Cast members confirmed and exciting new views in Osuna

News from Osuna and the Meereense plot continues to trickle in.  WotW sources have confirmed a couple of new cast members.

First there is the announcer for Daznak’s Pit.  This is the role we announced back in early October and will be played by Nicholas Boulton (lead photo above).

Here’s another more recent photo from a fan’s instagram (top left, the tall guy, white shirt).

The second confirmed casting is for a new, non-book character named “Keyr”, who will be played by Reece Noi.  You may remember him as the unnamed slave who argued for rebellion during the Season 4 episode, “Oathkeeper“.

ReeceNoi

The actor himself confirmed it as well.

In addition, thanks to commenter Cami and Gameofthronesfan.org we have some interesting photos and video clip from Osuna below the cut.

MAJOR SPOILERS!

From Cami and Gameofthronesfan.org we have some photos and a video clip from Osuna and Daznak’s Pit.   These are not necessarily news to us book-readers who have been following the shooting for the Pit scene closely.  They are, however, good detailed views providing more grist for the speculation mill.  The most exciting item has to be this clip of a flame thrower being used most effectively.


Original Video – More videos at TinyPic

We see Jorah, Daario and Missandei with Dany and a variety of people in what appears to be various poses of distress in the stands behind them.

Next we see Dany on the run and Jorah trying to restrain or drag her away.

Talk about whetting our appetite!

368 Comments

  1. Meh.

    At this point all I want to know about is

    LS

    , the RW fallout, the Blackfish and the BWB.

  2. Really, I think I’m starting to love the changes… That’s scene seems to be really exciting!!! 5 months, yet!!! :/

    Just give me the hooded woman and this will be almost perfect… give me Lady Dustin, Manderly and Euron Greyjoy, and will be beyond perfection.

    Do we need to use spoiler tags here?

  3. So, I’d been thinking up til now that the worries about Selmy were unfounded, but now I am wondering where he is.

    Shouldn’t he be in the arena by the time of the spoiler scene?

    Also, since Akinnuoye-Agbaje isn’t the announcer guy and at least so far, we haven’t seen him in any of the Dany plot filming, I’m wondering if there is a reason to be optimistic about him being (a version of)

    a certain Red Priest

    .

  4. Morgoth,

    Only in one medium….I fully believe she/it is on a collision course with either Sansa or Faceless Arya (when Arya witnesses her via a Nymeria dream) after her lively sitdown brunch with Brienne & Jaime.
    There can never be enough resurrections!
  5. Jordan,

    Barristan Selmy and Greyworm were reported to be together in a tabern scene a couple of months ago… so, I think that they will be in a mission that avoid Barristan’s presence in the Daznak to recognize Tyrion… I don’t believe they will die, at least Barristan. Grey Worm could marry Victarion and I wouldn’t care.
  6. How did news about Daznak’s Pit so quickly get to you-know-who discussion??

    Anyways, looks cool!!! Can’t wait to see the finished product.

  7. Ha! When filming in Croatia was over I was so worried that we’ll get nothing from Spain! I’m so glad I was wrong!
    The real wait begins now though, I don’t think we’ll get anything new untill HBO’s Year Ender in December. Can we still expect a trailer in January? I really liked their marketing last year, it made the wait a lot easier for me.

  8. The video is really cool. But every time a casting news post goes up and it’s yet another Meereen casting instead of a

    Manderly/Dustin/Glover casting

    I die a little bit inside. Getting scared!

  9. Excellent news. I saw the pictures last week, and the video over the weekend, but they are still very interesting.

    It is also good that they are able to get back actors, such as the slave who played a tiny role last season. It definitely adds to the conitnuity of the show, and it obviously adds to the actor’s CVs.

  10. NoSer,
    Hollyoak,

    If you don’t know what it is, I suspect you are “Unsullied” and I STRONGLY suggest you do NOT read or comment on this post. Otherwise you’re going to get spoiled.

  11. WeirwoodTreeHugger:
    The video is really cool.But every time a casting news post goes up and it’s yet another Meereen casting instead of a Manderly/Dustin/Glover casting I die a little bit inside.Getting scared!

    I couldn’t agree more!

  12. Dame Pasty:
    NoSer,
    Hollyoak,

    If you don’t know what it is, I suspect you are “Unsullied” and I STRONGLY suggest you do NOT read or comment on this post.Otherwise you’re going to get spoiled.

    No, I’m not Unsullied. Thanks for the spoiler warning, though. That’s good of you, mate.

    I just don’t remember Dance or much of Feast! I need to re-read. I also think that this season I am really going to feel left out of the debate when it comes to all of our talk about show vs books. Since I don’t remember much of Dance, whatever changes they make will surely stir some debate. I won’t know what is book canon and what is not!

    It should make for interesting, viewing, innit?

  13. Jordan: So, I’d been thinking up til now that the worries about Selmy were unfounded, but now I am wondering where he is. Shouldn’t he be in the arena by the time of the spoiler scene?

    Maybe Barry ate some

    poisoned locusts…?
  14. StandOzone,

    I think we should all use spoiler tags, even though the post is pretty well marked as having spoilers it appears that Unsullied continue to wander in.

  15. Hollyoak,

    Forewarned is forearmed 😉 In all seriousness though, seeing as D&D are moving into territory that is beyond anything the bookreaders have read to date (some characters arcs will venture into TWOW which won’t be released before Season 5 starts) we will all be Unsullied to a certain degree. That’s when the fun REALLY begins. LOL

  16. There had better be a bloody good reason for Barristan(only Queensguard member on the show) not being there other than convenience. Other than that the effects look cool.
  17. This may have been discussed elsewhere, but what the hell is

    Ser Jorah doing back with Dany already? That is a major change which I guess means the travels of Jorah and Tyrion will be seriously curtailed. Perhaps no bad thing
  18. I think it is becoming more and more likely that

    Barristan isn’t around when Tyrion shows up, and as a result, Tyrion’s identity is not known by Dany. I think Barry was sent on some mission, or perhaps is a hostage. I don’t know, but what I do know is that he is a completely wasted character, and I wish they would have just cut the character entirely if they weren’t going to use him properly. Seriously, 3 seasons, and we have yet to see him fight or give a history lesson to Dany. May as well kill him off early.
  19. The show runners should make a show only character with a muppet’s name, since GRRM doesn’t take ASOIAF seriously anymore we need muppet names in the tv series.

  20. Dame Pasty:
    Hollyoak,

    Forewarned is forearmedIn all seriousness though, seeing as D&D are moving into territory that is beyond anything the bookreaders have read to date (some characters arcs will venture into TWOW which won’t be released before Season 5 starts) we will all be Unsullied to a certain degree.That’s when the fun REALLY begins.LOL

    So true. Should be a wild ride. I think this upcoming season will be the one that really divides people for some reason.

  21. WeirwoodTreeHugger,

    I don’t see why we’d ever get Glover. He has no major lines, and can easily be kicked out without a problem or played by “Unnamed Bearded Guy #33.” Lady Dustin also seems cuttable. Her story is interesting, but only illuminates that not everyone loved Ned Stark, which, at this point, so what.

    Manderly is the one I want to see them keep. Just Manderly.

    And as far as “For the Watch,” I can see well why that would be a great (and scary) season-ender, but if it’s all a red herring, it strikes me as an effective cold opener for Season 6/Episode 1 or closer for same.

  22. Balerion The Cat: Ha! When filming in Croatia was over I was so worried that we’ll get nothing from Spain! I’m so glad I was wrong!
    The real wait begins now though, I don’t think we’ll get anything new untill HBO’s Year Ender in December. Can we still expect a trailer in January? I really liked their marketing last year, it made the wait a lot easier for me.

    These shots are the most sensational ‘pirated’ steals from production I have seen for the show.
    Seems as if they were taken by the pick-up crew working with either the Dragon or
    Wolf unit. Have a feeling they won’t be hired next year.

  23. Wow, a huge coup in the pit! Nice change, soo excited!

    But it seems that

    Daario replace Barristan as queensguard for this important event…

    Like the others i am worried, i hope they have something epic in store for Barristan, or grrrrr

  24. There will be no LSH.

    I’m sorry.

    On that topic, if anyone wants to make a financial wager I’ll give you 2:1

    on that character not being in the show.

    I’ll go up to $200 (your $400 if I’m wrong)

    Otherwise, I’m really excited to see this scene on the TV!

  25. People talking about Dany not knowing Tyrion’s identity because Selmy doesn’t make much sense.

    Let’s not forget who delivered Tyrion to Dany in the first place, and why he did it. Since Jorah is there, I would assume the show still has the ‘bring him to Dany to win back her favor’ element to it. So having said that, I find it highly unlikely that Dany isn’t fully aware of who Tyrion is.

    The Red Viper put it best: “It is rare to meet a Lannister who shares my enthusiasm for dead Lannisters.”

  26. House Ray,

    Everithing indicates, that she’s cut. Everything, except one thing. Everyone from Michelle Fairley and D&D to Kristian Nairn and Daniel Portman is extremely tight lipped about

    LS

    . At Comic-Con, D&D explained why they cut the Tysha dialogue in a quite detailed way, but nobody every wants to talk about

    LS

    . Now the question.

    Why would everyone be so tight lipped about a character that’s already gone? Maybe she isn’t gone? Maybe D&D themselves don’t know when they want to introduce her and told everyone to be silent about it until they decide something. Maybe they know the perfect moment when to introduce her and it’s from The Winds of Winter. There’s a lot of maybes and the suspicious fact, that no one wants to talk about LS.
    I just think it’s 100% that she’s cut.

    There’s still hope.

  27. Jordan:
    Also, since Akinnuoye-Agbaje isn’t the announcer guy and at least so far, we haven’t seen him in any of the Dany plot filming, I’m wondering if there is a reason to be optimistic about him being (a version of)

    a certain Red Priest.

    I think that would be highly likely at this point. Could be a cover name to hide his true character name, or he’s got a new one because his journey is different or he is a mix of characters from the books. Would be great to see the role preserved in a certain fashion, and by such a terrific actor!

  28. NoSer,

    Myself, I’m thinking what the f*ck’s a Keyr?!

    Not sure why they’ve invented yet another character when there were plenty of other suitable characters that could have been used/adapted if this guy is going to continue in the slavesque role he had previously. Tumco Lho, Larraq, and the The Red Lamb all spring to mind. All not crucial to the plotline but with more flavour than another one word throwaway-named character.

  29. I see the words “major spoilers” and “casting” and I can’t help thinking of names like

    Arianne, Quentin, Griff, Young Griff, Euron, Victarion, Damphair, Moqorro, Penny, Manderly, Stoneheart, Thoros, Gendry, Coldhands, Greatjon, Blackfish, and Kevan.

    Even though I know I should know better. Okay the last one is actually still reasonably likely, but most of the others, especially the first few, are almost certainly cut (or actually certainly for some) and yet I still look for the names in the articles. Silly me. It’s not like I even care if they get changed dramatically in the adaptation, I just want them to exist.

  30. WeirwoodTreeHugger,

    Mandrel is cut, let’s just accept that.

    We can still hope for a

    Jeyne Poole replacement

    (since that would be something they’ll be more careful with), and that the Greatjon will return to take

    over Manderly’s role,

    but otherwise… A few minor castings in the North, no more.

  31. jentario:
    WeirwoodTreeHugger,

    Mandrel is cut,

    let’s just accept that. We can still hope for a

    Jeyne Poole replacement

    (since that would be something they’ll be more careful with), and that the Greatjon will return

    to take over Manderly’s role,

    but otherwise… A few minor castings in the North, no more.

    You are probably correct and that makes me sad.

  32. Tyrion Pimpslap,

    Well, the history lesson you speak of happens in the fifth book. So it could still happen in season 5. I don’t think D&D were actively under using Selmy, it’s just that most of his good material is in ADWD (which we’re only just getting into) and they had to many minor characters near Dany to service (Jorah and Daario taking up the most screentime because love triangle, and then Missandei, Gray Worm and Barristan in a similarly minor role). I think season 5 will be where we can determine if Selmy is underused or not.

    And on “where the fuck is Selmy?!”, as I said in the other thread… Both him and Grey Worm were spotted filming a scene together in Croatia (and I don’t think we don’t know for sure that it’s in a the tavern set). My educated guess is this: since they’re both missing from the Pit, the scene they filmed together either takes place during the Pit events (explaining their absence and working as an excuse to keep Tyrion’s identity hidden from Dany for the duration of the scene) OR it’s there death scene and it happens in the mid-season. It would be pretty brutal if the Sons of the Harpy manage to ambush and kill two of Dany’s most trusted advisors in one hit. I wouldn’t like that much since I want Barristan to do his coup from ADWD (badass!), but at least it would give him a fight scene. I could see D&D doing that if Barry dies early in TWOW in the battle (which is mostly cut in the show)… But if that happens, he better tear them a new anus before he bites it.

  33. Leo,

    That is good news as I’m all for continuity but just don’t understand why he’s not one of

    Barristens knight trainees

    like one of the guys I mentioned. Would be a perfect fit.
    Selmy is one of if not the best knight who ever lived if he went out being ambushed by a bunch of clowns in a backstreet then it would be immensely disappointing especially if

    he’s not there for the coup and to command at the Siege of Mereen *fingers crossed*
  34. jentario,

    I though we already had a casting for her about a month or two ago. Okay technically they were vague on the character name, but it was enough to confirm she was in the right location and the actress’ look was similar enough.

  35. giiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive me season 5 trailer nooooooooooooooow I want it nooooooooooooooooooooooooowwww !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! omg !!! the vid !!!!!!!!!!!

    can we please get a Wyman Manderly now ? even the walking dead has cannibals NOW (:

    btw Keisha castle Hughea was on last ep of TWD (:

  36. Matthew,

    Maybe you haven’t been keeping up with the Pit news, but Jorah was one of the fighters in the Pit. That means that either Dany willingly put him there/he submitted himself to prove something OR (the far more likely option IMO) he is still a slave as of the beginning of the scene, put in the pit. We know for fact that both Tyrion and Jorah get sold to slavery at some point, and a fan theory is that Hizdahr bought Tyrion as a personal slave (perhaps because he knows the Common Tongue and because he’s generally pretty hilarious). Evidence is: why is Tyrion sitting next to Hizdahr and not Dany in the stand? Also, the color of Ty’s shirt matches Hizzy’s tokar. But of course this theory could be wrong, and Tyrion and Dany managed to somehow get cool in the spandex of around two episodes… Which seems a bit rushed. We’ll have to wait and see.
  37. Of the Night,

    She was named “Winterfell Worker”. It’s possible that that was their dupe to hide her real (but actually fake) identity, but we can’t just assume that. She could easily just be a Winterfell Worker who says a line and disappears.

  38. Maybe I’m fooling myself, but I choose to believe there are a couple of characters they have kept under wraps. I won’t even hazard a guess as to which characters (ok, I will with one, the aforementioned “Winterfell Worker”), but I expect there to be a couple of pleasant surprises. Again, maybe I’m just fooling myself, but hope springs eternal!

  39. Crux,

    All actors who came on board in season 2 (Van Houten, Dillane, Cunningham) signed 6 year contracts if I remember it correctly.

  40. jentario,

    Yes I know. But she looked very much like you know who, and it’s a good way of not spoiling it. It’s possible it’s not her but it’s as close to confirmation as we’re likely to get.

  41. At this point in Winterfell S5, the only known characters present are Roose, Ramsay, Theon and Myranda so unless they’re spending the bulk of the season chatting with each other cordially and twiddling thumbs waiting for Stannis to show up, I would imagine we’ll hear about another character or two at least added to the mix once filming it has begun. I just don’t expect them to be major characters. Probably just a handful of lines here and there.

    And here’s something I can’t quite figure out. It was leaked way back at the start of the off-season that one of the characters on the callsheet was Varamyr Sixskins. We never heard about an actual casting but I assume he’s there in the Wall storyline. I wonder why they bothered to introduce him when they already more or less amalgamated him into Orell? Is he supposed to interact more with Jon at the Wall this season and introduce Jon’s own warging powers in anticipation of the “For the Watch” moment? Or is he part of the Wildling crew that Stannis presumably recruits for his march on Winterfell and takes part in the leaked “war council” scenes? Or is he just kind of there to say “here’s a book character” but doesn’t do anything important?

  42. Crux,

    The wording of the article doesn’t seem terribly clear to me? But anyway, an option for a seventh is no guarantee or spoiler.
  43. Tyrion Pimpslap,

    Huh… so you are criticizing the show for not having Barristan do stuff that he had still not done in the books? His “history lessons” are mostly in book five, you know? Besides his good words about Rhaegar, that is, which are also in the show. And most of the active stuff he does is around the end of book 5. So… what’s the deal? How has he been “wasted”? He hasn’t had the opportunity to shine, based on the source material. I mean, they could’ve made something up, but come on. If he’s still in the background in season five, I’m with you, but right now… your criticism just doesn’t make any sense.

    TheTouchOfFrost,

    You don’t understand why he’s not one of the knight trainees? Well… obviously because that’s not the role this slave will play at all. Where did you get that idea, anyway? Why give the name of a tertiary character in the book to a tertiary character in the show who has nothing to do with them? Does that really satisfy anything at all in you as a book fan?

    jentario,

    Rushed?

    How do you know in which episode Tyrion and Jorah are sold into slavery? How do you know when they arrive at Meereen? The Griffs are gone, so the first half of Tyrion’s journey will be streamlined a lot. In fact, we pretty much know that Jorah’s kidnapping of the Imp will take place in episode 3. They’ve got six whole episodes before showing up at Daznak’s Pit. Maybe they are in Meereen by episode six or so. Who knows.
  44. Leo: I’m glad they will be using the slave from Oathkeeper again. It felt like such a weirdly long and pointless scene with a bunch of extras out of nowhere.

    I really liked that scene, because it’s annoying to have Dany doing most of the talking when it comes to the slaves and the uprisings. Which is probably why they added that scene. So I like that they’re bringing (at least) one of the more prominent slaves back, for consistency.
    Hey maybe we’ll also see some of Dany’s old khalasar hanging around one of these days.

  45. Sue the Fury: I really liked that scene, because it’s annoying to have Dany doing most of the talking when it comes to the slaves and the uprisings. Which is probably why they added that scene. So I like that they’re bringing (at least) one of the more prominent slaves back, for consistency.
    Hey maybe we’ll also see some of Dany’s old khalasar hanging around one of these days.

    Kovarro FTW!!!!! He’s the silent assassin.

  46. alright first of all how do I put in spoiler tags?
    sorry about that one 😉

    Sue the Fury,
    and no sue it doesn’t
    Dutch doesn’t really translate that well to english
    If you would care for a translation let me know

    maybe a flashback? Since they will do at least one next season it opens up the possibility for more.

  47. Sue the Fury,

    Now that we know he isn’t the announcer, do you have a professional opinion on who Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje is playing? My guess is Malko could be a renamed version of that slaver Luther from the one casting call.

  48. In the last picture, there is a leg between Daario and the man who is filming. I think that it could be Tyrion, don’t you think?

    I can’t wait to see this scene! It was confirmed that this is going to be in the 9th episode. So, do you think that we are going to see what happens in the last chapter of Daenerys in ADWD?

  49. King Tommen:

    Excellent point…

    I had completely forgotten about the supposed casting of Varamyr. Wonder if that is still to come. Also wondering about the rumor that circulated a few months ago that Tom Wlaschiha would return. Has there been any further discussion about that?
  50. Luka Nieto,

    I guess it depends on his role (a slave who’s got his freedom and interacts with major characters is tailor made to be one of the knight trainees), but what I’m getting at is why the massive influx of made-up minor characters? With the vast amount of characters in Mereen in the books surely there are ones who can be adapted to suit the purpose of those being made up/interact with the main cast members. If they’re making major changes to major characters plotlines/character development then I’m not sure why they’re not doing the same with minor characters where it would make sense/be less objectionable? As a fan I wold prefer a nod to an existing character who I care at least a little about than a made-up character who I don’t have any attachment to and will most likely not get the oppurtunity to ( can’t imagine this guy being more than fodder).

  51. They’ve been noticeably tighter-lipped this year on castings, with only minor news coming here and there as scenes are shot. Other than the main nine from the video, most others are relatively smaller roles that were filled as scenes were shot. Even Septa Unella, who was on the “leaked” list, didn’t get cast – as far as we know – until we started to see Walk scenes shot.

    That leaves plenty we haven’t even heard about including The Waif (almost certainly cast by now, as Arya has filmed many scenes), Maggie, Varamyr, Young Cersei, Melara, not to mention possibly others. Other than Arianne and Quentyn, it’s hard to say whether a character of note is definitively in or out, honestly. Which means it’s hard to say whether we get Manderley (easily a one-episode character if they want), or Dustin (cuttable), or the Griffs (who knows?) or the Greyjoy Trio (1 of 3 possibly, but in Season 6).
  52. Maybe Varymyr will take the position (if not character of) Borroq in that he’ll be at the Wall not getting along with Jon Snow! Not sure how book Varymyr would fit with the storyline now.

  53. mariamb,

    It’s things like that which give me the hope I mentioned. We know

    Arya will be at the HoBaW. Someone has to be The Kindly Man, or take on that role. We heard Tom Wlaschiha would be reprising his role as Jaqen. However, it seems that no one has heard a peep, lately.
  54. Sue the Fury: I really liked that scene, because it’s annoying to have Dany doing most of the talking when it comes to the slaves and the uprisings. Which is probably why they added that scene. So I like that they’re bringing (at least) one of the more prominent slaves back, for consistency.
    Hey maybe we’ll also see some of Dany’s old khalasar hanging around one of these days.

    I liked that scene too, and the efforts to humanize people who have less of a voice in the book, which is why I also support the fleshing-out of Grey Worm, also b/c Jacob Anderson is doing a very nice job with him as well.

  55. I don’t see the north story going without a fake Arya unless they’r planning on doing major changes in Jon\ Ramsy \Stannis’s story
  56. Luka Nieto,

    I can sympathise with those who feel worried that Barristan won’t be given any real opportunity to shine on the show. I generally think Ian McElhinney is doing a terrific job but his character has been continually pushed back for the sake of others. Given the limited time, I can understand that a scene like the Mero killing has been given to Daario and happened offscreen. However, I still think that the old knight should have had a part in the siege of Meereen, be it fighting the Meereenese champion or leading the sneak attack. In my mind, at least one of these scenes could have easily been given to Barristan without causing any harm to the story. I can imagine that for many casual whatchers, he’s just that old guy who’s arround Dany all the time, offering advise (which is usually ignored) and sometimes boasting about his legendary skills at swordplay. While I think, there is no reason to give up on the matter just yet, it looks like other character storylines keep getting in the way between him and an opportunity to display his true value (judging by the reports from Daznak’s Pit). I only hope he will still be arround for the next season, since the source material has some pretty good stuff in reserve 🙂

  57. Lady Nym:
    4:32

    Maisie’s reaction when asked about Jaqen’s comeback /:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnhM1XlnjM4&list=PLD789F78F99814C3C&index=108

    Game of Thrones Season 5 Arya Stark Interview – Maisie Williams

    Thanks for posting that, Lady Nym, I hadn’t seen it. Of course, this is said through the filter of what I want, but it seems to me she’s being very careful about what she reveals…as though she was told, as I’d guess others were, that they couldn’t say too much about certain things.

  58. King Tommen: Kovarro FTW!!!!! He’s the silent assassin.

    Kovarro , Steven Cole, Dany’s only speaking role Dothraki vanished after season 2.
    Kind of expected him to show up in sort-of , at least, cameos S3 and S4, but no.
    Oddly season four episode 1 I think Dany’s 3 bloodriders appear in the way background. After episode 2 S4 no ‘fringe’ Dany khalasar hanging around.
    Except for her Dothraki handmaidens and Bloodrides her khalasar is where? in the books. GRRM winds up with too many threads even he can’t keep up with.

  59. I’m one of those who is pretty worried about Ser Barristan too. I understand there may have been need for some shifting around, Tyrion, Jorah, and Daario being there in the pit scene and Barristan absent, etc. There are a million ways it could play out (killed off? hostage? negotiating? letting dragons escape from prison?) but I hope he gets some key moments this season, some time for the Silver Fox to shine 😉 Particularly I’d like to see a solid conversation with Dany about her family (maybe there will be more time for this with Jorah gone as key Westerosi advisor?), and please give us a fight scene! Barristan the Bold has not fought anyone on screen yet!
  60. Boojam,

    Feel sorry for the Dothraki. They’ve been with her since the start and would be her most trusted comrades but they’ve been shunted for newbies! Poor old Irri and Rakharo got sacrificed to the TV gods early but the fact there’s not even extras representing her Khalisar anymore is a real shame. Dothraki > the rest of Essos…possibly excluding Norvos!

  61. Regarding Barristan, in the visual medium, I believe the show should have shown him in battle by now. In the books, by this point, he had cut through a few gold cloaks,killed Mero, and been key in the taking of Meereen. While tis true his history lessons mostly come in ADWD, but when has that kept D&D from moving something up? I stand by my statement that he is a wasted character on the show. He is just the old guy that Dany doesn’t listen to and who does nothing. And he’s not at the pit. The actor was not in Osuna. I have little hope that he will get his due in season 5.

  62. Lady Nym,

    Regarding a teaser/trailer…..

    I see Mel looking into the fire and seeing Jon who morphs into Ghost who morphs into snow and a weirwood tree that becomes a vision of Bran with white eyes, who then morphs into Arya who morphs into dark Sansa who morphs into Tyrion who morphs into Drogon who breathes fire at the camera and the fire morphs into Dany…fade to black and season tagline (whatever it may be….possibly related to “Fire”)

    S5 here we come…!

  63. Tyrion Pimpslap,

    The whole Kingsguard seems to have been given a rough time/neglected in the show. Shame as it’s one of, if not my favourite, elements from the books. I guess we’ll just have to wait (possibly a long time/forever) for a Robert’s Rebellion prequel series to see Selmy, Jaime, Dayne and the rest in their full glory.

  64. Tyrion Pimpslap,

    I agree on what you said about Barristan’s role so far. Let’s hope D&D will stick to the books concerning the aftermath of Daznak’s Pit as it

    would finally do justice to the character to have him engange in an actual fight instead of just hearing from others (Robert, Jaime, Jorah) how great of a fighter he’s supposed to be. However, given his absence from the arena, I wouldn’t rule out Barristan being taken as a hostage either.
  65. Tyrion Pimpslap:
    Regarding Barristan, in the visual medium, I believe the show should have shown him in battle by now. In the books, by this point, he had cut through a few gold cloaks,killed Mero, and been key in the taking of Meereen.

    I really wanted for him to be at least a bit more involved. I still hold out hope he’ll get his due, as you say. It’s such a good character and the show could have made really good use for the things you mention. But maybe there’s just no space in Dany’s storyline for Ser Selmy. They seem to build up Daario a lot for this season and that may come at a cost.

  66. Selmy’s actual physical exploits in the books are being exaggerated here. He is much more of an advisor than a warrior at this point in his life. All of his “in-battle” exploits happened many years ago and he lives off of his reputation at this point. That’s why he’s dismissed from the Kingsguard. While he can surely still wield a sword when necessary, he’s a figurehead and inspires admiration from those who are more physically able now.

    While the show could surely invent some scenes out of nowhere to depict the senior citizen as some kind of magical Gandalf on the battlefield, it surely strains credibility to do so. He’s there to stand watch over Dany, not fight in battles. And he hasn’t been called on to protect her yet so I don’t see why the show should go out of its way to make up a reason for an old man to get in some needless duel in order to show off his old man skills.

    The only reason people are getting their panties in a bunch is because Selmy got some POV chapters at the end of ADwD and got to actually do some things (mostly with characters the show isn’t going to bother with because they aren’t ultimately important). Before we got his POV, he pretty much just hung around Dany and advised her from time to time. Let’s not make him out to be some Rambo warrior retroactively.

  67. Annara Snow:

    Please, forgive me not choosing my words as carefully as you think I should have chosen them.
    I think it was pretty clear what I meant

    Faceless Man…whether called the Kindly Man, or Jaqen, or whatever

    .

  68. King Tommen,

    The White Walkers have appeared in every season and haven’t appeared in ADWD. I think that like every season before it, season 5 will step up the White Walker game in a big scene. The only thing I can think of is Hardhome, but honestly it can be anything with White Walkers and I think Varamyr will be involved in it.
  69. jentario:
    King Tommen,

    While I definitely agree that there will be a White Walker scene, I think it will involve the NW closer to the Wall rather than from a Wildlings POV. Everyone important Wildling-wise is now South of the Wall. I see no reason why the show would waste time introducing the audience to a brand new group of people that we’ve never seen before just so they can be Walker-fodder. That’s not the show’s MO.

    If Varamyr is on the show, it’s to interact with known characters.

  70. Sheepstealer,

    Okay, that gave me an idea. Maybe Barristan and Gray Worm aren’t killed, but are abducted by the Sons of the Harpy? That would surely pressure Dany to make a peace and marry Hizzy.
  71. Ugh I hope Reece Noi hasn’t got any actual major acting parts , he used to be in a show in the UK called Emmerdale and another called Waterloo Road and he is a godawful actor , even more wooden than Hugh Grant.

  72. King Tommen,

    Oh, come on! Be fair King Tommen. The dismissal he had in Season 1 in open court where he retreats while mocking the KG resembled nothing like the books. He does cut a few Gold Cloaks there after recording his own KG dismissal in the white book according to several POVs. That would have made a good scene IMO.

  73. Sue the Fury,

    Really? Wasn’t he meant to film in Croatia?
    And that Malko character is really interesting. It would be a waste if they cast such a high profile actor in a one-off scene, so I’m guessing his role is bigger than that. But he wasn’t in the Pit… Maybe he’s the show’s version of the captain of the Cinnamon Wind? or a Faceless Man?
  74. rudie:

    There had better be a bloody good reason for Barristan(only Queensguard member on the show) not being there other than convenience. Other than that the effects look cool.
    One reasonably simple possibility is that Selmy and Greyworm will be uncovering the conspiracy against Daeny. If they have them working against the clock (or hourglass or whatever) as things rush to the conclusions, then that could work well.
  75. Interestingly enough, Emma Maguire (the potential Jeyne Poole substitute, but probably a featured extra) deleted her Casting Call Pro CV. That kind of reminds me of Keisha Castle Hughs deleting her twitter. I hope she really is that character.

  76. Lady Nym: I don’t see the north story going without

    a fake Arya unless they’r planning on doing major changes in Jon\ Ramsy \Stannis’s story

    Theon is the only story that would be in danger, and it would be easy enough to modify it. Ultimately, his story in Dragons is

    rising from Reek back to Theon
    Fake Arya is a tool for that, but it takes very little imagination to contrive another. Who knows, perhaps they will shoot for some symmetry and it will be Yara/Asha that he saves: her attempt to rescue him failed in two ways (she couldn’t extract him from Ramsay and she couldn’t get him to re-own being Theon); it would be wonderfully ironic if she winds up rescuing him in both ways in a completely different manner. (And, yes, this is a correct use of the word irony….)
  77. Sue the Fury,

    Wasn’t Luther supposed to have shot in September though?

    If he’s not that part, I really don’t know who Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje could be out of the parts we’ve seen casting calls for.

  78. jentario,

    I noticed that too. I wonder…but there wasn’t a casting call for that role, so who knows. Maybe she really is just an extra.

  79. Greenjones:
    Sue the Fury,

    Wasn’t Luther supposed to have shot in September though?

    If he’s not that part, I really don’t know who Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbajecould be out of the parts we’ve seen casting calls for.

    Why are we assuming it’s stuff from casting calls when it was already announced that his character’s name is Malko? I would assume he’s one of the main fighting slaves or some kind of substitute for Moqorro (hence the similarity of the name).

  80. Greatjon of Slumber: if it’s all a red herring, it strikes me as an effective cold opener for Season 6/Episode 1 or closer for same.

    It’s not going to be a red herring. For one thing, it offers a strong parallel to what is happening with Daeny: and Jon & Daeny are the two primary protagonists of the story. So, regardless of what happens (

    assuming that Jon survives: and I do not doubt that he will

    ) it is serving a story-telling purpose and thus isn’t a red herring. What is is probably going to set up is

    Jon warming (no pun intended, genuinely: I honestly cannot think of a more appropriate word) to Mel.

    That could be an important plot point. Also, at some point

    Mel is going to have to start questioning whether she’s put her money on the wrong horse! (Or Messiah or whatever…)

    . This could be a mechanism for that.

  81. King Tommen,

    If he was Moqorro, they’d call him Moqorro. There’s no reason not to, really.

    Greenjones,

    I really hope she isn’t. She’s basically the only lead we have on the Winterfell storyline…

    EDIT: I was hoping to see how many episodes she was in through her CV (that would probably have confirmed or debunked the theory), but no such luck. She also seemed to be cast relatively early (compared to when the actual Winterfell filming seems to have started, IIRC the external set wasn’t even finished then).

  82. Speculation:

    Barristan the Old’s book role will be taken up by a rehabilitated Jorah.

    Gendry will return as the book’s Aegon, a pawn of Varys.

    Super stoked about scene-stealer Tom Wlaschia’s return as Jaqen H’ghar, the only character that can rival Stannis in bad-assery.

    “For the watch” sets us up for Melisandre’s resurrection of John via Stannis or Shireen in WoW / season 6. If Stannis learns Shireen has been killed, he goes nuts and plunges his sword through Melisandre’s heart creating Lightbringer. If Stannis is sacrificed, then Jon-Stannis is Azor Ahai, fulfilling several here-to-fore discordant prophecies.

    Very exciting season ahead (except for Baelish, Brienne, Sansa, Jamie, and the Dornish)!

    Also, the “Yay Dragonz!” crowd need to realize that the dragons will be a force for evil (mirrors of the white walkers).

  83. jentario:
    King Tommen,

    If he was Moqorro, they’d call him Moqorro. There’s no reason not to, really.

    Yara Greyjoy, Robin Arryn, Talisa Maegyr, Alton Lannister, Locke and Vance Corbray all say hi.

    All characters clearly based on book counterparts but names changed for various reasons. Sometimes there is a legit reason, sometimes it’s seemingly for the hell of it. There’s precedence. Maybe Malko rolls off the tongue easier than Moqorro. Maybe they want to change the nature of the character somewhat and change his origins so a name that suits was created. Who the hell knows but it’s certainly not out of the realm of possibility.

    There’s also the fact that this actor is a fairly big name so it’s hard to see him filling a fairly inconsequential role on the show.

  84. Stannis the Mannis: Also, the “Yay Dragonz!” crowd need to realize that the dragons will be a force for evil (mirrors of the white walkers).

    Except, of course, for the fact that there isn’t “good” and “evil” in these stories: just conflicting agendas.

  85. Greatjon of Slumber,

    Me too. Just Manderly. That’s all I ask. One fat merman.

    King Tommen,

    I would think that character might be introduced to remind everyone about skinchangers? Hmmm… now why at the end of DwD would someone be in need of skinchanging…

    jentario,

    Oh I like that idea. Still hostages… and then Barry fights his way free in season 6! Epic!
  86. Greenjones: Wasn’t Luther supposed to have shot in September though?

    It was a while ago that I heard they were still looking- my point is, it was around the time that we found out about Adewale, so it’s not him.

  87. King Tommen,

    Well, “Moqorro” doesn’t sound like Osha. Moqorro isn’t really a character you can change very much (to the point of wanting to change his name) FFS, he’s a black albino red priest and he’s a badass. The only thing they could change is his appearance, but if Malko=Moqorro then he’ll still be black (meaning that only the albino part could be changed, which doesn’t warrant a name change). Moqorro also isn’t a complicated name to pronounce (maybe a bit hard to read, but in the show you’ll be HEARING it).

    Is it technically possible that he’s Moqorro with a name change? Yes. But I really, really doubt it. Especially with the original announcement stating he wasn’t a book character.

    Also, Moqorro without Victarion doesn’t really make sense unless he manages to separate himself and become really important. Which is a big assumption.

  88. Wimsey,

    Good point about Asha/Yara getting betrothed to Ramsay esp to save the Ironborn after the “mysterious” death of Balon the Usurper. Perhaps she gets captured after fleeing Stannis in the Battle of Deepwood Motte. There could also be a failed attempt to match Sansa with Ramsay. I’m sure Ramsay would love to torture Reek with the knowledge of his sister’s life-ruining marriage to Ramsay. Finally Theon hulks-up and they escape; or perhaps it could be a suicide attempt by jumping from the walls of Winterfell that lands in the snow? Only to be captured and ultimately incorporated by the Mannis in season 6.

    HBO seems to want to stick with characters fans are invested in rather than dump them for new ones that the rank-and-file viewer won’t care about. That’s a smart move.

  89. jentario,

    Now that you’ve mentioned it, Dany still needs a credible reason to marry Hizdahr. I somehow doubt that D&D will solely stick to the book version of a truce promise on that matter. However it would require either a great deal of slopiness which seems out of character for both Barristan and Grey Worm or an overwhelming superiority in numbers on the part of the attackers. I can see the Sons of the Harpy making common cause with the Yunkish army (provided that there will be one) and handing the pair over. So many uncertainties…
  90. jentario,

    However, if Vic is cut and Moqorro is important enough to find Daenerys, in the show version they might bring him to Meereen alongside Tyrion and Jorah. I agree that normally this would be an unnecessary name change, but in this case I can’t think of any other substantial role, given the actor. I’m thinking it’s some sort of Moqorro/Benerro mix-character.

  91. Wimsey,

    No, there is tons of unambiguous evil. It is the good that is ambiguous. Genuine good gets snuffed out quickly, which is one of GRRMs themes. Practical good has to have a bit of bad-assery (eg Stannis).

  92. jentario:
    King Tommen,

    Well, “Moqorro” doesn’t sound like Osha. Moqorro isn’t really a character you can change very much (to the point of wanting to change his name) FFS, he’s a black albino red priest and he’s a badass. The only thing they could change is his appearance, but if Malko=Moqorro then he’ll still be black (meaning that only the albino part could be changed, which doesn’t warrant a name change). Moqorro also isn’t a complicated name to pronounce (maybe a bit hard to read, but in the show you’ll be HEARING it).

    Is it technically possible that he’s Moqorro with a name change? Yes. But I really, really doubt it. Especially with the original announcement stating he wasn’t a book character.

    The fact is that unlike other shows, there are very few legitimate options for a huge, intimidating black man to be on Game of Thrones. In a featured, speaking role as clearly would be the case in an actor of Akinnuoye-Agbaje’s stature. The story isn’t going to allow him to pop up in just any capacity. He could’ve been Areo Hotah but that’s already taken. He could be a featured Pit fighter but if that’s the case, it’s extremely suspicious that he wasn’t there at all in Osuna that we’re aware since he’d be a big part of Daznak’s Pit. And Akinnuoye-Agbaje is going to be noticed if he’s shooting in those types of outdoor scenes.

    The other option is the ACTUAL role that calls for a huge, intimidating black man. And the name that was released for his character just happens to be extremely similar to the book counterpart. And the show has been known to change names before. So excuse me if I think they are more than a few signs that point to this being the case. I’m definitely not dismissing it as a legit option until I see some evidence otherwise.

  93. Stannis the Mannis,

    Dragons aren’t a “force of evil”. They are a force of chaos and the whims of their proud rider.

    Heck, given the show’s portrayal of the WW saving the male babies from certain death, we don’t even know that the WW are evil, or what their true purpose is…yet. I’m not doubting that they are indeed evil but the question is out there….

    [only if one reads a bit of TWoI&F does one realize that the world probably wouldn’t be that great if the WW ruled, with them riding giant spiders and all….but we haven’t got that from the show just yet…]

    The world needs a Coldhands.

  94. King Tommen,

    I agree. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje is a pretty big name these days. Not only was he in Lost, as pretty much everybody knows, he also was in Tor 2 as the second in command of the main villain.

    The role of Moqorro (or something similar to it) re-named as Malko seams like a good fit for his profile atm.

    And he also looks the part.

  95. “Various states of distress”? Have you seen Missandei? Have you seen her face?

    That is the face of the Harpy.

  96. Stannis the Mannis: No, there is tons of unambiguous evil. It is the good that is ambiguous.

    No, there is neither any good nor any evil in SoI&F. It’s just like the real world: “good” and “evil” exist only in the minds of men (and women) based on whether something fits their particular morality. Cersei Lannister is not evil. She’s a bitch and she’s stupid, but she’s not evil. She adheres rigidly to a classist morality system that holds that “good” people defer to the betters, and that assumes that “better” people are wiser than their lessers. You might call it “evil”: but someone like J.R.R. Tolkien would say that the opposite is true.

    The Others are not evil. Oh, they are not going to be beneficial to humans, but humans are hardly beneficial to a lot of other species. One thing that I suspect we will find as that the White Walkers don’t see humans as something on par with themselves: much the way that humans felt about the Children or Giants, or other races of humans.

    Dragons are not evil. Indeed, insofar as we can see, they are not even sentient. Oh, they seem to be fairly bright animals, but we are talking highly intelligent dogs or something like that.

    The Red Priests are not “evil.” Now, just like a lot of religions in the real world, they cause a lot of harm: but they do so believing that they are “good” and that others are evil. Good and evil here are important for developing characters: Melissandre, for example, assumes that the Old Gods are scions of The Other (who seems to have something to do with The Others): but the truth is that the Old Gods hate the White Walkers as much as Melissandre does. Blinkered and fettered by her definition of “good,” she cannot recognize this.

    The list goes on and on. Indeed, one of the things that SoI&F is is a scathing critique on the old fairy tales, which were always about “good” and “evil.” Sansa is the poster-child for this: her simple-minded application of “good” and “evil” winds up killing her father (or at least greatly decreasing the chance that he’d get out alive) because it turns out that the fairy tales aren’t true. Cersei is running into the same problems: except, of course, that she draws very different lessons from the simple stories.

    What will be important in SoI&F is triangles. R’hllor vs. The Others vs. The Children; Targaryean vs. Baratheon vs. Lannister; Sansa vs. Arya vs. Rickon; Cersei vs. Jaime vs. Tyrion; Daeny vs. Jon vs. Aegon. It’s going to be trickier than “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”: it’s going to be “my enemies/rivals are not necessarily in league with each other.” Moreover, it’s going to be entirely character driven, not plot-driven: and character-driven means working out what the “best” version of you should be (“good”) even if all of your choices are actually pretty bad.

  97. If we are going to get minor characters cast I would prefer Northern minor characters as that was the greatest part of ADWD

    “I want to live forever in a land where summer lasts a thousand years. I want a castle in the clouds where I can look down over the world. I want to be six-and-twenty again. When I was six-and-twenty I could fight all day and fuck all night. What men want does not matter. Winter is almost upon us, boy. And winter is death. I would sooner my men die fighting for the Ned’s little girl than alone and hungry in the snow, weeping tears that freeze upon their cheeks. No one sings songs of men who die like that. As for me, I am old. This will be my last winter. Let me bathe in Bolton blood before I die. I want to feel it spatter across my face when my axe bites deep into a Bolton skull. I want to lick it off my lips and die with the taste of it on my tongue.”

    – Hugo Wull

  98. jentario,

    If

    Barristan bites it before we get to hear his epic Winds of Winter Battle Speech

    I will level up to an AngryGOTFan level of rage lol

  99. Wimsey,

    I prefer

    that Sansa serve the role of fake Arya. Yara being betrothed to Ramsay after a season where she tried to kill him seems… very out of place. Also Yara reuniting with Reek this way seems very awkward. Third, Sansa needs to show off her new manipulation skills and Ramsay’s brashness is the perfect tool for her.
  100. Tyrion Pimpslap,
    Hey
    maybe that secret character in the Dorne scene was Barristan, sent by Danaerys to make an alliance with Dorne, and that's why he's not here at the pit... Hopefully... In that case, Jaime and Barristan know each other and can vouch for each other in front of Doran.

  101. Dogs:
    Tyrion Pimpslap,
    Hey
    maybe that secret character in the Dorne scene was Barristan, sent by Danaerys to make an alliance with Dorne, and that's why he's not here at the pit... Hopefully... In that case, Jaime and Barristan know each other and can vouch for each other in front of Doran.

    I freaking love this theory. i want to take it and make it mine :p. Good job I now hope that happens

  102. Dogs,

    I suggested that when we are all first wondering where Barristan was, although in all honesty, someone else could have mentioned it first, and I don’t remember. Whatever the case, it’s good to see someone else had the same idea. Either we’re both not completely out of our minds, or we are, but in good company. 🙂

  103. Dogs:
    Tyrion Pimpslap,
    Hey
    maybe that secret character in the Dorne scene was Barristan, sent by Danaerys to make an alliance with Dorne, and that's why he's not here at the pit... Hopefully... In that case, Jaime and Barristan know each other and can vouch for each other in front of Doran.

    Awesome – I like this!

  104. Turncloak,

    The whole fArya storyline was a farce that made the Northern Lords seem stupid. I could only tolerate it, difficult torture sequences aside, believing that the Northern Lords were playing along with the Bolton charade as they waited for their piece of the Northern pie. However, given Lady Dustin’s casual and cynical observations, I would think that most of the Northern Lords are waiting for Manderly to show up, then the internal uprising will commence and Ramsay will be torn to pieces and probably forcefully fed to Roose. The Winterfell battle will be over soon after it begins…but not without some key casualties…

    Nice quote by Big Bucket. Love that old fucker. He (and his speech) reminded me of the GreatJon.

  105. Wimsey,

    I haven’t found any redeeming “good” qualities in either book or show Ramsay. It’s rather over-simplifying matters to aver that all pre-GRRM “fairy-tales” concerned wholly goody-goodies versus wholly baddie-baddies. I think some Victorian writers changed older and traditional tales in the belief they were “improving” them to make them less of a moral maze for children. However some of Hans Christian Andersen’s stories don’t have happy endings (e.g. the [not Disney version] Little Mermaid and The Little Match Girl) and I can remember a Brothers Grimm story where cannibalism featured [admittedly not by a hero/heroine]). In the medieval French “cant-fable” Aucassin et Nicolette, when someone describes heaven to Aucassin, he says that he doesn’t want to go there (admittedly it’s written in a “micky-take” vein).

  106. Turncloak: Yara being betrothed to Ramsay after a season where she tried to kill him seems… very out of place.

    Why would

    Yara/Asha be betrothed to Ramsay? She need only be a prisoner.

    I don’t see what would be awkward about that: in wars, prisoners are taken routinely, particularly if they are high-born and there is a chance for ransom.

    As for Sansa taking Arya’s place, I see no purpose in that. Obviously, I don’t know what Maleficent Stark is going to do in Winds of Winter, but my guess is that Martin has a story in mind that would require a very different setting. However, I do anticipate that he’ll begin setting up Sansa’s attempt to retake Winterfell. One neat thing that Martin has left us (and that is well setup in the show, too) is that Sansa is going to think that she is the only surviving Stark, Arya is going to think that her brothers are dead and that Sansa is essentially a traitor, and Rickon has primogeniture on his side . All three are going to think that they are the rightful heirs to Winterfell: and I’m betting that all three will “merit” it in different ways in the end.

    It probably isn’t necessary to retain the

    fArya plot device.

    It was economic in the book: it was a foil for both Jon and Theon. However, it was not critical:

    it was only one piece of the Jon-Melissandre thread (which itself was only one piece of Jon’s story) only one piece of Theon’s story.

    Hodor’s Bastard: The whole

    fArya storyline was a farce

    that made the Northern Lords seem stupid. I could only tolerate it, difficult torture sequences aside, believing that the Northern Lords were playing along with the Bolton charade as they waited for their piece of the Northern pie.

    That almost certainly was the case. We know that

    Manderly is working to get Rickon back. (That probably won’t be necessary on TV: Rickon is a lot older, and they probably can contrive to have him come back on his own.)

    At any rate, the season really needs to focus on the story, and a lot of this would just get in the way: Theon is the only protagonist present, and it’s all a lot more elaborate than necessary to communicate his story.

  107. Turncloak,

    Slight oops..

    I meant Manderly giving the word for the internal rebellion. There is already internal dissension. Don’t you think that the Boltons have a false alliance with the Northern Lords? It’s all a charade, imo. Once Stannis (and his Mountain Clan leaders) drown all the opposing forces and the Bolton implosion happens, the battle is over. But will Manderly and Stannis see eye-to-eye?
  108. What are the odds of hearing more northern casting soon? At least one

    Frey is in NI if Twitter is right. Winterfell stuff maybe?
  109. King Tommen,

    I agree we can’t rule it out the possibility. I was skeptical about Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (from here on I’ll refer to him as AAA) would be playing

    some version of the Moqorro character because of the “he’s not based on a character from the novels” disclaimer. But now that we know that he’s not the fighting pit announcer and there were no confirmed sightings of him in Osuna (a mark against him being a pit fighter), I’m wavering. As you note, there have been numerous examples of characters whose names and backstories have been changed (so they’re not really based on characters from the books) but they do fill similar plot functions as their book counterparts. And what do we really know of Moqorro from the novels? Honestly … not much. In ADWD, the High Priest Bennero dispatches Moqorro to offer guidance to Daenerys. Moqorro travels with Tyrion and Jorah for a time until their ship gets attacked by slavers. Moqorro goes overboard, and he’s pulled from the sea a few days later by Victarion. He quickly gets into the Iron Captain’s good graces by healing his festering hand wound and making a bunch of cryptic pronouncements that cater to Victarion’s substantial ego and terrify the crew into submission. He also hints that he knows the secret to binding the dragons using the dragon horn that Victarion has in his possession. That’s intriguing enough, but there’s nothing absolutely essential about his character background in there. Just his mission, and the fact that he possesses some arcane knowledge.

    Furthermore, at this point, it is a virtual certainty that

    Victarion has been cut. There will be no Iron Fleet sailing to Meereen, and those 93 ships appear to have been replaced by the new Meereenese Navy. That knowledge is consistent with my personal belief (not saying it’s true, just that it’s my prediction) that Victarion is a glorified ship delivery man and that he’s going to die in the Battle of Meereen within the first half of TWOW, making his removal from Game of Thrones a relatively clean proposition. So Moqorro won’t be catching a ride to Slaver’s Bay with Victarion, but that doesn’t mean that he’s also destined for imminent death. In fact, I think that he and the Red Priests probably have a role to play – otherwise why would GRRM bother introducing that character at all?

    One possibility could be that

    AAA is playing a Red Priest who’s a composite version of the High Priest Bennero and Moqorro. We know that the Game of Thrones crew filmed some aerial shots of the Roman Bridge in Cordoba, which Benioff and Weiss confirmed would be representing the Long Bridge in Volantis. So Volantis is in, and we know that Tyrion and Varys visit a brothel there in Episode 3, with Tyrion presumably being captured by Jorah shortly thereafter. We also know from early filming reports that once they’re together, Tyrion and Jorah take a boat trip down a river and that we are likely going to be treated to some version of the Sorrows sequence. We don’t know exactly when that will happen in the season, but if all that happens in Volantis is Tyrion going in to a brothel, why bother including it at all? That brothel could be located anywhere (say, some small village along a river that could be filmed in Northern Ireland), allowing the production to save money for use elsewhere. Even if Benioff and Weiss love Volantis as a city from the novels, they have to know that we need to spend time at least a little bit of time to justify the expense.
    But what else happens in Volantis in ADWD? As Tyrion and Jorah make their way to the Long Bridge, they pass the great red temple where High Priest Benerro is giving a sermon about Daenerys, claiming that she’s Azor Ahai. He warns that the dark eye has fallen on her, enemies are plotting her destruction, he draws fiery Valyrian glyphs in the air representing “Doom” and “Darkness”. Tyrion finds him very unsettling. Say that Tyrion and Jorah stumble across this Malko character giving his sermon and drawing fiery symbols in the plaza (like Benerro) and actually interact with him (like they do with Moqorro). That could foreshadow the trouble awaiting Daenerys, and give Jorah and Tyrion further incentive to get to her as quickly as possible (maybe that’s why they risk going through the Sorrows). The Red Priests and R’hllor have already gotten a fair bit of play in the series with Melisandre and the BWB. If they’re going to play a role in the endgame of the series, it would make sense to introduce another major player. In the novels, it could be Moqorro and/or Benerro. In the show, it could be this new character – Malko.

    I think that could be a relatively short scene, but still pretty visually spectacular and memorable if done correctly. It would require an actor capable of conveying an abundance of charisma in a short period of time. We know that AAA can do that. In fact, his casting would fit a similar pattern to the one that Ciaran Hinds (Mance Raydar) and Burn Gorman have met: cast a respected, well-known actor in a showy but limited recurring role, ensuring that whenever he pops up, the audience will remember him. AAA is an in-demand actor who works steadily in movies and has actually booked a regular role on an NBC midseason drama called “Odyssey”. He likely doesn’t have time to do a substantial recurring role on a demanding show like Game of Thrones. But a juicy, memorable guest role that only requires him to film for a few days, with the option to return in later seasons for potentially bigger things? That benefits everyone involved.

    It’s worth noting that Peter Dinklage and Iain Glen appeared to be the only actors in that boat in the river sequence and this was well before the news that AAA had been cast broke. So if AAA is playing some version of the Moqorro role, it doesn’t appear that he’s traveling with them to Meereen. But having been previously established, he could show up in Meereen later on his own … or Daenerys could circle back to Volantis to meet up with him after she’s done in Slaver’s Bay. Who knows? Most of us are at least acknowledging the possibility that Euron could still appear in Season 6, but if he’s cut as well, maybe this Malko character will wind up being the one holding the dragon horn (if that makes the show – I have my doubts).

    Again, this could all be wildly off-base. But once my mind went off in this direction, I had to let the scenario play out.

  110. Wimsey:
    What will be important in SoI&F is triangles….

    Interesting thoughts. Although I don’t quite follow your triangle rationale…

    Regarding WWs….During the prologue of AGoT (book and show), we were witnesses to something abhorrent in the world…During the massacre at the Fist of the First Men, something horrible was afoot. And there was Sam the Slayer and his experience! But over the course of 5 published books and a variety of short stories, we really haven’t been exposed to the truth behind WW evil. Are they misunderstood? Are they just a bunch of disgruntled ex-NW members and leaders who want revenge on those who would dispossess and punish them? 🙂 What are they? As you argue, can we really label them?

    Oh…and Ramsay and Joffrey are/were crazy but they really weren’t any different from some of the past nutjobs within the Targ dynasty. “Evil” really isn’t the right word for them….

  111. Turncloak,

    Your theories really really sound dumb. Why would they make Asha or Sansa be fake Arya when they can just use one of Ramsays crazy girlfriends for that role. I really don’t get your obsession with the Manderlys, they are useless nothing interesting about them. Theon, Mance, Roose, and Ramsay are going to make excellent tv and I hope they don’t waste Mance screen time on stupid minor characters.

  112. Dame of Mercia:
    Wimsey,
    I haven’t found any redeeming “good” qualities in either book or show Ramsay.

    Nor should you: Ramsay is a sociopath. However, sociopathy is not “evil.”

    Dame of Mercia:
    It’s rather over-simplifying matters to aver that all pre-GRRM “fairy-tales” concerned wholly goody-goodies versus wholly baddie-baddies.

    Indeed, it is: which is why I never wrote anything like that! What I wrote is that it was they were about good and evil. As you note, many of them have unhappy endings. Those always came about from characters being immoral by disobeying their superiors: children disobeying adults, women disobeying men, commoners disobeying aristocrats. The morals were simple: people who do commit immoral acts come to bad ends. (The reverse fairy tales were also common in “penny dreadfuls,” where people following the rules were rewarded.) “Evil” isn’t a monster or demon, and good isn’t an angel or an elf: it’s immoral or moral behavior according to the accepted morality of the time. (Amusingly, those moral standards are now recognized as being highly unethical! Sadly, they do still persist.)

    Game of Thrones is not remotely like that! In particular, Martin really uses Sansa to exemplify the problems with actually believing these sorts of things: indeed, when last we read her, what is her most common thought? “Why are the gods doing this to me?!?!” Yes, sweetheart: all of Westeros is burning, tens of thousands are dead, hundreds of thousands are dispossessed and Winter is coming: all because the gods are upset at you…. (I am looking forward to Maleficent Stark, both next season and in WoW: although it might take me a bit to get used to the idea of Sansa using more than 2 neurons at a time!)

  113. Hodor’s Bastard: Interesting thoughts. Although I don’t quite follow your triangle rationale…

    What Martin is setting up is a lot of conflicts with 3 sides. The War for Westeros now has three distinct sides: the fBaratheon side, the Baratheon side, and that Targaryens. We probably will wind up with three Targaryens (the three heads of the dragon) both allying and vying with each other. Martin has set up the particularly interesting case where the primary protagonist (Daeny) is going to have to wrestle with two “right” ideas: I merit the throne (right of conquest, experience with rulership)/do not merit the throne (primogeniture) based on two separate moral principles. We have three surviving Stark children, all of whom will probably perceive themselves as the rightful heir to Winterfell. Again, different moral principles will justify all three’s claims, particular those in the minds of the two that are protagonists. And, of course, we have R’hllor vs. the Trees vs. the White Walkers. (Whatever the Others’ motives and intents are, I think that we can be confident that they aren’t going to see eye-to-eye with whatever the heck R’hllor is; and we know that they don’t get along with the Children, and thus the Trees; the Children are not going to like tree-burners any more than they like Zombies; and we already know that the followers of R’hllor lump the “tree demons” with “The Other.”

    It really would be just a variant of the basic aspects of his stories: protagonists are put in situations where something is simultaneously right and wrong depending on how you look at it. Understanding is a three-edged sword: “right,” “wrong” and the truth!

  114. steve,

    Maybe they got the date wrong and that WAS her real birthday? Haha.
    Rhaegar,

    Nope. The actor who plays Black Lothar (is that the name?) said he’s shooting in Belfast. Can’t find the link now though.

  115. Wimsey,

    Four remaining Starks aside (and a fifth T-S combo), I see your rationale but I think you pigeon-holed it into “threes”. I can’t see anything in ASoI&F as that simple….maybe it’s just me. Although I do like your trinomial arithmetic of right/wrong/truth! We need to explore that more…

  116. Roger,

    Black Walder (Tim Plester) or Lame Lothar (Tom Brooke)?

    I twitter-searched both names and found nothing. Could you link the tweet you saw?

  117. Roger,

    Aha! NVM. I was confused because there are two twitter accounts for Tim Plester. He has one called @wayofthemorris and this one. The latter account appears to be tweeting from and about Belfast, which I guess could mean that we get some Black Walder action in s5.

  118. Roger,

    You mean this? http://oi58.tinypic.com/rsg57p.jpg

    You can’t find it because it was deleted an hour ago (not before it was seen by loads of people though). I can see why they’d take it out but it’s a moot point because he doesn’t say it’s GOT-related anyway. Can’t take that as confirmation of anything.

  119. Liv,

    If that’s legit it SAYS A LOT. As in it would be 100% LSH proof.

    I have a comment in moderation above linking his new twitter (and in which I take back my above comment about not finding Tim Plester tweets pertaining to N.I.) He has two twitters. The one shown in that tinypic link (@wayofthemorris) and this one. https://twitter.com/tim__plester

  120. Wimsey,

    Hodor’s Bastard,

    I enjoy Wimsey’s posts, but I think he/she is sort of pushing this triangular thing a bit too much. I doubt Martin is purposefully writing the story this way, and I could question some of the triangular pairs. Like Hodor’s Bastard says,

    there are 4 Starks remaining, 5 if you include Jon. And ‘Aegon’ is not a Targaryen. So unless you think Tyrion is a Targ, that leaves you with just 2.

    It’s like that whole Ragnarok theory that many people believe GRRM is following. It’s interesting, but in the end it is not what Martin is doing, as Elio and Linda pretty much confirmed in their Reddit AMA, if I recall correctly(I just quickly browsed and didn’t pay much attention).

  121. Liv,

    Did anyone here see that tweet on his actual page before it was deleted? Because if it’s legit, to quote Joe Biden, it’s “a big fucking deal”.

  122. Tyrion Pimpslap,

    Indeed. I doubt he’d troll, that wouldn’t be too professional for a guy that’s an actor, writer and director (as I’ve learned from trawling through his tweets and websites in the last hour) and works a lot. So either that particular image is a fake (which wouldn’t gel with the fact that Tim Plester just deleted his other twitter account which also talked about being in Belfast quite a bit) OR, you know, SHE’S BACK.

  123. SH-gate Episode 9?

    I still think the the character is in, simply due to them not talking about it. MF’s ol “I can’t talk about that” wouldn’t happen if the cut was made…and after all the backlash, they’d have explained why the cut was made by now.

  124. Liv,

    Hahahahaha, I retweeted that earlier thinking it meant a new show for Michelle (and not really a drama). She *is* from Belfast, so, it could well be that.

  125. Since Greenjones asked me to post this here, as well:

    Both the screenshot of Tim Plester’s twitter account with the post about

    Michelle Fairley

    and his live account without the tweet say “158 Tweets” at the top. So unless Twitter counts deleted tweets in its tweet-count, it’s a fake.

    The tweet in question is also rather dissimilar to his other posts on that account, both in content and form. All his other tweets there seem to be about his own movie projects, and all his tweets using larger font sizes are bolded, whereas the tweet in question is not.

  126. Liam,

    So do you mean you saw it on twitter before it was deleted? Of course that would be impossible to prove unless you made an entirely separate screencap of it…

  127. I don’t get any of this and my name isn’t Steve.

    Emilia is celebrating her birthday when it’s not her birthday, and someone is faking LS news?

    I’m still reading ASOS but I know all major plot points because I spoiled myself before I decided to read the books. But I’ve been out fucking strippers the last two weeks and stopped reading for a while only I came back to ASOS to read like two chapters during one of those days and it was a really fucking lame Sansa chapter where she just kind of sits around on The Fingers and moans about how bored she is. Then her aunt shows up and fucks LF. It was really badly written too. Worst written chapter I can recall so far.

    Haven’t exactly been excited to read on since then. I should though. They’re good books.

    So is LS in or not? Someone let me know when this shit is verified or confirmed fake.

  128. Greenjones,

    Yeah I follow him. Honestly my first instinct was that he was being ironic about working with Cat (whom he killed!). If this is news, I really don’t think it’s GOT-related.

  129. Liam,

    If it is legit, I would be surprised if it wasn’t Thrones-related.

    What stumps me is him having two accounts one of which he just deleted hours ago. And yet he posted that tidbit on the account he hasn’t used since October the 18th instead of the more commonly used one?

  130. In the last picture, there is a leg between Daario and the man who is filming. I think that it could be Tyrion, don’t you think?

    I can’t wait to see this scene! It was confirmed that this is going to be in the 9th episode. So, do you think that we are going to see what happens in the last chapter of Daenerys in ADWD?

  131. Liv,

    This is either a fake done by a troll (which is actually pretty easy to do) or it’s BIG. Fingers crossed.

    Tyrion Pimpslap,

    They exist. And they look weird as hell (no offense to black albinos). But yeah, I don’t know why I remembered him as an albino

  132. Liam,

    So he actually posted that tweet? And that isn’t a troll account?

    Tibatonk,

    It takes a few moments to register, I think. So if you opened his twitter a couple of seconds after he deleted the tweet, it’s possible it was just glitching. Is it still 158? Or is that the account he deleted?

    Anyway, pretty much the same thing happened with Anguy’s actor in season 4 (but it was less detailed and nobody screen capped it) so I wouldn’t get too excited.

  133. Greenjones,

    Hmmm. Weird that Liam says he saw the tweet.

    But if the actor deleted the other account, it makes sense that he’d start using the 158 one.

    Matsuki,

    I know, I fucked up. Brain fart.

  134. Tibatonk,

    Fake or not, that is rather flimsy counterevidence. It would hardly be the first time Twitter does this. And also, it literally would take one second to photoshop that number.

    The logical solution would be just to ask the actor directly. Maybe he won’t say anything, but asking doesn’t hurt.

  135. jentario,

    The other account was deleted after the tweet supposedly was though. I’ve been convinced by ctid1977’s posts over at AFOIAF that the tweet was likely fake and the other account even may have been. It’s too bad, I’d gotten really excited there for an hour or so…

    But then there’s always the chance that it’s legit…(gazes wistfully out the window). It really seems not though. Alas.

    I bet wicnet reports it as if it was 100 % legit though…seems in their wheelhouse.

  136. Adam

    Can easily be faked, yeah….but then why delete it? Why from a reasonably feasible account? Remember last year when we got the heart of stones image? (likely about the time the actors got info on the next season)

  137. Matsuki,

    I’m saying that the “troll” could have easily written “159” if he was so inclined. That’s actually one of the things that makes me think it’s *not* a fake. And I didn’t see the account with the Belfast stuff that would presumably be the final nail in the coffin. Is there no way to trace that using Google?

  138. Adam,

    I saw it and linked it here while it was still active. It was taken down tonight. I’ve been convinced though, that it too may have been fake. This may have been strange long con trolling.

  139. Greenjones,

    I’m not saying I don’t believe you, but are you sure it was him and not some other guy with the same name? And also, how can deleting a twitter that no one saw be long con trolling?

  140. Adam,

    It had a picture of the actor and most of the tweets pertained to Belfast and N.I. I thought that it must’ve been his social/personal account while the other one was more of a professional one but the long con trolling angle would be if someone made a fake account for the actor and tweeted about Belfast so as to make the picture believable.

    I’m not convinced that anyone would go through that much effort for one bit of trolling but then people are endlessly surprising in the lengths they’ll go to lend credibility to hoaxes.

  141. Greenjones,

    I see. I guess the trolling angle would make sense if he had actually tweeted about GOT from his Belfast account, but he didn’t. In fact, we wouldn’t even know the other account existed if you hadn’t linked us to it. To me it being gone reeks of damage control but guess we’ll see.

  142. Adam,

    Well presumably if it was clever trolling the account would be deleted so that it would resemble damage control. Anyways, I guess we won’t know until we get more info. And if we don’t get more info we won’t know until next Spring. So we’re right back where we started.

  143. Adam,

    Well, if that’s too flimsy for you “Adam”, try this:

    – The little avatar in the post in question is further to the left then they usually are on twitter.
    – The avatar below is even further to the left, you can easily see the difference between the screenshot and the live account with you own eyes.
    -The thin grey line between the post in question and the next one does not extend all the way to the right border if you look closely, but stops a few pixels before, then continues a little bit further down.
    – In the second tweet, a retweet from someone called “The End”, in the screenshot the disclaimer “Tim Plester retweeted” is missing. I think that pretty much proves it.

  144. Matsuki,

    Can we just forget about that picture? It was just Lena Headey forming a “heart of stones” on the beach for fun and posting a picture of it. Nothing to do with GoT or LS.

  145. Seriously, who are you to mock my name? “Tibatonk”.

    And… I’ve no idea what you just said. Are you discussing an autopsy?

  146. Adam,

    He’s discussing the discrepancies between the image of the supposed Tim Plester tweet and what his twitter page actually looks like. Discrepancies that would point to the image being a sloppy bit of photoshop (sadly).

  147. yeah it’s 100% fake: as well as the above notes from Tibatonk, the grey line at the bottom of the tweet is way too close to the text.

    that and the fact that noone would be stupid enough (especially the actors themselves) to reveal one of the show’s most controversial scenes and closely guarded secrets on twitter.

  148. Adam,

    I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend. It’s a lovely name. One of the oldest ones around, I hear. And nearly as nice as Roger, Liv, and Liam.

  149. Not more LSH speculation again… sheesh. I’m over this. Unless someone has some actual news I am prepared to just wait and see.

    I also think they would not cast AAA for something small. I can’t wait to see him in whatever role! I think a Moqorro/Benerro hybrid priest would maybe be different enough to count as a character not in the books. maybe.

    I think I may have suggested first (but probably someone else also, we all seem to have the same good ideas around here!) that they could remove Ser Barristan from Meereen by sending him to Dorne as the mystery guest. I argued this would be a good way to get him away from Tyrion if disguise was required, and Ser B is the only prominent Westerosi Dany has at her disposal to act as an envoy, now that Jorah is gone. (Even with Jorah around I would choose Ser B rather than the discredited slaver to represent my royal interests). While I think it’s a very slim chance, it would be a possibility that keeps Ser B out of Meereen but still alive, which was the straw I was grasping for 🙂 I’m sure if that is the case that Daario and Jorah will have to take over some of Barristan’s ADWD/TWOW material, I would not be surprised if they feature those unsullied fan favorites over Ser B.

  150. Some of Y’all still keep holding on to the dream that LS will be included. Its charming more so than annoying at this point, however that could change on a whim.

  151. I’m not one to make bold statements without evidence, however I think I can safely say that no one who hasn’t read the books ventures in these posts anymore. And if they do, shame on you Ros’ Merkin.

    Also why do we call them unsullied? Isn’t that a slap in GRRMs disgusting beard?

  152. I’ve always thought that Geroge loves his “near-misses” too much.

    It never made any sense to me that Jorah was stuck in a damn cage 300 yards from Dany in that stupid pit and never got to see her! So to this change, I say HELL YEAH!
    I mean Dany is still gonna get on her dragon, even if Jorah is there. Just gonna be more motivation for her to get whatever shit she’s gonna do wtih the Dothraki done, and then come take care of business!!
  153. Hodor’s Bastard,

    Hodor’s Bastard: Four remaining Starks aside (and a fifth T-S combo), I see your rationale but I think you pigeon-holed it into “threes”.

    Three. Bran is

    a tree! Unless he’s going to go Ent on us, he is out of the picture

    . (Actually, that is only barely a spoiler: but I suppose that the end of last season did not totally confirm it.

    As for Jon, the books make it pretty clear that

    Jon will not put his hat into that ring under any circumstance

    . Now, there was the whole

    Robb’s Will issue, which is one of those that is amusing because it gets a ton of attention from fans even though it come up only once in the books. The TV show should nuke it: the perfect episode to introduce this was the one that Martin himself scripted! It will be called a red herring,

    but it really was a Chekhovian wall: in the books, it rehung the Who is Jon’s Mother gun (which they did differently on the TV show, with Catelyn’s weaving of “save my child from the grumpkins” doll (or whatever it was), and it might have hung the

    Blackfyre gun [if that is a gun and not another wall decoration

    .

    As for the triangles, I don’t think that Marting is pushing some Hinduesque things-coming-in-threes issue; instead, it’s simply another way to show it’s not “good” vs. “evil” but different sides. It should make the reader feel conflicted. More to the point, it will introduce conflict for both the major and minor protagonists. It’s a tool, nothing more and nothing less.

  154. Jaime’s girl: Not more

    LSH speculation

    again… sheesh. I’m over this. Unless someone has some actual news I am prepared to just wait and see.

    Doctor Who just provided a nice example of how

    LS should be done should LS be important enough to bring back to the TV show.

    (And, no, we don’t know that yet.)

    There, they had an apparent antagonist appear in snippets all season, with hints that this might be an old antagonist. We got a reveal in the closing moments of the penultimate episode.

    Something similar could be done very easily here. (And, no, the “sullied” won’t spoil it for the unsullied: the vast majority of viewers don’t go out of their way at all to learn things about TV shows that they watch!)

  155. Patchface,

    It looks like you are right about Tim Plester being in Belfast. His most recent mentions has people sending him pictures of beautiful places there. However, you probably shouldn’t

    give ppl hope about LSH they are still disappointed about the season 4 finale. Although I get a kick out of LSH appearing in season 5 just to spite fans for spoiling her. The moment will definitely not be as big as it would have before ppl went batshit crazy due to her absence.
  156. Wimsey,

    Do you mind posting the link of that Dr Who reveal? I would like to check it out before I say it would work for game of thrones

  157. GiGAHEART:
    http://imgur.com/ddBFA2P

    This pretty much confirms that the tweet in question is fake.I just tried that on my twitter account and everything is all lined up and stuff.Yet on Plester’s it looks odd,,,

    Yup definitely fake. Some really bad photoshop skills at display in that image. And some really hard trolling

  158. Turncloak: Yup definitely fake. Some really bad photoshop skills at display in that image. And some really hard trolling

    Even the font color is different lol. Very amateur indeed. What a shame… if I’d known so many people could be fooled by THAT alone I should have done it myself. I would have made the screenshot flawless.

  159. I’d say that if Plester was in Belfast and if it was in any way GoT-related, it’s far more likely he’d be getting ready for the

    Winterfell story as that would start to shoot very soon. The LSH stuff is out of left field.
  160. Turncloak: The moment will definitely not be as big as it would have before ppl went batshit crazy due to

    her absence

    .

    You are strongly overestimating the influence/impact hardcore fans have on the general public! Any “fan fury”

    about LS’s absence from Season 4

    went entirely unnoticed by Jane & Joe Viewer.

  161. King Tommen:
    I’d say that if Plester was in Belfast and if it was in any way GoT-related, it’s far more likely he’d be getting ready for the

    Winterfell story as that would start to shoot very soon. The LSH stuff is out of left field.

    Let’s hope so ! We could do with a couple more

    Freys

    up there !

  162. Greenjones,

    I’m surprised there aren’t more trollish actions like this and fake news regarding

    LSH on GoT. Every news agency seems to have had an article on this questionable deviation. Tomfoolery abounds. MF has pursued her own “Resurrection” elsewhere. 🙂
    Sadly in GoT, Cat lies at the bottom of the Trident, rotting, decaying, fishfood, never to be found by Nymeria.
  163. Can we at least get Nymeria back? She’s cooler than

    LSH anyway… Maisie said in an interview how excited she was for potentially warging with Nymeria and we can’t let her be sad!
  164. Wimsey,

    Bran is not Bloodraven. He will learn and he will fly. Imo, his “roots” will not be as stationary and set in weirwood soil….

    Btw, you coined a great term: “Blackfyre gun”. Respectfully, I shall use it as well, henceforth. 🙂

  165. Lord Elmo Tully:
    Turncloak,

    Your theories really really sound dumb. Why would they make Asha or Sansa be fake Arya when they can just useone of Ramsays crazy girlfriends for that role. I really don’t get your obsession with the Manderlys, they are useless nothing interesting about them. Theon, Mance, Roose, and Ramsay are going to make excellent tv and I hope they don’t waste Mance screen time on stupid minor characters.

    My theories are how I think the show will handle the different threads. The show often combines roles into one character. Quite frankly I don’t see the Northern storyline being as good if we don’t have someone take the roles of Wyman, Lady Dustin, and Fake Arya.

    Considering Theon is one of D&Ds favorite character I’m refuse to believe that they will ignore these 3 characters (or roles) who played such an important part in Theon’s arc

  166. Turncloak,

    I’m hoping/thinking that D&D cut out the Iron Islands subplot because they needed the time for the North- you’re right they seem to love Theon! Yes, there could be some combining and substituting with the Winterfell stuff, but cutting it to bare bones (Roose, Ramsay, Theon, Jeyne, Mance, some northern lord to play off/Dustin/Wyman, plus extras to act as northern soldiers/winterfell residents) would be fine without much additional casting and lots of indoor shooting so we might not know. Or so I’m going to tell myself! 🙂 There was already a casting of someone who could potentially be Jeyne (or not, the notorious “Winterfell worker”) and one who could potentially be Lady Dustin, so there’s hope! I think (for once) the book plot just simplified is maybe less complicated than bringing in Yara or Sansa for Ramsay to wed. And I highly doubt Yara would consent to that anyway, they need someone pliable, Yara/Asha would chop Ramsay to pieces before she let him wed her 😉

  167. My tinfoil theory on Grey Worm and Barristan missing:

    Grey Worm is being merged with the Shavepate, who was cut from the show. Book Shavepate opposes the Hizdahr marriage because it’s a set back for his family, show Grey Worm opposes it because he doesn’t want peace with the old masters. After a lifetime of slavery, he wants them stamped out, not compromised with. Book Shavepate poisons the locusts to try and frame Hizdahr as the Harpy and scuttle the marriage. Show Grey Worm at some point captures a handful of Harpy masks and dresses slaves/unsullied up in them to attack at Daznak’s Pit to frame Hizdahr as the Harpy and break the truce. Book Shavepate then dupes Barristan into launching the coup against Hizdahr and triggering the final battle with Yunkai. Show Grey Worm, at the time of Daznak’s Pit, is leading Barristan away to show him “evidence” that Hizdahr is plotting something, so that he can get Barry on his side after the attack goes down, to the same effect as the book: a coup against Hizdahr and a battle with Yunkai. (Maybe, going by the scene with the two of them in the tavern, they’re jointly in charge of investigating the Harpy, which is why no one would find it odd that they would have business elsewhere during the ceremonies at the Pit?)

    That also gets Barristan away from the pit, where Hizdahr has Tyrion in public for the first time, so that Tyrion can’t be identified right away. It also gives a pretty satisfactory arc to Grey Worm, after all the time they’ve spent developing him, letting him become a player instead of just a soldier.

    That’s my crazy theory to how this is all going down and I’m sticking with it.

  168. Jaime’s girl,

    Agree I really don’t like the theory of Yara being Ramsay’s prisoner or bride at all. In an ideal world they would do as you said and keep the plot as close to the book as possible. The reason for my Sansa theory is due to the lack of casting announcements in the North and the fact that we have no idea what Sansa will be doing from here on out. Along with the precedence of combining certain roles into one (Carice van Houten assumed the roles of both Melisandre and the Ghost of High Heart, Dempsie played the roles of both Gendry and Edric Storm, we also have Bronn who played the captain of the Goldcloaks and Ilyn Payne’s role of trainer to Jaime as the actor for Ilyn Payne was ill with cancer). Also, Littlefinger was the one who trained Jeyne Pool and helped arrange her marriage to Ramsay so theres that.

  169. Afeastfordances,

    I like where you’re going with this but this

    Greyworm = Shavepate plot

    but it’s probably too complex for the show to pull off. I could have seen that working in the book though if the

    Shavepate

    didn’t exist

  170. PLEASE continue to use spoiler tags. And remember that

    LSH

    is STILL a spoiler as are the discussion of upcoming plot points (like

    Frey pie or For the Watch

    . Using code words isn’t enough obfuscation.

  171. Jared,
    I think you have the right of it here. I like your thinking.

    Wimsey,

    I am looking forward to Maleficent Stark, both next season and in WoW: although it might take me a bit to get used to the idea of Sansa using more than 2 neurons at a time

    Whoa Nelly! Them is fighting words for Sansa fans (and I don’t consider myself a Sansa fan–I’m more of an Arya and Tyrion fan), particularly those who feel that she was misunderstood by the majority of readers and given short shift in the show. I have to say in her defense, Sansa was and is, after all, only a teenager and if she thought/thinks that the world revolves around her, one can hardly blame her. Even Arya, who so many people seem to admire more, is reacting to her hardships in a very self-centric way. She wants revenge and she’ll get it come hell or high water. Show me a teenager that doesn’t react in one of these two ways to adversity (poor me v I hate the world) . In fact any teenager not thinking that way would be the rare exception particularly in light of what they’ve both gone through. So I can’t agree with you about Sansa being dumb…she’s immature and naive but not dumb. If she was dumb, I honestly think she’d be dead already.

  172. Turncloak: Agree I really don’t like the theory of Yara being Ramsay’s prisoner or bride at all

    . It is not a “theory” or hypothesis or anything like that. (People using the word “theory” for “hypothesis” is a pet peeve of mine: still worse when they use it for something less than a hypothesis!) I merely suggested that as one possible way to adapt the plot to suit the story. There are innumerable others. Ultimately, whatever it is, it has to serve one major purpose:

    get Reek to re-evolve into Theon

    .

    Jaime’s girl:
    I’m hoping/thinking that D&D cut out the Iron Islands subplot because they needed the time for the North- you’re right they seem to love Theon!

    Well, Theon is a very interesting character, and interesting characters are the ones for which it is most fun to write. Interesting characters also hook the audience: people might not like Theon, but audiences also find characters of Theon’s sort interesting. Martin (and subsequently B& W) use him well to communicate the different types of internal conflict that are the individual stories. And he’s very relevant to next season’s story!

  173. Afeastfordances,

    It’s a cool idea, but I don’t feel like Grey Worm would be disobedient to Dany, no matter how he felt personally.

    Also, I don’t know how it’s going to play out, but I would imagine if Tyrion is serving Hizdahr (still not clear) that Barristan needs to be away from Meereen, not just the pit itself.

    Sorry it was me, Dame Pasty! I just got mocked today for still using spoiler tags and yet I forgot in the very same thread! 🙁 There I go, trying to be a good newbie and blowing it!

  174. Hodor’s Bastard: Bran is not Bloodraven. He will learn and he will fly. Imo, his “roots” will not be as stationary and set in weirwood soil….

    Mayhaps, although he doesn’t expect that, and we have no evidence that this can be the case. Moreover, if Bran does return, then it is still a triangle: Bran’s claim will supersede Rickon’s, and it will then be Brother vs. Sister 1 vs. Sister 2 in terms of supported claimants for the seat at Winterfell. (Bringing back Bran in this way would leave open all of the same potential issues: primogeniture says that it’s his, but Arya and possibly Sansa are going to earn it.)

    Hodor’s Bastard:
    Btw, you coined a great term: “Blackfyre gun”. Respectfully, I shall use it as well, henceforth.

    Aw, thanks. I really do not know what Varys’ game is, but my best hunch (which is to say the one that I deem least implausible at this point!) is that he’s a Blackfyre scion himself. He might not like the Reds, but he’s going to help a Dragon before a Stag or Lion! (This probably is wrong: but it’s not the worst idea out there.)

    (I didn’t “spoiler” it because it’s pure speculation on my part. One of the big questions that the show raises is, why is Varys doing what he’s doing: and only Littlefinger perplexes me more than Varys!)

  175. Jaime’s girl,

    Mockers are gonna mock, amiright? 😉 Don’t let them discourage you from using spoiler tags.

    Sue and I spend a lot of time going over comments, trying to spoiler out stuff. Not scolding you, just want to remind everyone that when you make us spend too much time correcting comments it makes it that much harder to find time to bring you all awesome content. Help us make WotW the best GoT site on the Web for Sullied and Unsullied alike. Help us, help you–corny, but true.

  176. Of the Night,

    Those are black albinos, but their skin is not dark. I said ‘black skinned’ albinos don’t exist, and I am right. Any ethnicity/race that suffers from the condition will have the same pale skin and hair.

  177. I am still unsure as to who these mystery Unsullied fans are who willfully go into the comment sections of stories about upcoming plotlines and try and read them and not get spoiled on future events.

    Can someone please identify themselves as a fan of the show with no future knowledge of events and no wish to discover spoilers about future events and yet still reads articles and their comments that specifically reference future events? What joy do you get from reading heavily redacted posts and comments that probably end up spoiling things for you anyways? It’s my experience that 99% of the people who comment on this site have read the books. Is this inaccurate?

    I have a hard time believing this Unsullied poster actually exists. If they do, please explain your psychology to me because I have to understand it.

  178. Here’s an idea: on Westeros.org for example, there are threads on their forum (most of them to be honest), that are labelled “Book Spoilers” right in the title. That is the indicator that people can post away without trying to determine what or what might not be a spoiler. I think if the same principle held here, it would save everyone (especially the mods) a lot of work. Work that I might add, which seems to be fairly unnecessary given the overall makeup of the posters here.

  179. Dame Pasty:
    Jared,
    I think you have the right of it here.I like your thinking.

    Wimsey,

    Whoa Nelly! Them is fighting words for Sansa fans (and I don’t consider myself a Sansa fan–I’m more of an Arya and Tyrion fan), particularly those who feel that she was misunderstood by the majority of readers and given short shift in the show.I have to say in her defense, Sansa was and is, after all, only a teenager and if she thought/thinks that the world revolves around her, one can hardly blame her.Even Arya, who so many people seem to admire more, is reacting to her hardships in a very self-centric way.She wants revenge and she’ll get it come hell or high water.Show me a teenager that doesn’t react in one of these two ways to adversity (poor me v I hate the world) .In fact any teenager not thinking that way would be the rare exception particularly in light of what they’ve both gone through.So I can’t agree with you about Sansa being dumb…she’s immature and naive but not dumb.If she was dumb, I honestly think she’d be dead already.

    How lucky the adult characters in ASOAIF are not self-centered at all, even when, for the majority of their arc at least, they didn’t have to fight for survival. Then we can have such pleasure as reading all those Tyrion chapters or Jaime’s chapters* that show how totally not self-centered their internal thoughts are and how they don’t see themselves as the center of the world at all. 🙂

    * I’m leaving out easy targets like Cersei, Theon or “poor me, I had to beat my wife to death” Victarion and focusing on the more popular characters.

  180. Wimsey,

    We are not speaking in scientific terms so using “theory” instead of “hypothesis” is suitable for conversations of this kind

  181. King Tommen,

    Would be an idea. I think most Unsullied don’t come here during the off-season as most of the posts are filled with spoilers anyway, but if you want ot increase the numer who do visit the site that would be a positive.

  182. Patchface,

    Another wtf decision. Must be for economic reasons, definitely not for logic or continuity reasons. People just disappear, right?

  183. Turncloak: We are not speaking in scientific terms so using “theory” instead of “hypothesis” is suitable for conversations of this kind

    *grumble* Besides the fact that I’m a scientist, the other reason it bugs me is that the “theory” also applies to writing and TV production. Martin adheres to a particular theory of story-telling, just as Bach adhered to a particular theory of musical composition. By using “theory” for both “conjecture” (be it hypothesis or just tin-hat), it gets confusing! (And it’s important because they story-telling theory to which Martin adheres should inform us about where he is not going with some of his plots, just as it did for Rowling.)

  184. This whole thread is an epic mishmash of bad photoshop and misunderstanding. I follow both Tim accounts on Twitter (https://twitter.com/SimoneMafo in case you want to ask me there), and that message was definitely there yesterday. Looks like someone screencapped that particular tweet and then edited it to fit his Twitter after it had been deleted. Bad call, but the words themselves are the same.

  185. Patchface: Also, Clive Russell will not be in the season.

    Well, given that his character wasn’t in either book that they are doing this season, should that surprise us? At any rate, he was an indirect foil for Jaime: and as they are electing to tell Jaime’s part of the story in a different way, that indirect foil no longer serves any purpose, at least in this story.

  186. Patchface,

    Thanks for the additional info! I guess if

    Clive Russell is “taking the season off” there is good hope for him returning for S6

    which I think a lot of us would love!

    I wonder who is this brotherhood member returning but not the rest? I would say if they are not going to

    return to the Riverlands

    that might be the missing Gendry, still rowing! 😉

    Wimsey,

    I hear you, I’m a scientist too, but I think it’s something that’s not going to change. As long as people understand the difference between theory in science and theory as in just an idea, I’m cool with it!

  187. SamJam199: And what notable qualities do those no name minor characters from the books have, stop embarrasing yourself ,you’re pathetic .

    The notable qualities are that they actually exist, there are light descriptions of their appearance and character and they have had dialgoue and interaction with the main characters which is way more than any made up characters have.
    I’m sorry. I thought name-calling and being aggressive on forums was embarassing and pathetic. But if you’re doing it then I guess not eh?

  188. Annara Snow,

    I didn’t mean to imply that Sansa and Arya are the only self-centered characters. And perhaps I should have not characterized their self-centered perspective as being a quality reserved for teenagers. I did, however, absolutely mean to communicate that I think Sansa and Arya should be cut some slack precisely because of their age. And you make an excellent point many fans are too quick to focus on Sansa and dislike her for the very same qualities they ignore in their favorite adult characters.

  189. Wimsey: Well, given that his character wasn’t in either book that they are doing this season, should that surprise us?

    Why would you say this? Very confusing. We have debated this for a few months now. BF is clear and present in AFfC and is fairly relevant….not just as a foil. BF missing for 2 seasons in GoT will be a tragedy. 🙁

  190. King Tommen,
    The decision to require spoiler tags was made long ago in our previous incarnation and that tradition will continue. We cannot always be sure that an Unsullied viewer will enter a post through a purposeful click on the title. A person could arrive here via a link to a specific comment and never even see the post or it’s title. In the meantime, while trying to even leave the screen they can see something they didn’t want to. So putting a note in the title is not sufficient Furthermore, someone could take a screenshot of a spoilery comment, post that image elsewhere and cite this site as the source–making us the spoilers, albeit unfairly. And many other reasons.

    I will concede that we could make it easier by providing a “spoiler” button on the comment form so I will take a look at that to see if we can technically do this (we’re using a plug in and there may already be reasons I am not aware of as to why we can’t provide that button). But I will take a look at it.

    All that being said, the policy stands until and unless Sue the Fury, Editor extraordinaire tells me differently.

  191. Interesting that Plester is actually in Belfast (according to his Facebook, was it?). Still might not be for GOT, but I always wanted one of those Freys to return for the Winterfell storyline (which now seems possible).
  192. Turncloak: My theories are how I think the show will handle the different threads. The show often combines roles into one character. Quite frankly I don’t see the Northern storyline being as good if we don’t have someone take the roles of

    Wyman, Lady Dustin, and Fake Arya.

    The latter is probably in. The character doesn’t matter. The relationship to

    Theon is what matters there, and his desire to save an innocent at great cost to himself.

    The middle one can be easily cut, and maybe it’s just me, but I never got

    the fascination with her

    .

    And we need the former! BRIAN BLESSED!

  193. We need some new substantial news to get our teeth into as at the moment we’re squabbling over scraps! (not a criticism of the reporters, it’s just there’s nothing about!). The speculation is fun but is albeit still just speculation. No one can make any firm claims until there is real evidence to back it up.

  194. jentario,

    Wouldn’t say it was that huge but I guess it’s subjective. In all honesty, I’m a bit bored of Mereen and Dorne news. Partly because I prefer otehr areas and partly because there’s been a lot of it. Like yourself, I’m waiting for news of what’s going on in the North, Riverlands, Vale and Iron Islands ( all signs point to nothing!).

  195. Hodor’s Bastard: Why would you say this? Very confusing. We have debated this for a few months now. BF is clear and present in AFfC and is fairly relevant….not just as a foil. BF missing for 2 seasons in GoT will be a tragedy.

    It’s clear the show has taken pains to have the Blackfish skip the Riverlands stuff by having him be MIA and “on the run” after the Red Wedding. That was the reason they had him go there and take his infamous “piss”. Since him escaping and being on the run is the only real plot-related element from Jaime’s AFFC story they needed to retain, they just had it happen earlier (Season 3) so that when it was important for him to re-enter the story in later seasons, they could do so. This has been clear for some time.

    If you’re still holding out for irrelevant Riverrun siege stuff at this point, I don’t know what to do for ya.

  196. Patchface,

    Patchface, you say you can’t say your information now, but could give us clues related to the information your sources told you that is a big spolier? Like a list of 10 words for example, like «sword» «chaos» «blood orange», etc. Just so we can keep guessing 🙂

  197. Laurence:
    Patchface,

    Patchface, you say you can’t say your information now, but could give us clues related to the information your sources told you that is a big spolier? Like a list of 10 words for example, like «sword» «chaos» «blood orange», etc. Just so we can keep guessing

    Or at least say whether it’s a change you think people would be upset about.

  198. What really matters is this: is Ben Hawkey returning as Hot Pie? Can’t someone visit the Prancing Pony, er, Inn at the Crossroads, for no good reason?

  199. Patchface,

    Lady Stoneheart in Dorne would be my guess based on that. Also when you say at least one Brotherhood member and not Beric. That narrows it down to Thoros and/or Anguy. The show hasn’t fleshed out or named any others. Unless you count Gendry that is, but I don’t think he could still be considered a member any more in the show version.
  200. Hodor’s Bastard: BF is clear and present in AFfC and is fairly relevant….not just as a foil

    How is BF anything but a foil? BF’s sole purpose in the story is

    as an antagonist to Jaime, in order to see if Jaime will act as ruthlessly as Tywin would have acted.

    That’s pretty much the diagnosis of “foil!” (Side note: now that I’ve read the “history” of Westeros, I can see just what a tall task that was! I mean,

    drowning an entire house?!?! It tells us a lot about Westorsi morality that very few people were all that disturbed by that, too.

    At any rate, I don’t even recall BF having any lines, although I suppose it’s possible he had a couple somewhere. (Although I appreciated what Martin was doing with the Jaime, the details around him slid off of my brain very quickly: only the general point sticks with me, and that is thanks to his Aunt’s closing line!)

    At any rate, unless they transplant another protagonist into the Riverlands for whom BF can be an antagonist, all of that stuff just becomes plot-for-the-sake-of-plot. Phantom Menace put me off of that for life! 🙂

  201. King Tommen,

    I’ll piss and moan where I want to, but my comment was not about an irrational desire to see a key AFfC plot element realized, but more about the inaccuracy of the comment to which I was responding. I fully accept the show change, but the real issue here is the considerable buildup of BF in S3, only to have him disappear into thin air. I cry “foul play!”

    Please don’t play the book card…BF has only been absent for a few chapters, considering the chronologically overlapping connection between AFfC and ADwD, so he’s bound to show up soon. Regarding BF, leeches, RW northern lords fallout, Nymeria, WWs, we need some continuity with the minor stuff, if only a few scenes.

  202. Wimsey,

    Perhaps I am a bit defensive about BF. I always considered him to be one of the last bastions of hope for the riverlands and neck.

    His solid banter and attitude with Jaime (one of my favorite conversations in ASoI&F) followed by his magical (underwater? tunnels? cloak-and-dagger?) escape was simply brimming with revelation and defiance! Even in the show, how could one not want to see him reappear (if only to spoil Sullied pessimists) after his few amazing scenes in S3? Come on…get on the BF bandwagon! 🙂
  203. jentario,

    Well concerning Winterfell, fans need to be patient, after all they just recently began filming Northern story lines these past couple of weeks, besides some stuff back in the summer. I read somewhere the on location N.I. shoot will last into December. I am sure sound stage filming has been rolling for months though, perhaps all the Croatia, Spain stuff has kept attention focused away from N.I. for a reason, one can only theorize.

  204. Greenjones,

    He’s obviously talking about Lhara. She is going to travel to Pyke and give Balon the nastiest bj of his life. Lhara is a Faceless Woman confirmed.

  205. Hodor’s Bastard: ome on…get on the BF bandwagon

    Oh, I find BF kind of cool, myself. In particular, he seems to be the only Tully that didn’t get completely smothered by Hoster. I like a person willing to stand up to family authority, myself!

    That written, it seems to me that they’d need a major expansion of the character to pull him into this next season: and the last thing that they need to do is expand the number of major characters right now. Multi-protagonists are a two-edged sword: having just one protagonist (a la Harry Potter) can make viewing or reading a bit “stale,” because you are getting things from the same vantage all the time. However, too many protagonists, and you run the risk of some not getting enough development or dynamic development to communicate the story. Thrones is definitely teetering towards the latter right now! (And as we’ve discussed before, I think that the addition of new protagonists to Crows is the single biggest reason for the criticism of that book: I would prefer that the show avoid that possibility.)

    On a side note, this would be a cool thing to try: edit each season so that it is like a single protagonist story, and you watch all of the Jon Snow scenes consecutively, then all of the Tyrion scenes, etc. You’d watch a lot of scenes more than once as more than one protagonist is present. In a way, that would provide a sort of test for how many characters you really can do in 10 hours. (In re-reading the books recently electronically, I did that: and it’s actually sort of interesting!)

  206. Nymeria Warrior Queen,

    🙂 🙂

    Btw, if you haven’t read the section about your namesake in TWoI&F, I recommend it highly. The original Nymeria is a very well conceived historical character. Amazing what she did for the Martell and Dayne houses, as well as initiate the unisex heir ideology that is well-supported in Dorne. Fuckin’ awesome woman in this fake history!

  207. simone,

    That’s the exact same thing I retweeted yesterday, yeah. Sounds like someone at HBO made an intentional hatchet job with it, since the picture that’s going around here is very badly photoshopped. And now everyone wins because it’s as if nothing ever happened!

    PS. Tim’s personal account is gone, by the way, but you can still see residual tweets of his friends talking about Belfast if you do a search.

  208. Greenjones,

    Hmm,

    So we correctly established that that twitter screenie was a fake, but now it might be a fake made up of a real tweet and the guy has deleted all his other social media…

    It really doesn’t add up at all.

    Now I’m second guessing my own second guessing of myself. Think I’ll just wait on April and pray for some Fat Man casting.

  209. Grrr…

    Redheads?

    I’m going to have to go with

    Sansa going to Winterfell. She gets offered in place of fake Arya (a secret plan Littlefinger shares only with the Boltons) and the rest of the plot is what you might expect from the books

    No this is not what I would write/want but it’s a thought… I mean really, what are other people picturing Sansa doing for a whole season? Any thoughts? I’ve come up with very little as far as ideas, other than interacting with Brienne…

  210. One possible reason that the actor kept up the one Twitter account (where the alleged Tweet came from) and closed his personal one (which did not tweet anything controversial out) is that the other account has been created specifically to promote his latest film project so he probably wouldn’t want to shut that one down if he didn’t have to.

    The personal account that he did delete last night was definitely his and he was tweeting about being in Belfast (although in very general terms, no filming or projects mentioned). I happened to check it out last night when someone mentioned that a Frey was in NI. All it confirmed was that he was currently in Belfast.

    If that tweet was legit, it’s kind of strange it came from the other account but maybe that’s where he puts “work-related” stuff, who knows.

    The deletion of his FB and Twitter profile almost immediately after the alleged tweet went out is the most damning evidence but I will say that some quick Twitter investigative work would seem to indicate Michelle Fairley was still filming “Resurrection” in Atlanta yesterday as a fan met her and a co-star on the set and got pictures.

  211. Greenjones,
    ctid,

    No, it’s just another of my false alarms. I tried going on his facebook page again after logging in and then it worked just fine. So, it wasn’t deleted. Sorry again folks.

  212. King Tommen,

    He didn’t delete his facebook after all (I was mistaken, see my above comment) and if MF is still shooting Resurrection then that one tweet is further confirmed to be a fake. If Plester is/was in N.I. for s5, I guess he’ll be in WF instead.

  213. Hodor’s Bastard:
    Nymeria Warrior Queen,

    Btw, if you haven’t read the section about your namesake in TWoI&F, I recommend it highly. The original Nymeria is a very well conceived historical character. Amazing what she did for the Martell and Dayne houses, as well as initiate the unisex heir ideology that is well-supported in Dorne. Fuckin’ awesome woman in this fake history!

    Thanks for letting me know! I had wondered if her story/background would be included. I became fascinated with her as soon as Arya explained why she named her direwolf Nymeria, and read everything I could find about her, which wasn’t that much.

  214. Now that I can do this…

    Again 2:1 for no Lady Stonheart in the TV series – my $200 to your $400 if she appears in the series – I am incredibly confidence she won’t be even though I thought she should
  215. ctid,

    Maybe. Gemma Whelan’s twitter and instagram give no hints as to where she is. That doesn’t mean she isn’t there but there’s no evidence she is either.

  216. I’m still a little bothered by the show moving so fast. Focusing on the details not only takes longer – but sets up more things for better payoffs. I expected 2 full seasons to cover books 4 and 5. They just skipped all of it and ended up in book 6 with dany and Tyrion and Jorah all together. Unless they are shooting scenes for Season 6 now and these leaks are red herrings

  217. Patchface,

    Wait, is this still about Thoros? Did he get a sex change? Is this why Finn Jones threw his script across the room? Because now he’ll never get to have a sex scene with him?

    Or … will he, and the somewhere we would not suspect is actually Loras’s penis? Please confirm if I’m right.

  218. Regarding the trolling thing, I suppose it’s possible that an actress could look in on her former place of work to see her old friends? (But then if an actress is shooting in America she can’t visiting old friends informally in Belfast [unless she borrowed Littlefinger’s jetpack?])

  219. OT:
    Mods: Are you aware of the ProbioSlim.com ad links under the “You may also like:” links? If so, never mind, nothing wrong with a little more ad money for the site, I’m just a little bit puzzled to see ads at a place that is not exactly well exposed to occasional visitors of the site.

  220. Greenjones,

    That’s actually more newsworthy than it looks at first glance!

    We really had no way to be sure how much time would be devoted to Winterfell. Theon and the Boltons had a significant presence throughout Season 4, but in terms of screentime it was 25 minutes (and 29 seconds), and Theon and Ramsay were only in 2 episodes and Roose merely in 1, much fewer than ever before. Don’t get me wrong, it made sense —previously he had been a supporting character around starring main characters, and now he is a main character of his own, but just not to the level of the Starks. The Theon & Bolton storyline last season —the Fall of Moat Cailin— was meaty enough, but it’s good to know they will have a larger presence the following season.

    I mean, if Myranda is in 4 episodes, it’s safe to assume Theon, Ramsay and Roose are in at least the same number, and probably a few more. Also, because of the directors we know she will not appear in episodes 1, 2, 7 or 8 —she will appear in four episodes amongst the following six: episodes 3, 4, 5, 6, 9 and 10.

  221. How come we havent seen Gilly and her babe yet, they were the main characters in the show last season?

    #Trollin
    #Butseriouslytheyhadwayyyytoomuchscreentime
    #hopetheyfallofthewall5mininto5thseason
    #ISITONLYMEEEEEWHOUNDERSTANDS?

  222. simone:
    This whole thread is an epic mishmash of bad photoshop and misunderstanding. I follow both Tim accounts on Twitter (https://twitter.com/SimoneMafo in case you want to ask me there), and that message was definitely there yesterday. Looks like someone screencapped that particular tweet and then edited it to fit his Twitter after it had been deleted. Bad call, but the words themselves are the same.

    Ehm…. That’s my twitter account. So…. stop trolling, please you’re not so smart.

  223. jentario,

    Well It’s hard to believe that Lhara is a facelesswoman 😛 but if Patchface is right (I want to believe he is) I think the redhead woman he was talking about was Lhara. The actress is returning, wich is a bit wierd to someone who last season played a braavosi courtesan for only 3-4 minutes. And I remember that Sarine Sofair tweeted a photo of an exterior filming in Northern Ireland some weeks ago.

  224. Tibatonk,

    Sounds like someone is bitter his stint with Photoshop didn’t fool a single soul. Try Paint next time, should be closer to your level.

  225. I agree with the very first poster on this thread – I want the fall-out from the RW to be addressed this season, particularly Blackfish and Edmure, and (if Patchface is genuine), it wont be, which is disappointing. There surely has to be a degree of continuity… or will they just let some threads (such as escape of the Blackfish) dangle indefinitely? It makes me wonder with the writers if they are making it up as they go somewhat – focussing season by season without thinking big picture.

  226. Ross,

    +1 for continuity, no matter how minor. Ya start it, ya build it, ya finish it. Respect the cognizant viewer. Three cheers for the 3rd leech!

  227. Ross,

    They aren’t making it along as they go along, Take Burn Gormon, for example, they cast hi as Karl in Season 3 knowing tat they would probably go back in Season 4. If they hadn’t got that planned they would have probably cast random actor #567.

    Riverrun is out, which makes sense for the show as it would just be fller, and if you want to have the audience have someone familiar in Dorne, Jaime is the easiest person to have. Once you have established that, the easiest people for the Blackkfish to interact with are Sansa and Brienne, but for what purpose GRRM has obviously got something in stor for the Blackdish in TWOW, so you may as well wait and do it then. Also, can see why they are delaying the other two as well.

  228. Hodor’s Bastard,

    I’ve noticed you keep posting about the leech. I’m getting the impression that you think the show is going to forget about the third leech/keep Balon alive. Is that correct?

    If so, I think you are offbase there. Note that last season “checked in” on Balon through the show at Joffrey’s wedding and intimated his death there. Also worth noting that the dwarf show unsurprisingly calls attention to Robb’s death, and of course Joffrey himself bites it- and those two were the other two leech victims.

  229. Ross: I agree with the very first poster on this thread – I want the fall-out from the RW to be addressed this season, particularly Blackfish and Edmure, and (if Patchface is genuine), it wont be, which is disappointing.

    What fallout are you discussing that has not been addressed? We see what’s happened to Sansa as a result; we see the reaction out of the Lords of the Vale, we see Roose Bolton establishing dominion over the North. What else is there? The Blackfish is on the run and that’s been established. Edmure is either prisoner or is back at Riverrun, and a prisoner there. That’s not “fallout.” Those are just minor dangling threads.

  230. Greenjones,

    Thanks for the link! Charles Dance’s Tywin will be missed.

    Hodor’s Bastard,

    LOL This is what happens when show derails from #BookCanon!!!

    King Tommen would have never whacked anyone if show!Tywin hadn’t had involved himself into his schooling as a ruler :p He used to be a good boy.

  231. Jordan,

    It’s more of a humorous tangent than anything else. It has evolved in its scope over the past year to represent a somewhat ubiquitous metaphor for all things incongruous within the show. Instead of an ambiguous reference in a dwarf show, I would prefer a more direct, assertive action regarding this issue and several others that have been initiated but not matured. Just a scene or two or a relevant conversation would suffice. But that’s just l’il ol’ me. 🙂

  232. Hodor’s Bastard,

    You know, there might be two separate issues here. If you mean the leech itself and Melisandre’s prophesies, then yes, that should be referenced, as it would hurt Melisandre’s credibility the longer Balon still lives.

    On the other hand, if you’re talking about the show keeping the audience conscious of Balon/the Ironborn, then that has been done quite well. Besides the dwarf show thing, Theon and Yara keep the audience abreast of that.

  233. Ragmans Harbor,

    It’s been disproved. Tibatonik and others can explain, I’ve gotta go to school.

    If someone would go on ASOIAF reddit and the GoT imdb and tell them it’s fake that would be great because they seem to believe it over there.

  234. Easiest way to debunk that tweet is to look at the tweet count. Right now his account say “158 tweets”. In the screencap it also says “158 tweets”, when it should in fact say “159 tweets” if the tweet was real.

  235. Ross: I want the fall-out from the RW to be addressed this season, particularly Blackfish and Edmure, and (if Patchface is genuine), it wont be, which is disappointing. There surely has to be a degree of continuity… or will they just let some threads (such as escape of the Blackfish) dangle indefinitely?

    The issue, as with all stories like the SoI&F stories, is keeping the show focussed on the protagonists. BF & Edmure are not protagonists: their role is to show us what kind of person one particular protagonist (Jaime). As they are going to tell that protagonist’s story in a different setting (although I’m betting that they’ll tell the same story in Dorne as Martin told in the Riverlands), that makes them a bit superfluous right now unless they could be reworked into the plot underlying Brienne’s story. (I could see working BF into it, but not Edmure.)

    Now, you can talk about this being “dangling”: however, if/when the Tully’s return, then it will require at least a couple of clips in the “Previously on Game of Thrones” segment: at this point, the general audiences have forgotten them. The issue is, when will they next become relevant to something a protagonist is doing? They might not wind up affecting any of the other protagonists. (I’d be surprised if that happens, but it’s a possibility.)

    Incidentally, “it’s not dangling anymore” also applies to the leech issue. When it is brought back, the scene of Mel dropping the leeches into the cauldron will have to be shown in the “Previously” montage: the audience has forgotten that a long time ago.

  236. I guess the answer to the question about what they were going to do after getting through all of Bran’s book material much earlier than everyone else is “slam on the brakes”.

    Makes me wonder what they have in store for Sansa given that she’s basically done all of her book material as well.

  237. King Tommen,

    Ugh. So they can invent shit for Yara and Crasters but they can’t explore Bran & Co a bit more? What a smokescreen for the pitiful characterizations of rootman (I can’t call the show version “Bloodraven”…I just can’t) and the Child of the Fireball.

    Maybe GRRM simply didn’t give Bran’s story away to D&D….saving it for himself? I think this speaks a lot to the idea that TWoW’s release in mid-2015 is definitely happening.

  238. King Tommen,

    Bad decision IMO. They could have had him in 3ish episodes (there was enough material in that one chapter for that, and they could always add a few Bran-Meera-Hodor-Children-3ER scenes to pad it out into more than just a couple of quick visions. I really liked how they handeled Theon and the Boltons in season 4, and that could have been similar.

    But now I just think people will forget Bran ever existed. Working him back into season 6 would most likely be awkward.

  239. King Tommen,

    Sansa has even less material than Bran (they practically jumped into TWOW in season 4). I don’t understand why she gets that treatment while Bran gets the shaft.

  240. Hodor’s Bastard,

    No, I just think Bran won’t have any POV chapters in TWOW either (or at least the first half or so). He already skipped half of ADWD, and I think that trend will continue. There simply isn’t enough Bran material to adapt into seven seasons. And I think that’s really lame (in the books, and in the show because they didn’t even try to do something about it).

  241. King Tommen,

    Wow. Big news. I didn’t expect this. The lack of Hodor always seemed weird to me if Bran was going to be back, but I imagined they’d make it work somehow. Then again, it may make sense for Bran to disappear for a while and, after a believable amount of time, come back as a powerful greenseer and warg. It also means that those expecting any more flashbacks than Cersei’s dream about Maggy will be sorely disappointed.

    jentario,

    Because Sansa is more intertwined with the other storylines. Bran can just sit under the three for a while and when we come back to him he’ll have learnt a lot and be actually useful. It’s also much easier to advance plot or invent things for Sansa than for Bran, since… Bran is in a cave, and he’ll probably be there for a while.

    Also, because Bran’s story has always received by far the worst critical reception, because of the slow progression. After the big reveal last season, it may be a good idea to make us wait for it, instead of being disappointed that not much happens after it either, which is exactly what would probably happen if they were forced to stretch the rest of his story for three more seasons.

    jentario,

    Yeah, they’ll just forget Bran. Come on. Your confidence in show-watchers is ridiculously low, isn’t? I don’t doubt that some casual watchers will forget about him, but they’ll probably remember him again when he’s back. And if they don’t… honestly, they are so casual in their watching of the show that they will most likely not care.

  242. jentario:
    King Tommen,

    Bad decision IMO. They could have had him in 3ish episodes (there was enough material in that one chapter for that, and they could always add a few Bran-Meera-Hodor-Children-3ER scenes to pad it out into more than just a couple of quick visions. I really liked how they handeled Theon and the Boltons in season 4, and that could have been similar.

    But now I just think people will forget Bran ever existed. Working him back into season 6 would most likely be awkward.

    I imagine the problem is that he’s just so damn isolated from the story right now and constantly heading back to the cave to have him sit around and hear stuff isn’t really that exciting.

    Unlike what Hodor’s Bastard has assumed, I think this is a very good indicator that Martin has given them the details of Bran’s future story and it involves him being directly involved in other character’s arcs (and most likely physically out of that cave). They have deemed this development more worthy of filming than any kind of filler material they could come up with that has him stationary in a cave miles away from everyone else.

    I don’t think anyone will have a problem remembering Bran once he re-emerges, but they will probably respond to him more if he’s actually interacting with other known characters as opposed to isolated to his own thing.

    People seemed to be pretty upset about all the “Theon at the Dreadfort” scenes in S3 because they felt them to be unnecessary to driving his plot forward. And that stuff at least had some basis in recounts of events that Theon has in the books. Bran doesn’t have anything book-wise left to do and they can’t combine his stuff into other character storylines. This seems like the wise decision.

    I mean, no one’s complaining about us not catching up with Rickon at this point even though we know he’s coming back into the story eventually. How is this any different?

  243. jentario:
    King Tommen,

    Sansa has even less material than Bran (they practically jumped into TWOW in season 4). I don’t understand why she gets that treatment while Bran gets the shaft.

    I imagine because at least with Sansa, she can be a part of other character stories (like Brienne or even Winterfell if they want to go that route). Bran doesn’t get that luxury.

  244. King Tommen,

    Because Rickon is barely a character, and Bran is one of the original main characters who carried his own storyline for four straight seasons? Comparing Bran to Rickon is exactly what I don’t like about this decision. Bran shouldn’t be like Rickon.

  245. Hodor’s Bastard,

    Seems like you nerd rage over every single piece of news for some reason. Bloodraven is an old guy stuck in a tree in the books, he is an old guy stuck in a tree in the show( whats the difference?). The children of the forrest are believed to have split a whole continent in two, they also used fire magic when bran got to the cave so don’t see why throwing fireballs is a big deal.

  246. King Tommen,

    Based on the interview they make it seem like the next time we see Bran we won’t recognize him until it has been revealed (read: warging).

    I wonder if characters will mention him in conversation at all. That seems to be a device D&D have used fairly successfully in the past to keep someone on the radar.

  247. jentario:
    King Tommen,

    Because Rickon is barely a character, and Bran is one of the original main characters who carried his own storyline for four straight seasons? Comparing Bran to Rickon is exactly what I don’t like about this decision. Bran shouldn’t be like Rickon.

    Bran isn’t like Rickon. He’ll only be benched for one season and Rickon will be going on 2 seasons off-screen now.

    Blame Martin for barely creating any Bran material after the first couple books.

  248. Honestly, Benioff’s comment seems more than reasonable to me:

    “It made sense to stop where we did. He’s now entering a training period which is going to take quite some time, much of which isn’t particularly cinematic. So rather than being stuck in a cave for a year, we figured it would be interesting to leave him out for a little bit, so when you see him again…”

  249. King Tommen,

    That’s unfortunate, but after my initial skepticism around the time that Kristian Nairn gave his first interview, I had started to accept that the news was probably true. The interviews that Isaac Hempstead-Wright did implying that the next season of Game of Thrones would be his next project never did specify exactly when he would be going back, and the rest of his comments on the matter were frustratingly nondescript. It seems pretty clear now that he was being intentionally vague, probably on a directive from his bosses who didn’t want this information to leak. Kristian Nairn just happens to be more off-the-cuff in his speaking style, and he let something slip.

    The stated reasons given for the decision do make sense to me. I’m definitely sympathetic to Benioff and Weiss’s concerns about Bran’s story getting too far ahead of the other characters and that his material might not be very cinematic. Seeing him emerge from whatever training that he’s going to undergo more-or-less fully formed will be exciting when we finally get back to him in Season 6.

    The main concern I have going forward will be how smooth that re-integration process will be and how much Unsullied viewers will forget about him in the interim. On one hand, there are viewers who don’t care for his storyline and probably won’t mind taking a break from him. The challenge will be getting them to care when he does show up after a season’s absence. On the other hand, there are viewers who finally started to get excited about Bran when he reached his destination and was told “You will fly”. Hopefully, their excitement won’t wane too much as the focus temporarily shifts to other storylines.

  250. King Tommen,

    I do. And I blame D&D for not making something of that one chapter he has left. They didn’t even try to amend GURM’s mistake.

    And if you really think Bran is going to disappear in season 5, then have a scene in 601 you’re in for a surprise. They can’t just reintroduce that storyline like that. Bran will almost surely only return to the show late in season 6, when his storyline collides with others (probably Jon).

    My opinion is that that sucks.

  251. Lion of Night:
    King Tommen,

    Based on the interview they make it seem like the next time we see Bran we won’t recognize him until it has been revealed (read: warging).

    I wonder if characters will mention him in conversation at all. That seems to be a device D&D have used fairly successfully in the past to keep someone on the radar.

    My guess is, yes, there will be some references to/mentions of him in season 5, just so his reappearance doesn’t seem to come completely out of left field/he is kept in the viewer’s minds.

  252. jentario:
    King Tommen,

    Because Rickon is barely a character, and Bran is one of the original main characters who carried his own storyline for four straight seasons? Comparing Bran to Rickon is exactly what I don’t like about this decision. Bran shouldn’t be like Rickon.

    Bran has the first main character POV chapter in this story. I always imagined that we would have the last one as well. A young man with the gift of sight telling the story of his family and his times.

    King Tommen:

    Blame Martin for barely creating any Bran material after the first couple books.

    I do!

  253. Nymeria Warrior Queen,

    Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking too.

    (I re-watched Season 1 recent and was pleasantly surprised at how much Aerys Targ is mentioned and essentially explained. If D&D were able to explain the basis for Robert’s Rebellion in conversation as a minor sub-plot to motivate characters, there’s little doubt in my mind they’d be able to hint at Bran’s existence if they need to.)

  254. Hodor’s Bastard:
    King Tommen,

    I think this speaks a lot to the idea that TWoW’s release in mid-2015 is definitely happening.

    Release in mid-2015? Sorry mate, but if you think TWoW’s release date is anytime soon… you haven’t been paying attention.

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