Talk: The Wars To Come

Nitpicking

According to the HBO schedule, it is 'The Wars To Come', with capital 'To' instead of 'to'. That should be changed, I guess Kitfistofan93 (talk) 13:57, March 9, 2015 (UTC)

Actually, in titles, generally speaking, words like "and", "to", "of", "the" etc. are not capitalised unless the title begins with one of those words. For example the episode "The Lion and the Rose" does not capitalise "and" and "the" but as it starts with "the", it would look odd if it were not capitalised. Probably just a mistake on HBO's part, a very small and insignificant one albeit.

Ironic I am saying this as I made the same mistake in my own name... - Son Of Fire (talk) 15:06, March 9, 2015 (UTC)

Please link to the HBO schedule where it says this, might just be a mistake on the part of the programmer.

The spelling I've consistently seen is a lowercase "t" - which is how they've done it in past episodes.

It's arbitrary, really, but titles are case-sensitive for articles.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 20:35, March 9, 2015 (UTC)

Writers

Though it is fair to assume that at least the first couple episodes will be written by D&D, as usual, we best not add that information until it's actually confirmed. Does that sound reasonable? :)

BTW, as for the sources of the titles; the referenced website is from a famous GOT podcast, "Cast of Thrones" (http://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/2y382n/spoilers_all_episode_titles_for_the_first_3/cp5z600). Though their source is undisclosed, we add information from The Watchers on the Wall with undisclosed sources all the time, and these people are similarly not "nobodies", so I made a judgement call to consider them reliable. If, however, someone disagrees on this, well, the pages can always be deleted or locked. —ArticXiongmao (talk) 12:38, March 6, 2015 (UTC)

I'd refrain from adding the episode names now considering, how ever reliable, it's only one source. Even if many major news sources report this it could still be wrong if HBO hasn't confirmed it, as we've seen from the Bran season 5 fiasco a few months back. I'm not opposed to keeping them here as it's done now, it's up to everyone else if they want GoT Wikia to be exclusively confirmed content or not. - Son Of Fire (talk) 14:50, March 6, 2015 (UTC)

The Watchers on the Wall have confirmed it with their own independent sources ;) —ArticXiongmao (talk) 20:23, March 6, 2015 (UTC)

Fair enough ;) - Son Of Fire (talk) 09:22, March 7, 2015 (UTC)

Tower of London premiere

Turns out they screened this first on March 18th at the Tower of London.

Reviews are scarce - often they don't repeat "actual news" so much as explaining who the Sand Snakes are (there's this thing called BOOKS, we already know this!)

Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen are in this episode, as are Tyrion, and also we've had independent confirmation that Littlefinger and Alayne are in it. Not sure if any were left out.

Big news is that Melisandre is going to have that pyre burning in the first episode of the season.

Much of the episode focusing on Tywin's funeral it seems. Idiot reviewer says he laughed when he saw the funeral-stone things over Tywin's eyes. Okay, we saw those in the series premiere with Jon Arryn, then when Hoster died, and VERY prominently even last season when Joffrey died. Do these people really have such short attention spans?

One report said that an Unsullied visiting a prostitute was named "White Rat" and not "Stalwart Shield", but I suspect that he simply got the names mixed up with someone else.

--The Dragon Demands (talk) 00:29, March 19, 2015 (UTC)

Calming down a bit, some solid information is coming through reports:

• Much of the action is of course focusing on Tywin's funeral in King's Landing
• Varys and Tyrion are at Illyrio's mansion in Pentos...but Illyrio isn't there. Varys does mention Illyrio. I think the actor was unavailable.
• Stannis wants Mance to order the wildlings to follow him to retake the North, that's what Jon Snow is trying to convince him of. Samwell and Gilly are in the episode. Alliser Thorne is indeed alive, just wounded. Olly also returns.
• From the pic we already have, what Littlefinger, "Alayne", and Royce ware watching at a tournament ground/training field is Sweetrobin Arryn being actually trained...and he's terrible at it, because he's never touched a sword before while being sheltered by his mother. So he's in the episode too.
• Brienne and Podrick are briefly in the episode. They're still on the road in the Vale, and the camera pulls back to show that on a road in the next field, Sansa and Littlefinger are riding in a carriage (but don't see Brienne) - shots of this were in trailers. Littlefinger's conversation implies that they're going far away from Cersei (i.e. Winterfell, but that was confirmed in other trailers)
• Hizdahr asks Daenerys to reopen the fighting pits; Yezzan represents Yunkai and threatens, etc. Daenerys visits dragons in caves but they've grown and snap fire at her -- YES, confirmation, she STATES on-screen for the first time that their names are Rhaegal and Viserion.
• Curiously, the Unsullied who we thought was "Stalwart Shield" from the books is now called "White Rat". Was he ever even confirmed to be named "Stalwart Shield" or did we just assume that based on character description? Running theory is that they thought it would take too long to explain that some Unsullied are choosing NICE names, so they're showing that they all have vermin names like Red Flea, White Rat, Grey Worm...eh, whatever.
• Arya and Braavos apparently do not appear in this episode.
• Winterfell and the Boltons apparently do not appear in this episode.
• They haven't introduced the other Martells yet, that's going to be more fully done in a later episode.

--The Dragon Demands (talk) 03:55, March 19, 2015 (UTC)

Odd...some WOTW.com comments said that Daario will say he's actually from Tolos...though as pointed out, perhaps he was just misheard saying "Tyrosh"? Dunno.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 02:24, March 20, 2015 (UTC)

Okay, multiple recappers are saying that the premiere features a major "Sexposition" scene...between Loras and Olyvar in the brothel, (apparently drunkenly?) chatting about Dorne. The whole scene carries on for some time, and is said to feel like the reverse of the Season 1 sexposition scene in the same brothel -- that is, you really get the impression watching it that this is Benioff and Weiss finally responding to criticisms of their previous "Adam Friedberg" directed approach pandering to 13 year old boys, so they specifically made a protracted sexposition scene between two gay men. I'm surprised they're finally responding to and trying to make up for past criticisms like this.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 04:19, March 22, 2015 (UTC)

This pleases me.--Ser Patrek (talk) 12:30, March 29, 2015 (UTC)

Westeros.org's advanced review:

Westeros.org was at the premiere and did an advanced discussion video (not a full review).

Mild spoilers, but there are three major points they focused on:

1 - The Young Griff storyline is not present at Pentos. We knew that. They're at Illyrio's mansion but he isn't there (actor unavailable and unwilling to recast?). Anyway the logical result of this omission is how it affects Varys's motivations and goals.

They have Varys say he's doing what he's doing for the good of Westeros, and that he and Illyrio began plotting because they knew that Robert would run Westeros into the ground, causing suffering among the commoners.

Now, a point Westeros.org itself raises is...don't take anything Varys says at face value. I mean, for all we know he's lying to manipulate Tyrion. Even in the TV series he seems to be a Targaryen loyalist...but is that because he believes they're best for the realm? (the way that Pycelle said he supports Tywin because the Lannisters are strongest and therefore best choice to enforce peace and order).

They also pointed out that they haven't 100% precluded including Young Griff later, if the theory holds true that HBO wants many more seasons, so stuff they cut from Season 5 would be pushed back to Season 6....we already guessed this. It seems unlikely, but never say never.

I'm not that upset because I do understand that Young Griff is a large' subplot which would eat up a lot of time on a 7 season show...though I lament that a 10 season show would have had time for it.

2 - The stuff with Mance Rayder. Westeros.org pointed out that they could plausibly still do it the way they did in the novels later in the TV season, they're not sure, though it felt like - given how much they're changing the Winterfell subplot - the have a growing suspicion that it won't be revisited later in the season.

I'm on the fence about that one - if they had to shorten it for time reasons, not the worst imaginable change.

3 - Cersei's opening flashback.

A few minor points: Only one friend accompanies Cersei, and Cersei doesn't kill Melara. Though even in the books, Cersei only mentions throwing Melara down a well in a later chapter so....many Cersei could still mention in a later episode that this is what happened? Eh, it would have distracted people from the prophecy.

As for the prophecy itself, yes Cersei asks "will I marry the Prince?" but I'm not sure if she mentions Rhaegar by name (I'm giddy that they're having a flashback - Rhaegar was alive in that timeframe, they can't keep ignoring him).

A curious change was saying that Robert would have twenty children, not sixteen as in the books. We don't even know of all 16 bastards in the novels - maybe Cersei had all of the ones we don't know about killed over the years. Whatever. It just seems an odd change for a minor point.

Hehe...."Robert had a lot of bastards"....yeah, as if that's a spoiler. If I'm not careful I might let slip that the sun rises in the east! :)

A big point though: No mention is made of the word "Valonqar" -- maybe they thought it would be needlessly complicated, and to be honest, maybe it was a needless addition (at this point Cersei knows Tyrion must have killed Tywin and alreadysuspects he's behind all plots against her).

So of these three changes, I'm not too upset by any of them. I do wish for Young Griff and worry about how this changes Varys, but it is time consuming. Particularly I'm worried about if Mance was...necessary, though that ties into the larger issue of how they're condensing the Winterfell subplot.

Minor point: Yes Kevan and Lancel return, played by their original actors not seen since Season 2.

Westeros.org also felt that the Sparrows are introduced a bit suddenly...but this is understandable. I mean they weren't in Season 4 at all, yet now they're here. The suffering of the burned out Riverlands was gradually introduced in the novels in Brienne's storyline, but they don't have that. I'm not concerned: the first episode is just to set everything up quickly. I mean the third episode seems to be the full introduction of the Sparrows (it's titled "the High Sparrow"), so their answer might just be "Cersei was ignoring the Sparrows and smallfolk so similarly we didn't focus on it, because the TV camera follows the perspective of the major characters; thus on a meta-level as even Cersei learns about the Sparrows, so do we"

(shrug) I'm unconcerned.

So no huge surprises.

Basically the subplots that appear in the episode are:

• 1 - King's Landing, Tywin's funeral.
• 2 - The Wall, with the Night's Watch and Stannis.
• 3 - Tyrion in Pentos
• 4 - Daenerys in Meereen
• 5 - The Vale, with Littlefinger and Sansa. Brienne and Podrick also have a brief cameo, walking through a field along the road in the Vale, then the camera zooms around to show that the carriage passing down the road on the horizon is actually Littlefinger and Sansa (just a quick visual way of showing "both of these character groups are in the Vale" - you know, like a shot in Flea Bottom panning up then zooming in on the Red Keep, to switch to the Lannisters).

The Boltons and Reek do not appear, nor does Arya. No mention is made of the Martells, that's going to be fully introduced in a few episodes when the Sand Snakes send their "message" to Cersei.

Overall, nothing too surprising.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 21:28, March 25, 2015 (UTC)

Mance

I'm guessing Mance will be burned for real in the show. Yes, Rattleshirt is confirmed as returning, but judging from the trailer he will be involved in the Hardhome storyline, as will Tormund. If this is true then Ciran Hinds fits the bill as the actor was reportedly so pissed off about being prematurely killed off when his character had so much more to do in the books. "How many eyes does Lord Bloodraven have?" 13:54, March 19, 2015 (UTC)

...It's hard to say. What with magic and all, maybe Melisandre's trick can be something else.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 14:28, March 19, 2015 (UTC)

Is it OK for post in this page what happened to Mance in the books on the "Notes" section? Since it is already posted on the pages of Mance and Lord of Bones, is it not a spoiler anymore?89.139.17.212 11:03, June 4, 2015 (UTC)

Cersei's age in the flashback

How do we know Cersei is around 14 in the flashback? Is this based on the actress age? --Gladiatus (talk) 12:53, April 15, 2015 (UTC)

Oh, I was being very broad. Actress is actually 16. I mean when I said "around 15" (current age 40 minus 25), I meant "within 3 to 5 years of 25 years ago". Very broadly. More than 20, less than 30. I mean I'm rounding - it's not like I said "24 years ago".--The Dragon Demands (talk) 14:57, April 16, 2015 (UTC)

Ian Gelders return as Kevan Lannister

Where is the source that Ian Gelder couldn't reprise his role as Kevan Lannister because he had other engagements? I thought they cut him out and gave Kevans lines and appearences from the bookseries to others ( in the books it was Kevan and not Varys who reminded Joffrey that Sansa is his aunt by marriage after Joffreys suggestion to serve her the head of Robb Stark at his wedding for example) to spare money. --Exodianecross (talk) 00:08, April 26, 2015 (UTC)

We don't know officially why Ian Gelder did not reappear in Seasons 3 and 4. The TV producers may have done it to limit the number of characters on screen, but that seems odd in this case. It seemed probable that the actor was unavailable.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 00:18, April 26, 2015 (UTC)

I understand. But it's a little bit sad, I'm a fan of Ian Gelder and his portrayal of Kevan is great! He had just minor parts in the first two seasons but in the "Small Council"-scene he showed that he's a boss! --Exodianecross (talk) 11:52, April 26, 2015 (UTC)