Monday, April 8, 2013

A Flight of Links

- My beloved BLAH co-host Sean T. Collins interviewed Natalie Dormer.
- Yahtzee talks about SimCity. 
- Shamus Young about why Sam is the most annoying character in Tomb Raider.
- 8 reasons why movie reboots fail
- 20 most epic beards and mustaches
- io9 disliked the Walking Dead finale as much as I did.
- Mary Sue too. 
- They are publishing a comic based on Lucas' first Star Wars draft. Why? This certainly is not literacy gold. 
- Noooooooo...LucasArts is shut down. 
- Baby-Lightsaber.
- 12 movies that look good but suck. 
- An australian billionarie wants to build two parks with giant robot dinosaurs and an exact copy of the Titanic, because, why not? 
- Race to the Iron Throne gives us Eddard VIII. 
- Stormsongs reads Arya IV. 
- An obituary on LucasArts.
 - Some retro-reviews: Jedi Knight, Zak McCracken, Days of the Tentacle, The Curse of Monkey Island, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Escape from Monkey Island
- The director of Iron Sky complains about HBO's business policy regarding Game of Thrones. 
- Recap of the BSG Pilot. 
- Sophie Turner says season 3 will have major changes. No surprise. 
- Is Disney destroying the Expanded Universe? Frankly, I don't care. Star Wars sucks, and the new products Disney makes will suck too. It's not like they would tell a tale worth telling, it's lightsabres and powers.
 -  An more than extensive review of "Valar Dohaeris". 
- Interesting thoughts on Arya. 
- The Walking Dead creator is sexist. Who would have thought? 
- The new XBox tries to bring a demand for permanent onlice access and a great gaffe. 
- Some facts about Jurassic Park and dinosaurs. 
- Great Tomb Raider review. 
- Could you build Columbia?
- Info about Sam Raimi. 
- Review for Evil Dead.
- An analysis of the relationship between Tywin, Joanna and Aerys, and the "liberties" Aerys took. I don't agree, but it's interesting to read. 
- A really good analysis of Jaime Lannister.
- Someone disagrees with our BLAH about Asha.
- Nice theory about the death of LucasArts.

7 comments:

  1. so, what don't you agree with in my liberties at the bedding post? (I saw traffic from this site coming to my main blog and my other one, asoiafuniversity, so I clicked.)

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    1. First, what I find interesting is the inherent logic to it, especially for Barristan's part. Unfortunately, time-line and characters don't quite add up. Tywin Lannister was a personal friend of Aerys when he became hand. They got later estranged, because Aerys grew paranoid and insulted Tywin. There were two major slights: first, refusing the marriage pact for Rhaegar with Cersei in pretty insulting words, and second, making Jaime kingsguard. That was when Tywin snapped and resigned. Plus, Aerys' fascination with fire starts with his madness, after the Defiance of Duskendale.
      So, the problem with the timeline is quite that: Aerys wasn't roused by fire until he got mad, and he wasn't mad at Tywin's wedding, but his friend still.
      And second, Tywin wouldn't have served as hand all the time when Aerys burned his wife. Burns that he would see every freaking time he bedded her. No way.

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    2. But I'd instantly go for the theory that he burned his wife.

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    3. But I don't think we have enough information about the time line for you to say that it doesn't add up.

      We don't know when Tywin and Joanna married. There is no date, no info, other than that it would be before Jaime and Cersei were born. I place Tywin and Joanna's wedding after Tywin became Hand. And I really, really don't think Tywin remained friends with Aerys after what Aerys said at the wedding. Maybe Tywin *acted* like Aerys's friend after that, but real friends? I don't think so.

      Kevan says to Tyrion in ASOS that Tywin was putting up with insults all his life. So there was more than just those two slights, over the failed betrothal and Jaime joining the Kingsguard. Maybe those were the straws that broke the camel's back, but there was more than those two incidents.

      And you also have to think about how Joanna might have come into play. From the text, we have the lines about Tywin ruling the Seven Kingdoms, but Joanna ruling Tywin, so it's very possible that Joanna was able to smooth over Tywin's feelings after the bedding and prevented a resignation. And yes, of course he would have seen the burns every freaking time he bedded her. But he loved her. And because he loved her, he would do something that she wanted like remain as Hand despite having to see this constant reminder like a burn scar.

      As to Aerys, yes, his madness became very pronounced after Duskendale, but how do you know there weren't hints of madness long before that? Things that were much less noticeable. I'm not trying to say what happened at Tywin and Joanna's bedding was equivalent to roasting Rickard Karstark, just that there were hints of madness earlier on.

      We're probably just going to disagree, but I wanted to throw my counter-argument out there.

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    4. Nah, you're right. No way to prove it, but your arguments are totally valid. I recognize your theory as possible. I still don't feel it, but I didn't feel Aegon and Tyrion as a Targaryen before, neither, so that doesn't say much.

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  2. Saw the first link and thought "Ahhhrgh, that lucky bastard!"
    It's a good interview, though.

    Skimming through all the TWD stuff... I really don't have to bother watching it, do I? Dang, I like zombies.

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    1. If you like zombies, it might be worth the trouble. It's entertaining enough, but if you like intelligent entertaintment, it really disappoints much of the time. Watch season 1. In my book, it's still the best, and it's only six episodes long. Which may really have helped.

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