suddenly has enough power to imprison the king's mother, wife and brother-in-law without any resistance
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, June 2, 2015

yeah the power vacuum thing scans for me but the whole "the king is too depressed in his room to do anything" thing for me really stretches the imagination

i mean basically anyone who would do anything has left king's landing but still, with everything we've seen and been told about king's guard throughout the series it's hard for me to believe that there wouldn't be an all out war happening

the septon plot would be way more convincing and satisfying if they would have spent a little more time building it up in seasons 1-4. they way it emerged powerfully this season over a few episodes makes it feel like a throwaway sidearc a la about a quarter of all battlestar galactica episodes. i'm still having trouble convincing myself that it's important enough to pay attention to even as they seize power and throw major characters into dungeons.

everyone hates cearsi and the tyrells are working toward political rather than violent solution is m/l what it comes down to

with no real goal than just the compulsion to envelop life.

understand what you're saying in general but thats still p much exactly what they are, they've merely revealed now that the walkers happen to possess rudimentary vicious emotions

― dellevadova depression beard (slothroprhymes), Tuesday, June 2, 2015 11:42 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah but what I mean is they seemed to possess a mindless momentum, but now it is clear they actually strategize etc.

It was mentioned that Kevan was back, and earlier in the season he didn't really seem to like the way Cersei was running things. I'm guessing he would be able to get her out if he really wanted to, but it's probably easier to try to fix things while she is out of the way.

yeah the power vacuum thing scans for me but the whole "the king is too depressed in his room to do anything" thing for me really stretches the imagination

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, June 2, 2015 12:06 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well cearsi also convinced him that if he tried to free marjorie the religious fanatics wld kill her so its not like hes not doing it just because hes sad

i'm sure this will be addressed shortly but is varys still waiting for tyrion to finish pissing?
seems like he pretty likely would've gotten to dwagonqueen by now and maybe that would've come up while those guys were drinking given tyrion's oblique "this great honest man directed me here, fuck if i know where he got off to"

the whole dang royal familes in the relgious dungeons a p cool plot imo in that its very ~psychological~ tho i do agree w zach that it feels a lil rushed

It actually would be pretty funny if Kevan made some kind of alliance with the Tyrells and that their condition for backing him was that Cersei remain in prison. Basically everything currently is going great in King's Landing (Margery and Loras out of prison, the Sparrows are taken care of) but they just kept that one nun to go ask Cersei to confess from time to time.

the White Walker 'kings' have always appeared to have had strategic thinking, haven't they? Their growing zombified army of wites have looked to be a mindless hoard - controlled to some extent by the Walkers, presumably.

i'm kinda with you evan, although i'm hopeful that there will be occasional glimpses into the white walker's world that add more mystery and terror.

a few possible really cool things regarding the white walkers/evil king guy that could be explored are mentioned in the last paragraph of the first answered question here:

http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/ask-the-maester-the-origin-of-the-nights-king-the-wights-and-dragonglass/

i am kind of baffled by the knowledge in that column since i started reading it - i can't deny i'm enjoying the tone though, the jokes and the captioned photos are good too.

yeah, "Ask the Maester" is great. I've been enjoying game of thrones way more since I started reading it.

Also kind of amazed by the amount of background information contained in these books (which I haven't read).

we need a cliff notes GOT thats the length of one normal book

it exists and is called "the world of ice and fire"

sry cant trick me

http://www.amazon.com/World-Ice-Fire-History-Westeros/dp/0553805444/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1433265209&sr=8-1&keywords=world+of+ice+and+fire

this is the primary source behind most of the ask the maester columns (aside from the books themselves and the dunk & egg novellas, of course)

the primary source except for these other thousands of pages of sources oh btw its also written by the same guy who cant get enough of boiled leather doublets, okay

lol, alright man

im not sure what you're protesting here! aside from GRRM's tastes in medieval fashion

bad long writing

ah. well, yeah. i was merely saying that if you want something along the lines of a thrones-world cliff's notes, it does exist. but you can get most of the stuff you'd want to look up from any of the wikis, its prob not worth even the amazon price (let alone the publisher's price)

"Potentially anything dead that’s within the range of a White Walker’s power can become a wight."

http://i.imgur.com/PDDl7.gif

i enjoy the wikis and explainers but what if someone put it all together while preserving the good narrative qualties is all im saying, feel like we need to explore the possibilities of fan fiction here folks

There's probably lots of scenes of mysterious horsemen in the high distance but the one that instantly came to my mind was in Berserk when Guts sees Zodd up on the far hill ominously watching the battle, that was spooky in a very similar way.

I'm not generally into brutal and cruel stories but sometimes I find something satisfying about them. I was watching a fantasy authors panel on youtube and someone said the Camber Of Culdi series by Katherine Kurtz in the 70s was way more miserable than Ice & Fire books, and I was all like "gimme some of that!"
My guess is that even though these things are prone to cheap shock tactics and sadistic author fantasies, these stories feel refreshing because we see too many characters surviving everything (I'm particularly sick of cliff edge scenes).
Also read Joanna Russ talking about how she thought people liked horror stories because even if they're completely unrealistic, the unforgiving worldview of many of them rings true to the fans. A lot of Ligotti fans just can't get enough brutal pessimism; I don't understand it when it gets to that point.

can someone explain to me quickly how the high septon suddenly has enough power to imprison the king's mother, wife and brother-in-law without any resistance

The Ask the Maester on this made a pretty good case, backed up by fake book history:

David asks, “If Cersei deputized the religious fanatics, ostensibly on Tommen’s orders, why is the king powerless to stop them? Can’t the king unauthorize Jonathan Pryce, and free the queen?”

Sure he could. Let’s pretend for a moment that Tommen is a strong, able king, and not the kitten-loving mama’s-boy punk that he actually is. Simply declaring the Faith Militant disbanded is pretty simple. Getting them to actually put down their weapons is much less so. As I wrote after Episode 4, it took three Targaryen kings, backed by the might of full-grown dragons, nearly 50 years to subdue the Faith back in the first century AC. Remember the trial of seven from Maester Aemon’s section above? The only other time that we know such a trial was invoked was when King Maegor the Cruel and six champions fought off Ser Damon the Devout of the Faith Militant and six of their champions for control of King’s Landing and, indeed, the entire realm. That trial ended with 13 dead bodies and the winner, Maegor the Cruel, in a coma for 29 days. It would take roughly another decade of off-and-on war before the Faith agreed to disband during the reign of Maegor’s successor, King Jaehaerys the Conciliator.

You could argue that since the Faith have only recently been rearmed, a sharp engagement involving the Lannister army and the City Watch could clear out the Faith Militant — at least in King’s Landing — with only a few thousand deaths. Like, a low-four-digits body count. Even if Tommen had the stomach for going down in history as Tommen the Butcher or whatever, Cersei has stacked things in such a way as to make that difficult. Tommen could send a raven to Casterly Rock, asking his uncle Kevan, who is ostensibly the realm’s Master of War, to send troops. That would require going through Pycelle — who would probably send the raven — or Qyburn, who probably wouldn’t, at least not without Cersei’s OK. Asking the Tyrells for help would make sense, but doing so would weaken his mother’s Lannister family connections and give the Tyrells a tighter grip on power. The real answer: Royal power exists in great part in the minds of those who are subject to it. It’s Cersei who has wielded that power and therefore it behooves everyone — like, on pain of death — to assume that the buck ultimately stops with her. At least for now.

Actually, Ask the Maester>the show>>>>>>>>>the books. I've really enjoyed his (?) writing, and his ability to convey tons of information in an entertaining fashion, plus under 1000 pages. Martin's writing is unfortunately not up to his world building, and the show isn't always much better, though I do appreciate how the latter cherrypicks what it needs to underscore and what it can just sort of ignore.

I do lol at the world of Daenerys, Tyrion, Varys, Jorah etc having an Uncle Kev

I've heard people say Martin writes in very different styles. I remember someone who adored Fevre Dream that couldn't get into Ice & Fire books because of the style.

tbf, Tommen did just get a PS4

is tommen bout-it bout-it for GTA 5 or is he more an MLB the show type guy

um i'm pretty sure we all know tommen's just jerkin it in there

basically like that one episode of roseanne

http://newnownext.mtvnimages.com/2013/11/Roseanne-6-7.jpg

"Potentially anything dead that’s within the range of a White Walker’s power can become a wight."

so are these the things that inexplicably attacked bran, et al when they arrived at their destination w the fairy ppl

yeah those were wights

did the books have a few pages about the undigested food that could be seen through the ribs of that little boy zombie?

― Is It Any Wonder I'm Not the (President Keyes), Tuesday, June 2, 2015 9:43 AM (13 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Lemon cake that could be seen through his boiled leather clothing

― I am using your worlds, Tuesday, June 2, 2015 9:47 AM (13 hours ago) Bookmark

Lmao

The white walkers were sick (i've forgotten what they're called in the books now lol grrm suck it) and i'm glad that only the leaders get that fake CGI eye glow

U see why they need a giant fuxking ice wall now it's because the little walls get punched thru or overthrown

I like how logical it all is

the wall is big and good

Yah

I wonder if the walkers were attracted to the dragon glass

I think they were attracted to Jon snow. He's really pretty

Ya I would white walk for him any day of the very very very long westerosi year!!!!!