Dear GRRM,
Less talky, more writey, so you finish before you are deady.
Sincerely,
Lots of People

ROFL

I came.

I risked entering the spoilers thread to see if this is why the thread was bumped.... Worth it!

Gods be good. A man can't wait.

*Splooge*

I might honestly consider getting HBO just for the months this is on.

Storm of Swords adapted to HBO is going to be absolutely incredible and I want to see the real-time reactions of the uninitiated so badly.

A reason to stay alive.

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Four months....

Season two is up for pre-order on amazon. $71.98 for season two, big price increase. It does not come out until Feb. though, so hopefully the price will start to come down in the next couple of months.

Or free on HBO GO which is free with HBO. Why not sign up for a month of HBO and watch Season 1 and 2? They even have the 'added features' editions.

So who are the 3? It seems fairly obvious at this point that Dany and Jon are 2 of them, who is the other? Aegon, Bran, Arya?

Aegon has the blood, Bran may have been "reborn" when he emerged from under Winterfell, Arya has been reborn plenty of times (Arry, Weasel, No One, Cat).

Anyone else?

Tyrion is another possibility.

***ADWD SPOILER***

I have season 1 on blu-ray. This series is one of the all time greats for me, so I want it in a hi-def format that I can watch whenever. :thumb:

In about a months time I'll have some serious dish on season 3.
I'll be working on it! Either in December or early January we'll start receiving footage.
I'll throw a couple Chiefs in a few backgrounds.

Are you doing some of the CGI work?

yep

Sweet! You need to put Pioli in there.

And were YOU responsible for the George Bush head? ;)

Next guy that gets the axe will be Pioli. :thumb:
This is the first season of GoT for our company. We've worked on Borgias, Nikita, Titanic and also films Breaking Dawn, Abe Lincoln Vampire Slayer, Resident Evil and I'm now on the latest Robert Redford flick, All Is Lost. We're also getting Robocop.
Busy times.

The thread is labeled as a spoiler, I don't think you need the tags.

Jon is likely dead. But, if he's going to be Azor Ahai reborn, he needs to be reborn.

Griff could be an imposter, but Varys believes him to be real. He told Kevan that he was real before killing him, no need to lie to someone you're about to kill. Either Varys (who was responsible for replacing him before Gregor got there) is being fooled, or he's really Aegon.

I think he's the real Aegon, but for some reason I feel like he will die or somethng will happen to get him out of the picture.

I wouldn't be surprised. I feel like we know nothing about him, we only know what others (Varys, Illyrio, etc.) have done for him.

I was thinking, what exactly is Patchface? He was bloated like a corpse when they found him, he can predict the future (he predicted the red wedding), and no one actually knows if he's the same fool that was bought by Steffon, since everyone but Patchface died.

No one really dies for good in their own POV chapter so far in the series, so I expect he will be back in some form.

Huh. Dany's mom died in labor. If the theory about Jon is true, his mom died in labor. Tyrion's mom died in labor.

That baby in Breaking Dawn was absolute horrid. Hope you had nothing to do with that.

Tyrion would be the worst one to be a head. People need to get that out of their heads. He will never be anything more than he is now. Maybe he'll be the only one to inherit CR when Jamie kills Cersei. The thirds is probably Aegon or some dark horse like Darkstar or something.

There are a lot of possibilities.

There is a theory (which I don't really believe) that Tyrion is not really Tywin's son, but Aery's. He is described as having hair so light blond it's almost white, and he is shown to have a morbid fascination with dragons, much like every Targaryen ever. Also, Tywin does proclaim that Tyrion is not his son several times, though it seems that this is not meant to be taken literally.

How would you know :p

No, our company had nothing to do with the baby or any of the face replacements. It did look awful.

Early in ADWD as he's on the road with Ilyrio to go see Dany, Tyrion has a dream that he is in a battle fighting alongside Barristan the Bold with dragons flying over head, and in the dream he has "two heads, neither of which has a nose..."

Made me wonder if it was a clue that he could somehow be one of the heads of the dragon since dragons don't have a nose either. Or it could be more misdirection from GRRM (which seems likely since other parts of the dream didn't make much sense).

I saw this this weekend. My brother-in-law just started reading them a month or so ago. He's not a big reader (it took him 3 months to read Keith Richards' auto-biography, and he's a huge Stones fan) and just got into the meaty parts of SoS.

We were talking about the series, and he mentioned that Catelyn and Robb were on their way to see those one guys about that one thing. Then started reading. So I made sure to stay within viewing distance of him while he was reading.

It was pretty awesome.

That back and forth sequence between Arya's and Sandor's POV chapters leading up to the wedding was some of the most traumatizing reading I have ever experienced.

I hear you, I do. But think about Tywin for a moment. Do you really think a man such as him would tolerate someone else's son, especially a lunatic like Aerys, to use his name and reputation and money so willingly instead of throwing him off a cliff when he was born? I highly, highly doubt as such. He already had Jamie, his golden child had already been born. There is no other explanation than that he is actually his son.

I saw the movie is how I know. Is that a problem?

Just for the sake of argument,there must be something keeping Tywin from killing Tyrion already. He has always despised Tyrion for being a dwarf and for causing Joanna to die. Perhaps whatever it is that is keeping him from killing the Tyrion that is his son would be enough to keep him from killing the Tyrion that is not.

Or, maybe Tywin doesn't know.

Only possible option, IMO.

I think Tyrion probably is his son and that's the only reason he hasn't killed him off. And even then, it's not paternal affection, but that the whole 'kinslaying' thing is clearly very frowned upon.

Then again, GRRM is a dick, so he's probably just screwing with us all and it turns out that the headless corpse of Ned is going to be Azor Ahai reborn. Why? Because **** you, that's why.

I'll give DJ this - he has been steadfast with his hate of GRRM. LMAO

Don't kill Grey Wind and we're cool, George.

I'm starting to read through the series for the second time, and I've realized something:

I really do not like Robert.

He maintains that Rhaegar kidnapped and raped Lyanna and no one disagrees, which makes it easy to believe that he is right. However, who would disagree with the King on something like that? Barristan obviously has a different view of the events, and we slowly learn that most of the realm was eager for Rhaegar to take the throne.

We see that he didn't really know Lyanna at all, believing her personality to be much different than Ned knows it is. Even Cersei liked him when they were first married, but he couldn't be bothered to love her, and just lets her know that she will never be the "Lyanna" he's created in his head.

Most of the characters, even the antagonists, act out of duty or love for family or friends. Even Tywin and Cercei do much of their "evil" stuff to benefit their family. However, I'm struggling to find a single act of Robert's that is not 100% selfish.

I'm just waiting for reanimated Robb's body with Grey Wind's head to show up somewhere.

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A few screens featuring new characters:

Queen of Thorns

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dWKqVRB_Z0...nna+Tyrell.jpg


Missandei

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-i7I4a0uh8U.../Missendai.jpg


Meera:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qJrmGbgkaH...Meera+Reed.jpg


Meera and Jojen:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Joz2a8xi5j...1600/Reeds.jpg

Meera and Jojen = perfect casting, IMO.

Agreed. So if you guys haven't been here http://asoiaf.westeros.org/, do so. It is amazing.

But anywho, someone on said forum was saying how Aemon said something like, "Cold sustains." I was thinking that maybe Jon is in like stasis due to the intense cold. Remember how his wound was steaming? That means it must've been hella cold there. So maybe he jumps to Ghost and when they are about to burn his body, he like comes out of the flames with minimal damage, essentially unscathed for the most part and is "reborn"? That would be good if it hadn't already been done for Dany though. But people have great ideas there.

You mean it was freezing cold by the wall where it's always freezing cold? :clap:

I have no idea how GRRM is going to make it happen, but it's probably a pretty safe bet that Jon will be Azor Ahai reborn. If he's not, it's probably George read the forums and found out the general consensus and will go with something completely different to **** with us. What if he makes Cersei Azor Ahai? People would probably start burning the books, haha.

The part about awakening dragons from stone though just doesn't fit Jon but fits Dany perfectly, plus the red comet came when the dragons were born and Maester Aemon was convinced it was Dany, plus she sacrificed her loved one like Azor ahai (though granted, she suffocated him first).

I think Jon will be saved by Mel like Beric and Undead Catelyn were by Thoros and Victarion was by the red priest on his ship. But because Jon was able to warg into Ghost instead of actually dying, he will still have all of his complete mental and emotional faculties when he goes back into his reanimated body and thus won't be as affected by zombieness as he might have otherwise been.

Of course it's all guesswork at this point...

Shots of season 3 in this new 2012 review/2013 promo from HBO...

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Being in an altruistic mood, I took some screenshots for you fine people so you don't have to watch the whole thing:

That one of Dany with her army gave me chills. This is going to amazing.

Yep, can't wait for this!!!

Is all the talk of "we always thought it would be a success to get through season 3" a little worrisome to anyone else?

Nope, not at all.

Yeah, no.

I think they need to get through season 4 since it will cover the last half of book 3.

But I think they make it to the end, their ratings have been good and so many people have now read the books. It's a built in audience. I'm optimistic!

I took that to mean "we always thought if the show could survive to that point, then it would really explode, because that's the most awesome point in the books".

Me too.

Which is why I'm thrilled the show has been so amazing so far. This is going to blow the thing wide open.

Now the only draw back is Martin, himself. Even if each book gets 2 seasons from here on out, I'm not sure he'll write fast enough to finish. It'll be interesting to see how HBO handles that.

Will they end it themselves? Create new stories and spin wheels until the books are done? Go on hiatus until new books are done?

But that's all way in the future. For now, S3 looks like it's shaping up to be everything I hoped it would.

Yeah, that makes sense. I'm not too worried about the show catching the books, with 2 seasons per book, that gives 6 years until the show reaches the end of DwD. WoW will be done by then, so that's 8 years. Will the show still exist in 8 years? The actors will be too old.

Actor age is certainly a concern. Especially the kids. But they could always recast. Or (I'd prefer) just adjust the storytelling so that it spans more years than the books.

But, you question is a good one. Will the show still exist in 8 years? And if it doesn't, how will HBO end it? Will they give it an ending, or just let it stop where the material stops?

I'm more concerned with massive fan blowback from RW and LS. There's going to be a lot of melting down at the end of the season.

Feast won't get two seasons. Most likely, Feast and Dance with Dragons will span two seasons with Dance getting a majority of the time. Plus you have the concurrent storylines during those two books.

Do you think LS will be in this season? I assumed that would be season 4.

That is, if you mean what I think you mean by 'LS'

Well, CS becomes LS at the same time as RW, or at least the initial event that leads to LS's eventual appearance.

In fact, that might be a hell of a way to end the season. Imagine that as a cliffhanger. LS rising out of the water.

Those books are each so long that I would be shocked if we didn't end up with at least 3 seasons combined between the two.

Unless they start going with longer seasons, say 16 eps instead of 12.

It isn't shown in the book until the epilogue. One of the things that made it so stunning and memorable was the "timespan" that occurred between the two events, where the reader assumes she's gone. If she was back shortly after the RW, I don't know if it would have the same effect.

It would be an incredible last scene for a season, though.

I could see Tywin allowing that rather than letting it be known throughout the kingdom that his beloved wife was raped by the mad king.

Honor and name and being feared and all of that...

I'd forgotten it was the very end of the book. I knew a few days passed, to explain her appearance, but for some reason I was thinking it was a few chapters, not half the book.

My thinking was RW would happen similar to the events of Baelor - i.e. not ending the season with it - then you'd have an entire finale episode, with her being the final scene, but maybe that would be too soon.

This all raises the big question of how they'll handle RW. I don't think you'd want to end the season with that. You need at least another episode, or I think you risk a portion of the audience tuning out for good.

I so wish I'd never read these books now. It would be so cool to be able to look forward to the show not knowing what's going to happen. :(

The youtube reaction videos after the RW episode are going to be epic, if the videos after Ned's death are any indication.

I just refreshed myself on the plot a bit and a couple good endings to Season 3 would be Arya finding the ship and giving over the coin or Dany's dragon attack. Season 4 will obviously end with Tyrion doing what he has to do after his escape.

Especially given the fact that they built Robb's character so much. Everyone says how ASoS is their favorite book of the series, but I was ****ing depressed for days after the RW. That book left a bad taste in my mouth.

Great call. That would be the shit for sure, especially to those who haven't read the books.

They are going to have to show how she is brought back or else it won't make sense to viewers. Speculation is Beric Dondarrion sacrifices himself to give his ability to escape death to her which is how she ends up leading Beric's band (at least it appears she is leading them when she kills that Frey guy in the epilogue). Maybe we'll get something explicit in the show because it won't make a lot of sense for her to just pop up and be alive again.

You haven't read past SoS? It's explained later how she is back, and she is undoubtedly leading the Brotherhood without Banners.

I've read every book. But I don't recall the specifics. Would you mind refreshing my memory?

Thoros, after Brienne wakes and everyone in the BwB is taking orders from LS: "When we found her by the river she was three days dead. Harwin begged me to give her the kiss of life, but it had been too long. I would not do it, so Lord Beric put his lips to hers instead, and the flame of life passed from him to her."

That is near the end of A Feast for Crows, so it's been basically an entire book between readers finding out she's "alive" and finding out how it happened.

Awesome. Thank you.

I remembered that there was an explanation, but I couldn't remember it for the life of me.

Screw LS. Bloodraven will be epic and people will rejoice. But you know what guys? If they need a break or something for the books. They could do the Dunk and Egg tales as a season. Now that would be very, very shway.

In a perfect world, ASoS would be two seasons with the first dunk and egg tale as a HBO movie in between them.

Excellent, thanks, I forgot that it was that explicit in the books though I was thinking that Beric had done something like that.

I've read AFFC, but it's been a while and I read it quickly the first time through wanting to know what happened next. I'm re-reading AFFC and ADWD right now simlutaneously following a chapter list for that purpose that I got from the Tower of the Hand site. I'm enjoying the re-read because I can focus in more on the details and foreshadowing, and I like doing the two books combined since I get all the characters that way. More like how the show would do it I guess.

Do you have a link for that re-read chapter list. That seems to be very cool, given that the two books are going on at the same time. Thanks!