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Post by King Tommen on Apr 25, 2016 3:19:35 GMT
Have a couple new theories on this season after watching E1:
Putting aside the execution of the Dornish scenes (which always seemed terribly rushed and not particularly well-staged or developed), I think we can at least see the storyline point of the purge:
With Doran being offed, we can speculate that he probably doesn't play that huge of a role in the books after declaring his intentions and sending everyone on their missions. It stands to reason that Dorne itself probably isn't going to be a central part of the action in the final 2 books and Doran probably isn't leaving there. So he could either be offed or just generally inconsequential from here on out. And if that's the case, clearing the decks now makes sense. Ellaria is basically your Arianne stand-in and installing her as the new face of Dorne allows you to have a leadership character there who would be open to aligning with Dany because she just wants to wipe out the Lannisters in King Landing which Dany would be happy to do for her. It also gives you a cool all-female dynamic (with the Sand Snakes and Dany) of this particular rebellion. Remember that Indria Varma has been promoted to main cast this season so she'll be a bigger deal for the next little bit. That being said, I suspect we'll see little or nothing of Dorne until Varys shows up later in the season to pave the way for Dany's arrival. If the rumours are true about Olenna also becoming part of that mix, it adds another female into that allying group who all have the motivation to help Dany in her cause (especially of Loras bites it as we suspect).
Even though the assassination itself was kind of clumsy, I at least like that it retroactively makes the whole Myrcella kiss of death look less like a really stupid decision on Ellaria and Sand Snakes part and more a part of an overall leadership coup. You could pinpoint the turn from the scene where she has to swear fealty to Doran as the point where they decide enough is enough and put an actual real plan together. It would have been much, much more effective for the audience if this all happened over the course of the finale as opposed to being spread between 2 seasons but I wonder if they even knew for sure this was the direction they were ultimately going to take while writing S5, my guess is no. For example, in the finale, if they had finished the scene on the dock with Ellaria taking the antidote and then nodding at Obara and Nym and saying "you know what you have to do", that would have set up Trystane's death a lot more easily in this episode. Oh well.
As for Mel, with the confirmation that she's older than she seems, it now puts the Shiera Seastar/Brynden Rivers being Mel's parents theories into the mix. There's a lot of solid evidence of this in the books but it was always contingent on Mel being way older than she claims. I doubt the show really delves too deep into the history but if there's an acknowledgement that Three Eyed Raven is her father/related (and why else wait for the Mel reveal until the season where we finally meet Brynden), then I have a theory about what happens to Mel this season.
We know that Mel seemingly departs Castle Black at mid-season (well before Jon would for Snowbowl). She doesn't appear to be in any of the future scenes with Davos/Sansa or Jon so where the hell does she go? She could die somehow but that doesn't seem likely at this point. To me, it seems far more likely that she would set herself a new mission that she would want to carry out on her own. And that would be North of the Wall. She knows the White Walkers are the big threat and if she's connected to the Three Eyed Raven, she would probably want to pursue that course. It could be revealed that her seeing things in the flames is more about her "power of sight" that she gets from 3ER and this is what spurs her on this mission. So I surmise that it's possible that the hooded rider we see saving Bran, Meera and crew in the trailer is in fact Mel. I mean, the person is wielding fire as a weapon. I don't buy Coldhands as an option at all at this point and there really isn't much in the way of other options for that person (maybe Benjen I guess). So we'll see if this is something that happens or if I'm just high on crack...
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Post by Admin on Apr 25, 2016 6:58:20 GMT
As for Mel, with the confirmation that she's older than she seems, it now puts the Shiera Seastar/Brynden Rivers being Mel's parents theories into the mix. There's a lot of solid evidence of this in the books but it was always contingent on Mel being way older than she claims. I doubt the show really delves too deep into the history but if there's an acknowledgement that Three Eyed Raven is her father/related (and why else wait for the Mel reveal until the season where we finally meet Brynden), then I have a theory about what happens to Mel this season. We know that Mel seemingly departs Castle Black at mid-season (well before Jon would for Snowbowl). She doesn't appear to be in any of the future scenes with Davos/Sansa or Jon so where the hell does she go? She could die somehow but that doesn't seem likely at this point. To me, it seems far more likely that she would set herself a new mission that she would want to carry out on her own. And that would be North of the Wall. She knows the White Walkers are the big threat and if she's connected to the Three Eyed Raven, she would probably want to pursue that course. It could be revealed that her seeing things in the flames is more about her "power of sight" that she gets from 3ER and this is what spurs her on this mission. So I surmise that it's possible that the hooded rider we see saving Bran, Meera and crew in the trailer is in fact Mel. I mean, the person is wielding fire as a weapon. I don't buy Coldhands as an option at all at this point and there really isn't much in the way of other options for that person (maybe Benjen I guess). So we'll see if this is something that happens or if I'm just high on crack... This is very cool! |
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Post by victarion on Apr 25, 2016 8:59:34 GMT
Series 5&6 were written together/in conjunction.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2016 11:28:55 GMT
Interesting
I think the show does point to what will happen in the books. Doran will die soon, Arianne will take over, the sandsnakes will take out Myrcella in kings landing or on the road there and maybe even Trystane. But I don't see book SS killing their own family, so this may be Cersei's doing.
As for Mel. I think she will sacrifice Shireen in hopes of bringing back Stannis and similarly give up hope and faith on R'hllor. As for where she's going in the show, I don't think she'll have any connection to BR. The hooded figure looks to be able to fight, which Mel can't. So I think she will head south with Jon even though we haven't seen much footage of her outside I don't think that means much as she probably just shot a lot of scenes inside.
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Post by janicia on Apr 25, 2016 14:26:38 GMT
Bran getting a new person to interact with would be good, if we're going to see much of him this season. But I don't feel like the northern arc needs two scary old wielders of magic. I guess Bloodraven could sacrifice his life for Jon, and then Melissandre could come take Bloodraven's place and finish Bran's training. Or maybe Melissandre goes up there to kill Bloodraven.
I do see the logic in splitting Melissandre away from Davos, Tormund, and Jon, who all hate and fear her.
I don't think the show is necessarily telling us that Doran is about to die in the books. Whether or not he lives, he's stuck in Dorne and the interesting things the Dornish do won't be in Dorne. With lines of communication so bad, Doran doesn't have a good way to communicate with his commanders on the ground, so they'll all be operating on their own initiative in their various missions. The show might just be saying that Doran isn't important anymore.
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Post by King Tommen on Apr 25, 2016 14:36:20 GMT
Bran getting a new person to interact with would be good, if we're going to see much of him this season. But I don't feel like the northern arc needs two scary old wielders of magic. I guess Bloodraven could sacrifice his life for Jon, and then Melissandre could come take Bloodraven's place and finish Bran's training. Or maybe Melissandre goes up there to kill Bloodraven. I do see the logic in splitting Melissandre away from Davos, Tormund, and Jon, who all hate and fear her. I don't think the show is necessarily telling us that Doran is about to die in the books. Whether or not he lives, he's stuck in Dorne and the interesting things the Dornish do won't be in Dorne. With lines of communication so bad, Doran doesn't have a good way to communicate with his commanders on the ground, so they'll all be operating on their own initiative in their various missions. The show might just be saying that Doran isn't important anymore. I don't think Bloodraven will be with Bran after he and the crew leave the cave. WW's showing up there will probably not bode well for his short-term survival prospects. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2016 22:24:27 GMT
Even though the assassination itself was kind of clumsy, I at least like that it retroactively makes the whole Myrcella kiss of death look less like a really stupid decision on Ellaria and Sand Snakes part and more a part of an overall leadership coup. You could pinpoint the turn from the scene where she has to swear fealty to Doran as the point where they decide enough is enough and put an actual real plan together. It would have been much, much more effective for the audience if this all happened over the course of the finale as opposed to being spread between 2 seasons but I wonder if they even knew for sure this was the direction they were ultimately going to take while writing S5, my guess is no. For example, in the finale, if they had finished the scene on the dock with Ellaria taking the antidote and then nodding at Obara and Nym and saying "you know what you have to do", that would have set up Trystane's death a lot more easily in this episode. Oh well. Hey I didn't realize this thread also had Melisandre theories in it before I just started another one about it. I can delete that one or just leave it as general theorycraft about Melisandre's background (ie the Shiera/Bloodraven theories). I hadn't jumped into this one yet as I am still trying to sort the entire plot mess out before trying to then see where it's going. I honestly didn't understand much of it until I re-watched it and then realized where Trystane's assassination was taking place on the boat in the Blackwater at King's Landing. I agree with the part I highlighted about making the assassination of Myrcella a valid option at that point where it seemed rather stupid to do at the end of last season. Now at least we know they were going for the whole deal and not just part way to piss off Doran and get themselves killed which they should be if he'd known. But instead they were just waiting for news to come back that Myrcella was dead to put the rest of their plan into play. It's still pretty weak but it is what it is and I'm better with it today than I was last night on initially watching. No explanation as to how they actually got all the way to King's Landing that quickly to kill Trystane while Jaime took Myrcella ashore was one of my complaints even with accepting time jumps. Still ... why bother killing Myrcella that way if they intended to kill Doran and Trystane anyways? They wanted to start a war - I get that part, but why not just murder all of them at once? I guess they wanted Jaime to take Myrcella's body back first - still struggling to make sense of that timing thing in King's Landing. |
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Post by King Tommen on Apr 25, 2016 23:00:42 GMT
Even though the assassination itself was kind of clumsy, I at least like that it retroactively makes the whole Myrcella kiss of death look less like a really stupid decision on Ellaria and Sand Snakes part and more a part of an overall leadership coup. You could pinpoint the turn from the scene where she has to swear fealty to Doran as the point where they decide enough is enough and put an actual real plan together. It would have been much, much more effective for the audience if this all happened over the course of the finale as opposed to being spread between 2 seasons but I wonder if they even knew for sure this was the direction they were ultimately going to take while writing S5, my guess is no. For example, in the finale, if they had finished the scene on the dock with Ellaria taking the antidote and then nodding at Obara and Nym and saying "you know what you have to do", that would have set up Trystane's death a lot more easily in this episode. Oh well. Hey I didn't realize this thread also had Melisandre theories in it before I just started another one about it. I can delete that one or just leave it as general theorycraft about Melisandre's background (ie the Shiera/Bloodraven theories). I hadn't jumped into this one yet as I am still trying to sort the entire plot mess out before trying to then see where it's going. I honestly didn't understand much of it until I re-watched it and then realized where Trystane's assassination was taking place on the boat in the Blackwater at King's Landing. I agree with the part I highlighted about making the assassination of Myrcella a valid option at that point where it seemed rather stupid to do at the end of last season. Now at least we know they were going for the whole deal and not just part way to piss off Doran and get themselves killed which they should be if he'd known. But instead they were just waiting for news to come back that Myrcella was dead to put the rest of their plan into play. It's still pretty weak but it is what it is and I'm better with it today than I was last night on initially watching. No explanation as to how they actually got all the way to King's Landing that quickly to kill Trystane while Jaime took Myrcella ashore was one of my complaints even with accepting time jumps. Still ... why bother killing Myrcella that way if they intended to kill Doran and Trystane anyways? They wanted to start a war - I get that part, but why not just murder all of them at once? I guess they wanted Jaime to take Myrcella's body back first - still struggling to make sense of that timing thing in King's Landing. As far as how Obara and Nym got to Trystane, I think the idea is that they had been tailing Jaime's ship all the way back from Dorne after the dock scene with Ellaria was done (like a half day behind type of thing). And that they were basically already there (or close by) when Jaime took Myrcella to shore in KL. Then, when Trystane was all alone on his boat, they snuck onboard to kill him as well. The Trystane kill being done the way it is doesn't make any real sense, even though it logistically is fine. If he's on the boat with Myrcella and you know you want them both dead, just poison them both before they leave and then you don't need to chase the other one down. Or if you don't want to poison both of them, trail them back to KL and kill them both on the ship. You don't need to needlessly complicate things by poisoning one and then chasing the other one all the way back to KL to finish off the other. But I think I can speculate confidently that the main reason it was done this way is because they didn't know this was exactly how things were going to go when writing S5 (maybe they had a totally different way of Trystane dying that had nothing to do with the SS) so when the decision was made in S6 for it to go this way, this was essentially the quickest way to wrap things up. My assumption is that while they may have wanted the result to be the same with the Dornish plot that the negative reaction to the storyline in S5 caused them to more or less wipe out a good part of the planned action there and just retain the parts they needed in Ellaria and the SS's for later on when they were truly needed. They've got a lot of shit to cover off this season and wiping out whatever development they had planned in Dorne in less than 5 minutes in the premiere is probably the best thing, longterm. It just made for not particularly great television. But at least it was short and they're done for a while. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 26, 2016 0:22:13 GMT
If as you say, they made some story change decisions between seasons (would be interesting to know why exactly) then I suppose that's why it feels disjointed and weirdly glued together. It felt rushed. I would think if they felt they could salvage it this season we would have gotten a much different story.
Really makes me wonder just how different things are going to be in the book now. Some of these things are starting to make me lose anticipation for the same storyline in the book. In a way it spoils it.
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Post by King Tommen on Apr 26, 2016 0:34:20 GMT
If as you say, they made some story change decisions between seasons (would be interesting to know why exactly) then I suppose that's why it feels disjointed and weirdly glued together. It felt rushed. I would think if they felt they could salvage it this season we would have gotten a much different story. Really makes me wonder just how different things are going to be in the book now. Some of these things are starting to make me lose anticipation for the same storyline in the book. In a way it spoils it. I'm not basing this on anything but speculation but I would say typically when story threads seem rushed or cobbled together, it's because the original plan has changed. I imagine that Doran/Areo/Trystane were always supposed to die but I wouldn't be surprised if it was going to be drawn out a little more. And I also wouldn't be surprised if the original plan for Trystane was for him to be some kind of hostage in KL for a time or for Cersei to be the one to order his death. Him not being poisoned with Myrcella in the finale makes more sense in that scenario. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 26, 2016 1:04:02 GMT
So moving forward, how do you see this playing out?
What's the payoff here other than Ellaria gets control of Dorne? I guess inheritance isn't really a big deal down there since they made a point to emphasize that bastards are not frowned upon like in the north. She wanted to start a war with the Lannisters but how is that going to really help their cause other than just pure revenge? Will this even be explored more or it's just done and over from here on out?
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Post by King Tommen on Apr 26, 2016 1:08:24 GMT
So moving forward, how do you see this playing out? What's the payoff here other than Ellaria gets control of Dorne? I guess inheritance isn't really a big deal down there since they made a point to emphasize that bastards are not frowned upon like in the north. She wanted to start a war with the Lannisters but how is that going to really help their cause other than just pure revenge? Will this even be explored more or it's just done and over from here on out? Indira Varma was moved to the main cast this season so I think she'll have a bigger role to play in the story. She's the show's substitute for Arianne so I think she'll more or less be the face of Dorne and their army with the SS as her sidekicks. As far as this season goes, I really don't think we'll see hardly any of Dorne (there's been no footage of all in any of the released material so far) until much later when Varys shows up to pave the way for Dany's arrival. I think there will be some scheming but ultimately, this is more of a bench season for Dorne until Dany gets to Westeros and the Dornish army is activated to march on KL. |
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Post by boojam on May 1, 2016 14:31:36 GMT
Have a couple new theories on this season after watching E1: Even though the assassination itself was kind of clumsy, I at least like that it retroactively makes the whole Myrcella kiss of death look less like a really stupid decision on Ellaria and Sand Snakes part and more a part of an overall leadership coup. You could pinpoint the turn from the scene where she has to swear fealty to Doran as the point where they decide enough is enough and put an actual real plan together. It would have been much, much more effective for the audience if this all happened over the course of the finale as opposed to being spread between 2 seasons but I wonder if they even knew for sure this was the direction they were ultimately going to take while writing S5, my guess is no. For example, in the finale, if they had finished the scene on the dock with Ellaria taking the antidote and then nodding at Obara and Nym and saying "you know what you have to do", that would have set up Trystane's death a lot more easily in this episode. Oh well. It seems more than clumsy, it's kind of weird, even the bad Qarth parts in S2 were not this badly written. I have to wonder what Jeremy Podeswa thought? He is a good director and this is a 'everybody go run over by a truck' type of scene. My take is that until the climatic event the books and show story have become totally disjoint except for characters and backbone thread that the narrative is following. It think the Young Griff story is disposed of , and Arianne non-existent I think we will find the book story and the show story completely different. I have not idea why Varys would go to Dorne but it seems to be happening, I think. I can still see Dorne involved in the 'NighKing's invasion' since I think Westeros will pull together, how this is done is a mystery. |
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