SeanF

Baldrick's other cunning plans included marching the Unsullied across half a continent to attack Casterly Rock, while leaving Highgarden vulnerable; the wight hunt, and then proposing leaving them all to die North of the Wall; the parley with Cersei, and then telling Dany and Jon that Cersei can be trusted; splitting up Dany's army, and proposing starving the city's inhabitants into submission. He kind of forgot about the secret passages in and out of the city, through which soldiers could have been infiltrated. Oh, and bells mean surrender, despite it being established that "I've never known bells to mean surrender." The is very, very sloppy writing.

Since we were the ones providing them with an income, we've every right to call out what we think is unsatisfactory. I think the two D’s wanted to portray Tyrion as the voice of wisdom, who has come to conclude that no war is ever worth fighting. The problem is, such a philosophy is quite incompatible with being Hand to a Queen at war. Tyrion should have joined a monastery or Brother Ray's commune, if that's how they wished to develop his character. Tyrion never really establishes how you can become ruler by means of adopting a strategy of non-violent resistance to Cersei. Cersei is not going to step down because people ask her nicely. It’s not that Dany ignores his good advice. She follows his advice repeatedly, with disastrous consequences. The only way to rationalise Tyrion’s behaviour is that at some point, he decided he really didn’t want his siblings to lose, and was trying to sabotage her. That's why the presenter was expecting a big reveal, that Tyrion was actually a traitor. That would have been logical. More likely it’s terrible writing, which the presenter was right to call out. As she said, it’s tell not show. We’re told that Tyrion is very clever. We’re shown that he’s a complete incompetent. He’s like Baldrick in Blackadder, when he tells his master “I have a cunning plan…..”

If David Benioff tweeted that I’d assume it meant crying in despair.

Another thing is that I don't see Bran's becoming King as being necessarily a good thing. In fact, it could be an absolutely horrific thing to have a ruler who makes use of presience to form a magical totalitarian state, and who can warg peoples' minds.

I think old tropes die hard. One is that killing is mens' work. A woman who kills is mad/evil. A man who kills is just performing a soldier's duty. Another is that the killing of upper class people is far worse than killing the Smallfolk. The various contenders in the War of the Five Kings are far more brutal towards the Smallfolk than Daenerys is during her campaigns. Her victims are mostly the elites, but some readers empathise with elites far more readily than with the poor of the Seven kingdoms. Even someone as sympathetic as Robb Stark lets his men carry out dreadful atrocities, if not on the same scale as Tywin Lannister. Had Jon Snow succeeded in escaping the Wall to join Robb, he would have been serving alongside murderers and rapists, even if he did not do those things himself. I've made the point before, but my own view is that the *fact* of killing matters far more than the *means* of killing or who does the killing. Edged and pointed weapons, and starvation, kill far more people than dragons do. And in war, a Westerosi knight is basically a Dothraki with a coat of arms.

Thanks. Although, I don't think your answer necessarily contradicts with my one.

A question. At the end of Lord of Emperors, Alixana goes into hiding for about a year, before being reunited with Crispin. Why did she not re-emerge once Leontes became Emperor? My view is that she knew Gisel would have had her killed. The hand of a former Empress would greatly assist any ambitious noble or general who sought to claim the throne. This was a threat which Giisel would not tolerate. What do others think?

I don't think Tolkien's comments in his letters quite match the text. I think the text is clear. A very powerful being - mortal or immortal - can wield the One Ring to great effect. Gandalf says that Sauron lives in dread that a mighty one among them will claim the Ring and use it against him, and that would be a major blow against him. And, why would he be frightened, if ultimately, all he has to do is wait out at that person until he becomes a wraith that Sauron can subjugate to his will. Granted, it would put back his plans for world conquest by several hundred years, but what is that to an immortal being? My interpretation is that the danger for any powerful person wielding the Ring is not that they become subject to Sauron, but in effect, they become Sauron. I think a man like Isildur or indeed Aragorn or Ar-Pharazon, could have mastered the One Ring.

Oh yes, he has an eagle of Manwe proclaiming his kingship, on Easter Day, no less.

Indeed not. Aragorn's reasons for fighting Sauron were not reasons of pure altruism (I should add that having self-interested motives as well as altruistic ones does not detract from the rightness of fighting Sauron). He wanted the throne of Gondor, and he wanted to marry Arwen. And, the narrative portrays Aragorn's desire to be king as entirely right and just - after all, it is the will of God that he should be king, and who can quarrel with that?

Glen Cook had the answer to that, in The Black Company. You would always choose Sauron (or in his case, Dark Galadriel) over chaos. I doubt if there is any one saviour. Just lots of people playing their part.

It's a theory, but not one I adhere to. The Others are a threat like Morgoth, compared to which any human being is a joke. That doesn't mean she'll swoop in and save everything like a dea ex machina, but I expect she (and others) will play their part.

Then of course, there’s Kim Wexler, who may well be the Daenerys of BSC. Concern for the downtrodden is in danger of becoming a desire to hand down reward and punishment as she sees fit.

Even the most unenlightened of people in this world would take the view that Dany's duty is to protect the unborn child of her lord husband, and to accept his judgements.

I imagine that when a young mother has just been threatened with disembowellment, pleading for the life of her assailant will be the last thing on her mind. Not that Drogo would have done any differently. We should not expect any woman in this tale to be Patient Griselda. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griselda_(folklore)

Roose probably would be within his rights to have executed Ramsay.

Across many cultures, I think an upper class upbringing must have been very corrupting. Brought up to believe you have the right to exercise untrammelled power over others, to have sex with anyone who takes your fancy, and surrounded by people who fawn over you and cater to your every whim, while trying to exploit you and each other.

Compared to say, a lot of Roman emperors, or the rulers of Renaissance Italy, they aren’t so bad. And in A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman, almost everyone seems unhinged. Things that actually happened, like Nero gelding and marrying Sporus, or the Dance of the Burning Men, or women being raped by animals as public entertainment, or Uggolino locking a man in a barrel to see if his soul would emerge at the point of death would be rejected as absurd in fiction.

It’s sometimes hard to untangle mental illness from the extreme behaviour that some royals and nobles engage in. It’s especially hard in this world, where magic is a reality, and prophecies and visions have meaning.

There’s no clear distinction between magic and science in Middle Earth. The Rings of Power, Palantiri, silmarills, weapons bound with spells are both magical, and items produced with great technological skill.

I'd have thought a real possibility is that she tries to implement Egg's reforms only to generate a shit-storm among the nobility.

Despite his merits, GGK has never matched your three way sex scene between Yoda, Gollum, and Debby.

Those are good points. My impression was that Sarantium was under pressure from the Asharites in her youth, but still a great power. It’s like going from 1150 to 1453 in a single lifetime.

I imagine that most angelic beings could use a glamour to make themselves look fair to mortals. WRT the films, I enjoyed the first two a lot, I enjoyed the third for about half of it. Obviously, there are things to quibble over (such as skateboarding Legolas, Frodo dismissing Sam, Gimli being played for laughs, the absence of Frodo's vision of a world at war) but overall, I liked them. But, the third film became very silly, with the green soap bubbles of death, the daft tactics at the Battle of Morannon, the cut and paste job of Frodo and Sam's journey through Mordor - and of course, the horrid portrayal of Denethor.

I cite Hiroshima, Dresden, Hamburg, Cologne etc. But, I could as easily cite Badajoz, Coimbra, Córdoba, Gerona, etc. Burning cities in war is not a moral event threshold. It is part and parcel of war, even the most just of wars. "Defy us to our worst. For, as I am a soldier,A name that in my thoughts becomes me best,If I begin the batt'ry once again,I will not leave the half-achieved HarfleurTill in her ashes she lie burièd