Jump to content

Did the narrative require the destruction of Kings Landing?


ummester

Recommended Posts

4 hours ago, Wildling Queen said:

I think it did require the destruction of King's Landing. Radical change doesn't happen through an adherence to tradition. You burn it down and start over.

I don't know. I'm a bit skittish about doing a Dresden to effect change.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, Wildling Queen said:

That's true, she didn't. But I think what she did to the Sept of Baelor shows she'd have done the same thing that Dany did last night if she thought it necessary, and with absolutely no regrets.

And yes, EXACTLY. The way she talked about being loved last night spoke to that, in my opinion. Did she truly care about those people, or did she just recognize that she was never going to win over the people already in power (they didn't need her), so she exploited the most vulnerable because she knew it was easier to manipulate them into seeing her as a hero so that she could use them to gain power?

I think the case can be strongly made that she's just been a Machiavellian this entire time. What better way to play the Game of Thrones than to proclaim you are breaking the wheel instead.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

38 minutes ago, btfu806 said:

It's not like they had a super secret assassin who could take people's faces to kill Cersei, last season she got into the Twins, had Walder Frey's skin and killed an entire house by herself, to help her she had Bran who knows everything at all times and can see far with Ravens and also Davos, a famous smuggler who got Tyrion into the red keep just last season....

No idea how this isn't pointed out in the planing meeting.

I was also surprised that Arya and the Hound didn't get to Kings Landing well before the army. In times of peace with well maintained roads, it is a one month march from Winterfell to Kings Landing, but armies does not march fast. Nowhere near as fast as two people on horseback. Given that Arya and The Hound actually knows the Red Keep, and Arya can change faces, it should have been fairly easy for them to sneak in and get close to Cersei.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

I don't know. I'm a bit skittish about doing a Dresden to effect change.

Why is it that more people would have gotten the reference of Hiroshima?

Yet,  in the case of both Dresden and Hiroshima, the destruction was carried out by what history has judged the 'good guys'. Now, I am not arguing that D&D are that smart, to try and make a point about acts like those and how history judges actions based on victors, but I do think that Dany and Kings Landing were narratively conceived to make similar parallels. 

Unlike Dresden or Hiroshima, Kings Landing is a fictional fantasy place and we can debate the morals of its destruction without having any real people ever effected. I get a feeling that that is exactly the point of a story like ASoIaF.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

I don't know. I'm a bit skittish about doing a Dresden to effect change.

No, don't misunderstand me. I hate what Daenerys did. I wasn't indicating that I feel positively about what she did, just noting that the destruction of King's Landing is necessary for the kind of radical change that far more characters are hoping for than Daenerys to come. That destruction didn't have to include the murder of a million innocent people. I was referring more to Audre Lorde's concept that "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 5/13/2019 at 12:29 PM, ummester said:

 Given that Kings Landing is the zenith of all these invasions, is not its destruction a good thing?

No, because of all the people that died. But i know what you mean and i agree that it's where the story was headed (everything else would really have been a surprise). Although i didn't expect that kind of destruction to the whole city (or at least because of other reasons), rather i expected it to happen mainly to the red keep/throne. But i guess it "needed" to be the capital as a whole and "burn them all" had been set up to become a painful reality. I think it's been said that the crown and the faith are the pillars of the realm. So both of them had to go to make changes possible. Sadly in a way that caused again suffering but that's what the story has always been about.

After Daenerys probably Tyrion will take over if he's still able to (not as king, maybe as "hand of the people") and hopefully there will be some kind of council of the seven kingdoms or any other agreement where power gets divided and people are able to decide more for their own. But going straight to democracy would be a bit fast.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, Wildling Queen said:

I disagree that Dany caused all that much more destruction than Cersei did. Cersei burned thousands of her enemies as well as a host of innocent people in King's Landing when she blew up the Sept of Baelor. Daenerys has broken the wheel in a big way, as a good conqueror does. But she hasn't shown any indication that she'd be a good ruler. Both Cersei and Daenerys thought that taking the power that men have always held and wielding it as women was somehow subversive. It isn't. It's just the same oppressive system led by new people. Daenerys destroyed the system, now it will have to be reformed in a new way, a way that doesn't include her in a leadership position.

I'm reminded of the slavemasters in Mereen here. Is Daenerys really subversive when she topples them, or does she use the same soldiers (the Unsullied) to wield power using the same strategies (violence and death) in order to serve her own desire for power?

You. Are. Kidding. 

 

Dany killed close to a million people. That is HUGE - both in our world and especially Westeros. She’s proven to be worse than Cersei, Joffrey and her father in one episode.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...