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Did the narrative require the destruction of Kings Landing?


ummester

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42 minutes ago, Varys_was_right said:

Yeah, that worked out well for Russia in 1918! Sometimes the people advocating radical change are worse than the current structure in place. That's why the last episode works for me. It's a warning against that kind of thinking.

Nobody said that all the ways in which the structure can be reformed will be successful, just that furthering the same systems of oppression certainly cannot be.

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29 minutes ago, Wildling Queen said:

Nobody said that all the ways in which the structure can be reformed will be successful, just that furthering the same systems of oppression certainly cannot be.

But what kind of oppression would a Dany dictatorship bring? She has caused more destruction in one episode than Cersei did in her entire reign. This is literally bombing people into freedom foreign policy in action. 

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Just now, Varys_was_right said:

But what kind of oppression would a Dany dictatorship bring? She has caused more destruction in one episode than Cersei did in her entire reign. This is literally bombing people into freedom foreign policy in action. 

Let's not forget that the realm began to fall apart the moment Cersei spread her legs to her twin brother who was also a personal bodyguard for her husband, the king.

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1 minute ago, Jabar of House Titan said:

Let's not forget that the realm began to fall apart the moment Cersei spread her legs to her twin brother who was also a personal bodyguard for her husband, the king.

Right, Cersei was a tyrant and not much of a leader herself. But at the end of the day, she's looking like the lesser of two evils when compared to Dany.

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5 minutes ago, Varys_was_right said:

Right, Cersei was a tyrant and not much of a leader herself. But at the end of the day, she's looking like the lesser of two evils when compared to Dany.

So okay.

Then they should have just let her rule the Seven Kingdoms from King's Landing undisturbed and hope she wouldn't turn on them. Okay.

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11 minutes ago, Jabar of House Titan said:

So okay.

Then they should have just let her rule the Seven Kingdoms from King's Landing undisturbed and hope she wouldn't turn on them. Okay.

Well her advisers tried to council Dany on removing Cersei by more humane means, but they put their trust into a mad Queen and many innocents paid the price. They should have listened to Varys.

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7 minutes ago, Varys_was_right said:

Well her advisers tried to council Dany on removing Cersei by more humane means, but they put their trust into a mad Queen and many innocents paid the price. They should have listened to Varys.

Yes because scaring and starving people to death with a siege is more humane than firebombing them.

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Just now, Jabar of House Titan said:

Yes because scaring and starving people to death with a siege is more humane than firebombing them.

Actually in this instance it is. With a blockade they at least have a chance to overthrow Cersei and for the Golden company to turn on her. Firebombing means they are mostly dead instantly, lol. 

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24 minutes ago, Varys_was_right said:

But what kind of oppression would a Dany dictatorship bring? She has caused more destruction in one episode than Cersei did in her entire reign. This is literally bombing people into freedom foreign policy in action. 

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?

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1 minute ago, Varys_was_right said:

Actually in this instance it is. With a blockade they at least have a chance to overthrow Cersei and for the Golden company to turn on her. Firebombing means they are mostly dead instantly, lol. 

Right as if they didn't have a chance to overthrow Cersei when the Sept of Baelor, the location for her trial for crimes she is actually guilty of, and the surrounding areas were destroyed by wildfire. Instead of attending her trial like every other important person in the city was, she was still in the Red Keep...and her son the king falls to his death from a window in the Red Keep.

Yet there are no riots, no protests, no disgruntled angry lords, no cold shoulders, no resurgent religious-based revenge movements...

Right the people would have a chance to overthrow Cersei. Okay, I believe that.

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30 minutes 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?

Well Cersei never leveled an entire city full of innocents. Her destruction was more localized and was always a mean for her to remain in power.

But you are bringing up an interesting point with regards to Cersei and Dany being women, but that alone doesn't mean anything changes. My thought is, does Dany really believe in any type of justice, or has she just been mouthing platitudes this whole time because she saw it as a way to attain power. Does she free slaves because she cares for them, or because she sees them as potential solders in her army? Neither Dany or Cersei were pure of heart or seem to have a revolutionary ideology for reform, other than I'm the dictator now, listen to me.

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4 hours ago, Nightwish said:

I can agree with the Iron Throne but not Kings Landing.

From a narrative point of view King's Landing disaster happened only to destroy Dany's character and arc. Otherwise can't find any necessity in that (the city had fallen). And this makes it so character focused. 

To me this is the biggest flaw in the story.

I can accept that she has decided that these people will never lover her, so she needs to make them fear her, but dead people do neither.

It would have made much more sense had she flown to the Red keep, given those inside the option of leaving and bending a knee to her. Then torching what is left, killing many, have many more die in the fallout. She is still the Mad Queen, but at least she is driven by the need to be worshiped as Queen.

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1 minute ago, Jabar of House Titan said:

Right as if they didn't have a chance to overthrow Cersei when the Sept of Baelor, the location for her trial for crimes she is actually guilty of, and the surrounding areas were destroyed by wildfire. Instead of attending her trial like every other important person in the city was, she was still in the Red Keep...and her son the king falls to his death from a window in the Red Keep.

Yet there are no riots, no protests, no disgruntled angry lords, no cold shoulders, no resurgent religious-based revenge movements...

Right the people would have a chance to overthrow Cersei. Okay, I believe that.

So you're okay with just killing them all? Collective punishment?

There's no evidence the people of Kings Landing are starving or that economically depressed under Cersei. She may not be a good person, but the life of the commoner is not at a breaking point by any means. What motivation do they have to sacrifice themselves for some unknown ruler? One with a Dothraki horde no less? With a blockade in place, they would begin to feel some pain. And with a blockade you make it blatantly known that you want Cersei removed and the blockade ends. Thus there is now a carrot and stick for the people to grasp at.

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17 minutes ago, Varys_was_right said:

Well her advisers tried to council Dany on removing Cersei by more humane means, but they put their trust into a mad Queen and many innocents paid the price. They should have listened to Varys.

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.

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1 minute 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.

Yes, Arya should have at least floated this idea to Jon before going rogue.

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8 minutes ago, Varys_was_right said:

So you're okay with just killing them all? Collective punishment?

There's no evidence the people of Kings Landing are starving or that economically depressed under Cersei. She may not be a good person, but the life of the commoner is not at a breaking point by any means. What motivation do they have to sacrifice themselves for some unknown ruler? One with a Dothraki horde no less? With a blockade in place, they would begin to feel some pain. And with a blockade you make it blatantly known that you want Cersei removed and the blockade ends. Thus there is now a carrot and stick for the people to grasp at.

Of course, this plan becomes even better if she gave way to Jon and let him be the next King. Then the people at least know they will be ruled by someone who's lived all their life in Westeros (and they've probably heard rumors of his bravery).

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5 hours ago, ummester said:

Why is it all so character focused? Why are we not looking at the larger symbolic elements at play - it is fantasy after all. Is Kings Landing more like Minas Tirith or Minas Morgul?

I'd argue there is a lot of corruption and evil in this story all the way around and that the Iron Throne and Kings Landing have always been the epicenters of that corruption. If the Iron Throne and Kings Landing were standing at the end, it would be a more bitter end than if they are destroyed.

With regards to the broader plot, which is concerns a continent fully corrupted by successive human invasions, the descendants of which have a long history of violence and cruelty, is not the destruction of Kings Landing a good thing? I have personally been expecting it since the first season and always expected either Dany or the Others were the likely candidates to achieve it, so it actually feels somewhat of a satisfying conclusion to me to finally see it destroyed (by either fire or ice).

We should probably destroy Rome, London, Versailles and any other ancient city in our world since they are technically epicenters of evil acts....

Ok, sorry I'll be more serious, I just couldn't resist.

ANYHOW

I couldn't have cared less if it was King's Landing or any other city, castle etc. It's not the place or the iconography for me. They have had plenty of good kings in KL sitting the IT too, so I think it's an easy way to explain away the events. 

If GRRM plans to have KL and the IT destroyed, that is fine, won't bother me, but it's sugar coated BS if the resulting message is, "King's Landing and the IT had bad guys and now that we destroyed those things everyone will be nice to each other, YAY!!!!". 

That would be a total BS load imo and in reality would resolve nothing. Moving our capital from Washington DC to Iowa wouldn't make the people any different or more or less corrupt than before, so we can all act like that would be changing something but it's mostly irrelevant. 

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21 minutes ago, Varys_was_right said:

Well Cersei never leveled an entire city full of innocents. Her destruction was more localized and was always a mean for her to remain in power.

But you are bringing up an interesting point with regards to Cersei and Dany being women, but that alone doesn't mean anything changes. My thought is, does Dany really believe in any type of justice, or has she just bean mouthing platitudes this whole time because she saw it as a way to attain power. Does she free slaves because she cares for them, or because she sees them as potential solders in her army? Neither Dany or Cersei were pure of heart or seem to have a revolutionary ideology for reform, other than I'm the dictator now, listen to me.

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?

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