SeanF

I think the single worst thing was the decision to whitewash Tyrion, which resulted him in being a bungling idiot. He wanted a “bloodless revolution” in Westeros. Had he ever visited the place? He seemed to think you could wage war without killing people (getting thousands of Dany’s soldiers killed as a result.) Realistically, Tyrion’s execution should have been the one thing that every faction agreed upon, at the end. Yet, they treated this drooling idiot’s comments as pearls of wisdom.

Most of all, I feel sorry for Gilly, condemned to be with a lover who snorts and roots at her breasts, like a pig searching for truffles.

And, once something ends badly, people will go back and criticise stuff that was overlooked at the time. I thought Dany in Qarth was cheesy generic fantasy at the time. Now I think it’s crap.

I was completely baffled by what they were trying to achieve with Bran. In the books, I assume that Bran's magical abilities have a material impact in the fight against the Others, and that he does a lot more than just stare into space.

How do you like your Frey Bentos pies? with carrots, leaks, or mashed potato?

I certainly found Season 7 sillier than Season 8. I don’t feel bad about the two D’s who honestly, come over as being quite unpleasant people, and did get a ton of money out of it. I do wish the show’s flaws had been called out earlier. They might have been redressed. @Le Cygnementions the “sunk cost fallacy” that leaves viewers invested in a series, long after it’s ceased to be good. It was also sustained by puff pieces from sycophantic journalists. There are, too, things that looked good at the time, that don’t with hindsight. Eg Arya’s conversations with Tywin. It’s actually important to the storyline that the Lannisters in general, and Tywin in particular, are villains, not “lawful neutral”. Whitewashing the Lannisters alters the whole tale. A Tyrion who was actually sabotaging Daenerys, in favour of his siblings, would have matched what we were shown. Ending a series satisfactorily is always hard. Honestly, they should have played it safe, and had Jon and Dany reigning. Pulling off an unhappy ending takes a level of skill that the show runners lacked. They must have known what reaction The Bells, and Jon murdering Dany, would generate. They were the two most popular characters. I think you’ve commented too that the ending of the show coincided with movements like Me Too, which makes the whole idea of a man stabbing his girlfriend in the boob, for the greater good, or Sansa saying rape made her stronger, out of kilter with the times. Ditto Tyrion’s “First they came for the slave traders and I did not speak up, for I was not a slave trader …” speech at the end. I honestly thought that the nadir of all 8 seasons.

If people haven’t come round after five years, they won’t now. Season 8 still has a rating of 30% on Rotten Tomatoes. The gulf between “tell” and “show” was unbridgeable, in later seasons. We were told that Tyrion and Varys were very brilliant. We were shown that they were morons. We were told that Jon was a hero. We were shown that he was bad general, an inept diplomat, a terrible boyfriend. We were told that he had nothing to live for, after killing the love of his life, Daenerys. We were shown that he lied to his vassals about bending the knee to her, and washed his hands of her, after discovering his parentage. He loved her neither romantically, nor as family, and simply exploited her, seemingly. He was as much use as a chocolate teapot. We were told that Arya was a girlboss. We were shown that she was a xenophobic sadist. We were told that Sansa was a wise leader. We were shown that she was a treacherous schemer. We were told that Bran “had the best story.” We were shown that he was a weird teenager who made horrid comments like telling Sansa how beautiful she was, the night Ramsay raped her. We were told (by Tyrion at the end), that Daenerys was worse than Cersei, Tywin, and Ramsay combined. We were shown her leading a vast army to save a continent, and freeing vast numbers of slaves. Her vilification was abrupt and unearned. i could discuss all the plotholes, the teleporting armies, the shrinking continent, the absurdity of the dragonpit scene, but no doubt others will wish to comment.

Drogo, IMHO, is a pretty generic barbarian warlord, from Edgar Rice Burroughs, or Robert Howard. I do read it as being intended to be a love story, albeit one that is quite fucked up, again IMHO. In the popular imagination, I’d say that steppe conquerors like Genghis Khan, Timur, or people like the Vikings, are seen as the ultimate badasses, rather than as villains. And, I think that’s how many readers view Drogo. Similarly, Conan proclaims “Man’s greatest joy is to slaughter his enemies, to crush them and drive them before them, and to listen to the lamentations of their women.” Martin’s subversion of the trope lies in Drogo falling victim to a random wound. Pre-Drogo, Dany’s experience of men is Viserys molesting and threatening her, and Illyrio thinking of making her his child mistress.

If the tale was written by @Joe Abercrombiethe Starks would be Lannisters with different hair colour, by the end. But, that would be a deliberate authorial choice. And, while opposing Jon’s execution publicly, Arya would murder him privately, both to avoid war with Grey Worm and the Dothraki, and to get rid of another claimant. In the end, I think the show runners made it a Stark w*nk fanfic. The problems with fanfics that root so hard for one side is that they don’t realise how bad they make them look, and they cause readers/viewers to push back in the opposite direction. Which would be a horrid grimdark ending, but one that made sense. Jon’s defending Dany to Tyrion is what makes me think that her deliberately swerving away from the Red Keep to target civilians, was a very late addition to the episode. Jon’s comments far more fit a situation where she goes after Cersei in fury, killing the civilians in the Red Keep, in the process, the soldiers go on a spree on the ground, but there is no burning of the rest of the city. Especially given his motivation for killing Dany was not the burning of the city, but fear for his sisters.

One feature of the show was that by the end of it, I detested the Starks, as shitty, treacherous, schemers. I would hope that’s not what Martin intends.

All that I know about the Taiping comes from Flashman. GM Fraser did meticulous research, but he did not know that the supposed factual histories of the Imperial Court, written by Sir Edward Backhouse were complete fiction.

Martin loves Beauty and the Beast, and I think Dany/Drogo, Dany/Jorah, and Sansa/Sandor are iterations of it. To me, these are all full of squick.

It’s hard to think of many successful wars of conquest, since the end of WWII. Military strategy, and international public opinion tend to favour defenders. And, initially victorious conquerors tend to face insurgencies.

Does “out” mean “out of a window?”

TWOW and ADOS will witness scenes of unbridled cruelty and horror. I think Dany’s journey West encompasses Volantis, whose slaves are about to revolt. I’d expect wholesale slaughter of the master class, across Western Essos, like Haiti. Centuries of suffering are being avenged. That does not mean an end to slavery, but does pretty much, end situations where 75/85% of the people are chattels. By the time Dany gets to Westeros, Kings Landing is likely a blood-stained ruin. Any of Jon Con, Euron, Cersei will have destroyed it The final conflict against the Others takes place well South of Winterfell. Gilly’s boy is sacrificed to revive Jon. Stannis sacrifices Shireen, after the Others breach the Wall, in a last ditch effort to secure Divine backing. Jeyne Poole is unmasked, and burned for treason. Riverrun and the Twins are sacked, and the inhabitants put to the sword. Tyrion lusts after Daenerys, and is furious when she rejects him for Jon. Like Iago, he plots to destroy them both (the unwhitewashed version of his actions on the show).

The Tale of the Children of Hurin is completely at variance with Christianity. A man's family are cursed by a vindictive archangel, and there is absolutely nothing that any of them can do about it.

Well, the Sept and Godswood in question were owned by Stannis. It’s as if some sixteenth century lord converted to Protestantism, destroyed the statues in his chapel, and had it reconsecrated as a Lutheran church. Deeply offensive to many, but within his rights.

Presumably, they see servitude to R’hllor as being different to being another human’s chattel. They expect their converts to destroy their own idols. So far as I know, they aren’t attacking the religious buildings and relics of those who are not converts. Melisandre isn’t attempting to stop Jon and the rest from worshipping as they choose, up at the Wall.

I tend to agree that attacking the Black Goat, a Satanic religion founded upon child sacrifice, is a good thing. As is the Red Faith’s championing of emancipation. I don’t think the Red Clergy want to forcibly suppress other religions, despite viewing them as false. Stannis has plenty of “unbelievers” in his ranks, and Melisandre accepts that fact. They champion Daenerys, despite her being a pagan, in their eyes. But, the Faith might well see them as a threat. Followers of the Old Gods and the Drowned God are restricted to specific ethnic groups, and they are not making converts. They aren’t a problem. But, R’hllorism is out to make converts. No problem if they’re under 5% of the population, but what if they reach 10%+, and stop paying tithes, and accepting the moral jurisdiction of the Faith, like English Nonconformists? What if Dany converts? Even if she guarantees all the rights and privileges of the Faith, the clergy may still fear that nobles will follow her example, followed by their tenants and serfs.

My view is based upon Jon Con wanting to extinguish Robert’s bloodline, and the Sand Snakes being mad for revenge.

One can overthink all this. All the armies that we've seen are similar in size to the armies of the Thirty Years War/Spanish-Dutch Wars/The Deluge, rather than the typical size of a medieval army. 100,000 soldiers from the Reach would likely be supported by a similar number of camp followers, as well as having more than 100,000 horses, who would eat 1.5% to 3% of their body weight, every day. The soldiers alone, would consume about 75 tons of meat, 100 tons of bread, and 70,000 gallons of ale, every day. The camp followers would receive less, but you can still probably up that figure by 60-70% to take account of them. And, they need firewood to cook their stews, often made from stringy draft animals that have reached the end of their lives. That's a lot of peasant hovels being dismantled for their wood. Medieval states (other than China or the Eastern Empire) could not raise such armies for any length of time. Early modern states, more centralised, could do, if with difficulty. If the author wants Daenerys' army to be well-supplied, then it will be.

Nothing that I’ve seen of young Griff suggests to me a particularly capable ruler. And, I think that his capture of Kings Landing will be accompanied by the executions of Myrcella, Tommen, Margaery, and a bloodbath of anyone associated with the ancien regime. This may well be popular with his supporters, but will create opposition from the relatives of the victims.

I had understood your argument to be that industrialisation meant that a large slave workforce was no longer required. However, slavery had vanished from the domestic economies of Western Europe, long before industrialisation, and long before their involvement in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. There’s a very long period, beginning in the mid-12th century, where Western Europe abandons slavery, followed by a period, beginning about 200 years later, where serfdom gradually disappears. The Venetians continue to trade and use slaves in their Eastern colonies, but they’re atypical. Slavery in the British and French and Dutch colonies only starts becoming important in the latter half of the 17th century.

North Western Europe.

I think that depends upon the Revolution. Communism was a blind alley. The Chinese, Cambodian, and Russian Communists were more enthusiastic killers than the people they replaced. Revolutions such as those in France or 17th century England, were brutal, but beneficial in the long run. The US Revolution set the USA on the path to world hegemon.