Game of Thrones - No Book Chat. NONE. The Books don't exist.

[ScouserInExile]

On 2017-7-27 at 02:50, Oh Danny Boy said:

Sooo... why have the sand snakes forgotten how to fight all of a sudden? They gave Bronn a tough time and as we know Bronn could claim the whole of Westeros in single combat. Actually where is Bronn? This show needs more Bronn.  

 

Also the Iron islanders now have a professional looking fleet and men at arms. I thought they were just a rag bunch of ruffians and vagabonds? 

 

I've always run on the theory that they're sneaky assassin types, rather than stand up fighters. Hence Bronn did alright against them.

[Benny]

This is GoT. Even the greatest swordsman in the land can be beaten by some cunt in armour.

[K]

The Hound, the Mountain and Ned Stark probably thought they were pretty much unbeatable, right up until they came up against someone who was either better or more willing to cheat.

[Benny]

The Hound was beating Brienne until she decided to stop all the chivalry bollocks and go crazy fucking undead horde mode on him.

[Alan Stock]

Loved how Theon bricks himself at the critical moment, didn't see that one coming. Also Littlefinger is definitely going to seriously fuck things up whilst Jon's away, he wanted to get Sansa in charge anyway and now he'll do it out of revenge for Jon's treatment of him too. I reckon Arya is not going to be happy about Littllefinger but Sansa may well not be too chuffed with Arya either, she never cared for her. The stoneman "cure" bit was brilliantly horrible wth poor old Jorah.

 

With Dorne's army fecked looks like it will be a showdown soon between Tyrells and Lannisters at Kings landing but we don't have many Tyrell characters left to relate to, who could hold interest in a battle scene involving them, so dunno how that will go. 

 

I don't know why they are so arsed about Casterly Rock. A big deal is made of it, enough that they want to send the dragons and shiz there, but we have barely seen it in the story. Sure, it's the Lannister home fort but the Lannister power is in Kings Landing, all the powerful Lannisters are there so would they really fight a big battle over their castle. Or maybe they have an army stationed there which is why its of importance. I think its a bit convienient that for plot terms "oh we take Casterly Rock and the Lannisters are done for", when in reality Casterly Rock seems completely pointless with nothing of value except a place for Cercei to run back to if shit goes wrong in Kings Landing. Or am I missing something. Even in the books Casterly Rock was pretty much a non-event.
 

Loving the series so far though. The characters and writing are just spot on, it doesn't really matter if not much is happening, each interaction is so good. The Hound stuff and Varys vs Dany was especially memorable.

[Anne Summers]

Dragonstone (and the Iron Islands as well) always seemed empty to me. Always wondered why there was a castle and knights but there didn't seem to be a city or settlement there, despite the fact it was always talked about as if it was a city or province or something. 

The Iron Islands seemed to be the same. Apart from when Theon returns and you see there's a few huts and a small port, it just seemed like it was pretty much just a place where a king lived in a castle on his own. 
I guess it is because they didn't have the budget to build and populate a load of cities, where nothing interesting happens, just to give the castles a realistic setting. 

 

Edit: Reading about Dragonstone on the GOT wiki it seems it was always just a garrison really, perhaps there isn't much of a civilian settlement there after all, so very few women and children. 

[Rsdio]

Wouldn't the Casterly Rock thing be more for the purposes of winning a psychological victory? Those lords or whoever will be less likely to throw their weight behind the Lannisters if they're incapable of even holding their own home. It contributes to the feeling of momentum swinging away from them whilst also cutting off their options that little bit more.

[Alan Stock]

Yeah I don't understand why Dragonstone is completely empty when Dany and co arrive. It makes no sense. When Stannis was there it was buzzing, yes his army got defeated but there surely would have been people still living there. It also makes no sense that the crown wouldn't install a garrison or fleet there, its a massive fortress, why the hell would you leave it unoccupied for any one of your numerous foes to take over? I don't know if that will be explained in the books but it made me do a bit "wtf" when I saw it, despite how cool it looks. As a side note I like that they re-use the battle map from the Stannis era to help show you how the battlelines are being drawn up.

[Hanzo the Razor]

46 minutes ago, Alan Stock said:

Even in the books Casterly Rock was pretty much a non-event.

 

The who in the what now?

[Alan Stock]

2 minutes ago, Rsdio said:

Wouldn't the Casterly Rock thing be more for the purposes of winning a psychological victory? Those lords or whoever will be less likely to throw their weight behind the Lannisters if they're incapable of even holding their own home. It contributes to the feeling of momentum swinging away from them whilst also cutting off their options that little bit more.

Yeah, that's a fair point. Although that's never talked about in the actual script, it makes sense, as we already can see that the Westeros lords are hardly die-hard loyalists, and you can imagine with the Tyrells openly rebelling against the Lannisters loyalties are going to be even more divided. PS what notable Tyrell nobality are still alive? Did most of the major players get burned in Cersei's big badda boom?

[Alan Stock]

3 minutes ago, Hanzo the Razor said:

 

The who in the what now?

Yeah sorry, I know we aren't supposed to mention "those" in here. But now that the series has overtaken the books I think its fair to look at them for explanations for stuff the TV show hasn't had time to fill in.

[MrPogo]

I had a vague feeling Casterly Rock was supposed to have loads of gold mines or something - belonging to the Lannisters rather than the crown - but there might have been mention of them running dry :S

[Broker]

On 27/07/2017 at 17:01, JohnC said:

I could see Sky being an obstruction. They've already got HBO and Showtime shows tied up and I'm sure they wouldn't like to share anything they have with anyone else. 

 

They'll stop holding shows that they could never hope to have the creativity to make behind their paywall when you can claw them out of their cold, dead little parasite claws.

[Wickedkitten]

2 hours ago, Rsdio said:

Wouldn't the Casterly Rock thing be more for the purposes of winning a psychological victory? Those lords or whoever will be less likely to throw their weight behind the Lannisters if they're incapable of even holding their own home. It contributes to the feeling of momentum swinging away from them whilst also cutting off their options that little bit more.

 

Yeah exactly. They are going to be like "but we can protect you if we join forces" and they could tell her to jog on because she lost her own family home.

[NexivRed]

They want Cersei to surrender. Holding Casterly Rock gives them a good position to ask for that. 

[Magoo]

Yeha I'm going with the idea that they take Casterly Rock in some kind of epic pyrrhic victory, only for Cersei to go 'meh, the gold mines are empty guys". A blow for sure but not enough for any real leverage.

[LongHairStu]

I reckon Tyrion holding Casterley Rock will inflame Cersei a teensy smidge, drawing out her Mad Queen vibe, forcing her into tactical mistakes, and adding to her unpopularity. Pretty shrewd move all round, I'd say. 

[Pistol]

1 hour ago, LongHairStu said:

I reckon Tyrion holding Casterley Rock will inflame Cersei a teensy smidge, drawing out her Mad Queen vibe, forcing her into tactical mistakes, and adding to her unpopularity. Pretty shrewd move all round, I'd say. 

 

Yeah, good point - it's not just Cersei Lannister losing the family seat, it's the wrong Lannister holding it!

[Mentazm]

Fair enough, going through all the DL, transfer, NAS etc. would seem like going back in time, I'd rather avoid all that if I can. Hell I'd even pay for a decent streaming service that wasn't Sky.

Streaming is just never high enough quality for me. I get the 5 gig ish 1080p that always looks great. Deep blacks.

[Lorfarius]

On 2017-7-28 at 16:43, MrPogo said:

I had a vague feeling Casterly Rock was supposed to have loads of gold mines or something - belonging to the Lannisters rather than the crown - but there might have been mention of them running dry :S

 

It did ages ago but they ran out and the family have been telling people they are still minted, whilst borrowing a ton of money off that bank. They owe an absolute fortune and I suspect Dany will see all this when she gets there.

[Benny]

Or she could just fly over and take the Iron Bank for herself and lock Mark Gatiss in there like she did that other time.

[Lorfarius]

3 minutes ago, Benny said:

Or she could just fly over and take the Iron Bank for herself and lock Mark Gatiss in there like she did that other time.

 

Won't be able to do that if she's fighting a full on war with the North and South plus... you need money to pay soldiers and where will it come from?

[Benny]

I thought she just paid her armies with gratuitous nudity every now and then to keep their religious fervour to be honest.

[Waggo]

Don't the Sandsnakes tip their blades with poison?

 

In which case Euron might have received an unwelcome farewell present from the one who grazed him.

[Stig]

2 hours ago, Waggo said:

Don't the Sandsnakes tip their blades with poison?

 

In which case Euron might have received an unwelcome farewell present from the one who grazed him.

 

Thats exactly what I was thinking. Bet they conviniently forgot to do that before this fight though.

[NexivRed]

Highly recommend Game of Thrones: A Day In The Life on Sky Atlantic and NowTV. Really interesting, and focuses on the set building and preparations needed for a few scenes from Season 5, including the fighting pit where Drogon lands and Hardhome. 

 

 

Oooh, "The Game Revealed" is good too. No CGI at The Tower of Joy! It exists exactly like that! Amazing. 

[Broker]

14 hours ago, Stigweard said:

 

Thats exactly what I was thinking. Bet they conviniently forgot to do that before this fight though.

 

I'm no expert but I'd guess poisoning a blade probably isn't a ten second job you can knock out. It seems pretty obvious that if they're ambushed they won't have poisoned their weapons in preparation.

[Stig]

25 minutes ago, Broker said:

 

I'm no expert but I'd guess poisoning a blade probably isn't a ten second job you can knock out. It seems pretty obvious that if they're ambushed they won't have poisoned their weapons in preparation.

I'd have thought they'd always be poisioned and ready to go though

[Benny]

This really is the nerdiest thread on the forum.

[Alan Stock]

Whatever happened with the iron bank? We never heard from it again. One of aryras hated dudes went to ask them for more money or something but its so long ago I can't remember, and Stannis wanted money from them too if I remember. Did the iron bank stuff ever come to anything?