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

Or why the White Walkers haven't already killed and conscripted the entirety of the Wildling population.

Yeah this is something that hasn't been explained/thought through.

When Jon Snow prepares to kill Ygritte, she is scared that he wouldn't burn her body afterwards. There were hints that the wildlings had been rising as zombies lately, and that that was what the White Walkers did: Mainly waited for some of them to die, and kill others, and so on and so on. The show has changed that with Hardholme and the mystical Night King and all that, and as with nearly all their changes, it probably wasn't thought through.

Wrt magic, there are two things to remember: 1) Magic mostly happens away from the center of Westeros, so most educated elites dislike it. Essos is much more magical, and the Targaryans also rode their dragons from over there. The other thing, which is probably much more in the book as well, is that 2) Magic is intertwined with power in this world. Melisandre does not just do magic. She does the will of the fire god R'hollor, and was claiming that Stannis was that God's rightful king. The Starks aren't just warging. They're demonstrating their connection to the animal of their vigil, and their power as descendants of 'the first men' (who inhabited Westeros before the southerners came, kinda like the celts in Britain), their connection to the Old Gods, etc. The White Walkers are also intertwined with this myth, and with the Children of the Forrest (whom Bran are now with), so to people in the south, it's a bit suspicious that a Stark bastard keeps talking about them. And of course, there are the Targaryans and their dragons. And basically, for the followers of the Seven, of the New Gods, mainly the Lannister family who has not a single speck of magic connected to them, every admission of magic is an admission that other families are stronger than them, and therefore, by implication, probably more skilled at ruling the kingdom. So it's not just that people don't believe tales of magic, there are powerful vested interests in not believing them.

The show changed what now?

My theory is that the last thing keeping the Whites from full on attack was Craster exposing all those baby boys.

At this rate, 2200 seems an awful long way away. I'm pretty worried about 2013 or 2014.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 10 January 2013 22:38 (3 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

(from Global Warming's Terrifying New Math which Josh has apparently forgot about - I'll leave it as my last word in the diversion)

I totally agree with ... me. But in the show, the ice zombie army and dragons are 2013 or 2014. It'd be one thing if the grumpy pants characters in Game of Thrones were saying "Winter is Coming ... in 150 Years." Maybe they have been, and we're just sort of watching en medias rex. "Ugh, shut up about the zombies, dude, I'll be dead in 150 years, and besides, people are dropping like flies around me on a daily basis anyway. Now, here's my plan to get free refills of mead even though I only paid for one flagon!"

But anyway, yeah, I liked FB's bit on willful ignorance as a different sort of power.

I should also stress that I'm not totally obtuse, I get that "Winter" (et al.) is like global warming. I guess my take is just that it is not something that is predicted to happen in the future, but something (in the show) that is actually happening now, a prediction come to pass. But you (all) are right, not a lot of people seem to know about the White Walkers or even the return of dragons, at least not outside (some) of the elites the show focuses on. As of yet in the show I still have no idea what the population of these lands actually is.

Nobody but those who have seen them believe white walkers/zombies exist or still exist. They do however know that winter is coming. They don't realize that winter will bring the white walkers with it.

As of yet in the show I still have no idea what the population of these lands actually is.

yeah i've generally found it odd that winterfell seems to have maybe 100 people living in it, and not even the metropolitan centres seem particularly sprawling

iirc there have been many Winters since the last time the Whites were a threat

I'm pretty sure that way back in season 1, Ned mentions that Arya was born during the last winter. He also mentions that since it's been a longer than usual time since the last winter, the next winter is likely to be much worse than usual.

can i just mention yet again that i will never understand why they don't release the episodes in the late fall/winter so that they can use "WINTER IS COMING" in the ad campaigns? i should be an advertising bigwig, these ideas are solid gold!!

maybe HBO Australia uses "WINTER IS COMING" in its ad campaigns?

(I don't know if HBO Australia exists)

See, that's another thing not clear to me. Obviously people believe in dragons, they just don't know they're back. But Winter (writ large) is a real thing, too, that people have experienced and planned for and dealt with, so it's not like some fiction. And is the same true for the White Walkers? Stuff of fairy tales, or ancient history?

white walkers hadn't been around for thousands of years, and they possibly were the stuff of legends and not real.

I totally agree with ... me. But in the show, the ice zombie army and dragons are 2013 or 2014.

Andrew's point is that climate change is 2013 (or in fact most of the 2000s). That is, the effects of climate change are already here -- it's not some purely notional consequence anymore.

There are legends about the Whites but they much more distant than dragons

Are

Fair enough.

Maybe I don't remember, but I can't recall what's motivating the Wildlings, either. At this point do they just want to be left alone? I assume they're preparing for the White Walkers, too, perhaps more than most. Though I don't know how one prepares for that. Or why the White Walkers haven't already killed and conscripted the entirety of the Wildling population.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, April 28, 2016 1:13 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

isnt the entire hardhome episode the white walkers coming to fucking kill all the wildlings (or at least sack their capital)? and they all ran off on boats to escape.

Maybe they'll bump into this guy:
https://31.media.tumblr.com/3676e4ba7ff8b2291d53ee67e2931f63/tumblr_n7fcf4dBkJ1qbqzawo1_250.gif

But Winter (writ large) is a real thing, too, that people have experienced and planned for and dealt with, so it's not like some fiction.

It's been almost 15 years since the last winter at this point.

I'm not sure what's being debated here.

I think the original problem statement was "People who are supposedly rational and intelligent are worried about dumb local politics instead of the obvious existential threat (or threats, depending on how they feel about a Targaryen with dragons)"

and an ancillary problem statement to that was "magic is goddamn all over the place, why do people seem to keep acting like it isn't"

and I thought these were RIDICULOUS questions a la Deej's response but the discussion that followed was worth it

Ok well then to that, yes, nobody in Westeros believes the white walkers exist (anymore or at all). So it indeed resembles climate change debates but in an exaggerated sense.

I think in a ridiculous make-believe world like this one there is no such thing as a ridiculous question, especially because any such questions with answers will no doubt be answered by something equally ridiculous. "Well of course no one can ride dragons, because the Anti Dragon Rule of the Land of Erp decreed that no one shall ride a dragon before their 18th birthday, and all children were killed before they turned 18, so yes there were no dragon riders but the entire population of the Land of Erp got old and died and took with them the secrets of the ancient dragon-taming scrolls, written in the dead Oompa tongue, which no one could translate, anyway, since it can only be seen under the Red Moon of 5th Autumn, and we have not seen one of them in 300 years."

Which is to say, afaic, it's all good.

The Oompa tongue died after Willy Wonka took all the Loompas as slaves, I take it.

well we got all the parts of every line up to "...dee daa" or sometimes it's "...dee dee" but the rest of the words, no clue

They took their confectioner secrets to the grave.

i think we talked about this quite a bit on the other thread but the approach to magic in Martin's universe is really cool imo--it's a genuinely strange and (often) unnerving thing to most people. it remains mysterious and subject to the whims of the gods or whatever--just like it should in a pre-modern context.

tolkien is mostly good at this too. dreary magic systems are a plague upon fantasy literature.

I think in a ridiculous make-believe world like this one there is no such thing as a ridiculous question, especially because any such questions with answers will no doubt be answered by something equally ridiculous. "Well of course no one can ride dragons, because the Anti Dragon Rule of the Land of Erp decreed that no one shall ride a dragon before their 18th birthday, and all children were killed before they turned 18, so yes there were no dragon riders but the entire population of the Land of Erp got old and died and took with them the secrets of the ancient dragon-taming scrolls, written in the dead Oompa tongue, which no one could translate, anyway, since it can only be seen under the Red Moon of 5th Autumn, and we have not seen one of them in 300 years."

yeah man let those fuckin' nerds have it. so good

as it was told in the book of custos

Got no problem with the nerds! I've read two of the books and watch the show. Both are really easy to avoid, if I wanted to, but at least with the show I totally admit I am engaged. I'm just frustrated that six seasons in and so much remains nebulous, at least to me. Just from a craft standpoint, it's getting harder to believe they can tie up so much satisfactorily, but maybe I will be really surprised, in which case, I doff my Valerian helmet.

Also, tbh, I can sense my wife's interest waning a bit, and if she goes, usually that means I go as well. So I'm rooting for the nerds!

shit is not going to be tied up satisfactorily

That's probably true enough. But at least as long as it holds to some sort of logic I'm prolly OK. Like, if there is a literal deus ex machina intervention - which is totally possible in this world - I'd be bummed.

GRRM has specifically said he's not going to pull a Lost. I really hope he pulls it off.

Dude has said a lot. But it's possible he'll pull it off in his way and the show will fail in its way. Or vice versa, both seem equally likely at this point, though there is a much greater chance of Martin dying before completing the story than the show getting cancelled before it reaches its own end.

oh they're not gonna get cancelled, hasn't HBO already ordered the final seasons (w the show runners wanting to split the last season in half or something?)

I hope this show ends with a ripping Edgar Winter guitar solo fwiw

Oh, it won't get cancelled. What I mean is there is a good (or not small) chance the show will end its run (well or poorly) and GRRM won't.

yeah I think that's entirely likely

GRRM might be spooked by what went down with Robert Jordan, worried DBW and Benioff are his Brandon Sanderson, and get his ass in gear. would be excellent if the concluding book dropped the day the final season premiered

I feel a very tiny amount of bad that Shakey made a perfectly serviceable St. Elsewhere joke yesterday and then had to come back today and be like "they will not tie this up satisfactorily"

i sort of feel bad too there's zero gay of thrones discussion on this thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQT7qDKcGDc

pretty sure the show ends with dany and jon sharing an incestuous kiss as they ride a dragon while it napalms an army of white walkers

fin

oh btw there was a partial explanation to the buning question of where prince whothefuck was when the Sandsnakes killed him. The letter from Jaime his dad got said that the prince was being sent back to Dorne on a boat, so I assume the SS intercepted the boat after seeing the letter.

You know what they say about ASSuming. It makes an ASSassin out of you and me.