I don’t think Martin has to reveal Tyrion as a Targ in the books, either.
There are a lot of clues about a lot of things in the books; many of those never need to be spelled out. They exist just to spark the imagination, and make readers think, imagine, interpret how they will. If he does end up answering every single theory readers have, I’d be disappointed. I’m sure readers will howl - everyone wants validation of their pet theories - but that would be poor writing.
I’ve heard people saying how Cersei won’t be surprised if she sees a wight because she already has one undead beside her. But, is that necessarily true? What do we know about the Mountain? Is he really undead? Or is he some sort of almost-dead person? If he is undead, why Qyburn didn’t make others like him?
I don’t know about “not surprised” as much as Cersei doesn’t care about anything that doesn’t give her an immediate advantage. The Robert Strong bit was more tongue-in-cheek than serious, but the walking dead should not be much of a shock to her now. Tyrion and Varys should both know that Cersei isn’t going to give a shit about undead north of The Wall. She’s just going to agree to an armistice so she can scheme.
Of course, we all know that. Cersei is at the point of no return. But my question was specifically about the Mountain.
The mountain is more like what drogo turned into.
Book or show? Because so far, there have been some differences.
In the books, Ser Robert Strong hasn’t been confirmed to be The Mountain. He may or may not be headless based on the fact that the Lannisters supposedly sent Gregor Clegane’s head to Doran Martell after the trial, and no one has seen him with his helm off. He takes no food or drink and he never uses the privy. Bran has a vision of him during his coma after the tower fall:
“There were shadows all around them. One Shadow was dark as ash, with the terrible face of a hound. Another was armored like the sun, golden and beautiful. Over them loomed a Giant in armor made of stone, but when he opened his visor, there was nothing inside but darkness and thick black blood.”
In the show, they’ve openly said he’s Clegane, so that mystery is solved. He apparently has a head since we’ve seen his eyes. He’s silent. He moves with less agility then before the change. He’s utterly dedicated to Cersei. In both the books and show, Clegane is a product of Qyburn’s skills.
He may not be zombie rotting undead, but he’s not fully alive either.
Thanks. I wasn’t sure if I remembered everything about him correctly.
The show and books have kept the identity of Jon Snow’s mother a secret even now. Even in the scene where Bran is watching the birth, who she is and what she whispers in Ned Stark’s ear isn’t heard by Bran and us. And yet, in this thread everyone knows who Jon’s father and mother are. Were internet detectives putting the pieces together or where you all nodding your head when that scene came and saying “I knew it all along”, and viewed it as confirmation of theories you already had?
Also, I can’t believe you guys caught the reference to a marriage annulment by Ginny and tied that to the same event too. You guys are geniuses!
Now that I’m all caught up, I’m surprised both at how much has happened since Book 5 ended, and also how little has happened. Maybe it’s the format of a TV show, but it all feels a lot less epic than in the books. The sights and sounds of the show are amazing though. It’s a really well produced show.
We know who she is because we recognize her. She appeared in other scenes, specifically Bran’s visions of Winterfell during the Hodor storyline. Also, Ned calls her “Lyanna” when he enters the room.
Unless Bran is an unreliable narrator, I don’t understand why you think there is still a question as to Jon’s parentage.
Ok, and in the show, do we know who Lyanna is? Or is that from the books? As far as the show, it’s some woman named Lyanna? Or did I miss more details in the other flashback where they tell you who Lyanna is? And couldn’t Ned still be the father?
I don’t think there’s any question left if you put the pieces together, but all I’m saying is that they’ve just given you fragments, and not put the pieces together for you yet, or described who the various players are.
We absolutely know who Lyanna is. In S1, Ned and Robert visit her crypt and they talk about her kidnapping and (what they presumed to be) murder. More recently, Sansa and Littlefinger have a chat at her crypt, and they discuss her.
Here are a bunch of relevant scenes:
I had to explain to a neighbor last night during a driveway “let’s sit out, enjoy the weather, and drink sangria from Costco” random get-together what Gilly’s comments regarding annulment that Sam ignored really means. Let’s see Dany still be willing to mist up and hold hands once things are reversed and “my queen” turns into “my king”, assuming both live long enough to learn the truth. Who knows, maybe she’ll be OK with sharing the throne with Jon, though I don’t think both live in either the show or series (I think the series kills both).
Amusingly, Cenk of TYT figured it out for himself in one of the reviews.
I think the only reason it’s so widely known is because the books have been around for so long, and so many autists have been working on it all that time. I doubt the average reader would be able to figure it out from the books alone just from a casual read-through (because there are also alternative red herring theories, and all of the theories have some plausibility from the text). It takes maybe a few read-throughs and some pondering.
And in the tv show, I should think most people had probably forgotten about the question altogether, since it pretty much was hardly touched between the first couple of pisodes and the tower episode (and one before IIRC).
I should just say that this season’s been pretty badly written on the whole, the show’s really gone downhill. But it did start from a high level, so I’m in for the full ride, I just want to see what happens to all the characters I’ve lived with for so long. Plus also, it’s still a visual treat and well acted, so even crap GoT is reasonably good telly.
Well lets see how this shakes out.
Though Bron starts with his usual wisdom ‘it all does boil down to cocks’
Yessssss… about time.
So I guess the frozen bay by eastwatch in the credits was just a red herring.
But they punted on Clegane bowl, and Cercei’s comeuppance.
‘tear down the wall. Tear down the wall” wait, wrong medium.
Hahaha. So sweet!
Well…that was 80 minutes of pure awesome. I actually don’t have a damn thing to complain about this episode. I do hope Tormund lived…it looked like he’d run far enough west on the wall to avoid being on the section that fell. I assume he and any other survivors will have a long, cold and hungry trek west along the top of the wall to Castle Black, which itself seems kind of superfluous now.
So why didn’t the mountain kill Jaime? It seemed like cersei told him to, but then he didn’t, even though she didn’t give a counter order.