Rally the banners! We are looking for a select number of knowledgeable attendees to present on their favorite subjects from the Seven Kingdoms and beyond at Con of Thrones!
Do you have a presentation, paper, panel, or workshop on a subject related to Game of Thrones or A Song of Ice and Fire? Do you have a presentation about what the War of the Roses tells us about the next book, a theory about the House of the Undying that no one else seems to be discussing, a discussion starter about dragons throughout literary history, or a lesson about time travel paradoxes that will help us understand what the heck happened at the end of last season? We welcome all kinds of proposals from informal discussions to formal academic papers.
The Winds of Winter is coming, but when? George R.R. Martin’s sample chapters from the upcoming sixth book have created endless questions about the future of the series; now is the time and this is the place for us to explore these theories together.
If you have a burning desire to share your ideas and research, tell us about it so we can help you make it happen!
Programs will be accepted on a rolling basis. The sooner you submit, the better your chance of being selected. If you have any questions regarding programming please send your queries to [email protected].
Be sure to read the Rules and Questions on this page before submitting a program proposal.
The deadline for submissions is March 24, 2017.
Whether you’re submitting a topic for consideration or not, we’d love for you to join us this summer in Nashville. You can find information about tickets, the convention’s resort and more at ConofThrones.com!
Con of Thrones (CoT) is its own legal entity and is owned and operated separately from Watchers on the Wall (WotW). WotW owners and staff are assisting with CoT on a volunteer basis only. All inquiries and attendee support should be directed to the management at Con of Thrones. WotW is its own separate legal entity and will not benefit financially from ticket sales, merchandise or any other revenues created by the Con other than official WotW merchandise available at the convention. WotW is donating time, work, and various CoT promotions including advertisements and posts to disseminate official information and view the event as a perfect opportunity to meet Game of Thrones fans and loyal readers of our site. Always Support the Bottom!
HODOR
How exciting!!
This is the most terrifying news I can imagine receiving about an upcoming convention.
Why doesn’t anything happen in India.. I want to go these events but can’t afford an abroad trip.. š
Cool! š
I love the legal notice at the end; while including all the necessary legalese, it’s also manages to perfectly convey the spirit of cooperation, fandom, and all thing GoT. Always support the bottom š
If we can negotiate an appropriate fee, I would be more than happy to create a tremendous booth featuring much of my season 6 analysis and story boards of my alternative written scenes.
I hope that WOTW will have a panel and phil, sue et al will be there! Yes/no??? Maybe?????
I also would LOVE to have a live version of the debate type things that get posted here from time to time (I forget what you guys called them), hopefully including some bookpurists/show not-likers, because their opinions keep things spicy and interesting. I’ve never been in the potter fandom but surely there was something along these lines going on, given the mixed reactions to the films…
It would be great to have a live version of the twitter posts somehow! Maybe invite the best tweeters to participate.
Do we know yet whether A) Season 7 will be playing by July 2 and if so B) whether a live showing on Sunday will be included as part of the program? Because that would be awesome. I also hope there will be at least 1 video room playing the entire 6 seasons, maybe 2? Would HBO be on board with this stuff? I hope so?
LatrineDiggerBrian,
lol. “a fee…for my alternative written scenes.” Probably not the place for fan fiction. I also very much doubt anyone is getting paid.
dandampspear,
LatrineDiggerBrian always posts crap like this. Sometimes the stuff he posts is so delusional it’s hard to tell if he’s being serious or just trolling. If he’s being serious, the dude needs professional help. He regularly congratulates himself on how awesome his posts are. See some of his most recent posts:
LatrineDiggerBrian
February 24, 2017 at 12:21 pm
^ This is a tremendous post. I might have just broken one of the biggest GoT stories of the year.
LatrineDiggerBrian
March 1, 2017 at 8:52 am
Yeah and S8 probably not gonna premiere till 2019 thanks to the writerās strike (a story which I so valiantly broke in the other thread and got zero credit for).
LatrineDiggerBrian
February 20, 2017 at 6:33 pm
I remember last year I partook in GOT50 like a true fan (Dee and Alifair can attest to this), then when I expressed my opinions during the season, I got ripped by all these people who Iād never seen before. They just came out of the woodwork I guess, werenāt true fans that partook in GOT50 like me. Weird, but OK?
LatrineDiggerBrian
February 21, 2017 at 7:19 pm
I have professed some very nuanced, and frankly, incredible, written analysis pieces of the show that more than prove my love of it yet I am still attacked viciously for having a differing opinion on S6. Not nice!
One might even deduce that I am risking my life in posting on this site after some of the vicious attacks I received last year, and they would be correct. Yet I still march on because I know that there are people out there who appreciate unbiased analysis. You might even say Iām a hero for doing so.
LatrineDiggerBrian
June 20, 2016 at 11:15 am
Arya for instance, they couldāve had her be wrong about Lady Crane, and when Arya goes to Lady Crane for help, she is in fact a sadist. We see that she has kidnapped the understudy and has done god knows what to her. And now Arya is in that situation and needs to get out of it somehow after Lady Crane has given her that ridiculous dose of milk of the poppy. Then when she gets out of that situation, the waif catches up with her and is on the verge of killing her before another FM kills the waif under the pretense that she was never āno oneā due to her jealousy of Arya for whatever reason (maybe her family was killed because of the Starkās). Cāmon that wouldāve been so much better.
LatrineDiggerBrian
June 20, 2016 at 11:28 am
What if previous episode we see Baelish and the Knightās of the Vale try and cross Moat Cailin, and we see that itās deserted. Then as the battle rages on, the Knightās of the Vale show up but the horses fall into hidden pits thatāve been dug around Winterfell. Bolton men dump oil into the holes and torch it. The North army is defeated and we cut to a room in Winterfell where all of the northern and Vale leaders: Jon, Tormund, Davos, Baelish, etc are strapped upside down to flay boards. Ramsey walks in with a shaken Sansa on his arm. Eventually they do get out of the situation because Sansa does something clever to undermine Ramsey.
Thatās tension baby. You were horrified even reading that, freaking out about Sansa probably.
What do you mean? The con isn’t for another four months.
Question: If I run 8 or more hours of panel programming, can I come for free and with travel expenses paid?
If not, I will have to make my own con.
I would have thought more guests would have been announced by now.
As it is I might as well stay home where I can argue with everyone here for free – it’s cast and crew I’m interested in š
Mr Derp,
I’ll have you know that my writings have generated considerable fanfare on this site. There was practically hysteria when I posted my Euron scene in the other thread — people were freaking out, it was tremendous (except for Mau who went into a jealous rage and gave me some horrifying notes — it was very unbecoming). However, I do appreciate your encyclopedic knowledge of my posts and always welcome a groupie to the cause.
That never happened.
Your version of the Kingsmoot wasn’t all bad, it just wasn’t necessary. Euron was never going to be a primary antagonist, and I’m glad the show isn’t even trying, unlike Martin with the books
As for your version of the Battle of the Bastards, that is ridiculous.
Young Dragon,
How dare you. The main point of my BoB scene (which I created in 5 minutes and still think is tremendous) was to illustrate some of my problems with S6, namely that the story telling was flat and lacked the usual creativity we were so used to previously.
The whole of S6 was Ramsey’s death march with no twists or turns, very little tension or drama. We knew Little Finger was going to save the day, we knew Ramsey was going to die and we knew Sansa was going to get her revenge. It was extremely linear and not interesting. Couple all of this with the extremely forced drama between Jon and Sansa, and I absolutely hated the northern storyline in S6. I at least sought to address some of these issues in my scene. Frankly, I think I got the job done.
And no, I’m not just complaining about lack of shocking deaths. I’m complaining about lack of tension and suspense, which was evident across most of the other storylines as well. In sum, it wasn’t the dynamic story telling we were used to. D & D really had their time to shine last season as writers, and they put forth a lackluster effort. I still think highly of them and that they are capable of much more. Hopefully S7 will be more interesting.
I was just rereading my BoB scene above and I was freaking out not even remember what I had written. That’s tension my friends.
LatrineDiggerBrian,
I disagree. Rickon’s run to Jon was very suspenseful. The shot of the calvary charging Jon was very suspenseful. Jon being crushed and buried under a pile of dead bodies was very suspenseful. Jon and Wun Wun breaking through Ramsay’s gate was very suspenseful. And Sansa feeding Ramsay to his dogs was really suspenseful. All of this was better than your version. I do agree that the Vale riding in to save the day was obvious, but no more obvious than the Tyrells riding in to save King’s Landing or Stannis riding in to save the Wall. The fact that I was still on the edge of my seat for the entire battle, even knowing what was going to happen, indicates the skill D&D have, as well as Miguel Sapochnik.
Let’s assume that Ramsay is able to dig a pit big enough to swallow the entire Vale army, and that’s a very big if, once the first few lines of horses fall in, why wouldn’t the other horses stop? The Vale will still be left with a huge fighting force that would be able to defeat Ramsay easily.
And even if that works, what men would be able to light the fires. Ramsay’s army is still focused on Jon, who still has a sizable army left. The amount of men Ramsay has left to spare wouldn’t be enough to light all those fires before the Vale men are able to regroup.
Why would Ramsay keep Jon and company alive? I can see him taking one to replace Reek, but there’s no reason to keep the others alive.
How will Sansa be able to outplay Ramsay and save everyone? Even if she does, how will they be able to defeat the Bolton army once Ramsay is taken down. I doubt they’ll simply bend the knee quietly, and, according to you, the Stark and Arryn armies are destroyed. That of course also means the North has no real army to fight the White Walkers with.
Young Dragon,
Normally writers of my caliber do not discuss their works in such a manner, but I shall make an exception.
Re: the pit. I could think of some things to make it more plausible. The point is, come up with some scenario where Ramsey sniffs out Baelish’s intervention and thwarts it. I’m sure something more logically sound could be figured out with someone spending more than the 5 minutes I did.
Why would Ramsey keep Jon and the others alive? Easy — because he’s a sadist and he likes torturing people and would want to keep their flayed skin as a trophy to hang up in Winterfell?
Maybe it won’t be Sansa that out plays him (though it could be), but somehow he gets thwarted and I’m sure something could be thought of. Maybe they kept Osha alive and she somehow does some maneuvering out of her jail cell. Regarding the armies, they could easily turn on him for his savagery. You have to figure many of the Bolton men were loyal to Roose Bolton and despise Ramsey. Plus, you could’ve had a scene in the battle where he carelessly sends some of his men to their death because he doesn’t give a crap.
As to your first paragraph, Rickon’s run wasn’t suspenseful because they so carelessly disposed of Osha because they had no room for her, so why would they keep Rickon? Plus, once he sends him running, if he makes it to Jon, wouldn’t that be a little anti-climactic? Was pretty obvious he was dead. He could’ve zig zagged too. Killing him with the arrow was lame.
Jon being crushed under a pile of bodies wasn’t suspenseful, because like you say, we knew Baelish was waiting in the wings. Stannis and Tyrell’s were done more covertly, Baelish was waiting the whole stupid season just to do this.
Why was Wun Wun breaking through the gate or Sansa suspenseful? At that point the battle is over.
C’mon, the whole battle was predictable, I called it out before the episode aired, I said if it all boils down to Rickon dying, Baelish saving the day, Ramsey dying, and Sansa getting revenge, then it’s going to be severely lame and that’s exactly what happened. I’ll see if I can find my post.
LatrineDiggerBrian,
It seems like you can’t figure out a plausible way for Ramsay to outmaneuver Littlefinger. That’s because there isn’t one. The Vale is an untapped fighting force that was unaffected by the War of Five Kings. Ramsay doesn’t have the man power to fight that.
Ramsay’s sadistic nature never got in the way of what needed to be done. He killed the ironborn holding Moat Cailin without taking prisoners. He slaughtered Stannis’s army without taking prisoners. The reason Ramsay kept Theon was because he needed him to gain leverage over the ironborn. During that time, he made an emotional connection with him, so even when Theon’s usefulness came to an end, Ramsay kept him as a pet. How would Ramsay even capture Jon, Davos, and Tormund alive? Everything we know about those characters says that they will go down fighting.
Rickon’s run was suspenseful. Even though I knew what was going to happen, for a split second, I actually thought he was going to make it. The same for when Jon was being buried alive. I could feel the claustrophobia gripping me as he was clawing for the surface. The fact that D&D made me worry for the fates of characters I knew were going to make it speaks volumes to their outstanding writing capability and Miguel’s direction.
Stannis’s entire season 4 arc was getting ready to sail North. How was Littlefinger and the Vale any different?
The battle was predictable in the sense that the conclusion was inevitable, but that doesn’t mean it was bad storytelling. The writers set the pieces in motions in a logical fashion that brought the storyline to a logical conclusion. You’re scenario is unpredictable, but it is also illogical, which makes it poor writing and poor storytelling. Sorry.
No I can and I did. The pit idea could work with some tweaking. Anyway, the final point on that is, if Ramsey knows Baelish is coming, it’s not so hard to figure out a way for him to ambush and destroy The Knights of the Vale before they get to the battle field. It’s no use for me to keep presenting ideas as you’re just going to poke holes in them no matter what.
Ramsey’s sadistic nature absolutely did get in the way of what needed to be done, see Sansa. His messing around with her caused her to escape and kill Miranda. Also, Ramsey did flay the Greyjoy men at Moat Calin, for no reason at all. He flayed the lords who didn’t pay their taxes at the beginning of S6 and was scolded by Roose. He definitely would’ve flayed Stannis if he found him. Maybe Jon and those you mentioned got kidnapped before they could go down fighting, i.e. remember Tormund at the Battle of Castle Black?
That’s inaccurate about Stannis arc in season 4. Stannis couldn’t sail North until he had an army, so most of his time in S4 (which wasn’t much) was spent figuring out how to get money and then sailing to Braavos. It definitely was not as obvious that he’d be showing up to save Jon, unless you read the book of course. Him wanting to go north just wasn’t mentioned much and was easy to push off to the side and forget.
I just disagree on Rickon’s run, it was lame to me, but to each their own.
I never said it was bad story telling, I said it was status quo storytelling. It was boring shit you see in other shows, just like Arya’s lame ending in Braavos, an ultra simple solution to what it seemed like a much more complex story. Some of it was very bad writing, like how they tried to manufacture Jon and Sansa’s feud which was atrocious and didn’t add up at all. They forced the issue a lot in S6 just to get things to fall into place.
I fell in love with GoT because it was a step above everything else. S6 was not unfortunately. It was the same great characters and world but just with not as much interesting stuff happening. For me I don’t really watch the show based on rooting for characters or whatever. I watch it for the dynamic story telling and because it’s always kept me off balance. My scene can make sense, you’re just not willing to accept it because you’re in love with what happened on the show.
Yay! I so thought that I’d missed this months ago. A colleague and I are trying to put together something slightly mathematical – a frequency analysis of characters and the like. I’d also love to moderate or participate in (or just watch) a controversial but respectful panel debating who is AAR/TPTWP.