What's the future political landscape for Westeros?

[Narkalui]

I'll take 'Arrogance' for $50

 

[Koopa]

yeah i realise it's gratuitous at times (although if you stop and think about some of the things GRRM writes it ain't far off), and the show has gone downhill since they moved past what GRRM already wrote. Like

Spoiler: TV Show

some plots (let's capture a wight to convince cersei, who will totzlly backstab us anyways whilst losing a dragon thus giftwrapping the nightking with a method to bring down the best defense westeros has (thewall), (time-travelling) movement - criss-cross hopping the countryside in a matter of seconds (almost) when it took ages before, ... a lot of last season felt like bad (fanfiction) writing. The viewer is thought be dumb during the last season. What about allying with the north, enforcing the neck, letting the loyal ironborn patrol the seas to safeguard the northern seas thus keeping the southern enemies at bay, and actually properly manning the wall with the rest of your soldiers with the dragons as ultimate back.... . Just one of many other ways to go about it. But no they had Tyrion spew some out-of-character foolish nonsense that inspires a dumb backfiring adventure...

However i do feel the tv-show does give me some answers the books will probably never give me. Like how Hodor got his current name. Plus i'm glad i will finally know the overall ending of the story. Which will be more or less similar to what GRRM intends i feel.

 

[Anushka Mokosh]

@Boaz I agree with much of what you wrote regarding the political landscape except for one thing, that remaining Baratheons must win. By far the likeliest person to bend the knee is Stannis. Hear me out.

Stannis still struggles with the fact that he choose his brother over his king and it's been almost 20 years since. His daughter, Shireen is a ticking time bomb ready to unleash grayscale upon the unsuspecting North. I think it is safe to say she will bring it to North just as Jon C will bring it to the South.

After her death, there is nothing left for Stannis. Nobody to fight for. He explicitly says it in the books. He wants to give up at times. He doesn't want to struggle in the fight anymore. But then he remembers his daughter. And it is for her that he keeps struggling. Because it is her right. Her future. We have a monologue of his and it is given in a setting where he has no reason to lie. It can be taken at face value because in the same monologue he expresses his frustrations with basically everyone around him.

If she dies, Stannis will bend the knee. Unless he is dead already. Baratheons don't need to really win to live. He can give it up and take the Black. I am 99.9% sure that is exactly what Stannis will do.

-------------------------------------

Now, regarding the TV show, this is exactly why it sucks. What makes Martin's books great is not the gratuitous violence and sex. It is spice. The main centrepiece are the characters and how their character and temperament impact their destiny.

Robb did not mess up his life for a bangable foreign lass. He messed it up because he felt his honour was engaged in a more pressing case and acted impulsively. It is a product of seeing how his father's ******* grew up.

Tyrion going to Dany without knowing that Jaime betrayed him in a most vicious manner, in the event horizon of his life, makes no sense. The person Dany would reasonably want dead the most is Jaime and Tyrion has no reason to hate Jaime in the show.

And rounding back to Stannis. They never understood him as a character. If they had, they never would have pegged him as a religious fanatic or did away with Shireen in the manner that they did. Shireen is the one thing Stannis would not scarify to win. She is his raison d'être.

The entire Sansa/Jayne Pool merge makes no sense either. Sansa needs to learn to be the player. She's much too important to be relegated to a position where while she is being raped, it is being presented as a traumatic event for Theon. Sansa is not a supporting character.

Barristan should not be used as a fodder to further the romance nobody cares for.

Ellaria Sand, the character whose entire existence revolved around juxtaposing her to Cersei and Catelyn as to how a mother who puts her children first acts, is relegated to a completely forgettable role as another mother willing to scarify her children for sake of revenge or power.

Mind you, there is probably more I would take an issue with, but I pretty much ignored show's existence from season 4 onward and only heard bits and pieces about the events that took place.

And in the matter of the ending, I very much doubt the ending of the show will be in line with what Martin will do in the end. There comes a point where when you change too much, the two stories can no longer converge to the same place and even if they do, for at least one, it will seem tacked on.

 

[Narkalui]

There is one other item you should take issue with: your autocorrect. I don't think Ellaria Sand put her daughters through a scarifier...

 

[JoanDrake]

I just mean that I think it may be revealed they're all descended from colonists from Earth, several millenia in the future; or not, I can't see how it's important anyway

 

[Anushka Mokosh]

There is one other item you should take issue with: your autocorrect. I don't think Ellaria Sand put her daughters through a scarifier...

Hahaha Yeah, phone autocorrect sucks.

 

[Narkalui]

I just mean that I think it may be revealed they're all descended from colonists from Earth, several millenia in the future; or not, I can't see how it's important anyway

So I'm guessing you're quite fond of Preston Jacobs' YouTube clips?

 

[Boaz]

@Anushka Mokosh I would agree about Stannis taking the Black, if he'd never met Mel. Do you remember Baelish told Sansa that Nestor Royce accepted the hereditary title as Lord Protector of the Vale? Royce hates Baelish and would not ally with him, but when Baelish offered hereditary title to Royce's son.... well, Royce was all in.... i.e. Royce made a pact with the devil to help his son. I know Stannis' sense of justice drives him... but I also see your point about Stannis looking out for Shireen. (The show jumped the shark on this one.) Stannis has become Macbeth. He murdered his brother Renly and Ser Courtney Penrose. Stannis has made a pact with the devil... and he's also become a true believer in his own divine destiny. If Stannis could be convinced he's not AAR, that the Targ return is legitimate, and if Shireen is safe... then Stannis might walk away... but I think Mel's hold/Stannis' disconnect from reality is too great.

 

[Anushka Mokosh]

@Boaz I think Shireen will die of grayscale. It is possible the Wildlings might have a hand in it. Or even others at the Wall. She might even get sacrificed by Selyse. After all, Selyse is the true believer and if Mel promised her another child, a whole child, a boy child, I do not think she would not sacrifice Shireen.

But I do not think Stannis will ever, ever okay her death. If Shireen is dead and Robert is avenged by punishing Cersei, there are no duties Stannis has anymore. And duty is all that drives him, justice less so or rather, only insofar as it relates to his duty. His wants do not come into the equation at all.

"It is not a question of wanting. The throne is mine, as Robert's heir. That is law. After me, it must pass to my daughter, unless Selyse should finally give me a son. I am king. Wants do not enter into it. I have a duty to my daughter. To the realm. Even to Robert. He loved me but little, I know, yet he was my brother."

The priorities of his duty are clearly established. Daughter, realm, Robert. In that order.

I think that too many got hung up on this quote though.

"I never asked for this crown. Gold is cold and heavy on the head, but so long as I am the king, I have a duty … If I must sacrifice one child to the flames to save a million from the dark... Sacrifice... is never easy, Davos. Or it is no true sacrifice."

But then again, there he speaks of another child, Edric, whose name he cannot even bring himself to speak and towards whom he feels very little duty. And even there, he struggled for so long, Davos managed to smuggle the boy out in the meantime. And Stannis even seems a bit relieved by this because he does not put any significant effort into retrieval of the boy. And there is another quote afterwards.

Spoiler: TWOW

"Justin: Your Grace, if you are dead —
Stannis: — you will avenge my death, and seat my daughter on the Iron Throne. Or die in the attempt.
Justin: On my honor as a knight, you have my word."

And mind you, this last one is from a Theon excerpt from Winds of Winter where Stannis is in a rather tight spot. There would need to happen a lot for Stannis to make this leap to where he would put faith in Red God over his duty to his daughter or any other kind of duty over his daughter. He is facing probable death and his thoughts are of Shireen and her right. And even before that, he already made a distinction between his rights and his duties. The kingdom is his right, but he has a duty to his daughter.

Melisandre never quite managed to subvert that trait of his. Remember, Davos gets him to go North by appealing to his duty. And if he thinks it is his duty to his realm, I don't think even Mel will manage to persuade him of anything. I don't really think Stannis is entirely sold on the whole AA thing. Most of the time, he seems to just put up with it. Even the quote in the spoilers implies that Stannis is rather skeptical of this divine destiny.

And once Mel gets her head out of her ass and realizes what her visions of "only Snow" mean, there will be nobody to actually persuade him.

Also, I think you cannot really compare Stannis to Nestor. For Stannis, only duty matters. Eventually blood though that is a struggle of the highest order for him. Nestor is not that sort of a man.

 

[philzilla]

Jon and Dany dead, their Targ heir on throne, "kingdoms" still intact, different ruling houses for some. "The more things change, the more they stay the same" ending. But GRRM never actually finishes.

 

[Narkalui]

I think you may be right about Jon and Dany...