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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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11 hours ago, Count Balerion said:

It was very weird how Cersei somehow became Dany's equal. The Lannisters took Highgarden in a walk, ostensibly because the Tyrells are rubbish from a military point of view, and really because plot, because Benioff.

While we're on the subject of Highgarden, am I remembering correctly that it was essentially a rather arid-looking plain? Not much in the way of ... garden? (Not that that's on a level with basic problems of plot and characterisation.) And apparently the plain of Highgarden turned into the desert of KL in season 8. In other words, they just took a photo of HG, jazzed it up a bit, and voila': KL.

In Season 6, we were informed that the Tyrells had the largest army in Seven Kingdoms.  Granted, Tarly would have taken some of them with him when he defected, but they should still have thousands of men at Highgarden.  Also, in earlier Seasons, although the main branch of the family comprised Olenna, Mace, Margaery, and Loras, there were plenty of Tyrell cousins (as per the books) who just kinda disappeared.  One of those cousins ought to have inherited Highgarden.

But, the whole thing was stupid.  Whatever misgivings they might have had about Daenerys, the entirety of the Reach would have turned against Cersei, after the stunt she pulled in the Great Sept.  Along with every Septon and Septa in the Seven Kingdoms.

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6 hours ago, Count Balerion said:

And: apparently a book on GOT is coming out shortly. It's by James Hibberd, who iirc was the chap who ran a forum on GOT in which no questions were allowed. The Dragon Chap posted on it in reddit.

(I don't know anyone in that reddit, at least by name, and I don't know how wise it is for the Dragon to call everyone in there "has-been kneelers", in terms of persuading them to do something. But that's by the way.)

 

Not a purchase that I shall be making.

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9 hours ago, SeanF said:

In Season 6, we were informed that the Tyrells had the largest army in Seven Kingdoms.  Granted, Tarly would have taken some of them with him when he defected, but they should still have thousands of men at Highgarden.  Also, in earlier Seasons, although the main branch of the family comprised Olenna, Mace, Margaery, and Loras, there were plenty of Tyrell cousins (as per the books) who just kinda disappeared.  One of those cousins ought to have inherited Highgarden.

But, the whole thing was stupid.  Whatever misgivings they might have had about Daenerys, the entirety of the Reach would have turned against Cersei, after the stunt she pulled in the Great Sept.  Along with every Septon and Septa in the Seven Kingdoms.

Plus they'd have connections to two other houses in the Reach with considerable resources of their own: Mace's wife was a Hightower (and they controlled Oldtown) and Olenna was a Redwyne by birth; they could have called on both those houses at the very least due to blood ties and it was strange how none of those houses protested Bronn getting Highgarden; even in the books House Tyrell's hold on the Reach was tenuous and with their fall, you'd expect other houses to try scrambling for Highgarden.

Plus we don't see how the Faith reacted to an avatar of the Old Gods being their King at the end of the series.

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Ran across another stupid thing they said, this time about "Sansa" smirking after feeding a man to dogs: "This isn’t the little girl who wanted to dress up like a princess anymore.”

They said in the script she wanted to skin Ramsay alive.

They made her say she wished she could torture Theon, then threw them together because she's a victim, too. She was their prop.

The whole plot was so insulting and brain dead, etc. All the nasty things they made her do, like thanking sex traffickers and rapists, etc.

But my god, what is wrong with pretty clothes. Those horrible Romulan uniforms they made them wear. Stripped of every bit of softness.

They knocked the shit out of her, to punish her. They punished her for not appreciating their boy Tyrion, and also for being soft.

Even her courtesy, that she was so proud of, a big part of who she was and how she related to others, was replaced with rudeness.

They defined her by what they did to her body, that's all she was to them, a body to throw into various inconsistent skits, emote and move on.

They mocked her, calling it "Romance Dies" and giving Ramsay Bolton the power to take away her dreams of happiness forever (which they did).

No romance for you. Swap your sewing needle for a mini needle sword that doesn't even belong to you. No pretty dresses for you.

Their contempt for women is all over the place, it's dripping from everything they say. One could mine misogyny from their drivel for years.

Benioff, Weiss, and Cogman are terrible writers... and it's all over the place.

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1 hour ago, Le Cygne said:

Ran across another stupid thing they said, this time about "Sansa" smirking after feeding a man to dogs: "This isn’t the little girl who wanted to dress up like a princess anymore.”

They said in the script she wanted to skin Ramsay alive.

They made her say she wished she could torture Theon, then threw them together because she's a victim, too. She was their prop.

The whole plot was so insulting and brain dead, etc. All the nasty things they made her do, like thanking sex traffickers and rapists, etc.

But my god, what is wrong with pretty clothes. Those horrible Romulan uniforms they made them wear. Stripped of every bit of softness.

They knocked the shit out of her, to punish her. They punished her for not appreciating their boy Tyrion, and also for being soft.

Even her courtesy, that she was so proud of, a big part of who she was and how she related to others, was replaced with rudeness.

They defined her by what they did her body, that's all she was to them, a body to throw into various inconsistent skits, emote and move on.

They mocked her, calling it "Romance Dies" giving Ramsay Bolton the power to take away her dreams of happiness forever (which they did).

No romance for you. Swap your sewing needle for a mini needle sword that doesn't even belong to you. No pretty dresses for you.

Their contempt for women is all over the place, it's dripping from everything they say. One could mine misogyny from their drivel for years.

Benioff, Weiss, and Cogman are terrible writers... and it's all over the place.

Well romance seems to be on the rocks (and I don't mean ice, Who Framed Roger Rabbit reference) for her in the books as well. She's accepted that with the whole "No one will ever marry me for love." And considering that she's resorted to dreaming up romantic moments...

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Another good one:

We are not meant to do much questioning about the moral calculus of any of this. The show moves on to become a Seinfeld-ian buddy comedy in part to telegraph that. It makes Bran the effective winner of its “game”—and treats his new reign as a victory—to telegraph that. You might still be horrified about the charred bodies and the nameless victims—but, the show suggests, do not fret. Things are better now. We know that because characters who survived the Battle of Winterfell and the genocide of King’s Landing are now making jokes about brothels.

Anger is the emotion of oppression. It is the emotion of those who chafe against injustice. It is the emotion of the many, many people, in Westeros and beyond, who cannot afford to treat the game of thrones as merely a game. Game of Thrones has had, in the final estimation, a terrible relationship with its (extremely few) characters of color, and a deeply fraught relationship with its women, and here is one more way that its failures are plain: The show puts those characters in situations in which rage is the only reasonable response and then doesn’t know what to do with their anger. It takes Sansa’s rage and then stifles it by deciding that she must be grateful to have been raped and abused. It takes Brienne’s rage and assumes she’ll put it to use as an editor of Jaime’s Wikipedia page. It takes Grey Worm’s rage and uses it as a plot device to return Jon to Castle Black. It takes the Dothrakis’ rage, and … forgets about it entirely. Game of Thrones likes to talk about broken wheels, but in the end, it mistrusts the human emotion that has been, in our own universe as well as in the known world, most directly responsible for doing the breaking. It sees anger from the perspective of the entrenched and the powerful: as an inconvenience. As a threat. As a justification for paternalism. If chaos is a ladder, the ability to situate oneself above the fray is a profound privilege.

Which brings us back, circularities being what they are, to Bran. You could read his instatement as evidence that he has been evil the whole time, plotting it all; you could read it, too, as confirmation that his particular role in the massacre of King’s Landing—his complacency, his complicity, his apparent decision to let destiny takes its course—will go not merely unpunished, but in fact rewarded. You could read it as a failure of imagination, since Bran, though “elected” by a committee, is also just what the rulers of Westeros have long been: white and male and in possession of the correct chromosomes. (In the end, no wheels were harmed in the making of this show.) What the Bran-as-ruler development mostly is, though, is Game of Thrones’ final rebuke of anger: Bran’s apparent inability to feel emotion—anger, joy, empathy, anything at all, it would seem—is treated, ultimately, as a gift to the citizens of Westeros. To be outraged is to be compromised, suggests the show that has so often failed the angry and the marginalized; wisdom is what happens when, surveying the horrors all around you, you are capable of looking away.

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/05/game-thrones-dany-bran-and-rebuke-anger/589840/

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6 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

Another good one:

We are not meant to do much questioning about the moral calculus of any of this. The show moves on to become a Seinfeld-ian buddy comedy in part to telegraph that. It makes Bran the effective winner of its “game”—and treats his new reign as a victory—to telegraph that. You might still be horrified about the charred bodies and the nameless victims—but, the show suggests, do not fret. Things are better now. We know that because characters who survived the Battle of Winterfell and the genocide of King’s Landing are now making jokes about brothels.

Anger is the emotion of oppression. It is the emotion of those who chafe against injustice. It is the emotion of the many, many people, in Westeros and beyond, who cannot afford to treat the game of thrones as merely a game. Game of Thrones has had, in the final estimation, a terrible relationship with its (extremely few) characters of color, and a deeply fraught relationship with its women, and here is one more way that its failures are plain: The show puts those characters in situations in which rage is the only reasonable response and then doesn’t know what to do with their anger. It takes Sansa’s rage and then stifles it by deciding that she must be grateful to have been raped and abused. It takes Brienne’s rage and assumes she’ll put it to use as an editor of Jaime’s Wikipedia page. It takes Grey Worm’s rage and uses it as a plot device to return Jon to Castle Black. It takes the Dothrakis’ rage, and … forgets about it entirely. Game of Thrones likes to talk about broken wheels, but in the end, it mistrusts the human emotion that has been, in our own universe as well as in the known world, most directly responsible for doing the breaking. It sees anger from the perspective of the entrenched and the powerful: as an inconvenience. As a threat. As a justification for paternalism. If chaos is a ladder, the ability to situate oneself above the fray is a profound privilege.

Which brings us back, circularities being what they are, to Bran. You could read his instatement as evidence that he has been evil the whole time, plotting it all; you could read it, too, as confirmation that his particular role in the massacre of King’s Landing—his complacency, his complicity, his apparent decision to let destiny takes its course—will go not merely unpunished, but in fact rewarded. You could read it as a failure of imagination, since Bran, though “elected” by a committee, is also just what the rulers of Westeros have long been: white and male and in possession of the correct chromosomes. (In the end, no wheels were harmed in the making of this show.) What the Bran-as-ruler development mostly is, though, is Game of Thrones’ final rebuke of anger: Bran’s apparent inability to feel emotion—anger, joy, empathy, anything at all, it would seem—is treated, ultimately, as a gift to the citizens of Westeros. To be outraged is to be compromised, suggests the show that has so often failed the angry and the marginalized; wisdom is what happens when, surveying the horrors all around you, you are capable of looking away.

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/05/game-thrones-dany-bran-and-rebuke-anger/589840/

Through Tyrion's "evil men" speech, Benioff & Weiss argued that inaction in the face of injustice is the morally correct course.  That is their political outlook.

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5 hours ago, SeanF said:

Through Tyrion's "evil men" speech, Benioff & Weiss argued that inaction in the face of injustice is the morally correct course.  That is their political outlook.

Oh absolutely. They like the status quo because it benefited them just fine.

Like the article said, we aren't meant to question the moral calculus of any of this. When you stop and think about things Benioff/Weiss/Cogman wrote, their outlook is downright disturbing.

The source material is questioning things all over the place, as it should, and it's not shaming women for having dreams of love or men for striving to be honorable, because that's just hateful.

The show is disturbing on first viewing, but there were so many deliberate distractions.

They would throw something nutty at a character then make no sense of it, so the audience would try to do so. But then in the next scene, there was another nutty thing, so that messed up the story the audience came up with.

In the end, it wasn't possible to do this anymore.

Everyone wants to forget, because it was crappy, but also because the more you think about it, the worse it gets.

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2 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

Oh absolutely. They like the status quo because it benefited them just fine.

Like the article said, we aren't meant to question the moral calculus of any of this. When you stop and think about things Benioff/Weiss/Cogman wrote, their outlook is downright disturbing.

The source material is questioning things all over the place, as it should, and it's not shaming women for having dreams of love or men for striving to be honorable, because that's just hateful.

The show is disturbing on first viewing, but there were so many deliberate distractions.

They would throw something nutty at a character then make no sense of it, so the audience would try to do so. But then in the next scene, there was another nutty thing, so that messed up the story the audience came up with.

In the end, it wasn't possible to do this anymore.

Everyone wants to forget, because it was crappy, but also because the more you think about it, the worse it gets.

Sure.  Martin says that while the average nobleman might not regard Shae's death as a big deal, it was Tyrion's worst act.

Benioff & Weiss take much the same view of it as a Westerosi nobleman would.

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20 hours ago, SeanF said:

Sure.  Martin says that while the average nobleman might not regard Shae's death as a big deal, it was Tyrion's worst act.

Benioff & Weiss take much the same view of it as a Westerosi nobleman would.

Yeah, Benioff & Weiss & Cogman made this guy their hero:

Shae: Chains?

Tyrion: Solid gold from the mines outside Lannisport. Smithed in Casterly Rock. Golden chains. You could buy a ship with these....

Shae: So, am I invited to your wedding?

Tyrion: I didn't ask for this marriage. I didn't want it... My father--

Shae: Does not rule the world. We can still go across the Narrow Sea.

Tyrion: What would I do there? Juggle? I am a Lannister of Casterly Rock.

Shae: And I'm Shae the funny whore.

Who wouldn't kidnap a disadvantaged woman then place her in mortal danger for his own convenience then forcibly marry a traumatized hostage instead, when he had a boatload of gold in hand and could have saved them both. And then when the hostage rejected him, offer to pay someone with her family home, then when the prostitute rejected him, murder her, then talk someone else into murdering yet another woman who rejected him, to crown someone who would let him effectively be king. And of course inherit the estate of the father he murdered. Then joke about more traumatized disadvantaged women with his buddy, because he's a Lannister and whores are funny.

This is clearly the hero of the piece.

Here's that quote again:

With Shae, it’s a much more deliberate and in some ways a crueler thing. It’s not the action of a second, because he’s strangling her slowly and she’s fighting, trying to get free. He could let go at any time. But his anger and his sense of betrayal is so strong that he doesn’t stop until it’s done and that’s probably the blackest deed that he’s ever done. It’s the great crime of his soul along with what he did with his first wife by abandoning her after the little demonstration Lord Tywin put on. Now by the standards of Westeros, that’s hardly a crime at all — “So a lord killed a whore, big deal.” He’s not likely to be punished for that any more than any other lords and knights who treat lowborn women and prostitutes and tavern wenches with contempt and use them and discard them. It’s nothing to the world, but it’s again something that’s going to haunt him, while the act of killing his father is something of enormous consequence that would be forever beyond the pale, for no man is as cursed as a kinslayer.

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1 hour ago, Le Cygne said:

Yeah, Benioff & Weiss & Cogman made this guy their hero:

Shae: Chains?

Tyrion: Solid gold from the mines outside Lannisport. Smithed in Casterly Rock. Golden chains. You could buy a ship with these....

Shae: So, am I invited to your wedding?

Tyrion: I didn't ask for this marriage. I didn't want it... My father--

Shae: Does not rule the world. We can still go across the Narrow Sea.

Tyrion: What would I do there? Juggle? I am a Lannister of Casterly Rock.

Shae: And I'm Shae the funny whore.

Who wouldn't kidnap a disadvantaged woman then place her in mortal danger for his own convenience then forcibly marry a traumatized hostage instead, when he had a boatload of gold in hand and could have saved them both. And then when the hostage rejected him, offer to pay someone with her family home, then when the prostitute rejected him, murder her, then talk someone else into murdering yet another woman who rejected him, to crown someone who would let him effectively be king. And of course inherit the estate of the father he murdered. Then joke about more traumatized disadvantaged women with his buddy, because he's a Lannister and whores are funny.

This is clearly the hero of the piece.

Here's that quote again:

With Shae, it’s a much more deliberate and in some ways a crueler thing. It’s not the action of a second, because he’s strangling her slowly and she’s fighting, trying to get free. He could let go at any time. But his anger and his sense of betrayal is so strong that he doesn’t stop until it’s done and that’s probably the blackest deed that he’s ever done. It’s the great crime of his soul along with what he did with his first wife by abandoning her after the little demonstration Lord Tywin put on. Now by the standards of Westeros, that’s hardly a crime at all — “So a lord killed a whore, big deal.” He’s not likely to be punished for that any more than any other lords and knights who treat lowborn women and prostitutes and tavern wenches with contempt and use them and discard them. It’s nothing to the world, but it’s again something that’s going to haunt him, while the act of killing his father is something of enormous consequence that would be forever beyond the pale, for no man is as cursed as a kinslayer.

When put like that, you realise that they didn't succeed in whitewashing him.

In my head canon, so many good things happen to Tyrion, post Season 8.  Like having his throat opened by an agent of Grey Worm's, in a brothel.  Or captured by Yara Greyjoy on the high seas, and subjected to the Punishment of the Sack.  

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Yikes! Though to be fair to show-Tyrion, I get the feeling he's too stupid to do all that deliberately. Although ... when he strangles Shae, I think he still has his brains. Either they fell out on the way to Essos, or he got replaced by his stupid twin Morion. Or perhaps Shae sucked them out with her mental suction powers before dying. Which would  be pretty cool.

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On 8/1/2020 at 11:26 PM, Le Cygne said:

Ran across another stupid thing they said, this time about "Sansa" smirking after feeding a man to dogs: "This isn’t the little girl who wanted to dress up like a princess anymore.”

They said in the script she wanted to skin Ramsay alive.

They made her say she wished she could torture Theon, then threw them together because she's a victim, too. She was their prop.

The whole plot was so insulting and brain dead, etc. All the nasty things they made her do, like thanking sex traffickers and rapists, etc.

But my god, what is wrong with pretty clothes. Those horrible Romulan uniforms they made them wear. Stripped of every bit of softness.

They knocked the shit out of her, to punish her. They punished her for not appreciating their boy Tyrion, and also for being soft.

Even her courtesy, that she was so proud of, a big part of who she was and how she related to others, was replaced with rudeness.

They defined her by what they did to her body, that's all she was to them, a body to throw into various inconsistent skits, emote and move on.

They mocked her, calling it "Romance Dies" and giving Ramsay Bolton the power to take away her dreams of happiness forever (which they did).

No romance for you. Swap your sewing needle for a mini needle sword that doesn't even belong to you. No pretty dresses for you.

Their contempt for women is all over the place, it's dripping from everything they say. One could mine misogyny from their drivel for years.

Benioff, Weiss, and Cogman are terrible writers... and it's all over the place.

None of us will forget classics like

"Play with her arse"

Naked Ros being shot full or arrows

"I'm going to fuck the tits off this one"

Happy sex slaves

and of course, Sansa's and Dany's rapes, and the manly and heroic murders of Shae and Dany.  The aesthetic of the latter, in particular, seems to have been taken from one of those disturbing 19th century paintings, in which women in various states of nudity are being martyred by pagans, carried off by barbarians, or tortured by the inquisition.

I'm quite sure that if Sansa's rape had not generated such an adverse reaction, they'd have had the Dothraki raping Daenerys at the start of Season 6.

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7 hours ago, SeanF said:

None of us will forget classics like

"Play with her arse"

Naked Ros being shot full or arrows

"I'm going to fuck the tits off this one"

Happy sex slaves

and of course, Sansa's and Dany's rapes, and the manly and heroic murders of Shae and Dany.  The aesthetic of the latter, in particular, seems to have been taken from one of those disturbing 19th century paintings, in which women in various states of nudity are being martyred by pagans, carried off by barbarians, or tortured by the inquisition.

I'm quite sure that if Sansa's rape had not generated such an adverse reaction, they'd have had the Dothraki raping Daenerys at the start of Season 6.

You forgot the classy “bad pussy”.  Maybe you deleted it from your brain? I certainly would have liked to delete it form mine. :ack:

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27 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

You forgot the classy “bad pussy”.  Maybe you deleted it from your brain? I certainly would have liked to delete it form mine. :ack:

I have only vaguest recollection of Porne, fortunately.

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1 hour ago, kissdbyfire said:

You forgot the classy “bad pussy”.  Maybe you deleted it from your brain? I certainly would have liked to delete it form mine. :ack:

Something strange about that episode: didn’t it get nominated for best writing?...

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21 hours ago, SeanF said:

None of us will forget classics like

"Play with her arse"

Naked Ros being shot full or arrows

"I'm going to fuck the tits off this one"

Happy sex slaves

and of course, Sansa's and Dany's rapes, and the manly and heroic murders of Shae and Dany.  The aesthetic of the latter, in particular, seems to have been taken from one of those disturbing 19th century paintings, in which women in various states of nudity are being martyred by pagans, carried off by barbarians, or tortured by the inquisition.

I'm quite sure that if Sansa's rape had not generated such an adverse reaction, they'd have had the Dothraki raping Daenerys at the start of Season 6.

Oh yes, that's it exactly! They aren't just modern day misogynists, they go back to the dark ages.

And yes, they were surely setting Dany up for that, which was such a contrast to the books, where she's in a position of strength.

She's been to hell and back, and gains self-knowledge, and she stands with her dragon to face them.

So what do they do? Have her drop a ring so she can be rescued by Mutt and Jeff. And put Drogon out of commission.

They never seemed to get what is running throughout the books, the connection of a character to an animal, and what it says about them.

The audience would have loved this. I mean, yawn that they made them pets. Nobody watches a medieval fantasy expecting the Puppy Bowl.

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