Ramsey's got that Welsh charm.

I disagree.

Winter will cleanse everything, everyone, from the story. The Others will march upon Westeros and reduce every army not killed by cold to frozen blood. A battle will be waged in the shadow of the Iron Throne, but the Seven Kingdoms will be a graveyard before the story ends.

In the end, you have a battle between fire and ice, which leaves little room for flesh to survive. Whether or not Sansa was raped or Lady Stoneheart was created or the Sand Snakes won a battle or Stannis took a castle or not... it all fades to nothing in the upcoming showdown. And slight variations or differences in set pieces mean little to the impending massacre.

Sansa didn't need to be put in Winterfell or raped for this.

And yes Jeyne Poole can be cut.

Along with the whole marriage/rape plot.

Because of all the things they cut.

They kept the unnecessary stuff.

We already get it, the Boltons are evil.

They cut off dicks, rape women and flay people so much.

It's their logo.

It's not a book reader or show thing, it's just bad writing to have Sansa be there and in this plot.

No.

See, that's the point. The point of the entire story.

The first scene of the book shows White Walkers killing people. One of the very next is Ned Stark faced with a man of the Night's Watch who was running, saying that the Whitewalkers were coming and that they were bringing a Winter worse than any other with them.

And then what happens? Robert Baratheon and his circus show of an extended family shows up and distracts us. Draws us into personal disputes and tragic romances and political manipulations. And makes us forget that we, as the reader/viewer, know what the executed man says is true - Winter is coming and the Whitewalkers are going to destroy everything.

ASOIF isn't a story where, despite their differences and flaws, everyone pulls together at the last moment to overcome the great challenge that threatens us all. It's a story of destruction. Of loss. And of terrible, terrible negligence.

But not by the Lannisters. Or the Baratheons. Or the Freys or Boltons or Starks or Targaryeans. Not by the Nights Watch or the Iron Bank or the Chuch of the Seven or the Priests of Rhollor.

But by us. You. Me. We know the real threat, we are told the danger that is the most important thing and how it will spell complete annihilation of the world we are entering. And we are told it from the start, see the truth of it from the beginning. And we let ourselves get drawn into the drama, the pageantry, the nonsense that is everything else. False kings and failed romances and deadly assassinations and dastardly debauchery. None of it matters. We all know none of it matters. Yet we get sucked in anyway.

GRR Martin gets a wrap for being cruel, killing off characters, showing no one is safe. People think this is shock value or gritty writing. And there's certainly elements of that in what is playing out. But here's the thing - GRR Martin isn't cracking some eggs to make an omelette. He's gearing up for a full fledged chicken genocide. It's easing the reader into the feeling of knowing a character, seeing their struggle, rising with their highs, deflating with their lows and then feeling horror when their life is snuffed out with little warning.

This is important... because it's what Martin has planned. Not just for some characters, but for the whole world he has created. Sure, there may be a showdown where life eventually triumphs, but it will be on the bones and ashes of most of the world before it ends.

And that's the beauty - so many stories grapple with "the end of the world," mostly with the hero(es) preventing it from happening. Very few actually show the world destroyed (or mostly destroyed) in the process, but of those that do, this is mostly shown as a special effects moment, like the Terminator series that shows nuclear holocaust of the rising robots. Yet we, as viewers, feel nothing for this. It is a semi-scary light show, not death filled with loss.

It is only by Martin's masterful illusion of getting caught up in the near-pettiness of these characters' lives that he accomplished his greatest goal. We argue whether Stannis would be a better ruler on the Iron Throne, or if Jamie would be a better swordsman than Bromm if he had his hand, or if Dany is naive in her pursuit of a free and fair society... by engrossing ourselves with the struggles, desires, histories and flaws of these people, we can feel their loss when they die.

And die they will. All of them. We will see Tyrion crushed under the boots of a zombie army. We will see Arya frozen in a tundra in the Meadowlands. We will see Sansa slit her throat to save herself from the fate of becoming undead. With a huge sweep of his hand, Martin will show the Red Wedding for what it was - an appetizer to the doom he has been telling us about since word one. And we will stare in horror, likely not even realizing that Martin isn't killing everyone, but we are. The attention paid to the distractions, the irrelevancies, the illusions... it's an indictment of us. Of how entrenched we are in our own mundane lives, willfully blind to the real problems surrounding us.

With this, Martin is teaching us that what we pay attention to and care about pale in hideous comparison to the real challenges. A lesson that will leave people shocked, angry and ultimately very bitter, mostly because they will think Martin did it all just to be a huge dick/troll.

And you miss the point. You fall for the boogeyman facade that the Boltons are the bad guys. And for all of their crimes, they will face the same doom as the most innocent baby or the most valiant of defenders.

Because life isn't a meritocracy, death isn't a report card. It all comes crashing down for all of us - that's the story of ASOIF. It's a lesson that everything we chase is pitiful in the face of the abyss.

I know Ragnarok is the end game. The politics and who sits on the throne is just a petty squabble that distracts people from the coming doom.

But characters (in the books) are in there for a reason. They affect the story in some measurable way. Even if they die quickly later on.

Ser Barristan, for example. He did absolutely nothing on the show. He showed up. Talked. Died like a pimp. You could cut all his scenes from the show, and it won't affect the show at all.

Anyway. Even though plotlines and whatever ultimately don't matter in the end, doesn't mean characters should have complete personality changes on the fly, just for shock factor etc. The characters don't know it is all for nothing etc, after all. They would do what they thought was best all the way to the end.

Except 2.

Meera Reed being one, I think.


Meera Reed just might be Jon's twin sister by the way. Same look. Born the exact same year. Looks nothing like Jojen or Howland Reed. Howland Reed and Ned were the only survivors at the Tower of Joy. Lyanna died in childbirth, it seems. Twins might have made for a complicated birth. Howland and Ned takes one kid each to raise. 99 percent sure this is true.

Look upon your new ruler, King Pod. And tremble.