A Song Of Ice And Fire

in a series with a lot unnecessary violence toward women/people in general, having an out of character moment for Stannis for something that was very much his fault for leaving Melisandre behind is eyerolling to me.

I do wonder what Mel could have done against the wildfire... If she did some Harry Potter fiendfyre nonsense and turned it sentient against the Lannister forces. That would essentially guarantee Stannis's ascension.

Yeah, they lose a few ships, then Melisandre just sends it flooding over the walls and burning everyone inside to death XD

Eh I doubt Mel could have controlled that much wildfire.

We've never seen her have pyromantic powers ever and in the books most of her power is only projection and showmanship.

I wouldn't be surprised if Mel simply lets people believe she could have helped.

She has used pyromancy, actually. She hit that hawk that had been tormenting Jon all through ASOS with a fireball.

Oh pffft damn you memory. The last two books were kinda one big sloggy blur to me so maybe that's why I don't remember.

Still my point stands, barring some kinda ritual I doubt her power level is high enough to control and stop all the wildfire that wrecked Stannis' fleet.

And Stannis still would have been hit in the rear by the Lannisters and Tyrells. Mel couldn't change that.

edited 23rd Feb '15 11:52:00 AM by Mr.Didact

I think Robb would've made for a decent king in the North.

There's essentially no administrative difference between a self-governing King in the North and Lord of Winterfell.

And Robb was growing more politically smart. Too bad he got killed before he reached his full potential.

Eh. Stannis would be in King's Landing in a great defensive position already by the time the Tys came if Mel could turn the wildfire against the defenders.

Maybe she could use the leftover wildfire to breeze through the Tyrell army as well.

edited 23rd Feb '15 12:24:26 PM by MadSkillz

Say Stannis wins and imprisons/executes Joffrey, Cersei, Tyrion, Sansa, and the other nobles. Myrcella and Tomnen are still out of his reach because now the Lannisters and Tyrells have them surrounded. It would have been the siege of Storm's End all over again unless Stannis wanted to escape by sea. He would have held the Iron Throne but for how long is far from certain.

And again we have no evidence that Mel's powers are advanced enough that she could do such a thing. I wouldn't be surprised if Wildfire isn't in her jurisdiction since it is an unnatural man-made alchemical fire that behaves very much unlike real fire.

I would agree with the basic premise that controlling fire on that scale is quite a bit beyond we we've seen her to be capable of, especially under stressful battlefield conditions, but it's conceivable that she could've made a difference. Not 'the Wildfire stops being an effect tactic' level difference, but maybe she could've saved a ship or two.

I would have sent in decoys, myself. Stannis probably wouldn't have lost most of his naval power if he hadn't given sea command to the idiot that he did. Maybe give it to a cleverer, more serious guy, like Saan.

I can't really see Mel being much help if she was there given that she was kind of on the wrong side of a prophesy twist/self fulfilling prophesy the whole time.

She saw Renly defeating Stannis in the flames which is why she advocated killing Renly and when that was done, she probably thought to herself "problem solved".

Unfortunately, the Renly she saw in the flames was actually Garlan in Renly's armor- which only happened because she had killed Renly.

If she had been present at the battle, she'd basically be saying "Oops" when Garlan!Renly showed up.

The Alchemists mention that their wildfire lately has become much more potent (due to the birth of the dragons). So it if can be influenced because dragons then I'm sure wildfire would fall under Mel's jurisdiction.

The alchemists also claim that making wildfire involves magic.

She hit that hawk that had been tormenting Jon all through ASOS with a fireball.

I thought she just made it sort of spontaneously combust. But I may be misremembering.

Also, for what it's worth, Mel used wildfire on Stannis's sword during the ceremony.

Theory time:

What if Jon Arryn was fostering Ned Stark as a B/C plan heir and Rickard's plan (which Jon was on board with) was to marry him to one of Jon's various nieces and with a little luck there could be a Stark as a Vale lord

edited 23rd Feb '15 8:54:41 PM by MadSkillz

Why would Jon do that?

edited 24th Feb '15 2:09:03 AM by 940131

Read a few more chapters. Jaime threatened Edmure (I would have denied him, let him try. They couldn't do anything to me anyway), Cersei's in her final "plans" to discredit Margaery and making a lot of assumptions, Maester Aemon is dead, Brienne fought Rorge and the surviving Brave Companions, and I read those five sweet words.

Vengeance.

Justice.

Fire and blood.

I think I've got one more Brienne chapter, one more Cersei chapter, one more Jaime chapter, and one more Sam chapter. I think I'll read them all tomorrow, then I'll start A Dance With Dragons.

Oh Doran..... I mostly like him. It's kinda funny cuz he's not badass and he pretty much has done nothing but little itty bitty things over the years and he's playing a really really long game. It's mostly I like the snakes and Arianne and their dynamic with him.

I wonder how long it'd been between the Audiobook recordings of A Storm of Swords and A Feast for Crows. I ask, because Roy Detrice seems to have forgotten character voices and pronunciations of words.

I do have to say though, Arianne is basically older Arya, but on the opposite edge of the world. She thinks that everything she's done is the right thing to do, won't hear any dissenting opinions, and is too stupid to realize "Hey, my actions hurt others."

Arya? Do you mean Dany?

Both.

Was just thinking GRRM missed an opportunity to play with the linguistic side of conflict and tension. The Ironborn, Wildings and Dornish all speak the same language as the rest of Westeros despite lacking any historic suppression of their native ones (like penal laws or something), and surely regions as distinct as them would develop their own language. It could have added a lot to the sense of otherness about them.

It did strike me as strange that Westeros seems to have a single unified language. Although they do have the Maesters and the Raven network to provide consistent communication and preserve language and knowledge. Also the fact that books centuries old are still readable in the Common language without a problem.

Yeah, it's pretty convenient that Westeros has very little linguistic diversity outside of the educated/smallfolk thing.

Of course, not that there's anything wrong with sketching out only the broad strokes of foreign languages. I suppose GRRM could have mentioned that there are regional dialects, but I don't really think having characters have more problems communicating would have added substantially to the narrative. GRRM isn't JRRT after all.

Even without developing the language though, he could note the Dornish speak Dornish and are speaking a second language when communicating with the rest of Westeros. Just to add to the cultural divide.