He was castrated while the Tangaryan’s were in power, and it seems unlikely that the Targaryen’s would allow one of their number to be castrated. Plus, while we’ve heard several different stories of Vary’s origins, they all seem to agree that he’s not a Westros native.
Tyrion makes a little more sense (his inclusion would also mean that all three dragonriders had mothers that died in childbirth), but the dates don’t work well. Tywin stayed as the Kings Hand several years after Tyrion was born, which seems unlikely if the king had raped his wife.
jayjay, Simplicio: I hadn’t thought about Tyrion. However, what if the Mad King seduced Joanna Lannister rather than raping her? That might explain why Tywin didn’t resign at first.
I think we should be careful when using the analogy to Aegon the Conquerer and his sisters to draw conclusions about the three heads of the dragon from the prophecy.
If Jon is indeed Rhaegar and Lyanna’s son, then that makes him Dany’s nephew, so there’s already a difference to a degree. I also think that Tyrion is a good candidate for the third head, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that he has to be a Targaryen.
Having said that, we don’t really know much about Tyrion’s mother, only that she is Stafford Lannister’s sister and Tywin’s cousin. It’s possible, though I think not very likely, that she is related to the Targaryens somehow.
I don’t see it that way myself. Westeros as a whole is basically England writ large, except for the North, with the Scottish Lowlands; the Mountains of the Moon, which are Wales; Highgarden, which has a bit of France to it; and Dorne, which is sort of Spain. The lands past the Wall are the Scottish Highlands, while the Iron Islands are the Orkneys, the Isle of Man et al. Across the narrow Sea, what we’ve seen of the Free Cities is essentially Italian, with Braavos clearly being Renaissance Venice at its height.
All of Martin’s stuff is very good, but most of it is very different. High fantasy like this was sort of a departure for him. He did early urban fantasy and sci-fi before. I think of him most for the Wild Cards series of mosaic novels that he edited and contributed to, but those are probably not close to the best of his earlier work. It all comes in and out of print fairly rapidly so I am not quite sure what to recommend, but I haven’t read anything of Martin’s that I haven’t liked. If you find something grab it.
As for something else sort of like this, try the Malazan series by Stephen Erickson. The first book is Gardens of the Moon. It is also a very mature realistic take on traditional high fantasy ideas. Not really the same thing but with a similar flavor. The fan bases overlap significantly.
Oh, definitely. Fevre Dream is a terrific vampire novel, set along the Miss. River before the Civil War. Tuf Voyaging is a great collection of sf short stories - a satire, with ecology, overpopulation and the corrupting effect of power as big themes. One of my favorite sf books ever. Dying of the Light is set in the distant future, on a world which is drifting away from its star. The short story collection Sandkings is also quite good, esp. the title story (which won a ton of awards), and “The Way of Cross and Dragon.”
So apparently there is a minor character who is supposed to die this season that didn’t die until book three, it hasn’t happened so far so it has to be in this episode. Any guesses? the lady who played old nan died so she is the most likely candidate, but she could easily simply be written out without any issues and a death at Winterfell would be out of place at this point. I don’t remember if Hoster Tully makes it all the way to book 3, but he is a good candidate for early death. Someone at the IMDB boards said it might be the Smalljohn since they haven’t introduced the Karstarks at all they may just replace their part with the Umbers.
He used to do horror before he switched to fiction, and some of it is pretty good. A couple I’ve liked are Fevre Dream (vampires on a 19th century Mississippi riverboat, and The Armageddon Rag, which is about a legendary 60’s hard rock band that reunites years after the death of their iconic, Jim Morrison-esque lead singer behind a new frontman, a young kid who is eerily remiscent if the first singer. It’s got a supernatural theme to it, but it’s also just kind of a cool book about rock, and the band (which is called the Nazgul) uses a lot of LOTR imagery.
Old Nan is not a confirmed death in the books, so I don’t think it’s her. Hoster Tully seems the most likely to me. There is some speculation that Rickard Karstark (he’s been cast) attempts to kill Jaime in this episode. The preview shows Robb chopping down on something. I suppose that could be Karstak’s execution. I really hope it isn’t. I really hope it’s not Jaime being behanded either. Most of the previews have been misleading though, so hopefully this is the same.
So I don’t have any good speculation. I thought it was going to be Rast, but he’s out of danger for now.
Actually, Martin never really locked in on to one single genre, which is probably why it took him so long to become a household name. For most of his carreer varied betweenscience fiction, fantasy, horror, even superhero stories, and various subgenres of the above. I’d say that until the mid-1980’s, he was mostly known for his science fiction, much of which (like Tuff Voyaging, Dying of the Light, a Song for Lysa, *Nightflyers *and more) was set in the same futuristic universe.
He’s very much of the same generation as Roger Zelazny (a friend of his), Ursula K. LeGuin, Robert Silverberg and Jack Vance - writers who more or less ignored the supposed lines between the various genres of imaginative fiction.
I wonder if Martin gets a little annoyed or disappointed that it took this series for him to be noticed on a large scale. Is this series that much better than his previous writings, or is it just that it’s a longer story arc? I wonder what HE thinks of this piece of work, whether he thinks it’s his best or not.
Does anyone know if there were any production stills leaked that show what the dragons are going to look like tonight? CGI or animatronics or puppetry?
It’s not better, but it is more epic in scope. It also was somewhat revolutionary at the time that the first book came out and got a lot of attention for being such a breath of fresh air in a genre that had been stagnant for a long time.
But he wasn’t exactly an obscure writer before A Song of Ice and Fire, he was just a writer who was mostly known only to scifi/fantasy folks. Before the HBO series was announced I would say that was more or less still true.
I grew up knowing his name since my Dad was a big fan, so that might bias my perspective a bit. It’s one of the reasons why I associate him so strongly with the Wild Cards series, which is a series of shared universe short stories that he co-created, edited and contributed to as a writer. It’s kind of a superhero world that tried to treat superheros realistically long before that became the vogue in comic books. Really strong stuff for the first several volumes.
How though? The only thing that’s left in that storyline is Jon running away, coming back, then Mormont saying they’re going north. There’s no danger for the Wall between Othor and book 2.
The only thing that leads me to believe this is the fact that the camera focused on Rast when Jon got Longclaw. That seemed purposeful. But I don’t know how they’d kill him. My husband thinks Karstark, but it would be weird to introduce him and kill him in one episode. And I don’t think Hoster Tully has been cast, but at least one scene on his deathbed should be shown, so we can get that Lysa backstory. Who else dies in 3?
Robb, Catelyn, Tywin, Joffrey, Oberyn (although we haven’t been introduced), Gregor (or was he still screaming in AFFC?), Jeor Mormont… Berric Dondarion.