Board Thread:TV Show Discussion/@comment-5014364-20161124220713

There are a couple of issues stemming from the Season 6 Histories & Lore. It's fairly obvious that they just opened up The World of Ice and Fire and used the book continuity version, making no attempt to keep track of changes made in the TV continuity.

This, despite their claims that "the TV show stands on its own from the books" - it doesn't exist as a coherent alternate continuity if you keep flip flopping between info from the two.

In terms of what "officially" happened in "the TV continuity"....we're putting more thought into this than the actual TV writers, but we need to weigh in on which ones "officially" happened.

Brotherhood Without Banners (Histories & Lore)


 * The listing of Beric Dondarrion's deaths is based on the book versions, not the altered versions that Beric gave in the live-action Season 3 episode.

Possible answer: ...just go by the live-action version, superseding it, and leave a note in case later editors get confused?

Robert's Rebellion - Jaime Lannister's perspective

The TV writers kind of gave up on making a coherent timeline. This is absurd, given that they could have Google-searched our fan-made Timeline article which we made for free. Or other fansites. There's this thing called "the internet" where you can fact check your work.

Nonetheless, the TV timeline is "salvageable" in my mind, albeit rough around the edges....basically they never did anything that was so utterly absurd we can't explain it away.

The Jaime Lannister Robert's Rebellion video just directly lists his age from the novels: a Kingsguard at 15. Problem is that Season 2 stated in dialogue that he was 17 (of course, they also say 16 in the live-action Book of Brothers...for some reason....)

Possible answer: Live-action dialogue supersedes cartoon info. Fairly obvious this wasn't a "conscious choice" at retcon but "we just plain forgot".

The Great Tourney at Harrenhal

VERY prominently explains that the Mad King looked visibly insane, with inches-long fingernails, filthy and matted ropes of uncut hair, etc.

ALL other Histories & Lore videos across multiple seasons have used this book-accurate information. Also in this set the Jaime Lannister Robert's Rebellion video also depicted him accurately.

In a moment of stunning forgetfulness which I want an explanation for, the Season 6 live-action flashbacks to the Mad King's death....use a cleanshaven actor.

...We fell into using screenshots of that actor for his infobox and family tree.

....I do not want to dignify such a blatant mistake. I'd rather use screenshots from the "Great Tourney at Harrenhal" video, rather than perpetuate a mistake. I mean just why? Why not use a fake beard?

Vaes Dothrak (Histories & Lore)

More of a question: how did they decide that Basilisks look like large snakes? Educated guess? Doubtful GRRM talks to them anymore. Some think they're like komodo dragons. Ah, they're probably snake-like.

Northern Allegiances to House Stark
 * The Manderlys were themselves Andals, the line "When Andals tried to sail on the Whte Knife, the Manderlys fell on their ships." Then in the next line mentions Theon Stark (the Hungry Wolf) implying this was during the Andal invasions. The Manderlys *did* fight off the Arryns from the Vale but this was long after the "Andals" had just turned into the six southern kingdoms.
 * This is blatantly a dialogue mistake and will be ignored.
 * It has never been said that the Starks were vassals of the Barrow Kings, or that in truth they were ever functionally kings over the rest of the North. All the World book says is that they claimed supremacy over all the First Men, but whether they ever enforced this in truth is unknown.
 * I think they just misread the text and made some big assumptions about it. The Starks weren't "vassals" of the Barrow Kings.  I don't know if we should "officially include" this information.

It's funny how in Season 2....we'd treat the TV continuity as "oh no it's a whole different continuity and everything different is an intentional choice"......by Season 6, it has long since become painfully obvious that they're just plain not paying attention even to make their own work self-consistent.

The Kingsmoot


 * Glosses over Torgon the Latecomer and how the Kingsmoot actually ended 5,000 years ago.
 * Even says that the Kingsmoot continued in some fashion under the Targaryens - but, by definition, they weren't picking a king were they? Even the video says this was just a confirmation ceremony and empty ritual though, not a real issue.

Oldtown (Histories & Lore)
 * Maester Jellicoe's ramblings aside, the black stone that forms the base of the Hightower isn't the same as the black stone shaped by Valyrian dragons, such as in Dragonstone castle or the Black Walls of Volantis. Dragon-forged stone is dry to the touch, but the Highter's base is the infamous "greasy" black stone.
 * Eh, make a note. Pycelle is implied to be wrong anyway.

House Tarly (Histories & Lore)
 * Randyll Tarly scoffs that the Tarlys have no blood of kings. First, yes they were petty kings.  Second...the line before, he says that the founders of House Tarlys were allegedly sons of King Garth Greenhand.
 * I'd ignore this. He's speaking loosely.

[[Great Sept of Baelor (Histories & Lore)
 * The order of the statues is wrong.
 * Artwork is simply wrong and contradicts a live-action set, make a note of it at most.

Major issues stemming from this:

1 - I think we should use the animated images of the Mad King which are book accurate and very prominently described, rather than the handful of seconds in one episode's quick barely-there flashback montage which insanely used a cleanshaven actor. I will not dignify this mistake by humoring it. Use the animated image in his infobox and family trees.

2 - While the Timeline still has issues, it's fairly obvious they just used Jaime's book age without bothering to fact-check that the TV continuity changed the age of many characters. Thus the ages from the animated video are superseded by prominent live-action dialogue (which is itself fairly self-consistent).

3 - Beric Dondarrion's deaths; again, live-action visible wounds that the actor is pointing out on-camera will supersede the animated info, which was just reading off the book version without checking if the TV version was different.

4 - Were the Starks "vassals" of the Barrow Kings? Or are they making a giant and unsubstantiated assumption? Should we bother listing this in articles or treat it as just a mistake? The way I wave these things aside, of course, is the old "unreliable narrator" -- that Sansa herself got her history mixed up.

Yes, I've tried e-mailing HBO in the past about the Histories & Lore videos. When they do write back, the TV writers are pervasively "busy" they say, and they don't bother forwarding my Q&A. 