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"Bittersweet" can't happen in the show


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On 5/17/2019 at 8:58 PM, Erkan12 said:

I keep hearing this but I don't see how Robert was a bad king when;

  • Aerys
  • Joffrey
  • Cersei
  • And now mad Daenerys (who burned the children at the KL alive,)

Robert had one rebellion in 20 years and they smashed the Greyjoys like an insect after Robert inspiring thousands to his cause.

Varys chose Jon as a better ruler over Daenerys and he lost his life for it, and this was before Daenerys burning the KL, Sansa also said Jon is good at ruling, and I doubt she was lying to Jon for some reason,

 

Yes, Jon isn't a politician, and Robert wasn't a politician too, but they are far better than the tyrants and the mad people who come before them.

Who would be a better ruler? Renly? The guy that usurps his own brother's right for the throne, and goes into rebellion just because he can or sleeps with other men despite his own religion forbids it? Stannis who burns people, uses blood magic and even burns his own children for the throne? Littlefinger? I don't even want to think about it.

I would say Robert is better than all of these, as well as Jon would be too.

Not saying any of this is not true, but Bobby B also ran up huuuge debts (enabled by Littlefinger) on a hitherto unknown scale as well that would have ultimately brought down his successor, or even himself if he had lived a bit longer.

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22 hours ago, Hodor's Dragon said:

I believe the poster has said he hasn't read the books, but I think what he's saying is that there were clues pointing both ways, and in fact, more clues pointing to a very different conclusion than clues pointing to this one. If that is what he has saying, I heartily agree, and since I have read the books, I will extend the point he is making about the show (if I am reading that correctly) to the books as well. There are more clues pointing in other directions than pointing to Daenerys the Terrible.

I agree, in the books we have Dany crucifying the 63 Masters as revenge for the slave children they (well the majority of them, or the most powerful and influential of them) had crucified. If you apply modern values, she should have held a Nürnberg trial to find out who exactly did what, but in medieval times this kind of punishment wasn't completely out of place. If she was full on 'mad Queen', she would have killed all the Masters and their families. Actually, that is what Tywin would probably have done. No need to worry about the sons of the Harpy.

She also has Miri burned after euthanizing Drogo in his vegetable-state. If she had not done these, she would have been a crone in Vaes Dothrak (or married to Jorah after selling the eggs) and there is no story. Not sure it's evidence of 'madness', she had absolutely nothing to lose at that time.

All the other examples cited on the forum are show innovations. She didn't threaten to burn Qarth down, didn't lock anyone in a vault, only killed some weird supernaturals to save her life (Pyat Pree is still alive). Obviously she hasn't got to the point where she can burn the Tarlys or do and of the things from S6 onwards, including the speech to the Dothraki.

At the end of ADWD, she seems to realize that the compromises she made in Mereen have not worked out. She's tried to keep both slavers and freedmen happy to keep the peace, but it was an unstable situation from the beginning. Going forward, there is likely going to be no compromise (because in this medieval, or in the case of Essos, even pre-medieval world 21st century politics does not work).  So she's going to embark on a much harsher arc and her allies/troops are going to be quite alien to the 7K and you can see the conflict with fAegon and Arianne. You're going to have a bunch of rumours about her and it all probably goes downhill very rapidly.

All perfectly fine, but harsh does not mean mad or comic book evil. Perhaps she ends up doing something Tywin-esque (maybe on Tyrion's advice), but it should be a function of what her enemies are doing to her as well. Torching small folk after having won the war and you only need to deal with Cersei and a few guards?- I'm sorry but there is zero foreshadowing for this in the books.

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17 hours ago, Erkan12 said:

Do you really believe there will be peace with Dany's rule? I think it will not, she literally burned the KL and children alive there, as she says she has no love in Westeros and only fear, and people will never like her, while they love Jon.

No that ship probably sailed last episode, unless there's some surprising, unexpected final twist (unlikely as it is).

A nation can easily have "peace" from external threats while ruled by a ruthless, merciless tyrant, but it will rarely have internal peace, unless the nobility simply gives up i face of Daenerys' power and cooperates, and the common people doesn't suffer needlessly under her rule. 

Destroying KL is ultimately a statement: I'm your new ruler and your opinion doesn't matter. 
As long as she doesn't continue to raze other parts of Westeros to the ground (she very well might), then there's potential for a peaceful future. With that said, I doubt the show will go down this path with only one episode to go. If it had a full season to go then maybe...

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On 5/18/2019 at 1:28 AM, Erkan12 said:

I keep hearing this but I don't see how Robert was a bad king when;

  • Aerys
  • Joffrey
  • Cersei
  • And now mad Daenerys (who burned the children at the KL alive,)

Robert had one rebellion in 20 years and they smashed the Greyjoys like an insect after Robert inspiring thousands to his cause.

Varys chose Jon as a better ruler over Daenerys and he lost his life for it, and this was before Daenerys burning the KL, Sansa also said Jon is good at ruling, and I doubt she was lying to Jon for some reason,

 

Yes, Jon isn't a politician, and Robert wasn't a politician too, but they are far better than the tyrants and the mad people who come before them.

Who would be a better ruler? Renly? The guy that usurps his own brother's right for the throne, and goes into rebellion just because he can or sleeps with other men despite his own religion forbids it? Stannis who burns people, uses blood magic and even burns his own children for the throne? Littlefinger? I don't even want to think about it.

I would say Robert is better than all of these, as well as Jon would be too.

Your point about Renly is rather homophobic, it does not make someone a bad person to sleep with other men, and it's never said that the Faith forbids homosexuality. 

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5 hours ago, Headfallsoff said:

Your point about Renly is rather homophobic, it does not make someone a bad person to sleep with other men, and it's never said that the Faith forbids homosexuality. 

Lol, no it's not. Why do you think they arrested Loras Tyrell?

 

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Just now, Erkan12 said:

Lol, no it's not. Why do you think they arrested Loras Tyrell?

 

That's not the general Faith's opinions though, That's the Faith Militant, who basically where Westeros-ISIS compared to the general Faith being general islam. 

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Alt Shift X makes a great point about Episode 5 and where the finale is seemingly heading.
He concludes that: 

"Overall, this is a very dark episode. Hundreds of thousands are killed by the woman we thought was a hero. Jamie fails to become a better man and dies with his hateful sister. All of Jon's heroism, Varys' scheming and Tyrion's supposed intelligence did nothing to prevent this disaster. Is Game of Thrones really this bleak and nihilistic? 

Thrones-author GRRM says "his worldview is anything but nihilistic". Thrones is full of death and darkness, but the darkness is there to better show the light of human struggles against the darkness: "Men's lives have meaning, not their deaths". And yet this episode has little but death.  There's a sense of inevitability. Varys talks about Targaryen madness as though Daenerys was destined to repeat her fathers sins. Jamie just accepts that he can never be better than the hateful man he was. The Hound basically commits suicide by Mountain. It is as though all of these characters hopes and growth were for nothing. The dream of a better world, is ash. So what was the point of this story if it just ends with failure and death. The Thrones-books always have some sense of meaning against the darkness. Their ending will be bittersweet, not just bitter. If Thrones is to be true to it's source material and is to rise above empty nihilism, it needs to show some hope in the series' finale next week."


I genuinely couldn't agree more with the man.

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1 minute ago, MinscS2 said:

That's not the general Faith's opinions though, That's the Faith Militant, who basically where Westeros-ISIS compared to the general Faith being general islam. 

It was still a sin according to Faith of Seven, which is why Renly was secretly doing that and even denying it when people asks him

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12 hours ago, Ser Hedge said:

Not saying any of this is not true, but Bobby B also ran up huuuge debts (enabled by Littlefinger) on a hitherto unknown scale as well that would have ultimately brought down his successor, or even himself if he had lived a bit longer.

Not comparable to when the whole country goes into a war, the wars spends more money than anything else. As Tywin says

''Wars swallow gold like a pit in the earth.'' 

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2 hours ago, Erkan12 said:

Lol, no it's not. Why do you think they arrested Loras Tyrell?

 

Ok thought this was the book forums (Don't ask why, it was a late night ..) 

Still doesn't make him a bad person and its still homophobic to say it makes him one. You're basically saying he should have been celibate or fuck women instead, terrible message. Also, the Faith would consider Robert sleeping with prostitutes a sin as well. 

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9 minutes ago, Headfallsoff said:

Ok thought this was the book forums (Don't ask why, it was a late night ..) 

Still doesn't make him a bad person and its still homophobic to say it makes him one. You're basically saying he should have been celibate or fuck women instead, terrible message. Also, the Faith would consider Robert sleeping with prostitutes a sin as well. 

This, Renly would have made a better king than Joffery or Stannis for sure, his sexuality has absolutely no bearing on his ability to rule.

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34 minutes ago, Headfallsoff said:

Ok thought this was the book forums (Don't ask why, it was a late night ..) 

Still doesn't make him a bad person and its still homophobic to say it makes him one. You're basically saying he should have been celibate or fuck women instead, terrible message. Also, the Faith would consider Robert sleeping with prostitutes a sin as well. 

I didn't make the rules, it's a sin according to Faith of the Seven.

And he doesn't care about the succession as well when he usurped his brother Stannis's right to the throne for no valid reason, I would understand if Stannis was crippled or mentally unstable like Sweet Robin is, but he wasn't, instead Stannis was a proven battle commander, and that ''boy sucker'' (according Meryn Tyrant) Renly would be a terrible example for the future generations and his secret on his sexuality would be always get in his way as it's potentially can be used against him.

Basically, Renly is a terrible character and a very bad example for the people in Westeros.

As for Robert, I doubt it's equally big sin as sleeping with other men, especially in Westeros, all soldiers pay for prostitutes, but not the majority sleeps with other men, also Robert was a proven leader and a war hero and he never tried to usurp others right for no reason, despite what Targaryens calls him, he had a solid reason to fight against the crown, while Renly didn't have any logical reason to fight against Stannis and usurp his rights.

As Stannis says;

''Good men and true will fight for Joffrey, wrongly believing him the true king. A northman might even say the same of Robb Stark. But these lords who flocked to my brother's banners knew him for a usurper.''

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:crying: A “powerful sadness” at the very end is GRRM's stated goal

The word bittersweet keeps being used as a shorthand for the sentiment that Martin has said he hopes to leave people with. This is causing a disconnect with viewers. That's because by repeating that simple word and seeing how it matches up with what you're seeing, you become disappointed and feel that he has misled you.

He has not, because what he has said is actually significantly different from a simple word. You've lost the context and nuance of his far, far more complex viewpoint by compressing  it all down to a single word, particularly one whose meaning is so hard to pin down.

Reading Martin's more detailed description of his goal banishes all confusion to produce a clear vision: he is deliberately trying to create a tremendous sadness at the end because he feels that that sadness has a power that makes the tale a lasting and memorable one that people will read and reread for a long time to come. 

In Martin's in-depth 2016-06-13 Rolling Stone interview, we read him saying all this and more:

As I read Return of the King, I didn’t want it to be over. That last book blew my mind, particularly the scouring of the Shire. I didn’t like that when I was in high school. The story’s over, and they destroyed the ring — but he didn’t write “and now they lived happily ever after.” Instead, they went home and home was all fucked up. The evil guys had burned down some of the woods; a fascist-like tyranny had taken over. That seemed anticlimactic to me. Frodo didn’t live happily ever after or marry a nice girl hobbit. He was permanently wounded; he was damaged. As a 13 year old, I couldn’t grasp that. Now, every time I re-read The Lord of the Rings — which I do, every few years — I appreciate the brilliance of the scouring of the Shire. That’s part of what lifts the book from all its imitators. There was a real cost to Tolkien’s world. There’s a tremendous sadness at the end of Lord of the Rings, and it has a power. I think that’s partly why people are still reading and re-reading these books.
[...]
There are some people who read and want to believe in a world where the good guys win and the bad guys lose, and at the end they live happily ever after. That’s not the kind of fiction that I write. Tolkien was not that. The scouring of the Shire proved that. Frodo’s sadness – that was a bittersweet ending, which to my mind was far more powerful than the ending of Star Wars, where all the happy Ewoks are jumping around, and the ghosts of all the dead people appear, waving happily. [Laughs] But I understand where the other people are coming from. There are a lot of books out there. Let everyone find the kind of book that speaks to them, and speaks to what they need emotionally.

You hate to lose any reader, but it is going to happen, regardless. In a long series, readers who loved the early books may envision the story going in certain directions. Often those directions are wildly divergent. When the later books actually come out, some of those readers are inevitably going to be upset, because the story on the page does not correspond with the one in their heads. Others may be delighted. I have lost readers with every book, I am sure… but I’ve gained a lot more. The fifth volume, A Dance with Dragons, was far and away the most popular in the series. In any case, no, it’s not something I worry about. When this question came up on my Not A Blog a few years ago, I embedded a clip from Rick Nelson singing “Garden Party. “You can’t please everyone, so you’ve got to please yourself. Truer words were seldom sung.

That's his goal and his reasoning behind it: to create a tremendous sadness at the end, and more. All those things seem to be coming to pass, do they not?  Therefore when considered in the light of his real goal here, it looks very much like Martin will have succeeded very well indeed.

So please stop saying bittersweet as though it were some mantra and then going off the rails when you see things happening that you think the word does not encompass. The word itself is not what he's trying to create.  Rather, a tremendous sadness is what he's trying to create because he believes that this kind of ending is so powerful that it makes an unforgettable story that will be long remembered and reread/rewatched.

Do you think he'll have created a powerful sadness? 

If so then good: mission accomplished. :crying:

 

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5 hours ago, Bittersweet Distractor said:

This, Renly would have made a better king than Joffery or Stannis for sure, his sexuality has absolutely no bearing on his ability to rule.

Well said! 

Renly, quick to laugh and sharp of wit, would have made an infinitely better ruler than Daenerys, who is nothing less than a living, breathing disaster incarnate.

Good Queen Margaery was both both caring and clever, someone who knew how to foster critical relationships with the great and small alike.  

Consider the two queens' respective house words “Growing Strong” versus “Fire and Blood”.  Which house sentiment builds a kingdom up, and which one destroys it? 

So duh.

The writing has been on the wall for years.  A dragon plants no trees. Under the dragon there can be no growing strong, only wanton destruction and horror.

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Claims on Renly could rule better is completely baseless, his sexuality has no bearing on his ability to rule yes, and no one said it would, but people can use that weakness to manipulate Renly, Westeros is in the middle age, and homosexuality isn't accepted in that age.

As for his ability to rule, he ruled no where to say that he could be successful;

Stannis;

Spoiler

What has Renly ever done to earn a throne? He sits in council and jests with Littlefinger, and at tourneys he dons his splendid suit of armor and allows himself to be knocked off his horse by a better man. That is the sum of my brother Renly, who thinks he ought to be king.

Donal Noye (a member of House Baratheon);

Spoiler

Robert was the true steel. Stannis is pure iron, black and hard and strong, yes, but brittle, the way iron gets. He'll break before he bends. And Renly, that one, he's copper, bright and shiny, pretty to look at but not worth all that much at the end of the day.

Olenna;

Spoiler

He knew how to dress and he knew how to smile and he knew how to bathe, and somehow he got the notion that this made him fit to be king.

No one other than Loras Tyrell believed Renly would be a good king, and we know why Loras says that and why he sucks Renly's boots.

Renly has been appointed as Lord of the Storm's End just because Robert was angry with Stannis, who failed catch Viserys at Dragonstone, it had nothing to do with Renly's ability to rule. And he gained the support of the Reach due to having sexual relationship with a man.

As far as I see, Renly would be a terrible ruler, never showed an ability to rule or command an army before.

People wouldn't follow a leader who usurps his own brothers right for no reason anyway, whenever they find the chance they would rebel.

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13 minutes ago, Erkan12 said:

Renly has been appointed as Lord of the Storm's End just because Robert was angry with Stannis, who failed catch Viserys at Dragonstone, it had nothing to do with Renly's ability to rule. And he gained the support of the Reach due to having sexual relationship with a man.

I thought that upon coming to power Robert appointed Stannis with the hereditary rank of Prince of Dragonstone because Stannis was the heir apparent to the Iron Throne, and the heir apparent always had to be Prince of Dragonstone.

t's like the Prince of Wales in the UK. Stannis may have misunderstood, though.

What exactly are your last three words "with a man" supposed to signify? Why does that matter and why do we care??

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12 minutes ago, CrypticWeirwood said:

I thought that upon coming to power Robert appointed Stannis with the hereditary rank of Prince of Dragonstone because Stannis was the heir apparent to the Iron Throne, and the heir apparent always had to be Prince of Dragonstone.

t's like the Prince of Wales in the UK. Stannis may have misunderstood, though.

What exactly are your last three words "with a man" supposed to signify? Why does that matter and why do we care??

That applies to Targaryens only, because they had no empty regions to rule before, obviously ruling a region like Stormlands > Dragonstone.

Why are you getting emotional?  It matters when Renly gained the support of the Reach because of that only, not like he was a great master mind or a politician.

Obviously you shouldn't care about that or any people, that's not the point.

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1 hour ago, CrypticWeirwood said:

:crying: A “powerful sadness” at the very end is GRRM's stated goal

The word bittersweet keeps being used as a shorthand for the sentiment that Martin has said he hopes to leave people with. This is causing a disconnect with viewers. That's because by repeating that simple word and seeing how it matches up with what you're seeing, you become disappointed and feel that he has misled you.

He has not, because what he has said is actually significantly different from a simple word. You've lost the context and nuance of his far, far more complex viewpoint by compressing  it all down to a single word, particularly one whose meaning is so hard to pin down.

Reading Martin's more detailed description of his goal banishes all confusion to produce a clear vision: he is deliberately trying to create a tremendous sadness at the end because he feels that that sadness has a power that makes the tale a lasting and memorable one that people will read and reread for a long time to come. 

In Martin's in-depth 2016-06-13 Rolling Stone interview, we read him saying all this and more:

As I read Return of the King, I didn’t want it to be over. That last book blew my mind, particularly the scouring of the Shire. I didn’t like that when I was in high school. The story’s over, and they destroyed the ring — but he didn’t write “and now they lived happily ever after.” Instead, they went home and home was all fucked up. The evil guys had burned down some of the woods; a fascist-like tyranny had taken over. That seemed anticlimactic to me. Frodo didn’t live happily ever after or marry a nice girl hobbit. He was permanently wounded; he was damaged. As a 13 year old, I couldn’t grasp that. Now, every time I re-read The Lord of the Rings — which I do, every few years — I appreciate the brilliance of the scouring of the Shire. That’s part of what lifts the book from all its imitators. There was a real cost to Tolkien’s world. There’s a tremendous sadness at the end of Lord of the Rings, and it has a power. I think that’s partly why people are still reading and re-reading these books.
[...]
There are some people who read and want to believe in a world where the good guys win and the bad guys lose, and at the end they live happily ever after. That’s not the kind of fiction that I write. Tolkien was not that. The scouring of the Shire proved that. Frodo’s sadness – that was a bittersweet ending, which to my mind was far more powerful than the ending of Star Wars, where all the happy Ewoks are jumping around, and the ghosts of all the dead people appear, waving happily. [Laughs] But I understand where the other people are coming from. There are a lot of books out there. Let everyone find the kind of book that speaks to them, and speaks to what they need emotionally.

You hate to lose any reader, but it is going to happen, regardless. In a long series, readers who loved the early books may envision the story going in certain directions. Often those directions are wildly divergent. When the later books actually come out, some of those readers are inevitably going to be upset, because the story on the page does not correspond with the one in their heads. Others may be delighted. I have lost readers with every book, I am sure… but I’ve gained a lot more. The fifth volume, A Dance with Dragons, was far and away the most popular in the series. In any case, no, it’s not something I worry about. When this question came up on my Not A Blog a few years ago, I embedded a clip from Rick Nelson singing “Garden Party. “You can’t please everyone, so you’ve got to please yourself. Truer words were seldom sung.

That's his goal and his reasoning behind it: to create a tremendous sadness at the end, and more. All those things seem to be coming to pass, do they not?  Therefore when considered in the light of his real goal here, it looks very much like Martin will have succeeded very well indeed.

So please stop saying bittersweet as though it were some mantra and then going off the rails when you see things happening that you think the word does not encompass. The word itself is not what he's trying to create.  Rather, a tremendous sadness is what he's trying to create because he believes that this kind of ending is so powerful that it makes an unforgettable story that will be long remembered and reread/rewatched.

Do you think he'll have created a powerful sadness? 

If so then good: mission accomplished. :crying:

 

Depressing as hell would seem to be the verdict, if the Spoilers are correct.

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10 hours ago, Erkan12 said:

Not comparable to when the whole country goes into a war, the wars spends more money than anything else. As Tywin says

''Wars swallow gold like a pit in the earth.'' 

Robert ran up debt to an insane degree for no real reason. He gave tywin far more power since tywin owned alot of the debt.  However what was his worst crime was that due to him ignoring everything it allowed corruption to fester on a scale that was rarely seen. Robert  knew things were going bad and just ignored it. He knew his heir (the books specifically show this and I think the show hinted at it) was gonna be a screw up and was twisted but did nothing to try and change him. Even if ned hadn't been killed and cersei's children were actually roberts he set the kingdom up for war. It may not have been as bad as what happened but he dropped the ball and if you didn't have a really good ruler come after him it was gonna turn to crap.

 

Robert is not someone you want to hold up and say "yeah he is a good king"

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1 hour ago, CrypticWeirwood said:

Rather, a tremendous sadness is what he's trying to create because he believes that this kind of ending is so powerful that it makes an unforgettable story that will be long remembered and reread/rewatched.

Do you think he'll have created a powerful sadness? 

If so then good: mission accomplished. :crying:

If this is true then the man is a damn fool, or the worlds biggest troll.
We're seemingly getting a nihilistic tragedy, and those don't usually get reread/rewatched that much, if at all.

A person who searches for and expects a memorable tragedy will enjoy said tragedy, if written well. There are many great Shakespearean pieces of literature and fiction who are memorable, but they never pretended to be something they're not.

A person who searches for and expects morally grey fantasy-literature and expects a somewhat happy/bittersweet or at least meaningful one on a high note, after all the shit the surviving characters have been trough, will not enjoy something that ends in a (nihilistic) tragedy, especially not when there was no real buildup for that kind of ending.

Ultimately, if you don't enjoy it, you won't revisit it.
People will remember GoT/aSoIaF, but not as something great or good.

And calling LotR a tragedy is hilarious on so many levels.
Might as well call Romeo and Juliet a comedy...

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