A failed tragedy

[Arakan]

6 minutes ago, ummester said:

It's not a bad take - but Trump is far too divisive to lumped with those other leaders and Putin admired by Germans? I think the author just threw them in at the end to try and feel more relevant but it kind of brings the whole point down.

Also, the information age is a dangerous, dangerous thing

If having to chose between both Trump and Putin, 5 times more Germans would chose Putin than Trump. This is based on empirical data, i.e. polls. 

[Arakan]

1 minute ago, Tyrion1991 said:

 

No it isn’t. GRRM tried to do what Watchman for superheroes did with High Fantasy.

Satire is too prerogative and easy to dismiss as cynicism. Of course Dr Manhattans power makes him distant to humanity rather than superman. Of course, the common people of Westeros don’t think Dany is amazing because shes the beautiful fireproof queen with dragons like in Essos. These are contrivances of the writers to support cynical statements on the nature of power and humanity. They are trite and subjective; relying heavily upon circumstances they can dictate.

Well agree to disagree. If there ever was a „love letter” for „power to the people“ in Fantasy, then it’s ASOIAF. Tyrants gonna be tyrants, no matter how you dress them. For me that’s a very positive message. It’s a message for the empowerment of the so called „smallfolk”. To this date the USA and France celebrate their liberation from the self-announced Elite aka aristocracy and monarchy. Is that nihilistic too?

[loverofcats]

44 minutes ago, Arakan said:

But it’s not about nihilism at all. It’s about learning and growing. It’s about open your eyes. It’s the total opposite of nihilism. 

In order to achieve his goal, he had to give Dany some symphatic traits. Otherwise it would never have worked. 

You really just stick to Daenerys. But what about Tyrion, Jaime, Robb, Stannis just a few examples. And Starks survivors, what are they? A something else, a  Littlefinger's daughter and a selfish no one. He likes to build masterfully his characters only later to deny them. This is nihilism in my opinion.

[Arakan]

8 minutes ago, loverofcats said:

You really just stick to Daenerys. But what about Tyrion, Jaime, Robb, Stannis just a few examples. And Starks survivors, what are they? A something else, a  Littlefinger's daughter and a selfish no one. He likes to build masterfully his characters only later to deny them. This is nihilism in my opinion.

I stick to Dany because this topic is about her. If I may go meta: I despise aristocracy and monarchy from the bottom of my heart. I am a republican with all my heart. 

And I hope that the feudal structures of Westeros will be broken once and for all. But I assume we won’t see it in the show, maybe in the books (if we are lucky to get to the last chapter but that’s another topic). 

People really forget why GRRM gave us Arya‘s and to a lesser extent Brienne‘s perspectives. The whole system is rotten to the core and Dany never wanted to change it. Yes, she wanted to „break the wheel“ in the same way Louis 14 wanted to break the wheel. Break feudalism and establish „benevolent“ absolute rule. That’s about it . It is so obvious. 

L‘etat c‘est moi could be straight out of Dany‘s mouth :)))  

 

[ummester]

18 minutes ago, Arakan said:

If having to chose between both Trump and Putin, 5 times more Germans would chose Putin than Trump. This is based on empirical data, i.e. polls. 

Perhaps - but surely Putin's polling in Russia is not only better but far more important than his polling in Germany? And if Putin is polling 5 times better than Trump in either place, it proves my point, Trump is far too divisive to be labelled truly charismatic.

[Wsc48]

20 hours ago, Pacala said:

You can take out all others characters and let only Daenerys point of view to write a story.

Yep. You could edit it down to Dany gets dragons. Dany uses dragon to burn King's Landing. Everything else is filler. 

[ummester]

1 minute ago, Wsc48 said:

Yep. You could edit it down to Dany gets dragons. Dany uses dragon to burn King's Landing. Everything else is filler. 

You need Jon as the counterpoint to make it work.

It was obvious to me, from the very first episode of this show, before I'd read any of the books or become invested in the universe at all, that Jon and Dany were basically your heroes journey characters (Frodo/Luke/Harry Potter etc) and Ned Stark was basically you archetypal mentor (Gandalf/Obi Wan/Dumbledore etc). Therefore it came as no surprise to me when Ned died - he was just doing that thing all archetypal mentors do. It wasn't obvious from that first episode to me, but in hindsight it should have been, that Jon would be on the 'good' side of gray and Dany on the 'bad' - because Dany did not have a mentor.

[Nightwish]

1 hour ago, Arakan said:

But it’s not about nihilism at all. It’s about learning and growing. It’s about open your eyes. It’s the total opposite of nihilism. 

In order to achieve his goal, he had to give Dany some symphatic traits. Otherwise it would never have worked. 

There are many articles in the internet already pointing in that direction, quite interesting to read but yes, if this ending is so tragic as we expected to be GOT as a whole   exactly for the messages it tries to convey will enter the list of shows that represent a world with nihilistic values. 

https://www.theringer.com/game-of-thrones/2019/5/15/18624347/game-of-thrones-season-8-nihilism-moral-daenerys-jon-arya-jaime-cersei-tyrion

The lesson of Daenerys’s climactic emotional descent appears to concern the corruptive nature of power. We’ve seen that plenty of times on this show already, though, most notably with Cersei. Or perhaps the lesson concerns the danger of excessive belief in destiny. We’ve seen that before with Stannis, to a similar degree: Both rulers believe in their intrinsic hold on the Iron Throne and use magic to advance their cause, interrupt their quest by helping Jon Snow with some trouble up North, and return to their chief task by burning innocents.

Reiterating the same messages over and over renders them oddly static and punchless. 

But it does mean that if the series ends with that kind of violent turn and, presumably, some sort of murderous intervention from Jon or Arya that concludes the show with the tragic downfall and death of Daenerys, the ostensible and oft-framed hero, all its messaging would point toward nihilism. A savior rises in the East and sets in the West, a once-burning sun doomed to disgrace and destruction.

Daenerys’s arc isn’t alone in this regard. Jaime’s, which ends with him returning to try to save Cersei after sharing such intimate moments at Winterfell with Brienne, also highlights the dominance of unavoidable nature over relatively futile choice in this world. “He knows that they belong together,” Weiss said on Sunday’s “Inside the Episode” segment, “that they came into this world together, that they need to go out of this world together.” That sounds like a combination of nihilism and destiny—nothing Jaime has done over the last seven-plus seasons matters for his endgame—which makes for a bizarrely aborted character journey and raises questions about why the show devoted so much time to this character and his ostensible growth at all.

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a27451783/game-of-thrones-season-8-episode-5-review-analysis-recap-daenerys-mad-queen-plot-holes/

Where does that leave us? What is Game of Thrones trying to say in the end? This has always been a cynical show, but now it's on the verge of ending with complete nihilism. Will Jon be forced to kill Dany? Will he be the ruler of Westeros—sitting on the Iron Throne he never cared about or desired. Will he win just because his dozens of stupid decisions worked? In the end, will he take the Iron Throne because Dany snapped and no one else was fit for the job? Or maybe they can still salvage some sort of message about rebuilding the wheel that Dany broke so it's not just a revolving cast of tyrants on the Iron Throne. At this point, I don't have enough faith in these writers to even pull that off.

https://mashable.com/article/game-of-thrones-episode-5-bells-nihilism-meaningless/?europe=true

In "The Bells," Game of Thrones buried the narrative justification for its ruthlessness beneath the rubble, becoming the worst version of itself as a spectacle of meaningless sadism. It's a nihilism the story's own author has even previously condemned.

Back in 2014, shortly after the Red Wedding left many viewers with something akin to PTSD, some critics started accusing the show of being nothing more than masochistic nihilism. But in a Rolling Stone interview, George R. R. Martin unequivocally refuted this characterization of its brutality:

That particular criticism is completely invalid. Actually, I think it’s moronic. My worldview is anything but nihilistic... Truth is sometimes hard to hear... Mortality is the inescapable truth of all life .

The difference between nihilism and hard truth is the difference between resigning oneself to a meaningless existence versus finding meaning in the difficulty of mortality.

Devastating twists and premature ends to character arcs have defined what made Game of Thrones captivating. But every time we watched the brutal fall of a hero — whether Ned, Robb, Catelyn, Oberyn, Hodor, or even Shireen — its unforgiving brutality came with the poignant shock of poetic injustice. 

What's unbearable about Game of Thrones' turn toward nilihism isn't the lack of happy or even satisfying conclusion. It's that this newfound cynicism betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the story the show has been telling for eight years, the deeply human characters it made us care about, and the promise of a bittersweet ending that finds meaning in a difficult existence.

Instead all we're left with is this futile exercise on meaninglessness of existence. And one more grueling hour of wallowing in it. 

 

Now I could go on with many sources but I think it's a bit stupid trying to prove the evident: A story that makes nothing out of its heroes but tragic figures destined to fail (either good or bad) is as simply it can be: nihilistic. Morality does not exist because either good or bad it amounts to nothing.

The question is not if this is nihilistic or not, it is. But is this what we were supposed to be watching? 

[loverofcats]

17 minutes ago, Arakan said:

I stick to Dany because this topic is about her. If I may go meta: I despise aristocracy and monarchy from the bottom of my heart. I am a republican with all my heart. 

And I hope that the feudal structures of Westeros will be broken once and for all. But I assume we won’t see it in the show, maybe in the books (if we are lucky to get to the last chapter but that’s another topic). 

People really forget why GRRM gave us Arya‘s and to a lesser extent Brienne‘s perspectives. The whole system is rotten to the core and Dany never wanted to change it. Yes, she wanted to „break the wheel“ in the same way Louis 14 wanted to break the wheel. Break feudalism and establish „benevolent“ absolute rule. That’s about it . It is so obvious. 

L‘etat c‘est moi could be straight out of Dany‘s mouth :)))  

 

Once again and I'm done. For that he should have to write a historical drama.
Not a fantasy with an end he claims to be satisfying and bittersweet like LoTR.

[Arakan]

@Nightwish you are quoting opinions. This is not evidence in any shape form or matter. 

Lets agree to disagree. 

[Arakan]

7 minutes ago, loverofcats said:

Once again and I'm done. For that he should have to write a historical drama.
Not a fantasy with an end he claims to be satisfying and bittersweet like LoTR.

Ok so because you don’t like the direction GRRM took you deny him the right to write fantasy? Jesus Christ  

Anyway nothing of this is new. Frank Herbert faced the same fan rage when he published Dune Messiah. Of course less so, no Internet or HBO back then. But it’s nothing new. People like their heroes and hate it when they get deconstructed. Always the same pattern.  

[Bishop Cruz]

Why does everyone assume that we will have a Mad Queen Dany in the books that is as poorly laid out and executed as this arc has been in the show? I have no doubt that Dany will burn king's landing to the ground, I have very little doubt that it will be controversial and quite possibly a very dark grey. I still refuse to believe that Dany will burn down KL because her feelings were hurt. The showrunners have already shown a lack of understanding of the characters they have adapted. They kept Cersei sane for example... while having Dany jump off the sanity cliff in an unbelievable way.

[Laughing Storm Reborn]

grrm cares for all his characters and no one must be as sad as him to bring dany to this point in the books, but her objective had a 1% chance of getting a morally good path or no innocent deaths

it depends also in what the audience/reader invests emotionally on the character in question, Aegon the Conqueror burned a lot more people during the conquest, including innocents at least in harrenhall, and unlike dany he didn't really do any "good deeds" before, he just wanted westeros and got it with fire and blood, i'm not the biggest dany fan but if we look at the precedents and the world we are given by george she just enters in the camp of most conquerors, hard to be one without genocide

[Pacala]

1 hour ago, Arakan said:

I disagree completely. GRRM teaches us a very important lesson. And if he finishes the books in this way they will become truly great. 

My thoughts about this:

I have to thank GRRM for this very important deconstruction. And no one will convince me that GRRM won’t play this out in similar fashion in the books. There is no rational reason to assume that the KL genocide (yes we have to call it this) was a show invention. This is GRRM all along. 

And we ALL should be thankful to him because he teaches us a very important lesson. A lesson humankind so often forgets. Don’t be blended by „great“ leaders. Don’t be blended by their supposed grandiosity, by their rhetoric of being the „chosen one“, by their supposed „strength“. 

We are all fascinated (at least) by those „grand leaders“, often we admire them, even love them. And we try our best to ignore their dark sides, their psychopathic and sociopathic and narcissistic personality traits. Their fanatism. The list is long. From Alexander „the Great“ to Charles“lemagne“ to Ghengis Khan to Napoleon to Hitler to Stalin. Not all of them are admired, at least not openly, but even this is not a given. Stalin gets more and more rehabilitated and even Hitler still has millions upon millions of admirers in all parts of the world, for their own reasons. 

Leaders like Trump (admired by millions of Americans) or Putin (who is admired by millions of Germans) show us that even in the „information age“ we are not immune to falling into the traps. Charisma is a dangerous dangerous thing. 

And therefore, once again, thank you GRRM for holding the mirror right in our faces and confronting us with our own dark desires. 

i do agree with what you say.

i do get it that people tend to follow a leader and that leader is a human after all, i like how he made his characters based on real life situation, i do get it that religion is not important. but it dosen`t work this way. it dosen`t fit in the story, he said his story has no heroes or villains, his characters have desires, wishes same as a real person. this is a fantasy story not historical drama. u can`t start a story with magic and ended up with modern technology. he build his story on magical creatures Night King, Bloodraven, Dragons and he didn`t gave us a conclusion for those characters. Kiling Night King so easily is same as chocking him to death with a finger or let him go back after he reached the wall. Same with Danny, her family is based on dragons, he could easily gave her an atomic bomb, same conclusion. Bran has no place in this story. For me this seems like a lack of inspiration not a conclusion for fantasy story.

But the story starts with The Others. Night King and Bran contradict all of Martin beliefs and his message.

[loverofcats]

19 minutes ago, Arakan said:

Ok so because you don’t like the direction GRRM took you deny him the right to write fantasy? Jesus Christ  

Anyway nothing of this is new. Frank Herbert faced the same fan rage when he published Dune Messiah. Of course less so, no Internet or HBO back then. But it’s nothing new. People like their heroes and hate it when they get deconstructed. Always the same pattern.  

I think you misunderstood my point of view, I said that a historical drama it would have been more suitable if GRRM would have wanted to deliver us a story only about the feudal structures and about  how ordinary people are forced to suffer and how dangerous it is when a single person has all the power like you said.

[Tywin Tytosson]

52 minutes ago, Arakan said:

People really forget why GRRM gave us Arya‘s and to a lesser extent Brienne‘s perspectives. The whole system is rotten to the core and Dany never wanted to change it. Yes, she wanted to „break the wheel“ in the same way Louis 14 wanted to break the wheel. Break feudalism and establish „benevolent“ absolute rule. That’s about it . It is so obvious. 

L‘etat c‘est moi could be straight out of Dany‘s mouth :)))  

 

Interesting analogy, there.  My historical allegory for Dany has mostly been Empress Katherine of Russia.  A reputedly enlightened monarch who starts with promise, but gets dragged down by everything and ends up being quite the autocrat.  I even thought of Daario as her Potempkin.  But the Sun King works as well.  Maybe even better.

[Arakan]

1 minute ago, Tywin Tytosson said:

Interesting analogy, there.  My historical allegory for Dany has mostly been Empress Katherine of Russia.  A enlightened monarch who starts with promise, but gets dragged down by everything and ends up being quite the autocrat.  I even thought of Daario as her Potempkin.  But the Sun King works as well.  Maybe even better.

Katherine „the Great“ is actually a very good analogy. The era of enlightenment was in full swing and we had all those „enlightened” „benevolent“ absolute rulers. The biggest hippocrites of them all. Frederick the „Great“ is also a good analogy but he is male so Katherine works better. You can even see the parallels of being sold like meat at a young age into a foreign Culture. Happened to Katherine as well. In the end they all believed their own hype and the more they did the less they showed self-reflection. 

[Arakan]

19 minutes ago, loverofcats said:

I think you misunderstood my point of view, I said that a historical drama it would have been more suitable if GRRM would have wanted to deliver us a story only about the feudal structures and about  how ordinary people are forced to suffer and how dangerous it is when a single person has all the power like you said.

I don’t think so. Popular Fantasy has a much bigger reach than historical fiction. People love their escapism, I do too, but to hit a homerun you have to hit them where it hurts the most, in their escapist bubbles. If GRRM plays it out in the books as the show did, he will establish a relevance well beyond the SFF niche. But of course we have to see if we get to the last chapter in this story. 

[a girl knows nothing]

1 hour ago, loverofcats said:

What is the  meaning of the Others? What is the meaning of the dragons?

When/if Martin ever finishes the books, I am assuming that the whole Others/three-eyed raven/children of the forest plot will be fleshed out and explained more. The show really cut that out so it’s hard to know what significance it will have in the books. 

But the way the show depicted it, I see the Others’ storyline as showing how people have the capacity to come together (well, except Cersei), put aside their individual differences and competing interests, and work toward a greater, common goal. Yet once the immediate threat is gone, we seem to forget this sense of togetherness, and separate once again to focus on our individual interests. For example, whenever there is a natural disaster, terrorist attack, or other devastating tragedy, people will band together to help one another and lend support, irrespective of preexisting differences in background, political ideology, etc. But then the recency of the tragedy and its initial impact fades, and we all inevitably go back to squabbling over whatever we were preoccupied with before. I don’t know if this is truly what the show intended (and I’m of the opinion that you can fashion meaning for almost anything), but there’s my interpretation.

As for the dragons, I think they are tied to Dany’s tragic storyline. At first we are meant to celebrate the dragons. They were woken from stone - their very existence is incredible. And they can be used for good - liberating slaves and stopping oppression. But then their true dangerous potential is revealed (though it had been there all along) when a child, rather than an enemy or slaver, is burned. I think we are meant to have conflicting feelings toward the dragons as with Dany. We like them, just like we like Dany, and are sad when one dies. When the loot train attack happened, I was cheering, but also simultaneously horrified at the multitude of soldiers being burned alive.

[Arakan]

1 minute ago, a girl knows nothing said:

When/if Martin ever finishes the books, I am assuming that the whole Others/three-eyed raven/children of the forest plot will be fleshed out and explained more. The show really cut that out so it’s hard to know what significance it will have in the books. 

But the way the show depicted it, I see the Others’ storyline as showing how people have the capacity to come together (well, except Cersei), put aside their individual differences and competing interests, and work toward a greater, common goal. Yet once the immediate threat is gone, we seem to forget this sense of togetherness, and separate once again to focus on our individual interests. For example, whenever there is a natural disaster, terrorist attack, or other devastating tragedy, people will band together to help one another and lend support, irrespective of preexisting differences in background, political ideology, etc. But then the recency of the tragedy and its initial impact fades, and we all inevitably go back to squabbling over whatever we were preoccupied with before. I don’t know if this is truly what the show intended (and I’m of the opinion that you can fashion meaning for almost anything), but there’s my interpretation.

As for the dragons, I think they are tied to Dany’s tragic storyline. At first we are meant to celebrate the dragons. They were woken from stone - their very existence is incredible. And they can be used for good - liberating slaves and stopping oppression. But then their true dangerous potential is revealed (though it had been there all along) when a child, rather than an enemy or slaver, is burned. I think we are meant to have conflicting feelings toward the dragons as with Dany. We like them, just like we like Dany, and are sad when one dies. When the loot train attack happened, I was cheering, but also simultaneously horrified at the multitude of soldiers being burned alive.

We disagree in many aspects but this is a great thoughtful post nonetheless