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Rant & Rave Season 8 [Spoilers]: When you are cool like a cucumber, as evil as the mother of madness, but never as perfect as the pet!


The Fattest Leech

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8 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

Sansa's prom queen of the extras dress was hilarious, she did just about everything she could to thumb her nose at the north, including nearly killing her siblings and choosing to marry family killers, then the final insult was flaunting a weirwood tree after breaking a weirwood tree vow. Ugh.

Minor thing since you talked about the small missing things before but I don't think it was ever mentioned on the show that 'breaking a vow made in front of a weirwood is a bad thing'. Just saying...D&D world building was crap.

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10 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

Sansa's prom queen of the extras dress was hilarious, she did just about everything she could to thumb her nose at the north, including nearly killing her siblings and choosing to marry family killers, then the final insult was flaunting a weirwood tree after breaking a weirwood tree vow. Ugh.

Was Dany wearing black? I didn't even notice, there was a sea of black, white, and grey going on, it was so monotonous, if I was supposed to infer something from it, YAWN. They were all about THE SHOT which meant absolutely nothing (and often made mockery of everyone and everything).

Don t forget that Sansa also practiced bigamy given that there never was an anulement of her marriage with tyrion... 

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1 hour ago, divica said:

Don t forget that Sansa also practiced bigamy given that there never was an anulement of her marriage with tyrion... 

In fairness to Sansa, I don't think anyone apart from the Lannisters thought that marriage was valid.-

Again, trying to be fair to Sansa, if you truly believe that Northern independence is an objective moral good, you probably ought to be trying to bring down anybody who stands in its way, however distasteful that seems to a neutral observer.

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1 hour ago, SeanF said:

In fairness to Sansa, I don't think anyone apart from the Lannisters thought that marriage was valid.-

Again, trying to be fair to Sansa, if you truly believe that Northern independence is an objective moral good, you probably ought to be trying to bring down anybody who stands in its way, however distasteful that seems to a neutral observer.

On the other hand, TV!Sansa was forced to marry Ramsay, which was made invalid by her existing marriage to Tyrion. Married to Tyrion, TV!Sansa is protected from the advances of any of her northern lords. Tyrion ends the TV show as Lord of the Westerlands. His marriage stops him having to find a wife or accept any of the myriad of offers that would immediately flow his way. The symbolism of Drogon destroying the Iron Throne is that act is breaking the chains that kept the 7 kingdoms chained together

In the books, Sansa is learning statecraft from Baelish, who regards her as his daughter. The idea that they would later be in conflict is pretty stupid. People only know of two stark's still alive in the books volume 5; Jon Snow and Arya Stark (who's actually Jeyne Poole) and only Arya is legitimate Stannis to Jon: "I'll legitimise you and make you lord of the north, if you fight the Boltons." Jon:"I don't want it."

Who is the unnamed Dornish Prince of the small 'great' council? I think I know. He's Viserys Martell, victor of the Dornish civil war. In truth his real name is Aegon Targaryen out of Elia Martell. Young Griif, is pretending to be him, but as Alt Shift X's marvellous video about what Varys really wants says, he's really Aegon Targaryen Bloodfyre, son of a female Bloodfyre, and Illyrio of Pentos and nephew of Varys. Dance of the Dragon, part 2, hints that Varys is not a eunuch.

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1 hour ago, SeanF said:

In fairness to Sansa, I don't think anyone apart from the Lannisters thought that marriage was valid.-

Again, trying to be fair to Sansa, if you truly believe that Northern independence is an objective moral good, you probably ought to be trying to bring down anybody who stands in its way, however distasteful that seems to a neutral observer.

Agree on the first point. As for the second point, I think being "fair" to any plot point on this show is shaky ground.

The show said morality is stupid, they had the Stark kids mocking their own father, who basically ran on the morality platform.

They didn't actually tell a story about morality, or what the North even wanted, in any coherent way. It was just a way of deflecting criticism for season 5.

Also I'll just add, the reason ranting is still fun is that GoT is the BAD EXAMPLE. So when you watch good things, it comes to mind. 

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1 minute ago, Le Cygne said:

Agree on the first point. As for the second point, one, I think being "fair" to any plot point on this show is shaky ground.

The show said morality is stupid, they had the Stark kids mocking their own father, who basically ran on the morality platform.

They didn't actually tell a story about morality, or what the North even wanted, in any coherent way. It was just a way of deflecting criticism for season 5.

Also I'll just add, the reason ranting is still fun is that GoT is the BAD EXAMPLE. So when you watch good things, it comes to mind.

That's true as well.  The whole show became riddled with inconsistencies. They wanted to advocate amorality, at the same time as trying to give the Stark siblings the moral high ground.  They thought they could square the circle by turning Daenerys into a cartoon villain of evil evilness, so that doing anything against her would seem justified - and viewers and critics just didn't buy it.

 

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11 minutes ago, Le Cygne said:

Agree on the first point. As for the second point, I think being "fair" to plot points on this show is shaky ground.

The show said morality is stupid, they had the Stark kids mocking their own father, who basically ran on the morality platform.

They didn't actually tell a story about morality, or what the North even wanted, in any coherent way. It was just a way of deflecting criticism for season 5.

Also I'll just add, the reason ranting is still fun is that GoT is the BAD EXAMPLE. So when you watch good things, it comes to mind.

TV!Daenerys agreed to march to Jon's aid before he bent the knee. There's no evidence that Deanerys accepted the knee or didn't regard the North as an independent kingdom. She always treated Jon as an equal.

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1 minute ago, tscchope said:

YV!Daenerys agreed to march to Jon's aid before he bent the knee. There's no evidence that Deanerys accepted the knee or didn't regard the North as an independent kingdom. She always treated Jon as an equal.

It's an enormous retcon.

Daenerys offered to march North, after she'd seen the Dead first hand.  Later Jon pledged fealty.  Daenerys even queried whether his people would accept it.  That was Season 7.

Season 8, angry Northern vassals are demanding to know why Jon bent the knee.  He says he did it because he needed military aid.  So, the conclusion is either:-

1. Jon is a liar, and willing to throw Daenerys under the bus.  That casts doubt on his love from her.

2. Jon is just stupid, and can't remember why he bent the knee, and doesn't understand how much resentment this causes to his vassals,

3.  The one I favour.  Bad writing.  The producers were relying on casual viewers forgetting what was established in the previous season.  It's one reason why I suspect the decision to vilify Daenerys was only taken after Season 7 had been filmed.

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6 minutes ago, SeanF said:

It's an enormous retcon.

Daenerys offered to march North, after she'd seen the Dead first hand.  Later Jon pledged fealty.  Daenerys even queried whether his people would accept it.  That was Season 7.

Season 8, angry Northern vassals are demanding to know why Jon bent the knee.  He says he did it because he needed military aid.  So, the conclusion is either:-

1. Jon is a liar, and willing to throw Daenerys under the bus.  That casts doubt on his love from her.

2. Jon is just stupid, and can't remember why he bent the knee, and doesn't understand how much resentment this causes to his vassals,

3.  The one I favour.  Bad writing.  The producers were relying on casual viewers forgetting what was established in the previous season.  It's one reason why I suspect the decision to vilify Daenerys was only taken after Season 7 had been filmed.

I think it shows that Daenerys knew the temper of the Northern Lords better than Jon. The Northern Lords forced the title on Jon. Naturally, he didn't want it. He didn't really have any support from the northern lords other than the Reeds. they could just as easily have unmade him. By bending the knee, he was securing Daenerys support for his rule as far as the northern lords were concerned..

Benioff and Weiss had decided Jon would kill Daenerys once they had no more books to adapt. They had planned to end the show with that Throne room scene. I suspect you are correct to suspect they realised they needed to vilify Daenerys as they were writing season 8. They kinda forgot that Daenerys had run into trouble in Slaver's Bay because she left a city too soon. She wouldn't have made that mistake again. They kinda forgot that Varys knows the secret ways into the Red Keep. She'd have taken King's Landing and executed Cersei before marching north.

I'm kind of surprised those independently minded northern lords didn't take Daenerys to task for 'forcing' Jon to bend the knee. of course, the showrunners couldn't show Daenerys being reasonable and not isolated. They kinda forgot that Daenerys had always been isolated, the lesson reinforced back in season 1, when Viserys, her brother, threw her under the bus and Khal Drogo to gain the his 100000 Dothraki.

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7 hours ago, SeanF said:

I think she had a certain cunning.  Revealing Jon's parentage to Tyrion was done to prompt a succession battle between Jon and Dany, and to drive a wedge between Dany and her advisors.  

When it was useful to them, for the moment. They screwed Jon over by making the story of the season Sansa vs. Dany. The season before, it was Sansa vs. Arya. They had a long history of this sort of thing.

Book Sansa knows how to BEHAVE. She'd have been horrified that THIS was supposed to be her!

Their Sandra monster was just a puppet to them, a plaything they used to move along their stupid plots. They all were, basically, but she's one they gutted and shamelessly used for a long time. Jaime is another.

You can't even follow the bouncing ball of their stupid plots, it drops with a thud, then is thrown into the stratosphere, often the very next scene or episode. There was no thought or consistency, the characters were just plot units.

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5 minutes ago, SeanF said:

3.  The one I favour.  Bad writing.  The producers were relying on casual viewers forgetting what was established in the previous season.  It's one reason why I suspect the decision to vilify Daenerys was only taken after Season 7 had been filmed.

Absolutely. And btw I don't buy for one second whatever they said in interviews (things like "we've known for three years that Bran would become the King"). 

At some point, still to be defined, they learned that Bran was to become King and that Daenerys would go mad; from then on they improvised, probably "between pear and cheese" as we say in French, meaning "between two events/when then they could find 5 minutes".

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6 minutes ago, Nowy Tends said:

Absolutely. And btw I don't buy for one second whatever they said in interviews (things like "we've known for three years that Bran would become the King"). 

At some point, still to be defined, they learned that Bran was to become King and that Daenerys would go mad; from then on they improvised, probably "between pear and cheese" as we say in French, meaning "between two events/when then they could find 5 minutes".

How do you go from saying - when the DVD for season 3 was released "she's a heroine, the good Targaryen" to claiming that you decided at that point that Jon would kill her?  Or from presenting her campaign in Slavers Bay as righteous, but imperfectly executed, to the beginning of her descent into evil via their mouthpiece Tyrion at the end?

How do you know when D & D are lying?  When they open their mouths.

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7 minutes ago, Nowy Tends said:

Absolutely. And btw I don't buy for one second whatever they said in interviews (things like "we've known for three years that Bran would become the King"). 

At some point, still to be defined, they learned that Bran was to become King and that Daenerys would go mad; from then on they improvised, probably "between pear and cheese" as we say in French, meaning "between two events/when then they could find 5 minutes".

Martin gave a fairly recent interview with a French magazine in which he said that Daenerys' coin landed good. Daenerys never went mad. We have Emilia Clarke stating she was never told that Daenerys would go mad. There's enough evidence to be confident and say Daenerys is not going mad. It does bring into question the veracity of anything Benioff and Weiss said Martin told them.

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1 hour ago, Nowy Tends said:

Absolutely. And btw I don't buy for one second whatever they said in interviews (things like "we've known for three years that Bran would become the King"). 

At some point, still to be defined, they learned that Bran was to become King and that Daenerys would go mad; from then on they improvised, probably "between pear and cheese" as we say in French, meaning "between two events/when then they could find 5 minutes".

I agree with your point, but just wanted to comment a bit on how much is a book plot.

They don't learn well.

I'm not so sure they were even told this. We have seen how they never get the book plot points, and never met one they didn't want to "improve" by doing the opposite and erasing all meaning.

Bran could be lord of Winterfell, not king of Westeros. Dany could make a well intentioned mistake that she regrets, and that's her downfall. We really don't know much, going by the show.

Also some more thoughts:

Maybe Dany chooses to fly away on Drogon in the end. Maybe Jon and Dany both decide it's best for Gendry to take the throne, and that accounts for his meaningless show plot.

Lots of bits and pieces of leftover plots all over the place they didn't know what to do with after they "improved" things, that were there but they left out where they really went.

And there's the interchangeable plot unit stuff going on, the missing Jon Con, fAegon, Arianne, Lady Stoneheart, were mixed in and mashed up by the bad learners.

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10 minutes ago, Le Cygne said:

I'm not so sure they were even told this. We have seen how they never get the book plot points, and never met one they didn't want to "improve" by doing the opposite and erasing all meaning.

Bran could be lord of Winterfell, not king of Westeros. Dany could make a well intentioned mistake that she regrets, and that's her downfall. We really don't know much, going by the show.

Holding a Great Council  would follow in Daenerys' character.It could have been a book plot point that was passed on. Do the Lords of Westeros want to continue as being ruled from the Iron Throne, in which case they need to elect a new ruler or do they want to dissolve the Iron Throne and revert to being 7 kingdoms, in which case Daenerys will have Drogon melt the Iron Throne?

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30 minutes ago, tscchope said:

Martin gave a fairly recent interview with a French magazine in which he said that Daenerys' coin landed good. Daenerys never went mad. We have Emilia Clarke stating she was never told that Daenerys would go mad. There's enough evidence to be confident and say Daenerys is not going mad. It does bring into question the veracity of anything Benioff and Weiss said Martin told them.

I think he was misquoted.  That said, I don't think you can read Daenerys' character arc, in good faith, and conclude that she is a villain protagonist.  One has to attribute every seeming act of goodness to base motives, and every mistake to malevolent intentions, in order to come to that pre-ordained conclusion.

Possibly an anti-heroine;  a tragic heroine;  a heroic failure, but certainly not a villain.

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3 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I think he was misquoted.  That said, I don't think you can read Daenerys' character arc, in good faith, and conclude that she is a villain protagonist.  One has to attribute every seeming act of goodness to base motives, and every mistake to malevolent intentions, in order to come to that pre-ordained conclusion.

Possibly an anti-heroine;  a tragic heroine;  a heroic failure, but certainly not a villain.

There's a statement on this website stating that Martin said that and that the debate over the matter is ended. 

I certainly wouldn't want my House motto, if I had one,to be 'I will have what is mine in Fire and Blood'. It's easy to see why Targaryens fall into madness with that motto. It certainly makes them more ruthless than any situation may demand. 

Martin, as the season 3 DVD makes clear, writes Daenerys as a heroine who is not infallible and is inclined to be ruthless. Deanerys has learnt the lesson that people have to want you to rule. If she does go to Westeros to reclaim what is hers, what of the people of Dragon's Bay who want her to stay and rule them or the Dothraki over whom she rules?

As lots of you have posted, Daenerys is seen as a foreign ruler without any popular support.  So why would she want to stay? With a nephew as husband who has made clear he doesn't want her? She's good more than enough on her plate in Essos to stay in Westeros.  In the TV show she has no reason to stay and no army to back her up. She and one dragon can't be everywhere at once. her triumph is pyyrhic. She'd be the heroic failure that you picture, I suppose, if having to destroy your capital city is viewed as heroic.

The TV show doesn't leave her as anything other than a villain. Which is why we're here ranting about what Benioff and Weiss did. Instead of giving Cersei the villan's death, she was unceremoniously shunted unceremoniously aside and Daenerys takes the knife. The ending unravelled Benioff and Weiss. It meant people went back over everything that had gone before on the show. Dave Hiill's 8.1 commentary that they went back and watched every episode before writing season 8 to see what plot lines they needed to  tie off is exposed as untrue, because nothing in season 8, except for the mishandhled non-book story of the Night King, ties off what has gone before.

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3 hours ago, tscchope said:

In the books, Sansa is learning statecraft from Baelish, who regards her as his daughter. The idea that they would later be in conflict is pretty stupid

Erhm, no. Littlefinger doesn’t see Sansa as a daughter, he only tells her that; huge difference. In reality, he sees her as Cat 2.0, and he will try his best to have a different outcome w/ Sansa than he did w/ Cat. 

And they will most definitely be in conflict, and fingers crossed, she either kills the disgusting creep herself or plays a major part in his demise. 

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