Season 6, Episode 6 "Blood of My Blood" Discussion Thread

Crazy theory of the moment - following what happened to Hodor, does anyone think that Bran caused the Mad King to go crazy? Except that when he said "Burn them all", it wasn't a reference to the people of King's Landing but instead the Wights?

 

Yeah, it's a growing popular theory. I hope it doesn't happen though. They already blew that load with Hodor. No need to repeat it again.

 

The targaryens are known for being crazy. All the inbreeding seemed to make their bloodline particularly susceptible to mental health problems.

 

Game of Thrones S06E06 - Bran's Visions (Slow Motion):

[YT]FTXZt5wJfKs[/YT]
Key screen caps from these visions:

Spoiler

Dragon over King's Landing:





Pyromancers and the wildfire cache beneath King's Landing igniting:









Young Ned asking for his sister with an immediate cut to (presumably) a snippet from the bed of blood scene within the Tower of Joy:

 

More screen caps from Bran's visions:

Spoiler

The Mad King Aerys raving his "Burn them all!!!" command before being slain by Jaimie Lannister:

 

The High Sparrow storyline bores me and I was really hoping it would end in a massacre tonight but it seems like they really want to drag this out. Also, I'm really getting tired of Dany's victory speeches. In the earlier seasons, I ate that **** up but now after the Meereen storyline, we've seen that she really isn't a very capable leader. I feel like she keeps riding on the coattails of her dragons without growing much as a leader. Plus, she keeps burning everyone so she might actually be going the way of the Mad King.

As for the positive, loved the little glimpses into Bran's vision. Arya's scenes were great too and I love that it looks she'll be getting away from the Faceless Men soon. Hope, this goes well for her *fingers crossed*.

 

HHHnnnnnghh.

 

Oh you mean after they had her captured by the Dothraki and she had to take them over AGAIN. That's level 1 to me.

 

Yeah, I've read that one a few times on other forums. I think it'd be good although it might be better if it was the original three-eyed raven who made that mistake and Bran just discovers the story and why it happens during a flashback. As in he can hear the raven warning the king and seeing it going wrong. Surely he knows by now not to meddle too much without knowing the consequences with the last time resulting in the deaths of Hodor, his direwolf and the Children.

 

No. Aerys had caches of wildfire hidden all over the city in case it was invaded, and previously he had Ned Stark's father, Rickard, burned too. So he was a confirmed murderous, pyromanic lunatic already.

Season 1:

Jaime: When I watched the Mad King die, I remember him laughing as your
father burned. It felt like justice.
Ned: Is that what you tell yourself at night? You’re a servant of justice?
That you were avenging my father when you drove your sword in Aerys
Targaryen’s back?
Jaime: Tell me, if I stabbed the Mad King in the belly instead of the back,
would you admire me more?
Ned: You served him well when serving was safe.
​

In Season 3, Jaime to Brienne:

You all despise me. “Kingslayer. Oathbreaker. Man without honor.” You
heard of wildfire? The Mad King was obsessed with it. He loved to
watch people burn. They way their skin blackened and blistered and
melted off their bones. He burned Lords he didn’t like, he burned
Hands who disobeyed him. He burned anyone who was against him. Before
long half the country was against him. Aerys saw traitors everywhere,
so he had his pyromancer place caches of wildfire all over the city.
Beneath the Sept of Baelor and the slums of Fleabottom. House,
stables, taverns. Even beneath the Red Keep itself.

Finally, the day of reckoning came. Robert Baratheon marched on the
capitol after his victory at the Trident. But my father went first
with the whole Lannister army at this back promising to defend the
city against the rebels. I knew my father better than that. He’s never
been one to pick the losing side. I told the Mad King as much. I urged
him to surrender peacefully. But he didn’t listen to me. He didn’t
listen to Varys who tried to warn him. But he did listen to Grand
Maester Pycelle—the great sunken ****. “You can trust the Lannisters,”
he said. “The Lannisters have always been true friends of the crown.”
So he opened the gates and my father sacked the city. Once again I
came to the king begging him to surrender. He told me to bring him my
father’s head. Then he turned to his pyromancer. “Burn them all,” he
said. “Burn them in their homes, burn them in their beds.”

First I killed the pyromancer and then, when the king turned to flee,
I drove my sword into his back. “Burn them all,” he kept saying. “Burn
them all.”
​

 

Scene was awesome, great to see Benjen deliver some serious whoopin'. Music was really good in that scene too.

So what do people think,

Spoiler

does this mean Benjen is Coldhands in the books as well?

Didn't really get the point of Sam stealing Heartsbane and, indeed, of taking Gilly with him, considering the fact that his father had accepted her and the baby into the fold, albeit begrudgingly.

Looking forward to Jamie vs Blackfish next episode.

 

Not the best episode of the season, but more of a set up, and in that it was quite good, and damn, Dany means business this season.

 

I forgot how disconcerting it was watching Jaime and Cersei together until this episode.

 

Which could just mean he was touched at an point in time prior to that.

 

Doesn't it depend on when the whispers started? As in couldn't they be the reasons for the origin of his fire fetish as well, rather than just the culmination?

 

He wasn't the first crazy fire obsessed Targaryen, there doesn't necessarily have to be an underlying reason for his madness.

 

True, there doesn't have to be. But also we don't know how far back these whispers go. Bran's already gone back to the date the White Walkers were created and who knows what the 3ER got up to (did he have any predecessors?).

I think we'll see more of that Mad King flashback and if this theory has anything to it it would mean there was more to the scene than just a very interesting history lesson.

 

Madness and insanity runs in the Targaryen bloodline.

King Maegor I Targaryen
King Baelor I Targaryen
Prince Rhaegel Targaryen
Prince Aerion Targaryen
King Aerys II Targaryen
Viserys Targaryen

All went mad.

And Dany is showing signs of early madness in ADWD.

You can read about the Targ Madness here:

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Targaryen_madness

Bran isnt causing all that.

 

Dany? I didn't really notice all that many signs of her madness during ADWD. Then again having read Cersei's chapters I was probably desensitised.

 

She gave one of her men the OK to torture a baker's family in front of him.

 

Well she definitely has the capability to be as cruel as her ancestors. Her altruistic nature towards the innocent balances it out but she is fierce some might say sadistic with her enemies at times. Then there is her hearing voices and having visions. And she is very worried about going mad like her ancestors. Some seem to think the targ madness is a chekovs gun thats going to go off before the end of the series.

It would be some crazy **** if this whole time Martin has been setting up and dedicating so much of the story to the birth and growth and evolution of an enemy. Presenting her as a good character and then the madness takes hold and she becomes a mad queen with three dragons and a viscious army.

 

i thought she was kind of ****ed up for burning all the khals. she killed them for following their religion lol You know who else did that?

 

Stannis with Axel Florent and the others?

 

I was going to say Hitler lol

 

It should also be noted that while Aerys was always mentally ill, possibly bipolar, he never turned psychopathic until after he was imprisoned and tortured during the Defiance of Duskendale. Likewise, by most accounts Viserys was nice kid who adored Rhaegar and kept Dany safe when she was s child. It was only after a lifetime of hardship and having to sell his mother's crown to feed Dany that he finally turned cruel.

Bran couldn't have done these things.