The Bard of Banefort

I finally watched the deleted scenes from S8: Very little of value was cut. It’s mostly just scenes of people calling Davos old, Alys Karstark dying off-screen, a scene showing that the northerners don’t really see Dany as their queen (and her not liking it), a few cut lines from Tormund and Tyrion, and a scene of Dany teasing Missandei with some less-than-great acting from Emilia. The big scene they cut was Tyrion and Sansa killing some wights, but after watching the scene, I’m wondering if they cut it because of some uncommonly bad acting from Gilly. Her reaction to zombies trying to kill her and her son is a blank stare (granted, you would think the director would have told her to look more frightened). It’s also shot in a way that makes it look like Tyrion killed all the wights on his own, which I’m pretty sure he didn’t.

It occurred to me: did the Baratheons own a dragon egg prior to the Rebellion? Rhaelle would have had one in her cradle, and she presumably brought it with her to Storm’s End. So was the egg passed down to her son and grandsons?

I like Corlys’ actor, but he’s definitely more theatrical than the other characters. I feel like he’s onstage while everyone else is on set. Viserys not having a dragon in the books is more understandable since Daemon is a bit more restrained. In the books, when Viserys tells him to give the egg back and send Mysaria away, he does it. I always thought Rhaenys seemed really petty in that scene with Rhaenyra. She does, however, seem to acknowledge that she doesn’t like the idea of her young daughter marrying Viserys—which just shows how subservient she is to Corlys. Viserys’ big reveal that he’s marrying Alicent is so goofy. He doesn’t tell either Rhaenyra or Corlys about it ahead of time, humiliating both of them, and no one seems to wonder why Alicent is randomly present at the council meeting. I hate how they make it look like Alicent and Laena are the only two options for a wife. There were plenty of women over the age of fifteen that Viserys could have chosen. They filmed a confrontation between Rhaenyra and Alicent right after this, along with Rhaenyra helping Alicent dress for her wedding. I’m not sure why they cut those scenes. Apparently Rhaenyra called Alicent a whore, and Alicent broke down crying and said that no one ever bothered to ask her what she wanted. Milly’s Rhaenyra is a huge brat, so I don’t think they’d cut it because of how it would make her look (it also would have created a parallel to when Rhaenyra is called a whore by Vaemond later on).

To me, the speech was them trying to figure out why this character they found so boring would end up King. I don’t think they ever got there.

It’s possible that Dany doesn’t go “mad,” but that that’s the way she’s remembered (we’re already seeing the groundwork for that in the Quentyn and Arianne chapters). It’s also possible that all of the dragon dreams/mystical encounters start taking their toll. Quaithe may think she’s helping Dany, but she’s also making her very paranoid. Part of the reason why she spurns Quentyn is because Quaithe warned her not to trust him (or anyone, really).

Um, okay? All I’m saying is that it’s a change that would only really bother book fans, and we’re a tiny portion of the audience.

The reason why I think he may have been cut is because he’s still not included on the official family tree on HBO’s website (Daeron is). Seeing as GOT aged Tommen up ten years between seasons 3 and 4 and no one cared, I don’t think anyone will care if there’s an extraneous bloodline in the intro that most people have trouble following anyway (including me, despite knowing the family tree). But there’s no way of knowing either way right now. Also, if they do change B&C, only book fans will care. Most of the general audience will find a decapitated child horrifying enough on its own.

They’re both boring, which is a much worse sin than incompetence. One of the reasons why I like AFFC is because I’m spared the the brooding and pouting monotony of their chapters.

Maybe, but wouldn’t he have had twenty years to think it over by then? If he had a better idea, I’m sure he would have gone with that.

Yeah, I find that scenario likely. And the showrunners will probably try to make Helaena choosing to save Jaehaerys as her having internalized the patriarchy or whatever.

I really think they’re cutting Maelor, but I guess we’ll find out next year.

Reading Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon, I got the impression that D&D didn’t really understand why Bran would be king, or why Dany would go crazy. It seemed like they only included it because GRRM told them that was how it ended (much like how Stannis killed his only heir to melt a couple inches of snow). Based on what we’ve seen of Bran in the books, including his natural talent for leadership in ACOK, I don’t think he’s going to be a god-emperor. I think Hold the Door will be the moment that teaches Bran that he can’t push his limits. I think he’ll be chosen for the wisdom that he’s gained from his powers and whatever leadership he shows upon returning to Winterfell. I don’t think he’ll become the Branbot. Arya’s much harder, since we can’t really pull anything from the show. There is no Night King in the books, and D&D have talked about how they considered other people besides her to shank him. Since GRRM felt the need to include a story about a girl sailing west into the sunset in FnB, he may have told D&D that was how her story ended when he revealed the outline years earlier. But right now, I’m not sure what she’ll end up doing until then.

Question for the class: would it have made for a better story if Arya died in S8? I can think of two ways she could have gone that would have been impactful: either she died while killing the Night King, letting him stab her so she could get close enough to vanquish him, or was killed during the firebombing of KL. The first would have been a heroic sacrifice capping off eight seasons of training (and choosing to save others rather than kill for revenge). The second would have showed that even the girl who destroyed the Walkers can’t escape death forever (and maybe it would have been a significant enough death that the show wouldn’t have needed to go quite as crazy burning civilians to get the point across). Either way, I think it would have strengthened Jon’s resolve against Dany: in the version we got, he kills her to protect her sisters, but if he had already lost one sister recently, he would be even more determined to save the other. And it would have been better than Arya deserting her family again in the end. What do you guys think?

It’s curious what they decided to include and what they decided to cut. For all the talk of childbirth scenes, there was a major one they definitely should have adapted: Alicent giving birth to Aegon. We should have seen how Alicent was coping with giving birth for the first time, maybe with Rhaenyra by her side, and then the mix of emotions when she has a boy: Otto smug and proud, Viserys happy and conflicted, Rhaenyra wondering what this all means for her. It also would help make Alicent eventually finding Aegon’s dead body that much more emotional, since we saw how it all began. It also would have been nice to see Helaena delivering the twins, with Alicent holding her and coaching her through it. Both of these scenes would have been more impactful than Joffrey’s birth or Laena’s death, since we hardly knew her.

Lol no, Littlefinger does not respect Sansa or want her to become a player. He views her as a possession and is training her to be his perfect woman, including helping him with his schemes when needed. He would never want her to do any scheming on her own. He monologues to her constantly because he’s showing off—he wants her to admire just how brilliant he is for figuring everything out. As for physical attraction, look, I hope I don’t upset anyone when I say this, but guys really don’t realize how good they have it in this regard. Women will be attracted to anyone. In no world should Pete Davidson have had this many beautiful girlfriends, but lo and behold. And unlike the Hound, Pete isn’t built like a WWE wrestler either.

I think that when it comes to how younger characters are portrayed in terms of marriage, romance, etc., a lot of it comes down to the writing. I have confessed that I really like reading about Sansa and the Hound, but part of that is because I never really feel like I’m reading about a 12-year-old girl and a nearly-30-year-old man (God, it sounds so creepy when you put it like that). They don’t seem all that far apart in age in their scenes together. On the other hand, Sansa’s scenes with Littlefinger always feel predatory. When they’re together, it really does feel like a sleazy middle-aged man is preying on a teenage girl, even though LF is only about 30 himself (granted, their relationship would still be creepy even if Sansa was older, given the kidnapping/grooming/mom-daughter-aunt angle, etc.) This presents a problem in FnB however, because we are only seeing the relationships from afar. Rhaena and Corwyn—just to use a example—probably wouldn’t seem odd if George wrote a traditional story about it. But we don’t have that advantage here.

The writers have already said that they consider fat Rhaenyra propaganda, so no, I wouldn’t expect that.

Is this a hot topic on Twitter? That doesn’t really surprise me, but I find Twitter’s formatting harder to follow than, say, Reddit, so I don’t stay as up-to-date on the discourse there.

It’s actually a little weird that so many people in-universe still buy into the Targaryen propaganda. I can only recall Olenna scoffing at it. We can presume that Robert and Jaime think it’s bullocks (although Jaime still admires Rhaegar, so maybe not), but you would think more people—especially in the North—would have more skepticism.

Who was the third wife going to be?

So they technically can’t work on this anymore until the writers strike is over, right? Maybe George will work on the books instead (*inhales copium*).

Yeah, but this is one of the times I think the books themselves seem to be endorsing the idea of Valyrian blood supremacy. Maybe that wasn’t the intention, but I know I’m not the only one who got the same vibe from that scene. It could have been done better.

Sometimes I think George’s problem is that he watches too much TV. It used to be very common (and still is, to a degree) for 20- and 30-somethings to play teenagers on TV. If you don’t spend a lot of time around kids, it’s probably pretty easy to forget that that isn’t what teens look like in real life. It would explain why, rather than puberty kicking off the awkward hormonal years, in ASOIAF kids immediately spring into adults with gorgeous bodies the day they turn twelve. All this serves as a reminder for other reasons why not finishing the books has hurt the series overall. People have very different opinions on what is and isn’t permissible in fiction now than they did in 1996. Daenara’s grand entrance didn’t bother me so much for her age (although realistically, a 13-year-old boy would likely be much more interested in girls his own age or a bit older than him than he would a 6-year-old) but because it was one of the few times where the Valyrian “blood purity” really went overboard for me. Despite the room being filled with beautiful women, somehow everyone is stunned into silence by the mere sight of her. Only this lily white dragon girl is worthy of the kind and can bring a smile to his lips. It’s so gross.

They can show her being fed to Sunfyre because this time she isn’t being put down like a rabid dog by the pure-hearted male protagonist, but shamefully murdered by the deformed, degenerate usurper. She will literally be killed by the patriarchy. As for being a weakling, she has been very passive since the time jump (since the third episode, really), so that might stay the same. The irony is, the Dance does have a feminist ending of sorts. The war ends because of the efforts made by the widows who were now in power. But GOT did that too, with Sansa, Brienne, and Yara all ending up in positions of power at the end, and people still hated it.

I think the smartest thing they could do is condense the post-war period. Most people aren’t going to want to watch the show after every main character aside from Alicent and Corlys is dead. Have Cregan Stark come down to clean things up for an episode or two, then end the show with a reunion between Aegon and Viserys. This is sacrilege for some book fans, but I think they could easily cut everything concerning Unwin Peake, and they should have Jaehaera live as the last green survivor. Maybe also skip Rhaena’s wedding to Corwyn and show her marrying the Hightower guy instead. They could also close the circle by showing Aegon crippled by his grief and Viserys being “strong for the both of them”—only unlike Daemon, Viserys actually does have the makings of a true ruler. I fully expect them to portray Rhaenyra’s death as her desperately trying to warn Aegon of the White Walkers while he shouts “dracarys!” over her. I can live with them having Larys manipulating the smallfolk to revolt against Rhaenyra, but I’ve also seen some people theorize that the showrunners will try to be deep and make the Dragonpit an analog for the capitol riot and. . . just. . . no. No. That would be the biggest hack move they could possibly come up with. Hell to the no. My only hope is that, since we know the writers are reading reviews (Ryan Condal has already said there’ll be more humor going forward), that enough people have written about how they miss female characters like Cersei for them to take notice.