I’m having a hard time understanding why Jon’s “claim” to throne even matters if he doesn’t want it.

Cersei doesn’t really have much of claim to it. Yes, she was wife and mother to the previous kings, but wouldn’t the throne go to a male Baratheon heir?

She has the Lannister army, Euron and his fleet, and the golden company. Someone would obviously have to fight her for it or the kingdom would have to revolt.

Dany doesn’t really have a claim. The Targaryen claim to throne ended when Robert Baratheon took it. The only way her “rightful heir” line of thinking works is through conquest. The Baratheon line has to be forcibly removed for her to sit on the throne.

Dany knows her claim to the throne doesn’t mean shit. She’s spent most of the series building an army to take it by force. The only threat Jon is to throne is if she’s a shit queen. If she takes the throne and dies he would be the heir to it. She could take a husband or birth a son and he would be out of the picture.

I understand that the people would support Jon and follow him into battle if he want to exercise his claim. But he doesn’t want the throne and I doubt he would risk their lives for a title he doesn’t want.

Bran only talks when it is obvious or if the writers needed an easy way to get past a problem.

Wait, when did he die!?!

I asked my wife, once it dawned on me that Bronn had seemingly made a beeline straight thru everything, carrying only a crossbow, to the one room where those 2 were, apropos of jack shit, "WTF? Is that Kramer?" he just busted up in there like he was talking to Jerry and George, then left.

Good point.

Jon has been thrown into leadership positions without wanting them. He is a natural leader of men and men want to follow him.

He may not want to be king, but he will ultimately take the title when enough men say they will follow him and bend the knee despite his protest.

He really doesn’t have a choice at the end of the day. His respect of tradition will force him into the position.

Either that...or Sansa pegs him.

As I understand the prophecies, they aren't specific enough to conclude it is a specific person, but they are specific enough to create a class of people who could possibly fulfill the "requirements".

Just some of the highlights are that the person to save humanity will be born or reborn amidst the salt and smoke and under a bleeding star. An example of this would be for Jon, D&D clearly show a bloody Dawn with a star on the pommel leaned against the bed Jon is born in (under a bleeding star) while his mother cries (salt). I can't remember what the smoke is in that possible version. Dany is born on Dragonstone with obvious salt and smoke. She is "reborn" by her walking out Khal Drogo's funeral pyre amidst "salt" tears, obvious "smoke" from the fire and she awakens dragons from stone in an obvious fashion.

I'm not an expert on these prophecies obviously. Hopefully someone else will chime in who is better versed on this. But D&D made a point to include some of these elements. I'm not sure why they pay lip service to the prophecies and then ignore them completely in the fulfillment. If they were gonna ignore prophecy, then ignore it completely.

I would rather discuss the morality of “rape” in a medieval fantasy show than the morality of pet owners.

He was going south and dire wolves don’t fare well south. Sending Ghost north with Thormund was literally the best thing that could happen for him.

What about Gendry?

He never any claim to the throne as the illegitimate son of Robert Baratheon.

But now he is Lord Gendry Baratheon of Storms End, son of King Robert Baratheon. Dani made him legitimate, and did so in front of a room full of witnesses.

So, could this come back to bite her?

It's because the writers think about what they need to happen on the show at a macro level, and the minor details don't matter to them so much.

Bronn shows up sure, but he acts out of character. He's got the crossbow from previous episodes, but now it suddenly can be reloaded with one hand in 2 seconds.
The logic of the scene doesn't matter, only the effect on the story.

Well the Targaryen's still played into Robert's claim as the Baratheons were descended from the Targaryens. Otherwise Ned's, Jon Arryn's and Robert's three claims would've otherwise been somewhat equal as the Lords of Great Houses leading a rebellion together. You could argue Jon Arryn's would have been best as the most elder and experienced among the three. Or Ned's by taking King's Landing as the leader of the armies. As Jaime said, all Ned had to do was climb the steps.

To sum it up, Ned, Jon Arryn and Robert all had a claim by conquest. Robert's was deemed superior by a mix of conquest and Targaryen blood.

The whole thing is just stupid.  The whole point of a character arc is that character grows and changes in a meaningful way.  Jon should be way past "I don't want it" now.



But as of last episode the writing is so bad we have anti-character arcs.

Tormund.  Guess I'll just go north again, bye.
Sam.  I'm going to Castle Black for literally no reason.
Sandor and Arya.  We're going back on the road because people liked that a couple of seasons ago.  Maybe we'll get some chickens.

He had it specially made some time before his wedding to Margaery...  like I wrote a page ago, there was a whole scene where he's showing it to her before the wedding, letting her shoot it, and explaining the "new" speedy cocking lever.

I must have missed that scene, but my watching was spotty then. Was this before or after the dead redhead?

Bran's character pisses me off.  He could help them out so much but instead he just sits there with that smug smile.

Dany actually explains that pretty well in their scene together.  Even if he doesn't want it, others won't accept her claim and will press Jon into asserting his.  It will fraction the kingdom.  Varys and Tyrion were already discussing it.

The dagger wasn’t a family heirloom. It had been the family for a few weeks/months at that point.

Jon’s entire story had been building up for a battle against the night king.

Arya literally appeared out of thin air to make the kill. She had never seen the undead, white walkers, or the night king. She could have just as easily wasted her chance killing a random white walker because she has no fucking idea what the night king looks like.

It came across to me as though they had to go back and refilm his scenes in a rush because they changed the story in the middle of filming this season.

before

but there was also an earlier whore that died in Geoffrey's bedchamber, but I think it was a different weapon... and during a threesome

I get that. That’s why I said all dragontits had to do was not be a shit queen. No one ever started a rebellion because they liked who was in charge.

Three minutes in

The spoiler thread is now here:
https://www.ar15.com/forums/general/-GOT-Season8-Rumors-spoilers-and-related-theories-thread-Now-with-memes-poll/5-2218544/

Spoilers are STILL behind spoiler tags.
Thread has memes, and a GOT approval poll.

I realized as much as I would want to participate in throwing out theories here?
The people who would lose it on me for "posting spoilers" (that no one knows if they're real), wouldn't know if what I'm saying is a spoiler or NOT, because they haven't read them.

They could not differentiate between what I'm saying makes sense given the episodes, or if I'm leaning on what is flying around the web.
It's best if I don't post theories here, because, for better or worse - while I didn't write them, I'm now spoiler guy.
I will leave so you kneelers can keep your HBO theories alive.

Everyone who wants to go beyond the wall, you know the thread.

That said here's my theory on why Euron is looking up surprised.
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Mmmmmmmmmm! Chicken!

Gendry is only legitimate and lord of storms end if Dany takes the throne. If she loses that title doesn’t mean shit. Cersei will get to decide who the lord of storms end is.

If Dany wins it ends the Baratheon claim to the throne. Sure he could start a rebellion like his father did. But as long and Dany isn’t a shit queen there’s no reason to rebel.

Azor Ahai is never mentioned in the show.  The legend of him and rebirth is combined with the prophecy of the prince that was promised.  The books have much more depth of the prophecies and they are mentioned a lot more, but there is debate among the readers whether AA reborn is the same as the Prince that was Promised (TPTWP).  Mel believe that Stannis was TPTWP and both of them tried to force fulfill the prophecy on him.  When Stannis failed and died Mel thought Jon was TPTWP.  Dany and some priestesses in Essos think she is TPTWP.

The question is, should prophecy play a large part in the story where there is a big payoff in the end because the clues point to Jon Snow and he is the big hero in the end?

Here is what the author has to say about prophecy:
and a very appropriate and relevant to recent events quote by Tyrion in the books,
It is completely out of character for GRRM's writing for there to be such obvious clues and setup for Jon to be TPTWP and personally kill the NK.

I must know nothing like Jon.

Let’s say Dany takes throne by conquest. As long as she’s not a shit queen why would the people raise an army to overthrow her?

I imagine the conversation would go like this:

People: Jon your the rightful heir, let’s go to war to put you on the throne!

Jon: she’s got a dragon and an army of eunuchs and rapists. She has the support of Dorne and Storms End. How many of you want to die because she skipped me in line?

People: fuck we forgot about that. We’ll just wait for her to die.

The Old Testament was fan service.

There is no way a boy who spend his life playing with a sling to protect his sheep from wolves could kill a giant.  David had never even seen or heard of a giant before.

King Saul should have had a warrior that trained his whole life to fight giants kill Goliath.  That would be unpredictable and good writing.

Thanks. That really cleared it up for me.

Slings were potent weapons.  Ancient armies such as Alexander's employed lots of slingers as missile troops.

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Prophecy is a bit like time travel for an author. It's risky and difficult to pull off properly. You're introducing an element that subverts fundamental concepts of storytelling, causality, agency, consequence, rationality and so on. What makes it even more dangerous is half your audience believes prophecy is a real thing in the real world, so they have expectations about how it plays out and it's really easy to lose half your audience whether they realize that's what bothers them or not.

Good fiction takes advantage, you get characters acting irrationally due to the prophecy with horrific consequences, and yet through those actions they bring about some version of the prophecy themselves that subverts the expectations of the characters and the audience. That way everyone finds it satisfying and it doesn't challenge anyone's worldview.

Harry Potter is a perfect example of this, JKR actually pulled it off with a satisfying resolution. GRRM seems to understand it from the quotes. D&D don't.

this doesn't really stand up to empirical testing IIRC.  the people who have tested it have uniformly shown that shepherds' slings could provide some painful hits, but not serious injuries.

basically a harassment weapon.

Some maester needs to show up with the formula for black powder within the next two episodes.

"This is my BOOM STICK!"

They already have the green explody fire liquid. That's how I predict everyone will live until the last 5 minutes of the series cuz lefties have feelz and we gotta keep the main characters alive until the bitter end.

The writing this season is illogical and aggravating. It's not quite on the level of the last Star Wars movie, which was so bad that it made me stop caring about the story completely and swear off the future films, but it's getting there. There are too many things that just don't make sense and completely depart from major plot points the prior seasons established. Here are some of the more egregious examples that come to mind:

1. Dothraki cavalry charge right up the middle at the very beginning of the battle against the undead army. Who would do this? Jon is supposed to be an experienced commander who's been trained in battle tactics and military history since he was a boy. We learned this about him during the Castle Black battle and when he came up with the strategy for the Battle of the Bastards. Sure, he doesn't always stick to the plan, but it's never been suggested that he would come up with a retarded plan from the get-go. If the writers decided that the Dothraki cavalry had to be wiped out, that still could have happened without Jon defying well-known military tactics.

2. No one is interested in learning what Bran knows. This is mind-boggling. Bran's character arc has established him as a living crystal ball, someone who knows literally everything about the past and present. At one point, he suggested that the NK has repeatedly tried to eliminate the 3ER, but was defeated each time. Someone asked, "Can he be killed by dragon fire?" Brain replied, "I don't know, no one has ever tried." Why the hell did no one ask, "Well, how was he defeated on all of the other occasions? Maybe we could learn from that!" And if you're about to go to war against Cersei, Bran can tell you everything the other side is planning, reveal the war council's private discussions, report on enemy movements, identify weaknesses, etc. Having god-level surveillance on your enemy is such a major advantage that it would almost be impossible to lose. But no one seems the slightest bit interested in asking him for that information.

3. Dany's dragon is killed because she can't see a fleet of ships, apparently. Bran could have told everyone that Euron's fleet was waiting for Dany at Dragonstone with ballista intended to kill her dragons, but even if he didn't, how the hell did Dany not see the fleet with her own eyes when she's literally in the clouds conducting aerial reconnaissance? She knows Cersei has those weapons because one of them nailed Dragon last season. Again, even if the writers decided that a second dragon had to die, why did it have to happen in a nonsensical way? And why wouldn't Dany just circle around the fleet and torch the ships from behind right at that very moment?

4. Up until now, Dany's advisors had her convinced that she could only win the war for the Iron Throne by not killing any civilians at all. The idea seems to be that, even though you have dragons, and we know Aegon the Conqueror subjugated Westeros by deploying his dragons in battle, YOU CANNOT USE YOUR DRAGONS TO TAKE KING'S LANDING BECAUSE PEOPLE MIGHT DIE. This is completely unrealistic. In any siege of a fortified population center, people are going to die. The civilians will be enlisted to fight you, because you are the invader. We saw this in the Battle of Blackwater Bay, when Tyrion rallied all the men and boys in the city to fight off Stannis' forces. Why in the world would he or anyone else think that it's possible to capture a city without any civilian casualties, or that it's a good idea in war NOT TO USE the one thing that gives you an overwhelming advantage over your enemy? Hell, if she just flew her dragons up to the Red Keep and torched the high command, that would end the war quickly and with much fewer casualties than a long, drawn-out siege.

5. Cersei is supposed to be totally ruthless, but she doesn't think to kill Dany and her commanders during a parley when they only had a force of a couple hundred at most. Why would she not fire the 87 ballista at Dany and her sole remaining dragon from the walls of King's Landing and send in cavalry to take out the survivors? Why would Dany put herself in such a vulnerable situation to begin with? None of it makes sense. The last time we saw Dany go to King's Landing she took her entire army with her to wait outside, as a deterrent to attack. Now she shows up with a pathetic force, and Cersei doesn't think, "This is a really good opportunity to take her out here and now"?

I sincerely hope the last two episodes are better than (or at least make more sense than) the first four, but I'm not holding my breath.

welp the last episode shows clearly that d and d have run out of plots and dialog and now are in a rush to conclude the show.  the episode was chock full of out of character scenes with the only point being to get the remaining characters lined up for the final acts,

gendry whines, ghost gets a new owner, tormund and sam exit stage left, jamie decides he really prefers his sister to the big woman, they get rid of an extra dragon to reduce cgi costs, eron (or whatever his name is) destroys danerys's navy but doesnt finish off the survivors, varys decides his queen needs to be put down. the hound and arya go back on tour.

it was all rushed. its obvious that the showrunners have run out of story and doing the right thing which is wrapping the whole thing up. the reason for the limited number of episodes this season is obvious. they are simply out of material. grrm has completely lost is train of thought about the series also.

ive enjoyed the series. its been very good, but once d and d got out in front of grrm the series was done. the really interesting play between the various characters was replaced by some action, some of which was outstanding (battle of the bastards). oh well.

David was basically a war band leader, so he was probably using a war sling, which could be very effective.

The Roman slingers would have exacted a heavy toll. Recent experiments conducted in Germany showed that a 50-gram Roman bullet hurled by a trained slinger has only slightly less stopping power than a .44 magnum cartridge fired from a handgun. Other tests revealed that a trained slinger could hit a target smaller than a human being from 130 yards away. "That's exactly the distance from the front rampart of the south [Roman] camp to the front rampart of the hill fort," Reid noted.

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/05/ancient-slingshot-lethal-44-magnum-scotland/

Wow. I had no idea they hit that hard.

That's a bingo.

Jon died and if Jon or Dany end up ruling they could make Sam Lord of Horn Hill.

I remember that.  I personally didn't see it until after the episode, but I recall him being like "oops, sorry, I thought everyone here already knew."

I consider this comment last ep be enigmatic of the writers throwing shade at GRRM since they have realized they have no plotting capability and they miss his dialog, and the guy could have dumped some new material in the mix the last few years that would have made their lives easier, but he didn't:

Davos:  "The Lord of Light.   We play his game for him; we fight his war - and win.  And then....   he fucks off.  No signs, no blessings ...   Who knows what he wants?"

I bet GRRM is watching all of this nerd rage and hate and realizes he'll be next if he doesn't satisfy the popular fan theories.

As he starts TWOW rewrite #927

I think that Sansa told Tyrion about Jon on purpose, to sow discord in Dany's ranks. She learned a lot from Littlefinger

Yup, Jon tried swearing her and Arya to secrecy. No way that wasn't getting leaked.

You still need the separate lever, which bronn didnt have.

I like this reasoning for Euron being the one to kill Cersei.

Don’t let crazy stick it in you.