This whole "it's the worst last season of tv ever thing" is getting a bit boring now. It's not even the worst last season of a television show this year. It's just middle of the road, ok but not great ending.
Higher expectations for Game of Thrones compared to other shows. It had further to fall.
This whole "it's the worst last season of tv ever thing" is getting a bit boring now. It's not even the worst last season of a television show this year. It's just middle of the road, ok but not great ending.
Not the worst.
The most disappointing.
Well like that whole you cannot take a wife nor produce an heir shenanigans.
Jon is honorable for sure but all he needs to do is find another Ygritte and that is out the window.
Well like that whole you cannot take a wife nor produce an heir shenanigans.
Jon is honorable for sure but all he needs to do is find another Ygritte and that is out the window.
I should certainly hope he doesn't; he'll just take them to Makeout Cave before getting them killed.
The documentary, The Last Watch, aired if you want a behind the scenes look. It can be skipped in my opinion.
Yeah it was really average. It's like the documentary crew weren't given access to...anything.
"It is known." Were there any other early-years-GoT memes like that flared up briefly and then flickered out?
You know nothing Jon Snow
FWIW, I would love a spinoff surrounding Sansa, her offspring and the kingdom of the North.
The world is so cool, there are a lot of stories to go tell. Yes, most will be anticlimactic after the conclusion of what was essentially WWII, but life went on after that conflagration and it does in this fantasy world too.
The characters are the thing, not the individual plot points.
I actually find all of the theories revolving around Bran/3ER and how much he was possibly manipulating events to bring about the return of the Old Gods fascinating. Perhaps he and the Night King (and likely R'hllor and the Many-Faced god) are the only "real" gods since they seemed the only ones to show any actual power. We never really saw much from the Faith of the Seven. It's all debatable and maybe just fans trying to "fix" flaws they saw in the last season.
What I find even more fascinating is how, as the show caught up to the books, we as book readers were waiting on the show to confirm various book theories (Olenna killed Joffrey, Jon's likely resurrection, Hound still alive, Coldhands is Benjen, L+R=J, etc). And now the tables have turned as we wait on the books to possibly confirm some of these various show theories.
Good or bad, I can't think of any time this has ever happened and will probably never happen again for any adapted series (for good reason).
What I find even more fascinating is how, as the show caught up to the books, we as book readers were waiting on the show to confirm various book theories (Olenna killed Joffrey, Jon's likely resurrection, Hound still alive, Coldhands is Benjen, L+R=J, etc). And now the tables have turned as we wait on the books to possibly confirm some of these various show theories.
Good or bad, I can't think of any time this has ever happened and will probably never happen again for any adapted series (for good reason).
I'm sure others have said this up-thread, but - for me - the TV show took a real dip when it ran out of completed books. I think this was Season 6. Suddenly, the plots and characters became noticeably 'thinner', under-written.
'Editing down' George RR Martin's voluminous books yielded better results 'writing up' whatever synopsis he provided.
On your last point, I suspect that more unfinished works will become the source material for TV shows and films. Game of Thrones proves it can be done (whether one thinks it was done well, is - I think - neither here nor there.) Patrick Rothfuss hasn't published the final book of The Kingkiller Chronicle, but that's already in production. And doesn't talk of an adaptation constantly swirl around The Silmarillion, even though that was never completed by JRR Tolkien himself. Between them, broadcasters now have an insatiable appetite for content, and proven stories set in well-realised worlds - even if unfinished - are like to be irresistible.
Also, random R+L=J tangent: it drives me absolutely nuts the way the show acts like the discovery that Rhaegar annulled his marriage to Elia Martell and got hitched to Lyanna absolves him of all blame for the events which led to the war. He still:
1, abandoned his wife and children to go chase a new piece of ass
2, divorced his first wife in absentia and, to complete her humiliation (assuming anybody even bothered to send a raven to tell Elia any of this), got remarried in her homeland
3, put his dick and/or his interpretation of a vague prophecy that required him to have three kids ahead of his responsibilities to the realm as crown prince
4, apparently made no attempt at any point to explain the true nature of his relationship with Lyanna, smooth things over with the Baratheons and Starks, and stop a war (as uphill a battle as that would have been)
5, took up arms to defend his father in spite of Aerys' actions being unconscionable and in spite of the fact Rhaegar was so popular he might still have been able to stop a slaughter if he had claimed the throne himself (as many suspected might happen even before the war)
But Rhaegar was handsome! He played the harp and sang! He wasn't actually a rapist! What a cool guy? No. f*ck Rhaegar. Rhaegar was a piece of shit.
The show also seems to imply that Lyanna was into Rhaegar and did everything willingly.
This is weird. Was she kept in the dark to everything that was happening (her father and brother being brutally murdered, civil war, etc)?
Middcore wrote:Also, random R+L=J tangent: it drives me absolutely nuts the way the show acts like the discovery that Rhaegar annulled his marriage to Elia Martell and got hitched to Lyanna absolves him of all blame for the events which led to the war. He still:
1, abandoned his wife and children to go chase a new piece of ass
2, divorced his first wife in absentia and, to complete her humiliation (assuming anybody even bothered to send a raven to tell Elia any of this), got remarried in her homeland
3, put his dick and/or his interpretation of a vague prophecy that required him to have three kids ahead of his responsibilities to the realm as crown prince
4, apparently made no attempt at any point to explain the true nature of his relationship with Lyanna, smooth things over with the Baratheons and Starks, and stop a war (as uphill a battle as that would have been)
5, took up arms to defend his father in spite of Aerys' actions being unconscionable and in spite of the fact Rhaegar was so popular he might still have been able to stop a slaughter if he had claimed the throne himself (as many suspected might happen even before the war)
But Rhaegar was handsome! He played the harp and sang! He wasn't actually a rapist! What a cool guy? No. f*ck Rhaegar. Rhaegar was a piece of shit.
The show also seems to imply that Lyanna was into Rhaegar and did everything willingly.
This is weird. Was she kept in the dark to everything that was happening (her father and brother being brutally murdered, civil war, etc)?
From the evidence we have, she did care about him. Go back and look at the Reed's telling of the tourney at Harrenhal before Robert's Rebellion. Those are the personal motivations for what took place, not the political. It's probably the most important piece of backstory in the entire series.
Still doesn't explain it. We have no insight to the relationship between Lyanna and Rhaegar after the "abduction".
Since I don't think the 2 of them weren't bad people, the only thing I can come up with is the prophecy that Rhaegar firmly believed in and probably shared with Lyanna. But even this seems too flimsy a reason to the chaos that ensued.
Y’all hear the lines about duty and love? 
Aemon, we miss you. 
Middcore wrote:Also, random R+L=J tangent: it drives me absolutely nuts the way the show acts like the discovery that Rhaegar annulled his marriage to Elia Martell and got hitched to Lyanna absolves him of all blame for the events which led to the war. He still:
1, abandoned his wife and children to go chase a new piece of ass
2, divorced his first wife in absentia and, to complete her humiliation (assuming anybody even bothered to send a raven to tell Elia any of this), got remarried in her homeland
3, put his dick and/or his interpretation of a vague prophecy that required him to have three kids ahead of his responsibilities to the realm as crown prince
4, apparently made no attempt at any point to explain the true nature of his relationship with Lyanna, smooth things over with the Baratheons and Starks, and stop a war (as uphill a battle as that would have been)
5, took up arms to defend his father in spite of Aerys' actions being unconscionable and in spite of the fact Rhaegar was so popular he might still have been able to stop a slaughter if he had claimed the throne himself (as many suspected might happen even before the war)
But Rhaegar was handsome! He played the harp and sang! He wasn't actually a rapist! What a cool guy? No. f*ck Rhaegar. Rhaegar was a piece of shit.
The show also seems to imply that Lyanna was into Rhaegar and did everything willingly.
This is weird. Was she kept in the dark to everything that was happening (her father and brother being brutally murdered, civil war, etc)?
Rhaegar and Lyanna traveled from Harrenhal (or nearabouts) to the Tower of Joy, which means crossing half the Riverlands and all of the Crownlands and the Reach and either going hundreds of miles out of their way if they stuck to major roads or cutting across country for hundreds of miles. Given the vast distances involved, it's likely that by the time Rhaegar and Lyanna got the news that her father and brother had been executed and half the country was in open rebellion, she was already months pregnant.
Rhaegar didn't reappear until relatively late in the war; he sat out the Taking of Gulltown, the Battles at Summerhall, the Battle of Ashford, and the Battle of the Bells. By the time he took up arms, the slaughter was already well underway. Attempting to take the throne himself at that point would have just split the Targaryens' remaining support and virtually assured their defeat.
So yeah, while Rhaegar was certainly irresponsible at best and a piece of shit at worst, it's not like he and Lyanna were knowingly knocking back margaritas on the beach while the country burned around them.
That's all in the books, of course. In the show, everyone gets news instantly and can teleport, so they had no excuse. (-:
Still, that travel wouldn't take a year, which is how long the war, more or less, lasted.
If Rhaegar was irresponsible, so was Lyanna, assuming she went willingly with him.
I imagine this would be something that would be cleared up by Bran in the books.
Yeah, she might not have known that she was triggering a series of events that would lead to a giant civil war and the fall of the Targaryen dynasty, but she should have known that her father and brother and fiancee's response to peacing out with Rhaegar without so much as leaving a note was likely to fall on the "not good" end of the spectrum.
Of course, Rhaegar knew all that and that his dad was nucking futz and likely to escalate the conflict, so yeah. Pretty irresponsible. Maybe he had a touch of the ol' Targaryen whack-a-doodleness himself.
Lyanna was also 16 at the time, and 16-year-olds aren't always known for being good at the whole "thinking ahead" thing. Rhaegar was 24 and really should have known better.
Rhaegar's actions become somewhat more understandable if you believe he had really bought into thinking that "the dragon has three heads" thing meant he needed to have another kid.
Not justifiable or defensible, but understandable.
I have some vague recollection from the books about Rhaegar acting like there were thoughts of great weight on his mind. The kind of mood you'd expect in someone who has accepted some vision of prophecy where his actions are part of a larger plan, including the necessity of his death in the rebellion.
I could be *way* off about that, but it's in the back of my head for some reason.
I have some vague recollection from the books about Rhaegar acting like there were thoughts of great weight on his mind. The kind of mood you'd expect in someone who has accepted some vision of prophecy where his actions are part of a larger plan, including the necessity of his death in the rebellion.
I could be *way* off about that, but it's in the back of my head for some reason.
Once you know someone can project prophetic visions into people's heads and you know the end result, this becomes a really tempting way of explaining things. Between the show and the books we know that the tournament, the rebellion, and the birth were all observed from north of the wall. It seems logical to think they weren't observed without interference, or at least were observed to assure that some earlier interference was achieving a desired result.
Rhaegar's actions become somewhat more understandable if you believe he had really bought into thinking that "the dragon has three heads" thing meant he needed to have another kid.Not justifiable or defensible, but understandable.
He did though, right? Otherwise no Jon Snow...
Rhaegar's actions become somewhat more understandable if you believe he had really bought into thinking that "the dragon has three heads" thing meant he needed to have another kid.Not justifiable or defensible, but understandable.
He did though, right? Otherwise no Jon Snow...
I... never said or implied that he didn't? I'm saying that Rhaegar's incredibly reckless and destructive actions make somewhat more sense if you believe his motivation was "FULFILL THE PROPHECY" rather than mere lust.
Although giving the new kid the same name as one of his already-existing kids with Elia doesn't really leave the impression he gave a shit about them. It's less "At last, my third child, foretold by destiny, the final crucial piece in the puzzle of restoring my family dynasty to its former greatness or whatever" and more "Cool now I get to start over and have REAL kids with the woman I love."
Considering that, in-universe, taking prophecies and visions too seriously tends to get Targaryens burned alive (see: Aerion Brightflame, the Tragedy at Summerhall), Rhaegar was pretty full of himself to assume that where everybody else had failed, HE was the guy.
Again, I could be totally off on remembering the book, but the sense I got was that Rhaegar knew he would die. He was aware this was a bitter prophecy he had to swallow.
I remember one of Dany's visions being about her brother.
When Daenerys was in the House of the Undying, she saw a vision of the past, in which her eldest brother Rhaegar was sitting with his wife Elia Martell as they named their infant son "Aegon". Rhaegar says: "Aegon...What better name for a king...He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire." When Rhaegar's eyes meet Daenerys's, he says either to her or Elia, "There must be one more...The dragon has three heads", and he picks up a silver harp and begins to play.
...
It is repeatedly mentioned that "The dragon has three heads" – the Targaryen sigil is a three-headed dragon, representing Aegon I Targaryen and his two sister-wives, who conquered and united the Seven Kingdoms for the first time. The phrase seems to imply that the upcoming war will require three persons of the Targaryen bloodline in order to ride all three of Daenerys’s dragons. In his youth, Rhaegar apparently read in an arcane book about The Prince That Was Promised, a prophesied savior who would defeat a great darkness. For a time it seems that Rhaegar thought he himself was the Prince, but later he thought it would be his children: noting that "the dragon has three heads" (again referring to the Targaryen sigil), Rhaegar seems to have been convinced that the prophecy about "the" Prince actually referred to three people acting together. Baby Aegon was Rhaegar's second child, following his daughter Rhaenys. It was said that he wanted a third child, but Elia's pregnancies were very difficult, and after her second child the maesters all said that another one would likely kill her. According to the theory that Jon Snow is actually Rhaegar's son by Lyanna Stark, Rhaegar had an affair with Lyanna because he was convinced that he needed to produce a third child to fulfill the prophecy. Moreover, given that the Targaryens used to practice polygamous marriages, Rhaegar might not have seen this liaison as shaming his current wife Elia - and given that the Dornish often openly keep paramours alongside their formal spouses, Elia might not have been opposed to it either. None of this has been confirmed, however, and much of it may have been misdirection by the narrative.
I had completely forgotten about paramours being a normal thing in Dorne, though dissolving a marriage would probably be a step too far for Elia and her family, I imagine. Maybe that only happens in the show.
I'd be very surprised if the annulment plays out the same way in the books.
The slap in the face to Elia and Dorne aside, it's laughably unlikely that the High Septon granted Rhaegar a quickie-annulment with no questions asked, and told nobody and left no record except for a reference in a personal diary for Sam (and ONLY Sam) to find decades later.
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