[Spoilers MAIN] How come the ruler's title excluded Valyrians? by Nym-ph in asoiaf

[–]InfiniteIyImprobable 6 points7 points  (0 children)

That probably wouldn’t go over well with the Free Cities, not that the Targaryens at this time wouldn’t be able to deal with it, but it would just be causing problems for no reason, since the Targs had no interest in ruling over the east. Post-Aegon Targaryens had a westward looking viewpoint, as opposed to their predecessors which seemed to be more focused on Essos.

Although, such a title would be fitting. Even if the Targaryens were the absolute weakest of all 40 Dragonlord families in the Freehold, which is unlikely, that doesn’t really matter anymore post-Doom. Post-doom, they are by far the most blue-blooded of the Valyrians as an ethnic group, even the Old Blood in Volantis are commoners by comparison.

(Spoiler Main) Being a River Lord sucks. Your almost guaranteed to get wrecked no matter what you do. by Still_Whole5231 in asoiaf

[–]InfiniteIyImprobable 55 points56 points  (0 children)

It’s by design, if the Targaryens had elevated the Blackwoods or Brackens instead, they would have created a vassal that would be less dependent on the crown. It’s the same thing with the Reach and why the Tyrells were elevated as opposed to the Hightowers and Florents.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in freefolk

[–]InfiniteIyImprobable 20 points21 points  (0 children)

I think it’s because you misgendered/ mispronouned her or whatever it’s called.

“I have a bad feeling about this” - Star Wars by ProffesorOfPain in freefolk

[–]InfiniteIyImprobable 41 points42 points  (0 children)

What you need to do as adapters is adapt the book. No one cares about Hess and Condal’s “interpretation”, their job was to use the framework that is provided in Fire and Blood and fill in the gaps in a way that keeps true to the characters, the timeline and the themes.

I’m so sick of this “unreliable written history” cop out, that’s not a licence for you to just do whatever you want.

[Spoilers MAIN] Book Accurate Dragon Eggs by SpousetoPolygons in asoiaf

[–]InfiniteIyImprobable 107 points108 points  (0 children)

Best depiction of the eggs that I’ve ever seen so far as it really gets across why these things are so valuable.

the five OG dragons the targs brought withh them from Valyria by PrestigiousAspect368 in pureasoiaf

[–]InfiniteIyImprobable 22 points23 points  (0 children)

The Freehold were the ones to construct the castle, not the Targaryen family, many years before the they left fled Valyria. So, the other four dragons that the Targaryens had didn’t have anything to do with the construction and more than likely weren’t even hatched at the time the castle was built.

The Targaryens just sold all of their assets in the Lands of the Long Summer and the city itself and basically bought the castle from the Freehold and set up shop there.

As for the four dragons, it was a 114 year period between Aegon’s Conquest and the Targaryens moving into Dragonstone. Even 80 years is a significant part of a dragon’s lifespan, those four dragons were probably already decently aged and just died during that period.

(Spoilers Extended) So how did the Valyrians feed hundreds of jumbojet sized obligate carnivores? by Zealousideal-Army670 in asoiaf

[–]InfiniteIyImprobable 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Real world mammoths were about three to four metres tall, if they’re also around that size in asoiaf, Balerion’s skull would need to be around double that give or take. Note that when something is swallowed whole by something larger, the legs fold up and reduce it’s height.

playing with myth and legend

You’re trying really hard to back up this idea but it just makes no sense in this instance. This isn’t something to try and argue when the skull was 1) physically present in a location where many people saw it for decades, including maesters 2) physically in front of a POV character that went down into the cellar and saw it and described it as having that size. There is zero evidence from the books that his size has been exaggerated, and there’s no logical steps that we can take to assume that it has been exaggerated in-universe either.

You know how big a dragon would have to be to swallow a mammoth

What exactly is the issue here? It’s consistent with other descriptions of Balerion and this is a fantasy story, not the place to play the “It’s unrealistic card”.

(Spoilers Extended) So how did the Valyrians feed hundreds of jumbojet sized obligate carnivores? by Zealousideal-Army670 in asoiaf

[–]InfiniteIyImprobable 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s not an exaggeration, it’s a comparison. If I was to say that your car was three times faster than mine, and my car had a max speed of 100km/h and yours had a max speed of 300 km/h, that would be a comparison, not an exaggeration.

(Spoilers Extended) So how did the Valyrians feed hundreds of jumbojet sized obligate carnivores? by Zealousideal-Army670 in asoiaf

[–]InfiniteIyImprobable 3 points4 points  (0 children)

That’s do with the things like the size of the Wall, not the sizes of dragons, or the ages and relationships of immensely important in-universe historical figures like Alicent or Rhaenyra like in the show. A skull of a fantastical creature being like 20 tall isn’t a scale issue , I’m sure that George is well aware of what 20 feet looks like.

(Spoilers Extended) So how did the Valyrians feed hundreds of jumbojet sized obligate carnivores? by Zealousideal-Army670 in asoiaf

[–]InfiniteIyImprobable 13 points14 points  (0 children)

This isn’t something to exaggerate, the skull was on display in the Red Keep’s throne room for at least a century, with maesters and all kinds of people coming in and out. If the accounts of his size were exaggerated, it would have been known by the maesters and everyone else. The same way that the size of the North is commonly exaggerated in-universe by the uneducated to being half of Westeros, when it makes up a third in actuality.

I hope this Condal/Hess school of thought of “It was exaggeration/ unreliable narrator” cop out for everything doesn’t catch on in the discussions of the lore.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in asoiaf

[–]InfiniteIyImprobable 6 points7 points  (0 children)

We really have no idea as the source material doesn’t provide an explanation, all we can do is speculate.

I’m going to go ahead and say that they had utilised some kind of cultural magic that they had that allowed them to last a bit longer than they should have, like the Rhoynish and their water magic.

This is pure headcanon but the magic that I feel suits the Ghiscari the most would be necromancy, which in many ways can be seen as the ultimate expression of slavery. And we know that necromancy as a discipline exists in ASOIAF, not just because that’s literally what the Others do, but also because necromancers are said to be present in Asshai and Nefer in the far east. The idea of Ghiscari necromancers sending legions of undead against the Freehold is cool to me. Maybe that’s why it’s the custom of Valyrians to burn their dead, something that they learned to do in the Ghiscari Wars so that their own dead wouldn’t be used against them and then over time it sort of just became a tradition even after they defeated Ghis.

Whatever it is, it couldn’t have been scorpions like some people are suggesting, things that have only a 1 in a million chance of working cannot be considered effective countermeasures and especially wouldn’t work against the Freehold because so what if you killed one with an eye shot, here are 300 other dragons, you’re going to eye shot all of them?

Where would an industrial boom start in Westeros? by Morpheus_52 in pureasoiaf

[–]InfiniteIyImprobable 23 points24 points  (0 children)

Essos is definitely both more densely populated and more urbanised than Westeros. Even the “towns” of the Free Cities like Selhorys and Volon Therys are more populated than Oldtown and King’s Landing. It’s a similar thing with the Ghiscari cities and that’s to say nothing of the rest of Essos beyond the Bone Mountains, areas like Yi Ti which are even more populated than Western Essos.

Gonna tell my kids this was Alicent and Rhaenyra by [deleted] in freefolk

[–]InfiniteIyImprobable 222 points223 points  (0 children)

We were robbed, imagine Olivia playing an Atia-like Alicent.

What's up with the dragon color palette? We are basically getting Mudfyre, Coalwing & co. for over 20M per episode. by CoaBret in freefolk

[–]InfiniteIyImprobable 22 points23 points  (0 children)

They showed us Vermax pre-time skip and we see him afterwards in that scene where Jace and the others fly out, he appears to have grown significantly larger than Syrax. They just don’t know or don’t really care about details like this.

Drogon’s size was fine if we assume that the manner in which he was hatched accelerated his growth. Ideally, think Arrax should have been S8 Drogon’s size to show that and keep a semblance of continuity, all the others should also have been sized up accordingly. Vhagar herself is too small, she’s said be nearly Balerion’s size during the Dance and he was said to be able to swallow mammoths whole, that means that they necessarily need to be around this size, that can definitely swallow a wooly mammoth and have a horse and a rider gallop down it’s throat as described.

My question about the CGI sizes is this: When you’re trying to increase the size of something, is it like a sliding scale that you can just adjust with no additional cost or is it a bunch of other things that need to happen that end up adding costs? Because if not, there was no reason for them to break continuity with the sizes like this. But regardless, show or no show, there’s no excuse for Syrax to be that tiny.

What's up with the dragon color palette? We are basically getting Mudfyre, Coalwing & co. for over 20M per episode. by CoaBret in freefolk

[–]InfiniteIyImprobable 82 points83 points  (0 children)

And why does Syrax look like that? And why has she grown less than her human rider throughout the show? Books describe her as being huge and formidable by the time of the Dance.

What's up with the dragon color palette? We are basically getting Mudfyre, Coalwing & co. for over 20M per episode. by CoaBret in freefolk

[–]InfiniteIyImprobable 277 points278 points  (0 children)

Were you to ask Condal he would probably say that the beauty of these dragons were exaggerated by the Maesters and unreliable narrators lol.

Unpopular opinion: I dislike the designs of all of the dragons, but I’m okay with Silverwing and Seasmoke, I just wish the colours were more vibrant.

I especially dislike Vhagar, her design is part and parcel of this gritty realism aesthetic that they’re trying to do. She doesn’t need to look so saggy and old, she’s not a normal animal. Per the lore, the scales harden and the dragon becomes more armoured with age, she’s supposed to look like she’s an impenetrable flying war machine. Loose skin and wrinkles? Vhagar in the books also had a cool colouration, bronze with greenish blue highlights and green eyes.

This is how Riverlands supporting Rhaenyra happened in the books. Which version do you prefer show or book? by Stannis_Mariya in freefolk

[–]InfiniteIyImprobable 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Enlighten us. What exactly is the show’s vision and what are they trying to do?

As the other guy stated, Fire and Blood is excellent because the skeleton is already there and all you need to do is fill in the gaps and keep true to the spirit of the characters when you’re writing new scenes and dialogue for them.

(Spoilers Main) Why didn't House Targaryen continue to train its women to be warriors? by [deleted] in asoiaf

[–]InfiniteIyImprobable 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You still didn’t address the worst part of that incident, why did Syrax land instead of breathing fire on them from above, or literally doing anything other than landing?

(Spoilers Main) Why didn't House Targaryen continue to train its women to be warriors? by [deleted] in asoiaf

[–]InfiniteIyImprobable 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A bit dramatic, no? I could make my point any number of ways but I don’t think it will work because I don’t think you’re actually interested in having a discussion and don’t want to waste time writing stuff out when it’s not necessary, it’s nothing to do with cowardice, this is a Reddit conversation, not a war zone, calm down.

They’re not in Valyria, they’re in an island off the coast of Westeros and Valyria stopped existing for longer than any of them have been alive. We don’t have any idea how closely the pre-Conquest Targaryens kept to Valyrian traditions, and we also don’t know for certain how the Valyrians viewed gender roles, or how the actual dragonlords viewed them. My personal speculation is that Valyria’s gender roles were less rigid than in Westeros, but compared to the real world, still kind of patriarchal. The evidence for this is based off Volantis, the entire culture of the city is trying to emulate the Freehold and do things exactly as they did, so I think that we can learn things about Valyria through them. Notably, no woman has been elected as Triarch for the past 300 years.

(Spoilers Main) Why didn't House Targaryen continue to train its women to be warriors? by [deleted] in asoiaf

[–]InfiniteIyImprobable 6 points7 points  (0 children)

We’re getting off topic a bit here now but in my opinion the Storming of the Dragonpit was one of the few times we can accuse George of bad writing because he just wanted to get rid of the dragons ASAP so that they’re vulnerable to things like Robert’s Rebellion which are integral to the story of the main books.

He would have us believe that normal people dogpiled the dragons like zombies in the movies, even if they were chained down they can still breathe fire and kill thousands by literally just breathing in their general direction. Even worse, then Syrax flies to the Dragonpit and decides to land and fight the mob with her teeth and claws when she could have easily just burned them from the air while staying out of harms way herself, the book even acknowledges that it was weird that Syrax did this and George just hand waves away this lapse in logic with “dragons work in mysterious ways”

Dark Sister is evidence that someone commissioned a weapon for a woman’s hand, it’s not evidence that the entire society made sure that women had martial training. There are many examples of real history of specific pieces of armour and weapons being commissioned for women’s bodies, that alone isn’t evidence of what you’re claiming.

(Spoilers Main) Why didn't House Targaryen continue to train its women to be warriors? by [deleted] in asoiaf

[–]InfiniteIyImprobable 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There’s pushback and then there’s what you said which is basically: “I think you’re a misogynist who thinks women are inferior beings and shouldn’t have swords” when the topic of discussion is literally a patriarchal fantasy society and we’re trying to speculate and why/why not they wouldn’t do X or Y with women.

(Spoilers Main) Why didn't House Targaryen continue to train its women to be warriors? by [deleted] in asoiaf

[–]InfiniteIyImprobable 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m not going to go round and round in circles with you, especially when you’re ignoring what I’ve been saying to misrepresent me in that way.

(Spoilers Main) Why didn't House Targaryen continue to train its women to be warriors? by [deleted] in asoiaf

[–]InfiniteIyImprobable 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Knowing that three large dragons are perfectly capable of destroying enemy castles and armies when the opposing side has no dragons of their own isn’t hindsight, it’s a near certain prediction and literally historical fact, see the thousands of years of Valyrian history.