A Flight of Links

- X-Men Movies
- Stop watching Walking Dead
- Like, seriously, stop
- Mechs vs. Minions review
- Have you played Wolfenstein 3D?
- Stellaris Leviathans review

ASOIAF meta
- Jon's arc in TWOW
- Jaime
- Rejecting the fathers
- Dany and Tyrion
- Azor Ahai
- Aeron vs. Euron
-

Boiled Leather Audio Hour #55

We’ve tackled the North and the lands of Essos. Now our popular series of podcasts predicting the events of The Winds of Winter returns with a look at what Northern partisans such as ourselves would call “the South” — aka the rest(eros) of Westeros! With our usual emphasis on thematic and narrative resonance — and our usual caveat that this is all just fun speculation — we’re offering our theories on the fates of every major player and region. What does Book Six hold in store for our POV characters Sansa Stark, Cersei Lannister, Jon Connington, Arianne Martell, Brienne of Tarth, Jaime Lannister, Areo Hotah (hey, blame George), Samwell Tarly, and Aeron “the Damphair” Greyjoy? What about key supporting cast members like Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish, the Tyrells, the Faith Militant, Doran Martell, the Sand Snakes, (f)Aegon Targaryen, Varys, Catelyn “Lady Stoneheart” Stark, Brynden “the Blackfish” Tully, Tommen and Myrcella Lannister, Walder Frey, and so on? What fates will befall King’s Landing, Oldtown, Highgarden, Storm’s End, Sunspear, and Casterly Rock? And of course, where and when will the Others and the dragons strike first? We’re taking our best guesses. See what you think!

DOWNLOAD EPISODE 55

Additional links:
Forecasting The Winds of Winter, Part 1: The North
Forecasting The Winds of Winter, Part 2: Essos
Our Patreon page at patreon.com/boiledleatheraudiohour.
Our PayPal donation page (also accessible via boiledleather.com).
Our iTunes page.
Mirror.
Previous episodes.
Podcast RSS feed.
Sean’s blog.
Stefan’s blog.

Supreme Court of Westeros, ruling 147

Thursday is court day!

Welcome to the Supreme Court of Westeros! Every week, three pressing questions from the community will be answered by the esteemed judges Stefan (from your very own Nerdstream Era) and Amin (from A Podcast of Ice and Fire). The rules are simple: we take three questions, and one of us writes a measured analysis. The other one writes a shorter opinion, either concurring or dissenting. The catch is that every week a third judge from the fandom will join us and also write a dissenting or concurring opinion. So if you think you're up to the task - write us an email to stefan_sasse@gmx.de, leave a comment in the post, ask in the APOIAF-forum or contact Amin at his tumblr. Discussion is by no means limited to the court itself, though - feel free to discuss our rulings in the commentary section and ask your own questions through the channels above.

One word on spoilers: we assume that you read all the books, including the Hedge Knight short stories, and watched the current TV episodes. We don't include the spoiler chapters from various sources in the discussion, with the notable exception of Theon I, which was supposed to be in "A Dance with Dragons" anyway.

Please note that our new ebook is up and available on Amazon, collecting the first 60 rulings and the best comments in one place. It's only 5,99$, so what are you waiting for? 

And now, up to ruling 147! Our guest judge this week is Rick Davids, a student of Linguistics from Berlin who currrently resides in Bielefeld. He's been a fan of the books for well over a decade now. He's honored to make his second appearance on the court.

Why I don't like Grimdark

On his tumblr, Steven Attewell was asked what he thought of Grimdark. His answer deserves being quoted in full: 

Let me just say at the outset, I used to LOVE grimdark. Huge fan of Warhammer (both 40k and Fantasy), read all of the “groundbreaking, adult” graphic novels of the late 80s/90s, bought as many of White Wolf’s RPG books as I could, even if I almost never got to play them, and so on and so forth. But, and I don’t mean this at all in a condescending way, I matured out of it. This stuff that had spoke to me when I was a teenager was less appealing now that I’m in my early 30s.
A lot of this of this comes from the way that my personality works. I’m fundamentally an academic and a policy wonk and a reformer, which means when I see a bad situation either in real life or in media, my mind immediately goes to how it could be fixed, how it can be improved - I look at Westeros and start thinking about economic development plans, after all. Grimdark, however, requires stasis in order to maintain mood and atmosphere and setting:

“Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned.  Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war.”

You can see the contradiction there. 
Another big part of this is my realization, after a while, that grimdark is ultimately just as as sterile and fomulaic and predictable as its opposite. If the universe is always doomed, if the bad guys are always going to win, then there’s no dramatic tension, no possibility of surprise or innovation beyond a point. 
One of the truths I feel I’ve stumbled across over the years is that the essence of good storytelling isn’t found in extremes, but in variation. No matter whether it’s grimdark or its opposite, too much of the same thing leads to habituation and a decrease in effectiveness. The result is either apathy or a constant arms-race of intensity that eventually becomes ridiculous.

A Flight of Links

- D&D gets flavor text in its rulebooks, celebrating it like an innovation. It's 2016, people. That you even have a monster's manual...
- Captain America and Kaepernick
- AI and stories

ASOIAF meta
- Five Forts
- Qaithe's warning 
- Qaithe
- More Qaithe
- Tatters' identity
- Tatters
- Stannis' original plan
- Bran
- Dany and Quentyn
- Advice for the kings
- Bloodraven's bad seed
- Robert and Stannis
- Bran's vision
- Male relationships
- Aegon and Quentyn parallels
- Stannis burning Edric
- Jon and microaggressions
- Clayton Suggs
- Connington and Myles
- Mirri Maz Duur and Marwyn
- History stuff
- Marwyn

Supreme Court of Westeros, ruling 146

Thursday is court day!

Welcome to the Supreme Court of Westeros! Every week, three pressing questions from the community will be answered by the esteemed judges Stefan (from your very own Nerdstream Era) and Amin (from A Podcast of Ice and Fire). The rules are simple: we take three questions, and one of us writes a measured analysis. The other one writes a shorter opinion, either concurring or dissenting. The catch is that every week a third judge from the fandom will join us and also write a dissenting or concurring opinion. So if you think you're up to the task - write us an email to stefan_sasse@gmx.de, leave a comment in the post, ask in the APOIAF-forum or contact Amin at his tumblr. Discussion is by no means limited to the court itself, though - feel free to discuss our rulings in the commentary section and ask your own questions through the channels above.

One word on spoilers: we assume that you read all the books, including the Hedge Knight short stories, and watched the current TV episodes. We don't include the spoiler chapters from various sources in the discussion, with the notable exception of Theon I, which was supposed to be in "A Dance with Dragons" anyway.

Please note that our new ebook is up and available on Amazon, collecting the first 60 rulings and the best comments in one place. It's only 5,99$, so what are you waiting for? 

And now, up to ruling 146! Our guest judge this week is Bobby, who is a member of the community who occasionally posts about ASOIAF at whereoldgodsrule.tumblr.com.

A Flight of Links

- Stellaris expansion is out
- Thoughts on AI
- The self-destructing game
- Valerian
- The end of Virginia
- Wertzone likes WarCraft more than I did
- And reviews the new Rogue One trailer
- Rick and Morty and the nihilistic age

ASOIAF meta
- The politics of the Vale
- Varys and the Targaryens
- The Royces and the Starks
- Jorah and the Andals
- The Hill Tribes and Ned Stark
- Tattered Prince
- Hyle Hunt
- Euron
-

Supreme Court of Westeros, ruling 145

Thursday is court day!

Welcome to the Supreme Court of Westeros! Every week, three pressing questions from the community will be answered by the esteemed judges Stefan (from your very own Nerdstream Era) and Amin (from A Podcast of Ice and Fire). The rules are simple: we take three questions, and one of us writes a measured analysis. The other one writes a shorter opinion, either concurring or dissenting. The catch is that every week a third judge from the fandom will join us and also write a dissenting or concurring opinion. So if you think you're up to the task - write us an email to stefan_sasse@gmx.de, leave a comment in the post, ask in the APOIAF-forum or contact Amin at his tumblr. Discussion is by no means limited to the court itself, though - feel free to discuss our rulings in the commentary section and ask your own questions through the channels above.

One word on spoilers: we assume that you read all the books, including the Hedge Knight short stories, and watched the current TV episodes. We don't include the spoiler chapters from various sources in the discussion, with the notable exception of Theon I, which was supposed to be in "A Dance with Dragons" anyway.

Please note that our new ebook is up and available on Amazon, collecting the first 60 rulings and the best comments in one place. It's only 5,99$, so what are you waiting for? 

And now, up to ruling 144! Our guest judge this week is Johnny from Philadelphia. He began reading the series after the 1st season of Game of Thrones and began listening to BLAH and APOIAF shortly thereafter. He is on the forums at APOIAF as The Smiling Knight. This is his fourth time as a member of the Supreme Court of Westeros.

A Flight of Links

- Battlefield 1 was inspired by Dan Carlin. Wow. 
- Sean T. Collins really hates the Walking Dead franchise
- Gears of War 4 review
- Lancaster review
- Pip's personal history of cards
-

ASOIAF meta
- PoorQuentyn's third part of Quentyn analysis
- Aemon and Jon
- Robb and the Karstarks
- Littlefinger POV
- Similarities Jon and Catelyn chapters
- Historical Maps: Ancient Essos
- Historical Maps: The Andal Invasion
- A Westerosi pope
- Yunkai and Qarth in TWOW
- Battle of the Kingsroad
- Robert's reign
- More on it

What is bad dialogue?

I just finished watching the first season of "Jessica Jones", and I mostly kept going to get a full picture, not because it was an especially joyous ride, so you maybe shouldn't follow in my footsteps here. What really egged me about the show, beside some other points of course, was the baffingly bad dialogue. I wanted to share an example of that with you and explain why it is so bad and try to get a bit more into the question when dialogue is to be considered bad. If you want to watch "Jessica Jones" spoilerfree, you'll have to stop reading here, but what I tell you about the plot here is really very light on spoilers, so you might just go ahead anyway.

A Flight of Links

- Tropes vs. Women, new issue
- First photo of the sun
- Musk and his Mars plan
- CivVI preview
- Tribes Ascend gets another update
- Maize Game
- Event[0]
- What Batman v. Superman owes to Frank Miller

ASOIAF meta
- Varys and Quellon
- Varys and Tyrion's push
- Massey
- Doran's plans
- Arianne and Aegon
- Euron
- Dead Ladies Club
- Renly
- More Renly
- TWOW predictions