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Margaery and the Trial


AryaSansa

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I agree with the bit about Lancel chasing the kid. I feel like I missed a scene somewhere to justify it. But the rest of that scene was fine. The kid stabbed him expertly and took the time to confirm he got the target. That Lancel got as close as he did was simply for the benefit of payoff.

Lancel was not sent alone to get Cersei. He was a ranking member of the FM, capable of ordering others like any squad commander in a military. When a general wants a team to do something, he doesn't tell every member of the team himself. He tells the commander of the mission, who assembles the team.

Margery had every reason to know something was up. Not what, exactly, but something. There are ways other than massive explosions to kill hundreds of people. Swords work well enough. Though the Blackwater Bay incident would have left a lasting impression on the entire continent, and not soon forgotten. It isn't beyond reason to think Margery might have thought about a wildfire bang.

She knew Tommen and Cersei weren't there, and she knew Tommen wouldn't miss his mothers trial and that Cersei would never run away. If the High Sparrow wasn't high on his sense of victory, he would have seen it sooner himself. Margery is too sensible to allow herself a sense of victory until victory has been achieved. The High Sparrow might be as well, but he'd just achieved a victory so he can perhaps be expected to have a momentary lapse in judgement.

Regardless, there was more than enough wrong with the situation to trigger a sense of anxiety for Margery.

There is no reason the city should have burned down. Most of it is stone. Wildfire melts stone, but it doesn't burn forever and it doesn't spread itself. Regular fire wouldn't melt stone, and it would only be regular fire left after the wildfire burned out. The explosion would have had to be much bigger to spread wildfire far enough to consume the city, at which point even the Red Keep would have been destroyed.

There was no indication that Loras could have gotten off with a lighter punishment. The High Sparrow told us straight up that nothing less than Loras renouncing name, title, and lands would satisfy him.

The entire FM was not conveniently holed up in one place, just the executive leadership. There are still septons, septas, and militants all over Westeros. But their head was lopped off, and their power base in KL. To scale things, it would be like blowing up the vatican immediately following the election of a new pope, when all the heads of the catholic church are in one place. The religion would still survive. In this case, the true centre of the faith of the 7 is in Oldtown, so overall this incident doesn't impact the religion itself much at all. Just the High Sparrow's movement has been killed.

The Tyrell army would flee home if they had any brains, and the people are scared witless. Cersei just blew up a monument known around the world and killed every single one of her adversaries in the city. There is noone to rally behind. People do not rally against someone and accomplish anything, ever. People rally to someone else. Without someone in charge of a protest or coup, all you have is a riot. A riot can't get inside the Red Keep with a Lannister army defending it. The people are not going to move against someone who just put a crater in the city on their own.

Tommen committing suicide is strong writing, not weak. He wasn't brainwashed, he was doing what he had to to get Margery back. Margery who he truly loved. Then he finds out that in trying to save her, he got her killed. It was because he decided to allow the High Sparrows request to outlaw trial by combat that Cersei took such drastic measures, and he knows it. He had to choose between dooming his mother or the love of his life. He chose to save the love of his life. Then she died anyway, killed by his mother who only became so desperate because in his choice to save his love he doomed his mother. It is great writing.

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15 hours ago, Ted Chang said:

It was just a good plot device to crank up some tension and it worked well enough, allowing Pryce to do a deft piece of acting as he portrayed the HS's slow understanding of what was going down. This is, after all, entertainment and not a fantasy-reality show. Most of us knew full well that Lancel wouldn't get to the candle, for example, and most of us didn't care that he would be fashionably close to making it. That's what story telling is about. Some people just seem unable to actually enjoy stuff.

Story telling is also about internal consistency. Lancel being down there was good story telling. Lancel being lured down there for absolutely no reason aside from almost being able to foil the entire plot is bad story telling. When things happen that are inexplicable simply to serve showing the audience something cool, you're doing something wrong. The scene could have been just as effective, in fact even more effective, if they filmed it exactly the same way except giving Lancel some pretext for following the kid aside from the kid inexplicably wanting to be followed.

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The little bird was walking down the Sept steps alone and stood out. He did turn back to look towards Lancel.  The little bird appear to look at Lancel again before entering the tunnel.  

Lancel was sent before to bring Cersei to the sept so there is good possibility he will be sent again. The little bird was to wait for Sparrows to be sent for Cersei as the sign to start the plan and target Lancel who was most likely will be the one to retrieve Cersei.

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i dont think Marg had any idea that wildfire was going to be used, but maybe she though Cersei was going to try to burn the place down with fire?  Maybe that or seal off the sept and bring it to the ground with catapults or something of that nature.  Just the sheer fact that Marg looked around the room and saw all these enemies of Cersei's and then realized that she wasn't at an extremely important event and that her son wasn't there as well meant that something must be up.  

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13 minutes ago, TheKitttenGuard said:

The little bird was walking down the Sept steps alone and stood out. He did turn back to look towards Lancel.  The little bird appear to look at Lancel again before entering the tunnel.  

Hi lured him into the tunnel, which makes no sense no matter what signals were being sent. He could have ruined the plan.

Step 1)Set a giant bomb under the Sept.

Step 2)Lure Lancel down there nearly in time to stop it.

Step 3)????

Step 4)Profit.

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9 minutes ago, mbuehner said:

Hi lured him into the tunnel, which makes no sense no matter what signals were being sent. He could have ruined the plan.

Step 1)Set a giant bomb under the Sept.

Step 2)Lure Lancel down there nearly in time to stop it.

Step 3)????

Step 4)Profit.

No Cersei wanted Lancel to see his end trying to save the Faith and the High Sparrow he loved and failing if oppritunity present itself.

The little bird did his part fine and there were several candles going.

Each their opinion but it was all part of a wonderful scene.

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6 minutes ago, TheKitttenGuard said:

No Cersei wanted Lancel to see his end trying to save the Faith and the High Sparrow he loved and failing if oppritunity present itself.

The little bird did his part fine and there were several candles going.

Each their opinion but it was all part of a wonderful scene.

Thats ridiculous.

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The kid knew very well what he was doing. He stabbed Lancel in a way he wouldn't be able to get up and reach in time the candles. Everything was schemed so as to have someone learn the plan AND for us viewers to see it too. 

I would have enjoyed much less the sequence if it showed a kid just lighting candles and leaving.

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2 hours ago, mbuehner said:

Hi lured him into the tunnel, which makes no sense no matter what signals were being sent. He could have ruined the plan.

Step 1)Set a giant bomb under the Sept.

Step 2)Lure Lancel down there nearly in time to stop it.

Step 3)????

Step 4)Profit.

this reference will never get old lol

 

as for Marge. did she know there was WMDs under them? probably not. could she have expected to be vaporized? no. but, she could have heard about any ambush or slaughter when people are crammed into one area. Cersei could have whats left of the lannister army storm the sept and kill them all. 

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1 hour ago, AGS Martell said:

The kid knew very well what he was doing. He stabbed Lancel in a way he wouldn't be able to get up and reach in time the candles. Everything was schemed so as to have someone learn the plan AND for us viewers to see it too. 

I would have enjoyed much less the sequence if it showed a kid just lighting candles and leaving.

What if Lancel had brought 5 goons with him? What if he got the drop on the 7 year old instead of the other way around? What if, what if, what if? And thats all the risk, im still searching for the reward to offset it.

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3 hours ago, mbuehner said:

What if Lancel had brought 5 goons with him? What if he got the drop on the 7 year old instead of the other way around? What if, what if, what if? And thats all the risk, im still searching for the reward to offset it.

There are always "what if?s". Maybe Cersei planned for everything, maybe she didn't.

But I do think it quite likely that the intention was to lure Lancel down to watch the wildfire burn. The kid stabbed him, then inspected him. The inspection I took to mean something akin to "he's not dead, but he's out of action." It might just be a case of everything worked out perfectly?

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16 hours ago, farm_ecology said:

There are always "what if?s". Maybe Cersei planned for everything, maybe she didn't.

But I do think it quite likely that the intention was to lure Lancel down to watch the wildfire burn. The kid stabbed him, then inspected him. The inspection I took to mean something akin to "he's not dead, but he's out of action." It might just be a case of everything worked out perfectly?

Wasnt there a safer way to kill Lancel? Like stabbing him in the street? Or waiting until he came to the Red Keep and having The Mountain crush his skull? The point isnt that killing Lancel was part of the plan, the point is luring him down to the key part of the plan to do it has only one viable explanation- to show the audience. And thats lame.

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48 minutes ago, mbuehner said:

Wasnt there a safer way to kill Lancel? Like stabbing him in the street? Or waiting until he came to the Red Keep and having The Mountain crush his skull? The point isnt that killing Lancel was part of the plan, the point is luring him down to the key part of the plan to do it has only one viable explanation- to show the audience. And thats lame.

While I agree the purpose was to have a witness, almost every event in a story can be considered to be done to advance the plot or similar. What matters is whether there is a reasonable explanation, and I feel as though the theatrics of the event were almost as important as the results for Cersei. 

Was it the safest option? No. But it's a personal one. It's perhaps similar to why she personally gave the monologue about confessions, it's personal.

I normally don't like defending the show's "inspired storytelling" but I feel that in this case, Lancel was there for more than just audience witness.

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On 28 June 2016 at 5:18 PM, Vuron said:

No Cersei, no Tommen, and all her enemies in one confined space.  Also, she knew Cersei would never run.

This.

I enjoyed the scene of Lancel and the Dragonfire, however, I did wonder why the little sparrow would lead him down there. Also as soon as Lancel was stabbed (once) it made me think of when Arya was stabbed (repeatedly) and the inconsistency. But overall it was a great scene. 

 

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Even if Cersei had been protected by ser Gregor, she wouldn't have been able to flee to Casterly Rock because the High Sparrow used to keep a close eye on her. The garrison of the city was entirely made up of the militants of the faith. This means there was no way out. At the end of Loras' s trial, Lancel was told to take the queen mother to the sept of Baelor because none had seen her leaving the fortress. As the time passed by, Margery got worried because she knew Cersei wasn't fool enough to attend her trial. Margery knew that the queen mother wanted to kill the High sparrow and take her revenge for what she had been through. That's why she understood she was in danger. The fact that Tommen wasn't there suggested her that Cersei wanted to tear down the temple, because she couldn't do anything if her son was there.

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4 hours ago, Jon Snow Bengal said:

This.

I enjoyed the scene of Lancel and the Dragonfire, however, I did wonder why the little sparrow would lead him down there. Also as soon as Lancel was stabbed (once) it made me think of when Arya was stabbed (repeatedly) and the inconsistency. But overall it was a great scene. 

 

I thought about that too.  Isn't it interesting how many other characters are stabbed once and are killed instantly or completely incapacitated, and Arya can get stabbed three times with a twist and bounce right back.  The waif should clearly should have studied her stabbing lessons more closely.

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2 minutes ago, Sigrid said:

I thought about that too.  Isn't it interesting how many other characters are stabbed once and are killed instantly or completely incapacitated, and Arya can get stabbed three times with a twist and bounce right back.  The waif should clearly should have studied her stabbing lessons more closely.

I think the only way to read that is that the Waif wanted her to die slowly.

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Has it been confirmed the intension was to "lure" Lancel down there? my view when watching it was that the child watching for the faith to send someone to get Cersei as the cue to head underground and light the candles. In that reading the child is just responding to Lancel trying to foil the plot and after he's stabbed him he has to leave to avoid being caught up in the blast.

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I agree with mbuehner. The Waif wasn't trying to kill Arya, she was trying to terrorise and demoralise her. Whereas the sparrow was trying to cripple Lancel. I agree the Arya scenes were not particularly well done, and stretch believability, but the motivations of the stabbers in these two incidents were completely different.

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