u/Lifeofcharlie

I have a few places I can see the story going and in that I feel like everyone should have a few “wow that would be so great” moments to occur if the series was ever finished.

HERES A FEW

1: I love how much foreshadowing has been placed into the cyvasse games specifically with Arianne. Her making two blunders already with not bothering to play during her tower stay and, when finally playing against Damon, choosing to not take it seriously and only rely on her dragon

“i like my dragon.”

Arianne’s eventual downfall because she sides with Young Griff/whatever choice she makes that involves only using her dragon is going to be so damn satisfying.

2: whenever George gets to that one Bran chapter where he’s fully immersed in the Weirwoods (probably like halfway through Winds i’d wager) we are going to get some of the craziest most beautifully written lore drops of all time I swear. I couldn’t possibly pretend to write like George as an example but the way he’s going to write Bran’s perception of the entire world history is going to fuckin rule. If it’s anything like his last chapter in Dance (he saw a tall knight and a woman reach up to kiss him, then a man sitting near a tree, then a yada yada that kind of thing!) it’s gonna be so crazy.

He’d be able to just reveal the entire history of Pre-Westeros, the long night, the First Men, Azor Ahai, fuck even jon’s parentage (which he may save for another chapter)
And it would end on some haunting line where Bran is just completely overwhelmed by this and like essentially dies from it. Then his next chapter title “The Three Eyed Raven” CMON

3: Jaime’s inner thoughts and reaction when he sees Lady Stoneheart for the first time.

4: Sansa deceiving or lying to Littlefinger for the first time.

5: Whenever Dany meets Jon i’m interested to see how George writes her opinion and thoughts of him. He writes her to be very observant and he’s totally gonna flex his hand like he always does and she’s gonna notice it, it’ll be great. Also Arya’s gonna bite her lip when she meets Stoneheart (SOMEHOW) and that’ll be how Stoneheart recognizes her or something like that ITLL BE BEAUTIFUL

All just to facilitate a brief Stan Phillip fight and then dropping her from the show SMH

Finished the show for the first time yesterday. Overall thought season 6 was great and the finale especially was very well done, but overall a bit of a mixed bag overall and I do have aspects I wasn’t huge on.

However outside of all the actual tangible criticism/analysis, I wanted to ask the most 15 year old boy question about this show, what happened to all the fight scenes?

Before anyone jumps the gun, i’m not implying this show needed action to be great, nor did the slight decline in my enjoyment post season 1 have anything to do with the lack of action. But i’m just wondering if there was a creator confirmed reason for why the hand to hand combat struggles essentially disappeared from the show.

Was it something they were forced to include in the first season as a way of grabbing people’s attention and later on had more trust in their viewers to not require fight scenes? Were they too annoying to choreograph?

I think a part of my disappointment is that the action was actually good. I still remember Phillip fighting the brother in episode 2 and how brutal that scrap got, I remember envisioning how a potential Stan and Philip fight would be executed, but by the time season 3 starts they pretty much just shoot/stab all their targets and nearly all the conflict is character based where it used to feel a lot more “spy movie”

Did this stand out to anybody else?

I’m tryna powerscale Lee with other action comedy main characters and i can’t pick Nathan Drake cause video games aren’t fair.

Both not bloodlusted

Finished the series for the first time, now am slowly rummaging through the sample chapters before going insane from lack of new content and just wanna gush about Alayne’s chapter real quick.

The way George writes each POV slightly different has always been one of the best things about these books but the progression for Sansa in this chapter actually made me smile so hard, it’s so well done.

Her being placed in essentially a mirror situation to AGOT with a tournament is such a fuckin beautiful choice but the difference in having her thoughts now be the complete opposite of her actions, now slipping into the courteous lady role she tried to perfect in the first tournament, but now thinks things like “you are such a little fool” and “oh, that’s an open wound”.

It’s like the perfect halfway characterization between her original self and someone like Tyrion who considers everyone’s personal motivations. She’s not there yet but she’s trying.

Also her looking past Harry’s good looks since Joffery, overall just being far less trusting and more skeptical of everyone around her in the internal monologue, only to confidently banter with and win over Harry in the dance was such a fuck yeah moment, like her first real moment of manipulation and deceit. Like Show Margery. It was perfect. “I’ll be all the spice you want” is kinda crazy for a fuckin 16 year old or however old she is but narratively it’s a big win.

I’ve always thought Sansa chapters were good but i adore being in her head for this one, cant wait til she has her first inner thought of “he’s lying to me” during a conversation with Littlefinger, it’s gonna hit like crack.

Ok i just finished the series for the first time yesterday, currently doing the internal ranking in my head but i feel like despite the incredible stuff in these last two books: both have too much meandering for me to place them above the first 3 books. Then i read today that both Dance and Feast were supposed to be one book that Georgie split up.

I know this has definitely been discussed before but i’m a newbie and I’m curious if it would’ve been possible to cut some of the fat out of these stories and actually create a single novel out of it. With hindsight of course.

I’m thinking if you cut 3 of the Tyrion Dance chapters, 2 Dany, The Jon wedding chapter, and two Sam and Brienne feast chapters, could this have worked out? That’s atleast 200 pages!

Reading Dance for the first time. I had been spoiled that Barristian Selmy was a POV character and that he was the POV that untied the Mereenese Knot that took Georgie like 7 years to release Dance to begin with. I also knew that Barristan being killed off in season 5 was a mistake because he was still alive in the books.

What I didn’t know is that Barristan has some of the best chapters in this entire book and also turns the Mereen plot that I sorta just tolerated for the first 3/4 of this book into a read i was heavily invested in.

It makes me so confused why they killed Barristan off in the show because all of the shit that happens in his three chapters (maybe he has a fourth idk i just finished) are PERFECT for the vibe of the TV show. The secret meeting with the Shavepate, scheming and plotting a takeover, the difference in morality between the two, the uncertainty of “can i trust him” the incredible dialogue!! THIS IS GAME OF THRONES! Why did they think “yeah lets just kill him in an alley for shock value” when there was this level of quality in his Meereen role? And you wouldn’t know this was something George had to write his way out of because he didn’t originally intent for this character to be a POV, he fits perfectly as one.

His speech to his pupils on the makings of a true knight while he’s currently grappling with his own honor?? ffs, what are we doing?!? “Nah we don’t need this in the show”

Not to mention he’s actually such a heartbreaking character to be inside his thoughts. It actually made me cry when he’s describing his failure to unhorse Rhaegar being one of his biggest regrets because it’s so human. That little hateful voice in your head not going away no matter your level of fame or respect or success. How you see Barristian the Bold mentioned dozens of time throughout everyone else’s chapters for the past 5 books, how they see him as a legend, constantly being told of his greatest feats. Then you get inside his head and he’s just as unsure and ashamed and broken up inside as any other man, and even regrets his biggest achievement. It’s just brilliant stuff.

Oh and then you get another incredible confrontation with Hizdar “are you the Harpy?” as he steps closer towards him, once again perfect GOT tension… oh and then you get one of the best fights in the entire series right after. ABSOLUTE PEAK STUFF IM SO SAD TO ALMOST BE DONE THIS