Rant & Rave without Repercussion: Burn It All Edition

[darksellsword]

17 minutes ago, 7th-key said:

I read a comment on youtube that linked to this clip from Blackwater pointing out Davos' words: "I've never known bells to mean surrender".

 

In the same episode you see Sandor and Bronn along with everyone in the drinking hall react to the bells as if the city were under attack, it is a big plot hole there in that Tyrion told Daenerys to stop her attack if the bells are ringing. If the bells were ringing as she was attacking that would be a very stupid blunder on Tyrions part.

 

 

[Gianna Dorenberg]

 

My favorite video.

[darksellsword]

4 minutes ago, House Cambodia said:

Good point. You know my favourite chapter of ASOIAF so far - right at the end of ADWD where the POV is a weirwood tree. That is so damn cool, seeing reality from the perspective of the tree - obviously setting the scene for Bran's evolution. Bran's journey is my favourite part of the saga, and yes, it does leave me crushingly disappointed to see how D&D have so fucked it up.

I really enjoy all the Bran chapters and the prologue by Varymyr sixskins was excellent .They honestly seem to be fantasy and supernatural phobic. They love dragons and spending money on Dragon CGI. They ignore the fact the direwolves are actually where it all started off for George.

[House Cambodia]

I don't think it was a blunder in the script though. It sounded to me like this is what Tyrion discussed with Cercei. Tyrion then fed that to Dany and when she heard the bells she was recalling what Tyrion had told her - the camera cuts from Dany to Tyrion to Dany, so that seems quite clear. However, at that point Dany recalled that Tyrion has 'blundered' in his advice to her every damn time over the last 2 seasons and suddenly felt she couldn't trust him and that Cercei had fooled him again. I think this is a rational explanation for her decision to ignore the bells and burn the city (not that it was a correct decision, but it wasn't the 'insane' reaction that people make out.

[MinscS2]

Seems I did have one final rant in me. Brace yourselves...

Honestly, at the end of the day, both the "Daenerys always had it in her, the traces of madness are there"-camp and the "Daenerys never had it in er, her intentions are good"-camp are both being somewhat disingenuous. 

Daenerys has never before this episode shown signs, let alone acted out of cruelty and evil for no reason - fact.
Daenerys has before this episode, talked about razing cities and killing people for not good enough reason - fact.

If this was more or less any other sort of fiction or story, a character in Daenerys position ("flawed protagonist/tragic hero") that's brought to to the absolute edge of the abyss in the same manner as she is, would in 99% of the time, right before falling over the edge, ultimately come to realize what she's about to become - the monster she's always been fighting - then take a step back from the abyss, recuperate and that would be that. 
This is pretty much where the end of Episode 4 leaves us - at this point, Daenerys is pushed to the brink, she's furious, vengeful and sad. 
She talks about doing the unforgivable, but it is not yet too late for her to come back from the brink.

This is however, Game of Thrones, which is that 1%. In this case Daenerys never takes a step back, but fully embraces the darkness in her. Jon's rejection is the final push (in a long series of pushes in short succession) and after this there's no coming back.
Her ultimately going down this dark path is not entirely unbelievable considering the narrative as a whole, but it is unbelievable given what we have seen of her character-arc in the last couple of seasons, especially season 7.

This is coming from a huge Daenerys-fanboy. I'm absolutely devastated at what they've done to her character this season. 
By going down this route, I consider her entire arc and basically her entire character as tragic and pointless. 
I'm still waiting for whatever the payoff (if there even is one) of it will be. What's the moral of her story?

But even I, despite the love I had (and still to some extent have) for the character, can't ultimately consider the idea of her becoming a genocidal tyrant to be impossible from what I've seen from her arc. I considered it extremely unlikely, but never impossible. Again, that 1%.

My instant reaction to seeing it starting to happen last week was one of disbelief. I felt hollow and I hated that it happened at all, because I refused to believe it.

Having had time to process this over the last week however (thanks leaks...), I no longer hate that it happened (well I do, but not in the same way, because I've come to the conclusion that it always "could" happen), now I instead absolutely hate how it happened. 

The mhysa-arc of Daenerys, her acting as the champion of the downtrodden has always been her main drive.
It began already back in S1 before Viserys was even dead. Despite all her flaws, bad decisions and occasional ruthless, callous nature, this compassionate part of her has always been there. This is the part of her that some of the time causes her to commit some of the ruthless, outright cruel things she has done. On top of my head: 
- She crucified the masters of Mereen out of compassion and sorrow for having seen crucified slave children. 
- She attacked Yunkai in the first place, because of there being slaves in the city that she wanted to save.

Now, to see her dismantle this main drive of hers, in a single episode (episode 4) is a bit hard to swallow.
This is basically the equivalent of having Jon forsake his honor in a single episode. It is something that should be chipped away at over the course of several episodes, preferably a whole season. But I get it, we're running out of time because D&D are tired of the project and wanted to do less episodes. Suspension of disbelief it is then; Daenerys main drive is starting to fail when it get's her nowhere. I can accept this.

But to see her not only dismantle this main drive in a single episode, but also do a complete flip and go completely against it in the very same episode? Even Anakin Skywalkers decent into darkness was more nuanced and better paced than this! Now we've reached a point that no longer makes sense. It's too sudden, too contrived, way too rushed and utterly unbelievable. Sadly the writing does nothing to patch up these glaring problems with her sudden 180, because it is the weakest part of this season.

Ultimately, I have no objective issues with GRRM and D&D opting for the dark ending for Daenerys. 
I don't like it, but I can potentially accept it: If there had been a proper buildup for the dismantling of her main drive (her mhysa-arc), and if her decent into darkness was better paced, more nuanced and didn't feel so rushed and contrived, I actually think that this could've made for some great final twist, something that would look Anakin Skywalkers transformation into Darth Vader look meek and toothless in comparison. 

Sadly at the end of the day however, it isn't. Not even close.
Instead we are shown a scenario in season 8 where Daenerys is willing to sacrifice her secondary main drive (the Iron Throne) for the sake her primary main drive (Mhysa). She takes everything that's dear to her; her children, friends and armies, and goes to fight the AotD in order to save a realm she hasn't yet fully claimed, and a people she doesn't know and who doesn't even like her. She's a heroine, a savior, and further away from the darkness than ever. 

...and then 2 episodes/a couple of weeks later, she is destroying King's Landing and incinerating up to a million of the very same innocent people that she had just fought to protect. It makes absolutely no sense from a narrative standpoint, and I fully sympathize with the large part of the fan base that hate it and find it utterly unbelievable. 

D&D went for the 1% super-smash to victory, and didn't even hit the ball, let alone the mark. 
They tried to do something that would require at least a full season of careful writing, in the spawn of less than two episodes, and the result was as expected. At the end of the day, we, like Daenerys, are left empty handed, with is a taste of ash and smoke in our mouths, as we watch something we once loved and cared about, burn down to cinders around us.

Rant over, thanks for reading.

[ramla]

6 minutes ago, Gianna Dorenberg said:

 

My favorite video.

Thanks for sharing this! LOL 

[darksellsword]

7 minutes ago, House Cambodia said:

I don't think it was a blunder in the script though. It sounded to me like this is what Tyrion discussed with Cercei. Tyrion then fed that to Dany and when she heard the bells she was recalling what Tyrion had told her - the camera cuts from Dany to Tyrion to Dany, so that seems quite clear. However, at that point Dany recalled that Tyrion has 'blundered' in his advice to her every damn time over the last 2 seasons and suddenly felt she couldn't trust him and that Cercei had fooled him again. I think this is a rational explanation for her decision to ignore the bells and burn the city (not that it was a correct decision, but it wasn't the 'insane' reaction that people make out.

Tyrion discussed ringing the bells with Cersei? I thought Tyrions whole plan was to get Jaime into kingslanding to get cersei to surrender or for him to ring the bells and then convince Daenerys to accept the bells as surrender

[divica]

5 minutes ago, MinscS2 said:

D&D went for the 1% super-smash to victory, and didn't even hit the ball, let alone the mark. 
They tried to do something that would require at least a full season of careful writing, in the spawn of less than two episodes, and the result was as expected. At the end of the day, we, like Daenerys, are left empty handed, with is a taste of ash and smoke in our mouths, as we watch something we once loved and cared about, burn down to cinders around us.

I think the really big problem is that this outcome and version of danny doesn t fit with last season.

The whole point of season 7 was to show us that danny isn t mad, that she doesn t want to burn inocents and that she and jon are on the same side. She even said she would fight for the north before jon benfing the knee.

And in ep 4 the story takes a 180 without really showing why. It leaves a bitter taste in everyone's mouth...

[House Cambodia]

1 minute ago, darksellsword said:

Tyrion discussed ringing the bells with Cersei?

I'm speculating. it makes sense of what happened in this scene more rationally than 'she went batshit crazy out of nowhere'.

[Cas Stark]

The bells was stupid.  Not only is it a rip off of lighting the fires in LOTR, but it's dumb, and as others have noted, inconsistent with what has been said about bells before.  

[darksellsword]

2 minutes ago, House Cambodia said:

I'm speculating. it makes sense of what happened in this scene more rationally than 'she went batshit crazy out of nowhere'.

Unfortunately D&D claim Dany sat on the wall and saw the redkeep as a symbol of everything that had been taken from her and that is when she made it "personal" by murdering masses of innocent people all the while letting people that actually wronged her escape like Cersei and Euron who were alive at that point and for a while after and not killed by her directly

[MinscS2]

11 minutes ago, divica said:

I think the really big problem is that this outcome and version of danny doesn t fit with last season.

The whole point of season 7 was to show us that danny isn t mad, that she doesn t want to burn inocents and that she and jon are on the same side. She even said she would fight for the north before jon benfing the knee.

And in ep 4 the story takes a 180 without really showing why. It leaves a bitter taste in everyone's mouth...

I'm honestly starting to believe that D&D had no clue about Daenerys turning evil when they wrote S7, and that it's all something they came up or with (or learned) when they wrote S8.

It's the only way I can explain the blatant inconsistencies in Daenerys character between the last episodes in S7 and the first in S8 (I thought something was "off" with her behavior already in Ep1 and Ep2; she was more cold and focused on the IT than she should've been at that point - and Jon seemed way more distant for no apparent reason), and why the blatant foreshadowing of her having a baby with Jon seemingly ended up as nothing more than a red herring.

Now if they had no clue before writing S8, then that either means that they took her down on this path themselves, or it means that GRRM didn't tell them until after S7, which seems weird. Maybe he didn't know himself until that point.
Regardless, this endeavor was doomed to fail from the outset, with a mere 6 episode season left to go. 

[divica]

3 minutes ago, MinscS2 said:

I'm honestly starting to believe that D&D had no clue about Daenerys turning evil when they wrote S7, and that it's all something they came up or with (or learned) when they wrote S8.

It's the only way I can explain the blatant inconsistencies in Daenerys character between the last episodes in S7 and the first in S8 (I thought something was "off" with her behavior already in Ep1 and Ep2; she was more cold and focused on the IT than she should've been at that point - and Jon seemed way more distant for no apparent reason), and why the blatant foreshadowing of her having a baby with Jon seemingly ended up as nothing more than a red herring.

Now if they had no clue before writing S8, then that either means that they took her down on this path themselves, or it means that GRRM didn't tell them until after S7, which seems weird. Maybe he didn't know himself until that point.
Regardless, this endeavor was doomed to fail from the outset, with a mere 6 episode season left to go. 

If it weren t the interviews pointing to their ending being similar I would agree with you. All the groundwork that season 7 did pointed in the oposite direction of this season. And it wasn t only for jon and danny. Characters like Jaime or arya (that leaves winterfell without telling anyone to complete her list) had their arcs going in the oposite direction… Sam that stole books for what? Mel that went on vacation to essos for? 

Despite what we know it really feels that they just decided to be orginal and do their own ending that would shock the audience… Otherwise I just don t understand what they were thinking while doing s7... The story just doesn t fit together...

[House Cambodia]

^ I think GRRM told them the main plotlines, so they did know. Also, the show has, since S01, presented a troubling side of Dany. The problem is that they have no ability to write sensible plot or character development. They just give us freeze-frame moments, often costing millions of dollars in whizz-bang effects, but you have to mentally write the story yourself to make sense of what they're presenting us with.

[Dragons Are Real]

17 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

Well, he had heard the whole convo between Tyrion and Cersei in the previous episode. Too bad he wasn’t paying attention, as the director explained in an interview later. 

Is it bad that I already forgot that conversation took place?  This show has become so bland that it's tough to remember more than the highlight reel moments.

32 minutes ago, House Cambodia said:

I don't think it was a blunder in the script though. It sounded to me like this is what Tyrion discussed with Cercei. Tyrion then fed that to Dany and when she heard the bells she was recalling what Tyrion had told her - the camera cuts from Dany to Tyrion to Dany, so that seems quite clear. However, at that point Dany recalled that Tyrion has 'blundered' in his advice to her every damn time over the last 2 seasons and suddenly felt she couldn't trust him and that Cercei had fooled him again. I think this is a rational explanation for her decision to ignore the bells and burn the city (not that it was a correct decision, but it wasn't the 'insane' reaction that people make out.

Wouldn't it be cool if they bothered to write the story themselves and we didn't have to try to jump through hoops justifying what they puked up on the screen with story points they couldn't bother thinking of?

[Cas Stark]

3 minutes ago, House Cambodia said:

^ I think GRRM told them the main plotlines, so they did know. Also, the show has, since S01, presented a troubling side of Dany. The problem is that they have no ability to write sensible plot or character development. They just give us freeze-frame moments, often costing millions of dollars in whizz-bang effects, but you have to mentally write the story yourself to make sense of what they're presenting us with.

Fore sure.  People who think that Dany won't turn tyrant in the books are fooling themselves, which given that GRRM probably never finishes, I guess they can fool themselves forever, LOL. 

The show's biggest problem with Dany is they always framed her killing people as a #badass, justifiable moment, with the sole exception of the Tarlys, which we see Varys and Tyrion are upset.  They should have been sending mixed signals about her all along, and they should have given her a few more kills that were disapproved of by other characters and seen by the audience as the wrong move.  You saw people defending her murder of the Tarlys too, even though the show did portray that as a mistake.

Their second biggest problem is that they really needed 20 episodes to tell the back end of the story and given Dany a whole season to become angry, paranoid and isolated, not a couple of scenes.  Emilia has done a fantastic job with mad queen dany though, I have to hand it to her, too bad she's not get an Emmy now because the show has become so controversial among the fanbase.

[divica]

1 minute ago, House Cambodia said:

^ I think GRRM told them the main plotlines, so they did know. Also, the show has, since S01, presented a troubling side of Dany. The problem is that they have no ability to write sensible plot or character development. They just give us freeze-frame moments, often costing millions of dollars in whizz-bang effects, but you have to mentally write the story yourself to make sense of what they're presenting us with.

They did a god job of showing us danny's cruel side during the show...

But we also saw it last season! She only burns the tarlys because they didn t kneel. The people in KL kneeled and she just went ahead and burned them all… There is nothing that can support this in the entire show… She just became madder than aerys...

And all the character growth we saw in s7 was in the oposite direction of danny becoming like her father. She knows he was evil and doesn t want to be like him for gods sake. She loved jon enough to go fight for the north without him bending the knee but when she learns that he is a targ they have probs? they should have just married when they arrived in winterfell… All the talk about pregnancy… And several other things...

I am not saying that s4 or 5 danny can t evolve into a mad queen. I am saying that s7 can t do it...

[House Cambodia]

4 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Fore sure.  People who think that Dany won't turn tyrant in the books are fooling themselves, which given that GRRM probably never finishes, I guess they can fool themselves forever, LOL. 

The show's biggest problem with Dany is they always framed her killing people as a #badass, justifiable moment, with the sole exception of the Tarlys, which we see Varys and Tyrion are upset.  They should have been sending mixed signals about her all along, and they should have given her a few more kills that were disapproved of by other characters and seen by the audience as the wrong move.  You saw people defending her murder of the Tarlys too, even though the show did portray that as a mistake.

Their second biggest problem is that they really needed 20 episodes to tell the back end of the story and given Dany a whole season to become angry, paranoid and isolated, not a couple of scenes.  Emilia has done a fantastic job with mad queen dany though, I have to hand it to her, too bad she's not get an Emmy now because the show has become so controversial among the fanbase.

For sure. In short, we need the damn books. Come on George! And tell us you're joking, right??????

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/may/14/george-rr-martin-scorns-absurd-claims-hes-finished-writing-game-of-thrones 

[divica]

1 minute ago, Cas Stark said:

The show's biggest problem with Dany is they always framed her killing people as a #badass, justifiable moment, with the sole exception of the Tarlys, which we see Varys and Tyrion are upset.  They should have been sending mixed signals about her all along, and they should have given her a few more kills that were disapproved of by other characters and seen by the audience as the wrong move.  You saw people defending her murder of the Tarlys too, even though the show did portray that as a mistake.

Their second biggest problem is that they really needed 20 episodes to tell the back end of the story and given Dany a whole season to become angry, paranoid and isolated, not a couple of scenes.  Emilia has done a fantastic job with mad queen dany though, I have to hand it to her, too bad she's not get an Emmy now because the show has become so controversial among the fanbase.

I think you are talking about book danny or the danny in essos becoming a tyrant. That may be possible.

But in season 7 we see how she interacts with the westerosi and how she acts. That danny had the support of dorne and the reach, she didn t want to be queen of ashes, acepted the enemy soldiers as long as they kneeled, was willing to abandon the fight for the IT to defend the north without jon bending the knee, listens to jon's advice about how to use her dragons… There are several instances that support that even if she has a mean streak she isn t a monster.

Wether it is grrm's finale or not, after what they did in s7 this ending just doesn t fit in their story! If they knew they were going this way then s7 doesn t make any sense! 

[divica]

2 minutes ago, House Cambodia said:

For sure. In short, we need the damn books. Come on George! And tell us you're joking, right??????

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/may/14/george-rr-martin-scorns-absurd-claims-hes-finished-writing-game-of-thrones 

what is he suposed to say? that he has the books in his basement? LOL