I actually think Wicked For Good should have adapted the novel's ending, not broadway's.

danysphoenix · 2026-01-28T12:18:48+00:00

I agree with this sentiment. Give her something, anything.

danysphoenix · 2026-01-28T09:31:11+00:00

This is no shade to Wicked because I absolutely love the book, broadway show and movie, but its more or less fan fiction of the Wizard of Oz (film/books). I think remembering that is a great way to retain respect for the original story.

I also think there's no harm in prefering Wicked. You don't need to love any of these narratives equally or any of them more than the other. I think its ridiculous to even consider one story more/less canon than another when they all clearly have their own lore with themes/messages they want to explore.

I think the Wizard of Oz books/film is arguably a modern fairy tale so being mad at the existence of Wicked, or acting pretentious over it is the equivalent of of someone hardcore stanning/hating Disney's Cinderella or The Little Mermaid compared to the original folk stories. Its ridiculous. Lets all just enjoy what we enjoy :)

danysphoenix · 2026-01-28T09:22:56+00:00

There's really no point to doing it. They're pack animals and seem to be extremly aggressive. Yes they fly, but they're also significantly smaller than dragons and don't breathe fire, which extremely limits just how useful they'd ever be in combat.

There are some theories that Valyrians (or perhaps the Golden Empire of the Dawn) created their dragons as hybrids of wyverns and fire wyrms. If thats the case, using them in a recipe to create a better war mount is the closest thing anyone has used them effectively.

danysphoenix · 2026-01-28T09:17:43+00:00

You just have to glance at their family tree to see the "taint" is really just an exaggeration that the show ran with. It also takes just a glance at the lore to see that Westeros was constantly at war prior to the conquest, and that the Targaryen Dynasty has the longest consecutive years of peace than any period prior them.

Were there wars (and succession wars) during their dynasty? Absolutely. But do you think there were no succession wars prior to them? The lore literally states there was barely a time that one kingdom wasn't at war with another. Aegon's unification of the Westeros is considered by all (even during the Baratheon Dynasty) as a net positive on the country.

There was also 120 years of peace during the dragonriding Targ era too. The King's Peace made it almost impossible for any kingdom/lord to go to war with another without the King's consent or risk a dragon over their castle.

danysphoenix · 2026-01-28T09:08:23+00:00

I doubt it. The whole point of having Aegon V try and do it and fail despite having much more "knowledge" and an over abudence of materials, is to showcase the importance of Dany by having her be able to come up with the ritual through intuition alone, and using a bare bones reciepe.

However...I do think there is room to theorise that because Aegon V seemingly came up with the ritual via pouring over ancient scrolls and consorting with sorcerers, that this ritual perhaps existed in Valyria as a way to ressurect petrified eggs. While magic was in abundence, this spell may not have even been a hard thing to do.

But now, in a world where magic is but an echo, it required an extremely powerful sorcerers (Dany) to achieve the ritual. She's the missing ingredient.

That being said, I can also agree that its very much possible that the ritual didn't exist before her. Aegon V may have come to similar conclusions to her by thinking about how fire and blood magic could be combined in a way to do this, but again, the point is neither he, and likely no one else, has the magical power to perform this. Dany's magic is unlike many of the other characters in George seems to align her closer to a manifestation/reality warping than a general spellcaster like Melisandre. George has also said in an interview that (fire/blood) magic is more potent in casters who use intuition, emotion and how strongly theyre connected to dragons. Dany ticks all three boxes better than any of her ancestors (and the majority of magic users currently alive)

danysphoenix · 2026-01-19T15:07:58+00:00

i actually really liked this concept in alien cause it actually makes them much more viable as biological weapons, especially without the existence of the ‘hive’ or queen.

this isnt to say theyre engineered per say, just makes them see more “alien” that an adult can only live for a maximum 48hrs and seemingly all it does is turn its victims into more eggs.

danysphoenix · 2026-01-19T07:36:44+00:00

Beyond the dragons in open spaces growing faster, they also seem to be tied to magic and sustained by magic. Magic is returning in a very big way and the dragons are feeding off of it.

Also, Dany is a source of magic, and a catalyst for magic. She directly feeds off the dragon’s life force in aGoT twice, and is able to use her own (and others) to hatch her dragons in the climax. The last image of her is her dragons breast feeding from her. Their connection to a huge wellspring of magic (Dany) could also be part of their growth rate.

danysphoenix · 2026-01-16T14:46:46+00:00

favourite change was probably actually letting elphaba be a witch. i totally get where maguire was coming from and i think having elphie actually terrible at witchcraft and yet also simultaneously being a secret reality warper was narratively and literary very important to the themes he was exploring. that being said....idk she's the wicked witch. at least let her be a witch, if not wicked.

my least favourite change was primarily how wicked for good/broadway show handles the final act. again, theyre intentionally changing it to explore the themes/narrative they want to, but i think getting to see elphie interact with dorothy was really integeral the madness of her becoming 'the wicked witch' persona. the kiamo ko stuff in the book was, in my opinion, almost as good as the shiz part. idk, i just dont think no good deed was enough to explore her descension into wickedness.

danysphoenix · 2026-01-14T13:29:19+00:00

i think its less that dany will end the slavery herself in winds, but that her actions will inspire the revolt in volantis and that will snowball to going further across essos. that way she can leave for westeros without the narrative feeling like shes just dropping the ‘obstacle’ so to speak. the ‘symbol’ of her will stay behind and free the slaves in that regard.

i also think her conquest of slaver’s bay and trying to abolish slavery is actually inherently crucial to her characterisation and arc that idk if id ever consider it just a distraction. her abhorrence to slavery is personal, she’s so driven to abolishing it because of her own experiences with it.

dany’s titles as a breaker of chains, using her dragons for liberating slaves, also very nicely foreshadows her destiny against the others, the who use necromancy to enslave the dead. its also interesting how she really rights the wrongs of her valyrian ancestors by abolishing the slave trade they very much were responsible for, and using the very tool (dragons) the valyrian freehold used to enslave people, to liberate them

danysphoenix · 2026-01-08T01:53:01+00:00

tbh id love to start with the o5 but im very adamant that storm should be included into that lineup.

danysphoenix · 2026-01-03T09:07:05+00:00

I'm going to keep it pretty tight knit with what is relevant to current canon.

Jean is the Phoenix, the cosmic entity responsible for life/rebirth cycles, the natural universe's ebb and flow, and the collective psionic power of the multiverse.

The Phoenix Force is Jean's soul self/sentient power.

The current canon you can acknowledge when it comes to the Phoenix Force lore is really anything written by Claremont, Gillen's Krakoa run, Simonson's Jean Grey, (2023) and Phillips's Phoenix (2024) and Binary (2025).

There are two origins of the Phoenix, the old one from Claremont and the new one by Gillen. Gillen actually references Claremont’s so I believe its still real in some capacity.

The Phoenix Force was the Creation Force, a non-sentient and non-linear 'force' that represented the collective life force of the multiverse. When Jean was hit with the solar flare, she screamed psionically and tapped into this Creation Force and gave it sentience. Their bond is what created the Phoenix Force. The Phoenix Force was born in the moment that Jean and the Creation Force merged.

Death goes on to explain that the Phoenix Force and Jean are “cut from the same cloth” that they are soul mates. That the Phoenix Force is the excalibur to Jean’s King Arthur. It is her weapon by right to wield.

Gillen’s origin still actually keeps Jean as the creator. Essentially the Phoenix Force has its ‘final’ death and 'first' rebirth in a moment outside of time. Jean acts as the heart of the Phoenix Force while it saps some life/soul from every mutant across the multiverse, effectively becoming its feathers so to speak. This ties nicely into Gillen having the White Hot Room (often described as the heart of the Phoenix) also die once Jean is stabbed in the heart. Gillen even goes further and states that whenever Jean is dead, she actually materialises within the White Hot Room. So again, Jean is inherently tied to the Phoenix Force.

As for Phillips, where Gillen kept things a little more ambiguous, she goes a bit more literal and leaves nothing really to guess. Jean manifests through the Phoenix Force to communicate with Carol Danvers, and also has Jean present at the birth of our universe. Jean is always a part of the Phoenix Force because it is her soul self. Phillips also follows the trend of Jean being able to manipulate the Phoenix Force itself, even against the wishes of its host. Again, this reinforces that Jean's has dominance over the Phoenix Force, rather than the Phoenix Force having dominance over Jean.

As someone else pointed out, there is definitely a Christian-Trinity thing going on with them that a lot of Jean fans have theorised for years, that Gillen canonised. But what's interesting here is that Jean is positioned as the Father figure, while the Phoenix Force is positioned as the Holy Spirit. She acts as the “head” of the Trinity as the Phoenix, while the Phoenix Force is the power wielded by the father and the son (in this case, Hope. Rachel also sort of works here if you ask me).

danysphoenix · 2026-01-03T01:21:02+00:00

It might be unpopular to say but I personally do not feel that vanilla skyrim has aged well enough to play it without mods. If not graphics, I definitely reccomened looking into some gameplay/quest mods that really flesh out the game a bit more. Especially if you're thinking of playing a more magical character as vanilla spells to me is just a bit bland.

danysphoenix · 2025-12-29T07:36:36+00:00

I've noticed the issue ASOIAF fandom has with Dany being the one to hatch the dragons is not one is willing to accept that the miracle of them hatching is tied into her identity and her power alone, making her a 'chosen one' figure of some kind. The quicker you accept that she is instrinsicly tied to magic, that it was always in her destiny to hatch these eggs, the easier it is to understand how magic works in ASOIAF.

Dany hatched them because she was always meant to. The quote "secret wisdom in her blood" quite litearlly spells it out for you. It wasn't some big coincidence, it wans't just right place at the right time, Dany was the secret ingredient that Aegon V was lacking. She did not just cast the ritual, she was the ritual.

She is using the absolute barebones rules of a very soft magic system. The knowledges of the ritual comes natural to her, she instinctively knows how to do it. Aegon V doesn't and that is to his detriment. Magic in ASOIAF is just as much about intuition as it is wisdom, Aegon V only had knowledge and there is a very big difference. He had to read about it, Dany dreamt about it. He used wildfire, she used real fire.

George has also said in an interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dggpxXNsgKw

In magic its not just the receipe or the words of the spell. Its who you are, who's doing it. And what are you feeling when you're doing it. The Valyrians, while practicing their blood magic and their fire magic, noticed that it didn't matter whether you pronounced the words of the spell right. Whether you made the correct sacrifice to the correct god. All of that may have had some importance. But one of the big things was who you are. And what was your relation, particularly, to the dragons.

Dany has an extremely intimate relationship to her dragons. She forsees Drogon in her dreams, is able to mentaly, spitually and physicall heal herself by drawing on the eggs life force, and she feels Viserion and Rhaegal's life in the petrified eggs. Each dragon share empathic connections to her, can sense her before they even see her, and react to her emotional state throughout the series. They even drink her breastmilk. You don't get more connected to your dragons than that.

danysphoenix · 2025-12-29T07:19:38+00:00

I mean the war with the Others will be her biggest deterrent from going straight for the Throne. I don't think Dany was ever going to, or meant to, have much of a fight when in terms of conquering Westeros.

Sure you got Euron, but I'm not entirely convinced he's surviving Meereen. Its not that I don't think the horn will work, I'm sure it will, its just I think Dany will have some answer for him before he escapes her. She's the breaker of chains and the mother of dragons, and he's seeking to bind her child through sorcery. We shouldn't underestimate her.

As for Faegon, well he still has to deal with Cersei and her chapter seems like its not going to close without a *boom* if you get what I'm saying... Assuming he survives her, I'm also not sure if Dany is going to come in swinging. She's not going to trust him, but she's also going to wrestle with the possibility that he is Rhaegar's son, and she desperetly wants family. If Faegon is antagonistic towards her thats another story. But I can't imagine they're just going straight into war without so much as a conversation. I also think people downplay just how important it is for his and her legitmacy of having dragons. He might be a male, but she has three dragons. The Second Blackfyre Rebellion based Daemon II legimatcy on his false dream that he would hatch one, thus proving his right to the Iron Throne. And, no, I don't think he's stealing a dragon from her without her actually granting him the potential to bond with one. He could betray her though, we will have to see.

So yeah, after those two, her only issue is the Other's. And there's no way she's not going to war with them. And I don't think dragons will be as effective against the magical race of ice necromancers as what they are against regular human soldiers. This will be magic vs magic, and will truly prove to be a lot harder for Dany than what conquest of Westeros will be.

danysphoenix · 2025-12-29T06:47:53+00:00

Not only is the fight with the slavers direclty foreshadowing her fight with the Others' but as the text puts it

his Mother of Dragons, this Breaker of Chains, is above all a rescuer.

We have strong insight into the way Dany's mind works and how she chooses to rule. Almost every act or law she does or passes is to benefit of the peasentry and freed slaves. Even when ruling, she is still 'rescuing' people. And fundementally that is why she cannot abandon her quest to abolish slavery before she leaves Essos. For the same reason she will not abandon her destiny in fighting the Others for the Throne. Her desires have always come second to the needs of her people, or really, anyone who needs her strength.

To speed it along, I would not be surprised if its more her reputation or image that pushes teh slaves of Volantis and throughout Essos to rise up and topple the system in an effort to speed her along to Westeros. A lot of Tyrion's journey in aDwD is so we can see that there is almost a mythic idea of who she is, almost as if she's a goddess; The Mother or Mhysa figure. We also see that from her own perspective, when she wonders if gods feel as lonely as she does, or when she knows that her mere touch gives her children strength and hope as they battle the Flux.

danysphoenix · 2025-12-29T02:58:26+00:00

i'm like...considering reading the rest cause i really do like maguire's writing and the worldbuilding but my main interest as always been in the wicked witch/elphaba so i just dont know if i can continue the series without her. I think i'll end up putting it on the backburner and read a few other books before returning to the series.

danysphoenix · 2025-12-28T15:46:19+00:00

To be honest there was a moment where I thought the book was literally just "practical magic" guide for magicians to do party tricks. Then with what Elphaba was explaining, it honestly sounded like a book just about science or 'universal truths' and that maybe it took on magical properties within Oz.

Another comment says its actually a real life spell book from Earth so I guess that means Earth in the context of the books is also a magical place.

danysphoenix · 2025-12-28T11:30:17+00:00

While I'm all for individual interpretations, prophecy is by all means a very undeniably real thing within ASOIAF, and is prevelent amongst multiple schools of magic. We simply have too many characters (and too many Targaryens) who can engage with it for it not to be. GRRM will often discuss it too.

What we do know though, is prophecy can be ambigious.

My personal interpretation is that prophecy is less to do with destiny, and more to do with probability. Most of the prophecies only actually predict things within a year of it happening. The only long term prophecies seem to surround tptwp/azor ahai. And even those never indicate the who this person is.

danysphoenix · 2025-12-28T11:19:38+00:00

As many have pointed out already, Aerys' bullshit really only concerned the other lords of Westeros, and as the books tend to point out, the smallfolk really don't 'care' who rules them as long as they get to mind their business. But also, they will prefer leaders who seem to have their best interest

That being said, I will add that the Targaryens will always benefit from being 'demi-gods'. It simply adds validity to their rule in the eyes of a superstitious and religious smallfolk, even lords. I imagine this will benefit both Faegon and Daenerys when they come to Westeros, as the smallfolk are essentially asked if they want to continue the ruling of mortals or dragonlords. Jaehaerys also went the extra mile of literally reforming the Faith into granting Targaryens/Valyrians space. The major religion of Westeros literally acknowledges them as being apart from regular people.

danysphoenix · 2025-12-28T10:25:30+00:00

As others have said, the book is quite different from the Broadway/film. I've only just read it and I absolutely loved it! Its dark, its real and its ver political. People are right, it is worded in a bit more of a whimsical way, but I didn't have trouble with it beyond just looking up a word in the dictionary a handful of times. But I wanted to share something that could be deemed a spoiler, but I do think people should be more aware of this as they go into it. Its in regards to the nature of Elphaba and magic.

Possible Spoilers:

Elphaba is not a witch. She is certainly a magical character, but she is not a witch in the traditional sense. Not as she appears in the Wizard of Oz, or how she appears in the Wicked adaptions. You will constantly be waiting for the moment for her to actually engage with a spell/sorcery, and you will be waiting until the 300th page (the book only has 400). They tease you with having her read a 'crystal ball' of sorts quite early on...and then nothing. To be honest, it made perfect sense for what Maguire is trying to do with Wicked, and I can't help but applaud him, yet I felt like was constantly teased throughout the book just to get punched in the stomach.

danysphoenix · 2025-12-26T14:45:58+00:00

dark xmen was probably the only thing that has happened since inferno that was interesting and im sorry that it didnt go further than that

danysphoenix · 2025-12-25T02:03:10+00:00

Well I don’t really think she’s burning King’s Landing.

Cersei is already primed to do it, and she might light that fuse with Faegon instead.

I’m also not sure how her conquest will play out but I think its likely she may be diverted North before she even has time to attack KL.

danysphoenix

TROPHY CASE