Has the show lost it's heart?

[A Ghost of Someone]

  

Well let’s look at this entire plotline

 

I trust we have now moved beyond the simplistic argument that Stannis cares for Shireen=he would never sacrifice her. After all the sequence of events on the show was not “Stannis feels a bit cold so burns Shireen to keep warm”

 

Further, in terms of background, Stannis achieved an impressive victory over the Ironborn…at sea. He might be the greatest admiral in Westeros but prior to S5 his experience on land seems to be limited to surviving a siege, getting his ar*e kicked at the Blackwater and defeating the Wildlings when he took them by surprise.

 

In terms of the composition of his army (on show at any rate) a large proportion are mercenaries of  dubious loyalty.

 

In terms of the show events they are operating in conditions of extreme cold and very poor visibility  which would massively reduce the performance of any sentries.

 

Was the story a little rushed, yes. I would have liked to see another scene going into their desperation before the burning. Did it all make logical sense, again yes, despite what many claim, the composition of his army and the conditions make a number of different scenarios for the success of twenty good men possible.

 

The burning makes sense if Stannis believes this is vital to achieve his destiny.

 

Pushing on despite the desertions also makes sense due to his stubbornness In the same spirit he went to face Renly trusting in divine intervention to win the day.

I took that whole scene as Stannis suffered a complete breakdown and was at the end of his rope. He snaps. He cannot bring himself to retreat, which is what he should have done but decides to kinslay his own baby girl. That is not rational. He was a broken man. What happened after was just martial instinct. March on, set up siege lines, oh fuck, well, we are going to die, die fighting and that was that. An inglorious ending to a remarkable yet albeit hard and unlikeable man who was the legit true King of Westeros. It was a dud ending.

[Toth]

That's what it comes down in this thread: People criticising the show call D&D out on being shitty writers because they gave us only shitty written filler this season (and also did basically with nearly everything they themselves have come up with until now) that is definite proof for their lack of writing skills. Show defenders say they are not shitty writers because the author of the book-scenes they have completely ignored is supposed to be a shitty writer instead, simply because they fear the newly introduced plots that will be resolved in the next two books could potentially get a shitty resolve depite the fact that we have 5 successful and coherently written books so far which make the opposite much more likely.

 

Yeah, I think if you squint very hardly, there could be a trace of logic in that reasoning...

[protar]

Please don't hold up Harry Potter as examples of good writing.

 

Why not? 

And it's not hypocritical, D&D have to condense the story so it's more obvious to them which elements have less importance to the overall plot. If quentyn isn't in it then it's pretty obvious he is very secondary. He achieves literally nothing in his time and just takes up space. The same could be said of the majority of characters in the last 2 books. They might be enjoyable books but there is almost no plot progression.

 

It absolutely is hypocritical. D+D have shown time and time again that they don't know what they're doing. We've seen deviations of their's which have been wrapped up already and we've seen that they amounted to nothing and are poorly written. Why should we assume that D+D are going to be any better when it comes to the end game? I'm going to judge the importance of characters in the books, based on the books.

 

We've been over why Quentyn is important to Arianne. And we've been over why Arianne is important. You're judging Feast and Dance as though they're completed stories. They are not. Aegon and Arianne and the Ironborn's stories are not over yet and even by the end of Dance they've already started hooking up with both one another and the core plots/characters. 

 

I'm not seeing how the show has progressed much, if any further, in the narrative than the books have. 

[kissdbyfire]

@JagLover, I'm not the one stating that Stannis is the greatest military commander - not admiral - in Westeros; the Ds did that, through Roose Bolton, Littlefinger and others. Roose and LF stated as much this season.

So when you question that Stannis isn't really a great military commander, you're making my point for me because the showrunners decided to have two characters linked with his arc say as much.

[MoreOrLess]

The big issue many ignore with Stannis is that the show doesn't spell out his motivations in the script as much as it does with most of the cast. The whole point of the character afterall is that he's emotionally very closed so its natural to leave a lot of his motivations on personal matters down to the subtly of performance, something Dilane is excellent at.

 

You can see in the scene where he turns down Mel you can see theres clearly some indecision in him as well of course being confronted by the idea for the first time.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

 
It absolutely is hypocritical. D+D have shown time and time again that they don't know what they're doing. We've seen deviations of their's which have been wrapped up already and we've seen that they amounted to nothing and are poorly written. Why should we assume that D+D are going to be any better when it comes to the end game? I'm going to judge the importance of characters in the books, based on the books.
 
We've been over why Quentyn is important to Arianne. And we've been over why Arianne is important. You're judging Feast and Dance as though they're completed stories. They are not. Aegon and Arianne and the Ironborn's stories are not over yet and even by the end of Dance they've already started hooking up with both one another and the core plots/characters. 
 
I'm not seeing how the show has progressed much, if any further, in the narrative than the books have. 

Why not? The potter books , as enjoyable as they are, are full of poorly written scenes and dialogue and suffer from the same over stuffed nature that much of feast and dragons suffer from. She might be successful but she isn't a good writer.

I completely dispute that quentyn is important, he is a backstory element to arriane and serves as little more than motivation for her. It has yet to be proved she has any relevance either, because so far in the books she doesn't. Again you are simply saying that she does based on your faint hope that Martin will pull something out of the air to mean you weren't wasting your time reading all the Dorne chapters. Good luck with that.

Of course the show hasn't progressed much further, it's an adaptation of the books. It's got less space to achieve the same things, and partly they have been hoping Martin would have got off his fat arse and written the next book by now. Even so it's managed to move ahead on a number of storylines where GRRM has only stalled.

[TheCasualObserver]

  

Well let’s look at this entire plotline

 

I trust we have now moved beyond the simplistic argument that Stannis cares for Shireen=he would never sacrifice her. After all the sequence of events on the show was not “Stannis feels a bit cold so burns Shireen to keep warm”

 

Further, in terms of background, Stannis achieved an impressive victory over the Ironborn…at sea. He might be the greatest admiral in Westeros but prior to S5 his experience on land seems to be limited to surviving a siege, getting his ar*e kicked at the Blackwater and defeating the Wildlings when he took them by surprise.

 

In terms of the composition of his army (on show at any rate) a large proportion are mercenaries of  dubious loyalty.

 

In terms of the show events they are operating in conditions of extreme cold and very poor visibility  which would massively reduce the performance of any sentries.

 

Was the story a little rushed, yes. I would have liked to see another scene going into their desperation before the burning. Did it all make logical sense, again yes, despite what many claim, the composition of his army and the conditions make a number of different scenarios for the success of twenty good men possible.

 

The burning makes sense if Stannis believes this is vital to achieve his destiny.

 

Pushing on despite the desertions also makes sense due to his stubbornness In the same spirit he went to face Renly trusting in divine intervention to win the day.

But a lot of this is reasoning which we have extrapolated, not what the show has actually presented.

 

Stannis is regularly talked up as the best military commander in westeros by men such as Tywin, Littlefinger and Varys. A case of "Sir-not-appearing" here. And the conditions which would limit a sentries capacity to see would also limit the infiltrators ability to light fires. The entire set up of that particular element of Stannis' downfall was poorly constructed; twenty men have the capacity to completely eradicate the supplies of an entire army with nothing recovered at all and no one caught. Ramsay's 20 men have been rightfully derided, because there is no disguising the writer's hand in such a situation.

 

We also can't ignore the problem of half of Stannis' army still having horses at the time that Shireen is burned. Since right until the end Stannis was planning for a siege (where horses aren't needed) his reasoning seemingly falls to piece that he had no choice because he still had a plentiful supply of meat at his disposal in the butchering of his horses. An extreme measure perhaps, but mild in the extreme compared with what he actually did. The option was there and he didn't take it, which is damaging to the logic of the storyline and Stannis' character. 

 

I thought that the show seemed genuinely confused by Stannis' motivations. Either he did this out of religious fervor or political ambition; the former seems more likely with what the show presented, but the latter is what Benioff suggested in the "Behind the episode".

 

And it should not be forgotten that doing this to defeat the Boltons muddies the water; cruel as they are, Roose and Ramsay are not going to cause the end of the world. To burn Shireen here and now might have emotional weight, but the thematic impact is lessened if not utilized against the true threat of the White walkers. Stannis comes across as entirely self serving in this regard, because he burns his only child alive to combat the physical rather than metaphysical elements arrayed against him. Or at least that's how I interpreted the scene. 

 

It doesn't surprise me that people are questioning if the show has lost its heart. A situation like this was clearly tailor made to get to that awful point, with the aftermath being almost perfunctory in episode ten. When the situation is this easy to pick apart, it's not hard to see what the writers wanted from the scene; there was never any concentrated effort to ask the question of whether or not a sacrifice like this for the greater good can be tolerated. Stannis behaved idiotically and was punished for it; I'm not sure if the thinking behind it all extended further than that.

[protar]

Why not? The potter books , as enjoyable as they are, are full of poorly written scenes and dialogue and suffer from the same over stuffed nature that much of feast and dragons suffer from. She might be successful but she isn't a good writer.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB0VqntZ8bU

 

Well this isn't Harry Potter thread but you don't just get to dismiss Harry Potter as an example of good writing because you didn't like it. Lots of people think that they're very well written. Myself included. I'd use Rowling as an example of a good writer over D+D any day.

I completely dispute that quentyn is important, he is a backstory element to arriane and serves as little more than motivation for her. It has yet to be proved she has any relevance either, because so far in the books she doesn't. Again you are simply saying that she does based on your faint hope that Martin will pull something out of the air to mean you weren't wasting your time reading all the Dorne chapters. Good luck with that.

 

No, I'm basing her importance on common sense. For all your snobbery about what is and isn't good writing you sure don't seem to know anything about it. I've been over time and again why I think Arianne is important. Why don't you come up with one cogent point for why she isn't? At the moment your only argument seems to be that because she hasn't immediately impacted the main narrative that she never will. Despite the fact that this series still has thousands of pages left and Arianne is already on her way to hook up with the other stories.

Of course the show hasn't progressed much further, it's an adaptation of the books.

 

More of this hypocrisy. D+D are insistent that the show and the books are different. And hell, they know stuff from TWOW and haven't been afraid to spoil some of it already. If Feast and Dance are so slow, why not just skip straight to Winds?

 

It's got less space to achieve the same things, and partly they have been hoping Martin would have got off his fat arse and written the next book by now.

 

Insulting Martin now are we? Classy.

 

Even so it's managed to move ahead on a number of storylines where GRRM has only stalled.

 

Such as? Tyrion meets Dany. But so far that hasn't actually served any purpose it's just been fanservice as there's no context to their meeting. Stannis is dead. But that stagnates the status quo, it doesn't further it. 

[Pyat>Daenerys]

it has been foreshadowed in both book and show.

 

 

 “I know the cost! Last night, gazing into that hearth, I saw things in the flames as well. I saw a king, a crown of fire on his brows, burning... burning, Davos. His own crown consumed his flesh and turned him into ash. Do you think I need Melisandre to tell me what that means? Or you?”
^{-A Song of Ice and Fire: A Storm of Swords, Davos}

 

^{I think some people are being very simplistic when they complain about this storyline. Did Azor Ahai not love his wife?, did those men of mythology not love their children who they were asked to sacrifice to the gods?. The point about this was that Stannis did love Shireen in his own way but sacrificed her because he believed it necessary to fulfil his destiny.}

 

So your only evidence for ''fairly heavy foreshadowing in both the books and the series'' is one line from the book? A line which doesn't even refer to Shireen burning in any way, but to Stannis realizing his quest will probably kill him. If anything, there was a line where Stannis talks about how he wants Shireen on the iron throne. There is no point in Stannis's quest if Shireen dies. And yes of course they loved their children, but it still doesn't make any sense for Stannis to sacrifice Shireen, because he loses his only heir. There is no way Stannis will be the one to burn Shireen. Not only because of geographical reasons like being miles away, but also because he has made it plain he wants her on the iron throne. What is much more likely is Selyse burning Shireen, or Melisandre. Which was kind of what the show was also building up to. Only to reverse everything in one episode. I mean, Selyse commits suicide after her daughter dies? Really?

[Spilt Pea Soup]

It is stupid for Stannis to sacrifice Shireen for the throne because without her his throne is meaningless anyway.

 

Uh, no.  In the show, even more so than in the books, Stannis is a follower of R'hllor and believes he is going to save humanity.  

 

He is not seeking the throne merely to hold it and pass it down to his heirs.  He is doing it to save the world.

[Dragon in the North]

 

So your only evidence for ''fairly heavy foreshadowing in both the books and the series'' is one line from the book? A line which doesn't even refer to Shireen burning in any way, but to Stannis realizing his quest will probably kill him. If anything, there was a line where Stannis talks about how he wants Shireen on the iron throne. There is no point in Stannis's quest if Shireen dies. And yes of course they loved their children, but it still doesn't make any sense for Stannis to sacrifice Shireen, because he loses his only heir. There is no way Stannis will be the one to burn Shireen. Not only because of geographical reasons like being miles away, but also because he has made it plain he wants her on the iron throne. What is much more likely is Selyse burning Shireen, or Melisandre. Which was kind of what the show was also building up to. Only to reverse everything in one episode. I mean, Selyse commits suicide after her daughter dies? Really?

From the season 2 finale, Melisandre says this: "This war has just begun. It will last for years. Thousands will die at your command. You will betray the men serving you. You will betray your family. You will betray everything you've once held dear. And it will all be worth it, because you are the Son of Fire. You are the Warrior of Light. You will sweep aside this pretender and that one. You will be king."

[Bobby b's bobby]

 
Uh, no.  In the show, even more so than in the books, Stannis is a follower of R'hllor and believes he is going to save humanity.  
 
He is not seeking the throne merely to hold it and pass it down to his heirs.  He is doing it to save the world.

But he still wants to be king yes? And a king without heir's is pointless.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

But he still wants to be king yes? And a king without heir's is pointless.

What good is an heir that is female.. PLUS is massively covered in grayscale. The answer is, none. Its not about the heir. 

Personally I think he wants the Iron Throne for the simple reason that he thinks he deserves it.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

 

Such as? Tyrion meets Dany. But so far that hasn't actually served any purpose it's just been fanservice as there's no context to their meeting. Stannis is dead. But that stagnates the status quo, it doesn't further it. 

Well them meeting is more than they ever did in the books, and their discussions gave more hints as to where the story is going than anything in the books too. We also see the Nights King a number of times gives more insight as to the bigger picture. 

Stannis will almost certainly die in the books too.. it just hasnt happened yet.

[protar]

Well them meeting is more than they ever did in the books, and their discussions gave more hints as to where the story is going than anything in the books too. We also see the Nights King a number of times gives more insight as to the bigger picture. 

 

Yes, they haven't met in the books yet. But Tyrion meeting Dany is not the only form of plot progression that Tyrion's arc can take. I'd argue that his scheming with the Second Sons in the book is furthering the plot far more than Tyrion having tea and biscuits with Dany. Like I get it, it was a fun fanservicey scene. Cool. That doesn't mean it actually served any purpose. It's the Arya/Tywin scenes all over again. 

Stannis will almost certainly die in the books too.. it just hasnt happened yet.

 

Probably. But at Winterfell? That's highly debatable. Not saying it 100% cannot happen, but the thing is the status quo needs to move forwards. If Stannis dies in the books the Boltons are still in power and loads of time was spent on Stannis post battle at the wall to achieve pretty much nothing. Again - that's not how Martin rolls, his character deaths have purpose. In the show, Littlefinger is waiting in the wings to swoop in and save the day and D+D don't like Stannis so they wrap his plot up earlier. And that wouldn't be too bad if it wasn't done so poorly. But anyway, there's no Vale Army bearing down on Winterfell in the books, so Stannis pretty much has to win. 

[Bobby b's bobby]

What good is an heir that is female.. PLUS is massively covered in grayscale. The answer is, none. Its not about the heir. 

Personally I think he wants the Iron Throne for the simple reason that he thinks he deserves it.

What good is a female heir? Somewhat good less than a male heir but he doesn't have one and the greyscale is one side of the face.

Sure he thinks he deserves it but he also knows he needs a heir.

[protar]

What good is an heir that is female.. PLUS is massively covered in grayscale. The answer is, none. Its not about the heir. 

Personally I think he wants the Iron Throne for the simple reason that he thinks he deserves it.

 

You don't know how heirs work. A female heir is fine if there's no male heir. And if your the daughter of the king it doesn't matter if you've got a disfigurement. You're still going to have a lot of suitors. 

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

In the show, D+D don't like Stannis so they wrap his plot up earlier.

When you say things like this I have to simply stop listening as they are simply not true. 

[I Don't Shagwell]

Why notAgain you are simply saying that she does based on your faint hope that Martin will pull something out of the air to mean you weren't wasting your time reading all the Dorne chapters. Good luck with that.




Of course the show hasn't progressed much further, it's an adaptation of the books.

#1. Judging from her spoiler chapter in which she is about to meet with aegon..
I'd say her chapters were very important when I imagine her pulling Dorne ( one
Of the seven kingdoms I'll remind you) into the war. Finally.
Or perhaps better writing for you would have been...
Jon connington POV: guess what aegon? I'm introducing you to this sultry
Dorne princess that wants to marry you and none of the readers have ever heard
about her. But it'll be fun accepting this guy named Doran sending her from this
kingdom we've heard about for 3 books with no world or character building.
she'll just arrive and reinforce the golden company because baby Channel4 didn't
like his Dorne chapters.

Dare I say it'll be like vitamins for a child
Maybe you didn't like taking it at first, but
in hindsight you'll be glad you had them.
So when you say goodluck with that I say thank you, but
luck is the residue of desire and I'm pretty sure George has plenty of that
when is comes to finishing; one of his life's great works, in excellent fashion.
I say you are the one who is faint on hope.


#2. To say the show hasn't progressed much further because it's
an adaptation of the books is just silly. They've been given the ending
and many many other details. They've been hoping for Martin to
write more for them, huh? The same Martin who warned of butterfly effects
etc...?
I'm glad I'm not the one embroiled in these disagreements with you
because you can't argue with stupid.

[JagLover]

 

 

But a lot of this is reasoning which we have extrapolated, not what the show has actually presented.

 

Stannis is regularly talked up as the best military commander in westeros by men such as Tywin, Littlefinger and Varys. A case of "Sir-not-appearing" here. And the conditions which would limit a sentries capacity to see would also limit the infiltrators ability to light fires. The entire set up of that particular element of Stannis' downfall was poorly constructed; twenty men have the capacity to completely eradicate the supplies of an entire army with nothing recovered at all and no one caught. Ramsay's 20 men have been rightfully derided, because there is no disguising the writer's hand in such a situation.

 

We also can't ignore the problem of half of Stannis' army still having horses at the time that Shireen is burned. Since right until the end Stannis was planning for a siege (where horses aren't needed) his reasoning seemingly falls to piece that he had no choice because he still had a plentiful supply of meat at his disposal in the butchering of his horses. An extreme measure perhaps, but mild in the extreme compared with what he actually did. The option was there and he didn't take it, which is damaging to the logic of the storyline and Stannis' character. 

 

I thought that the show seemed genuinely confused by Stannis' motivations. Either he did this out of religious fervor or political ambition; the former seems more likely with what the show presented, but the latter is what Benioff suggested in the "Behind the episode".

 

And it should not be forgotten that doing this to defeat the Boltons muddies the water; cruel as they are, Roose and Ramsay are not going to cause the end of the world. To burn Shireen here and now might have emotional weight, but the thematic impact is lessened if not utilized against the true threat of the White walkers. Stannis comes across as entirely self serving in this regard, because he burns his only child alive to combat the physical rather than metaphysical elements arrayed against him. Or at least that's how I interpreted the scene. 

 

It doesn't surprise me that people are questioning if the show has lost its heart. A situation like this was clearly tailor made to get to that awful point, with the aftermath being almost perfunctory in episode ten. When the situation is this easy to pick apart, it's not hard to see what the writers wanted from the scene; there was never any concentrated effort to ask the question of whether or not a sacrifice like this for the greater good can be tolerated. Stannis behaved idiotically and was punished for it; I'm not sure if the thinking behind it all extended further than that.

 

First of all I don't think you can separate out his fight with the Boltons from what he believes to be his purpose.

 

He believes his destiny is to march south and win the thrones step by step, before then leading humanity in the "fight for the dawn". Defeating the Boltons is an essential part of that for him, just as much as fighting the white walkers would be later. Hence if in the books he does end up sacrificing Shireen to fight a different threat it is essentially the same story just condensed, to clear the way for other stories. 

 

In terms of the horses they will be needed for future campaigns, not just sieging winterfell (and in fact a besieging army needs to send out foraging parties)

 

And yes again I think people are too bogged down with the "twenty good men". The show hasn't got time for a sequence of scenes taking 10 minutes or so to fully flesh this out. They managed to infiltrate a camp where the sentries are freezing and blinded by a blizzard and half the army could switch sides if the price were right, it is possible, move on.

 

I actually liked the Stannis storyline. It offered a plot arc and a resolution (both sadly missing for most characters in AFFC/ADWD) it was powerful and harked back to deeper mythology than simply the middle ages, In fact it is a very similar story to Agamemnon in many details. It was slightly rushed but it offered the perfect conclusion IMO to the story that started when Melisandrei mistakenly thought he was Azor Ahai reborn, he did indeed sacrifice everything and turn to ash and it was all for nothing.