Jump to content

[Spoilers] Rant and Rave Without Repercussion


Recommended Posts

18 hours ago, Sir Dingleberry said:

Casterly rock was the only strategic seat that could have been attacked. King in the North is coming to treat with Dany, Reach and Dornse are allies, Riverlands are irrelevant, and same with Storms End.

I disagree. In my opinion, the Reach was 1st priority to be secured by Dany/Tyrion.

And the 2nd priority would have been The Stormlands: to secure the whole south and insure a save landing, access to wood and food for the land armies at Dragonstone. In addition guaranteeing safe access for Dany's armies to march to the Reach, if needed.

So in my opinion, diplomatic and/or military efforts to win or bend the Stormland Lords to their cause should have been crucial to Dany/Tyrion. With Casterly Rock the may have acquired an interesting asset, but created a completely overstretched defense line and no supply line at all, neither for the occupants of Casterly Rock, nor for Dragonstone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

33 minutes ago, Greywater-Watch said:

I disagree. In my opinion, the Reach was 1st priority to be secured by Dany/Tyrion.

And the 2nd priority would have been The Stormlands: to secure the whole south and insure a save landing, access to wood and food for the land armies at Dragonstone. In addition guaranteeing safe access for Dany's armies to march to the Reach, if needed.

So in my opinion, diplomatic and/or military efforts to win or bend the Stormland Lords to their cause should have been crucial to Dany/Tyrion. With Casterly Rock the may have acquired an interesting asset, but created a completely overstretched defense line and no supply line at all, neither for the occupants of Casterly Rock, nor for Dragonstone.

Let me rephrase: Casterly Rock was the only choice because of the way the show set it up.

Agree the Reach should have been the first move, because it was the only way to guarantee survival with winter coming and to protect Dany's strongest ally (not strongest in military necessarily but food and gold). In terms of the Stormlands, since Stannis death, the show has disregarded any mention of that area basically.  Its the same with the Riverlands, because now that Arya/Stark had their revenge in a short 5 min. murder clip that wasn't necessarily satisfactory, the riverllands are not important to the overall arch anymore. So, I agree with you but just going by what the show did to set up episode 3.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Greywater-Watch said:

I think you err here. If my memory is correct, Jaime warned (as well as Varys) the Mad King to open the gates to Tywin Lannister, but the Mad King listened to Grandmaester Pycelle. At least in the books it becomes clear that Pycelle was well aware of Tywin's intentions. I am not so sure where Jaime's warning to open the gates to Tywin was mentioned, but I believe it was even on the Show, during the bath he took with Brienne in Harrenhal, but it might als have been in the book. Jaime decided to kill the Mad King once he learned about his plan to burn the City with wildfire.

That's the way I remember the story, too. Larry was a loyal Kingsguardsman, and chose the crown's interest over his father. Tywin was invited in over Larry's objections and sacked the city. The Red Keep remained secure, with the Mad King in it. Then the Mad King not only ordered the city burned but also ordered Larry to bring him Tywin's head. Larry stabbed him instead. 

It remains unclear whether Larry would've tried to kill Tywin for his king in the absence of wildfire. Anyway, when I said Larry assisted Tywin by killing the king, I didn't mean to say he was necessarily on Tywin's side the whole time. It's like saying Stannis assisted Joffrey by assassinating Renly. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, WinterPool Stark said:

"ideally you want to use him in a way that adds to the story and enriches the story and not in a way that’s a magic bullet to conveniently deal with things that you haven’t come up with a better way to deal with."

Well, depowering Bran means instead of using the same magic bullet over and over, he has to come up with a completely new magic bullet for each plot event. And that's what creativity means, right? :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Greywater-Watch said:

I disagree. In my opinion, the Reach was 1st priority to be secured by Dany/Tyrion.

If you take the story and the characters seriously, the attack on Casterly Rock actually makes some sense. The problem is that I'm not sure D&D were taking the story and the characters seriously, so it may only make sense by accident.

Remember, Tyrion is the one who suggested it, and convinced everyone else. His entire motivation stems from his father denying him Casterly Rock. Nothing will satisfy him except either becoming Lord Tyrion Lannister of Casterly Rock, Warden of the West, or reducing the castle to rubble. Of course taking CR away from Daddy's favorite is the top priority, and he will believe whatever he needs to believe to make that seem objectively sensible for Dany.

But they didn't put any of this in the episode. I have no problem with the idea that Tyrion isn't self-aware enough to realize his motivations, and that Dany has never considered that someone who is 100% on her side might still have subconscious motivations that he doesn't even know about that are counter to her best interests. But how could Varys not have thought of it? Or Olenna? They could have had Varys or Olenna raise the issue with Dany and she refuses to listen, or raise it with Tyrion and he convinces them that they're wrong, or a half dozen other ways to make it clear in four lines of dialog added to scenes that already existed.

Did GRRM tell them that, in the next book, Tyrion insists on taking CR first and it leads to problems, and they failed to understand why but used the plot point anyway? Or did they just get there by accident, because they wanted to see a battle in this castle we've heard so much about but not visited yet?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just looked at the first dialogue scene between Dany and Jon again. It has probably already been mentioned, but I'd like to point out some inconsinstencies which give proof of the poor quality of the script:

  • Danerys complains that Jon refused to call her Queen, while Jon adresses her correctly as "Your Grace" in practically all his sentences.
  • When Jon rises the issue with the Dead's army and the night king, it would only be natural that Dany wants to learn more about what Jon means. Instead she Comes up with a monologue of her having survived many attempts to kill her and so on by keeping faith to herself - In my opinion a complete blunder of how the dialogue should have gone on.
  • Tyrion is there to establish confidence. When Dany says to Jon: "I wonder if your father knew that Robert had send assasins to murder me in my cradle" it was a perfect opportunity for Tyrion to point out that Eddard Stark had laid down his title as Hand of the King because he refused to participate in sending assassins to kill Dany. And that in the end Eddard paid with his life in a certain way for this. Tyrion did not take the opportunity to pick up that thread - completely unlikely for him.
  • Dany or Tyrion never asked Davos if he had seen the army of the dead with his own eyes too; a question I would expect to be asked to get a clearer picture of such a strange tale, hard to believe.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

40 minutes ago, falcotron said:

But they didn't put any of this in the episode. I have no problem with the idea that Tyrion isn't self-aware enough to realize his motivations, and that Dany has never considered that someone who is 100% on her side might still have subconscious motivations that he doesn't even know about that are counter to her best interests. But how could Varys not have thought of it? Or Olenna? They could have had Varys or Olenna raise the issue with Dany and she refuses to listen, or raise it with Tyrion and he convinces them that they're wrong, or a half dozen other ways to make it clear in four lines of dialog added to scenes that already existed.

This is my problem because minor convos like this that explain and help carry the characters aren't had.  Like Tyrions only plan last season was the Masters/slavery deal and that blew up in everyones face. So, Dany came back and killed everyone and burned the fleets (real convenient).  So, why isn't Tyrion's plan to take Casterly Rock answered with caution from people at the table, rather than everyone gushing at it being the greatest plan thought of. Like taking casterly Rock makes sense, if other moves are happening at the same time. I don't understand why literally everything else took a backseat to the Casterly Rock attack. And why Olenna didn't argue for the Reach being the first area to secure or at least done at the same time as the Casterly Rock attack is beyond me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

57 minutes ago, Greywater-Watch said:

When Jon rises the issue with the Dead's army and the night king, it would only be natural that Dany wants to learn more about what Jon means. Instead she Comes up with a monologue of her having survived many attempts to kill her and so on by keeping faith to herself - In my opinion a complete blunder of how the dialogue should have gone on.

That was so nonsensical. Dany, more than any other character (except maybe Bran), has encountered the most supernatural stuff, from the first dragons in centuries, to manticores and witches, to shape-shifting warlocks, to magical haunted temples. At the very least, she would be more curious about this danger threatening the realm she's planning to rule. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, David Selig said:

The writers of this show have abandoned any presence that they care about plausibility, internal consistency or any kind of logic. Practically nothing in it makes sense anymore. Why would Jon go to Daenerys without any guarantees about his freedom or life when he was unwilling to bend the knee? What did he expect to happen? And why didn't he explain the White Walkers and the Night King better?

LF's speech to Sansa was some of the biggest nonsense I've heard. Just a total mumbo jumbo of idiotic buzzwords.

So apparently greyscale is a deadly disease which can be cured simply by debriding the damaged tissue and applying some unguent. But apparently this is both so easy that a dude with zero experience in such medical procedures can do it successfully but so dangerous that most top maesters fail at it. WTH was the point of the whole "Jorah got greyscale" plot anyway if he'd just be cured so easily?

Apparently castles are completely useless in Westeros since each of them is a cakewalk to storm. How the hell did Tyrion manage to convince the builders to create a secret entrance to Casterly Rock and don't tell anyone except him about it, BTW? And how dumb are Tywin and people in charge of defending the castle for never noticing this in all these years even during the War of the Five Kings?

Sansa teaching the blacksmiths how to do their job was another facepalm moment.

It seems like D&D have decided they will just ignore the fact that Westeros is a medieval-type feudal society with rudimentary logistics and technology. Armies and fleets keep teleporting around the map, castles are stormed laughably easily, nobody cares that the church leaders and the biggest temple in the realm were blown to pieces, the characters talk in a completely modern way 95% of the time and apparently it's hilariously easy for women like Olenna and Ellaria who had no Tyrell or Martel blood to just take over ruling the House. And Cersei is Queen somehow even though she has no claim and hasn't even bothered to come up with any justification. The talk between Dany and Jon showed that neither of them had any clue how the vassalage system works in feudalism.

 

Indeed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

33 minutes ago, Greywater-Watch said:
  • Danerys complains that Jon refused to call her Queen, while Jon adresses her correctly as "Your Grace" in practically all his sentences.

Most of these, I agree with, but on this one, I have no problem that Jon got the style formula wrong, possibly intentionally. Style formulas are usually very complicated in our world,* and there's every reason to believe they're complicated in Westeros** (and neither GRRM nor D&D has worked out the details***).

That being said, that wouldn't mean Jon was claiming to be not her subject, it would mean he's claiming that she isn't royal at all. It doesn't matter whether you're a British subject, an American, or Emperor of the Nine Planets, you style Elizabeth II a Royal Highness; that's how styles work.

 

* For example, in Britain since the Act of Union, monarchs are never Your Grace. But in Scotland, they always were, while in England, they were up until Henry VIII granted the style to archbishops. James VI and I of course would be addressed as Your Grace if you were addressing him over Scotland, but not if you were addressing him over England. Meanwhile, while Henry VII was a Grace, you couldn't use that style until you'd used, and he'd acknowledged, a proper third-person formula like My King, His Highness. Henry III was a Grace, but you would use the French version of it even if speaking in English.

** For example, I'm pretty sure we've heard both Wardens/Great Lords and Kings addressed as Your Grace, and also heard other styles for both, which implies that the rules are probably complicated.

*** They can easily get away with that via the translation conceit: GRRM is translating the actual Common terms into reasonably close fits from medieval Earth history as understood by a normal 20th century reader, and there's only so much he can do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, Lord Freypie said:

I guess she suddenly remembered her early days with Drogo, which looked clearly traumatic. You can't ask Bob* the intern to rewatch the full season 1 before writing dialogs, he probably hasn't gone past episode 2.

* looks like it's not Steve the intern who wrote this dialog, someone having read the books would never make her speak like that

I think you uncovered the root of the problem. Bob, Nancy  and Steve the intern writers are insufficiently acquainted with the stories details and history.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Sir Dingleberry said:

This is my problem because minor convos like this that explain and help carry the characters aren't had.

Exactly, and this is what bothers me most about S7 so far. It would have taken 10 seconds to explain why taking out the Sand Snakes means Dorne is permanently out of the war, or why wights are much less believable than dragons, or why Olenna couldn't hold out at least until she got word to Dany, etc. And they usually already have the conversations where these explanations could have been easily included. But they don't bother to include them, so we're left to try to come up with our own explanation in order for anything to make sense. And that leaves us feeling like we not only can't be sure our explanations are the "right" ones that D&D intended, we can't even be sure D&D had an explanation at all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Greywater-Watch said:

Just looked at the first dialogue scene between Dany and Jon again. It has probably already been mentioned, but I'd like to point out some inconsinstencies which give proof of the poor quality of the script:

 (snip)

  • Tyrion is there to establish confidence. When Dany says to Jon: "I wonder if your father knew that Robert had send assasins to murder me in my cradle" it was a perfect opportunity for Tyrion to point out that Eddard Stark had laid down his title as Hand of the King because he refused to participate in sending assassins to kill Dany. And that in the end Eddard paid with his life in a certain way for this. Tyrion did not take the opportunity to pick up that thread - completely unlikely for him.

 

I'm not sure if Tyrion would have known about that instance with Ned resigning, but he should probably have offered something. If I remember, that was right before Catelyn captured Tyrion. Ser Barristan would have known, however. Too bad the show killed him off before he could tell Dany. 

But who am I kidding? Show Tyrion would have just checked Ned's Facelessbook page and known. :D 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, falcotron said:

Exactly, and this is what bothers me most about S7 so far. It would have taken 10 seconds to explain why taking out the Sand Snakes means Dorne is permanently out of the war, or why wights are much less believable than dragons, or why Olenna couldn't hold out at least until she got word to Dany, etc. And they usually already have the conversations where these explanations could have been easily included. But they don't bother to include them, so we're left to try to come up with our own explanation in order for anything to make sense. And that leaves us feeling like we not only can't be sure our explanations are the "right" ones that D&D intended, we can't even be sure D&D had an explanation at all.

Completely agree. I think they do it just to allow for more suspense/shock when whatever happens. There is no way olenna didn't send out a raven before being killed and no way Danny wouldn't have received that. But leaving out that fact makes Jamie and company getting attacked next episode a better shock and awe to everyone. That's my only explanation for why D&D do what they do. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 7/31/2017 at 2:18 AM, The Knight of Flours said:

One thing I didn't like was Dany's reference to her 'rape'.  When was this?  Was she referring to her wedding night with Khal Drogo? (albeit the show made it seem more rape-like than the books).

yeah she was talking about her wedding night. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, princess brittany said:

yeah she was talking about her wedding night. 

That was actually one of the very few things I liked, mostly because I hate the romanticized way GRRM writes about Dany being raped by Drogo. I'm glad she called a spade a spade re: the rape instead of mentioning that "sun and stars" crap, even if it makes no sense character-wise (though I would dance with joy if Book!Dany looks back and realizes that Drogo was a horrible abuser too). 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 8/2/2017 at 3:07 AM, Low Sparrow said:

:D Funny. THAT line of dialogue would have made the scene a lot more believable than Sansa who knows nothing of armor, correcting a trained blacksmith on how to make armor.

It almost felt like they were humoring her. "Omigawsh Sansa, you are so smart!" as if they haven't prepared people for winter before. Ronce was wearing a breastplate in that scene, and as a trained commander who had just traveled to the north, it was certainly lined with leather. But I did appreciate SOMEONE mentioning food. They only have food for one year of winter? DEAD. "Let's get everyone else to ship their grain here because they're all going to take refuge here and it would be too hard to bring their grain with them." They're definitely going to get the Winterfell gates locked on them! :D:D

 If the next episode was entirely about food supplies and how they were going to feed all these armies and dragons for the upcoming winter, I would not complain. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 8/2/2017 at 0:31 AM, falcotron said:

I don't remember for sure, but I think that (a) he explicitly turned down Casterly Rock, and any inheritance at all from Tywin, and (b) his sister had already inherited the Rock before he left the KG, so it's too late for him to inherit it from dad.

And I don't think Cersei automatically had to give up Casterly Rock when she made herself Queen—Kings traditionally keep Dragonstone until they explicitly choose to grant it to their heir, just like real-life English kings with Wales, except with fewer sheep.

So, I don't think he has anything.

But none of that should have any effect on him inheriting from sis, so he is presumably next in line for both the Iron Throne and the Rock. Especially since there are no other living relatives, not even second cousins with maternal Lannister blood or anything, in all of show!Westerlands, so who else could inherit?

And yes, I'm sure he could have stabbed her and declared himself King and the people of show!KL would just accept it. But, given the way the show!KL mob seems to work, I think that would work for pretty much anyone at this point. King Hot Pie? Well, he says he's King, and of course I believe him, because after all he's the King, so stop bothering me so I can cheer fanatically! If Dany ever comes to KL to challenge her, I think the mob will be confused, but they'll handle it by cheering for whichever one said the word "Queen" most recently and calling the other one a traitorous bitch whore murderer.

I feel like based on the nonsense rules this show has established, Euron could and would knock off Cersei and become the Rightful King, marry someone else and produce heirs. Of course it won't happen, but it shows how tenuous a relationship you need to declare yourself ruler. 

Hot Pie is pure and lovely, and I'm still really sad that Arya could treat Nymeria with emotion, even reverting to the innocent face she made in her childhood (hell, she was even warm and friendly with Ed Sheeran, Lannister soldier), but be cold and blunt toward Hot Pie. Her time with him and Gendry was really touching, and he obviously really cares about her. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...