HBO House of the Dragon - Prequel of one of the most recent cultural trainwrecks

[Chuckwagon]

There's also the fact that lesser second sons of Mern the 9th would've logically stayed behind, as well as the female Gardeners. So what they should've done is a more timid, younger brother or cousin of Mern IX would be the new King Gardener, and he surrenders without a fight to save his skin and become Lord Paramount of the Reach instead.

Yeah, exactly. We also know for a fact that Andal succession law does allow women to inherit if all the men are dead (and that daughters come ahead of uncles or male cousins), so even if Mern's entire male line were extinguished by dragonflame, if he's got a daughter or granddaughter kicking around back at home then by default she should've become the next Queen of the Reach (and its Lady Paramount were she to bend the knee). And even if there's a female successor, House Gardener need not end with her: Westeros acknowledges matrilineal marriages, even (or especially) for the Great Houses, so she can just marry a younger son from among the Reach nobility and have their kids carry the Gardener name - both Houses Lannister and Stark also only retain those surnames through the female line for example (Lannister from the marriage of their first Andal king, Joffrey Lydden, to the only daughter of the last First Man Lannister king; Stark from the only child of Brandon the Daughterless, who had a son with the Wildling King-Beyond-The-Wall Bael that was then legitimized & eventually succeeded his grandfather).

In my version, it's more the Reach houses being scared of Aegon after the Gardeners are gone, and by the time the Dance happens and the dragons die out, the other houses would've gotten used to the Tyrells, mostly thanks to marriage pacts and hefty bribes from the crown. That, and Aegon in my version conquered the Dornish, so that's one headache they took off from the Reach. I'd even have it so that the conventional part of the conquest of Dorne was accomplished by the Tyrells after them taking over Highgarden, which gains them the respect of the other Reach houses that have been worried about Dornish raiders for eons. The Tyrells and Targaryens put an end to that, which gains them the love and adoration of the Reach.

See I would normally agree that this is fine, but GRRM has also decided to make Westeros a setting where noble houses have extremely long memories and will absolutely keep blood feuds going for centuries or even millennia on end. The Brackens & Blackwoods from the Riverlands are the most notorious example, but even the Reach had their own version - Houses Peake & Manderly fought for thousands of years, even before the Gardeners miraculously managed to peacefully annex both, and still kept at it under Gardener rule until eventually the Peakes won and chased the Manderlys out of the kingdom (hence their migration to the North), claiming their old seat of Dunstonbury as a reward. And obviously, even in canon where the Tyrells kept clean hands in the demise of the Gardeners, they still have to constantly keep an eye out for their vassals with stronger Gardener blood looking to usurp them as late as the War of Five Kings (per Olenna). On that account I have to doubt that the Reachmen would ever forget and forgive a more overt betrayal of the Gardeners (symbols of a free Reach and their kings for 8,000+ years - Mern himself seems to have been a reasonably popular king at least, since all the Reach houses except the Hightowers lined up to fight dragons beneath him, and the Hightowers sat out not b/c they hated him but because of a vision persuading them not to fight Aegon) any more than the Riverlanders would forgive the Freys, especially since Targaryen rule starts hitting rough patches (thereby creating opportunities for anti-Tyrell factions to make a move) within around a century of Aegon's death (Faith Militant Rebellion - about 40 years of the Conquest, the Dance - about 80 years after that).

I'll stress though that this is again more-so a fault of Martin's worldbuilding than yours or any other fan's. Among his flaws as a writer, the guy does seem to be oddly addicted to overcomplicated solutions that end up creating more problems than they solve where a simpler one would have sufficed. The canon ending to the Dance is a big one - Aegon III marries Jaehaera (A2's daughter and only living child at the end of it all), thereby neatly reunifying the Black & Green lines and creating the opportunity for the Blackfyres to also descend from the Greens, seems logical and clean right? Certainly that's a match to mend the rifts of the realm in the vein of Henry VII's marriage to Elizabeth of York, and all that. Well apparently we have to subvert expectations one more time, so Jaehaera has to randomly get yeeted into a spiky moat and Aegon has to fall for a smokin' hot six-year-old Daenaera Velaryon instead, even though that kills the reconciliatory aspect of the Aegon-Jaehaera marriage and doesn't improve the lore at all (Daenaera doesn't do anything important and had nothing in common with Aegon, while Aegon & Jaehaera could have bonded over the trauma the Dance visited on both their families & reaffirmed their determination never to allow such horrors again)*. So similarly, we don't need to contort ourselves into pretzels trying to justify how the Tyrells gained and more importantly, held onto the Lord Paramountcy of the Reach for so long if Martin had just done the sensible thing from the start and gone 'yeah, Gardeners are famed for their fertility, so there's probably a Gardener great-grandson or second cousin once removed or something around & ready to yield the Reach after the FoF happened'.

* I don't think the show will change this, but if HOTD does, it might be the only adaptational change from the source material that I - and I suspect a lot of other people who've read TWOIAF and Fire & Blood - would approve of. It's honestly such a retarded out-of-nowhere twist that contributes so little, and in fact detracts from the narrative that I have to assume it was done just to subvert the expectations of everyone who expected a Tudor-esque 'feuding families reunite' ending to the Dance, and/or because Martin and Elio Garcia/Linda Antonsson (his co-writers on those lore books) really fucking hate the Greens and badly wanted to end their lineage at all costs.

 

[Outer Space Traveller]

I'll stress though that this is again more-so a fault of Martin's worldbuilding than yours or any other fan's. Among his flaws as a writer, the guy does seem to be oddly addicted to overcomplicated solutions that end up creating more problems than they solve where a simpler one would have sufficed. The canon ending to the Dance is a big one - Aegon III marries Jaehaera (A2's daughter and only living child at the end of it all), thereby neatly reunifying the Black & Green lines and creating the opportunity for the Blackfyres to also descend from the Greens, seems logical and clean right? Certainly that's a match to mend the rifts of the realm in the vein of Henry VII's marriage to Elizabeth of York, and all that. Well apparently we have to subvert expectations one more time, so Jaehaera has to randomly get yeeted into a spiky moat and Aegon has to fall for a smokin' hot six-year-old Daenaera Velaryon instead, even though that kills the reconciliatory aspect of the Aegon-Jaehaera marriage and doesn't improve the lore at all (Daenaera doesn't do anything important and had nothing in common with Aegon, while Aegon & Jaehaera could have bonded over the trauma the Dance visited on both their families & reaffirmed their determination never to allow such horrors again)*. So similarly, we don't need to contort ourselves into pretzels trying to justify how the Tyrells gained and more importantly, held onto the Lord Paramountcy of the Reach for so long if Martin had just done the sensible thing from the start and gone 'yeah, Gardeners are famed for their fertility, so there's probably a Gardener great-grandson or second cousin once removed or something around & ready to yield the Reach after the FoF happened'.

* I don't think the show will change this, but if HOTD does, it might be the only adaptational change from the source material that I - and I suspect a lot of other people who've read TWOIAF and Fire & Blood - would approve of. It's honestly such a retarded out-of-nowhere twist that contributes so little, and in fact detracts from the narrative that I have to assume it was done just to subvert the expectations of everyone who expected a Tudor-esque 'feuding families reunite' ending to the Dance, and/or because Martin and Elio Garcia/Linda Antonsson (his co-writers on those lore books) really fucking hate the Greens and badly wanted to end their lineage at all costs.

You read my mind. Not only Daenara Velaryon will make for a confusing plothole for the future of the Targaryen lineage per the HOTD point of view (Shouldn't Targaryens then be mestizos from then on?) - but by having Jaehera be "not-lackwit" as she is claimed to be in the sources of the book and not be thrown into the spikes, it would be a good bond for Aegon the Third. Also makes sense for how Targaryens continue to look White.

Another thing I will say how HOTD managed to improve over the source material, even if people will ask how: The lack of Mushroom. Not to be missed.

 

[Chandelier]

It's because Martin has no conception of how a medieval nation actually feeds itself, and assumes that they can just 'vietcong' it up with little to no issue. Despite the reality that without modern fertiliser, or technology, they could only ever grow food near rivers or easily (from the air) spotted oasis's

IIRC Dorne really only grows food near the river that takes you to the sea, where the land bridge was once located. Otherwise it's surrounded by deserts and mountains; it's assumed that they can disappear into the desert and know where water is located like Arabs. I think there is some use of desalinization (well, as good as you can get for fantasy) but Sunspear is the one with all the goods. In Fire and Blood the Dragon's Wroth does indeed cause a famine.

I could also rant for literal hours about the Dothraki, and how poorly Martin understood the Khans. I'm not exactly the most PC guy around - I am fact, very racist - but even I'm like "Come on man" with how Martin seems to be trying to portray them as raping, retarded, conan tier barbarians.

They're a combo of the Khans and the Comanche, with other Steppe-nomads in there. The difference between them and the Mongols is that after the rape and genocide was done, the Mongols did accept abandoned or orphaned children of other nations/tribes into their own and allowed women to inherit if their husbands died (i.e they would take over the clan and its affairs, and anoint the next successor). Mongols also knew about taxes, levies and trade, and didn't just engage in slavery as the Dothraki did. Dothraki have no concept of city-states or nations; they're just fancy raiders.

Otherwise Aegon II's ascent over Rhaenyra would not be questioned at all, since Rhaenyra's anointing as heir would contain a clause that would make any future trueborn sons of Viserys succeed over her.

That was the problem with the Council of 101. Jaehaerys was never going to let a woman take over; the problem that the show never addressed was that clause. If Viserys wanted to really shake things up, he should have abdicated while still alive or change the law himself. Making it a law where the eldest child inherits instead of the eldest son would unironically bring Dorne's support.

So the Dothraki come off less as a representation of these horse-riding nomads, but as someone's stereotype of them would be.

More or less. They will wage war over slaves and gold, but have a limited concept of trade. Mongols knew what taxation was and Genghis Khan's grandson wanted to talk to the Pope. They have no homeland or nation state; just a capital filled with stolen goods that they don't even bother protecting because it's in the middle of the desert.

 

[FatR]

You don't even need Valyrian steel. Fire arrows for the wights and obsidian crossbow bolts for the Others will do. Which makes it even funnier that GRRM expects us to see them as a threat, when any lord with enough combustibles and dragonglass can eradicate the threat of the Others for good.

I agree that Others were weaksauce, but not because their grunts were individually weak, They did not need to be individually powerful. The wight army is dangerous because wights know no fear, disobedience, hunger or fatigue, and every living creature they kill joins their ranks in minutes. The Others also being relatively easily to kill also does not matter, as long as they act even semi-intelligently, meaning, constantly hiding behind thousands of wights. In a setting without comparable magic of other types, a necro-army like this with no apparent limitations beyond needing to have an Other within a few miles for precise control and reanimation (wights still attack on instinct even without that) is a complete game-breaker.

The setting obviously had a comparable magic, though. The dragons, of course. On paper they are a soft counter to Others. They can just fly over the wight ranks, or sweep them off the field with fire, and wights do not have enough human skills remaining to build weapons capable of threatening dragons. With dragons in the equation you did not need to give Others a weaksauce hive queen weakness to make them beatable. You could keep them as ice elf necromancers they were in the first book, and have the war with Others involve some actual back and forth,. If Others, once past the Wall, cannot just snowball with an endless horde of the dead, because it would be nuked from the air, they have to employ sneakier tactics, fanning around to depopulate the countryside and reduce humanity to isolated strongholds, or trying to lure dragons into ambushes.

But Martin (I'm pretty sure D&D were working off his notes on all the major plot points) just couldn't help himself. He had to have his le ebin subversion. He had to make so that Daenerys' dragons would fail in the most miserable fashion, and only make the situation worse. And so he had to resort to giving the Others an obvious crippling weakness, that made their defeat anticlimactic.

 

[Outer Space Traveller]

But Martin (I'm pretty sure D&D were working off his notes on all the major plot points) just couldn't help himself. He had to have his le ebin subversion. He had to make so that Daenerys' dragons would fail in the most miserable fashion, and only make the situation worse. And so he had to resort to giving the Others an obvious crippling weakness, that made their defeat anticlimactic.

This is what makes me somewhat "sorrowful", so to speak. People saying they were "so sorry" for Martin, while (rightfully) bashing D & D for rushing. Yeah, sure, they rushed - they didn't care anymore. But both were at fault:

David & Dan because they were tired of the fatass not finishing the books and just said "fuck it, we're gonna crank the subversion times two." The Night King doesn't even exist in the books, so we don't know who the Others' leader is.
Martin because he said "his vision" was for it to have 14 seasons or whatever, but it would have been an incredible slow burn, where people would just have grown apathetic to the series and just wouldn't care anymore. The actors too would feel like the series wouldn't go anywhere - something Martin wanted to happen. And all these people that were "We're so sorry George" would have NO FUCKING EXCUSE. Who would have fucking thought that the "Edgy, realistic, subversion" from the 2010s would have died down so quick.

 

[TheHarbinger]

Warcraft 3 handled zombies better

The Undead storylines in WC3 and TFT are basically what the Blizzard North team thought might happen in future ASOIAF books plus their own spin. There are tons of references to ASOIAF in the games and the writing team had obviously read the first three books. The last mission of TFT is prominently called 'A Symphony of Frost and Flame'. It's been longer since we got a true Warcraft RTS game than an ASOIAF main series book.

David & Dan because they were tired of the fatass not finishing the books and just said "fuck it, we're gonna crank the subversion times two." The Night King doesn't even exist in the books, so we don't know who the Others' leader is.

D&D are still 90% at fault. No Aegon or Connington, no Stoneheart, no Victarion, and tons of unmade content. Awful adaptions of places like Dorne, Iron Islands, or the Citadel. Endless book changes starting right from the first episode. They literally swapped characters in the GOT prologue for no explained reason. Lines like "the bad pussy" or "finger in the bum". The smallfolk forgetting Cersei's 9/11 attack. CGI polar bear battle. Extreme levels of teleportation and plot armor. None of this came from GRRM.

D&D only wanted seven seasons and had to be begged for eight. They just wanted to make Star Wars movies. They could have put GOT on hold for a few years while GRRM wrote more books and HBO made more prequels or side content. Instead they have tanked the entire franchise with stuff like Arya killing the Night's King and destroying the mystery of the Others.

 

[Outer Space Traveller]

D&D are still 90% at fault. No Aegon or Connington, no Stoneheart, no Victarion, and tons of unmade content. Awful adaptions of places like Dorne, Iron Islands, or the Citadel. Endless book changes starting right from the first episode. They literally swapped characters in the GOT prologue for no explained reason. Lines like "the bad pussy" or "finger in the bum". The smallfolk forgetting Cersei's 9/11 attack. CGI polar bear battle. Extreme levels of teleportation and plot armor. None of this came from GRRM.

D&D only wanted seven seasons and had to be begged for eight. They just wanted to make Star Wars movies. They could have put GOT on hold for a few years while GRRM wrote more books and HBO made more prequels or side content. Instead they have tanked the entire franchise with stuff like Arya killing the Night's King and destroying the mystery of the Others.

Precisely, the guys who made essays back in 2019 weren't wrong per se - they blamed D & D rightfully. Yet they also treated George as if "his vision" was almost blameless, not seeing that his saga after the trilogy of A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords began to unravel ever increasing plots that grew and he needed to untangle them. His original idea of a five year long gap (or maybe it was intended to be larger?) was replaced in favour of things continuing at 300 AC, so there were considerable rewrites. Of course this caused problems either way: The characters didn't grow older as he planned, and plot points advanced too quick for his liking.

Now we have the Mereeneese knot where he has difficulty to untangle (How the fuck will Daenerys leave there?), the inclusion of Darkstar of House Dayne, and so much more. Even if one could say that Cersei and Maergery would be at odds for 5 years would seem unrealistic, as well as Euron waiting for 5 years, same as Varys - I feel it could be doable:

• The five year would be a period of peace after a great war;
• Euron would be a character that would have travelled even farther away or would have found much greater secrets. He's already a scary character, and we have no idea how many years he has been away;
• Victarion perhaps could need some tweaking;
• Varys would definitely need some rework - but I could see him orchestrating some chaos eventually for people to want a Targaryen (or a "Targaryen"/Blackfyre) like Aegon and Jon Connington would help.
• Daenerys is already taking a fuck long of time to get out of Mereen, why wouldn't it be a problem for her to leave only 5 years later?

 

[Dwarf Lord]

GRRM had a small part of the problem, but yes 90%+ was entirely D&D. People have just forgotten or never knew about all the interviews they gave during the show's history except for the meme "Just forgot about Euron's fleet" shit.

They were extremely egotistical and thought that the success of the show was because of them, not because of following GRRM's guiding hand. They would routinely make comments about how the show would've been even better if they'd followed their instincts to change shit even earlier. The zombie polar bear fight, for example, was an idea they wanted to add in the first or second season but weren't allowed to.

They thought their changes were what people liked the most because it correlated to higher ratings, when it was really just the inertia of being built on such a solid base. Due to their ego they couldn't see or didn't care the cliff was coming up on them and thought "Nobody rebels against a show ending that much. We'll be fine. And if not we have Star Wars, who cares?". They were short sightedness personified.

If they had kept GRRM close from the beginning and not thought they knew better, or had gone back to him after the disaster of S5 Dorne shit with a mea culpa, the show still could've been saved. But their ego wouldn't allow it. They would've had to admit it wasn't them that were responsible for the success.

 

[TheHarbinger]

Now we have the Mereeneese knot where he has difficulty to untangle (How the fuck will Daenerys leave there?),

The first three books were meant to end with a decade or more time jump. It would allow the characters to age up and the dragons to grow in size. GRRM's editor Anne Groell hated the idea and convinced him that just writing the books straight through without jumping forward by years would be better. This was at a time where GRRM had written the third book in under one year and it seemed like he could get two or three books out in that many years at at time. So her thinking that with a decade or two GRRM might be able to write 12 to 15 books was not unreasonable.

But as GRRM started to write the fourth book it was already a disaster. He had too many POVs. He had no idea how to accelerate the story and get everyone to Westeros. He had no idea how to handle the invasion of the Others. He was bloating the story into unrecoverable levels. And he ended up refusing to cut anything and had to split the fourth book into two. People call ADWD 'book five' but it's really just 'book four part two'.

Now he hasn't written anything in the main series since 2011. And the leak from his publishers a decade ago was that he handed in a complete TWOW manuscript and it was rejected because it was so awful. And GRRM trashed it and started all over again. And now with HBO and fame distracting him he's probably just given up at this point. And factor in people hating stuff like King Bran and he has zero motivation.

 

[Outer Space Traveller]

The first three books were meant to end with a decade or more time jump. It would allow the characters to age up and the dragons to grow in size. GRRM's editor Anne Groell hated the idea and convinced him that just writing the books straight through without jumping forward by years would be better. This was at a time where GRRM had written the third book in under one year and it seemed like he could get two or three books out in that many years at at time. So her thinking that with a decade or two GRRM might be able to write 12 to 15 books was not unreasonable.

But as GRRM started to write the fourth book it was already a disaster. He had too many POVs. He had no idea how to accelerate the story and get everyone to Westeros. He had no idea how to handle the invasion of the Others. He was bloating the story into unrecoverable levels. And he ended up refusing to cut anything and had to split the fourth book into two. People call ADWD 'book five' but it's really just 'book four part two'.

Now he hasn't written anything in the main series since 2011. And the leak from his publishers a decade ago was that he handed in a complete TWOW manuscript and it was rejected because it was so awful. And GRRM trashed it and started all over again. And now with HBO and fame distracting him he's probably just given up at this point. And factor in people hating stuff like King Bran and he has zero motivation.

Exactly. He is not a children's writer. And writing chapters focused on Stark children, especially Brandon Stark appeared to be his least favourite ones. At least he was willing to compensate it back in 1996 since it was on his plans to grow them up. (Bran starts as a 7-8 year old in the series, at 298 AC). With a 10/11 year time jump, he'd be easily an adult, just like Rickon Stark would be a teenager.

Now he is stuck in this formula and can't get off it. It is sad.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

Now he hasn't written anything in the main series since 2011. And the leak from his publishers a decade ago was that he handed in a complete TWOW manuscript and it was rejected because it was so awful. And GRRM trashed it and started all over again. And now with HBO and fame distracting him he's probably just given up at this point. And factor in people hating stuff like King Bran and he has zero motivation.

That seems like classic GRRM. His height in the main series was the first three books, what came afterwards was the novel equivalent of all those RPG players who spend 90% of their time doing boring sidequests to grind. I can totally believe that there was a complete TWOW manuscript that was fucking awful because GRRM doubled-down on the boring sidequest shit and couldn't organize for the life of him. His defenders would probably be devastated if that manuscript got leaked. That, or they'd double-down on defending him and say that it would build up to something, when we all know it wouldn't.

 

[Your Girlfriend's Dad]

That seems like classic GRRM. His height in the main series was the first three books, what came afterwards was the novel equivalent of all those RPG players who spend 90% of their time doing boring sidequests to grind. I can totally believe that there was a complete TWOW manuscript that was fucking awful because GRRM double-down on the boring sidequest shit and couldn't organize for the life of him. His defenders would probably be devastated if that manuscript got leaked. That, or they'd double-down on defending him and say that it would build up to something.

My headcanon is that Season 8 GoT was surprisingly close to GRRM's written ending, if poorly executed. He gave D&D a hint on how it ends and then realized, lol no, that's a terrible ending.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

My headcanon is that Season 8 GoT was surprisingly close to GRRM's written ending, if poorly executed. He gave D&D a hint on how it ends and then realized, lol no, that's a terrible ending.

That ending was in full spirit with GRRM's ideology. Subversion of religious prophecy. The slow march of progress from dynastic monarchy to electoral. The lords seeing the peasants as dirt. GRRM fans can ignore it all they want, but when I saw the White Walker battle and that ending, all I can think of was GRRM's themes of subversion and how the battle with the Others and the ending both stood by such themes.

So knowing that the fans hate that shit, GRRM is trying to come up with a new ending while distracting us with Prequel stuff.

 

[Krokodil Overdose]

No society, not even Mordor could function if that were the case. Kings Landing should be a festering pustule of disease, and 24/7 riots.

Though let's be honest, endemic kuru would explain a lot about this setting. Also, Tolkien specifically referenced vast latifundia in the south that were, among other things, fertilized by the ash Mount Doom was constantly pumping out. It's not like Sauron sustained his armies via dark magic a la Mannfred von Carstein.

That, and GRRM is from the Second Wave of feminists who were active in the late 90s and early 2000s. Which means they were all about sexual liberation and having lots of sex stuff in their work.

They're also complete blank slatards who think they've outsmarted all of history and society by discovering that biology doesn't real, anyone can do anything if they try hard enough, so all preconceptions about females physical ability comes from nothing but dang dirty sexism. This belief reaches its retarded apogee in the Unsullied, where super warriors can be created out of literal cripples if you're just psychotic enough about training.

How is it that someone that established something more focused on language work like Tolkien, or Robert Jordan managed to pull off something better?

There's been a few YouTube essays that have made this point, and I tend to agree: Tolkien and Jordan did a better job of creating a world because they created a world, with origins and foundations and underlying metaphysics that guided their creation. George has a bunch of ideas thrown together without much rhyme or reason, held together by psudo-historical Elmer's. There's no Wheel, no Eru, no superstructure to hold all this shit together, so you wind up with a giant pile of ingredients that don't add up to a cake.

 

[Dwarf Lord]

GRRM should have written faster so he has a part in it, but I can still fully sympathize with him over having his story effectively ruined by the hack frauds. No writer is going to want to put in the effort of writing something with a conclusion everyone already knows and hates because they saw it come together in an infinitely worse way.

All of the character endings in the show fit what GRRM seemed to be going for in the books, but how D&D got there is the problem. And there's no real fixing that. Despite the thread shitting on him GRRM is great at story telling (when he actually does it) but even attempting to do it at this point is just going to have people reading it and thinking every step of the way "so this is how D&D got to this ending", etc. He either changes the story completely, which is hard since he works in themes, or he just continues writing a story that will have zero anticipation or suspense, it will just read as checklist ticking.

The biggest evidence we have that D&D ruined the journey of the characters, even while having the full information, is Bran, coincidentally one of the biggest memes about undeserved endings. Book Bran is nowhere close to Show Bran and that's why him becoming king doesn't work. Book Bran's story is horror, the absolute darkest chapters of the entire series, full of fucked up cannibalism (eating Jojen, eating people as Summer, etc), wanting to rape Meera while skinwalking as Hodor, etc.

The show decided to cut all of that 'troubling' stuff and make his journey into some Disney adventure (with bonus Pirates of the Carribean tier CGI skeletons) and then have him become king as a feel good moment surrounded by fan favorite characters at the small council table.

GRRM was also likely to have Bran become king too, but it wouldn't have been as a feel good moment, it would've been a "holy shit this kid has turned into a monster and now he's king, darkness is coming, bum bum buuuuuum" moment.

 

[P. Barnes’ THOT 2.0]

GRRM was also likely to have Bran become king too, but it wouldn't have been as a feel good moment, it would've been a "holy shit this kid has turned into a monster and now he's king, darkness is coming, bum bum buuuuuum" moment.

Yeah, I think that’s the ending grrm had told them. I’m actually really okay with that. I know everyone here shits in his writing, but I think he’ll make it work and agree that it won’t be a lighthearted, feel good moment. It’ll be something darker and bittersweet. Like, this lonely cripple thousands of miles from home with a job he doesn’t want, but has to do

 

[Outer Space Traveller]

Though let's be honest, endemic kuru would explain a lot about this setting. Also, Tolkien specifically referenced vast latifundia in the south that were, among other things, fertilized by the ash Mount Doom was constantly pumping out. It's not like Sauron sustained his armies via dark magic a la Mannfred von Carstein.

They're also complete blank slatards who think they've outsmarted all of history and society by discovering that biology doesn't real, anyone can do anything if they try hard enough, so all preconceptions about females physical ability comes from nothing but dang dirty sexism. This belief reaches its retarded apogee in the Unsullied, where super warriors can be created out of literal cripples if you're just psychotic enough about training.

There's been a few YouTube essays that have made this point, and I tend to agree: Tolkien and Jordan did a better job of creating a world because they created a world, with origins and foundations and underlying metaphysics that guided their creation. George has a bunch of ideas thrown together without much rhyme or reason, held together by psudo-historical Elmer's. There's no Wheel, no Eru, no superstructure to hold all this shit together, so you wind up with a giant pile of ingredients that don't add up to a cake.

Funny thing about Mordor: Someone made a video about Sauron's Tax Policy, but I think the channel was deleted. It was a surprising take on how great and realistic Mordor could function.

And I guess removing God from the equation, or at least a figure of a well established complex system that is built to make things move and drive forward the whole world and the overall system, shall we say. And that truly damaged the worldbuilding altogether. GRRM loves to claim "Magic does this, magic does that - yet I fail to see the influence of magic.

The biggest evidence we have that D&D ruined the journey of the characters, even while having the full information, is Bran, coincidentally one of the biggest memes about undeserved endings. Book Bran is nowhere close to Show Bran and that's why him becoming king doesn't work. Book Bran's story is horror, the absolute darkest chapters of the entire series, full of fucked up cannibalism (eating Jojen, eating people as Summer, etc), wanting to rape Meera while skinwalking as Hodor, etc.

The show decided to cut all of that 'troubling' stuff and make his journey into some Disney adventure (with bonus Pirates of the Carribean tier CGI skeletons) and then have him become king as a feel good moment surrounded by fan favorite characters at the small council table.

GRRM was also likely to have Bran become king too, but it wouldn't have been as a feel good moment, it would've been a "holy shit this kid has turned into a monster and now he's king, darkness is coming, bum bum buuuuuum" moment.

Don't get me started on Arya acting up on trying to seduce Rafford the Sweetling. She's a tad too young to be doing that. Even if you say she's like 12, that's still a bit young for her to know these tricks and have a mindset of a killer. I doubt her mental faculties would be working as we believe they would to be able to cope with what she's going through, which adds to the theory that a timeskip would have benefited everyone. Even if older characters would have become older - the Stark kids would have been able to cope much better with what they have been going through.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

GRRM should have written faster so he has a part in it, but I can still fully sympathize with him over having his story effectively ruined by the hack frauds. No writer is going to want to put in the effort of writing something with a conclusion everyone already knows and hates because they saw it come together in an infinitely worse way.

All of the character endings in the show fit what GRRM seemed to be going for in the books, but how D&D got there is the problem. And there's no real fixing that. Despite the thread shitting on him GRRM is great at story telling (when he actually does it) but even attempting to do it at this point is just going to have people reading it and thinking every step of the way "so this is how D&D got to this ending", etc. He either changes the story completely, which is hard since he works in themes, or he just continues writing a story that will have zero anticipation or suspense, it will just read as checklist ticking.

The biggest evidence we have that D&D ruined the journey of the characters, even while having the full information, is Bran, coincidentally one of the biggest memes about undeserved endings. Book Bran is nowhere close to Show Bran and that's why him becoming king doesn't work. Book Bran's story is horror, the absolute darkest chapters of the entire series, full of fucked up cannibalism (eating Jojen, eating people as Summer, etc), wanting to rape Meera while skinwalking as Hodor, etc.

The show decided to cut all of that 'troubling' stuff and make his journey into some Disney adventure (with bonus Pirates of the Carribean tier CGI skeletons) and then have him become king as a feel good moment surrounded by fan favorite characters at the small council table.

GRRM was also likely to have Bran become king too, but it wouldn't have been as a feel good moment, it would've been a "holy shit this kid has turned into a monster and now he's king, darkness is coming, bum bum buuuuuum" moment.

I don't sympathize with him at all. GRRM picked those two hacks, Dan and Dave, over other, more qualified people, just because they figured out R+L=J. He did nothing to rein them in, and all he did was complain in the aftermath. Unlike other authors like JK Rowling who took center stage with the adaptation of her works to ensure they were faithfully brought to the screen, showing that it is possible for an author to keep enough of a leash on the producers to ensure that their adaptations are faithful. The fact that Harry Potter could be faithfully adapted from page to screen shows me that any excuse GRRM might have for Game of Thrones going off script is bullshit.

And there's the fact that, as many here have pointed out, the last two books, which Martin said could pave the way for ten seasons at least, were full of dull sidequest stuff that builds up to nothing. I fully believe what one poster here has said about Martin turning in a complete TWOW manuscript only for it to be rejected because it was fucking atrocious. If D&D did faithfully adapt the novels, it would bore the shit out of people to the point where they'd tune out. As stupid as the last few seasons of GOT were, at least they had the decency to go by quickly. The same cannot be said for the novels.

Even now we don't know if Dany will make it to the West, or if Euron's shenanigans will amount to anything, or if Stannis can take Winterfell. And the fact that GRRM still doesn't have an answer for these even though the last mainline book came out 13 FUCKING YEARS AGO really gives me no hope for GRRM delivering a decent ending to his main novel series. He might as well hold a fanfiction contest to see which of his devoted fans could finish the job.

 

[Krokodil Overdose]

And I guess removing God from the equation, or at least a figure of a well established complex system that is built to make things move and drive forward the whole world and the overall system, shall we say. And that truly damaged the worldbuilding altogether.

Harry Potter and Conan dont need the answers to Life, The Universe, and Everything, because those stories centered on one person who is not, in all likelihood, an encyclopedist. But when you're writing a sprawling story that spans centuries, continents, and concerns the fate of the world, you need an understanding of why things are the way they are. As it is, Westeros is a rats nest of contradictions that you can't explain without invoking the author. What explains the power of the Faith of the Seven given that its the only religion in the setting that appears to be straight-up fake? Nothing in universe (I know that if an immortal pyromancer who can squirt out homing death fetuses told me she was on a mission from God, I would fucking believe her) but we know that Martin's too much of a euphoric hippie to have his Roman Catholicism analog be anything but fake and gay.

GRRM loves to claim "Magic does this, magic does that - yet I fail to see the influence of magic.

My guy, history was literally written by dragon whisperers who used that to crush a continent. If that's not magic, what is?

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

What explains the power of the Faith of the Seven given that its the only religion in the setting that appears to be straight-up fake? Nothing in universe (I know that if an immortal pyromancer who can squirt out homing death fetuses told me she was on a mission from God, I would fucking believe her) but we know that Martin's too much of a euphoric hippie to have his Roman Catholicism analog be anything but fake and gay.

Knowing GRRM, the Faith of the Seven's power probably boils down to "hurr durr superstitious peasants being controlled by religious nutjobs." Which is actually kind of funny since every Catholicism-esque religion in fantasy that I've seen has powers. From the Jedi and Sith of Star Wars, to the Paladins of Warcraft, the Protoss from Starcraft, the Sisters of Battle from 40K and even the Istari of LOTR, they all had magic powers related to Faith one way or another, and sometimes their power becomes stronger based on what they believe. (ie. the Jedi and Sisters of Battle) But I suppose GRRM is too much of a Godless hippie to even consider that a religion with no actual power in a world where magic exists won't work.