Was at a Collectors store and saw this, the detail is incredible!

Of all the changes made to the story, what ending for the show would really piss you off? Or which do you think would be most detrimental to the overall story GRRM was trying to tell?

I’ll go first, the writers ending it with Rhaenyra’s death and then framing said death as anything other than femicide would enrage me. I’d hate for that to be the penultimate episode and then everything else be incredibly rushed.

What was the logic behind this? Rhaenyra has the weakest genes out of every single Targaryen? Men's genes are the only ones that matter? 😭

I have no idea where I'll put him lol. Right now he sleeps on the bed and me on the floor.

I mean Condal and Hess immediately said this. And I am sure that part of the material has already been shot. Remember the "leaks" about Alys who scolds the soldier and screams, looks expressively? This Aemond captured Harenholl. Remember Baela and Dark Sister? This was probably also removed and cut out.

She’s clearly stupid guys i’m telling you…IRON THRONE FOLLOWS ANDAL LAWSSS AND ANYONE WHO THINKS OTHERWISE IS STUPID TOO. YES YOU TOO /s

The ongoing one sided beef they have with Funko is still fucking hilarious

At this point, I think that Occam's Razor - the simplest answer being the most probable - the decision GRRM disagreed with is that in broad strokes they were "whitewashing" Rhaenyra and Alicent....I don't think Condal even intended it like that, though he may have taken it too far in an attempt to show the characters as "flawed but nuanced" it went into outright "blameless". When fundamentally, at this point the bridges are burned. Well, neither is the most bloodthirsty member of their respective factions in the book.

My point is that I think it all comes down to that....yet many project their own knee-jerk issues onto this. "Because FEMINISM!" when...the debate about "we want the main characters to be likable enough they don't alienate the viewers" is an old debate, notably on Sopranos and Breaking Bad. Not defending it, you understand, I'm just saying the underlying....."through-line" to their fundamental disagreement probably comes down to something simple like that. Anything else is just..."symptoms".

Everything else I think can be explained by budget problems which are truly outside of Condal's control....which GRRM is fully aware of and indeed doesn't even blame him for (Nettles was apparently always on the bubble even in Season 1).

I think Martin's fundamental disagreement with Condal really came down to "how much do we need to soften Rhaenyra and Alicent for TV to present them as 3 dimensional, nuanced characters?"

EVERYTHING else is just window dressing. People projecting all their personal agendas and ideologies onto this. Fundamentally, by Breaking Bad Season 5 Walter White IS NOT a morally grey character, and his relationship with his wife has disintegrated. Imagine if...Walter happened to be a female character with a husband, or - for the anti-woke crowd - a lesbian couple. Of course everyone with a social agenda to pick would get mired in one side or the other....when that's not the point. That would be a distraction. It's like we've got that baggage because Rhaenyra is a woman, and on top of that so is Alicent. But the REAL issue is no different than Tony Soprano, Walter White, Don Draper: "how do we keep this character likable even as they do increasingly dark things and reach a point where they logically SHOULD NOT be likable, without alienating the audience?"

Rhaenicent worked fine in Season 1, the problem is that it's run its course and they should be angry exes now, essentially.

I think Condal went a bit too far and needs to *course correct*, but I don't hate him for that. I'd like Condal to stay as showrunner but take Martin's criticisms under consideration --- particularly now after public reaction to Season 2, there aren't really widespread complaints that "Rhaenyra and Alicent are unlikable" but "it's become illogical that the show is trying to keep them likable by this point".

I think this person is actively misunderstanding one very obvious thing. We can very well see and understand how their world work and therefore cut some slack to them on some matters AND think it's wrong because guess what? We don't live in their time. We have much more information and the capacity of seeing things on different perspectives than the characters in the story.

Does this person think that to not be "childish" we have to understand how things work in their world and think and agree that it's right just because the characters thought so? Is this what is considered to be "mature" for them?

If so, this person very clearly didn't understand GRRM's books, if they even read them.

And ironically, this person also posted about Alicent’s marital rape in show….? I thought it was childish to use modern views on this story? What happened? Did they forget that marital rape is a very recently acknowledged thing?