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What was the best unintentional lesson learned from Game of Thrones?


Beardy the Wildling

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Several characters can be considered 'paragons' by D&D, the ones they obviously want us to root for and cheer for when they say a 'profound' swear-laden quip, or use 'woman' as an insult, or threaten to flay the face of their sister. There are also obvious 'anti-examples', which D&D hate and want us to boo for and celebrate when something unspeakably cruel happens to them. Naturally, with their attempts at cutting-edge religious commentary with the Faith Taliban, it can also be assumed D&D want us to have some moral takeaways from Game of Thrones.

So, with this in mind, what was the best unintentional life lesson Game of Thrones taught us?

Examples:

Arya Stark: If you dress like a man and fight lots, you're perfectly justified in threatening your sister's life and resenting her for being traditionally feminine. Alternatively, if you go through PTSD, you'll be an absolute jerk to everyone you know and love, but will be cured for Ed Sheeran. Alternatively, if you get stabbed in the belly, definitely leap into scummy, disease-laden canals and consult your actress friend, as they'll know how to heal you.

Lady Crane: Female physical abuse of men is funny and quirky, and will give you excellent medical skills when you inevitably have to cover up the evidence for the police!

Stannis Baratheon: Don't sacrifice your daughter over the work of twenty good men. Alternatively, if you're the slightest bit uncharismatic, fuck off and die because nobody likes you.

Ramsay Bolton: Flaying, murdering, kinslaying and rape is cool as long as you fight (ala D&D's notes on him compared to Joffrey: Ramsay's kind of admirable compared to Joffrey...... like, he fights...) and will earn you lots of political friends like the Umbers and Karstarks. Alternatively: Never have sound battle strategy. Always send as few men as possible to do a job, and fight shirtless, because if you exhibit a competent battle strategy, you'll be beaten by Jon Snow.

Bran Stark: Don't ever have a story arc that doesn't involve waving your sword around a lot, because you'll get mind-raped into being glorified CCTV.

Tyrion Lannister: Be a dwarf niceguy, and all the women will be all over you, you'll always be right, anyone who disagrees with you will be evil, and you'll be the most moral man on the planet.

Petyr Baelish: Don't be a fucking moron and hang around Winterfell's various walls smirking when you have a jetpack and everyone wants to kill you.

Brienne of Tarth: Empowered women use 'woman' as an insult, never identify with their femininity at all, fight and swear a lot, and act like brutes. Essentially, to be a strong woman, just be a toxic, hypermasculine trans man.

Ellaria Sand: Alternatively, a woman can be empowered by killing men for not being the embodiment of toxic masculinity and being sexy. Also, the best way to avenge your lover is by murdering their entire family.

Jaime Lannister: Stick with family through atrocities such as blowing up the Vatican, through every indication they're a terrible person, until they bring up decent points about your political enemies and choose not to take part in a deal that obviously fucks them over in the long run. That's when it's a bridge too far.

Tommen Baratheon: If you have any trouble deciding what to do as a young teen in a position of power, you're a weak little shit who should kill himself.

Margaery Tyrell: In a crisis, you'll likely gain psychic powers and predict things like massive explosions, but no-one will believe you. Alternatively, if you're a hot woman, sexually manipulating a male child is funny and quirky, and a positive form of manipulation, as opposed to EEEEEVIL Cersei.

Loras Tyrell: If you're gay, it doesn't matter if you're a decorated knight or a renowned fighter, you're ultimately only ever going to be defined by your sexuality. Also, if you're gay, you don't mourn your previous lovers, because all gays are promiscuous. Finally, if you're gay, you exist only to be a victim of homophobia.

Septon Ray: Never be pacifistic, ever, because the world's shit and real men fight.

Samwell Tarly: Real men don't research problems before they solve them, and they don't learn how to study in institutes. They buy into the same toxic machismo as their fathers and endanger their loved ones for the sake of manliness.

Tormund 'Beardy' Giantsbane: If someone calls you gay, you should beat them to death. This will earn you respect and recognition as completely secure in your sexuality.

Cersei Lannister: If you blow up the Vatican or allow your youngest son's suicide to take place because you're busy torturing a nun, the citizens and your brother-lover will not bat an eye. In fact, openly have sex with your brother, because nobody has a problem with brother-sister incest any more. Walk around with an obviously undead bodyguard and ally yourself with a known pirate, the people will only love you more! But NEVER try to scheme against the mary sue of the day for basic self-preservation, because that's a bridge too far, and will cause your closest allies to abandon you.

Sandor Clegane: Never try to be peaceful, because REAL MEN kill for revenge and take boots from still-twitching hangmen. They also make rehashed chicken meme jokes.

Lyanna Mormont: Socks and food aren't necessary in wartime, and such provisions serve only to undermine women, rather than actually being necessary for warfare.

Weisseroff in General: The world is a shit, shit place, and you should feel bad, and if you ever get attached to anyone or emotionally invested, it's a trick. Also, the rules of the world are liable to flip upside down at a moment's notice at the whims of the powers that be. Also, if you want something to happen when writing a fiction, just make it happen without any thought, as it will automatically make creative sense.

Can you guys think of any others?

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Daenerys Targaryen, Cersei Lannister: The best way to win the throne (regardless of whether you have any claim to it), and people's unconditional support and become a beloved leader is to blow up religious institutions that people consider sacred.

Euron Greyjoy, Ramsay Bolton, Ellaria Sand and the Sand Snakes: Alternatively, the best way to win the throne (regardless of whether you have any claim to it), become a beloved leader and win people's unconditional support is to openly and publicly murder your family members/liege lord and his heir(s).

Jon Snow: Alternatively, the best way to win the throne (in spite of other people sitting right next to you having a better claim to it), become a beloved leader and win people's unconditional support is to break your vows, desert your position, and completely fuck up a battle due to your terrible strategy, before being bailed at the last minute by some other people through no credit of your own.

Arya Stark: The best way to become the best knight/swordsperson on the continent overnight is to spend a lot of time cleaning and getting beaten up with a stick, watch some actors perform badly written plays, and get stabbed in the gut.

Ramsay Bolton, Jaime Lannister: Armor is completely useless in battle - in fact, it's much better to fight shirtless - but it's extremely useful for protection against drowning.

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1 hour ago, Annara Snow said:

Daenerys Targaryen, Cersei Lannister: The best way to win the throne (regardless of whether you have any claim to it), and people's unconditional support and become a beloved leader is to blow up religious institutions that people consider sacred.

Euron Greyjoy, Ramsay Bolton, Ellaria Sand and the Sand Snakes: Alternatively, the best way to win the throne (regardless of whether you have any claim to it), become a beloved leader and win people's unconditional support is to openly and publicly murder your family members/liege lord and his heir(s).

Jon Snow: Alternatively, the best way to win the throne (in spite of other people sitting right next to you having a better claim to it), become a beloved leader and win people's unconditional support is to break your vows, desert your position, and completely fuck up a battle due to your terrible strategy, before being bailed at the last minute by some other people through no credit of your own.

Arya Stark: The best way to become the best knight/swordsperson on the continent overnight is to spend a lot of time cleaning and getting beaten up with a stick, watch some actors perform badly written plays, and get stabbed in the gut.

Ramsay Bolton, Jaime Lannister: Armor is completely useless in battle - in fact, it's much better to fight shirtless - but it's extremely useful for protection against drowning.

Swimming in armour is most definitely recommended, kids.

And you forgot shouting 'Oysters, Clams and Cockles'. Crucial part of being an assassin. Another thing to learn from Arya is that being an assassin has the exact same skillset as a straight-up warrior.

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7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Several characters can be considered 'paragons' by D&D, the ones they obviously want us to root for and cheer for when they say a 'profound' swear-laden quip, or use 'woman' as an insult, or threaten to flay the face of their sister. There are also obvious 'anti-examples', which D&D hate and want us to boo for and celebrate when something unspeakably cruel happens to them. Naturally, with their attempts at cutting-edge religious commentary with the Faith Taliban, it can also be assumed D&D want us to have some moral takeaways from Game of Thrones.

Apologies, but I'm a bit confuuuuuuuuuuused - did GRRM&DD spend all those years raving about how M O R A L L Y G R E Y their characters are, just so all the viewers would end up viewing all those characters as god paragons?

I think your whole premise for this thread is flawed, but maybe it's not entirely serious in the first place hard to tell...
 

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

So, with this in mind, what was the best unintentional life lesson Game of Thrones taught us?

Examples:

Arya Stark: If you dress like a man and fight lots,

Was there any counterexample of a non-fighting, feminine character doing comparably shady things and that then being portrayed as bad?

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

you're perfectly justified in threatening your sister's life

Because that plotline was messy and incomplete (i.e. confused the audience about each of the sisters' motivations and then didn't provide a full explanation after the "twist"), you can't make an unambiguous statements about what really went on in that scene - much less draw unintentional ethics lessons from it.

Did she really threaten Sansa, or did she merely make it seem like she was threatening her and then dropped the act at the end of the scene? Some interpreted the ending with the knife as a "you can trust me, because I could easily kill you and get away with it, but won't" - others might say it's more of a "next time there won't be a next time" scenario although I think her face expressions etc. quit being sinister at that moment so that probably indicates something more along the lines of the former.

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

and resenting her for being traditionally feminine.

She didn't resent her - or, at the very least, the main thing of that scene was that she "chose to be a tomboy because she couldn't be as good at being a proper lady as Sansa", but *now* she could.

So it seemed more like envy of being able to be traditionally feminine and great at it, rather than disdain for the concept.

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:


Alternatively, if you go through PTSD, you'll be an absolute jerk to everyone you know and love,

Oh so now she's no longer a paragon eh? :D

When Sansa calls her bullshite and asks her why she didn't run to rescue Ned from beheading, that gives Arya a brief pause before she recuperates and follows up with what is essentially "well at least I didn't betray anybody".

So the show, both the writing and the actors, clearly portrayed her behavior as flawed and hypocritical.

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

but will be cured for Ed Sheeran.

That scene was very ambiguous in terms of whether those soldiers were good guys or had rather ulterior intentions the whole time - at least that certainly went through Arya's mind during that scene, especially in reaction to the "keeping the peace" line.

Also .- Theon has PTSD and he wasn't a jerk to nobody. Why are you making a hasty generalization from "Arya is being a jerk" to "the writers are saying every PTDS person becomes a jerk" when the other PTSD character right next to her is a complete counterexample to that?

And her being a jerk can't just be ascribed to the "PTSD" - she's been a bit boisterous from the very beginning of S1 (swashbulcker fantasy essentially), and picked that threatening, jerk tone of voice as early as when she stood up to Lommy and Hotpie bullying her in Yoren's camp. Then idealistically yelled at Thoros and Beric, spent 2 sseasons hurling insults at sandor and then another 2 being bullied by the Waif.

All very specific piees of characterization that make statements like "this represents all of PTSD" even more absurd. 

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

 Alternatively, if you get stabbed in the belly, definitely leap into scummy, disease-laden canals and consult your actress friend, as they'll know how to heal you.

Lady Crane: Female physical abuse of men is funny and quirky, and will give you excellent medical skills when you inevitably have to cover up the evidence for the police!

Huh?

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Stannis Baratheon: Don't sacrifice your daughter over the work of twenty good men. Alternatively, if you're the slightest bit uncharismatic, fuck off and die because nobody likes you.

Renly said the main reason he had less support was because he never liked having friends - so no, wrong.

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Ramsay Bolton: Flaying, murdering, kinslaying and rape is cool as long as you fight (ala D&D's notes on him compared to Joffrey: Ramsay's kind of admirable compared to Joffrey...... like, he fights...)

That was about Ramsay being an "awesome villain", not a statement about admirable morality.

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

and will earn you lots of political friends like the Umbers and Karstarks.

Both already established as cunts, incidentally.

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Alternatively: Never have sound battle strategy.

His battle strategy wasn't sound?

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Always send as few men as possible to do a job, and fight shirtless, because if you exhibit a competent battle strategy, you'll be beaten by Jon Snow.

He beat Jon Snow, he was beaten by the Vale army.

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Bran Stark: Don't ever have a story arc that doesn't involve waving your sword around a lot, because you'll get mind-raped into being glorified CCTV.

Sounds pretty cool actually.

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Tyrion Lannister: Be a dwarf niceguy, and all the women will be all over you,

It took more than being nice to pass Dany's job interview.

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

you'll always be right,

He was proven wrong numerous times in 6-7, which was an explicit plot point and part of the dialogue.

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

anyone who disagrees with you will be evil, and you'll be the most moral man on the planet.

His decision to let slavery continue for 7 years was a pragmatic one (and one that ended up not working), not a moral one - and it was made clear he didn't truly understand the extent of how horrible slavery was.

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Petyr Baelish: Don't be a fucking moron and hang around Winterfell's various walls smirking when you have a jetpack and everyone wants to kill you.

Brienne of Tarth: Empowered women use 'woman' as an insult,

And used it as a comploment / expression of admiration on another occasions, plus is a woman herself - so she gets a pass.

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

never identify with their femininity at all,

Why should she?

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

fight and swear a lot, and act like brutes. Essentially, to be a strong woman, just be a toxic, hypermasculine trans man.

That doesn't apply to any other badass female fighter on the show though - Obara maybe to some extent, Arya's obviously tomboyish to a noticeable degree, but the other 2 Sandsnakes, Ygritte and Karsi, no.

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Ellaria Sand: Alternatively, a woman can be empowered by killing men for not being the embodiment of toxic masculinity and being sexy. Also, the best way to avenge your lover is by murdering their entire family.

Ellaria is portrayed as a villain on the show (with some redeeming/understandable motivations).

She was "empowered" due to the better social status and inheritance rights of women in Dorne, plus apparently the off-screen moral support of the people.

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Jaime Lannister: Stick with family through atrocities such as blowing up the Vatican,

 

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

through every indication they're a terrible person, until they bring up decent points about your political enemies and choose not to take part in a deal that obviously fucks them over in the long run. That's when it's a bridge too far.

Hm maybe, I'm not sure.

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Tommen Baratheon: If you have any trouble deciding what to do as a young teen in a position of power, you're a weak little shit who should kill himself.

No, he was supposed to keep himself safe - Cersei just forgot to have Gregor shut all the windows.

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Margaery Tyrell: In a crisis, you'll likely gain psychic powers and predict things like massive explosions, but no-one will believe you.

It wasn't psychic, just smart.

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Alternatively, if you're a hot woman, sexually manipulating a male child is funny and quirky, and a positive form of manipulation, as opposed to EEEEEVIL Cersei.

That's a great moral lesson, I agree.

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Loras Tyrell: If you're gay, it doesn't matter if you're a decorated knight or a renowned fighter, you're ultimately only ever going to be defined by your sexuality.

By zealous bigoted fanatic monks, yes sure-

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Also, if you're gay, you don't mourn your previous lovers, because all gays are promiscuous.

He did in a deleted scene, not sure if anything was left in the aired episodes.

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Finally, if you're gay, you exist only to be a victim of homophobia.

That's how homophobes (many of them) tend to operate, as I said.

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Septon Ray: Never be pacifistic, ever, because the world's shit and real men fight.

Great lesson and *definitely intended*, although some might say the degree of his drunken, nonchalant pacificism was a bit absurd given the environment they were in - but I think he was supposed to just be really traumatized and tired.

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Samwell Tarly: Real men don't research problems before they solve them, and they don't learn how to study in institutes.

Huh? He went to the Citadel.

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

They buy into the same toxic machismo as their fathers and endanger their loved ones for the sake of manliness.

What, where the fuck did that happen? Yeah he was so agreeing with Randyll's machismo in that dinner scene LOL

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Tormund 'Beardy' Giantsbane: If someone calls you gay, you should beat them to death. This will earn you respect and recognition as completely secure in your sexuality.

This was already a dumb point to make in R&R back two years ago, but now after the Hound scene you really ought to let it go.

If you need the obvious explained to you: Rattleshirt was being counterproductive and kept antagonizing Tormund and poking him with his stick; and his lethal response only worked because the cultural mindset of those wildlings happened to match it - i.e. kind of a libertarian Thunderdome mentality in terms of letting 2 men (their leaders in this case) settle their dispute in that fashion; respect gained for someone not tolerating insults about socking cocks, especially that of a pretty Crow.

That wasn't necessarily portrayed as MORAL, although not terribly bad either - Rattleshirt himself could be a murderous cunt, and so was Tormund btw.

It was also implied that what Tormund did was a bit of a gamble - he didn't 100% know how the wildlings would react, or / he thought LoB might command them to be gutted before / something along those lines.

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Cersei Lannister: If you blow up the Vatican or allow your youngest son's suicide to take place because you're busy torturing a nun,

He jumped way before she went down to the basement, you got the timeline mixed up.

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

the citizens and your brother-lover will not bat an eye.

Jaime did bat an eye (at least at first), but he was already on her side and firmly supported her cause - certainly had no problems at all with the concept of killing the FM.

Not sure about the citizens - I think it makes sense that everyone assumes she's got more wildfire set up who knows where across the city (as the Mad King was supposed to have) and therefore didn't rebel as much as they woud've otherwise, but I don't think that was ever really brought up, so....

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

In fact, openly have sex with your brother, because nobody has a problem with brother-sister incest any more.

They had a problem until the very moment she blew up the Sept - afterwards that was the least of everyone's worries or moral misgivings, either way.

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Walk around with an obviously undead bodyguard

I don't think he's undead, he's breathing and has bloodshot eyes.

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

and ally yourself with a known pirate, the people will only love you more!

If they wanted Myrcella avenged, not sure why else they were cheering him on and throwing garbage at Elllaria etc.

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

But NEVER try to scheme against the mary sue of the day for basic self-preservation, because that's a bridge too far, and will cause your closest allies to abandon you.

Huh, who abandoned her over Daenerys?

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Weisseroff in General: The world is a shit, shit place, and you should feel bad, and if you ever get attached to anyone or emotionally invested, it's a trick.

A lot of people here are salty about this for some reason - why don't you go watch some Disney animated movies, the ones GRRM scoffs at lmao

7 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Also, the rules of the world are liable of flip upside down at a moment's notice at the whims of the powers that be. Also, if you want something to happen when writing a fiction, just make it happen without any thought, as it will automatically make creative sense.

Can you guys think of any others?

That's true, but I don't see how that has to do anything with moral paragons?

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4 hours ago, Annara Snow said:

Daenerys Targaryen, Cersei Lannister: The best way to win the throne (regardless of whether you have any claim to it), and people's unconditional support and become a beloved leader is to blow up religious institutions that people consider sacred.

Apparenltly in Dothraki culture, that was viewed as a sign of strength (compatible with their religious beliefs).

I don't think Cersei is beloved or unconditionally supported; Daenerys is, but probably not by the Dothraki.

4 hours ago, Annara Snow said:

Euron Greyjoy, Ramsay Bolton, Ellaria Sand and the Sand Snakes: Alternatively, the best way to win the throne (regardless of whether you have any claim to it), become a beloved leader and win people's unconditional support is to openly and publicly murder your family members/liege lord and his heir(s).

If your rapist pillager culture supports and respects the practice of taking the throne from the previous leader by force (as the Dothraki do), then it'll work.

Euron appealed to the Ironborn's cultural/religious value of paying the iron price and promised them to make the Islands great again, while arguing how Balon was weak and running them into the ground - his support wasn't unconditional.

Doran wasn't "beloved", the people despised him for not avenging his family, at least off-screen lol - if that hadn't been the case, Ellaria couldn't have pulled that off. So not unconditional either.

4 hours ago, Annara Snow said:

Jon Snow: Alternatively, the best way to win the throne (in spite of other people sitting right next to you having a better claim to it), become a beloved leader and win people's unconditional support is to break your vows, desert your position, and completely fuck up a battle due to your terrible strategy, before being bailed at the last minute by some other people through no credit of your own.

Only the last point is really valid, the other two are kind of fluff.

4 hours ago, Annara Snow said:

Arya Stark: The best way to become the best knight/swordsperson on the continent overnight is to spend a lot of time cleaning and getting beaten up with a stick, 

True true :(

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4 hours ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

What, where the fuck did that happen? Yeah he was so agreeing with Randyll's machismo in that dinner scene LOL

Which is great and all, but it's implied Sam was 'right' to then give up on the Citadel and go North to Winterfell, as he's sick of 'reading about the achievements of better men' aka: EXACTLY WHAT HIS FATHER DID.

I'll get round to the other refutations, but I dunno. While GRRM is very careful to keep shit morally grey, if you look at how D&D frame things and musical cues, it's pretty clear they view things with far more of a 'traditional fantasy' kind of edge.

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40 minutes ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Which is great and all, but it's implied Sam was 'right' to then give up on the Citadel and go North to Winterfell, as he's sick of 'reading about the achievements of better men' aka: EXACTLY WHAT HIS FATHER DID.

He was there specifically to learn how to prevent everyone from becoming a bunch slavering, murderous imbeciles enthralled to evil incarnate, and the Maesters there didn't take him seriously enough, kept taking up his time with menial shit tasks (probably standard practice) and the interesting information in a restricted section behind locked doors.

He eventually lost patience, stole a bunch of those books and escaped. He's still going to study those books to fulfill his original purpose for going there in the first place - whereas Randyll seemingly rejected the value of reading books and information altogether (or at the very least doing that *instead* of all the proper man stuff).

So if Randyll's words figured into his decision at all, it at most simply exacerbated his impatience with banal "historical" trivia such as the HIgh Septon's everyday activities - but there probably is no connection to begin with.

40 minutes ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

I'll get round to the other refutations, but I dunno. While GRRM is very careful to keep shit morally grey, if you look at how D&D frame things and musical cues, it's pretty clear they view things with far more of a 'traditional fantasy' kind of edge.

"Far more", "more", doesn't mean 100% - if a good guy does something morally questionable or stupid/hotheaded, at the very least considering the option that it was something written that way intentionally, all in the spirit of the earlier seasons, is kind of a necessity.

As of S7, Jon Snow is clearly still meant to be a bit of a honourable hothead in need of intelligent advice, and Daenerys a half fire psycho in constant need of moderation. Tyrion was "officially wrong" as late as the ending of S6, not sure about S7 though.

Arya was portrayed as flawed and wrong as late as the argument over the letter.

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6 hours ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

Apologies, but I'm a bit confuuuuuuuuuuused - did GRRM&DD spend all those years raving about how M O R A L L Y G R E Y their characters are, just so all the viewers would end up viewing all those characters as god paragons?

I think your whole premise for this thread is flawed, but maybe it's not entirely serious in the first place hard to tell...

Okay then, lemme start from the top. I think even GRRM makes characters we're supposed to think are admirable, in spite of their moral greyness, like Jaime or Jon, but he rightly doesn't portray them as paragons. However, can you look at how they treat say, Arya and honestly say they're not intending for her to be the world's most badass, philosophical feminist role model?

Examples of this: Her being 'deep' in season 4 with their cringy 'Nothing is just nothing' speech, the fact they say in their 'Inside the Episode' that Needle doesn't represent Home, like the books, but 'uh, the revenge, the revenge she's going to bring upon, uh, those who've wronged her family', how she's used as a mouthpiece to criticise those who would criticise the show while watching the Braavosi play, how D&D claim that Sansa 'had to go through terrible experiences' to 'get there', 'there' meaning as a fully realised character, and 'terrible experiences' meaning rape (as D&D are still sore and don't quite get why people are upset that they jettisoned a possibly nuanced plot about Sansa learning political machinations in the Vale in favour of a tired rape-revenge plot), but Arya is 'already there', how Arya was quite deliberately shown as having spared the women of House Frey (which is shorthand for 'innocents' to D&D, which has implications, but fuck it, we'd be here all day) in the same breath as noting that the Freys left too many Starks alive, her pet the dog moments with Ed Sheeran, how Arya was framed as having any kind of point when doubting Sansa's loyalty to her family for writing a letter under duress, etc.

Arya is, for all intents and purposes, meant to be philosophical, wise for her age, badass, loyal to the family, and SUPAR FEMINIST. Now GRRM's Arya I can see going down a dark road, but Show!Arya is the culmination of bar-room audience reactions going 'YEEEEEEEEEAH! ARYA'S SO BADASS' enough that D&D have gone 'fuck it, let's just indulge these idiots' blood lust by making her the badass 'sympathetic' executioner of the EVHUL bastards of Weisseroff'.

6 hours ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

Did she really threaten Sansa, or did she merely make it seem like she was threatening her and then dropped the act at the end of the scene? Some interpreted the ending with the knife as a "you can trust me, because I could easily kill you and get away with it, but won't" - others might say it's more of a "next time there won't be a next time" scenario although I think her face expressions etc. quit being sinister at that moment so that probably indicates something more along the lines of the former.

Yes, she did. Bran's actor is on record as saying that all the tension, the sisters contemplating killing each other, was real, and it required Bran's offscreen CCTV resolution to resolve the fighting. Hey, that's another unintentional message! All women are catty and will work their hardest to kill each other and undermine each other, even if they're siblings that haven't seen each other in years, and require a common enemy to focus their hateful woman-energy onto for them to ever get on.

6 hours ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

Oh so now she's no longer a paragon eh?

I was trying to imply that D&D use PTSD as an excuse for why she's a massive jerk to Hot Pie and her family, and how that falls apart when you see her making sex eyes with Ed Sheeran, but eh. Whatever.

6 hours ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

Huh?

The justification for Lady Crane knowing how to heal Arya is that she used to beat her boyfriends senseless, then heal them later to cover up her crimes. And it's played for comedy. God bless D&D.

6 hours ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

That was about Ramsay being an "awesome villain", not a statement about admirable morality.

And note that I said cool, not morally admirable. I was mainly taking the piss out of D&D's logic for what makes Ramsay a cool villain according to Inside the Episode. Like, really? He fights? Of all the things they chose that could make Ramsay Sue a cool villain, they chose the option that makes them look thick as two short planks. Which they are, but that's besides the point.

6 hours ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

Both already established as cunts, incidentally

Not the Umbers; the Greatjon was Robb's staunchest ally after the finger-eating incident. Karstarks, yes, Umbers, no, so partial credit. Once again, though, I was more referring to how Ramsay Sue's circumstances always seemed to be serendipitous and enabling of his stupid decisions, and it's only when he makes competent decisions that fate fucks him over.

For example: How lucky for Ramsay that Stannis's night guards were incompetent enough to let twenty good arsonists literally destroy their entire stock of food! How lucky for Ramsay that only a cunt like Karstark was around to watch him stab his father. How lucky not one Ironborn Yara brought with her was good at killing shirtless men.

This is followed up by: You've immaculately planned a baiting strategy and battle plan, and it works exactly as planned. PSYCH! Unlucky, the Vale showed up. Guess you should have continued being suicidally stupid, eh, Ramsay?

6 hours ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

And used it as a comploment / expression of admiration on another occasions, plus is a woman herself - so she gets a pass.

Precisely once, in early seasons, referencing Cat. This was back when the show wasn't a smouldering pile of donkey testicles, so yeah, it happened. Once upon a time.

6 hours ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

Why should she?

I dunno, there were these book things D&D were supposed to adapting, but instead chose to write a fanfiction with so they could oppose literally every theme they contained... ah, they probably don't factor into it.

6 hours ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

That's a great moral lesson, I agree.

Not sure if you're being ironic, given your apologetics for Margaery in another of your replies.

6 hours ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

By zealous bigoted fanatic monks, yes sure

And you know what the Faith Militant weren't in the books? Homophobic. In fact, the High Sparrow was running a counter-noble movement in response to the nobles fucking over the commonfolk for their petty games. But nuance like that has no place in Weisseroff: Let's instead make any religious counter-culture movement just... you know, the Taliban! Nuance is for eighth-grade book reports.

Similarly, the remark here isn't about in-universe definition of Loras as nothing but gay, it's the meta depiction. You're right to point out that there was a beautiful deleted scene of Loras actually grieving Renly, which was cut, presumably because even in Season 2, when GoT was passing as an adaptation, D&D thought 'nah, this has too much men actually being emotional, cut it'.

Anyway, my point is, in the books at this point, Loras is out and about, being a knight, fighting to retake Dragonstone from a token force left by Stannis (because, you see, unlike D&D, GRRM actually thinks about things for more than five seconds), but D&D were like 'Uh, so we have gay guy, Loras Tyrell, he, uh, isn't a fighter or anything, he just makes sexy eyes with Oberyn Martell and his squires and shit. We gotta do something with him. Hey, let's be real edgy and stick cutting-edge 21st century commentary about gays in there and have the Faith be a bunch of gay-hating strawmen and Loras into nothing but a victim! After all, that's all gays can be: Happy and promiscuous, or victims of homophobia. They're not people like us'.

6 hours ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

What, where the fuck did that happen? Yeah he was so agreeing with Randyll's machismo in that dinner scene LOL

Already made this point, but he was depicted as being 'right' for buying into  his father's philosophy when he left the Citadel, quoting his father directly and saying he was sick of reading about the works of better men. Also, he left the relative safety of the Reach to go to Winterfell, which would be great if he didn't have a girlfriend and vulnerable child he's supposed to be keeping safe.

6 hours ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

He jumped way before she went down to the basement, you got the timeline mixed up.

You'd think this, and I'd be inclined to agree with you, except D&D's inside the episode claimed that Cersei could have saved Tommen if she'd have not tortured Unella but instead was there for her son. No, I shit you not, D&D unnecessarily fucked themselves over in one of their own self-congratulatory back-patting sessions they have during their 'Inside the Episode' segments.

6 hours ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

Huh, who abandoned her over Daenerys?

Was referring to Jon, and Jaime abandoned her over him. It's like 'blow up the Vatican, ally yourself with a time-travelling punk rocker pirate and show no remorse for the death of our youngest son all you like, Cersei, but lie to Jon Snow because none of the proposed truce helps you? You heartless bitch, imma leave.'

6 hours ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

A lot of people here are salty about this for some reason - why don't you go watch some Disney animated movies, the ones GRRM scoffs at lmao

Not saying the world should be sunshine and rainbows, but here's the difference between GRRM's darkness and D&D's. GRRM's darkness is consistent, and bad guys get fucked over for their decisions just as often as good guys. It's a constant oppressive overtone, and the crux of A Song of Ice and Fire is how the various characters interact with and find their identity within this bleak, oppressive place.

D&D, being morons, don't actually understand this purposeful use of darkness, and instead just assume the idea to go with is: GOOD IS DUMB, EVIL ALWAYS WINS EVEN IF IT'S STUPID, EXCEPT WHEN WE CREATIVELY WANT THE GOOD GUYS TO WIN, BUT LET'S THROW IN A GRATUITOUS RAPE EVERY NOW AND THEN TO REMIND PEOPLE THIS WORLD IS DARK.

Basically, D&D are nihilistic in the same way an edgy teenage atheist is (or you, judging by how you think me having a problem with this worldview makes me a disney-loving soft-arse), instead of, you know, actually understanding the philosophical standings of nihilism or atheism. It's a shallow, apathetic stance that allows them to exploit the 'darkness' of the world for shock value, and moments where they deliberately get you emotionally invested just enough that they can laugh and say 'fooled you' in the next scene (for example, deliberately playing up Shireen and Stannis's relationship in Season 5 just to drop lolsacrifice on you).

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8 hours ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

Apparenltly in Dothraki culture, that was viewed as a sign of strength (compatible with their religious beliefs).

LOL no. It's a sign of strength to fight and kill a rival - not to burn Vaes Dothrak. The Dothraki take their customs very seriously and hold Vaes Dothrak sacred, we've known that since season 1. 
And common sense says that people don't like it when you burn the institutions they consider sacred. Except in Weisseroff.

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I don't think Cersei is beloved or unconditionally supported; Daenerys is, but probably not by the Dothraki.

Seen any signs of rebellion or unrest? Something like the season 2/ACOK riots in the street? How is Cersei even Queen recognized by anyone? She has absolutely no claim, has burned the most important religious institution in Westeros and everyone knows it, and no one seems to have a problem with it.
Isn't Daenerys supposed to be loved by the Dothraki who are following her?
 
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If your rapist pillager culture supports and respects the practice of taking the throne from the previous leader by force (as the Dothraki do), then it'll work.

Euron appealed to the Ironborn's cultural/religious value of paying the iron price and promised them to make the Islands great again, while arguing how Balon was weak and running them into the ground - his support wasn't unconditional.

Show Euron openly admitted to murdering his brother, and went on to deliver the wonderful line "Where are my niece and nephew? Let's go murder them." Remember that kinslaying is considered the gravest crime one can commit? Well, I guess D&D have forgotten about that, too. Apparently everyone is Weisseroff is cool with kinslaying now.

No, the Ironborn aren't any different in that respect from the rest of Westeros. At least not in the books, which is exactly why Euron hires a Faceless Man assassin and makes sure he only returns to the Iron Islands the day after Balon died. 
And no, the Ironborn don't have a custom of openly killing the previous king to become king. Their custom is for the throne either to pass to the heir, or to hold Kingsmoot and elect their next ruler. 

But I guess D&D, in their infinite wisdom, have decided that the Ironborn need to be the stereotype of complete savages where everything goes. This is obviously great storytelling.
 

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Doran wasn't "beloved", the people despised him for not avenging his family, at least off-screen lol - if that hadn't been the case, Ellaria couldn't have pulled that off. So not unconditional either.

Unlike Ellaria and the Sand Snakes, who "avenged" Oberyn (and Elia and her children, I guess) by...killing his brother and nephew?! Wow, that really makes sense. I guess it's the kind of D&D logic that was also at work when they came up with the Sansa Marriage Strike.
Not to mention, more kinslaying, on the part of the Sand Snakes! Yay for kinslaying, everyone loves kinslaying and it makes you popular!
And  Ellaria shouldn't have been able to pull that off, period. It's just stupid. Not only does Areo Hotah go down from one little stab in the back, but all the other guards are just standing by and watching their lord get killed, and do nothing?! 
And then Ellaria becomes the ruler?! How? She has absolutely no claim. Neither do the Sand Snakes - bastards may have a better social status in Dorne, but they don't inherit. That's not how succession works.

"The rules of succession..."
"But what's it mean?"
"The proper progression..."
"But what's it mean
But hey, why not make Dorne also a place of toxically masculine savages with no rules. They're brown people anyway, so it makes sense. More great storytelling (with added racism).
 
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Only the last point is really valid, the other two are kind of fluff.

 

LOL what?! Breaking Night's Watch vows and deserting is "fluff"? Sure. It's not like we've learned since the first freaking episode (in its very second scene of the entire show, in fact) that breaking Night's Watch vows and deserting NW is punishable by death. (Also, remember that a NW member can't hold any titles or own lands?) But who cares about the previous seasons, right? D&D sure don't.

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9 hours ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

 

Ellaria is portrayed as a villain on the show (with some redeeming/understandable motivations).

She was "empowered" due to the better social status and inheritance rights of women in Dorne

What do the inheritance rights of women in Dorne have to do with Ellaria? She's 1) illegitimate, so in spite of the better social standing of bastards in Dorne, she couldn't inherit anything, and 2) she's no blood relation to any of the Martells (and wasn't even officially married to Oberyn), so she wouldn't be inheriting the title of Prince/Princess of Dorne even if she was legitimate. 

Now, if the show actually wanted an empowered Dornish woman who has inheritance rights - she was right there, in the books, and she's actually the most important character of the Dornish plot: Arianne Martell, who's Doran's daughter, eldest child and heir (in spite of having two brothers, because she's ahead of them in the succession order due to Dornish absolute primogeniture rule, as opposed to the male-preference primogeniture of the rest of Westeros). But they decided to cut her out for some reason. 

In fact, they've cut out all of the references to Dornish succession rules - Oberyn's and Doran's mother, the ruler of Dorne, was turned into their father, the ruler of Dorne, and another minor character, noblewoman who is a ruler of her house was turned into a nobleman (both in season 4). I guess D&D figured that it was more "feminist" to have no female rulers until a group of violent, crazy revenge-driven women kill the rightful ruler and seize the throne.

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, plus apparently the off-screen moral support of the people.

Don't you just love the way that so many important things on GoT happen in the off-screen land, and that the 'people' are this nebulous mass that is ignored most of the time and just brought up randomly when it's needed?

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6 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

Don't you just love the way that so many important things on GoT happen in the off-screen land, and that the 'people' are this nebulous mass that is ignored most of the time and just brought up randomly when it's needed?

The Off-Screen Zone and Inside the Episode are the only ways to 'make sense' of the show, and if your work is so poor at speaking for itself that you need the creators going 'uh, Needle, uh, means revenge, so uh... this is significant and stuff...' in order to even slightly understand it, then sorry, you're a shit writer for TV.

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8 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Okay then, lemme start from the top. I think even GRRM makes characters we're supposed to think are admirable, in spite of their moral greyness, like Jaime or Jon, but he rightly doesn't portray them as paragons.

Well, neither Jaime nor Jon are portrayed as paragons on the show neither - or, I'd say Jon is quite pure morally (for a guy finding himself in morally ambiguous situations in midst of a war, that is) but he's still an arrogant hothead at times and often isn't the brightest.

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However, can you look at how they treat say, Arya and honestly say they're not intending for her to be the world's most badass, philosophical feminist role model?

Yes, I already gave you an example=proof from S7's letter scene.

As for the previous seasons, not sure - didn't have any particular moral edges there, except obviously for somewhat temporarily getting on board with the FM's amoral philosophy.

She didn't angrily kill a NW deserter who was just having a fun in a tavern, so there's that.


Or, at least that's morally - intellectually, she was reckless and impulsive several times and didn't really learn from those mistakes because they ended up being rewarded each time (due to Thoros / Sandor's relative decency and later Jaqen's protection in S5E1).

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Examples of this: Her being 'deep' in season 4 with their cringy 'Nothing is just nothing' speech,

It wasn't a speech, it was something said to a dying man who was more afraid of the nothing after death, than the suffering he was.... suffering at that present moment.


The other instances of her adopting the grimdark God of Death outlook (such as the one in the cave after her first disappointments with the Brotherhood) are hardly portrayed as some deep philosophical thing - plus, that notion is associated with Syrio and Jaqen, and she's acted stupidly both when championing Syrio's teachings in front of the Hound and when giving Jaqen the wrong targets (and later being called for it).

All it's there for is to show that she's traumatized and developing a dark outlook on life.

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the fact they say in their 'Inside the Episode' that Needle doesn't represent Home, like the books, but 'uh, the revenge, the revenge she's going to bring upon, uh, those who've wronged her family',

I don't remember that or whether that was in the show or interviews or whatever - sure, that was something that was changed from the books and replaced with something more trite, but that's a different topic.

A more clever way of spinning this, would've been for example to establish that Needle represents "home" etc., but then have it turn into "revenge" when she becomes particularly disillusioned or pissed off.

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how she's used as a mouthpiece to criticise those who would criticise the show while watching the Braavosi play,

I think originally it was in reaction to a Sansa rape scene, but then it was just changed to some low brow thing and she scoffed at 2 old ladies being all serious about it, right?

I forgot which of the versions was the aired one, might have to rewatch it - but I think it was a bit weird, because she was laughing at the Tyrion/Sansa scenes because it was good entertainment or something, but then took offence at Ned's portrayal, so I'm not sure what was going on there.

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how D&D claim that Sansa 'had to go through terrible experiences' to 'get there', 'there' meaning as a fully realised character, and 'terrible experiences' meaning rape (as D&D are still sore and don't quite get why people are upset that they jettisoned a possibly nuanced plot about Sansa learning political machinations in the Vale in favour of a tired rape-revenge plot), but Arya is 'already there',

I'm not sure I really know my way around the various interview bits, all I know is that there's some good amount of hack fraudery going on behind the scenes and the interviews "on the surface" can contradict statements made elsewhere, or be fake news in order to cover up some fuck-up like the Jaime-Cersei rape having been intended as consentual but then just edited confusingly.

Also they can be pretty absent-minded at times - clearly establishing that Stannis is out to become King and that way save the world from the apocalypse, but then they say that it was "ambition" as if he just wanted to become King for the sake of it.


So when the thought processes behind the writing is such a bubbling mess of quantum uncertainty, I'd be especially careful with making blanket assertions such as "they wanted A to be a feminist paragon full stop 100%".

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how Arya was quite deliberately shown as having spared the women of House Frey (which is shorthand for 'innocents' to D&D, which has implications, but fuck it, we'd be here all day)

The Frey women were portrayed as innocents in the show though - the daughters earlier on, Walder's wife who was crying at the massacre, and these are just servants and hadn't anything to do with nothing.

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in the same breath as noting that the Freys left too many Starks alive,

That's an incredibly absurd analogy to draw.

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her pet the dog moments with Ed Sheeran,

I think you've missed the darker undertones of that scene.

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 how Arya was framed as having any kind of point when doubting Sansa's loyalty to her family for writing a letter under duress, etc.

"Any" maybe, but nowhere close to 100% - Sansa called her bullshit and then Arya started stammering (effectively) and became defensive.

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Arya is, for all intents and purposes, meant to be philosophical,

She only adopted the religion of her mentors, that's the extent of her "philosophy" - she's supposed to be very loyal and protective of her family and mentor figures - so Ned, Jon and Robb (not Sansa for obvious reasons), and then Syrio and Jaqen with their death god religion.

The way she goes about protecting the image and beliefs of those men, is more often than not portrayed as overly idealistic, zealous and not very bright.

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wise for her age, badass, loyal to the family,

As I said, not necessarily in the best ways.

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and SUPAR FEMINIST. Now GRRM's Arya I can see going down a dark road, but Show!Arya is the culmination of bar-room audience reactions going 'YEEEEEEEEEAH! ARYA'S SO BADASS' enough that D&D have gone 'fuck it, let's just indulge these idiots' blood lust by making her the badass 'sympathetic' executioner of the EVHUL bastards of Weisseroff'.

It would seem that her zealous execution of the deserter, and the zealous glaring at Sansa, are made out of the same general cloth and should be viewed as similar to each other - namely as honorable zeal and clearly a character flaw.

But apparently, even though it's portrayed as a flaw in the show (and all the "death nothing" talk also depicts her going "down a dark path"), you're insisting it was actually portrayed as a moral role model and is only unintentionally morally shady?


Somewhere in a dark graveyard somewhere, Maester Occam is violently thrashing in his grave and that can't mean anything good.

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Yes, she did. Bran's actor is on record as saying that all the tension, the sisters contemplating killing each other, was real, and it required Bran's offscreen CCTV resolution to resolve the fighting. Hey, that's another unintentional message! All women are catty and will work their hardest to kill each other and undermine each other, even if they're siblings that haven't seen each other in years, and require a common enemy to focus their hateful woman-energy onto for them to ever get on.

I meant not in the sense of this being a ruse to fool LF or anything, but whether it was a fake-out threat or not.

Also, when you can't even rely on any of the writers to give a coherent picture of some of those confusing plotlines, actors' statements clearly shouldn't be treated as gospel neither - he wasn't even part of that scene.

 

And as for gender portrayal, Arya is established as a hotheaded loyalty zealot with a grudge against Sansa and Sansa is under influence from LF and is now facing her crazy eyed sister who just returned from doing god knows what all over the realm and beyond - very specific, and partially *different* reasons for both of them to act the way they do, can't be generalized to a statement about women in general, in any way. 

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I was trying to imply that D&D use PTSD as an excuse for why she's a massive jerk to Hot Pie and her family, and how that falls apart when you see her making sex eyes with Ed Sheeran, but eh. Whatever.

She's not a jerk to Hot Pie, he and Lommy start bullying her and she merely responds. Then they make peace.

And she was suspicious of the Ed Sheeran group the whole time, plus we don't know how it ended eh?

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The justification for Lady Crane knowing how to heal Arya is that she used to beat her boyfriends senseless, then heal them later to cover up her crimes. And it's played for comedy. God bless D&D.

Whooops, must've forgotten that part :o

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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And note that I said cool, not morally admirable. I was mainly taking the piss out of D&D's logic for what makes Ramsay a cool villain according to Inside the Episode. Like, really? He fights? Of all the things they chose that could make Ramsay Sue a cool villain, they chose the option that makes them look thick as two short planks. Which they are, but that's besides the point.

Well the fighting is clearly only one of his cool qualities - most of the others aren't later contradicted in huge plot holes I don't think.

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Not the Umbers; the Greatjon was Robb's staunchest ally after the finger-eating incident.

I was generalizing - they were a proud, feisty bunch who were capable of taking a defiant attitude against a Stark King; obviously the son much cuntier than the father, which is a bit confusing considering he called Greatjon a cunt. I guess for relenting after that incident? Who knows.

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Karstarks, yes, Umbers, no, so partial credit. Once again, though, I was more referring to how Ramsay Sue's circumstances always seemed to be serendipitous and enabling of his stupid decisions, and it's only when he makes competent decisions that fate fucks him over.

Well, letting Sansa escape (or motivating her to escape, as Roose pointed out) was the big mistake that eventually bit him in the ass, plus no scouts.


But yes, while there seems to be some vague sense that killing Roose led to the whole house crashing down around him, that's not really what happened.

Although apparently that was the original planned ending of the battle before they ran out of filming time and had to change it?

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For example: How lucky for Ramsay that Stannis's night guards were incompetent enough to let twenty good arsonists literally destroy their entire stock of food! How lucky for Ramsay that only a cunt like Karstark was around to watch him stab his father. How lucky not one Ironborn Yara brought with her was good at killing shirtless men.

I think he already knew Karstark would be on board, judging by both of their demeanor in that scene; the arson was too vague and off-camera to really make further judgements about. i.e. whether boltons were particularly good at guerrila sneakery or how much it was incompetence on Stannis' part etc.

I think the general concept of that plot point is decent and could've been executed believably, but they just didn't bother with the details..

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This is followed up by: You've immaculately planned a baiting strategy and battle plan, and it works exactly as planned. PSYCH! Unlucky, the Vale showed up. Guess you should have continued being suicidally stupid, eh, Ramsay?

Here's how the dramatic equation works here:

Stannis = relies on magical thinking too much; not the most devious ninja strategist (?); not acclimated to the winter up north and under time pressure before it gets even winterer;

Ramsay = at a fortified position, on his own turf; great at various sneak tactics; keeps a cool head in this particular area. Roose, the cool head in ANY situation, is around.

=> Stannis fucks up, gets lost in his tunnel vision, is easily defeated.





Ramsay can't keep a cool head when it comes to abusing Sansa, or when it comes to his insecurity regarding his name and inheritance.

Removes Roose from the equation; causes Sansa's escape.

Sansa = understands Ramsay's devious nature and anticipates a trap, takes it into account unlike Jon.

Jon = hothead, doesn't plan, loses.

=>Ramsay defeats Jon as planned; Sansa successfully surprises Ramsay, who had a blindspot regarding her.



So, as you see, "dramatically", in terms of what each character represents and how they're punished or rewarded for their attitudes or mistakes etc., the way it went down makes sense; and the framework that's at play here isn't "the more intelligent Ramsay is the less successful".

However, the show could've added more exposition, details and characterization to complete the picture and make this scenario work logically - and didn't.
 

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Precisely once, in early seasons, referencing Cat. This was back when the show wasn't a smouldering pile of donkey testicles, so yeah, it happened. Once upon a time.

It was a pivotal moment so I'd say it counts.

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I dunno, there were these book things D&D were supposed to adapting, but instead chose to write a fanfiction with so they could oppose literally every theme they contained... ah, they probably don't factor into it.

Well your thread's more about how the show doesn't hold up internally than about deviations from the books - and they definitely, officially changed several characters so there's not necessarily a reason Brienne shouldn't be counted among those.

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Not sure if you're being ironic, given your apologetics for Margaery in another of your replies.

Margaery was a better influence on Joffrey than Cersei was (sort of started making him appreciate being loved by the commoners etc., while Cersei pampered his narcissism instead).

I think it's safe to say the same about Tommen; not in the sense that Cersei would've turned him into a sadistic psychopath, but she'd try to rule through him and that's clearly worse than Margaery ruling through him.

Not sure what's supposed to have to be ironic about that.

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And you know what the Faith Militant weren't in the books? Homophobic. In fact, the High Sparrow was running a counter-noble movement in response to the nobles fucking over the commonfolk for their petty games. But nuance like that has no place in Weisseroff: Let's instead make any religious counter-culture movement just... you know, the Taliban! Nuance is for eighth-grade book reports.

Same in the show; championing the poor folk was the good side of his cause, the "intolerance for sin" was the bad one.

Not sure about the Taliban, but Hamas did do charity along with less moral endeavors - so that kind of moral ambiguity exists in the extremist Islamist world as well.

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Similarly, the remark here isn't about in-universe definition of Loras as nothing but gay, it's the meta depiction. You're right to point out that there was a beautiful deleted scene of Loras actually grieving Renly, which was cut, presumably because even in Season 2, when GoT was passing as an adaptation, D&D thought 'nah, this has too much men actually being emotional, cut it'.

I don't know why it was cut, although I thought the acting wasn't as good - the ending especially when he starts crying reminded me of the Austin Powers scene, but I'm sure they had more takes either way.

But meta, that, yeah - the actor complained about that too.

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Anyway, my point is, in the books at this point, Loras is out and about, being a knight, fighting to retake Dragonstone from a token force left by Stannis (because, you see, unlike D&D, GRRM actually thinks about things for more than five seconds), but D&D were like 'Uh, so we have gay guy, Loras Tyrell, he, uh, isn't a fighter or anything, he just makes sexy eyes with Oberyn Martell and his squires and shit. We gotta do something with him. Hey, let's be real edgy and stick cutting-edge 21st century commentary about gays in there and have the Faith be a bunch of gay-hating strawmen and Loras into nothing but a victim!

I didn't know fundamentalist Christians didn't start following the Biiblical instructions to execute buggerers until the 21st century.

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After all, that's all gays can be: Happy and promiscuous, or victims of homophobia. They're not people like us'.

You kinda messed up what could've been a (mostly) valid point with that last sentence - no one watched the show and got away with the impression that Loras is an alien among other characters that were also in a good mood;

and suddenly remembering that "gays aren't like normal people" and can only be happy, like, you know, going how could we have filmed that dramatic scene when we know better than that, we have to delete this asap!, certainly wasn't the reason for the deletion - whatever it was.

The probably just forgot to give him more facets because they were preoccupied with other characters, as they forgot a lot of other things - seeing a political ideology in there isn't very reasonable, and you already have a bad track record when it comes to reading individual characterizations as statements about whole demographics ;)

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Already made this point, but he was depicted as being 'right' for buying into  his father's philosophy when he left the Citadel, quoting his father directly and saying he was sick of reading about the works of better men.

Wait I forgot that line, which scene was it again?

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Also, he left the relative safety of the Reach to go to Winterfell, which would be great if he didn't have a girlfriend and vulnerable child he's supposed to be keeping safe.

One of the ways he was gonna keep them safe, was to prevent the apocalypse as clearly stated in the ship scene - and which location was more relevant to that cause and all the books he just borrowed, Winterfell or the Reach?

However I did forget his exact reasoning for going to WF and taking Gilly with, so maybe you have some kind of a point there.

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You'd think this, and I'd be inclined to agree with you, except D&D's inside the episode claimed that Cersei could have saved Tommen if she'd have not tortured Unella but instead was there for her son.

Tommen jumped when the Sept blew up; at that moment, Cersei was looking out of the window and smirking.

No idea why they'd contradict that in their commentary, maybe it was their original plan and then they forgot they rewrote it?

Either way she didn't anticipate that possibility, or she would've told Gregor to look out for that.

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No, I shit you not, D&D unnecessarily fucked themselves over in one of their own self-congratulatory back-patting sessions they have during their 'Inside the Episode' segments.

Looks that way, yes.
 

 

 

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Was referring to Jon,

Oh, well yes - it was a stupid "honorable" move and the other characters immediately went on to point that out; then they did their best to reverse that lapse in judgement.

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and Jaime abandoned her over him. It's like 'blow up the Vatican, ally yourself with a time-travelling punk rocker pirate and show no remorse for the death of our youngest son all you like, Cersei, but lie to Jon Snow because none of the proposed truce helps you? You heartless bitch, imma leave.'

Jaime's main concern was that Cersei was being too flippant about the zombie apocalypse, not that she lied to Jon Snow - and that if they betrayed Daenerys and the Starks now, those would be much more eager to come after her than otherwise.

Cersei countered by saying they can't contribute anything to the zombie war anyway given how outmatched they are by the dragons - but then also added that the dragons didn't pose as much of a danger to *her* since one disappeared somewhere and hence they were vulnerable.

She also thought the Starkaeryans would "come after them either way", apparently not grasping how an alliance against demons would put them in a better place than outright betrayal.
_

So for a while there, Cersei seemed like the crazy one and Jaime as the one with common sense - but then she revealed her plans with Euron and the Golden Company, Jaime made like a defeated face expression and then fell back on his "pledge" that he was going to honour.

Whether his disagreement at that point was still pragmatic or now more ethical, not sure - however you're oversimplifying it either way.

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Not saying the world should be sunshine and rainbows, but here's the difference between GRRM's darkness and D&D's. GRRM's darkness is consistent, and bad guys get fucked over for their decisions just as often as good guys. It's a constant oppressive overtone, and the crux of A Song of Ice and Fire is how the various characters interact with and find their identity within this bleak, oppressive place.

D&D, being morons, don't actually understand this purposeful use of darkness, and instead just assume the idea to go with is: GOOD IS DUMB,

Tyrion isn't dumb, Varys isn't dumb etc. - in fact you're even going out your way to insist on him being flawless and always correct when he's actually made mistakes (however, it was Missandei and Greyworm who warned him, who're also good guys).

Jon Snow isn't always dumb, but again, when you started the thread you insisted that he was portrayed as a nigh-flawless hero or something, that's completely incompatible with "good is alwas dumb".

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EVIL ALWAYS WINS EVEN IF IT'S STUPID,

Any examples other than Ramsay (which was already a flawed point)?

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EXCEPT WHEN WE CREATIVELY WANT THE GOOD GUYS TO WIN,

If they make the good guys win out of creativity, that also disproves your notion that they're being edgy-dark all the time - then you're saying they make the bad guys win, also out of creativity; so you're kind of contradicting yourself with that rather balanced description there.

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BUT LET'S THROW IN A GRATUITOUS RAPE EVERY NOW AND THEN TO REMIND PEOPLE THIS WORLD IS DARK

Gratuitous rape, followed by gratuitous revenge for (and prevention of further) rape that you're also calling illogical.



Some people get this confused all the time so this is probably as good a place as any to quickly remind that "how good or evil the universe is" is a separate question from how logical or realistic it is vs. driven by narrative creativity, in-world supernatural entities, or in-world supernatural entities that justify the writers' narrative creativity.

And so far all you've said is that GoT has both good and bad things happen, both often connected to plot holes, while in the books things happen logically - you made a statement about the latter question, but not the former.

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.Basically, D&D are nihilistic in the same way an edgy teenage atheist is (or you, judging by how you think me having a problem with this worldview makes me a disney-loving soft-arse), instead of, you know, actually understanding the philosophical standings of nihilism or atheism. It's a shallow, apathetic stance that allows them to exploit the 'darkness' of the world for shock value, and moments where they deliberately get you emotionally invested just enough that they can laugh and say 'fooled you' in the next scene (for example, deliberately playing up Shireen and Stannis's relationship in Season 5 just to drop lolsacrifice on you).

See, you can claim that GoT is 50% senseless horror cynicism and 50% idealistic Hollywood fantasy, but you can't claim it's 100% senseless horror cynicism in one place and then that it's 100% Lord of the Rings in a different section of your post - that makes your point contradictory.

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6 hours ago, Annara Snow said:

LOL no. It's a sign of strength to fight and kill a rival - not to burn Vaes Dothrak. The Dothraki take their customs very seriously and hold Vaes Dothrak sacred, we've known that since season 1. 
And common sense says that people don't like it when you burn the institutions they consider sacred. Except in Weisseroff.

It all depends on the specific belief system and attitudes around said belief system - for example it's entirely possible for some group to worship a sacred altar while also expecting it to eventually get destroyed when the Anointed One or whoever arrives so they then can follow him to whatever glorious.

With the "coup" in S6, the idea clearly was that the remaining Dothraki were impressed by some kind of combination of her physical strength (immunity to fire and then riding strong dragons that completely obey her) and maybe whatever mystical significance they ascribed to her burning up their sacred place in that fashion.


We know they believe in and reject sorcery, or at least certain kinds of sorcery that belong to other tribes; however there can be exceptions to that.

So whether this is a direct contradiction, or whether there are other direct contradictions between their portrayal in S1-2 and then possibly 6, and their behavior after she walks out of the fire, is irrelevant here - we'd then be talking about lacking exposition, plot holes and retcons between various parts of the show; but that's what's going on in that particular scene.

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Seen any signs of rebellion or unrest? Something like the season 2/ACOK riots in the street? How is Cersei even Queen recognized by anyone? She has absolutely no claim, has burned the most important religious institution in Westeros and everyone knows it, and no one seems to have a problem with it.
Isn't Daenerys supposed to be loved by the Dothraki who are following her?

The Unsullied, while having started out as a robot army obeying any master, have beein unchained by her and feel grateful; Daario loves her and doesn't act out in any shape or form when she breaks up with him.

So those instances of loyalty can be called unconditional in some way; the Dothraki not so sure - unless they think they're bound by some kind of holy command that we've never been told about to worship her until and beyond the grave, it's very possible that they'd turn on her the moment she felt unwell or lost her dragons.

Unlike the Dothraki that originally joined her in S1-2, who seemed like "good guys" and genuinely enthralled to her, I wouldn't be vouching for these new guys to the same degree.



And Cersei's obviously a different situation - the Mad King was rumoured to have set up fire all over the city, which isn't the case for Vaes Dothrak; that's one major difference; the other is that the Dothraki didn't really have a dog out for Daenerys in the way the KL smallfolk had against Cersei.

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Show Euron openly admitted to murdering his brother, and went on to deliver the wonderful line "Where are my niece and nephew? Let's go murder them." Remember that kinslaying is considered the gravest crime one can commit?

Apparently not on the Iron Islands then? Seemed like they had conflicting ideals or something, and Euron persuaded them towards his take on their cultural values.

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Well, I guess D&D have forgotten about that, too. Apparently everyone is Weisseroff is cool with kinslaying now-

Who apart from them and Dorne again?

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No, the Ironborn aren't any different in that respect from the rest of Westeros. At least not in the books, which is exactly why Euron hires a Faceless Man assassin and makes sure he only returns to the Iron Islands the day after Balon died. 
And no, the Ironborn don't have a custom of openly killing the previous king to become king. Their custom is for the throne either to pass to the heir, or to hold Kingsmoot and elect their next ruler. 

Then it's obviously inconsistent with the book - unless the show had also established that, in which case also with its previous self.

 

Aside from that, there are other possible nuances to look out for - such as when that anti-kinslaying rule was adopted, and whether it took over some previous "old ways" tradition that didn't see it that way; in such a scenario, it'd be particularly feasible for someone like Euron to arrive at the scene and inspire everyone to return to the glorious old values.

Or, how strict vs. lax a particular culture sees such "values" (i.e. Walder Frey swore oaths but didn't think much of their importance), whether they're consistent about it or hypocritical (KL's chivalrous knighthood certainly isn't what it's made out to be); or whether there may be an unresolved, culture-wide conflict with other values such as Paying the Iron Price (Jaime obviously brought up that concept, justifying his kingslaying to Cat as being consistent with other accepted values).
 

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But I guess D&D, in their infinite wisdom, have decided that the Ironborn need to be the stereotype of complete savages where everything goes. This is obviously great storytelling-

It's neither good storytelling nor bad storytelling - at worst insufficient storytelling because the culture wasn't properly established in the show, thus leaving room for speculations such as those above.

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Unlike Ellaria and the Sand Snakes, who "avenged" Oberyn (and Elia and her children, I guess) by...killing his brother and nephew?!
Wow, that really makes sense.
I guess it's the kind of D&D logic that was also at work when they came up with the Sansa Marriage Strike.
Not to mention, more kinslaying, on the part of the Sand Snakes! Yay for kinslaying, everyone loves kinslaying and it makes you popular!
And  Ellaria shouldn't have been able to pull that off, period. It's just stupid. Not only does Areo Hotah go down from one little stab in the back, but all the other guards are just standing by and watching their lord get killed, and do nothing?! 
And then Ellaria becomes the ruler?! How? She has absolutely no claim. Neither do the Sand Snakes - bastards may have a better social status in Dorne, but they don't inherit. That's not how succession works.

"The rules of succession..."
"But what's it mean?"
"The proper progression..."
"But what's it mean
But hey, why not make Dorne also a place of toxically masculine savages with no rules. They're brown people anyway, so it makes sense. More great storytelling (with added racism)-

Not sure whom you're quoting there, but:

1) It's what can be called an "absurdity" of human nature (i.e. being angry at your relatives for not avenging other dead relatives and killing them for that - can be either an act of passion or be written into some kind of code of honour), not so much nonsensical writing - although it is to an extent, due to lacking exposition and lack of characters questioning their coup in that way.

2) The guards were on her side, and so was the population (according to her dialogue).

2a) Proper succession progression is but a shadow on the wall - if the population and army supports the new usurper who has no claim, because they believe in that person and think they can lead them to a desired destination, that flies out of the window.

 

3) They had a counterpart in the pasty white Ironborn who were even more savage, which you just spent several paragraphs complaining about - so talk about racism flies out the window as well.

 

 

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LOL what?! Breaking Night's Watch vows and deserting is "fluff"? Sure. It's not like we've learned since the first freaking episode (in its very second scene of the entire show, in fact) that breaking Night's Watch vows and deserting NW is punishable by death. (Also, remember that a NW member can't hold any titles or own lands?) But who cares about the previous seasons, right? D&D sure don't.

 

These are new circumstances under which the Northern Lords (just fresh from having abandoned their own vows and loyalty to the Starks, being forgiven and accepted back into the fold, and swearing loyalty once more under fair weather) may change their attitudes - considering it just turned out the NW had been about the zombies all along, and all Jon is talking about is fighting back against the zombies.

Also I'm still not sure who knows or doesn't know that he came back from the dead - in which case that kind of makes his desertion ambiguous which is why he was able to do it in the first place.


So that's why I said your point about desertion was fluff - because there are enough grounds for the characters to ignore that rule in this instance, and no exposition to inform the audience either way.

Whereas them praising Jon for beating Ramsay even though that wasn't the case at all, is kind of really absurd and makes no sense.

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6 hours ago, Annara Snow said:

What do the inheritance rights of women in Dorne have to do with Ellaria? She's 1) illegitimate, so in spite of the better social standing of bastards in Dorne, she couldn't inherit anything, and 2) she's no blood relation to any of the Martells (and wasn't even officially married to Oberyn), so she wouldn't be inheriting the title of Prince/Princess of Dorne even if she was legitimate. 

Now, if the show actually wanted an empowered Dornish woman who has inheritance rights - she was right there, in the books, and she's actually the most important character of the Dornish plot: Arianne Martell, who's Doran's daughter, eldest child and heir (in spite of having two brothers, because she's ahead of them in the succession order due to Dornish absolute primogeniture rule, as opposed to the male-preference primogeniture of the rest of Westeros). But they decided to cut her out for some reason. 

I didn't say "legitimized by the rules", I said "empowered" - the ideological support of army and people was the primary, deciding factor that enabled her to take power; the equal-ish status of women and lax views on all kinds of bastardry couldn't have hurt.

6 hours ago, Annara Snow said:

In fact, they've cut out all of the references to Dornish succession rules - Oberyn's and Doran's mother, the ruler of Dorne, was turned into their father, the ruler of Dorne, and another minor character, noblewoman who is a ruler of her house was turned into a nobleman (both in season 4).

Yes, lots of vital background information is missing from that storyline - most importantly, the only confirmation of Ellaria's assertion about the people is the way the guards react. That's it.

6 hours ago, Annara Snow said:

I guess D&D figured that it was more "feminist" to have no female rulers until a group of violent, crazy revenge-driven women kill the rightful ruler and seize the throne.

Do you mean that in the sense of D&D trying to champion feminism or smear it? It can't be the former, because they're portrayed as villains.


Of course, certain types of feminism (in fact, including those championed by the GoT actresses) don't deal with morals but simply evening out the field in the world of fiction - so if there's not enough of a certain type of female character (but plenty of the male counterpart), not enough evil female usurpers etc., then it's feminist to have that kind of plotline in your movie.

So if that's what you were referring to, then sure, yeah I suppose; but the same would apply to any number of alternative plotlines, incl. some you'd approve of more.

6 hours ago, Annara Snow said:

Don't you just love the way that so many important things on GoT happen in the off-screen land, and that the 'people' are this nebulous mass that is ignored most of the time and just brought up randomly when it's needed?

No; I don't. lol

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6 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

The Off-Screen Zone and Inside the Episode are the only ways to 'make sense' of the show, and if your work is so poor at speaking for itself that you need the creators going 'uh, Needle, uh, means revenge, so uh... this is significant and stuff...' in order to even slightly understand it, then sorry, you're a shit writer for TV.

In this case, it was said in the show though - and for all I know, never brought up even once in any interview, at any point, ever.

Arya's Needle required no explanation in the show - it's already obvious why it's important to her, based on what happened previously.

Then there's a third instance, i.e. Stannis' motivation for burning Shireen, which was actually explained in the show, but then they gave a contradicting explanation in the Inside the Episode featurette.


So, yeah, it's really a case-by-case thing here.

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@Beardy the Wildling I was laughing so hard reading these lessons, it is a shame this thread took the turn it did because it could have been a lot of fun if it remained light hearted.  But someone had to be a turd in the punch bowl, oh well.  Here are a few others.

Daenerys Targaryen:  Do not ever state specific policy proposals for what you would do as ruler - as long as "break the wheel" is as ambiguous as "hope and change" and "drain the swamp" you'll be successful in becoming the leader of the free world.  It also helps to surround yourself with people who insist that you are the only one capable of leading without providing any evidence or reasoning to support their opinion.

Lyanna Mormont:  Speak in as aggressive a tone as possible and do not acknowledge that allies you disagree with have similar goals/concerns to you and may also be smart, well-intended, and deserving of respect, and you will win every debate and persuade everyone to follow your lead.

Rhaegar Targaryen:  Meet a girl and run off with her, don't show up to work for a solid year without so much as sending an email explaining your absence, continue to get access to the company bank account and protection service while the company falls apart without you, and if you fail to save it when you finally come back to work you'll still be remembered fondly and romanticized for following your selfish passions over meeting your commitments and obligations.

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4 minutes ago, Lucius Lovejoy said:

@Beardy the Wildling I was laughing so hard reading these lessons, it is a shame this thread took the turn it did because it could have been a lot of fun if it remained light hearted.  But someone had to be a turd in the punch bowl, oh well.  Here are a few others.

Daenerys Targaryen:  Do not ever state specific policy proposals for what you would do as ruler - as long as "break the wheel" is as ambiguous as "hope and change" and "drain the swamp" you'll be successful in becoming the leader of the free world.  It also helps to surround yourself with people who insist that you are the only one capable of leading without providing any evidence or reasoning to support their opinion..

That's definitely intentional though - she's supposed to be a zealous hothead who doesn't really know what to do after she conquers a territory / has to rely on her advisors not to go too crazy.

The reasons she got the support she did is very much the reason why someone like Trump did - because people (when not vaccinated against their natural instincts by intellectual conditioning and education etc.) tend to rally around charismatic leaders with appealing ideas - and some smarter, practical people like to install them in order to then steer them in desired directions.


The only difference is that now humanity technically has "learned" all about how to approach national leadership in a smarter way, but primal instincts aren't going away and the word hasn't reached everyone to a full extent - while in GoT, it's pretty much just between that, and similarly dodgy principles such as inheritance claims, which of course Daenerys has as well.

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2 hours ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

It all depends on the specific belief system and attitudes around said belief system - for example it's entirely possible for some group to worship a sacred altar while also expecting it to eventually get destroyed when the Anointed One or whoever arrives so they then can follow him to whatever glorious.

With the "coup" in S6, the idea clearly was that the remaining Dothraki were impressed by some kind of combination of her physical strength (immunity to fire and then riding strong dragons that completely obey her) and maybe whatever mystical significance they ascribed to her burning up their sacred place in that fashion.


We know they believe in and reject sorcery, or at least certain kinds of sorcery that belong to other tribes; however there can be exceptions to that.

So whether this is a direct contradiction, or whether there are other direct contradictions between their portrayal in S1-2 and then possibly 6, and their behavior after she walks out of the fire, is irrelevant here - we'd then be talking about lacking exposition, plot holes and retcons between various parts of the show; but that's what's going on in that particular scene.

The Unsullied, while having started out as a robot army obeying any master, have beein unchained by her and feel grateful; Daario loves her and doesn't act out in any shape or form when she breaks up with him.

So those instances of loyalty can be called unconditional in some way; the Dothraki not so sure - unless they think they're bound by some kind of holy command that we've never been told about to worship her until and beyond the grave, it's very possible that they'd turn on her the moment she felt unwell or lost her dragons.

Unlike the Dothraki that originally joined her in S1-2, who seemed like "good guys" and genuinely enthralled to her, I wouldn't be vouching for these new guys to the same degree.



And Cersei's obviously a different situation - the Mad King was rumoured to have set up fire all over the city, which isn't the case for Vaes Dothrak; that's one major difference; the other is that the Dothraki didn't really have a dog out for Daenerys in the way the KL smallfolk had against Cersei.

Apparently not on the Iron Islands then? Seemed like they had conflicting ideals or something, and Euron persuaded them towards his take on their cultural values.

Who apart from them and Dorne again?

Then it's obviously inconsistent with the book - unless the show had also established that, in which case also with its previous self.

 

Aside from that, there are other possible nuances to look out for - such as when that anti-kinslaying rule was adopted, and whether it took over some previous "old ways" tradition that didn't see it that way; in such a scenario, it'd be particularly feasible for someone like Euron to arrive at the scene and inspire everyone to return to the glorious old values.

Or, how strict vs. lax a particular culture sees such "values" (i.e. Walder Frey swore oaths but didn't think much of their importance), whether they're consistent about it or hypocritical (KL's chivalrous knighthood certainly isn't what it's made out to be); or whether there may be an unresolved, culture-wide conflict with other values such as Paying the Iron Price (Jaime obviously brought up that concept, justifying his kingslaying to Cat as being consistent with other accepted values).
 

It's neither good storytelling nor bad storytelling - at worst insufficient storytelling because the culture wasn't properly established in the show, thus leaving room for speculations such as those above.

Not sure whom you're quoting there, but:

1) It's what can be called an "absurdity" of human nature (i.e. being angry at your relatives for not avenging other dead relatives and killing them for that - can be either an act of passion or be written into some kind of code of honour), not so much nonsensical writing - although it is to an extent, due to lacking exposition and lack of characters questioning their coup in that way.

2) The guards were on her side, and so was the population (according to her dialogue).

2a) Proper succession progression is but a shadow on the wall - if the population and army supports the new usurper who has no claim, because they believe in that person and think they can lead them to a desired destination, that flies out of the window.

 

3) They had a counterpart in the pasty white Ironborn who were even more savage, which you just spent several paragraphs complaining about - so talk about racism flies out the window as well.

 

 

 

These are new circumstances under which the Northern Lords (just fresh from having abandoned their own vows and loyalty to the Starks, being forgiven and accepted back into the fold, and swearing loyalty once more under fair weather) may change their attitudes - considering it just turned out the NW had been about the zombies all along, and all Jon is talking about is fighting back against the zombies.

Also I'm still not sure who knows or doesn't know that he came back from the dead - in which case that kind of makes his desertion ambiguous which is why he was able to do it in the first place.


So that's why I said your point about desertion was fluff - because there are enough grounds for the characters to ignore that rule in this instance, and no exposition to inform the audience either way.

Whereas them praising Jon for beating Ramsay even though that wasn't the case at all, is kind of really absurd and makes no sense.

I wasn't quoting anyone. The forum was doing weird things to my post, and I couldn't fix the indent.

The Ironborn, Dorne and the North are all, apparently, cool with kinslaying, seeing that Ramsay suffered no consequences whatsoever for the murder of his father and baby brother.

Re: Ellaria etc. - no, I think that's just bad writing. You could try to explain it with something like "well, Ellaria and the Snakes are simply insane", but that certainly wouldn't explain why the entire Dorne is apparently on their side and cool with the murder of Doran and Trystane. 

You're actually arguing that Jon telling people about the danger of zombies and their White Walker masters is why they would be OK with his desertion from the Night's Watch and make him KITN?! Are you aware that fighting zombies and White Walkers is the actual job of the Night's Watch and the very reason why they were founded in the first place? If Jon wants to lead the fight against them, she should have remained at his post of Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, whose job is to lead that fight . A King in the North may help rhe Watch in that war, but his main job is to rule the North.

And again, why is everyone OK with Jon just leaving the NW and leaving his post to Edd (which he shouldn't be able to do anyway - it's an elective position, and there is no Vice Lord Commander)? The NW vovs are for life, and desertion is considered not just dishonorable, but punishable by death. We learned that at the very beginning of the show, when Ned executed Will for desertion from the NW. Jon trying to desert so he could join Robb in season 1 finale and being atopped by his friends was also a really big deal.

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54 minutes ago, Lucius Lovejoy said:

@Beardy the Wildling I was laughing so hard reading these lessons, it is a shame this thread took the turn it did because it could have been a lot of fun if it remained light hearted.  But someone had to be a turd in the punch bowl, oh well.  Here are a few others.

Daenerys Targaryen:  Do not ever state specific policy proposals for what you would do as ruler - as long as "break the wheel" is as ambiguous as "hope and change" and "drain the swamp" you'll be successful in becoming the leader of the free world.  It also helps to surround yourself with people who insist that you are the only one capable of leading without providing any evidence or reasoning to support their opinion.

Lyanna Mormont:  Speak in as aggressive a tone as possible and do not acknowledge that allies you disagree with have similar goals/concerns to you and may also be smart, well-intended, and deserving of respect, and you will win every debate and persuade everyone to follow your lead.

Rhaegar Targaryen:  Meet a girl and run off with her, don't show up to work for a solid year without so much as sending an email explaining your absence, continue to get access to the company bank account and protection service while the company falls apart without you, and if you fail to save it when you finally come back to work you'll still be remembered fondly and romanticized for following your selfish passions over meeting your commitments and obligations.

 That was great. Hopefully there will be more posts like that in this thread.

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10 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

I wasn't quoting anyone. The forum was doing weird things to my post, and I couldn't fix the indent.

Oh, well I kinda treated them as part of your post so I hope I still addressed those paragraphs sufficiently.

10 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

The Ironborn, Dorne and the North are all, apparently, cool with kinslaying, seeing that Ramsay suffered no consequences whatsoever for the murder of his father and baby brother.

The North wasn't - the official story was that they were all poisoned by enemies, only like 3-4 people knew the truth, and Ramsay was reigning through terror anyway, unconcerned with being liked or supported (as Roose kept advising him).

10 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

Re: Ellaria etc. - no, I think that's just bad writing. You could try to explain it with something like "well, Ellaria and the Snakes are simply insane", but that certainly wouldn't explain why the entire Dorne is apparently on their side and cool with the murder of Doran and Trystane. 

It's not "insane", it's a particular human mindset - a quite relatable one at that.

The writing at the macro-level sucked because it reduced what should've been a fleshed out characterization and especially worldbuilding, to a few bare cliff notes - however, the cliff notes are still in there so the basic concept is mostly clear.

Pretty good writing at the micro-level though - the dialogue during the coup scene is good enough to sell its plot point to the audience, despite very little foundation to support it.

 

 

 

10 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

You're actually arguing that Jon telling people about the danger of zombies and their White Walker masters is why they would be OK with his desertion from the Night's Watch and make him KITN?!

It's plausible and is something that should've been addressed on the show - one way or the other.

10 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:


Are you aware that fighting zombies and White Walkers is the actual job of the Night's Watch and the very reason why they were founded in the first place?

Yes, but over time that turned into a myth and most grounded people came to believe it was against the wildlings - I'm sure you're aware of that main plot point as well :D

10 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

If Jon wants to lead the fight against them, she should have remained at his post of Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, whose job is to lead that fight . A King in the North may help rhe Watch in that war, but his main job is to rule the North.

All those issues should've been discussed on screen - but the way it turned out, it's not clear whether they discussed it off-screen, and if they did it's possible they came to a more lax conclusion.

10 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

And again, why is everyone OK with Jon just leaving the NW and leaving his post to Edd (which he shouldn't be able to do anyway - it's an elective position, and there is no Vice Lord Commander)? The NW vovs are for life, and desertion is considered not just dishonorable, but punishable by death. We learned that at the very beginning of the show, when Ned executed Will for desertion from the NW. Jon trying to desert so he could join Robb in season 1 finale and being atopped by his friends was also a really big deal.

1) Case in point - it's questionable whether Ned would've still executed him had he believed his ghost story.

Maybe told him to go back immediately with a "if we beheaded everyone who ran off in terror from ice demons to tell us crucial news, the Wall would be guarded by wights soon to be joined by the rest of os."


2) Everyone was too flabbergasted by his resurrection, and afterwards it's not clear who was told about that and what their take on it was.

But he used his "death" as a honorable loophole to leave the post, if everyone here recalls.

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