User:The Dragon Demands/Wiki Video drafts

From: http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Thread:53659

Videos need to be 3 to 5 minutes long. Mentally trying to fit this framework by establishing 8 to 12 bullet points. Will post still images when possible (what I can find quickly), but with suggested footage to grab and direction to which episode to get it from. Stage directions given in [italicized single brackets]. The bullet points in normal font are meant to be verbatim dialogue. They're meant to be narration over footage and still images, not camera on a person. Not that that would be bad, but I just prefer the other one - it makes people focus more. I think. Also listing off relevant articles you need to make links to in the videos. Common names like "Cersei Lannister" people should know how to pronounce at this point, but rarer names I'll put the pronunciation in brackets. Or at least, how I say them (we know that "Lys" is pronounced "Leese", like geese, not "Liss" - others I have to make an educated guess).

Obviously tweak and refine this slightly as you see fit, time reasons, etc. Though try to run the shortened versions by me first instead of editing it down later, and we only find out in the final version that you cut something that shouldn't have been. There will be around two dozen of these but I'm working on them in waves, starting with the easier ones. I make come up with more ideas when the first trailers actually roll out.

The World of Ice and Fire

 * 1 - The first set of promo pics for Game of Thrones Season 7 came out – most of them are fairly generic, things we saw from set production photos of the characters with slightly updated costumes, no huge revelations.
 * 2 - What really set the fans on the internet abuzz, however, was a single photo of Samwell and Gilly in the library at the Citadel in Oldtown – specifically the book that Gilly is seen reading.
 * 3 - The text of the open page is clearly legible, and it’s actually copied verbatim from a famous book in Westeros – that is, from within the fictional universe of the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, but this officially introduces it into the TV continuity.
 * 4 - It’s a history book called The World of Ice and Fire, which gives a broad history of Westeros all the way from the Dawn Age and the Long Night 8,000 years ago to the present day.
 * 5 - The World of Ice and Fire was written by Maester Yandel, a maester at the royal court “in the background” off-screen during the reign of King Robert Baratheon, continuing into the reign of Joffrey and then Tommen. He intended it as a gift for Robert’s alleged sons, so it shamelessly panders to King Joffrey and the Lannisters, to put them in a better light.
 * 6 - To be honest, Yandel’s book wasn’t very popular with most of the royal court anyway – they far preferred the “Testimony of Mushroom”, another history book which contained a lot more invented sex scenes, described in exacting detail. Mushroom said that he added all of these sex scenes to make it more “Dramatically Satisfying”.
 * 7 - Book readers are pretty excited about this appearance of The World of Ice and Fire because it’s a massive source for the backstory, information about histories and locations which are only barely mentioned in the main narrative. All of the 300 year history of House Targaryen, things we knew almost nothing about before like the Dance of the Dragons and the Faith Militant uprisings under Maegor the Cruel [Pronounced: "May-gore"].  Also descriptions of all the lands beyond Westeros that we only glimpse in the main story:  the Free Cities, Valyria, the Summer Islands, and even Yi Ti – their Fantasy analogue of China - if you zoom in you can actually see Yi Ti mentioned by name on the page Gilly is reading.
 * 8 - The specific page that Gilly has open is in fact specifically talking about the myths of Azor Ahai [Pronounced: Azz-or AH-HIGH], better known as the messianic "Prince That Was Promised" who will save the world from the White Walkers – remember that Melisandre originally thought Stannis was the Prince Who Was Promised, but after his resurrection thinks it's Jon Snow.
 * 9 - This leaves us with the question: when this scene actually airs, is it going to be just a little “Easter Egg” reference that the props department made, not even mentioned in dialogue?  Or will Sam and Gilly actually mention it aloud briefly? (something small like “Hey Sam, this book by Yandel is pretty good”).  Or, will it actually be the heavy focus of an entire scene?  Something like Gilly pointing out to Sam, “I’m reading The World of Ice and Fire, let me quote to you what it says about the prophecy of the Prince That Was Promised, who will save the world from the White Walkers…”?
 * 10 - It might also be their way of making a tie-in to the “Sons of the Dragon” prequel novella George R.R. Martin is releasing in October 2017, about the reign of King Maegor – it’s a spinoff of a shorter section in The World of Ice and Fire that gave a quick summary of the longer story.

Relevant links to work into video:


 * The World of Ice and Fire - if you only put one link in at the end of the video to focus on it. If you do pop-up annotation-style links, continue to add:
 * Oldtown
 * Azor Ahai/The Prince That Was Promised (alternate names that overlap, put both up at once)
 * Yi Ti (if you have time)

Relevant imagery:

I explain what video footage to use [in italicized brackets] in some sections, others don't have available footage, i.e. if they're just promotional images from the next season. In that case I'll post the image but just sprinkle in other relevant footage at your discretion (i.e. if it's a video about Jon Snow in general).

For this video, it's all focused on one important official promo image for Season 7, which I already linked above.

Zoom in on a cropped version of the image focused on the book page Gilly is reading to show off the text, which is clearly legible.

If it's too static - it's only one image - also work in generic footage of the Season 6 finale, of Samwell and Gilly arriving at the Citadel and shots of the big library.

MAIN FOCUS is on the book though, these other bits are just quick cuts:

When talking about how "Yandel is in the background at the royal court", use generic footage of the royal court from prior seasons, probably Joffrey coronation stuff from Seasons 1 and 2, having his guards beat Sansa in episode 2.4 "Garden of Bones", particularly Tommen's coronation from episode 4.5 "First of His Name".

When mentioning Melisandre, use generic footage from episode 2.1 in which she's praying in front of a bonfire to the Lord of Light (part where it goes "she thought Stannis Was the Prince Who Was Promised") - show Stannis holding his flaming sword. Then quick shots of her resurrecting Jon and him breathing again in episode 6.2 "Home". If you mention Yi Ti, their China analogue - we get excited about it because they so barely mention it in the main story (it's very far away), which also means it barely has any images. And while mentioned in the cartoons this is the first time the name appeared in live action (I hope they say it in on-screen dialogue). But if there's time to mention Yi Ti, use the image from the animated featurette I posted here.

Azor Ahai, The Prince That Was Promised
This is long but it needs to be:


 * 1 – In a recently released promo pic for Season 7, Samwell and Gilly are reading through books about the White Walkers in Oldtown, and Gilly is seen reading a book about the prophecy of Azor Ahai, also known as The Prince That Was Promised, the messianic figure who will save the world from the return of the White Walkers, hinting it will be a major factor in the new season. [Show the promo pic]
 * 2 – According to legend, the White Walkers first appeared 8,000 years ago during a winter that lasted a generation, known as the Long Night.  [Run footage of Old Nan telling Bran about the Long Night from episode 1.4 “Cripples, Bastards and Broken Things”, quote a line or two]  
 * 3 – Every culture across the world has its own distorted and half-remembered myths about the Long Night. In Old Nan’s stories from Winterfell, it was a man called “The Last Hero” who sought help from the Children of the Forest to end the Long Night.  Far to the east of Essos in Asshai, the Lord of Light religion says that this messianic figure was a man known as “Azor Ahai” [Pronounced: Azz-or Ah-hai], who had a flaming magic sword called “Lightbringer”.  [Run over footage of Melisandre and Stannis with his flaming sword from episode 2.1 “The North Remembers”. 
 * Azor Ahai.jpg forged his magic sword Lightbringer by plunging it into the heart of his beloved wife.]]4 – Great power requires great sacrifice, so Azor Ahai tried and failed several times to forge his sword, but it would break. He finally succeeded in tempering it by plunging it into the heart of his beloved wife, Nissa Nissa, and as she died her soul was infused into the blade to give it strength.  After Azor Ahai died, it was prophesied that the darkness would return some day, and Azor Ahai would be reborn to save the world from it again:  thus the reincarnated Azor Ahai come again is called “The Prince That Was Promised”.
 * 5 – Other lands have their own variants on the story with different name, calling the man with a flaming sword “Hyrkoon” or “Eldric Shadowchaser”...and yes, these are in-joke references by George R.R. Martin to names from the Eldric Saga fantasy series by Michael Moorcock.
 * 6 – This was foreshadowed much more in the novels, particularly going back to the second book when Daenerys visits the House of the Undying in Qarth and has several magic visions about the future. The TV show probably didn’t want to confuse the audience with a lot of exposition, but starting in Season 2, Melisandre proclaimed she thought Stannis to be the Prince That Was Promised.  [Run over footage of Daenerys’s visions in the Season 2 finale, briefly, and then Melisandre in early Season 2 saying Stannis is “the Lord’s Chosen” and the “Warrior of Light”]
 * 7 – The prophecy says the when the darkness returns, the Prince That Was Promised will be reborn “amidst salt and smoke” – though no one knows exactly what that means. [Run clip of Melisandre saying Stannis is the Lord’s Chosen born amidst salt and smoke from episode 2.4 “Garden of Bones” and Renly’s “is he a ham?”].  
 * 8 -Other prophecies said that the Prince will be born of the Targaryen bloodline, specifically descending from Maester Aemon’s younger brother King Aegon the Fifth. Stannis WAS a candidate for this, because his grandmother was one of Aegon’s daughters.  Melisandre took “salt and smoke” to refer to his rule over Dragonstone, a volcanic island.  It might be a FIGURATIVE “birth”, as in when they claim the title.
 * 9 – After Stannis dies and Jon Snow is resurrected, however, Melisandre comes to think that Jon Snow is the Prince That Was Promised. [Run clip from episode 6.3 “Oathbreaker” of Melisandre telling post-resurrection Jon, "The Lord let you come back for a reason. Stannis was not the Prince Who Was Promised, but someone has to be."]  And of course, Jon is a valid candidate because he actually IS a Targaryen, the secret son of Daenerys’s older brother Rhaegar.
 * 10 – The prophecy also says that the Prince will be “born under a bleeding star” – some thought this figuratively meant the Red Comet we saw in Season 2 [show a photo of that], OR it could refer to Arthur Dayne’s sword Dawn, forged from a shooting star, which Ned left covered in blood at the head of Lyanna’s birthing bed – it may have been no accident that the camera focused on that [Show footage of Ned putting the sword down next to the bed in the Season 6 finale]
 * 11 – But Daenerys herself is also a strong candidate – and as we saw last season, some of the other Red Priests think SHE is the Prince. This is a much longer subplot in the novels, but basically, Maester Aemon points out that the word for “Prince” in Valyrian is gender-neutral, like the word “Ruler” in English, so the prophecy in its original Valyrian format could just as easily refer to a woman.  Daenerys was literally born on Dragonstone “amidst salt and smoke”, and figuratively reborn from the flames of Drogo’s funeral pyre. [Play over footage of Season 7 teaser of Daenerys on the rocky throne of Dragonstone, and walking into Drogo’s burning pyre in the Season 1 finale]
 * 12 – Adding yet another wrinkle to the mystery is a hint that Rhaegar himself read in some ancient text, that “The Dragon has three heads” – the Prince might not actually be one person, but a trio of characters acting together. [Show an image of the House Targaryen sigil, a three-headed dragon].  Apparently, Rhaegar thought this meant that the Prince would be a trio of his own children – but he only had two by his wife Elia Martell, after which she could never have children again.  Apparently, Jon Snow was born because Rhaegar was convinced he needed to father a third child, this time with Lyanna Stark, in order to complete the set of three.  [Show a cropped image of the Targaryen family tree under “Rhaegar Targaryen” showing Rhaegar, Elia, and his three children – Rhaenys, Aegon, and Jon].
 * 13 – But maybe Rhaegar was wrong. His first two children were killed by Gregor Clegane during the fall of King’s Landing, right before he raped and killed their mother Elia.  So it’s possible that BOTH Jon Snow and Daenerys are Azor Ahai, because Azor Ahai is actually a set of three people.
 * 14 – So the question becomes, who is the THIRD one? If all three need to be descended from Aegon V – big “IF” – and with Stannis and Shireen dead in the TV show, the only other known descendant is Robert Baratheon’s bastard son Gendry.  But he wasn’t particularly born amidst salt and smoke or under a bleeding star, and hasn’t been set up that much in the narrative!
 * 15– So this in turn has led to a separate theory that another major character might actually be a bastard child of either Rhaegar or his father the Mad King. And who is the next most prominent character after Jon and Daenerys?  Tyrion.  The Mad King was known to lust after Tywin’s wife Joanna, and Tywin’s dying words to Tyrion were “You’re no son of mine!” [Show footage of this quote from Season 4 finale].  But there are also a lot of points against that:  Tyrion’s mother hadn’t been living in the capital city for years by the time Tyrion was conceived, nor was he born amidst salt and smoke or under a bleeding star.
 * 16 – So we don’t know who the third person in the messiah trio is, and even if the other two ARE Jon and Daenerys...does this mean that Jon is going to KILL Daenerys to recreate the magic sword Lightbringer? As the original Azor Ahai killed his beloved to forge his sword?

Relevant links:
 * Azor Ahai & The Prince That Was Promised
 * Maybe major character names: Jon Snow, Daenerys, Stannis, Rhaegar, etc.

R+L=J: Is the Bastard of Winterfell Really a Bastard?

 * 1 – The Season 6 finale finally confirmed the long-held fan theory that “R + L = J” – Rhaegar plus Lyanna equals Jon. Ned Stark wasn’t really Jon’s father at all:  his mother was actually Lyanna Stark, and his real father was Rhaegar Targaryen – Daenerys’s older brother.  [Run footage of Season 6 finale with Lyanna and baby Jon].
 * 2 – This brings up a couple of questions about who has inheritance rights to Winterfell and the North, and even the Iron Throne – though bastard children in Westeros are officially excluded from all inheritance rights. [Run clip of Tyrion from episode 1.2 “The Kingsroad” talking to Jon, describing how he’s “a bastard boy with nothing to inherit, off to join the Night’s Watch”] But is “The Bastard of Winterfell” really a bastard?
 * 3 – Rhaegar Targaryen was already married to Oberyn’s sister, Elia Martell, and had two small children with her (all 3 killed by Gregor Clegane during the sack of King’s Landing). King Robert thought that Rhaegar abducted and raped Lyanna, who he was betrothed to marry [run clip of Robert complaining about what Rhaegar did to Lyanna from episode 1.1 in the Winterfell crypts].  Oberyn, however, thought that Lyanna RAN OFF with Rhaegar, shaming his sister [Run clip of Oberyn saying this when he meets Tyrion in episode 4.1 “Two Swords".]  After they first met at the Tourney of Harrenhal [Run clip of Littlefinger talking about this at the crypts in episodes 5.4 “Sons of the Harpy (episode)”.
 * 4 – A long-running fan theory, however, is that Rhaegar married Lyanna in secret, meaning Jon was actually his lawfully born son and not a bastard at all. How could Rhaegar have married Lyanna when he was already married to Oberyn’s sister Elia?  Well, because he was a Targaryen.[Run over footage of Viserys being amorous with Daenerys in episode 1.1]
 * 5 – The Targaryens were the last surviving family of dragonlords from Valyria, a great empire in the eastern continent that was destroyed in a single day three hundred years ago by a massive volcanic explosion. The Targaryens had the world’s only surviving dragons, and they used them to conquer Westeros.  The Valyrians had some different customs from Westeros, such as incestuously marrying brother to sister to “keep the bloodline pure”.
 * 6 - The Valyrians were also known to practice polygamous marriages. King Aegon the First, who conquered and united Westeros, was SIMULTANEOUSLY married to BOTH of his sisters, Visenya and Rhaenys Pronounced: Viz-en-yuh" and "Ray-niece"
 * 7 – Westeros’s Faith of the Seven, however, considers incest and polygamy to be abominations. Aegon Targaryen was wise enough to promise the Faith’s leaders that his new dynasty would stop doing both in future generations.  But after he died his sons made incestuous and polygamous marriages, setting off the Faith Militant uprising under King Maegor the Cruel – which is a whole set of prequel stories. [Run screenshot images we made from the “Faith Militant” H&L article] When the dust settled, the Faith was pressured to let the Targaryens keep having incestuous marriages  - given that they already had an incestuous bloodline – but the Targaryens agreed to stop having polygamous marriages, because compared to incest they could at least stop actively doing that.
 * 8 - ...But what some think is a hint about Rhaegar is a note that in that in later centuries, some Targaryens tried to have polygamous marriages to multiple wives when they thought they could get away with it – particularly, Daemon Blackfyre [Pronounced: Day-mon Black-fire]
 * 9 – Rhaegar wanted to have more children and Elia physically couldn’t have anymore after her last, difficult childbirth – so the theory is that Rhaegar married Lyanna in secret to produce another lawful son, and that Elia might have even been okay with this.
 * 10 – So what happens if Jon Snow isn’t really a bastard, but a lawful son with full inheritance rights? Well, Rhaegar was Daenerys’s older brother, which under their inheritance laws means that Jon is actually the rightful heir to the Iron Throne, AHEAD of her in line of succession.[Show cropped image of the Targaryen family tree on Jon Snow's page showing he's the son of Daenery's OLDER brother]
 * 11 – As for Winterfell and the North, the R+L=J revelation raises some other issues: [this whole point, pan over the updated Stark family tree on the Jon Snow page showing he's the son of Ned's YOUNGER sister.] -- bastard OR NOT, Jon snow isn’t really Ned Stark’s son, but son of his YOUNGER sister Lyanna...meaning that ALL of Ned’s surviving children are ahead of him in line of succession, such as Sansa [Run footage of Sansa looking upset when Jon is declared ruler of the North ahead of her].  Even Arya is ahead of Jon in line of succession [show brief promo clip of Arya riding in Season 7 costume, from that HBO year-end trailer].  Of course, if and when he returns to Winterfell and reveals he’s still alive, the lawful heir to Winterfell is actually Bran Stark – while he is younger than both Sansa and Arya, their inheritance laws are based on male-preference primogeniture, so Bran was always ahead of his sisters.
 * 12 – So the questions now are, what will happen when Bran returns to Winterfell, claims his rightful inheritance, and reveals that Jon isn’t even Ned’s son, bastard or not? And what happens when Jon’s long-lost Aunt Daenerys finds out that he actually has a better claim to the Iron Throne than she does?
 * 13 – Well, in Westeros is often decided at the point of a sword! What does it matter if Jon isn’t really a bastard?  So he’s got a birth certificate – how much does a piece of paper count? [Show footage of Cersei in Season 1’s “The Pointy End” tearing up Robert Baratheon’s will and mocking Ned for thinking this legalism would stop her]
 * 14 - If the lords of the realm slavishly obeyed the letter of the law, so many wouldn’t have supported Renly instead of his older brother Stannis [show footage of their confrontation from “Garden of Bones”. Will all of Daenerys’s followers switch sides to Jon and abandon her, simply because of Jon – a man they never met, who didn’t even know he was a Targaryen?  Will the “honorable” lords of the North recognize Bran as the lawful heir – a crippled boy?  Compared to their proven war-leader and military commander Jon Snow?  That’s one of the fundamental questions of the entire story:  as Varys asked, what is power?  [Run footage of Varys and Tyrion from Season 2, Varys’s riddle about the nature of power and “power is a curious thing…it’s a trick...it resides where men BELIEVE it resides”]

Relevant links to use in video:


 * Jon Snow
 * Rhaegar Targaryen & Lyanna Stark
 * Bastardy
 * House Targaryen
 * Daemon Blackfyre
 * Marriage
 * Lordship