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 Dragon Demands]

yeah

[The Dragon Demands]

yeah

[SeanF]

15 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

LOL. right?  In the uproar about Dany's 20 minute turn from hero to villain everyone forgot about the abject stupidity of these two ruthless pragmatists who had been killing people for years in pursuit of their goals with barely even a sad face for the collateral damage to innocent bystanders, suddenly, Tyrion can't stand the idea of a sack of KL and Varys is so worried for the smallfolk he decides to poison Dany...before she's even done anything ON PAR, mind, not 'worse' but 'the same' as Tywin 'lawful neutral' Lannister.  Until her KL freakout, she had killed no children, had taken pains to help the smallfolk, and only really vented her rage on her enemies, people who had sworn to kill her. [Note that I don't find her actions to be laudable or excusable, or that she was/is a good ruler with the necessary good judgement......but she was certainly no worse and many respects much less harsh than Tywin or Roose Bolton]

WRT Tywin, there is an extra level of spite and cruelty about the man, but he probably would not have been much more brutal than the average European or Asian commander, up till about 1850 or so.  People like Stannis or Daenerys would have been considerably less brutal than the average.

I'm doing an MA on the Peninsular War.  On the French side, mass executions of civilians, use of civilians as human shields, the sack and burning of towns and villages, the use of torture, widespread rape, the use of starvation as a military tactic, were pretty much standard operating practice.  Naturally, the Spanish responded in kind (French soldiers really should have kept a bullet for themselves, rather than fall into the hands of partisans).  The British were more restrained but were still pretty brutal;  Wellington's scorched earth strategies in Portugal cost thousands of lives, and his army carried out a couple of very nasty sackings.  

War is ugly, and always will be.  The problem with the two D's is that they glorified it, and various acts of cruelty, or deplored it, simply to suit the needs of the plot at any one point.

[Lord Varys]

@The Dragon Demands:

Not sure about all the psychological motivation there, but you are right that Benioff seems to have childishly used characters to make them about himself or views of himself rather than, you know, adapt the plot/characters of the story he was allegedly adapting.

You can see stuff like that even back in the pilot where they have this talk about 'the runt of the litter' in relation to Jon taking Ghost ... a phrase Benioff apparently also used to describe himself. If you check the chapter then Jon taking Ghost is not a moment of ridicule and humiliation for him, but rather a moment of eerie and ominous empowerment for him.

I always wondered why they would ruin that particular scene that way, but it seems that was just Benioff trying to make Jon Snow about himself rather than the character.

3 hours ago, SeanF said:

WRT Tywin, there is an extra level of spite and cruelty about the man, but he probably would not have been much more brutal than the average European or Asian commander, up till about 1850 or so.  People like Stannis or Daenerys would have been considerably less brutal than the average.

War is ugly, and always will be.  The problem with the two D's is that they glorified it, and various acts of cruelty, or deplored it, simply to suit the needs of the plot at any one point.

Those simple facts make it pretty much impossible that George will have a plot where reasonably limited violence - like the sacking of a city - is going to be an important plot point in his story in relation to a character's moral standing. I mean, does anybody expect Stannis is going to spare any Boltons and Freys if he were to win at Winterfell? He will hang or burn a lot of people there if he wins even if the men there yield the castle.

If we get another wildfire plan plot - meaning the deliberate murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent people which isn't part of a reasonable strategy to win or end a war - then this might be a way to mark a character as 'a villain'.

The same would go for insidious betrayal like the Red Wedding where lots of innocents are killed. But calculating assassinations like Renly's or Joffrey's murder are clearly not seen as that bad by the author.

But just sacking cities is not going to cause anybody to raise an eyebrow in George's world.

[SeanF]

34 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

@The Dragon Demands:

 

Those simple facts make it pretty much impossible that George will have a plot where reasonably limited violence - like the sacking of a city - is going to be an important plot point in his story in relation to a character's moral standing. I mean, does anybody expect Stannis is going to spare any Boltons and Freys if he were to win at Winterfell? He will hang or burn a lot of people there if he wins even if the men there yield the castle.

If we get another wildfire plan plot - meaning the deliberate murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent people which isn't part of a reasonable strategy to win or end a war - then this might be a way to mark a character as 'a villain'.

The same would go for insidious betrayal like the Red Wedding where lots of innocents are killed. But calculating assassinations like Renly's or Joffrey's murder are clearly not seen as that bad by the author.

But just sacking cities is not going to cause anybody to raise an eyebrow in George's world.

"Villain" in this world, means either sacking a city under the guise of saving it - as per Tywin at Kings Landing - or probably something on the scale of Genghis Khan at Nishapur or Hulagu Khan at Baghdad.

 

[Angel Eyes]

4 hours ago, SeanF said:

WRT Tywin, there is an extra level of spite and cruelty about the man, but he probably would not have been much more brutal than the average European or Asian commander, up till about 1850 or so.  People like Stannis or Daenerys would have been considerably less brutal than the average.

I'm doing an MA on the Peninsular War.  On the French side, mass executions of civilians, use of civilians as human shields, the sack and burning of towns and villages, the use of torture, widespread rape, the use of starvation as a military tactic, were pretty much standard operating practice.  Naturally, the Spanish responded in kind (French soldiers really should have kept a bullet for themselves, rather than fall into the hands of partisans).  The British were more restrained but were still pretty brutal;  Wellington's scorched earth strategies in Portugal cost thousands of lives, and his army carried out a couple of very nasty sackings.  

War is ugly, and always will be.  The problem with the two D's is that they glorified it, and various acts of cruelty, or deplored it, simply to suit the needs of the plot at any one point.

Funny connection to Game of Thrones: two of those sackings involving Wellington actually appear in the Sharpe series episode "Sharpe's Company" starring Sean Bean (Ned Stark). In one of these he's trying to rescue his wife and daughter because they're in Badajoz and would likely be killed in the rape, pillage, and burn that would follow.

[SeanF]

13 minutes ago, Angel Eyes said:

Funny connection to Game of Thrones: two of those sackings involving Wellington actually appear in the Sharpe series episode "Sharpe's Company" starring Sean Bean (Ned Stark). In one of these he's trying to rescue his wife and daughter because they're in Badajoz and would likely be killed in the rape, pillage, and burn that would follow.

Quite so.

At Badajoz, 4,500 soldiers were killed or injured fighting their way through a large hole.  There was no way that a sack could have been prevented at the end of it.   Wellington certainly tried harder than most contemporary commanders to prevent atrocities against civilians, but he knew he had no chance here.

[Angel Eyes]

1 minute ago, SeanF said:

Quite so.

At Badajoz, 4,500 soldiers were killed or injured fighting their way through a large hole.  There was no way that a sack could have been prevented at the end of it.   Wellington certainly tried harder than most contemporary commanders to prevent atrocities against civilians, but he knew he had no chance here.

Also, unfortunately the events of The Bells were to be expected to some extent.

• Accidentally Correct Writing: While portrayed as horrific to both modern viewers and In-Universe Westerosi witnesses, Daenerys and her army targeting civilians during the siege of King's Landing is quite accurate to siege warfare in the medieval era. When Daenerys mentions that the people of King's Landing did not turn against Cersei and as such count as legitimate targets, this is consistent to the norms of warfare observed in the Pre-Geneva Code days. It was widely agreed that if a defending city had rejected all offers of surrender before the breach of the city, then quarter would be denied, and the whole city would be made examples of. ^Source  "While medieval law made a distinction between combatants and civilian in combat this was not the case in siege of a city that refused to surrender...Responsibility was shifted to the defender for the ‘harm befalling non-combatants as a result of a siege – starvation, bombardment, sack—was understood as incidental effects of warfare’ ... Sieges in the medieval period began typically when a herald went forward and demanded that a town or city surrendered. If this was accepted it was expected that the inhabitants would be protected. If the population refused ‘this was regarded by the besieging lord as treason’ and all rights were revoked...Quarter was denied to all who had failed to surrender under the proper conditions."
  — Leonard F. Taylor, There Shall Be Survivors: The Prohibition of the Denial of Quarter in International Law

[SeanF]

18 minutes ago, Angel Eyes said:

Also, unfortunately the events of The Bells were to be expected to some extent.

• Accidentally Correct Writing: While portrayed as horrific to both modern viewers and In-Universe Westerosi witnesses, Daenerys and her army targeting civilians during the siege of King's Landing is quite accurate to siege warfare in the medieval era. When Daenerys mentions that the people of King's Landing did not turn against Cersei and as such count as legitimate targets, this is consistent to the norms of warfare observed in the Pre-Geneva Code days. It was widely agreed that if a defending city had rejected all offers of surrender before the breach of the city, then quarter would be denied, and the whole city would be made examples of. ^Source  "While medieval law made a distinction between combatants and civilian in combat this was not the case in siege of a city that refused to surrender...Responsibility was shifted to the defender for the ‘harm befalling non-combatants as a result of a siege – starvation, bombardment, sack—was understood as incidental effects of warfare’ ... Sieges in the medieval period began typically when a herald went forward and demanded that a town or city surrendered. If this was accepted it was expected that the inhabitants would be protected. If the population refused ‘this was regarded by the besieging lord as treason’ and all rights were revoked...Quarter was denied to all who had failed to surrender under the proper conditions."
  — Leonard F. Taylor, There Shall Be Survivors: The Prohibition of the Denial of Quarter in International Law

The sack on the ground, if not the burning from the air, was to be expected.  There's no way that either Daenerys' forces, or the Northmen would be interested in taking prisoners, if they had marched a thousand miles, only to be given a fight.  Executing a close friend of the attacking commander, in response to an offer to surrender, would be a massive provocation, and the Northern soldiers would already have much to avenge - the death of Ned and his retainers, Sansa's abuse, the Red Wedding, and then being left in the lurch to fight the Dead.

There's nothing actually wrong (in terms of period typical violence) in either the Sack, of the proposal to starve the inhabitants to death.  What's very wrong, in narrative terms, is trying to pin all the blame on Daenerys when nobody among the attackers had clean hands, and trying to frame mass starvation as a "humane" alternative to taking the city by storm.  Framed with nuance, it could indeed have shown that even the "good guys" can do terrible things in war.

Presumably, it Tywin had been leading the attackers, D & D would have portrayed the Sack as Lawful Neutral.

[Angel Eyes]

17 minutes ago, SeanF said:

The sack on the ground, if not the burning from the air, was to be expected.  There's no way that either Daenerys' forces, or the Northmen would be interested in taking prisoners, if they had marched a thousand miles, only to be given a fight.  Executing a close friend of the attacking commander, in response to an offer to surrender, would be a massive provocation, and the Northern soldiers would already have much to avenge - the death of Ned and his retainers, Sansa's abuse, the Red Wedding, and then being left in the lurch to fight the Dead.

There's nothing actually wrong (in terms of period typical violence) in either the Sack, of the proposal to starve the inhabitants to death.  What's very wrong, in narrative terms, is trying to pin all the blame on Daenerys when nobody among the attackers had clean hands, and trying to frame mass starvation as a "humane" alternative to taking the city by storm.  Framed with nuance, it could indeed have shown that even the "good guys" can do terrible things in war.

Presumably, it Tywin had been leading the attackers, D & D would have portrayed the Sack as Lawful Neutral.

Well, at least the Long Night was treated as everyone's failure in regards to tactics.

[Ghostlydragon]

20 hours ago, Angel Eyes said:

What were other options regarding tactics other than a siege?

This has come up so many times.

Burn down the red keep.

Burn down the city gates and storm the city.

Have Davos smuggle 20 good men into a side or back entrance and just kill Cersei and her bodyguards.

Or better yet, surround the city gates with her forces and demand they  surrender the city and send Cersei out for execution with promises that nobody will be harmed.

That last one would be the easiest way with no harm to civilians.

[Le Cygne]

More for the GoT is the bad example file:

The 100 Series Finale Pulled a Game of Thrones and I’m Still Laughing

The Game of Thrones finale has quickly become synonymous with missing the landing harder than a drunk gymnast on the vault so here we are, comparing the two after The 100 had an absolutely wild finale that I cannot get over...

For years in genre criticism, we’ve associated shows where anyone can die with quality... Game of Thrones’ entire shtick in the public discourse revolved around this. Death equals quality. Then The 100 killed Lincoln and Lexa back to back and the fandom rioted.

Game of Thrones probably should have taken note, because way back in 2016 The 100 discovered there were limits to the death audiences could endure. When Game of Thrones started murdering its way through its cast list in its final season like my dog through an all-beef-and-peanut-butter buffet, its viewers felt discomfort and then horror and then gave up on the show, salted the Earth, and seemed to never discuss it again...

https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2020/10/the-100-series-finale-pulled-a-game-of-thrones-and-im-still-laughing/

[ThotKiller]

From hibberd's book 

Quote

GEORGE R. R. MARTIN: There are a couple of stories. As a wedding gift, Khal Drogo gives Daenerys a silver horse and she rides away. For a moment you think she’s fleeing. Then she turns the horse around and leaps the horse over a big campfire. Drogo is very impressed, and it starts the relationship on a good note. We tried to film this scene. We got a top stunt rider and a top horse, a silver filly, but the filly would not jump that campfire. She got close and then was like, “There’s fire there!” and would turn the other way. We tried to film it a half dozen ways. So [director Tom McCarthy] goes, “Put out the fire and we’ll do the fire with CGI.” They put out the fire and the horse would still not jump the dead fire. It’s a smart horse. It knows it’s not burning now, but it was burning a little while ago! So they had to scrap that sequence, which was unfortunate, as it was a bonding moment between Dany and Khal Drogo.

Then came the filming of the wedding night. In the Emilia Clarke version, it’s rape. It’s not rape in my book, and it’s not rape in the scene as we filmed it with Tamzin Merchant. It’s a seduction. Dany and Drogo don’t have the same language. Dany is a little scared but also a little excited, and Drogo is being more considerate. The only words he knows are “yes” or “no.” Originally it was a fairly faithful version.

So we’re by this little brook. They tied the horses to the trees and there’s a seduction scene by the stream. Jason Momoa and Tamzin are naked and “having sex.” And suddenly the video guy starts to laugh. The silver filly was not a filly at all. It was a colt. And it was getting visibly excited by watching these two humans. There’s this horse in the background with this enormous horse schlong. So that didn’t go well either.

and 

Quote

GEORGE R. R. MARTIN: The biggest thing was Dan and David called me up and had the idea of eliminating Rickon, the youngest of the Stark children, because he didn’t do much in the first book. I said I had important plans for him, so they kept him.

 

[The Dragon Demands]

yeah

[The Dragon Demands]

yeah

[The Dragon Demands]

yeah

[kissdbyfire]

This shit is 100% priceless!!!

[The Dragon Demands]

yeah

[The Dragon Demands]

yeah

[The Dragon Demands]

yeah