SeanF

Good one, Good one. Next up: 1. Walder Frey was the hero of the Red Wedding 2. Randyll Tarly is father of the year 3. Aerys II was a good guy.

Has anyone nominated Terry Goodkind, or Robert Stanek? My top ten (which could easily change if I were in a different mood). Nero's Heirs, by Allan Massie The Lord of the Rings Pride and Prejudice Watership Down Flashman at the Charge, by George Macdonal Fraser The Hobbit The Liveships Trilogy, by Robin Hobb (treating it as one book) I Claudius Cocktail Time, by PG Wodehouse A Storm of Swords

Which was a thing in real life. Many medieval marriage contracts stipulated that sexual intercourse should not take place until the bride was 15 or 16.

D & D's story was nihilistic. Love is pointless, trying to do good makes you worse than people who are evil, and to win, you have to be deceitful and underhand like the Lannisters.

As a general issue, if we're comparing the lot of married women with slaves, then that might a point that the author is making. If Drogo tired of Dany, and hanged her, or sold her, or gave her to his blood riders, she'd have no redress. To that extent, her situation is worse than that of a noblewoman of Westeros.

One of the most heroic characters in the series was a very minor one, Lord Chelstead, one of Aerys' lickespittles. But, in the last hours of his life, he achieved greatness, by defying a king who wanted to burn thousands of innocents. And he failed. Aerys killed him horribly. And he succeeded, by proving that defeat is no refutation.

You make it sound as if killing slave dealers, child murderers, and people who were debating raping, selling, or imprisoning her, is a bad thing. Not in my book.

The Sam/Gilly scene is one that I find rather amusing, and true to life.

No, I don't think so. Good deeds may doom you, but ultimately, what goes around comes around. Do evil and evil will eventually be done to you and yours. Ned's honour got him killed, but on the other hand, there are thousands of men in the North who are fiercely loyal to his memory and to his House, because of his honour. Whereas no one much mourned Tywin Lannister or will mourn Littlefinger. Even in the case of Ned, it's surely better to die knowing you did the right thing, in trying to save children, than to die with the deaths of children on your conscience.

I don't condemn Mirri for getting her revenge, but I don't condemn Daenerys for getting hers, either.

I think he was misquoted. That said, I don't think you can read Daenerys' character arc, in good faith, and conclude that she is a villain protagonist. One has to attribute every seeming act of goodness to base motives, and every mistake to malevolent intentions, in order to come to that pre-ordained conclusion. Possibly an anti-heroine; a tragic heroine; a heroic failure, but certainly not a villain.

How do you go from saying - when the DVD for season 3 was released "she's a heroine, the good Targaryen" to claiming that you decided at that point that Jon would kill her? Or from presenting her campaign in Slavers Bay as righteous, but imperfectly executed, to the beginning of her descent into evil via their mouthpiece Tyrion at the end? How do you know when D & D are lying? When they open their mouths.

It's an enormous retcon. Daenerys offered to march North, after she'd seen the Dead first hand. Later Jon pledged fealty. Daenerys even queried whether his people would accept it. That was Season 7. Season 8, angry Northern vassals are demanding to know why Jon bent the knee. He says he did it because he needed military aid. So, the conclusion is either:- 1. Jon is a liar, and willing to throw Daenerys under the bus. That casts doubt on his love from her. 2. Jon is just stupid, and can't remember why he bent the knee, and doesn't understand how much resentment this causes to his vassals, 3. The one I favour. Bad writing. The producers were relying on casual viewers forgetting what was established in the previous season. It's one reason why I suspect the decision to vilify Daenerys was only taken after Season 7 had been filmed.

That's true as well. The whole show became riddled with inconsistencies. They wanted to advocate amorality, at the same time as trying to give the Stark siblings the moral high ground. They thought they could square the circle by turning Daenerys into a cartoon villain of evil evilness, so that doing anything against her would seem justified - and viewers and critics just didn't buy it.

That's an interesting point. Most of the main protagonists are actually pretty lonely people.