Discussion about Dorne.

[Ser Loras The Gay]

Dorne is bad. I mean really bad, why they needed to make the snake sisters protagonists of Dorne? They are simply hot tempered, simple-minded and their only goal is to seek revenge rather than making the realm a peaceful place to live. They killed Doran who was a good ruler to his people,  and I can't believe for a second that all people in Dorne are mad at him for not seeking revenge for his Brother's death. Without saying how tossed out the whole thing was. They are released from prison, poison Myrcella, kill Doran and his son in one episode. I don't like it. And they try to force a an alliance between Varys Queen of thorns and the snake sisters in the end. What are your thoughts on it?

[Byfort of Corfe]

I'm not a fan of Dorne or the Sandsnakes.  My read though is that Varys went to Dorne to broker an alliance between Dorne and Dany, the Queen of Thorns probably came in as an afterthought after Varys heard that Cersei had killed her whole family.  But yes, I agree that, IMO the Sandsnakes do not hold my interest and frankly the only Dornish theme that interested me was Oberyn.

[dsug]

jesus christ, this again?

[Dragon in the North]

Yes, Dorne was bad. It's even worse than the storyline in the books, which I wouldn't have thought was possible, but it does have one advantage over Book Dorne: it was short. The showrunners knew to cut their losses, so Dorne only made up a fraction of the showtime. I don't understand why people continue to dwell on it.

[Pink Fat Rast]

There's good potential in there - the women pursuing a form of "revenge" that also targets those too "weak" to pursue it or at least not stand in its way; making Oberyn himself, and Elia as well, roll in their graves as they kill his relatives and innocent girls, but probably too obsessed/blind to care or notice.

The "ideal" of vengeance is to hand out just/satisfying retribution against the evildoers, and thus honoring/satisfying the victims and those left behind, while making sure no innocents are hurt, and, in one way or other, the wishes and ideals of the victims aren't broken.
However, this ideal can be perverted into something more destructive, sinister and illogical by 2 main factors:
-society: a given less-than-morally-perfect society has certain codes about revenge that it imposes on its members - like killing the perpetrator's family as well; or the bereaved having a duty to exact revenge, and if they don't a lynch mob is gonna kill them and the whole family for being weak/dishonourable.
-emotions: grief causing lack of judgement, obsession, blindness, and causing a shift from avenging the dead, to satisfying the avenger's own emotions; awakening the evil/reckless/ruthless/callous/sadistic potential in the previously good person, making him use revenge as an excuse (THOS'RE THE KÜNTS THA' STABBED 'ES BRAR)

Now this being Thrones, why the hell WOULDN'T it explore this kind of subject matter? Why would it absolutely need to have every revenge-obsessed character be some kind of Dirty Harry paragon?


Also, the Dornish people who Doran kept "safe and well fed", but were supposedly pissed at him for "not avenging Elia" - are they the typical commoners who just pray for rain and want to be left in peace, or are they patriotic, dedicated subjects who worship their royal family and prioritize any attempt to avenge their beloved princess over their own well-being and safety?
Or could it be that they're irrational, don't know what they want, and would quickly change priorities as soon as the prospect of getting sacked by Lannisters arrived on the horizon?

So the basic idea of what went on in Dorne, is more than fine - but obviously the execution left a lot to be desired, and failed to convince the audience that it was supposed to explore the Sands' flawed motivations rather than question the writers' judgement and awareness.

_____

I also kinda like the way they "almost ended" S5 with this idealistic, harmless, comedic 17th/18th century opera resolution only to suddenly turn it around and make the "apologetic" villainnesses stage a coup - S5E1 set up Doran as the only thing standing in the way of Dorne turning from a relative paradise into a violent nightmare, and then he dies as Elllaria implied and, well.

But, again, the execution was lacking - S5 was way too frivolous, and the dark pay-off way too short; maybe minimizing the Dorne scenes in S6 was a mistake and only made it worse.
Doran dying suddenly, and failing to improvise a "my people would've been Elia'd by the Lannisters if I had tried to avenge her, and you're spitting on Oberyn's grave" speech while in shock and disbelief, made sense and was very much in the spirit of the show - however, it should've explored those issues elsewhere instead of vanishing for an entire season.

But, there's still S7 which might do something interesting with it - who knows.

_____

Also, just purely from an entertainment value, the Sand Snakes aren't ALL bad - that infamous fight scene did suck, and some of the other scenes with them sucked; however, Trystane's death was an awesome scene on its own, and the coup + Nymeria's(?) knife stunt looked pretty great too.

So, yeah, overall I'd say not so much the Jar Jar Binks of GoT, as much as the Kim Bauer of GoT - with the exception of that fight scene that was definitely Jar Jar.

Some tonal missteps, some wasted opportunities, maybe got too scared by the backlash in S6 (or scared in the wrong way), but, eh, you know

[Ser Yorick Ampersand]

On 28/03/2017 at 1:00 PM, Ser Loras The Gay said:

Dorne is bad. I mean really bad, why they needed to make the snake sisters protagonists of Dorne? They are simply hot tempered, simple-minded and their only goal is to seek revenge rather than making the realm a peaceful place to live. They killed Doran who was a good ruler to his people,  and I can't believe for a second that all people in Dorne are mad at him for not seeking revenge for his Brother's death. Without saying how tossed out the whole thing was. They are released from prison, poison Myrcella, kill Doran and his son in one episode. I don't like it. And they try to force a an alliance between Varys Queen of thorns and the snake sisters in the end. What are your thoughts on it?

Dorne was the biggest fuck you to the audience and book readers.  

Somehow Oberyns girlfriend is now the ruler... no claim whatsoever... they just used to pork... Her motives dont make any sense. She wanted to avenge Oberyn and did it by killing Oberyns brother and only living relative - Prince Doran... what...

It was a clear appeal to feminists by the show writers. All season 6 was. Thats the real reason they did it. Jumped on the Clinton bandwagon so hard.

The show doesnt care about rules of succession. claims or any of that. And most of the average show watchers dont even think about it. 

[Ser Loras The Gay]

5 hours ago, Ser Yorick Ampersand said:

Dorne was the biggest fuck you to the audience and book readers.  

Somehow Oberyns girlfriend is now the ruler... no claim whatsoever... they just used to pork... Her motives dont make any sense. She wanted to avenge Oberyn and did it by killing Oberyns brother and only living relative - Prince Doran... what...

It was a clear appeal to feminists by the show writers. All season 6 was. Thats the real reason they did it. Jumped on the Clinton bandwagon so hard.

The show doesnt care about rules of succession. claims or any of that. And most of the average show watchers dont even think about it. 

That's exactly what I think. They don't have any reason to be the rulers and less reason to kill Doran like that. They wanted "girl power" but they shown just a bunch of unprepared girls bitching about the death of Oberyn. They kill Myrcella without any good reason (hur dur revenge) and kill the heir of Dorne (I still don't know how they get in the boat without ANYONE opposing them). And what strikes me the most is the fact that EVERY SINGLE PERSON despite never showing that in ANY episode agrees with them. Every guard want Doran dead, every citizen want Doran dead, and the ONLY REASON is the fact he didn't revenge his brother's death. Nobody cares about, being fed, being in peace, don't dying in wars, etc.

[Pink Fat Rast]

44 minutes ago, Ser Loras The Gay said:

They wanted "girl power" but they shown just a bunch of unprepared girls bitching about the death of Oberyn. They kill Myrcella without any good reason (hur dur revenge) and kill the heir of Dorne (I still don't know how they get in the boat without ANYONE opposing them). And what strikes me the most is the fact that EVERY SINGLE PERSON despite never showing that in ANY episode agrees with them. Every guard want Doran dead, every citizen want Doran dead, and the ONLY REASON is the fact he didn't revenge his brother's death. Nobody cares about, being fed, being in peace, don't dying in wars, etc.

Are you really gonna stand here and insist that they wrote the Sands as good guy feminist paragons? There goes your whole credibility eh


There's hardly anything in your 2 posts that hadn't already been addressed in mine above: yes, the biggest problem here was that that they didn't show or establish the views of all the guards and people etc., which means all you've got to go by is the words of an irrational woman in one scene.

If it's true what she said, that the population hates Doran, is so patriotic and obsessed with revenge and the royal family etc. that they prioritize that over being "peacefully fed", and that most of the guards agree and Doran is just this incredibly out-of-touch ruler isolated from his subjects - then yes, such a coup could indeed by accepted by those people even if the "succession rules" weren't clean.
As was said earlier, power resides where people make it reside - plus, they already like passion bastards in Dorne so there's that.

But, they could've gone on to show all that in the following S6 episodes, but apparently refrained from that because of the "backlash" and thus made it even worse, ironically.

[Ser Loras The Gay]

9 hours ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

There's hardly anything in your 2 posts that hadn't already been addressed in mine above: yes, the biggest problem here was that that they didn't show or establish the views of all the guards and people etc., which means all you've got to go by is the words of an irrational woman in one scene.

If it's true what she said, that the population hates Doran, is so patriotic and obsessed with revenge and the royal family etc. that they prioritize that over being "peacefully fed", and that most of the guards agree and Doran is just this incredibly out-of-touch ruler isolated from his subjects - then yes, such a coup could indeed by accepted by those people even if the "succession rules" weren't clean.
As was said earlier, power resides where people make it reside - plus, they already like passion bastards in Dorne so there's that.

But, they could've gone on to show all that in the following S6 episodes, but apparently refrained from that because of the "backlash" and thus made it even worse, ironically.

Yes I think it's feminist propaganda. And the reasons are as I listed above. They didn't estabilished the claims simply because there was none. Because it simply don't make any sense in one episode the guards help Doran to imprison the sand snakes and in the other just watch as Ellaria kills Doran. It's not just sloppy writing is pandering towards feminists who were complaining about some rape scenes. HBO was afraid of a backlash and increase the "girl power" factor.

 

[Pink Fat Rast]

And you think feminists won't complain about women being portrayed as irrational overly emotional villains?

Think again?

36 minutes ago, Ser Loras The Gay said:

They didn't estabilished the claims simply because there was none.

Neither did Renly.

 

Quote

Because it simply don't make any sense in one episode the guards help Doran to imprison the sand snakes and in the other just watch as Ellaria kills Doran.

It does make sense if they'd been "playing along" before, or these were different guards in higher positions blah blah - as I said, all things that could've been explained had they shot more scenes.

Nothing INHERENTLY absurd about any of this.

[Ser Loras The Gay]

1 minute ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

 

And you think feminists won't complain about women being portrayed as irrational overly emotional villains?

Think again?

 

If they're in power, no. Do you see anyone complaining about how crazy Cersei is? 

2 minutes ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

Neither did Renly.

He had a claim. Take down the evil lannisters and commit treason. Some people weren't happy about the lannisters killing Ned and allegedly kiling Robert and the small folk didn't like the coldness of Twyin. There were reasons.

3 minutes ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

It does make sense if they'd been "playing along" before, or these were different guards in higher positions blah blah - as I said, all things that could've been explained had they shot more scenes.

Oh, I see, so you're doing some mental gymnastics to excuse the fact they did a sloopy job at making things believable? Even so, why the hell would they play along? They could simply have Jaime, Myrcella, Doran, Hotah and everyone there killed. It was the BEST scenario. And another one, if they were REALLY playing along, why would the others snakes sneak in? If the guards were Ellaria's they could simply storm the palace and kill everyone inside.

[dsug]

Renly had a claim to the Iron Throne? You can't be serious. 

[dsug]

5 minutes ago, Ser Loras The Gay said:

He had a claim. Take down the evil lannisters and commit treason. Some people weren't happy about the lannisters killing Ned and allegedly kiling Robert and the small folk didn't like the coldness of Twyin. There were reasons.

I'm sorry, I just...no. 

With your logic, Ellaria had a claim. Take down the weak Doran and commit treason. Some people weren't happy about the lannisters killing Elia and Oberyn and the smallfolk didn't like the passivity of Doran. There were reasons. 

[Ser Loras The Gay]

Just now, dsug said:

I'm sorry, I just...no. 

With your logic, Ellaria had a claim. Take down the weak Doran and commit treason. Some people weren't happy about the lannisters killing Elia and Oberyn and the smallfolk didn't like the passivity of Doran. There were reasons. 

But where we see this people revolting against it??? We see people revolting against the lannisters, we see people gathering with renly and Stannis against them but we don't see ONE PERSON gathering with the snakes until the last episode, when she stabs Doran. It's completly different.

[dsug]

Just now, Ser Loras The Gay said:

But where we see this people revolting against it??? We see people revolting against the lannisters, we see people gathering with renly and Stannis against them but we don't see ONE PERSON gathering with the snakes until the last episode, when she stabs Doran. It's completly different.

the show made it very clear that the dornish commonfolk supported ellaria. they thought he was weak. they thought he was a coward. they were disgusted with him. 

also, where are these scenes of people gathering with renly and stannis? Renly disappears then suddenly has a huge army. You are referencing scenes that do not exist. 

[Ser Loras The Gay]

2 minutes ago, dsug said:

the show made it very clear that the dornish commonfolk supported ellaria. they thought he was weak. they thought he was a coward. they were disgusted with him. 

also, where are these scenes of people gathering with renly and stannis? Renly disappears then suddenly has a huge army. You are referencing scenes that do not exist. 

The army itself is the people gathering. We don't see the gathering itself, but we see that he has people by his side.
And what parts of the episodes we see the smallfolk mad at doran? We only know that for Ellaria's mouth.

 

[dsug]

3 minutes ago, Ser Loras The Gay said:

The army itself is the people gathering. We don't see the gathering itself, but we see that he has people by his side.
And what parts of the episodes we see the smallfolk mad at doran? We only know that for Ellaria's mouth.

 

you said "we see people gathering with renly and Stannis against them but we don't see ONE PERSON gathering with the snakes" which we don't. so, you lied and are now trying (and failing) to back track.

We see the smallfolk and the soldiers supporting Ellaria when they stand by and alllow her to kill him. We see them support her when they don't immediately kill her. We see them support her when they give her control over their armies. We see them support her when the go to war for her. 

[Pink Fat Rast]

18 minutes ago, dsug said:

Renly had a claim to the Iron Throne? You can't be serious. 

Well he loves him you know.

[Ser Loras The Gay]

Just now, dsug said:

We see the smallfolk and the soldiers supporting Ellaria when they stand by and alllow her to kill him. We see them support her when they don't immediately kill her. We see them support her when they give her control over their armies. We see them support her when the go to war for her. 

By this logic we shouldn't have any prisioner from lordly heritage. By this logic Jaime should've been killed when he was saw at the battlefield. And no, I didn't back track. We see lots and lots of people revolting against the lannister government for a lot of reasons. Season 2 and 3 is almost in it's entirely about people making protests. And the fact that Renly has a ginormous army shows that most houses from the south don't allign with the Lannisters. Small folk included.

[dsug]

3 minutes ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

Well he loves him you know.

really? I couldn't tell