Jump to content

The Ending Was very conventional


C.T. Phipps

Recommended Posts

18 minutes ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

That's not what op was saying at all. The problem is not Bran per se, but media as a whole. It can't be denied that a disproportionate amount of fantasy features white male heroes. So just like any cliche, having yet another one is just... yawn... and it reinforces existing and unfortunate stereotypes.

If D&D or Martin wanted this series to embody Trumpian themes, as opposed to sJew PrOPagAndA, that's fine. But people have a right to criticise that. Of course, I don't think it was deliberate at all. D&D just didn't think about the message they were conveying.

Forcing a non-white leader into a story just for the sake of having a non-white leader isn't good storytelling. That isn't to say what we got is good storytelling, but the point stands

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Potsk said:

Forcing a non-white leader into a story just for the sake of having a non-white leader isn't good storytelling. That isn't to say what we got is good storytelling, but the point stands

And having Bran as King wasn't forced?

Why would having non-white leaders automatically be bad storytelling?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On ‎5‎/‎20‎/‎2019 at 12:19 PM, C.T. Phipps said:

The Ending of Game of Thrones and how it was VERY conventional

http://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/2019/05/what-did-i-think-of-game-of-thrones.html

Short version:

* White Male King

Who was in a wheel chair. A cripple king is not conventional. The rulers of Westeros at the end of the series was a Cripple, a dwarf, the first ever female knight and two commoners turned nobles.

The North also got its first ever female ruler. The Reach is ruled by a commoner.

On ‎5‎/‎20‎/‎2019 at 12:19 PM, C.T. Phipps said:

* The Wheel Unbroken

Sure. Social change at that level takes decades, maybe centuries. It does not happen overnight, incremental change is how societies progress.

On ‎5‎/‎20‎/‎2019 at 12:19 PM, C.T. Phipps said:

* The foreigners all magically up and leave versus integrate

That's not true. The unsullied left, we have no idea about the remaining Dothraki.

On ‎5‎/‎20‎/‎2019 at 12:19 PM, C.T. Phipps said:

* Sansa establishes a xenophobic kingdom

It was xenophobic to begin with, Sansa did not establish it.

On ‎5‎/‎20‎/‎2019 at 12:19 PM, C.T. Phipps said:

* Brienne's ending is to uphold the traditionalist system

She's literally the first female knight, the first female Kingsguard member, the first female Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.

She's broken the traditional system of who can and can't be a knight.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, CrypticWeirwood said:

I'm not sure you're completely right, but I agree it was not the point of the story — at all.

What do you think Martin is trying to say, though? There are messages with meaning here, but you have to think about them.

Ok, so I think the show was trying to get at the idea that Kings are human, they are guided by their own fears (mad king), desires (Bobby b), motives (Dany), lust (Euron), etc. By putting Bran, the least human character, on the Throne, you kind of circumvent this problem. However, this is only possible if someone like Bran exists. 

But, like I said. The show is TRYING to say that. But, having Tyrion talk about 'stories' and having Bran's small council populated by his buddies and giving the North to Sansa without question REALLY nullifies this point. 

The books very effectively make the above point. I'm sure that the ending will reflect the benefits, and also problems, of having an inhuman king. I wouldn't be surprised if Bran is portrayed as a sort of Dr.Mahattan character, who is too dissociated from humanity to feel a close emotional connection to anyone.

There are a lot of interesting elements to explore with Bran as ruler. Will he instituted more environmental policies? How will he manage relations with the North? Is he truly impartial? Will the common folk fear him?

The show inevitably just TELLS us, that Bran will be good, because he is a 'keeper of stories' and holds the realms memory...wtf does that mean? That's what I mean when they don't have anything to say about politics, because they never attempt to SHOW us any of the implications of the new royal order. We are simply TOLD that it will be good.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am very glad that tolerance and liberal cliches were destroyed in the ending. The ending is bad for the most part, but it's a good point. Naive fools believed that crowds of migrants from another culture would live peacefully in a “white country”? But they massacred the locals, and then the locals sent them back home. Martin will probably just kill them in the books. This is realism. You cannot live peacefully with aggressive outsiders.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 20 May 2019 at 12:19 PM, C.T. Phipps said:

The Ending of Game of Thrones and how it was VERY conventional

http://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/2019/05/what-did-i-think-of-game-of-thrones.html

Short version:

* White Male King

* The Wheel Unbroken

* The foreigners all magically up and leave versus integrate

* Sansa establishes a xenophobic kingdom

* Brienne's ending is to uphold the traditionalist system

It feels very much like a more traditional fantasy ending but more that all of the revolutionary social aspects have been removed.

What do you think?

the show runners' message was that trying to reform an unjust society makes you either (a) Ayatollah Khomeini or (b) Adolf Hitler.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 5/20/2019 at 1:19 PM, C.T. Phipps said:

The Ending of Game of Thrones and how it was VERY conventional

http://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/2019/05/what-did-i-think-of-game-of-thrones.html

Short version:

* White Male King

* The Wheel Unbroken

* The foreigners all magically up and leave versus integrate

* Sansa establishes a xenophobic kingdom

* Brienne's ending is to uphold the traditionalist system

It feels very much like a more traditional fantasy ending but more that all of the revolutionary social aspects have been removed.

What do you think?

plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, C.T. Phipps said:

You realize those values that the West is most valuable for are a creation of multiculturalism right? The benefits of the West are from its international and melting pot nature.

I thought melting pot was a fairly recent US term that has nothing to do with the longer history of Western culture.

The benefits of the West are from a long linage of Western ideals built upon from one civilization to the next. Just as I suspect the benefits of modern Eastern cultures are (though I have never lived them).

There is also a difference between multiple ethnic groups integrating into and adapting to the greater traditional ideals of a host culture (which is something I have no issue with and arguably increases the resilience of a civilization) and the idea of multiculturalism (which is a deeply flawed, regressive, culture breaking concept).

When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Forgetting that simple idea was a big part of why Rome fell - and yes I know the phrase was coined after that fall but the message is the same.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

It can't be denied that a disproportionate amount of fantasy features white male heroes.

True, since most of those fantasies are based on historical eras and in fictional worlds which reflect the upbringing of the authors. But in this particular case, Westeros is a male-dominated medieval hierarchy that is exclusively white. How could the hero be anything else than a white male? It's actually rather refreshing that there are strong female protagonists with Catelyn Stark, Arya, Dani, Cersei etc

Of course, generally speaking, it could be possible that there are volumes and volumes of beautifully written epic stories with non-white / female etc heroines that aren't being published because the publishers are bigots, but I highly doubt it. More likely a there's tons of pretty good literature with non-white heroes that are written in Hindi / Chinese / Arabic etc that don't get translated to English or simply aren't heavily marketed / don't sell with a 'western' audience, or else is written for a western audience but isn't so well known. That in itself might also reflect the cultural biases of the buying public.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

That's not what op was saying at all. The problem is not Bran per se, but media as a whole. It can't be denied that a disproportionate amount of fantasy features white male heroes.

That's not true. Watch or read much fantasy from India, China or Japan? Very few white male heroes in them.

Obviously in the West white male's are going to be disproportionately  high, that is the largest demography that reads or watches them.

Though of the main characters of this series Arya, Sansa and Dany have been heroes for pretty much the entire series. Dany turning heel in the last couple of series does not change that.

Game of Thrones had Arya kill the Nights King, it had Cersei as the main villain of the series, it had Brienne leading the ground army. Too complain about sexism in the series is bizarre.

 

6 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

 

So just like any cliche, having yet another one is just... yawn... and it reinforces existing and unfortunate stereotypes.

Yeah, so many fantasy books and shows have a cripple kid become King. When will this tired trope end?

Sansa is his equal, she is also a monarch. I'm not sure how this reinforces stereotypes.

6 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

If D&D or Martin wanted this series to embody Trumpian themes, as opposed to sJew PrOPagAndA, that's fine.

Trump was not a politician when the show was greenlit, nevermind when GRRM was writing the books. Bringing up Trump is a bizarre point to make.

6 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

 

But people have a right to criticise that. Of course, I don't think it was deliberate at all. D&D just didn't think about the message they were conveying.

Yeah, they didn't have the power to predict that America would elect Trump to replace Obama, a black president.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Selere said:

Horrible, I fucking cried when it happened. My mom came into my room to bring me a plate of chicken nuggets and I literally screamed at her and hit the plate of chicken nuggets out of her hand. She started yelling and swearing at me and I slammed the door on her. I'm so distressed right now I don't know what to do. I didn't mean to do that to my mom but I'm literally in shock from the results that night. I feel like I'm going to explode. Why the fucking fuck didn't Dany become queen? This can't be happening. I'm having a fucking breakdown. I don't want to believe the world is so corrupt. I want a future to believe in. I wanted a strong woman to become queen to fix that broken kingdom. I cannot fucking deal with this right now. It wasn't supposed to be like this, I thought she was the fan favourite???? This is so fucked.

Are you for real? I hope this is sarcasm :o

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, Ilissa said:
So what? If non-whites want to see a non-white king in fantasy, then let them write their own books. White Martin writes normal fantasy with normal white kings ;)
 

Not sure that Bran qualifies as a normal white king though;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is much I hated about the way the show ended. The worst of it, IMHO, was 3 eyed raven being king and Arya turning into Magellan. But, I can deal with all of that if they would have just given us one more twist at the end. After Daenerys died, it was just so boring. I would have loved if Jon and Tormund found some evidence of surviving WWs at the end, or to have seen Bran giving an evil laugh with blue eyes or watching Drogon circling back around to torch the small council or any other number of things to remind everyone this isn’t a happily ever after. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 5/20/2019 at 1:19 PM, C.T. Phipps said:

The Ending of Game of Thrones and how it was VERY conventional

http://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/2019/05/what-did-i-think-of-game-of-thrones.html

Short version:

* White Male King

* The Wheel Unbroken

* The foreigners all magically up and leave versus integrate

* Sansa establishes a xenophobic kingdom

* Brienne's ending is to uphold the traditionalist system

It feels very much like a more traditional fantasy ending but more that all of the revolutionary social aspects have been removed.

What do you think?

The situation is a little more nuanced than that. 

True but the white male king is also impotent and physically disabled. What would be the alternative option instead? A white female queen (we have had three of those) or a random Dothraki or Unsullied going against everything that’s left of a narrative? 

They did introduce a basic form of election and modern democracy didn’t happen overnight either, there were many many steps and this was one the first in the right direction. Also the breaking the wheel concept was never real, it was Daenerys’s idea of a Roman style principatus. 

Hard to argue with this, especially in the case of the wildlings who had been motivated to integrate for 7 seasons. I can see why the Dothraki and the Unsullied wouldn’t give a fuck about Westeros and just go home after a pillaging spree. 

Sansa is a female ruler who was elected the leader of a freshly autonomous realm. Hard to find a more progressive way to end that story. 

How so? Brienne was knighted and given the highest possible rank a knight could reach. The glass ceiling is more broken than the Red Keep. 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My final thoughts for the ending and GOT in overall is that it lacks any central meaning. 

When Drogon melts the IT, which symbolizes the central authority or the greed for ultimate power (by running all other Kingdoms), it is a golden opportunity for the characters to see the meaning behind this action. Yet, either the characters fail to see it or the script - writers fail to deliver this symbolism. 

In a parallelism with the LOTR is like someone reclaiming the Ring after it was thrown in mount Doom. 

What is more frustrating is that the characters fold up in the original system without doubting, questioning or trying to make a meaning out of this journey, which in GOT case, has been the continuous wars for the throne. 

So it seems that 8 seasons of pure destruction, massacres and betrayal, where just a mean for a character to reach the Throne. 

Little change has been achieved. Sam’s idea about democracy is mocked revealing that perhaps another 8 seasons of war would be needed for these lords to actually learn something. 

Of course moving from hereditary monarchy to electing a new King, but still for the few and the rich, is a step, but a very little step, after all these wars and destruction. 

Was the price they all paid worth the gain? 

Honestly after all of this doom that took thousands of lives is this the only progress that GOT has to offer as an overall conclusion? 

Tyrion’s suggestion that Bran should be King because he has a good story is for laughs: There is nothing that humanity can learn from Bran because he is a fantastic creature who can’t truly relate to humans. Plus he is one of the characters that contributed the least in the ending’s resolution.

It almost sounds like the humans are asking from a extraterrestrial being to become King because mortals didn't learn anything besides that humans can’t be trusted. 

So the characters result in a Godlike solution that barely touches viewers. 

So does the script really wants to convey any meaning? 

No, I am afraid it doesn't. GOT tosses the opportunity to progress its characters, to make something real (despite the amount of violence it portrays hides behind grim realism) out of this story.  

Why? To give a fairytale ending that just wants to reward the main characters (stark children), and doesn't hesitate doing it even in the expense of any meaning that could make this story great. 

What I mean by that is simple this:

The idea of creating a meaning - a great progress out this war that would also justify it - is sacrificed so Bran can become a king. 

The idea that the Lords will elect their new Kings from now on - when and if Bran dies - is just a complementary solution to the character who can’t have descendants, a solution to get the power. 

Democracy is mocked so Bran can be King. 

Apparently with such a resolution GOT degrades itself into a fairytale about how the central characters - the Stark children - are finally rewarded and distances itself from becoming something larger. 

Don’t get me wrong I love fairytale endings because after all this is fiction. 

But I find it lesser to my expectations. It all sums up that we were watching the adventures of the Stark children all along. And it doesn't matter if we like them or not at the end. This is their story. And any kind of meaning in the end sacrifices itself for their happy end. And this is what is all about. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, JMCH said:

True, since most of those fantasies are based on historical eras and in fictional worlds which reflect the upbringing of the authors. But in this particular case, Westeros is a male-dominated medieval hierarchy that is exclusively white. How could the hero be anything else than a white male? It's actually rather refreshing that there are strong female protagonists with Catelyn Stark, Arya, Dani, Cersei etc

Of course, generally speaking, it could be possible that there are volumes and volumes of beautifully written epic stories with non-white / female etc heroines that aren't being published because the publishers are bigots, but I highly doubt it. More likely a there's tons of pretty good literature with non-white heroes that are written in Hindi / Chinese / Arabic etc that don't get translated to English or simply aren't heavily marketed / don't sell with a 'western' audience, or else is written for a western audience but isn't so well known. That in itself might also reflect the cultural biases of the buying public.

I mean, you've sort of answered your own question. ASOIAF features several female protagonists, which is pretty uncommon for the genre. There are POC characters, too - a whole region of them, in fact (the Martells say hi). While there are criticisms that can be made for the depiction of said characters, I think GRRM has shown that there is nothing "forced" about have non-white male protagonists, even in a historical European-inspired setting.

4 hours ago, Bernie Mac said:

That's not true. Watch or read much fantasy from India, China or Japan? Very few white male heroes in them.

Obviously in the West white male's are going to be disproportionately  high, that is the largest demography that reads or watches them.

India, China, and Japan are not multi-racial nations. English speaking countries are.

I think GOT and other popular works like Harry Potter or LoTR (movies and books) debunks the idea that only white dudes can get into fantasy. Have you considered that fantasy typically has white male audiences because of marketing, and not lack of interest?

4 hours ago, Bernie Mac said:

Though of the main characters of this series Arya, Sansa and Dany have been heroes for pretty much the entire series. Dany turning heel in the last couple of series does not change that. 

Game of Thrones had Arya kill the Nights King, it had Cersei as the main villain of the series, it had Brienne leading the ground army. Too complain about sexism in the series is bizarre. 

Dany becoming an antagonist changes everything. Themes do matter, despite what D&D claim. What does it say that both women vying for the top job are villains because of their emotions? Women being too emotional for leadership is a nasty stereotype, as is women seeking power being power-hungry, and the show reinforces this stereotype. It is one of many stories that do so. Having Arya kill the NK doesn't change that, nor does it erase her disparaging of femininity throughout the show.

4 hours ago, Bernie Mac said:

Yeah, so many fantasy books and shows have a cripple kid become King. When will this tired trope end? 

Sansa is his equal, she is also a monarch. I'm not sure how this reinforces stereotypes. 

You've just reminded me of how terrible the show has handled his disability. Bran the Broken? FFS. Points for not erasing disabilities all together, which is a problem in fantasy, but it doesn't change that he's still another white dude, and white dudes are a dime a dozen in this genre.

Sansa isn't his equal at all. She's allowed to be Queen, but over there, as some sort of consolation prize so the showrunners can pat themselves on the back for being sooo progressive. It's clear King of Westeros was the ultimate position. It's a step up from the idea that ONLY men can be put in leadership positions, but getting women into the most powerful roles is still a struggle.

5 hours ago, Bernie Mac said:

Trump was not a politician when the show was greenlit, nevermind when GRRM was writing the books. Bringing up Trump is a bizarre point to make.

I don't think GRRM intends to go the route of the show, or at least not frame events the same way, so my criticism isn't necessarily directed at him. The show's ending sends some very "alt right" messages though. Isolationism, xenophobia... the show justifies these things, intentionally or not. And it's not like these themes didn't exist before Trump. He just embodies them. Hence "Trumpian".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sansa did NOT establish a xenophobic kingdom! Sheesh, people.

When you live in a sparsely populated region with almost no foreign trade routes even touching your edges let alone passing through you in an agrarian society with little to no even infra-region mobility, it is normal, common, and expected that those folks would be unuccustomed to seeing strangers from afar visiting them, especially ones whose languages, manner of dress, customs, culture, and even speech were all very different than their own. 

This is no Mediterraneean mélange of constant travellers from all corners of the globe like the Free Cities of the Narrow Sea. Winterfell is not even a port city like White Harbor. It's in the hinterlands. Just whom do you expect to see casually passing through there on a daily basis? Where are they going? What are they bringing? 

It is completely wrong to disparage such a people with insults of xenophobia and even racism. It bespeaks a deep misunderstanding of how the world really works.

This is like saying that the townsfolk of Hobbiton are xenophobic. 

Unhelpful and untrue, unjust and unreasonable. This is simple noraml human nature in these circumstances. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

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

×
×
  • Create New...