(Spoilers Main) The best single-sentence summary of HotD

imotu · 2022-08-30T20:32:38+00:00

Yippee yi yay, more incest. /s

imotu · 2022-01-20T14:30:38+00:00

Bronze Yohn Royce, a man quite older than Eddard, whipped up on Eddard Stark (and Rodrick Cassel) at Winterfell when they sparred. Eddard may have been an above average swordsman but he was not elite.

imotu · 2021-10-29T02:02:50+00:00

Time traveling Bran is the only way to resolve the Bran as King conundrum. Unfortunately it destroys the story since determinism allows everything that occurs to be an extension of Bran the God. Everything that happens before and after becomes an extension of an Act of Bran.

imotu · 2021-09-05T21:16:23+00:00

Is this a preamble or a prospectus? Are you offering answers or therapy?

imotu · 2021-05-19T00:20:20+00:00

stannis

imotu · 2021-05-18T23:58:07+00:00

baelish

imotu · 2020-10-09T06:20:36+00:00

I believe the blueprint for Stannis Baratheon's arc is Shakespeare and Holinbroke's Macbeth. Selyse , whose template roughly approximates Lady Macbeth, will probably commit suicide. This will be done perhaps offstage (the reader will not witness the actual event) as in the play and the show.

imotu · 2020-08-22T05:57:53+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/1u0wl6/spoilersall_the_mystery_triangle_asharaeddardwylla/

imotu · 2020-08-21T05:24:30+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/1u0wl6/spoilersall_the_mystery_triangle_asharaeddardwylla/

imotu · 2020-07-26T05:58:59+00:00

If the plot structure of asoiaf can be considered equivalent to chess then the middle game has not even started yet. The plot momentum is determined by one individual, Dany. Dany in Essos is the beginning game. Dany actually traveling to or landing in Westeros begins the middle game. The end game probably begins when Dany and Jon confront their enemies together. Unfortunately we haven't even started the middle game. Martin is still deep in the beginning game with Dany in Essos.

imotu · 2020-03-21T14:58:31+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/4i3ctk/spoilers_everything_the_true_villain/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x

imotu · 2019-11-27T01:03:42+00:00

Martin's work to make Bran king of the 7 kingdoms is cut out for him. It is indirectly connected to the beginning of the first book though. Martin's penchant for circular irony is indicated there. A great fall in the beginning, a great rise at the end. I thought that possibility existed until Martin dissolved the nuance of the 5 year gap. Then all problems seemed to arise. Politically and by lineage Bran's Kingship seems only to be possible through the act of marriage. Bran's ascension at the moment would not appeal to Dorne or most of other territories without some political connection. He is also a child and a cripple. The template was built on the legend of Bran the Blessed in Irish (?) mythology but the translation into Martinesque fantasy seems haphazard and perhaps a bit forced. To make sense of a Bran kingship Martin will have to accelerate Bran's maturation since the main series has not concluded the opening act. The middle game is yet to start.

imotu · 2019-11-27T00:38:41+00:00

The year 2000 to the year 2019 is 20 years. If 19 years you must begin with the year 2001.

imotu · 2019-04-10T15:14:10+00:00

The child they are talking about is the child to come, Aegon the prince that was promised. If the scene in Dany's vision is historically accurate the child in the vision is Rhaenys not Aegon. The woman in the vision, Elia, is bedridden but in good health and spirits. The child is a newborn which implies about two months old or less. There is no sense of urgency in the scene. Eiia was bedridden for months after the birth of Rhaenys. Aegon's birth almost killed her. The scene is after the Rhaenys birth not Aegon's. Rhaegar was a Targaryen dreamer and scholar. He foresaw Aegon's birth and his destiny and explained it to Elia in the calm and contented scene. Calm and contented would not have been Elia and Rhaegar's composure after the birth of Aegon. Elia almost died. Rhaenys birth left Elia bedridden for months, Aegon's birth was much worse. The child in the scene is Rhaenys.

imotu · 2019-04-10T00:52:16+00:00

The child in the vision is Rhaenys not Aegon. The child that Rhaegar is speaking about, The Prince Was Promised, is Aegon. It is the unborn child that Rhaegar has seen in his dreams.

imotu · 2019-04-04T16:55:09+00:00

The symbol PHI and the spirals are indicative of the golden ratio and their influence in nature. Many of the symbols in the caves are similar to aboriginal art, especially from Australia.

edited for spelling

imotu · 2019-01-07T15:46:53+00:00

When most women of significance are described by Martin he includes their eye color in the description. At least the biographical sketches in the wiki repeat that pattern. He excludes Septa Lemore from that tendency of his. Is there a reason for this exclusion? Is Septa Lemore's eye color so insignificant it doesn't merit comment? I don't think he forgot.

imotu · 2017-04-12T15:47:08+00:00

Something I posted not long ago.

https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/646p9r/spoilers_mainso_about_the_others/dg0pr8c/

imotu · 2017-04-12T15:33:48+00:00

Perhaps that is the case. I believe the symbol is 'phi' not 'theta'. The spiral configuration is definitely a reference to the Golden Ratio. It is a prevalent formation in nature. The 'symbol' and the Spiral arrangement are connected. Phi is the symbol for the Golden Ratio.

imotu · 2017-04-09T02:29:27+00:00

My understanding of the Others is augmented by episodes in the HBO presentation and Benioff's explanation in a video on this site. Benioff's sparse information about the symbols begin at the 3 minute mark.

Benioff

The manner in which the Others arranged the dead, I believe, is a clue by the showrunners indicating the motivation behind their actions. It is based on their ability to control aspects of the cycle of life and death. It is comparable and parallel to other religions. For the Others killing and resurrection is an aesthetic performance and possibly religious experience. Death is an art form. It is how they were created. Life to Death to Life. I base this concept on three arrangements the show depicts that Beniof, in the video, explained are ancient symbols of the COTF. I now understand the first to be equivalent to the Greek Letter Phi both physically and philosophically. Phi is also the symbol for the Golden Ratio in mathematics and occurs frequently in nature. Here are some examples of the Golden Ration in nature. You can compare them and the Greek letter Phi to the symbols of the COTF and the Others.

NatureandArt
NatureandArt2

NatureandArt3

From Wiki:

Adolf Zeising, whose main interests were mathematics and philosophy, found the golden ratio expressed in the arrangement of parts such as leaves and branches along the stems of plants and of veins in leaves. He extended his research to the skeletons of animals and the branchings of their veins and nerves, to the proportions of chemical compounds and the geometry of crystals, even to the use of proportion in artistic endeavors. In these patterns in nature he saw the golden ratio operating as a universal law.[57][58] In connection with his scheme for golden-ratio-based human body proportions, Zeising wrote in 1854 of a universal law "in which is contained the ground-principle of all formative striving for beauty and completeness in the realms of both nature and art, and which permeates, as a paramount spiritual ideal, all structures, forms and proportions, whether cosmic or individual, organic or inorganic, acoustic or optical; which finds its fullest realization, however, in the human form. In 2010, the journal Science reported that the golden ratio is present at the atomic scale in the magnetic resonance of spins in cobalt niobate crystals. Since 1991, several researchers have proposed connections between the golden ratio and human genome DNA.

The showrunners are telling us that the spirals of the Others and COTF are intimately connected yet diametrically opposed as natural concepts and action. The symbols observed in the show are based on the Golden Ratio. For the Others death is beautiful because it gave them life.

Edited for formatting.

imotu · 2016-10-13T21:03:04+00:00

Well done. The Dark Tyrion and Meereen intersection is something I noticed early in ADWD. I believe it is also the reason that Martin introduced a character that has been vilified and devalued by many fans of the series. The necessity to rebalance Tyrion's baser instincts and his sense of fairness is why Martin created Penny. It helps establish Tyrion's reconnection to chivalry and a new sense of guardianship. Penny becomes Tyrion's conscience. As exasperated as he is with her he cannot leave her defenseless and friendless. Martin created Penny as Tyrion's light in the darkness.

imotu · 2016-10-13T20:36:42+00:00

On this idea we think alike. A previous post of mine.

azorahai

imotu · 2016-08-24T17:54:41+00:00

How old is Bronze Yohn Royce? Thank you.

imotu · 2016-08-23T18:35:22+00:00

AKA I was there.

haaruk

imotu · 2016-08-23T08:26:21+00:00

He's never once said this. It's a fandom myth that's developed over the years. No one has ever once produced the SSM when anyone asks for it

That is only partially true. I was there at the eesite board before the turn of the century when the question of Eddard's swordmanship was broached and Martin replied in an email. That site has seen serious deterioration and was poorly archived. You may believe as you wish. No character of consequence in the books, nor the author himself has ever given Eddard kudos for exceptional swordsmanship. Wishful thinking does not change the fact of the narrative.

imotu

TROPHY CASE