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 Jimsolo wrote:
In the books he's pretty resistant to the whole 'human sacrifice' angle. Unfortunately, the TV show seems to have removed a lot of the subtlety from peoples' characters.

I have never seen the show, only read the books .

well im going to go with Stannis, as he is the only one who actually did what a ruler in the seven kingdoms is suppose to do, defended the relm when asked.

The book has been out for 3 years now. To avoid all spoilers, read the books. You've been warned.

I'm interested in seeing how Aegon Targaryen meets Daenarys, her being the most incapable non-Stark leader in the entire universe and how the settle on who's going to be king - as normally, Aegon would have the right to the throne.

In the end, any Lannister should take the throne or rather anyone who is willing to do the same as the Lannister. Stark is completely out of the game, literally, even with Zombie-mom doing her thing and they would be too stuck with their honor-thingy anyway to be good rulers. If you want the throne, you need to be ruthless and cunning. Maybe Aegon with Daenarys together might be suitable. She, however, would never make a good leader, at least not at this point.

In the end, we will see what...

...wait for it...

...the Winds of Winter will bring.

 Sigvatr wrote:
The book has been out for 3 years now. To avoid all spoilers, read the books. You've been warned.

Stark is completely out of the game, literally, even with Zombie-mom doing her thing and they would be too stuck with their honor-thingy anyway to be good rulers. If you want the throne, you need to be ruthless and cunning.
...the Winds of Winter will bring.

I totally agree, that and the only one not busy with non throne related activities is what a toddler? I guess people are looking for him and sansa's angle COULD work but I dont know if I'd count that as being a stark contender.

Stannis may be the rightful by law of the line of succession but he would make a terrible king. Although he is the only one to help defend the wall this shows he is completely subservient to the Red Lady's wishes and that he is far too rigid to be able to play the Game of Thrones itself (Just like Ned). In the end he was just a means to an end for R'Hollr who at the end of a Dance with Dragons is poised to have a new champion in the form of the real Azor Asai reborn. Stannis also becoming King wouldn't stabilise Westeros for long as he only has a daughter, no sons to continue his succession.

The Greyjoys don't care about the seven kingdoms, just expanding their borders. And even then they aren't a organised single front but have different loyalties to different Ironborn make any of their claims weaker. Even if they find a way of using the Dragon Horn without killing the person who used it they probably wouldn't be able to stand against an organised army on a large scale and/or long term engagement

Tommen has no real claim to the throne but he is backed by both the Lannisters and the Tyrells both of whom are two of the three most powerful houses in Westeros as it stands (Along with the Martells) As it stands he is slowing losing allies and leaving the throne easier and easier for a contender to wrest the throne out of his child's clutch.

Daenarys is the opposite of Stannis. Far too emotional and caring about each person's individual plight she stands paralysed by her enemies who stalk her citizens in the streets. She also cannot as it stands control her greatest asset in her Dragons and is not exactly in a great position to launch a campaign across the Sea to try and take Kings Landing and the Iron Throne.

None deserve the throne

Actually Dany on the show shows all the signs of making a good ruler - its only in the books where GRM changed her character, the dire lock up the Dragons story and made her unable to react to terrorists.

He cocked it all up so he could bring in non entity new Targaryans and other new characters. I have alot more faith that we will actually get a proper ending out of the show than the books.

 Banzaimash wrote:
As it stands in the show, which contender for the Iron Throne do you support and why? If you would choose a contender from later in the ASOIAF series then choose other and state who and why.

Personally I would support Stannis Baratheon. Not only does he practice pure, undiluted justice, but he is one of the foremost battle commanders in Westeros on land and at sea and is an experienced and effective administrator. Although he is affiliated with the dodgy teachings of R'hollor, he is definitely skeptical of it, and seems to be using the religion and Melisandre to his own ends rather than the other way around. Not only this, but with Tommen being a bastard, Balon a deluded and overly proud old man with no more claim than any other prominent lord and Daenerys having lost her claim in a similar any of the kings in Westeros had during Aegon's Conquest (and the fact that she has little right to a people she has never seen), Stannis is lawfully the rightful king of Westeros, with the only valid claim.

I chose Balon, since this seems to be based around the TV show (that I dont watch) and as I understand it Victarion/Euron Greyjoy don't presently exist within it, but I would hazard a guess that one of them (Victarion) is the most serious contender. I also didn't see the "other" option until after I voted, so theres that too

Deny would make a horrible ruler. She is far too naive and prone to emotional outbursts. On her own she managed to destabilise an entire region and is only in power due to her army.

 welshhoppo wrote:
Deny would make a horrible ruler. She is far too naive and prone to emotional outbursts. On her own she managed to destabilise an entire region and is only in power due to her army.

Yeah, not taking Barriston's (whatever his name is) advice and crucifying all of those masters was a terrible and naive decision.
It is true they did horrible things, but they were necessary, and not all of them were monsters.

She's even worse in the books; she was so...feeble there. Then again, I suppose it is realistic; she was only something like 14 when she took Mereen in the books, right?

So, she's off my list. I like Danny and I think she has great potential, but she needs much more experience and drop some of the idealism.



Stannis would be alright if he wasn't in collusion with that red priestess; I take a dim view of wanton destruction of people and property due to ideologies.
Though I will give him points for defending the wall and not being an incompetent leader; he actually has experience. Though the fact he apparently has no concept of subtlety or cunning is problematic.

Tommen has potential of being a well loved ruler. A pity he has no experience and is under the control of his mother.

So...none of the above for me, really.
My vote then will go to Hodor.

Aye, no one really deserves the throne.

Apart from Jaime, he seems like a decent enough chap now he has lost his hand.

The what happened between him and Cersei in the TV however..... Thank you HBO for ruining all that complex character build up.

Ultimately Dany is really close to Robert Baratheon, most of their drive is coming from emotions (Her desire to restore the family rule, his love for Lyanna) and they're trying to achieve their goals through military might. Although they could succeed at being conquerors when they actually have to settle down and take hold of the reins they struggle much more, Dany barely controls the streets of Mereen and Robert bankrupted Westeros

 Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:
Ultimately Dany is really close to Robert Baratheon, most of their drive is coming from emotions (Her desire to restore the family rule, his love for Lyanna) and they're trying to achieve their goals through military might. Although they could succeed at being conquerors when they actually have to settle down and take hold of the reins they struggle much more, Dany barely controls the streets of Mereen and Robert bankrupted Westeros

Is that irony I detect? I think that's irony

 Mr Morden wrote:
the dire lock up the Dragons story

That was cool somehow. Treating dragons as magical pets that are very obedient and would never harm a human being unless ordered too was not going well with the tone of the story. Having them be very dangerous beasts that had to be kept in chain was only fitting.
Maybe one of them will end up eating Dany. That would be quite awesome.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
My vote then will go to Hodor.

So, two votes for Hodor now? We are going to hodor the world! We will hodor the hodor out of their hodor until it hodor the hodor of hodor!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 welshhoppo wrote:
Apart from Jaime, he seems like a decent enough chap now he has lost his hand.

Because throwing children out the window while japing about it is now being decent . For some reason, he seems much, much more preoccupied by killing some mad king than trying to kill some completely innocent child, and ruining his legs forever.

 Sigvatr wrote:
I'm interested in seeing how Aegon Targaryen meets Daenarys, her being the most incapable non-Stark leader in the entire universe and how the settle on who's going to be king - as normally, Aegon would have the right to the throne.

Honestly, I think that GRRM may have them do what most other Targaryens did before them

hat was cool somehow. Treating dragons as magical pets that are very obedient and would never harm a human being unless ordered too was not going well with the tone of the story. Having them be very dangerous beasts that had to be kept in chain was only fitting.
Maybe one of them will end up eating Dany. That would be quite awesome.

Remember that they are in some ways her children - chaining your children (and your most powerful weapon) up and making them so feral even Dany was unsure of them was foolish, as was her sudden inspid nature - the show seems to be having her keep the iron within the silken glove more....

Its interesting to note that this time she actually has a navy and powerful emmisaries from Quarth are much more unlikely given what happened there in the show?

not taking Barriston's (whatever his name is) advice and crucifying all of those masters was a terrible and naive decision.
It is true they did horrible things, but they were necessary, and not all of them were monsters.

She's even worse in the books; she was so...feeble there. Then again, I suppose it is realistic; she was only something like 14 when she took Mereen in the books, right?

Successful slave revolts usually end with much more violence and carnage (watch Sparticus: War of Damned for whats more likely to have happened to all the free women and children - a sick combination of revenge taking, murder, rape and torture would have been pretty rampant - its mentioned in passing in the last episode that there is venegance taking but would be brutal) - it was actually a very restrained taking of the city of Mereen - by the standards of anceient and medievil warfare in our world and for what we have seen in Westros and beyond. Imagine if Ramsey Snow had an army and dragons...............

Dany is in the first few books and in the show quite preapred to do what is neccesary and is not above pure and poetic revenge - like on the witch that killed her husband and unborn son - "you will scream."

Stannis seems to have potential - although yet to see him actually succeed - but his now really just a thrall for a death cult............who IIC also revere Dany in the books. He is an important piece in the game but not I feel the player

Tommen (and Magery) could be good rulers - they seem to have their hearts in the right place but that won't alone protect them and when Tywin dies then the realm is up for grabs and all bets are off - as was explained to the Iron bank.

Obereon would make an interesting consort for Dany - she has shown she is relatively open minded in the bedroom and he is linked by his late sisters marriage...............(yes I know what happens in the book)

Because throwing children out the window while japing about it is now being decen

Indeed, its notable my female friends tend to be quite quick to overlook this "slip"

 Mr Morden wrote:
Remember that they are in some ways her children

That is… well, high fantasy bs. She saw them as her children. She realized they were actually very dangerous wild creature. Actually, I expected that to happen with the direwolves too. They are not supposed to be pets.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Dany is in the first few books and in the show quite preapred to do what is neccesary and is not above pure and poetic revenge - like on the witch that killed her husband and unborn son - "you will scream."

I would not say that was poetic. I remember it as a pretty jerk-ass move from her.

Stannis is our King.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Indeed, its notable my female friends tend to be quite quick to overlook this "slip"

Is Welshhoppo a woman, or are you japing that Jaime's good look make your friends turn a blind eye on his faults? Or both?

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Indeed, its notable my female friends tend to be quite quick to overlook this "slip"

Is Welshhoppo a woman, or are you japing that Jaime's good look make your friends turn a blind eye on his faults? Or both?

As far as I know I am not a women. And maybe throwing Bran out of a window was poor judgement on his behalf, but I blame Cersei.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Remember that they are in some ways her children

Actually, I expected that to happen with the direwolves too. They are not supposed to be pets.

I think the whole "the Starks are Wargs" aspect created a stronger link between direwolf and human being enough to where they wouldn't just simply go ape, and kill anyone near them.

That is… well, high fantasy bs. She saw them as her children. She realized they were actually very dangerous wild creature. Actually, I expected that to happen with the direwolves too. They are not supposed to be pets.

Err isn't that what this is - Fantasy with Dragons and Magic and stuff? They imprinted and are linked to her when they were born - The Targaryans always had strong bond with the Dragons - its also not clear how intelligent (or not) the Dragons are......

The Dire Wolves were always much more treated as special pets - especaily with Sansa and the younger children,

are you japing that Jaime's good look make your friends turn a blind eye on his faults? Or both?

yeah - girls often like bad guys - especialy ones that get a bit angsty now and then same with Damon on V Diaries and many others. They have loooong conversations about poor Jamie or poor Damon.....................still I am often guilty of the same for "evil" (i prefere misunderstood) but hot female characters as they tend to remind me.

maybe throwing Bran out of a window was poor judgement on his behalf, but I blame Cerse

Maybe it was bad judgement? Maybe?

This does seem a little easygoing on him when you are critical of Dany taking revenge on the woman who had killed her husband and son? Cersei was as much to blame but Jamie did not (and IIC has never since) much bothered by it - only by his bad rep re Kingslaying?

 Mr Morden wrote:
Err isn't that what this is - Fantasy with Dragons and Magic and stuff?

High Fantasy is not about that good old same old “Good versus Evil”, with always-evil (and sometime always-good) races (actually species most of the time), chosen hero that fulfills their destiny and all that jazz ? Sorry then, I used the wrong expression. What is the correct term for what I just described? If there is one, that is.

 Mr Morden wrote:
They imprinted and are linked to her when they were born

They did? Or she just thinks so? I mean, clearly they were born and some supernatural stuff happened, but as for the details… I do not remember any specific lore being available to her about dragons, and I do not remember more learned characters (like, say, Tyrion) making comments about it.

 Mr Morden wrote:
yeah - girls often like bad guys - especialy ones that get a bit angsty now and then same with Damon on V Diaries and many others. They have loooong conversations about poor Jamie or poor Damon.....................still I am often guilty of the same for "evil" (i prefere misunderstood) but hot female characters as they tend to remind me.

Who does not like darker and edgier .

 Mr Morden wrote:
This does seem a little easygoing on him when you are critical of Dany taking revenge on the woman who had killed her husband and son?

Are you not confusing me and Welshhoppo here? And if I recall correctly, Dany was given against her will to some raider that led a life of slaughter, pillaging, raping and other very nice things. He and his Khal pretty much butchered everyone that this healer woman hold dear in a fury of uncalled for violence. She even proposed to cure the wound, but he would not do it. So, yeah, I can understand how she decided to let him rot. And Dany was extremely naive if she thought that not killing the healer on the spot and instead turning her into a slave/servant would make her hold goodwill about the guy that provoked all that butchery and the woman that loved him .

Oh agreed Dany has made mistakes - usually trying to make things better - it gets worse whereas doing "bad things" sorts things out.........the healer was a classic learnig process - she was never happy with the murdering raping aspcts of her husband - even its dark and edgy and was obovously set on doing what she could to mititigate this with her then limited power - much as Margery does in Kings Landing during Joffrey's rule despite also having an agenda.............

re Dragons - well GRM has said very little about them - they might even actualy come from the moon? I am a bit worried baout the possible associaitons with the Clangers but hey....... Personally I like to think of the Valyrians as a Melnibonean colony cut off from home................there are definately hints that Targaryians are not totally human......

Yeah Welshhoppo was I should have addressed trhat remark to I do think that throwing children out of windows is pretty universely considerd a "bad thing".....

re High Fantasy - wiki says:

High Fantasy is a sub-genre of fantasy fiction, defined either by its setting in an imaginary world or by the epic stature of its characters, themes and plot. Quintessential works of high fantasy, such as The Lord of the Rings, A Song of Ice and Fire, Malazan Book of the Fallen, and The Wheel of Time, have both of these attributes

 welshhoppo wrote:
And maybe throwing Bran out of a window was poor judgement on his behalf, but I blame Cersei.

That is… strange. I mean, why not blame Bran? It was his fault, after all! Blaming the victim is always so much fun .

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:
And maybe throwing Bran out of a window was poor judgement on his behalf, but I blame Cersei.

That is… strange. I mean, why not blame Bran? It was his fault, after all! Blaming the victim is always so much fun .

Quite right - he was told not to climb walls and spying on the Queen must[b] be a captial crime - so justice was served and the Starks are even more Traitors

 Mr Morden wrote:
Oh agreed Dany has made mistakes - usually trying to make things better - it gets worse whereas doing "bad things" sorts things out.........the healer was a classic learnig process - she was never happy with the murdering raping aspcts of her husband - even its dark and edgy and was obovously set on doing what she could to mititigate this with her then limited power - much as Margery does in Kings Landing during Joffrey's rule despite also having an agenda.............

She had a total and absolute lack of perspective if she was that much incapable of realizing how things were from the Magi's point of view. She was either very stupid or very inconsiderate. And taking revenge means she basically understood nothing good from this lesson . It made her more ruthless, but certainly not a better person.

Teenage girls don't always have a great handle on perspective when trying to do the right thing - to be fair humans often get this wrong?

Its difficult to know what would have been an appropriate thing - say sorry, give her some money and leave - its never going to make up for it. Would she have been better to just ignore the whole thing as the other women of the caravan would have?

The whole End Slavery quest is built on the same shaky foundations................except she can actually do it - just needs to keep being ruthless................being nice only gets you so far.

Also she is winning in the poll - go Dany

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:
And maybe throwing Bran out of a window was poor judgement on his behalf, but I blame Cersei.

That is… strange. I mean, why not blame Bran? It was his fault, after all! Blaming the victim is always so much fun .

Quite right - he was told not to climb walls and spying on the Queen must[b] be a captial crime - so justice was served and the Starks are even more Traitors

I think that many of the things that go wrong can be contributed to not listening to Catelyn Stark.

Ned going to King's landing? Should have listened to Catelyn.
Rob Stark dying? Should have listened to Catelyn
Bran getting tossed out of a window for espionage? Should have listened to Catelyn
Rob sending Theon on a mission to bring his father to the north? Should have listened to Catelyn. The list goes on and on.

 welshhoppo wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:
And maybe throwing Bran out of a window was poor judgement on his behalf, but I blame Cersei.

That is… strange. I mean, why not blame Bran? It was his fault, after all! Blaming the victim is always so much fun .

Quite right - he was told not to climb walls and spying on the Queen must[b] be a captial crime - so justice was served and the Starks are even more Traitors

I think that many of the things that go wrong can be contributed to not listening to Catelyn Stark.

Ned going to King's landing? Should have listened to Catelyn.
Rob Stark dying? Should have listened to Catelyn
Bran getting tossed out of a window for espionage? Should have listened to Catelyn
Rob sending Theon on a mission to bring his father to the north? Should have listened to Catelyn. The list goes on and on.

Oh definately - don't break oaths to the Freys comes to mind as well?
Don't marry her you stupid boy - just keep her as a mistress

Of course its not like she is around to say I told you so - well not exactly

It's a good thing Lady Stoneheart picked up where she left off.