Mashup of all the trailers and promos for S7
Game Of Thrones: The Sopranos with swords or Dynasty in chainmail?
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http://rapidgator.net/file/4b13850d...news_weekly/129296-time-usa-10-july-2017.html
https://www.firstclass-download.com/en/download-k:Time USA - 10 July 2017.html?aff.id=3049
GAME OF THRONES — HOW THEY MAKE THE WORLD’S MOST POPULAR SHOW
The battle for Westeros may be won or lost on the back of a lime green mechanical bull.
That’s what it looks like on a January Monday in Belfast, as Game of Thrones films its seventh season here. Certainly no one believes the dragons that have thrilled viewers of HBO’s hit series exist in any real sense. And yet it’s still somewhat surprising to see the British actor Emilia Clarke, who playsexiled queen Daenerys, straddling the “buck” on a soundstage at Titanic Studios, a film complex named after this city’s other famously massive export.
The machine under Clarke looks like a big pommel horse and moves in sync with a computer animation of what will become a dragon. Clarke doesn’t talk much between takes. Over and over, a wind gun blasts her with just enough force to make me worry about the integrity of her ash blond wig. (Its particular color is the result of 2½ months’ worth of testing and seven prototypes, according to the show’s hair designer.) Over and over, Clarke stares down at a masking-tape mark on the floor the instant episode director Alan Taylor shouts, “Now!” Nearby, several visual-effects supervisors watch on monitors.
Clarke and I talk in her trailer before she heads to the soundstage, at the beginning of what is to be a long week inhabiting a now iconic character. Behind the scenes it’s more toil than triumph, though. The show’s first season ended with Daenerys’ hatching three baby dragons, each the size of a Pomeranian. They’ve since grown to the size of a 747. “I’m 5-ft.-nothing, I’m a little girl,” she says. “They’re like, ‘Emilia, climb those stairs, get on that huge thing, we’ll harness you in, and then you’ll go crazy.’ And you’re like, ‘Hey, everybody! Now who’s shorty?!’”
She has reason to feel powerful. On July 16, Clarke and the rest of the cast will begin bringing Thronesin for a landing with the first of its final 13 episodes (seven to air this summer, six to come later).Thrones, a scrappy upstart launched by two TV novices in 2011, will finish its run as the biggest and most popular show in the world. An average of more than 23 million Americans watched each episode last season when platforms like streaming and video on demand are accounted for. And since it’s the most pirated show ever, millions more watch it in ways unaccounted for. Thrones, which holds therecord for most Emmys ever won by a prime-time series, airs in more than 170 countries. It’s the farthest-reaching show out there—not to mention the most obsessed-about.
EMILIA CLARKE | DAENERYS TARGARYEN
People talk about living in a golden age of TV ushered in by hit dramas like The Sopranos, Mad Menand Breaking Bad. All had precisely honed insights about the nature of humanity and of evil that remade expectations of what TV could do. But that period ended around the time Breaking Bad went off the air in 2013. We’re in what came next: an unprecedented glut of programming, with streaming services like Netflix, Amazon and Hulu jumping into an ever-more-crowded fray. Now, there’s a prestige show for every conceivable viewer, which means smaller audiences and fewer truly original stories.
Except for Thrones, which merges the psychological complexity of the best TV with old-school Hollywood grandeur. You liked shows with one antihero? Well, Thrones has five Tony Sopranos building their empires on blood, five Walter Whites discovering just how far they’ll go to win, five Don Drapers unapologetic in their narcissism. Oh, and they’re all living out their drama against the most breathtaking vistas not of this world.
KIT HARINGTON | JON SNOW
The phenomenon is fueled by a massive worldwide apparatus that, in a typical 10-episode season, generates the equivalent of five big-budget, feature-length movies. Even as the series has grown in every conceivable way over the years—it shoots around the globe; each episode now boasts a budget of at least $10 million—it remains animated by one simple question: Who will win the game in the end? And if Thrones has taught us anything, it’s that every reign has to end sometime.
1. the fiction
It all started with a book. In 1996, George R.R. Martin published A Game of Thrones, the first novel in his A Song of Ice and Fire series. (Back then, he conceived of it as a trilogy. Today, five of the planned seven volumes have been published.) As a writer for shows like CBS’s The Twilight Zone andBeauty and the Beast in the late ’80s, Martin had been frustrated by the limits of TV. He decided that turning to prose meant writing something “as big as my imagination.” Martin recalls telling himself, “I’m going to have all the characters I want, and gigantic castles, and dragons, and dire wolves, and hundreds of years of history, and a really complex plot. And it’s fine because it’s a book. It’s essentially unfilmable.”
Photo-composite by Miles Aldridge for TIME
Thrones’ vast number of clans includes the wealthy and louche Lannisters, including incestuous twins Cersei and Jaime. She is the queen by marriage; he helped ensure her ascendancy through violence. Their brother Tyrion, an “imp” of short stature, is perhaps the most astute student of power. Then there are the Starks, led by duty-bound Ned. His children Robb, Sansa, Arya, Bran, Rickon and “bastard” Jon Snow will be scattered throughout the realm’s Seven Kingdoms. Daenerys is a Targaryen, an overthrown family that also—surprise—has a claim to the throne. Soon enough, Thrones devolves into an all-out melee that makes the Wars of the Roses look like Family Feud.
LENA HEADEY | CERSEI LANNISTER
In the wake of director Peter Jackson’s early-2000s film trilogy of Tolkien’s masterpiece, Martin was courted by producers to turn his books into “the next Lord of the Rings franchise.” But the Thronesstory was too big, and would-be collaborators suggested cutting it to focus solely on Daenerys or Snow, for instance. Martin turned them all down. His story’s expansiveness was the point.
Two middleweight novelists, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, had come to a similar conclusion and obtained Martin’s blessing at what the author calls “that famous lunch that turned into a dinner, because we were there for four or five hours” in 2006. The two writers thought Thrones could only be made as a premium-cable drama, and they walked into HBO’s office with an ambitious pitch to do so that year. “They were talking about this series of books I’d never heard of,” says Carolyn Strauss, head of HBO’s entertainment division at the time. “[I was] somebody who looked around the theater inLord of the Rings, at all of those rapt faces, and I am just not on this particular ferry … I thought, This sounds interesting. Who knows? It could be a big show.”
HBO bought the idea and handed the reins to Benioff and Weiss, making them showrunners who’d never run a show before. Benioff was best known for having adapted his novel The 25th Hour into a screenplay directed by Spike Lee. Weiss had a novel to his credit too. The two had met in a literature program in Dublin in 1995 and later reconnected in the States. “I decided I wanted to write a screenplay,” Benioff told Vanity Fair in 2014. “I’d never written a script before, and I didn’t know how to do it, so I asked [Weiss] if he would write one with me, because he had written a bunch already.” It never got made.
The Thrones pilot, shot in 2009, got off to a rocky start. Benioff and Weiss misjudged how much planning it would take to bring Martin’s fantasy to life. To portray a White Walker—mystic creatures from the North—they simply stuck an actor in a green-screen getup and hoped to figure it out later. “You can maybe do that if you’re making Avatar,” says Weiss. “But we need to know what the creatures look like before we turn on the camera.” They also had trouble portraying Martin’s nuanced characters. “Our friends—really smart, savvy writers—didn’t [realize] Jaime and Cersei were brother and sister,” says Benioff of the ill-fated first cut. Ultimately, they reshot the pilot.
NIKOLAJ COSTER-WALDAU | JAIME LANNISTER
When Benioff and Weiss look back at that first season, they see plenty to nitpick. Their fealty to Martin’s text, for example, made Peter Dinklage’s Tyrion “Eminem blond,” per Benioff. (His hair was later darkened.) Still, the elements that have made the show a monster success were there—and audiences (3 million for Thrones’ first season finale) picked up on them. Arguably the most groundbreaking element was a willingness to ruthlessly murder its stars. Ned Stark, the moral center of Season 1, portrayed by the show’s then most famous cast member (Sean Bean, who starred in The Lord of the Rings), is shockingly beheaded in the second-to-last episode. By the third season’s “Red Wedding,” a far more gruesome culling, the show had accrued enough fans to send the Internet into full on freak-out mode.
Thrones had by then become the pacesetter for all of TV in its willingness to forgo a simple happy ending in favor of delivering pleasure through brutality. Even if you don’t watch, Thrones’ characters and catchphrases have permeated the culture (the apparent death of Snow was an international trending topic all summer in 2015). Saturday Night Live, The Simpsons and The Tonight Show have lampooned the show. And the recent South Korean presidential election was called on a national news network with depictions of the candidates duking it out for control of the Iron Throne.
2. the production
Wandering around the Belfast set, the scope and the orderliness of the enterprise is staggering. The wights, zombie-like creatures with spookily pale faces and dressed in ragged furs, form a tidy line as they wait to grab breakfast burritos. Outside the stage door, a few smoke cigarettes, careful not to ash on their worn-in tunics. “At first we had a season with one big event, then we had a season with two big events, now we have a season where every episode is a big event,” says Joe Bauer, the show’s VFX supervisor. Bauer and VFX producer Steve Kullback oversee a group of 14 FX shops from New Zealand to Germany that work on the show almost continuously.
One of those big events this season is a battle whose sheer scope, even before being cut together with the show’s typical brio, dazzled me. In order to get on set, I agreed not to divulge the players or what’s at stake. (Thrones has been promising this clash all along, and when the time comes, the Internet will melt.) It will be all the more impressive knowing that the cast and crew were shot through with a frigid North Atlantic wind that whipped everyone during filming and sent them all flying to the coffee cart during resets. (The cold, a prosthetic artist tells me, is at least good for keeping the makeup on.)
PETER DINKLAGE | TYRION LANNISTER
The setting is as grand as the action. The battle was filmed in what was once a Belfast quarry, drained, flattened out with 11,000 square meters of concrete and painted over with a camouflage effect—all of which took six months and required special ecological surveys. This kind of mountain moving, or leveling, is par for the course for Thrones.
Each season starts with producers Christopher Newman and Bernadette Caulfield circulating a plot outline on a color-coded spreadsheet, dictating what will be shot by the show’s two simultaneous camera units, which can splinter into as many as four. It’s perpetually subject to change, given the complications of a television show this ambitious—over seven seasons they’ve shot in Croatia, Spain, Iceland, Malta, Morocco and Canada as well as locations around Northern Ireland. While I’m in Belfast, my plan to watch Jon Snow in action is canceled because of inclement weather (that same wind) that makes filming from a drone hazardous. At this point, Caulfield will grab onto any small comfort. “Now the dragon doesn’t get any bigger,” she says, “so we know that much.”
Another breakdown goes out to department heads, and a massive global triage begins. Costumer Michele Clapton, for example, begins figuring out if she’ll have to dress any new characters or armies and then sets out on the most complex work. “I know that Daenerys’ dresses will take the longest,” she says. Each look, no matter the character, may take as many as four craftspeople to bead, stitch and—if there’s meant to be wear and tear—break down. Deborah Riley, the production designer, begins looking for references to new locations in the outline. Tommy Dunne, the weapons master, starts forging gear for the season’s big battles. “My big thing is the numbers,” he says. “I hope they won’t frighten me.” He made 200 shields and 250 spears for last season’s epic Battle of the Bastards.
SOPHIE TURNER | SANSA STARK
Benioff’s and Weiss’s jobs amount to maintaining constant conversation with numerous producers. The pair are usually in Belfast for about six months a year. Wherever in the world they happen to be, they get daily video from the shoots and field an endless stream of emails from staff on location. During my visit, wolves described in the script as “skinny and mangy” showed up to the shoot looking fluffy and lustrous. Around the world, new message notifications lit up smartphone screens.
When Benioff and Weiss aren’t shooting, they’re writing. And when they aren’t shooting or writing—which happens rarely—they’re promoting. The two make a complementary pair. Benioff, who wears his hair in a Morrissey quiff, is the more sardonic one. Weiss, with silver rings in his ears, is nerdier and given to hyperbole. They say they’re still having fun making Thrones, despite the stakes, and still regularly find themselves surprised by its scale. Weiss recalls seeing the buck Clarke rides to simulate Daenerys’ dragons for the first time: “We knew it would be a mechanical bull. We didn’t know it would be 40 ft. in the air and six degrees of motion with cameras that swirl.” Says Benioff: “It’s like the thing NASA built to train the astronauts.”
Despite nonstop production, Weiss says, “There’s still a kid-in-a-candy-shop feel. You’re going to look at the armor, crazy-amazing dresses—gowns Michele is making—then you’re going to look at the swords, then watch pre-vis cartoons of the scenes that will be shot and you’re weighing in on shot selection. Every one of these things is something we’ve been fascinated with in our own way since we were kids.”
“Especially dresses,” cracks Benioff. Weiss adds, “Especially the gowns.”
3. the players
The first few seasons’ worth of swordplay and gowns turned the show’s cast into recognizable stars. But it’s the complexity of their characters, revealed over time, that made them into icons. “My friends always say to me, ‘It’s like you’re two different people. I see articles about you in BuzzFeed’—but then they see my Facebook posts,” says Maisie Williams, who plays the tomboy turned angel of vengeance Arya Stark. Williams was two days past her 14th birthday when the show debuted. There’s TV-star famous, after all, and then there’s some-percentage-of-23-million-people-has-been-actively-rooting-for-you-to-kill-off-your-co-stars-for-six-years famous.
Thrones’ story doesn’t ask its actors to break bad or good, and viewers stay tuned in large part because of the characters’ moral mutability. Consider Cersei, played by Lena Headey, who is either a monster or a victim. The character has become more popular with fans even as she’s wrought greater carnage, including blowing up a building full of people last season. “At the beginning, people were like, ‘Oh my God, you’re such a bitch!’” she says. “What’s moving is that people love her now and want to be on her team.” That Headey, a Brit, uses an exaggerated American accent as she delivers the harsher interpretation of her work is revealing of nothing, or a lot.
She’s thought through every element of her character, though, including the incestuous relationship with Jaime that provided the show its first narrative jolt. “I love to talk about all of it,” she says, citing her frequent emails to Benioff and Weiss. “Cersei’s always wanted to be him. Therefore, for her, that relationship is completion. There’s been an envy, because he was born with privilege just for being a man. I think their love was built on respect.”
MAISIE WILLIAMS | ARYA STARK
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, the Danish actor who plays Jaime, is a bit less excited to discuss the subject. “I’ve never really gone too deep into the whole sister-brother thing because I can’t use that information. I have to look at her as the woman he loves and desires. Lena’s a very good actress, and that’s kind of what carries the whole thing.” He adds, “I have two older sisters. I do not want to go there. It’s just too weird.”
Even a character like Jon Snow, as close to a pure hero as possible as Season 7 begins, has outgrown the box he originally came in. Snow, an illegitimate child never embraced by his father’s wife, is a James Dean daydream of Sir Walter Scott. “I made mistakes and felt that he wasn’t interesting enough,” says Kit Harington of the way he’s played Snow. We’re in a Belfast hotel bar, and Harington is squeezing in a coffee before he makes an evening showing of Manchester by the Sea. “That sounds weird, but I’ve never been quite content with him. Maybe that’s what makes him him. That angst.” His character has been slowly absorbing lessons about duty and power—and “this year there is this huge seismic shift where all of what he’s learned over the years, suddenly …” Harington trails off. “He’s still the same Jon, but he grows up.”
Dinklage, too, found in Tyrion a character who surpassed his expectations. The actor says he’d never read fantasy beyond The Lord of the Rings. “That’s the part of the bookstore I don’t really gravitate toward,” he says. “This was the first time in this genre that somebody my size was an actually multidimensional being, flesh and blood without the really long beard, without the pointy shoes, without the asexuality.”
Thrones catapulted Dinklage, the only American in the main cast, from a well-regarded film and theater actor to among the most-recognized actors on earth in part because the asexuality is quite absent. Tyrion thirsts for wine, sex and, crucially, love and respect. As the offspring of a wealthy and powerful family, the first two are easy to come by. The latter not so much. “He covers it up with alcohol, he covers it up with humor, he does his best to maintain a modicum of sanity and he perseveres,” says Dinklage. “He’s still alive. Anyone who’s still alive on our show is pretty smart.”
Indeed, with just 13 episodes left, everything is possible—alliance, demise or coronation. “Every season I go to the last page of the last episode and go backward,” says Dinklage. “I don’t do that with books, but I can’t crack open page one of Episode 1 not knowing if I’m dead or not.”
4. the drama
The size of Thrones’ controversies have, at times, been as large as its following. Its reliance on female nudity, especially Daenerys’, was an early flash point. “I don’t have any qualms saying to anyone it was not the most enjoyable experience. How could it be?” says Clarke. “I don’t know how many actresses enjoy doing that part of it.” That aspect of the role has faded as Daenerys found paths to power beyond her sexuality. This evolution from a passive naïf into a holy terror who rules by the fealty of her subjects is what has earned Daenerys, according to Clarke, the audience’s loyalty. “People wouldn’t give two sh-ts about Daenerys if you didn’t see her suffer,” she says.
More controversial still has been the prevalence of sexual violence. Many of the major female characters have been assaulted onscreen. In a 2015 sequence, Sansa, the Stark daughter played by Sophie Turner, was raped by her husband. According to the logic of the show, the plot gave her character a reason to seek revenge and power of her own. It nonetheless generated substantial blowback online and clearly turned some fans away from the series for good. “This was the trending topic on Twitter, and it makes you wonder, when it happens in real life, why isn’t it a trending topic every time?” says Turner, who is 21. “This was a fictional character, and I got to walk away from it unscathed … Let’s take that discussion and that dialogue and use it to help people who are going through that in their everyday lives. Stop making it such a taboo, and make it a discussion.”
5. the end of the end
D.B. WEISS AND DAVID BENIOFF | SHOW-RUNNERS
In preparation for Season 7, Benioff and Weiss have gotten more possessive. That has further fueled fans’ curiosity even as it has created security challenges. In the run-up to Season 6, paparazzi shots of Harington—and his distinctive in-character hairdo—in Belfast tipped the Internet off that Jon Snow wasn’t, in fact, as dead as he’d seemed the season before. “Look at how difficult it is to protect information in this age,” says Benioff. “The CIA can’t do it. The NSA can’t do it. What chance do we have?”
It’s also changed the on-set dynamic. Coster-Waldau says Benioff and Weiss have “become much more protective over the story and script. I think they feel this is truly theirs now, and it’s not to be tampered with. I’ve just sensed this last season that this is their baby: ‘Just say the words as they’re written, and shut up.’”
Then there’s the end of the end, the finale likely to air next year or the year after. Benioff and Weiss are not writing the Thrones spin-off projects HBO revealed this year that could explore other parts of Westerosi history—some, all or none of which may end up on air. In the meantime, they claim not to be worrying about the public’s reaction to their ending. (Benioff says that when it comes to endgame stress, “medication helps.”) Weiss says, “I’m not saying we don’t think about it.” He pauses. “The best way to go about it is to focus on what’s on the desk in front of you, or what sword is being put in front of you, or the fight that is being choreographed in front of you.”
What’s currently before them seems like plenty. When I first met Clarke in Belfast, she was shooting on the back of a dragon. When I leave a week later, she’s still at it. “Thirty seconds of screen time and she’s been here for 16 days,” the episode’s director, Taylor, remarks at one point. Later on, I’d remember this moment of exhaustion when Weiss described seeing the buck for the first time. He went on to add, “It probably feels a bit less amazing to Emilia, who sits on it for eight hours a day, six weeks in a row, getting blasted with water and fake snow and whatever else they decide to chuck at her through the fans.” The table with the espresso machine—just beyond Clarke’s line of sight—is well trafficked.
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Emilia Clarke is ready to bring Khaleesi's story to an end on 'Game of Thrones'
By Sandra Gonzalez, CNN
Updated 5:40 PM ET, Thu June 29, 2017
(CNN)HBO might be looking at a myriad of ways to continue the "Game of Thrones" phenomenon after the series completes its eighth and final season, but Emilia Clake is ready to bring Khaleesi's story to a proper end.
"I mean, I have no doubt there'll be prequels and sequels and who knows what else. But I am doing one more season," Clarke tells Rolling Stone in a new profile. "And then that'll be it."
HBO confirmed last summer that the hit series would come to a close after Season 8, which is scheduled to air next year.
Saying goodbye won't be easy, though. Clarke began on the series when she was just 23, and acknowledges the role has been a formative one.
"It makes me emotional to think about," she told the magazine. "It's my beginning, middle and end -- the single thing that has changed me most as an adult."
Clarke -- a master secret keeper between her "Thrones" and Han Solo "Star Wars" prequel duties -- didn't have much she could tease about the upcoming seventh season, which premieres July 16, but offered up this: "It's a really interesting season in terms of some loose ends that have been tied, some really satisfying plot points, some things where you're like, 'Oh, my God. I forgot about that!'"
By Sandra Gonzalez, CNN
Updated 5:40 PM ET, Thu June 29, 2017
(CNN)HBO might be looking at a myriad of ways to continue the "Game of Thrones" phenomenon after the series completes its eighth and final season, but Emilia Clake is ready to bring Khaleesi's story to a proper end.
"I mean, I have no doubt there'll be prequels and sequels and who knows what else. But I am doing one more season," Clarke tells Rolling Stone in a new profile. "And then that'll be it."
HBO confirmed last summer that the hit series would come to a close after Season 8, which is scheduled to air next year.
Saying goodbye won't be easy, though. Clarke began on the series when she was just 23, and acknowledges the role has been a formative one.
"It makes me emotional to think about," she told the magazine. "It's my beginning, middle and end -- the single thing that has changed me most as an adult."
Clarke -- a master secret keeper between her "Thrones" and Han Solo "Star Wars" prequel duties -- didn't have much she could tease about the upcoming seventh season, which premieres July 16, but offered up this: "It's a really interesting season in terms of some loose ends that have been tied, some really satisfying plot points, some things where you're like, 'Oh, my God. I forgot about that!'"
My guess is jamie
I believe its Euron. I mean... He's a valonqar as well.
Jamie is too easy
A preview on hbo shows the hound, beric dondarrion and john snow wearing gear that looks like wildling coats.
Then shows three swordsman surrounded by what looks like the dead army( a flaming sword is seen)
Then one rider on horse slumped over riding away.
Sansa says the lone wolf dies, then you see john chop a nigga
Man I can't wait
Then shows three swordsman surrounded by what looks like the dead army( a flaming sword is seen)
Then one rider on horse slumped over riding away.
Sansa says the lone wolf dies, then you see john chop a nigga
Man I can't wait
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I think it will be... Littlefinger.
- Agreed >> Jamie is too obvious.
- But Littlefinger has already KILLED one Lannister (Joffrey).
- And he's 'bold enough' to even DARE to try for another.
- And 'sneaky enough' to get away with it. Again.
- And 'smart enough' to plan a good 'exit strategy' to cover his tracks.
- But most importantly... at this point... Now that she is the Queen, Cersei wouldn't hesitate to kill any of her enemies in a heartbeat (if they were ever in the same room together)... so he's the ONLY person left (aside from Jaime and/or Euron Greyjoy) that could even get 'close enough' to Cersei to strangler her... without deadly consequences.
I think GRRM dropped a 'BIG CLUE' in a real slick way... back in Season 1, Episode 3... when Lady Stark came to Kings Landing.
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Then the flock of ravens.
Cold hands in the book commands those
Or they could be dead ravens.
I thought about this theory because of Jaime's code of ethics. Will it happen? IDK! I just want it to be good!
A fan theory but still
***spoiler alert ***
https://www.pastemagazine.com/artic...y-on-how-game-of-thrones-ends-is-so-good.html
This Theory on How Game of Thrones Ends Is So Good It Has to Be True
By Shane Ryan | May 31, 2017 | 4:30pm
Still Image from Game of Thrones Season 7
What’s up, Game of Thrones theory heads. As with other posts of this nature, it is our solemn duty to warn you that massive spoilers lurk ahead. No, “lurk” is the wrong word—they are descending like dragons, ready to turn your innocent, spoiler-free flesh into the roasted, smoking meat of worldly knowledge, or something. If you’re not caught up on the TV show or the books, and you want to remain in blissful ignorance, stop now. If you are caught up, and don’t want to read a theory on how the drama in Westeros ends—a theory that is so thorough, so smart, and comes with so much corroborating evidence that I basically consider it a spoiler—stop now.
Seriously, you have been warned. Beneath this .gif of Hot Pie eating in a manner that can only be described as “delightful,” the spoilers will come at you the fury
(Note: Hot Pie does not figure in the content to follow. I love the guy, but we’re not f***ing crazy.)
p=
Colin warning also
Okay, you’re still here. This theory comes to us courtesy of Reddit user Byrd82, who wrote up a truly incredible essay on a question that has dogged even the nerdiest fans of the show: Who is “Azor Ahai,” a.k.a “The Prince that was Promised,” a.k.a lots of other names from lore. Essentially, this is the prophesied hero who will save Westeros. Most people suspect it’s one of a few heroic characters we’ve met so far—Daenerys Targaryen, Jon Snow, Brandon Stark, Arya Stark, or even Tyrion Lannister. Byrd82’s answer is quite different: Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer. And that’s not all—before it’s over, he will kill Cersei and broker peace with the White Walkers.
Before you leave, laughing yourself silly, note that this is much more than just some Internet contrarian’s hot take. Personally, as someone who has read every book twice (which actually makes me a newb in Thrones-theory world) and sought out theory blogs and Reddit posts and even podcasts, I found this to be the most compelling piece of scholarship I’ve read, at least in terms of supporting evidence. It’s the kind of theorizing that reads like truth, at least to me and thousands of Reddit readers.
I highly recommend reading the original thread in its entirety, but I sought out Byrd82 (who wishes to remain anonymous) for an interview, and s/he generously agreed. The email correspondence that follows covers the theory itself, how s/he came to discover it (others have arrived at the same conclusion, though never with the same completist presentation), and how it predicts the end of George R.R. Martin’s saga.
Paste: I’ve already implored our readers to visit your excellent thread on Reddit and digest the entire thing (I’ll implore again: If you love ASOIAF and Game of Thrones, it is more than worth your time), but for the lazy ones, can you give us a quick summary of your theory about Azor Ahai and how it’s all going to end?
So, the basic gist is that there is a seriously problematic translation error that, once cleared up, will shed light on the identity of the hero in ASOIAF. According to the Valyrian dictionary, Valyrian words for lord and light are aeksio and onos. However, Valyrian words for gold and hand are aeksion and ondos. Just as we might suspect, The Lord of Light is a farce. Jaime Lannister—Gold Hand—is the hero of legend and prophecy.
Jaime has been on a redemptive journey, from “Kingslayer” to “Jaime,” that syncs up with the Valonqar, Prince that was Promised, and Azor Ahai prophecies. This journey began when Jaime lost his hand—a potent symbol of the Kingslayer persona. Jaime’s transformation will ultimately lead to Cersei’s death at his hand. At that time, his identity as the hero will be revealed when his sword hand returns, set ablaze, as a weapon he can wield against the White Walkers. There’s plenty of detailed evidence to back this up, which you will read in the post. GRRM and the showrunners have hidden many clues, as well, that I’m discovering with every read/viewing.
Paste: One thing I enjoyed reading in the thread was how even those who really didn’t want to believe in the idea, either because they dislike Jaime or love another potential savior like Jon Snow or Daenerys, had to admit the strength of your theory. Before we get into how you came to the idea—and I promise this is the last time I’ll make you re-hash your thread—can you give our readers a primer on the three stages of the Azor Ahai prophecy, and how it so neatly plays into what we’ve seen of Jaime so far, and what we might see in the future?
I agree that Jaime has one of the more compelling stories. In my opinion, we’ve seen Jaime grow more than any other character. Martin has been so clear about his views on ambiguous heroes, and Jaime seems to represent this better than anyone. This is precisely the reason I began to consider Jaime as fitting the hero prophecies.
So, yes, Azor Ahai. The prophecy of Azor Ahai predicts the arrival of a hero that will defeat The Others with his fiery sword, Lightbringer. When we consider the three-part Azor Ahai prophecy, Jaime’s narrative fits with stunning accuracy. The key to the narrative is to approach the “forging of a hero’s sword” from a metaphorical perspective. That is, Jaime is forging his hero persona, shifting from Kingslayer to Jaime. Each time, however, he is corrupted by his love for, and devotion to, Cersei.
Part I: He labored for thirty days and thirty nights until it was done. However, when he went to temper it in water, the sword broke. He was not one to give up easily, so he started over.
After Jaime loses his hand, he attempts, for the first time, to shed the “Kingslayer” in the bath at Harrenhal. He does so by sharing the origin of the Kingslayer with Brienne. Some interesting wording that is found in ASOS and GoT hints at what is about to occur. As Jaime first enters the bath, he warns Brienne, “Not so hard, you’ll rub the skin off.” I believe this is a subtle reference to this first act of change, shedding his skin.
Subsequently, we hear Jaime’s recounting of the Aerys story to Brienne. He is tempering/testing “Jaime” in water. In ASOS, after Jaime finishes his story, “The water had grown cool. When Jaime opened his eyes, he found himself staring at the stump of his sword hand. The hand that made me Kingslayer. The goat had robbed him of his glory and his shame, both at once. Leaving what? Who am I now?” (ASOS, Jaime, Ch. 37)
Maybe my favorite piece of evidence from this scene, though, is when Jaime passes out in the bath. Brienne calls out for help, “The Kingslayer!” but he replies, “My name is Jaime!”
Ultimately, though, Jaime is corrupted by his exposure to Cersei. Not until he reviews the History of the Kingsguard with Joffrey does he decide to “forge his sword” once again.
Part II: The second time he took fifty days and fifty nights to make the sword, even better than the first. To temper it this time, he captured a lion and drove the sword into its heart, but once more the steel shattered.
Jaime again attempts to shed the Kingslayer persona when he defies Tywin and frees Tyrion from the cells after Joffrey’s death. Recall that Tyrion immediately kills Tywin in a scene that is loaded with lion imagery.
Even though Jaime did not pull the trigger, Cersei directly blames Jaime’s moral “stupidity” for Tywin’s death, fulfilling our second aspect of the prophecy.
Cersei exerts her influence once again, however, shattering Jaime’s blade.
Setting the stage for the final act, Jaime faces Edmure and Walder Frey at the end of season 6. Both men disparage his character; Frey even compares himself to Jaime—both Kingslayers. This sets the stage for Jaime’s return to King’s Landing…
Part III: The third time, with a heavy heart, for he knew beforehand what he must do to finish the blade, he worked for a hundred days and nights until it was finished. This time, he called for his wife, Nissa Nissa, and asked her to bare her breast.
Now, this is where predictions begin. Jaime returns to King’s Landing and sees Cersei has taken power. He sees that she has burned The Sept. He knows he must kill her. He knows he must remove her influence permanently if he will successfully “finish his blade.”
Jaime will kill Cersei. In my opinion, he has already made that decision; it’s simply a matter of time. Whenever it does happen, though, is the point at which Jaime will be revealed as the hero. With Cersei as Nissa Nissa, her death will reveal Lightbringer—Jaime’s sword hand will return, this time set ablaze. What was once Jaime’s corruption embodied is reborn, the mark of a prophesized hero.
One piece of evidence that seems to seal the deal for many is this scene with Meera and Jojen. Meera asks Jojen, “When will we know it’s the end?” and Jojen replies...
For me, there is no doubt Jaime is the hero. It’s important to remember that GRRM hates war; he was a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War. GRRM consistently sets out to show the grim aspects of battle. This story will not end with war as the answer. If we compare Battle of the Bastards and Dragon’s Bay conflicts with the relatively peaceful resolution to Riverrun, who would GRRM believe to be the best leader? Who may be able to broker a peace with The Others?
Paste: Since you submitted your theory to the hive mind of Reddit, have any of the comments made you re-think any part of your theory? One idea I found compelling was that Cersei’s death will actually be the second part of the prophecy (plunging the sword into the lion) and that someone else, possibly Brienne, would fulfill the third part (Nissa Nissa).
Most of the posts in disagreement have been about who Nissa Nissa might be. To me, it must be Cersei. There’s no one else.
I have read some comments that suggest Brienne as being more important. I don’t think Brienne will factor in more than being a catalyst or role model for Jaime. Remember, she was the only one to value the honor of his word. Brienne made Jaime want to be a better person. I think calling their relationship a loving one would be a bit too much. It seems like mutual respect or admiration to me. Especially since the relationship between Cersei and Jaime has been the focal point of most of the series, to replace it with a short-term friendship would seem cheap.
I also think it’s important that the third part of the AA prophecy also fulfills the Valonqar prophecy. The “ecstasy” of Nissa Nissa’s scream will be caused by Cersei’s understanding of the fulfillment of the Maggy the Frog prophecy. She’s battled with her role in the death of her children. In a way, she would feel joy if the prophecy was true, since she would feel relieved of any responsibility in the deaths of her children. I mean, how cool would it be to see Jaime kill Cersei with Widow’s Wail as she “screams in agony and ecstasy”?!
Cersei is such an established character, the longest-running villain, and I think she deserves a pretty epic death. To have Azor Ahai reborn with the death of a side character would seem strange. The magic of Jaime killing his twin, lover and greatest love seems far more appropriate.
Transitioning slightly, what’s your history with ASOIAF, and how did you come to develop this theory? I’ve noticed that it’s been argued before, though never so thoroughly, and I’m curious when and how it first occurred to you that Jaime might be Azor Ahai.
I think my belief in Jaime has been a slow progression. I was initially Team Dany, but given her lust for power, she seems less and less a hero to me. When I began to notice the continuous use of hand imagery and references in ASOIAF, I decided there must be more to it.
It started when my husband decided he wanted to join in the fun and watch the series. I was happy to watch with him. The first real clue was, on the second viewing, the scene with Jojen and Meera. The a-ha moment was that the source of Lightbringer’s red glow and flame might not be the sword itself, but the wielder. If you read the prophecy, it supports that theory; whatever sword is being wielded by Azor Ahai will be Lightbringer. Why does it need to be Valyrian steel? Maybe just the heat of Azor Ahai’s grip. There is no specific, dedicated sword to be discovered. I believe Jojen was telling us Azor Ahai will have a flaming hand like Jojen’s in the scene.
Simply based on the fact that Jaime is missing a hand, I re-read his chapters. It was Jaime’s weirwood dream that left me questioning if he could be Azor Ahai. Weirwood dreams are generally pretty accurate, and Jaime dreamt of wielding a fiery blade. Qyburn’s use of the word “corruption” when referring to Jaime’s hand also caught my attention. It never quite made sense for the AA prophecies to be literal, so that’s the point that things began to cement.
One of the last really meaningful pieces of evidence I found was the Valyrian translation. Aemon hints that we should look out for mistranslations in the series and the books. So, I visited dothraki.org and reviewed words for the other components of the prophecy. I noticed the words for lord and gold were listed one after another. Same with light and hand. That was a “whoa” moment. Certainly, after this, I was pretty convinced.
To be honest, I was sure this theory was already out there in its entirety. I searched… and searched. I read theories that touch on bits and pieces, but never the whole. So, after sitting on it for nearly a year, I decided to finally write it down and share.
Paste: Finally, perhaps it’s just the newness of your theory, but you have me utterly convinced that you’ve cracked the code of how the saga will end. And yet, Martin is obviously a master of misdirection and surprise, so I want to pose the question to you—how sure are you of your theory, and how much would it shock you if GRRM went in a totally different direction?
I’m convinced my theory makes sense, but I would not be shocked at all if the series or the books went another way. GRRM is a genius. I’m a keyboard warrior that had a Sunday afternoon free.
Not watching till I get back from my cruise in aug
Animated Game of Thrones Prequel Tackles the Mystery of the Doom of Valyria
Patrick McCarthy recently shared a 20-minute animated concept pilot for a Doom of Valyria series, which dives into the history of the Valyrian Freehold, the Targaryens, and what led to the downfall of one of the realm’s greatest civilizations. Given the story’s inspiration is the Fall of Rome, Doom of Valyrialeans heavily into Greek and Roman design, highlighting the strong parallels between the two tales.
Patrick McCarthy recently shared a 20-minute animated concept pilot for a Doom of Valyria series, which dives into the history of the Valyrian Freehold, the Targaryens, and what led to the downfall of one of the realm’s greatest civilizations. Given the story’s inspiration is the Fall of Rome, Doom of Valyrialeans heavily into Greek and Roman design, highlighting the strong parallels between the two tales.
Has this been posted before?
http://www.theroot.com/the-black-pe...um=sharefromsite&utm_source=The_Root_facebook
Some funny shite in here.
http://www.theroot.com/the-black-pe...um=sharefromsite&utm_source=The_Root_facebook
Some funny shite in here.
He has a wannabe VSB writing style
Main gist of article
for some reason, it hasn’t caught on with the black audience because ... well ... I guess because dragons are white-folks shit. But there is one reason I recommend that we as a people incorporate dem Thronesinto our viewing habits:
It explains wypipo.
GOT is basically an all-encompassing analogy for white America and should be studied in the same way seventh-grade English teachers make their students dissect Animal Farm or Lord of the Flies to understand society. If you are late to theThrones party, use the Q&A session below as a primer for everything you wanted to know about dem Thrones but were afraid to ask.
What is Game of Thrones about?
The show is about white-on-white violence. The show is about a turf war between different gangs who want to win the ultimate prize: the Iron Throne. And you know that if there’s one thing wypipo love more than territory, it’s thrones.
But aren’t there superpowers, dragons and monsters and shit?
Yes, but the supernatural elements of the show are used as analogies and symbolic metaphors.
So what do the dragons stand for?
White privilege.
And the monsters?
Wypipo.
What about the actual white people on the show?
Oh, they are also metaphors—for Caucasians.
Wait. Is everything about white people?
Exactly! But Game of Thrones teaches us that not all white people are the same. That’s what I’m trying to show you, if you’d stop being so racist!
Me? How am I being ... OK, so are there any black people on the show?
Yes. There is a group of castrated warriors who were once slaves, called the Unsullied.
What? Let me guess, they were freed by ...
White people. Yes. A blond lady named Daenerys, who is impervious to fire, was born with the ability to ride dragons and was gifted at birth with dragon eggs that would eventually hatch. Daenerys rode the dragons (or her privilege) to save the slaves. And of course, after she frees them from lives dedicated to fighting in wars for their masters, they decide to spend their lives fighting for her—their “queen”—and help her ride her privilege dragons all the way to the Iron Throne.
So they dedicated themselves to the white-savior woman because she saved their people’s masculinity. Oh, this is getting kind of interesting. But if the show is about politics, white people and privilege, is there someone like Donald Trump?
Yes, they are the Lannisters, the symbol of white privilege. Everyone thinks they’re rich, but they really don’t have any money. However, no one in the Seven Kingdoms has seen their tax returns. They exist mostly by colluding with forces outside Westeros to keep their power by any means necessary. Tiffany Trump is played by Peter Dinklage, who is ostracized by the family. There are also Jamie and Cercei, twins whose lifelong love affair has produced three children who are all dead.
Man, this sounds interesting now! I just wish there were more black people.
Well, there are the Starks, who I refer to as “our cousins.”
Who are the Starks?
The Starks are a family who chilled in their own segregated neighborhood, not bothering anybody. Ned was the father, and he had five kids. He was also raising his nephew Jon Snow. (His sister got knocked up by this crazy guy, and ... you know how we do.) Anyway, Ned let his homeboy convince him to take this “good job,” let his daughter marry a white boy and moved his family into a white neighborhood. Ned fell for the trap, and the Lannister/Trumps cut his head off because Ned knew about the Russian collusion.
Damn, I gotta see this! Now tell me about the monsters.
The White Walkers?
Is that your nickname for them?
Nah, bruh. They are really called “White Walkers.” They are blue-eyed, white devils who kill and destroy everything in their path. I know it’s a little on the nose, but that is actually what’s happening on the show. And the only thing that might be able to stop them is ...
Let me guess: our cousins.
Exactly. Even though the Stark kids have been split up ever since their father died, they have all faced a rough life that makes them tough as hell. Plus, they have quietly acquired superpowers that no one knows about. And all the Starks can fight like a motherfucker—even the youngest girl, whose superpower is that she can blend in with white people..
Now all our Stark cousins are trying to get back to the old neighborhood for the family reunion so that they can stop the white peop—I mean White Walkers—from taking over.
There are some other groups who can help. The Queen of White Privilege is headed over with her ball-less black army, and our nephew Jon has convinced the poor white rednecks—or the Wildings—to fight with him and the Starks. Plus, the whole hood is on our side, because they know Ned always kept it 100 until the police—I mean the Kingsguard—executed him.
Well, I’m convinced. I’m already hooked on Game of Thrones and I haven’t watched an episode. But will it actually teach me about politics and life?
I have no idea, but when Donald Trump announced his run for president, I told people the same thing our Stark cousins have been telling people on Game of Thronesabout the White Walkers since the first episode, but no one would listen:
Winter is coming.
48 hours
Game of Thrones
George R.R. Martin has revealed to Time Magazine that Beric Dondarrion’s return to the show finds him in a decidedly grim state: he’s a wight, but one powered by fire instead of ice.
[P]oor Beric Dondarrion, who was set up as the foreshadowing of all this, every time he’s a little less Beric. His memories are fading, he’s got all these scars, he’s becoming more and more physically hideous, because he’s not a living human being anymore. His heart isn’t beating, his blood isn’t flowing in his veins, he’s a wight, but a wight animated by fire instead of by ice, now we’re getting back to the whole fire and ice thing.
Kit Harrington also spoke to Indie Wire about Jon Snow’s complicated relationship with Sansa.
I think Sansa twists [Jon] in a way that no one else can. She infuriates him, she speaks up at times when it’s more helpful for him for her to not speak up. Essentially he’s got a problem: He’s leader, and she’s testing him, and as a leader you can’t have someone question you. But when it’s your sister there’s not much you can do about that. What are you meant to do? Punish your sister or execute your sister? So she’s a real challenge for him and she knows that. I think she’s infuriating to him and she knows that. But she knows she’s cleverer than Jon, in many ways.
George R.R. Martin has revealed to Time Magazine that Beric Dondarrion’s return to the show finds him in a decidedly grim state: he’s a wight, but one powered by fire instead of ice.
[P]oor Beric Dondarrion, who was set up as the foreshadowing of all this, every time he’s a little less Beric. His memories are fading, he’s got all these scars, he’s becoming more and more physically hideous, because he’s not a living human being anymore. His heart isn’t beating, his blood isn’t flowing in his veins, he’s a wight, but a wight animated by fire instead of by ice, now we’re getting back to the whole fire and ice thing.
Kit Harrington also spoke to Indie Wire about Jon Snow’s complicated relationship with Sansa.
I think Sansa twists [Jon] in a way that no one else can. She infuriates him, she speaks up at times when it’s more helpful for him for her to not speak up. Essentially he’s got a problem: He’s leader, and she’s testing him, and as a leader you can’t have someone question you. But when it’s your sister there’s not much you can do about that. What are you meant to do? Punish your sister or execute your sister? So she’s a real challenge for him and she knows that. I think she’s infuriating to him and she knows that. But she knows she’s cleverer than Jon, in many ways.
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I've been doing this since season 2. It's the only way I could get my sister to watch it
My way of getting people in was saying its an epic built around the 48 Laws of Power...
IMO most of our people don't get read or understand the book but are quick to jump on the wave
Stretch is one of the best homorous recappers - hands down
Looking forward to more funny shit as GOT closes out
I have a feeling the season premiere will be mostly about Daenerys......
maybe not - the North is a problem or IMO more likely establish how powerful Cersi is and still short sightedI have a feeling the season premiere will be mostly about Daenerys......
Any predictions this season.
I think the Starks and the North will rise up and have vengeance on the people that betrayed them.
Everyone will start to take the White Walker and Wights invasion seriously.
Jaime will most likely betray Cersei due to Cersei's arrogance.
I have a strong feeling Sansa will allow Petyr to manipulate her.
I think the Starks and the North will rise up and have vengeance on the people that betrayed them.
Everyone will start to take the White Walker and Wights invasion seriously.
Jaime will most likely betray Cersei due to Cersei's arrogance.
I have a strong feeling Sansa will allow Petyr to manipulate her.
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