Knights & Knaves Alehouse

Solid predictions all: I'd like to add that I think there is going to be a major storm that will knock out at least half of Dany's forces (this could be Winter related or magic - maybe the Drowned God?). This will even the odds to some extent with the Lannisters when she finally arrives.

Falconer wrote: I’m sure, and the Mad King keeps repeating “burn them all” because it’s his “hold the door” — he means burn the wights. They basically showed this in one scene of Bran having a vision cutting back and forth between wights and the Mad King.

Oh man, that makes a whole lot of sense. All those jars of wild fire are going to be mighty useful against an army of wights.

Matthew wrote:

Falconer wrote: I’m sure, and the Mad King keeps repeating “burn them all” because it’s his “hold the door” — he means burn the wights. They basically showed this in one scene of Bran having a vision cutting back and forth between wights and the Mad King.

Oh man, that makes a whole lot of sense. All those jars of wild fire are going to be mighty useful against an army of wights.

Fimo of New Rockstars on youtube has some great episode analysis and such. I only started watching it for this season and he quickly and easily gets you into a lot of detail you might miss as well as compare/contrast with stuff in the books.

https://www.youtube.com/user/NewMediaRockstars/videos

I keep watching old movies and seeing obvious sources of inspiration for the GoT shows/books.

Martin must have watched Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen, particularly the second movie, Kriemhild's Revenge.

The first half of Kriemhild's Revenge is almost note for note the same story as Dany being married off to Drogo. In this case, it's Kriemhild, the sister of the King of Burgundy and widow of Siegfried, agreeing to marry Attila the Hun so long he promises to avenge the murder of her first husband. The Huns are portrayed pretty much identically to the Dothraki. Kriemhild essentially sacrifices her own son in service of her vengeance.

Later there's a straight up "Red Wedding" scene and later still a scene where Kriemhild orders the burning of all of her enemies alive in a great hall. You see elements of all of Martin's "vengeful mother" characters in Kriemhild. Also, there's a ton of moral ambiguity where even the putative bad guy, Hagen Tronje, does everything he does in the service of his king, Kriemhild's brother, and loyal to the last, drags his king still alive out of the burning building.

Matthew wrote: If they just fight and kill each other, make an alliance and then blow up the Night King it is going to be fucking boring, so I hope there is some twist somewhere that gives events greater gravitas, but I am having a hard time imagining what it might be. The rapid pace at which plot lines are being resolved is definitely contrary to the slowly unfolding story that Martin has been so good at.

Well, Melisandre was forced south...to where, and to what end?

There's going to be some type of showdown relating to the gods/magic.

Matthew wrote: The only thing that I would not have guessed was Arya's slaughter of the Freys, but that was obvious as soon as the scene started and Lord Frey said "You're not one of mine". It was the best we could have hoped for by mid season, Boltons and Freys defeated and Daenerys afloat, along with certainty of Jon Snow's true heritage. However, I remain worried that the final denouement is not going to live up to expectations. Who is the third head of the dragon? Looks increasingly likely to be Jamie, I think.

And there you have it. Some kind of grand convergence has to happen relating to death and the death of magic. We have players associated with all the gods brought up in the TV series: Jon, Danni, the Night King, Euron, Bran, Arya/the Hound, Qyburn/the Mountain...

Sam will step to the forefront near the very end.

By the way, where did Brienne go? I missed that one.

Landifarne wrote:By the way, where did Brienne go? I missed that one.

She escaped Riverrun when the Lannister/Frey army was attacking it. The Blackfish died protecting her escape. I assume she's heading back to Sansa. Pretty good chance she'll meet Melisandre coming from the other direction. The Hound and BWW may be travelling the same general direction, too.

It's possible that Arya is heading back to Winterfell as well, although I suspect she followed Jaime to King's Landing.

gizmomathboy wrote: Fimo of New Rockstars on youtube has some great episode analysis and such. I only started watching it for this season and he quickly and easily gets you into a lot of detail you might miss as well as compare/contrast with stuff in the books.

https://www.youtube.com/user/NewMediaRockstars/videos

Thanks for the link. I watched the episode 9 analysis, and though there were some interesting points in the first half, I thought that the second half was rather less well thought out.

Landifarne wrote: Well, Melisandre was forced south...to where, and to what end? There's going to be some type of showdown relating to the gods/magic.

I would certainly expect so.

Matthew wrote:

gizmomathboy wrote: Fimo of New Rockstars on youtube has some great episode analysis and such. I only started watching it for this season and he quickly and easily gets you into a lot of detail you might miss as well as compare/contrast with stuff in the books.

https://www.youtube.com/user/NewMediaRockstars/videos

Thanks for the link. I watched the episode 9 analysis, and though there were some interesting points in the first half, I thought that the second half was rather less well thought out.

I think they do their best when comparing/contrasting with the books and pointing out things that might be missed as well referring to prior points and such.

Their speculation gets a bit off. Overall I've enjoyed their analyses of this season.

Yes, they seem enthusiastic, intelligent, and articulate. My gripes were largely with trying to explain plot inconsistency with reference to the books (when the plot inconsistencies are clearly the result of condensing the books for television), the historical analysis (naturally), and missing the obvious El Cid reference. In particular, the repeated pronunciation of "Cannae" made me want to punch the guy in the teeth (partly because it made me wonder if I had been mispronouncing it my whole life).

Matthew wrote:In particular, the repeated pronunciation of "Cannae" made me want to punch the guy in the teeth (partly because it made me wonder if I had been mispronouncing it my whole life).

American historians and Latin teachers I've encountered seem to pronounce it a lot like the English word "canny". On the other hand, in the 1930's Italian movie Scipio Africanus they pronounced it more like the name "Connie", at least to my ears. I don't think I've ever heard anyone from Great Britain pronounce it, so I'm not sure how they compare. I do know from Latin class that the way one of the producers pronounced it after "The Battle of the Bastards" ("can-NAY") is nothing like the way the Romans would have pronounced it (at least based on the way it's spelled). Then again, it was the same producer who aggressively mispronounces* Cersei as "sir-SAY", so maybe that's just a thing with him.

* - I say "mispronounces" because all the actors pronounce it "SIR-see". If Martin intended for her name to be pronounced the way the one producer (I think it's Benioff) pronounces it, maybe he should have let some of the actors in on it...

EDIT: My mistake, it's Weiss who pronounces "Cersei" differently than everyone in the cast, not Benioff.

The first pronunciation in this link is the one we use in the UK (and I have never heard the second pronunciation, but that seems to be the one you reference above):

Yes, the second pronunciation is the one I've always heard Americans use. I think this is just one of the (numerous?) cases where American English and UK English differ.

When I was majoring in Latin and Ancient Greek with professors with Phds from Harvard, Princeton, Yale, U. Chicago, they instructed me pronounce the AE diphthong as "eye," so by those rules, Cannae would be pronounced Canneye, not Canny. I'm sure someone somewhere has written a long essay to the contrary. Sadly, no records, cassettes, CDs or DVDs from ancient Rome survive, so we'll never really know.

Yes, it is likely a Latin pronunciation thing rather than a UK/US divide, as you may be taught to pronounce Latin a different way depending on where you were schooled, most famously lawyers and classicists pronounce certain terms differently. Either way, this presenter has justly earned my pedantic wrath!

Matthew wrote:Yes, it is likely a Latin pronunciation thing rather than a UK/US divide, as you may be taught to pronounce Latin a different way depending on where you were schooled, most famously lawyers and classicists pronounce certain terms differently.

I think that's probably right. My economics professors (I majored in economics too) would say "cedarus pearibus" (like the tree and fruit) while my Latin professors would say "keterrris pahrrriboos" for ceteris paribus. In Maroeconomics, I'd pronounce it one way, and when I moved over to Imperial Roman Poetry, I'd pronounce it the other. Mrs. Chainsaw's legal training puts her pronunciation closer to my econ professor's.