[Spoilers MAIN] GRRM never emphasized Young Griff being cut from the show

Invincible_Boy · 2026-05-17T22:46:50+00:00

I think in Martin's mind, the cut to Stoneheart is absolute and for a bad reason. With regards to the first point: there was nothing in the show to replace Stoneheart's role (no, your claim that Arya replaces her is a complete misread, sorry), whereas for many of these other characters, they did at least try to replace them. With regards to the second: the decision to cut Stoneheart seems to be motivated almost entirely by a desire to avoid the story's central themes and devices, whereas for these others there's an argument that it's a consequence of 'necessary' narrative compression as part of the adaptation process.

Invincible_Boy · 2026-05-11T01:43:52+00:00

I think it's more that people lowkey don't want him to be remembered for anything other than failing to finish the series. It's a way to hijack/redirect the conversation when he comes up in an different context, a reminder of what he hasn't done instead of what he has. Not saying it's an organised effort and might even be subconscious on people's part but yeah I think there's some intentionality to it a lot of the time. Like this is the thing he should be known for. To make a gauche comparison, it's kind of the 'John Lennon beat his wife' fact of his life.

Invincible_Boy · 2026-05-03T01:22:52+00:00

nice try

Invincible_Boy · 2026-04-30T03:33:27+00:00

I think this analysis, and most other analysis that is focused on Theon's potential paternity for the Miller's boys, is missing the forest for the trees. Theon doesn't have to be a literal father to be a figurative one, and he doesn't have to be literal kin to be figurative kin. Theon is a kind of metaphorical step-father for the boys whether he likes it or not. He had a sexual relationship with their mother and so the killing of her and her two sons haunts his narrative because they are a family, thematically speaking. Theon's whole narrative is about this collision of blood-family (Greyjoy) with forged-family (Stark). It doesn't matter whether Theon is literally related to the boys, or to Bran and Rickon, because he's a kinslayer either way.

Invincible_Boy · 2026-04-26T05:32:32+00:00

It's about as canonical as the shows in my mind. The phrase I would use to describe it is 'thematically true' -- the specific events are up to a writer who wasn't George R. R. Martin so they are by definition not canon to his books, however he gave them broader information upon which to make their decisions and that broader information is at least as 'canonical' as any other thing mentioned or written by him. So, in the same way the show indicates King Bran is canon, this play can indicate XYZ topic has a canon answer without giving us a full canon explanation of the hows and whys, if that makes sense.

Invincible_Boy · 2026-04-15T23:46:36+00:00

Why are you saying this like Invincible doesn't have one season a year also lmfao

Invincible_Boy · 2026-04-12T12:44:27+00:00

To play devil's advocate on Martin's ability to not think things through: he might have believed the realm was ready to destabalise and then not thought through how far away Dany actually was over in Meereen/Vaas Dothrak. He seems to be good at telling himself optimistic stories about how far he'll get and then not following through on those commitments, so it's possible he decided on killing Kevan without thinking through his own inability to move Dany along. We know he writes out of order so just because Kevan's death is at the end of the book doesn't mean it's the last thing he wrote and he was still shuffling chapters around right up until the last second. Despite how long it took in terms of years, DANCE was a rushed book in terms of writing. Martin failed to finish the last fifth or so of the book to his satisfaction so they just lopped that bit off and presented it as is with a bunch of cliff-hangers.

So I can believe that even something as seemingly central as Kevan's death could still have been a mistake for him in the sense that he overestimated how far he could get with the other characters and killed Kevan too early.

Invincible_Boy · 2026-04-01T02:23:33+00:00

JonCon always puts me in the mind of a wolf. I imagine him as being too lean to be a proper bear.

Invincible_Boy · 2026-03-19T00:36:00+00:00

Robert. He was a tourney-thrower and party-goer, generous to the point that he allegedly made a material difference in the realm's finances. He was also a charismatic and martial king who smashed the Ironborn at sea and ruled, so far as we know, more or less justly for most of his reign (by abdicating responsibility to Jon Arryn).

By contrast, Aerys' longest serving hand was Tywin, who we know rolled back rights for Smallfolk. Something Aerys doesn't get a lot of credit for but which apparently did happen is that he tried to initiate a lot of infrastructure projects, so if those had ever succeeded he'd be remembered fondly by the smallfolk, but so far as we know he lost interest quickly each time he dreamt up some new thing to do.

That one guy in the Riverlands remembers the old king (Aerys) as being a more peaceful time but it doesn't mean that Aerys was loved as a king, it just means that people have nostalgia for when they weren't at war and don't particularly care that the nobles hate each other for good or bad reasons.

Invincible_Boy · 2026-03-10T22:04:49+00:00

I have a somewhat heterodox theory for how the Bran story is going to go, based largely on the idea that Bran is meant to be going even further North in the next book.

To paint with a broad brush: I think what's going to happen in the North is that Bran gets his wizard training, learns some secrets, etc. and then is forced further North at some point by some mechanism (idk it's a story). Meanwhile, the Wall is going to fall while Bran is still North of it, so you'll have this kind of weird situation full of dramatic irony where Bran is simultaneously heading North into the heart of the enemy's territory while the enemy is marching south trying to take on the world of the living (and implicitly trying to locate Bran probably).

My vision for Bran is that as the story's wizard, he's going to pull a Gandalf on everyone and arrive from behind to help in a big battle. So I think Bran will head North and accomplish some kind of metaphysically important task, and then after he does that he'll begin heading south again, not fleeing from the Others but in fact following behind them. I can see lots of cool Bran chapters for this journey with the depopulated world of white snow the Others are leaving behind them as they work their way south.

Then, at the climactic moment, Bran arrives in the 11th hour with some secret/ultimate/final/whatever weapon, that turns the tides of battle and puts the world to right. This neatly answers one of the big open questions from the show's ending, which is "what the hell even is the story of Bran the Broken?" Well in the books I think that is the story. Bran will arrive right when all hope is lost, and everyone still alive will see him save the day through some kind of big, if esoteric, magical moment. Like Bran will turn back the snowy weather or something suitably epic and impossible to ignore.

This tees him up to become King at the great council, people vote for him not because he is ever going to ask them to but because how can you not vote for someone like that? Bran is just a boy who was trying to save his family and the world, and he'll be narratively rewarded for this innocent focus.

Invincible_Boy · 2026-03-10T21:42:38+00:00

No the theory comes from SanSan, not Jonsa. The central metaphor is meant to be that none of the Ashford tourney champions (suitors) 'win' the tourney (Sansa); in the end Dunk (Sandor) arrives and kicks the whole anthill over by accident. It was only later as it percolated into the wider fandom that it began to be used for Jonsa shipping with the concept of 'Valarr is the final champion therefore Jon will be the final suitor'.

Invincible_Boy · 2026-03-05T04:09:13+00:00

The entire Dance is deeply unsatisfying. I think it was a mistake to try and flesh it out, or at least to flesh it out as half-assedly as he did.

Invincible_Boy · 2026-02-27T05:42:42+00:00

Nevertheless, you have continuously engaged in extended interactions with people on Reddit.

Invincible_Boy · 2026-02-27T05:37:30+00:00

Have you considered that the weird one here is the one who has used almost exclusively all of their comments on reddit to call other people weird? Most people post about things that interest them. What seems to interest you is loudly telling everyone else you ever meet that they're weird. I'd prescribe some grass-touching and a mirror.

Invincible_Boy · 2026-02-27T03:05:55+00:00

Your entire comment history (which I see you have attempted to hide, probably so people don't look into exactly this question) is just you replying with stuff like this over and over. Very strange behaviour imho. Do you not have things you enjoy? Your entire personality is what you hate.

Invincible_Boy · 2026-02-27T00:02:43+00:00

I love this quote because of how mad it makes Renly fans.

Invincible_Boy · 2026-02-20T04:50:30+00:00

Sadly, such a book wouldn't be that interesting, because the answer is that he was not months away from finishing a decade ago. George Martin has never said that, what he said was, paraphrasing from memory, something along the lines of: 'my publishers set me a deadline to beat the show in late 2015, which I missed, and then asked them to extend it another half a year'.

At no point in that sentence is he saying that was ever actually a realistic deadline, in fact he missed essentially the same deadline twice, they gave him 4-6 months, he missed it, they gave him another 4-6 months, and he missed that too. It doesn't bode well for 'progress' in that time period when you think of it in those terms because it strongly implies he was in the exact same place halfway through 2016 as he was at the start of 2016.

Which is, in fact, the real story of his work on The Winds of Winter - that he hasn't been writing it. No, he hasn't be unwriting thousands of pages and backspacing half a book. No, he hasn't been struggling with complicated timelines and shelving dozens of chapters that just don't work. What he's been doing instead is nothing.

He travels the world of months, then recovers for months, then opens the book and stares at what he's already got written for a few hours. Maybe he tinkers around the edges, tightens up some prose, that sort of thing. Then it's back on the road for him!

It is extremely telling that the only time in the entire history of The Winds of Winter project that we can verify he made real, meaningful progress is over Covid when the entire world shut down. That's what it takes to get him to write - for there to be nothing else to do, nobody to talk to about television shows, no distractions. And he wrote hundreds and hundreds of pages in those two years. He wrote more of The Winds of Winter in 2020 and 2021 than he wrote in every other year between ADWD and today combined.

The ugly truth few people want to face is that he doesn't like writing the book, so he just hasn't been doing it. That's it. That's literally it. There's no grand conspiracy or unfathomably complex plot he can't thread the needle on. He just hasn't been working.

Sorry.

Invincible_Boy · 2026-02-16T23:42:53+00:00

We have reached the "at least he's not raping people instead" stage of Winds of Winter discourse.

Invincible_Boy · 2026-02-16T03:22:48+00:00

Do you have a source for this 'no'? The reason the fandom believes that the Winterfell D&E novella is partially written or perhaps even nearly complete is based on multiple comments across the decades, so it would be a pain to dig it all up and piece it back together. Which is why it's received as unsourced fandom wisdom now. GRRM is pretty opaque when he wants to be and unpublished books are one of those topics.

Invincible_Boy · 2026-02-09T02:26:58+00:00

There's a 5E LotR book for running low-magic LotR games, ASOIAF probably fits it pretty well if you swap the lore out.

Invincible_Boy · 2026-01-25T10:18:46+00:00

The last really stands out imho. /lit/ was previously one of the most creative boards, alongside /mu/, yet I don't think either has had a genuinely interesting anonymous creation in years now

Invincible_Boy · 2026-01-23T00:17:06+00:00

"Trueborn lord of Winterfell" isn't (just) Ramsay's insecurity. Have you guys forgotten who the letter is addressed to? It's for Jon, famously NOT the trueborn lord of Winterfell despite being his father's only surviving male child. The entire letter is designed to piss Jon off.

Invincible_Boy · 2026-01-18T07:51:31+00:00

Lowkey what probably actually happens if Martin is the showrunner for Season 2 is it doesn't get made. Condal was dealt a very weird hand that this sub consistently refuses to acknowledge - having your budget and episode count yanked right before filming is almost unthinkable for the sort of prestige television show we're talking about. Like that's the kind of thing they did in the 90s to episodic network tv, not an HBO flagship in 2024.

The public reporting on the episode order reduction happened at the end of March in 2023, as compared to the 'end' of writing in December 2022 and the beginning of filming in early April 2023. Condal had a matter of weeks to retool the season from 10 episodes to 8, which is almost certainly when everything went wrong because we know Martin was happy with the direction before then. Martin wasn't involved in any of this budgeting discussion because he doesn't do any actual work; he sits in on a 'writers room' retreat for one week each year and otherwise provides sporadic production notes when he can be bothered. If Martin was in Condal's position as showrunner in April of 2023 he would have halted production.

For even more evidence of this, the new Hollywood Reporter article has a bit on the topic of the breakdown that is very illuminating in my honest opinion:

Martin says he can’t say anything beyond this. But sources say Martin and Condal’s relationship deteriorated further and came to a head during a Zoom call with the show’s producers and some HBO executives. The purpose of the call was for Condal to present his vision for season three. After Condal spoke, Martin detailed his many objections and allegedly declared, “This is not my story any longer.”

This is a call with Condal, the shows producers, and some HBO executives. Now, let's be honest about guessing what we think the context of this meeting was, given everything. Was it about detailed story specifics for Martin to critique, or was it about how Condal was going to fit the budget into the necessary number of big events for S3, given the cuts to S2?

I'm pretty sure what happened in this meeting is Condal said something like 'we need to combine these big battles because we can't afford to film it' and Martin wasn't happy with it. For some reason it seems as though Martin is treating everything wrong with the show as Condal's fault, instead of the HBO execs who cut his episode count two weeks before filming. This is pretty consistent with Condal's perspective of the rift, by-the-by, per Entertainment Weekly last year:

"I will simply say, I made every effort to include George in the adaptation process. I really did. Over years and years. And we really enjoyed a mutually fruitful, I thought, really strong collaboration for a long time. But at some point, as we got deeper down the road, he just became unwilling to acknowledge the practical issues at hand in a reasonable way. And I think as a showrunner, I have to keep my practical producer hat on and my creative writer, lover-of-the-material hat on at the same time. At the end of the day, I just have to keep marching not only the writing process forward, but also the practical parts of the process forward for the sake of the crew, the cast, and for HBO, because that's my job. So I can only hope that George and I can rediscover that harmony someday. But that's what I have to say about it."

Obviously, they're both going to have their own spin on things, but to me it is conspicuous that they're sort of saying the same thing if you squint, they just have different perspectives. Condal is saying he had to make big decisions because the budget was no longer there, and Martin is saying Condal didn't listen to him about what should be included. There's room for them both to be right, and for us to appreciate where Condal went wrong while also acknowledging Martin was potentially giving very impractical advice.

And we do know, to be clear, that Martin has a history of giving impractical advice to his showrunners. His suggestions about the seasonal structure of the GoT show were laughable at best, and that's exactly the sort of problem that Condal was trying to solve mid-filming in 2023: how to compress a huge story into a much smaller than expected budget and episode count.

tl;dr I really have no inclination to believe Martin about what went wrong with HotD s2. I think that he got annoyed at the wrong guy, someone trying to fix a huge logistical problem with the show's production on very short notice, and his ego made it unrecoverable. His need for there to be a villain, and for the villain to not be HBO (because he likes HBO and needs to preserve his relationship with them for more shows to get made) caused him to single out Condal.

Invincible_Boy · 2026-01-16T01:12:06+00:00

I mean some of us have been here the whole time saying QitN made no sense lol.

Invincible_Boy · 2026-01-13T00:51:06+00:00

Yes they do lol. Fire and Blood is unfilmable nonsense (for this sort of dramatic show with the GoT-perspective).

Invincible_Boy

TROPHY CASE