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Master thread on what the Show means for the book plot


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On 1/25/2021 at 10:28 AM, BlackLightning said:

Maybe.

There is also the infamous dream Dany has. She is having sex with a dead/frostbitten man in which his erect penis feels like a cold steel dagger. In my opinion, this is a dragon dream and that the man in her dream is Jon Snow.

Yeah, that was pretty disturbing.

On 1/25/2021 at 10:28 AM, BlackLightning said:

There's no way anyone will let Tyrion cannot become Hand of the King. Although he (falsely) committed to killing the king he fought for and protected, Tyrion's greatest sin/error is killing his own father while he was on the toilet in his own home.

Kinslaying and guest right seem to be major taboos and people who commit such sins are cursed in life and after death. Having everyone ignore this (after over a decade of Jaime being dragged through filth for killing King Aerys II and Brienne being forced into running for her life because she is a suspect in King Renly's death) is a massive plot-hole.

I dont know how much blowback Tyrion will get in the end, if Dany kills 500,000 people. It seems like small potatoes next to that.

And its odd, there were so many Targaryens killing each other but they were still in power. People called Bloodraven a kinslayer but he was still the Hand for a while after that without much objection. 

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23 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

I dont know how much blowback Tyrion will get in the end, if Dany kills 500,000 people. It seems like small potatoes next to that.

And its odd, there were so many Targaryens killing each other but they were still in power. People called Bloodraven a kinslayer but he was still the Hand for a while after that without much objection. 

I don't know. Well, to be honest, Dany killing 500,000 (if it happens) people isn't that big of a deal when you compare her to her ancestors. Especially Aegon, Maegor, Daemon and Daeron

As far as I'm concerned, making Tyrion Hand of the King again is like making Walder Frey or Roose Bolton Hand of the King.

Why would you want someone who really went out of their way to murder their own parent to become the second most powerful person in the entire country??

Bloodraven, on the contrary, had many objections. And Bloodraven wasn't a kinslayer. He didn't personally loose the arrows that killed the Blackfyres. People (aka Blackfyre supporters) called him that because they think that he used sorcery to make sure that the arrows that were shot hit their target. Besides, the Blackfyres were rebels and traitors. What does the Lord of Winterfell do when their Stark kin deserts the Night's Watch? And in the end, Bloodraven was banished to the Wall anyways...so he never really escaped punishment.

With Tyrion, however...things are different. There is no debate about whether he killed his father or not nor is it a case of a law enforcer killing a lawbreaker who happens to be kin. Tyrion had legally been tried and sentenced; he was a convicted criminal who killed the law enforcer and escaped.

Very different scenarios.

Back to Dany, what REALLY matters is how or why? Are these people innocent civilians or are they combatants or are they civilian combatants (aka insurgents)? Were they given at least once chance to surrender? Did she do it on accident? Were the deaths collateral damage in her fight against someone like Euron or Cersei or was it collateral damage in her fight against someone like fAegon or Jon Snow? Did she do it out of spite? Does she become psychotic and then kills half a million people? Did it happen because she was trying to do blood magic?

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1 hour ago, BlackLightning said:

I don't know. Well, to be honest, Dany killing 500,000 (if it happens) people isn't that big of a deal when you compare her to her ancestors. Especially Aegon, Maegor, Daemon and Daeron

I dont know any of those guys who killed 500,000 people, in a city, in one day. That's like a Rwandan genocide in 24 hours. Do you have stats on the other casualties from each of those guys? 

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As far as I'm concerned, making Tyrion Hand of the King again is like making Walder Frey or Roose Bolton Hand of the King.

Why would you want someone who really went out of their way to murder their own parent to become the second most powerful person in the entire country??

Bloodraven, on the contrary, had many objections. And Bloodraven wasn't a kinslayer. He didn't personally loose the arrows that killed the Blackfyres. People (aka Blackfyre supporters) called him that because they think that he used sorcery to make sure that the arrows that were shot hit their target. Besides, the Blackfyres were rebels and traitors. What does the Lord of Winterfell do when their Stark kin deserts the Night's Watch? And in the end, Bloodraven was banished to the Wall anyways...so he never really escaped punishment.

With Tyrion, however...things are different. There is no debate about whether he killed his father or not nor is it a case of a law enforcer killing a lawbreaker who happens to be kin. Tyrion had legally been tried and sentenced; he was a convicted criminal who killed the law enforcer and escaped.

Very different scenarios.

I thought you meant being a kinslayer as a public perception to prevent him from being promoted, so that's why I brought up Bloodraven. But reading this post, I think you mean narrative justice? Really I think the only injustice in that regard is what he did to Shae. Not what he did to his father.

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Back to Dany, what REALLY matters is how or why? Are these people innocent civilians or are they combatants or are they civilian combatants (aka insurgents)? Were they given at least once chance to surrender? Did she do it on accident? Were the deaths collateral damage in her fight against someone like Euron or Cersei or was it collateral damage in her fight against someone like fAegon or Jon Snow? Did she do it out of spite? Does she become psychotic and then kills half a million people? Did it happen because she was trying to do blood magic?

In the show her killing them even though they surrendered sounds like the "gut punch" GRRM goes for. I just assume the story is here to deliver a message, loud and clear, about the type of power only Dany has.

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On 2/4/2021 at 8:28 PM, Rose of Red Lake said:

In the show her killing them even though they surrendered sounds like the "gut punch" GRRM goes for. I just assume the story is here to deliver a message, loud and clear, about the type of power only Dany has.

I don't believe it.

First of all, not all of GRRM's gut punches revolve around these explosive, emotionally wrought scenarios and setpieces. The simple reveal that Reek was Ramsay Snow all along was a gut punch. The death of Khal Drogo and stillbirth of Rhaego were gut punches. Lysa revealing that she lied about everything and didn't feel sorry about it was a gut punch.

Second of all, the whole ending of the TV show is way too similar to the ending of the Dance of Dragons to be taken too literally.

Rhaenyra (whom a lot of people don't like) takes the Iron Throne from her lousy half-brother and her grasping evil stepmother (whom nobody likes) only to be so consumed by her hate and anger that she turns out to be worst than the both of them. The amount of people who dislike Rhaenyra increase to the point that a small rebellion/coup occurs. Rhaenyra loses power. narrowly escaping the city only to be surprised and killed by her half-brother. Said half-brother Aegon seizes control once again but he forgets that nobody liked him to begin with so he ends up being mysteriously murdered in his throne room. The lords of the realm half-ass their way through investigations and a trial before making Rhaenyra's son, the other Aegon, the king. Only for them to realize that little Aegon is a sourpuss, traumatized by all that he encountered. Hope arrives however when his sisters introduce him to a girl who would be his future queen. Aegon smiles. The end.

Sound familiar?

Besides, the moral of the TV show was ultimately that women who seek power cannot be trusted with power unless they have been victims of horrific sexual abuse. If not, they will become psychotic, hypersexual mass murderers.

Is that that message about the type of power Dany has that you were referring to?

Third of all, if the message you are getting at is about nuclear power, then that message is erased and invalidated if she destroys an entire city that already surrenders. There are so many things wrong with that that a nuclear weapon metaphor is inapplicable.

Besides, GRRM has already confirmed that there will be other dragonriders besides Daenerys. 

On 2/4/2021 at 8:28 PM, Rose of Red Lake said:

In the show her killing them even though they surrendered sounds like the "gut punch" GRRM goes for. I just assume the story is here to deliver a message, loud and clear, about the type of power only Dany has.

Nope but I do know that Aegon and Visenya are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people in Dorne during the period known as the Dragon's Wroth...where they destroyed dozens of towns and castles and holdfasts.

I do know that Maegor and Visenya burned numerous towns, castles and villages within an evening during Maegor's reign. More than once.

I do know that Rhaenyra ordered mass executions on a daily basis. I do know that Daeron the Young Dragon is responsible for the deaths of another set of hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people in Dorne.

My point is that Daenerys Targaryen firebombing a city of 500k-2m people is not an unbelievably unconscionable thing in and of itself. (It's likely not going to be possible given the circumstances in the books, Drogon doesn't have the strength of a Balerion or a Vhagar and King's Landing is likely to be covered in snow and ice which adds an additional barrier to the destruction of the city)

The problem here is destroying a city that has already surrendered to her and now completely belongs to her. It is so illogical and unnecessary that it defies everything.

Aerys II Targaryen, a known madman who was likely suffering from an legit mentally illness, only tried to destroy King's Landing when it was clear that all was lost and he had been cornered. Militarily speaking, he was going kamikaze as it was his last stand and it was a political middle finger to the next regime. Which is saying a lot because not even Hitler or his sicko generals went as far as that. Not even Stalin destroyed his own city centers.

But yet Daenerys tries to destroy King's Landing because she is mad that they surrendered to her on time as was previously discussed. But yet she is completely sane.

Not even Maegor in all his cruelty or Rhaenyra in all her paranoia tried to destroy large swathes of King's Landing. And no one really liked them nor were the two of them particularly fond of the people in the city.

Not even TV!Cersei (aka Carol) blew up the entire city: she only took out an entire city district. The only person who would willfully do what TV!Daenerys did (aka Danielle) is Ramsay and not even Ramsay would completely lose it like that.

Third of all, you're also completely avoiding the topic of why Daenerys didn't just make a beeline to the Red Keep and set it on fire after the city surrendered. If what happened was that she lost her temper and saw red, that's what anyone who has completely lost their shit and saw red would have done. Sure there would've been some collateral damage. Except she destroyed everything except for the Red Keep.

It was nuts.

Like come on. Unless GRRM is turning Daenerys into the ASOIAF version of Satan, what happened in the show is not going to happen.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 2/9/2021 at 5:52 PM, BlackLightning said:

The problem here is destroying a city that has already surrendered to her and now completely belongs to her. It is so illogical and unnecessary that it defies everything.

Maybe it's useful to imagine the ways it could happen more logically then? I can see it going lots of ways.

- Maybe Dany thinks the surrender is an act of perfidy and a plan to lure her into a trap. This happened with Daeron in Dorne. And maybe perfidy is somewhere in the Aegon plot? Like He, Varys, or JonCon could trick Dany with surrender, which angers her and makes her paranoid about it happening again.

- Maybe Dany decides on a whim to use No Quarter. Dany already has the most power in the world and can decide to kill 5000,000 people if she wants, and no one can stop her. Also a similar no quarter situation happened at Tumbleton. Soldiers surrendered and the city was destroyed anyway. Of course there is historical precedent for this too.

- Maybe Dany decides that she doesn't want the daily tedium of ruling, and prefers to "show people whose boss." Maybe she decides Westeros needs to be punished for opposing her. I think there are numerous examples in the books that she goes out of her way to exact punishment on a population level, and then moves on.

- Maybe she gets progressively more self-righteous and this is her version of "liberation" in her twisted mind. People corrupted by power or deluded by their own bullshit don't have to do things that are logical and make sense.

- Maybe Dany doesn't see Westeros as her home at that point. Maybe she realizes it was all a fantasy and she lashes out. Maybe she doesn't want to rule over people who don't worship her. Maybe she doesn't see it as "her city" anymore.

- Maybe she is more like the Dothraki who don't follow rules of war. They force a city into submission and THEN enslave it and rape women. Conquerors in history have done similar things - maybe Dany is on that trajectory.

-Prophecy-wise, the "Stallion Who Fucks the World!!!!" doesn't really fit someone who "just attacks a tower" and "tries to minimize damage."

"We all know the saying power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And there's a great deal of truth in that. But also I find that the desire for power can corrupt us, the lust for power makes people do things maybe they shouldn't do." (x)

"What drives Dany? With Dany I'm particularly looking at the... what effect great power has upon a person. She's the mother of dragons, and she controls what is in effect the only three nuclear weapons in the entire world that I've created. What does it do to you when you control the only three nuclear weapons in the world and you can destroy entire cities or cultures if you choose to? Should you choose to, should you not choose to?" (x)

- I read GRRM's statements about power corrupting here, and how he's exploring the effect great power has on Dany, and wonder okay then, WHY is there is a "corrupt, rotting heart" in Dany's fortune telling visions? Why isn't that discussed more? What are the implications of that?

- Dany has so many unique qualities that comparisons don't fit. Cersei and Ramsay never had dragons. Aegon the Conqueror had a desire to build and restore cities and stick it out for the long haul. Aegon V had Dany's drive to correcting the "wrongs" in the world, but he didn't have the corrupting influence of absolute power through nukes. The High Sparrow, the Brotherhood without Banners both had a righteousness that seemed promising at first, then went horribly wrong and became quite scary (beware the righteous avengers!). It can happen to Dany.

"The Dragons can win wars for you, that's established in the histories. But they can't necessarily produce peace or prosperity or help you rule the nation. You know Daenerys Targaryen is finding it out in Meereen when she defeats the cities of Slavers Bay with her three dragons. But then in trying to rule as Queen, she can destroy Meereen any time she wants by just unleashing the dragons, she could kill a lot of people, wipe out that most of the population of the city, reduce the entire city to a fiery inferno, but that doesn't help her come up with good laws or to establish peace between the original inhabitants and the the freedmen and people that she's brought in. So ruling is more than just the power to destroy, and that's a lesson that she's definitely learning." (x)

"Dragons are the nuclear deterrent, and only [Daenerys Targaryen] has them, which in some ways makes her the most powerful person in the world. But is that sufficient? These are the kind of issues I’m trying to explore. The United States right now has the ability to destroy the world with our nuclear arsenal, but that doesn’t mean we can achieve specific geopolitical goals. Power is more subtle than that. You can have the power to destroy, but it doesn’t give you the power to reform, or improve, or build.”

- Maybe it's thematic. Reading these interviews with GRRM, I think he wants to show dragons as destroyers (of cities, of dynasties, of dreams, of whatever). For the theme to work, the message has to be that you can't get very far with them. A dynasty will only last 300 years compared to the Starks' 10k. Dany's failures also show that the methods used by Aegon to start his dynasty, was bound to fail long-term. Also, if Dany just attacks the Red Keep and goes on to be a successful ruler, it sends a message to crazy political leaders that nukes are helpful and can be useful to their political goals. I don't think GRRM wants his work to bolster the viewpoints of dictators who want to intimidate the populace with WMD. 

- Maybe some people like villain Dany. Like me!! It's a brilliant experiment in how dictators gain power and how it happens through an illusion. People follow dictators all over the world, and have been convinced their political leaders are heroes. I think it's genius to make her sympathetic at the start. I really was rooting for her but she did things that made me increasingly uncomfortable that I tried to justify. And then I just hit that wall where I realized, no, I'm not looking at a hero with flaws, I'm watching a villain in the making. And I love it! Dany as a hero is boring, told a million times...But Dany as a villain who still thinks she's one of the good guys? It's meaty and interesting and good and I can't wait to see it in the books because it will be so much better.

On 2/9/2021 at 5:52 PM, BlackLightning said:

Aerys II Targaryen, a known madman who was likely suffering from an legit mentally illness, only tried to destroy King's Landing when it was clear that all was lost and he had been cornered. Militarily speaking, he was going kamikaze as it was his last stand and it was a political middle finger to the next regime. Which is saying a lot because not even Hitler or his sicko generals went as far as that. Not even Stalin destroyed his own city centers.

I mean... it happened. It just looked slightly different. Dictators do horrible shit to their own people. Either through outright mass murder, prisons, or willful neglect. Dictator A gasses their own citizens in a concentration camp far away from the city center. Dictator B decides not to go to all that trouble and just kills everyone quickly inside the city. Does it matter??? Don't ask genocide to make sense. It's supposed to be senseless. 

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  • 4 months later...

Well, due to all the research by the poster @The Dragon Demands and the analysis of Hibberd's book by @Count Balerion back in the "Rant and Rave" thread, we now know a few things that won't be the same in the books, i.e.:

Sansa's plot-line is going to be very different and LF would have never given her to Ramsey - that's from GRRM himself. We know, of course, that she was just a stand-in for Jeyne Poole in the show, but IIRC some people thought that she might still somehow end up in Ramsey's clutches in the books as well. Thankfully, no. This also precludes Harry the Heir from revealing himself to be another abuser.

Rickon still has an important role to play according to GRRM - which hints at Stannis defeating the Boltons and briefly holding the North, IMHO. Or maybe even the Starks continuing through him, to the joy of all those who worship patrilineal inheritance? Sigh.

Hodor's "hold the door" was meant as "hold the enemies off with a sword, while being skin-changed by Bran". So, the lack of actual  doors in the Children's Cave is not an obstacle, sigh.

The Night King is purely a show creation - again, we knew this, but some thought that GRRM might have had something similar in mind. Viserion falling to NK ditto, the result of the D&D's desire to bring a huge Army of the Dead south cinematically - and, I guess, them being influenced by a WoW commercial? Which looks very similar indeed, now that I have seen it. 

What is interesting is that they talk of how they didn't want _just_ the NK and a few Others being able to cross - which might be a hint at something that I have suspected since ADwD. Namely, that some Others are already in the North, but in hiding and are circumspectedly building up. Or will be shortly, after catching a ride on the ships sent to Hardhome. I have long suspected that the wights being brought in inert form through the Wall back in AGoT and then "reviving" was a test of whether the Others themselves could do the same. The tidbit in FaB that hints at certain tribes of wildlings from the Frozen Shore worshipping the Others as "the gods of snow" makes it even more likely that they'd be game for smuggling inert Others through the Wall (some of them were with Tormund's people) or around it, on their boats. Now, we don't know for sure if anything prevents the Others from just sailing around  or crossing the gorge at the Shadow Tower, but the Wall wouldn't be much of deterrent otherwise. This is very speculative, I know.

 

On 2/10/2021 at 2:52 AM, BlackLightning said:

 

Besides, the moral of the TV show was ultimately that women who seek power cannot be trusted with power unless they have been victims of horrific sexual abuse. If not, they will become psychotic, hypersexual mass murderers.

Sadly, I can no longer deny that this "moral" comes through in GRRM's ASoIAF writings and whatever can be gleaned from the early outline of the then-trilogy, and yes, the show. Except that not even sexual abuse can make one worthy, it seems. See Crown Princess Aelora from FaB. Or even Dany after her wedding night and before her dragon dream. Yes, in every individual case it can be justified, but if you take GRRM's treatment of women who want power and agency in the novels, DoTD writings and FaB in aggregate, a pretty disheartening picture emerges:

Lysa. Got to rule the Vale for a short time. A crazy, incompetent woman, her husband's murderer, eventually put down by her lover to protect Sansa. Does/did GRRM really intend to copy this with Dany?!!! 

Catelyn. Was partly raised as her father's heir and wanted to have agency in her family's affairs. Was regent of the North for a short time, failed badly as such. Could be fairly astute when advising other people, but whenever she took action, it ended in disaster. Which makes it easy for those so inclined to blame her for the fall of the Starks. Goes mad before her death (this is going to be a trend).

Cersei. Always wanted to be her father's heir and rule in her own right, as well as have sexual agency. The stupidest of her 3 siblings, once Jaime actually starts using his brain. Cruel, impulsive, spiteful, but still dangerous because of her "low cunning". The reason for the War of Five Kings due to her insane insistance on not bearing any of Robert's children and general handling of Robert's coutriers (including his brothers). Greatly contributed to Joffrey being a psycho. Her PoV reveals her to be a Mad Queen. Do we really need a second one?!!! So that when the reasonable males Bran and Tyrion come to pick up the pieces everybody can sigh with relief and praise patriarchy for finally saving them from "the monstrous regiment of women"? GRRM seemed to think so when he allegedly told D&D that he intended for Bran to be king at the end.

Arianne. A foolish, willfully ignorant young woman, who doesn't want to put up with being replaced as her father's heir because of her gender. Nearly caused a war once already and seems well on-track to cause another in the preview chapters. Not yet mad, but give her time.

Asha. Introduced as competent and her father's chosen heir. After losing the kingsmoot seems to have also lost her brains and commits the same mistake that she rightly criticized her hapless brother for, namely playing a sitting duck in a hostile castle without any hope of support from her people. Currently a captive and some think that she is going to be sacrificed in her brother's place.

Melisandre - a real seer who can't interpret her visions worth a damn, as opposed to male Moqorro's very precise foretellings.

Dany?

If we look at the early outline of ASoIaF trilogy, the one with the super-villain Jaime and Tyrion flipping from the Lannisters to the Starks and then somehow putting Bran on the throne, women in it are restricted to being antagonists (Sansa, Dany, Cat towards Jon), source of conflict between men (Cat, Arya) and love interests (Arya).  

If we look at DoTD/FaB, then GRRM chose to retcon the whole "a daughter inherits after the sons, but before other male relatives" law that people cite incessantly in the series proper into something that barely ever happened. Which, conveniently, reduced the number of women who could have played significant roles historically.  He had  reduced the importance of and/or villified the women who have been already mentioned in the books, such as Visenya, Alysanne, Rhaenyra, Joanna Lannister. The rest of them he either had die in chidlbirth at rates by far exceeding those of medieval queens of England, their daughters and granddaughters (I looked) - and that, despite the maesters having an understanding of aseptics and antiseptics that was only achieved in the second half of 19th century iRL and Targaryen supposed resistance against infections, or be mainly notable for their sexual escapades.

Notably, most female dragonriders had zero political or military clout and got pushed around by various men who tried to force them into marriages. But Dany's dragons are somehow unstoppable WMDs and the equivalent of the One Ring? Yea, right. Oh, and both times that women functioned as Masters of Whisperers, it ended badly for everybody. Etc., etc.

As to all the bigots who prevented women from succeeding to the throne in DoTD novellas and FaB, if GRRM still holds to his "king Bran" plan, it seems that he intends to prove them right!

 

On 2/10/2021 at 2:52 AM, BlackLightning said:

My point is that Daenerys Targaryen firebombing a city of 500k-2m people is not an unbelievably unconscionable thing in and of itself. (It's likely not going to be possible given the circumstances in the books, Drogon doesn't have the strength of a Balerion or a Vhagar and King's Landing is likely to be covered in snow and ice which adds an additional barrier to the destruction of the city)

It would be pretty unconscionable, not to mention stupid if she did it on purpose and without some overriding necessity - like, say, a massive grey plague epidemic that needs to be stopped.  But doing a number of targeted strikes if needed would be totally OK. Ditto if a surrender turns to be fake and a trap.

 

On 3/11/2021 at 11:15 PM, Rose of Red Lake said:

- Maybe Dany thinks the surrender is an act of perfidy and a plan to lure her into a trap. This happened with Daeron in Dorne. And maybe perfidy is somewhere in the Aegon plot? Like He, Varys, or JonCon could trick Dany with surrender, which angers her and makes her paranoid about it happening again.

It is not paranoia, if they are really out to get you. And yes, it would totally justify striking back at anybody who is or might be attacking, even if there are civilians in the way. Murderizing everything _but_ your target, less so. In the books not even Balerion would have been able to do what was depicted in the show, though, and Dany's dragons are much smaller.

 

On 3/11/2021 at 11:15 PM, Rose of Red Lake said:

-Prophecy-wise, the "Stallion Who Fucks the World!!!!" doesn't really fit someone who "just attacks a tower" and "tries to minimize damage."

 

OTOH, some things need to be broken - including the Slaver cities and the Dothraki themselves. Between them they stifle any economic growth and halfway bearable human existence in the region.

 

On 3/11/2021 at 11:15 PM, Rose of Red Lake said:

"We all know the saying power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And there's a great deal of truth in that. But also I find that the desire for power can corrupt us, the lust for power makes people do things maybe they shouldn't do." (x)

 

So, the solution is "them that has, gets"? You shouldn't stand up for yourself nor try to change things around you for the better? Which, you know, requires having power or influence on those that have it.

 

On 3/11/2021 at 11:15 PM, Rose of Red Lake said:

 

What does it do to you when you control the only three nuclear weapons in the world and you can destroy entire cities or cultures if you choose to? Should you choose to, should you not choose to?" (x)

 

Here is what I find irritating and baffling, not to mention more than a little hypocritical - according to FaB and DoTD materials Dany's dragons aren't anything close to nuclear weapons. Not even Balerion, Meraxes and Vhagar were that, really. The Conquest could only happen because of a unique political situation at the time, with a lot of preparation and planning. And brinkmanship and diplomacy. Nor were even the original trio untouchable - Visenya was nearly killed on the Field of Fire, it were more Orys and his men rather than Rhaenys that won the battle against Argilac and she _was_ killed in Dorne with her dragon. Not to mention all the dragons just killed by people during the Dance of the Dragons.  Dany's dragons aren't really comparable to those of the Conqueror trio and until now they were more of a PR/morale thing rather than the source of her victories. Oh, and in FaB dragon-riding women are being totally pushed around and forced into marriages by dragonless men. Nuclear weapons? Pfft. 

 

On 3/11/2021 at 11:15 PM, Rose of Red Lake said:

- I read GRRM's statements about power corrupting here, and how he's exploring the effect great power has on Dany, and wonder okay then, WHY is there is a "corrupt, rotting heart" in Dany's fortune telling visions? Why isn't that discussed more? What are the implications of that?

Well, Drogon destroyed it, didn't he? So, the symbolic implication should be fairly clear. OTOH, from the world-building perspective, the House, the Heart and the Undying and the odd dwarfish creatures, etc. seem like a dark mirror the Children of the Forest and the greenseers in their caves.

 

On 3/11/2021 at 11:15 PM, Rose of Red Lake said:

 

"The Dragons can win wars for you, that's established in the histories. But they can't necessarily produce peace or prosperity or help you rule the nation... So ruling is more than just the power to destroy, and that's a lesson that she's definitely learning." (x)

 

Well, duh? I mean, the same applies to an army.

 

On 3/11/2021 at 11:15 PM, Rose of Red Lake said:

- Maybe it's thematic. Reading these interviews with GRRM, I think he wants to show dragons as destroyers (of cities, of dynasties, of dreams, of whatever). For the theme to work, the message has to be that you can't get very far with them. A dynasty will only last 300 years compared to the Starks' 10k.

Maybe he does, but that's kinda hypocritical. Destruction is destruction. And 8K years of near-complete stagnation is nothing to brag about either. Not to mention that Targaryen dynasty goes back to Valyria, which allegedly existed for 3 millenia and change too.

 

On 3/11/2021 at 11:15 PM, Rose of Red Lake said:

 I think it's genius to make her sympathetic at the start. I really was rooting for her but she did things that made me increasingly uncomfortable that I tried to justify. And then I just hit that wall where I realized, no, I'm not looking at a hero with flaws, I'm watching a villain in the making. And I love it! Dany as a hero is boring, told a million times...But Dany as a villain who still thinks she's one of the good guys? It's meaty and interesting and good and I can't wait to see it in the books because it will be so much better.

Actually, no. It just shows, yet again, that if that is what he had in mind, then Martin is a man of his time, who was inspired by even older and more biased influences, like The Matter of Brittain and The Fisher King.  What has been done a million times is a woman who can't handle teh power and it drives her mad. The Dark Phoenix. Which GRRM has already, regrettably, overused in ASoIaF and related writings.  Somebody like Dany as a hero was not  only not done a million times, it wasn't done at all, back when the series was conceived and the first books written. Nor was it done much since.  Which is what made her interesting. But being a truly morally grey hero or anti-hero is sadly still largely reserved to men.

 

 

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11 hours ago, Maia said:

Well, due to all the research by the poster @The Dragon Demands and the analysis of Hibberd's book by @Count Balerion back in the "Rant and Rave" thread, we now know a few things that won't be the same in the books, i.e.:

Sansa's plot-line is going to be very different and LF would have never given her to Ramsey - that's from GRRM himself. We know, of course, that she was just a stand-in for Jeyne Poole in the show, but IIRC some people thought that she might still somehow end up in Ramsey's clutches in the books as well. Thankfully, no. This also precludes Harry the Heir from revealing himself to be another abuser.

Rickon still has an important role to play according to GRRM - which hints at Stannis defeating the Boltons and briefly holding the North, IMHO. Or maybe even the Starks continuing through him, to the joy of all those who worship patrilineal inheritance? Sigh.

Hodor's "hold the door" was meant as "hold the enemies off with a sword, while being skin-changed by Bran". So, the lack of actual  doors in the Children's Cave is not an obstacle, sigh.

The Night King is purely a show creation - again, we knew this, but some thought that GRRM might have had something similar in mind. Viserion falling to NK ditto, the result of the D&D's desire to bring a huge Army of the Dead south cinematically - and, I guess, them being influenced by a WoW commercial? Which looks very similar indeed, now that I have seen it. 

What is interesting is that they talk of how they didn't want _just_ the NK and a few Others being able to cross - which might be a hint at something that I have suspected since ADwD. Namely, that some Others are already in the North, but in hiding and are circumspectedly building up. Or will be shortly, after catching a ride on the ships sent to Hardhome. I have long suspected that the wights being brought in inert form through the Wall back in AGoT and then "reviving" was a test of whether the Others themselves could do the same. The tidbit in FaB that hints at certain tribes of wildlings from the Frozen Shore worshipping the Others as "the gods of snow" makes it even more likely that they'd be game for smuggling inert Others through the Wall (some of them were with Tormund's people) or around it, on their boats. Now, we don't know for sure if anything prevents the Others from just sailing around  or crossing the gorge at the Shadow Tower, but the Wall wouldn't be much of deterrent otherwise. This is very speculative, I know.

 

Sadly, I can no longer deny that this "moral" comes through in GRRM's ASoIAF writings and whatever can be gleaned from the early outline of the then-trilogy, and yes, the show. Except that not even sexual abuse can make one worthy, it seems. See Crown Princess Aelora from FaB. Or even Dany after her wedding night and before her dragon dream. Yes, in every individual case it can be justified, but if you take GRRM's treatment of women who want power and agency in the novels, DoTD writings and FaB in aggregate, a pretty disheartening picture emerges:

Lysa. Got to rule the Vale for a short time. A crazy, incompetent woman, her husband's murderer, eventually put down by her lover to protect Sansa. Does/did GRRM really intend to copy this with Dany?!!! 

Catelyn. Was partly raised as her father's heir and wanted to have agency in her family's affairs. Was regent of the North for a short time, failed badly as such. Could be fairly astute when advising other people, but whenever she took action, it ended in disaster. Which makes it easy for those so inclined to blame her for the fall of the Starks. Goes mad before her death (this is going to be a trend).

Cersei. Always wanted to be her father's heir and rule in her own right, as well as have sexual agency. The stupidest of her 3 siblings, once Jaime actually starts using his brain. Cruel, impulsive, spiteful, but still dangerous because of her "low cunning". The reason for the War of Five Kings due to her insane insistance on not bearing any of Robert's children and general handling of Robert's coutriers (including his brothers). Greatly contributed to Joffrey being a psycho. Her PoV reveals her to be a Mad Queen. Do we really need a second one?!!! So that when the reasonable males Bran and Tyrion come to pick up the pieces everybody can sigh with relief and praise patriarchy for finally saving them from "the monstrous regiment of women"? GRRM seemed to think so when he allegedly told D&D that he intended for Bran to be king at the end.

Arianne. A foolish, willfully ignorant young woman, who doesn't want to put up with being replaced as her father's heir because of her gender. Nearly caused a war once already and seems well on-track to cause another in the preview chapters. Not yet mad, but give her time.

Asha. Introduced as competent and her father's chosen heir. After losing the kingsmoot seems to have also lost her brains and commits the same mistake that she rightly criticized her hapless brother for, namely playing a sitting duck in a hostile castle without any hope of support from her people. Currently a captive and some think that she is going to be sacrificed in her brother's place.

Melisandre - a real seer who can't interpret her visions worth a damn, as opposed to male Moqorro's very precise foretellings.

Dany?

If we look at the early outline of ASoIaF trilogy, the one with the super-villain Jaime and Tyrion flipping from the Lannisters to the Starks and then somehow putting Bran on the throne, women in it are restricted to being antagonists (Sansa, Dany, Cat towards Jon), source of conflict between men (Cat, Arya) and love interests (Arya).  

If we look at DoTD/FaB, then GRRM chose to retcon the whole "a daughter inherits after the sons, but before other male relatives" law that people cite incessantly in the series proper into something that barely ever happened. Which, conveniently, reduced the number of women who could have played significant roles historically.  He had  reduced the importance of and/or villified the women who have been already mentioned in the books, such as Visenya, Alysanne, Rhaenyra, Joanna Lannister. The rest of them he either had die in chidlbirth at rates by far exceeding those of medieval queens of England, their daughters and granddaughters (I looked) - and that, despite the maesters having an understanding of aseptics and antiseptics that was only achieved in the second half of 19th century iRL and Targaryen supposed resistance against infections, or be mainly notable for their sexual escapades.

Notably, most female dragonriders had zero political or military clout and got pushed around by various men who tried to force them into marriages. But Dany's dragons are somehow unstoppable WMDs and the equivalent of the One Ring? Yea, right. Oh, and both times that women functioned as Masters of Whisperers, it ended badly for everybody. Etc., etc.

As to all the bigots who prevented women from succeeding to the throne in DoTD novellas and FaB, if GRRM still holds to his "king Bran" plan, it seems that he intends to prove them right!

 

It would be pretty unconscionable, not to mention stupid if she did it on purpose and without some overriding necessity - like, say, a massive grey plague epidemic that needs to be stopped.  But doing a number of targeted strikes if needed would be totally OK. Ditto if a surrender turns to be fake and a trap.

 

It is not paranoia, if they are really out to get you. And yes, it would totally justify striking back at anybody who is or might be attacking, even if there are civilians in the way. Murderizing everything _but_ your target, less so. In the books not even Balerion would have been able to do what was depicted in the show, though, and Dany's dragons are much smaller.

 

OTOH, some things need to be broken - including the Slaver cities and the Dothraki themselves. Between them they stifle any economic growth and halfway bearable human existence in the region.

 

So, the solution is "them that has, gets"? You shouldn't stand up for yourself nor try to change things around you for the better? Which, you know, requires having power or influence on those that have it.

 

Here is what I find irritating and baffling, not to mention more than a little hypocritical - according to FaB and DoTD materials Dany's dragons aren't anything close to nuclear weapons. Not even Balerion, Meraxes and Vhagar were that, really. The Conquest could only happen because of a unique political situation at the time, with a lot of preparation and planning. And brinkmanship and diplomacy. Nor were even the original trio untouchable - Visenya was nearly killed on the Field of Fire, it were more Orys and his men rather than Rhaenys that won the battle against Argilac and she _was_ killed in Dorne with her dragon. Not to mention all the dragons just killed by people during the Dance of the Dragons.  Dany's dragons aren't really comparable to those of the Conqueror trio and until now they were more of a PR/morale thing rather than the source of her victories. Oh, and in FaB dragon-riding women are being totally pushed around and forced into marriages by dragonless men. Nuclear weapons? Pfft. 

 

Well, Drogon destroyed it, didn't he? So, the symbolic implication should be fairly clear. OTOH, from the world-building perspective, the House, the Heart and the Undying and the odd dwarfish creatures, etc. seem like a dark mirror the Children of the Forest and the greenseers in their caves.

 

Well, duh? I mean, the same applies to an army.

 

Maybe he does, but that's kinda hypocritical. Destruction is destruction. And 8K years of near-complete stagnation is nothing to brag about either. Not to mention that Targaryen dynasty goes back to Valyria, which allegedly existed for 3 millenia and change too.

 

Actually, no. It just shows, yet again, that if that is what he had in mind, then Martin is a man of his time, who was inspired by even older and more biased influences, like The Matter of Brittain and The Fisher King.  What has been done a million times is a woman who can't handle teh power and it drives her mad. The Dark Phoenix. Which GRRM has already, regrettably, overused in ASoIaF and related writings.  Somebody like Dany as a hero was not  only not done a million times, it wasn't done at all, back when the series was conceived and the first books written. Nor was it done much since.  Which is what made her interesting. But being a truly morally grey hero or anti-hero is sadly still largely reserved to men.

 

 

I think old tropes die hard.  One is that killing is mens' work.  A woman who kills is mad/evil.  A man who kills is just performing a soldier's duty.  Another is that the killing of upper class people is far worse than killing the Smallfolk. The various contenders in the War of the Five Kings are far more brutal towards the Smallfolk than Daenerys is during her campaigns.  Her victims are mostly the elites, but some readers  empathise with elites far more readily than with the poor of the Seven kingdoms.  Even someone as sympathetic as Robb Stark lets his men carry out dreadful atrocities, if not on the same scale as Tywin Lannister.  Had Jon Snow succeeded in escaping the Wall to join Robb, he would have been serving alongside murderers and rapists, even if he did not do those things himself. 

I've made the point before, but my own view is that the *fact* of killing matters far more than the *means* of killing or who does the killing.  Edged and pointed weapons, and starvation, kill far more people than dragons do.  And in war, a Westerosi knight is basically a Dothraki with a coat of arms.

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Another thing is that I don't see Bran's becoming King as being necessarily a good thing.  In fact, it could be an absolutely horrific thing to have a ruler who makes use of presience to form a magical totalitarian state, and who can warg peoples' minds.

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23 hours ago, Maia said:

 

Sansa's plot-line is going to be very different and LF would have never given her to Ramsey - that's from GRRM himself. We know, of course, that she was just a stand-in for Jeyne Poole in the show, but IIRC some people thought that she might still somehow end up in Ramsey's clutches in the books as well. Thankfully, no. This also precludes Harry the Heir from revealing himself to be another abuser.

 

 

Harry's already shown an unpleasant attitude towards his betrothal to "Alayne" and Sansa is wary of him because he's handsome (thanks to her experiences around Joffrey). The relationship is already on the wrong foot from the get-go. Harry's also not afraid to speak about his bastard's mother in an insulting manner so his jerkishness is not limited to the betrothal; unless GRRM pulls a kind act or a few out of a hat, I'm looking at this relationship with a very jaundiced eye.

Edited by Angel Eyes
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13 hours ago, Angel Eyes said:

The relationship is already on the wrong foot from the get-go. Harry's also not afraid to speak about his bastard's mother in an insulting manner so his jerkishness is not limited to the betrothal; unless GRRM pulls a kind act or a few out of a hat, I'm looking at this relationship with a very jaundiced eye.

Martin said: "My Littlefinger would have never turned Sansa over to Ramsay. Never.

"He's obsessed with her. Half the time he thinks she's the daughter he never had — that he wishes he had, if he'd married Catelyn. And half the time he thinks she is Catelyn, and he wants her for himself."

"He's not going to give her to somebody who would do bad things to her.

"That's going to be very different in the books,"

I quickly googled this quote here:

https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/books/1347396/Game-of-Thrones-George-RR-Martin-Sansa-books-HBO-Winds-Winter-release-date

but it was the "Rant and Rave" thread that first made me aware of it. OTOH, the search function on this forum sucks and I couldn't find it there again. All of the differences that I mention as certain in my previous post come from the research on interviews and quotes from Hibberd's book cited there. IIRC the last 15-20 pages have the gist of it.

For all we know Harry is going to die shortly in WoW. And wasn't there a lot of talk here and elsewhere in the past about how a "right woman" may have been able to manage Robert and he would have remained a better man? I don't really share this opinion, but it may be that Sansa-Harry, to the extent that it happens, goes in this direction.

Anyway, some more thoughts on the book possibilities:

If GRRM holds to king Bran, could it be that some of un-Cat's importance as a character is tied to putting him on the throne? She already has Robb's crown...

I can't fathom how GRRM could have thought that the 5-year gap was negotiable if he holds to king Bran, sigh. And for that matter, why did he progress the time-line so little in AFFC/ADwD? And finished ADwD on multiple cliffhangers, which again preclude progressing the time-line between books? No wonder that he has such problems finishing the series - he is trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. The story has grown so different from his early outline that the envisioned ending from that outline no longer fits.

This makes it difficult to judge how seriously he is going to take the second Long Night. If it is supposed to be more than a damp squib, like in the show, then the Others really need to overrun the North and reach the Riverlands. There are foreshadowings of them eventually  reaching the Trident in the books, and it makes no sense whatsoever for any non-northern armies to be able to operate in the North in Winter. There is also the strongly implied significance of Harrenhal, of the Island of Faces, etc. But it would mean that TWoW  needs to show the Others south of the Wall relatively early. I favor a number of them sneaking into the North before the Wall comes down.  Possibly on ships sent to Hardhome - then it could work like in "Dracula", seemingly empty ships arriving/being discovered somewhere, foreboding, etc. Or the wildlings from the Frozen Shore who worship them as gods could smuggle them through or around the Wall.

The Others overruning the North wouldn't necessarily mean that all the people there would die in the short term either - Old Nan's tales strongly suggest the existence of human enclaves in the Other-controlled territories in the past and Tormund hinted that the wildlings had some partially effective defences against them, but frustratingly didn't go into detail. Old castles may have in-built protections as well. Whereas part of the population would be able to escape south. 

Not to forget Euron, who looks either like a stooge for the Others or a representative of some other malignant force.

There is also a very big question about what the resolution to the Other problem could even look like. GRRM is on record with his admiration of the ending of LoTR and it's "magic needs to depart for the age of Man to begin", but it has been done a million times and is, frankly, rather boring. There is a very good reason for it in LoTR, which was conceived as  mythological "history" for Great Britain that in Tolkien's opinion didn't have enough of it. Or in the many fantasy stories where magic is a metaphor for childhood - of people or civilizations. Like in the zillion  takes on "The Matter of Britain" or re-working of historical events with insertion of magic into the background, etc.  But would it actually feel satisfying if Westeros loses it's distinguishing characteristics like it's rogue seasons and becomes "just like us" for no real reason? Not IMHO. Nor do I think that the resolution of the conflict with the Others should cancel the long and fierce Winter after nearly 10 years of Summer, like in the show. The books could show Westeros recovering from it in an epilogue to the last book volume, after all.  I am not even sure that we need to have certainty that the Others have been defeated/eradicated for all time.  

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Recently I became aware of a great article that a fan wrote in Northumbria University Magazine, pointing out the simple logic that even before Season 8 aired, regardless of its quality, it couldn't possibly be "the same" as the book ending, because they're already changed so much:

https://northumbrialife.org/?p=1057

TV fans leading up to Season 8 had...I guess convinced themselves that "whatever D&D cut out by definition wasn't important, otherwise they wouldn't have cut it"....when our entire argument is that they were indeed cutting out important things.  Thus people convinced themselves that cutting out Lady Stoneheart, Dorne, Young Griff, Tyrion's ongoing Tysha plot, didn't really impact the story that much...when if you sit down to spend 15 minutes talking about it, there's no way you could remove all that without producing a drastically different ending that doesn't reflect the book ending (other than a few beats used out of context here and there).

I showed this article to my Twitter/YouTube followers and everything thought it was amazing: eloquent, logical, and succinct.

So I asked her if she could record an audio reading of the article, and I'd post it to my channel, along with slides I made up - slides & memes I re-use often, such as "D&D didn't run out of source material, they chose to abandon major book storylines starting in Season 5" (I have to re-use that ALL the time on Twitter...it's like having a stamp ready). Her audio performance was also really great - she didn't just read it off dryly but "performed" it as she read it.

Here's the resulting 16 minute video:

@Ran @Linda

Please give it a watch, I think the resulting collaboration turned out amazing. If you think it has merit please share on Twitter etc. 

Edited by The Dragon Demands
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On 7/19/2021 at 6:23 AM, SeanF said:

Another thing is that I don't see Bran's becoming King as being necessarily a good thing.  In fact, it could be an absolutely horrific thing to have a ruler who makes use of presience to form a magical totalitarian state, and who can warg peoples' minds.

It was absolutely horrifying in the TV show.

But the book ending is said to be bittersweet. The sweet part is that the Tully-Stark clan are avenged and end up ruling Westeros and peace and justice has finally been achieved. The bitter part is that the Long Night is not ending anytime soon and that they are all broken and scarred with Bran - head of House and king - being particularly haunted.

If you have ever seen the movie Hereditary, I think the end of the series will end like that...except it'll have a happier, more hopeful ring to it.

2 hours ago, The Dragon Demands said:

TV fans leading up to Season 8 had...I guess convinced themselves that "whatever D&D cut out by definition wasn't important, otherwise they wouldn't have cut it"....when our entire argument is that they were indeed cutting out important things.  Thus people convinced themselves that cutting out Lady Stoneheart, Dorne, Young Griff, Tyrion's ongoing Tysha plot, didn't really impact the story that much...when if you sit down to spend 15 minutes talking about it, there's no way you could remove all that without producing a drastically different ending that doesn't reflect the book ending (other than a few beats used out of context here and there).

I showed this article to my Twitter/YouTube followers and everything thought it was amazing: eloquent, logical, and succinct.

So I asked her if she could record an audio reading of the article, and I'd post it to my channel, along with slides I made up - slides & memes I re-use often, such as "D&D didn't run out of source material, they chose to abandon major book storylines starting in Season 5" (I have to re-use that ALL the time on Twitter...it's like having a stamp ready). Her audio performance was also really great - she didn't just read it off dryly but "performed" it as she read it.

Anyone who says that cutting out fAegon, minimizing Euron or making Sansa take the role of Jeyne Poole won't really impact the story is absolutely illiterate.

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On 7/20/2021 at 9:03 PM, The Dragon Demands said:

Here's the resulting 16 minute video:

@Ran @Linda

Please give it a watch, I think the resulting collaboration turned out amazing. If you think it has merit please share on Twitter etc. 

To briefly touch on 1 point, a common talking point around these parts, about Tyrion's s5-8 good-guy-ness "making no sense" - in his very first s5 scene, when he crawls out of that box, he *is* initially very cynical and nihilistic; but then Tovarys Marx inspires him with the prospect of establishing a utopia through Daenerys and breaking with the old ways of power abuse, and after some skepticism he gets on board with the idea;

 

by the end of s6 he "believes in Daenerys" and then keeps advising her to prove to everyone how this isn't "more of the same old" and her coming and rule really does represent a new moral standard.

 

So within the show, this makes sense, logically and narratively - a cynic at a low point, lost everything, could go really bad, but instead is built up after being torn down and finds a new cause; an antithesis to the book, but a coherent one.

 

I wish the whole GoT reaction scene (on forums and youtube) abandoned these circlejerky takes, and adopted more nuanced and accurate views - maybe it already exists out there and I'm not yet aware of it, but yeah that'd be good.

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On 11/20/2020 at 9:24 AM, Darryk said:

But this is exactly how D+D operate, they don't set things up in a believable way. They get a kick out of shocking the audience so they avoid foreshadowing or set-up because they don't want the audience to guess what would happen.

It's one of the many frustrating things about them. GRRM can foreshadow an event and still have it surprise the audience when it happens. D+D lack the subtlety, so they avoid foreshadowing and set-up, and just have the event pop out of nowhere, thinking they will shock the audience that way, except it just ends up confusing the audience.

There's a lot in the books to suggest Dany would become tyrannical but they barely set that up in the show, instead portraying her as saint-like right till the end, because they wanted her 180 turn to shock the audience, except instead it just felt jarringly out of character.

 

Well that's obv not true lol

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7 hours ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

To briefly touch on 1 point, a common talking point around these parts, about Tyrion's s5-8 good-guy-ness "making no sense" - in his very first s5 scene, when he crawls out of that box, he *is* initially very cynical and nihilistic; but then Tovarys Marx inspires him with the prospect of establishing a utopia through Daenerys and breaking with the old ways of power abuse, and after some skepticism he gets on board with the idea;

 

by the end of s6 he "believes in Daenerys" and then keeps advising her to prove to everyone how this isn't "more of the same old" and her coming and rule really does represent a new moral standard.

 

So within the show, this makes sense, logically and narratively - a cynic at a low point, lost everything, could go really bad, but instead is built up after being torn down and finds a new cause; an antithesis to the book, but a coherent one.

 

I wish the whole GoT reaction scene (on forums and youtube) abandoned these circlejerky takes, and adopted more nuanced and accurate views - maybe it already exists out there and I'm not yet aware of it, but yeah that'd be good.

Since we were the ones providing them with an income, we've every right to call out what we think is unsatisfactory.

I think the two D’s wanted to portray Tyrion as the voice of wisdom, who has come to conclude that no war is ever worth fighting.  The problem is, such a philosophy is quite incompatible with being Hand to a Queen at war.  Tyrion should have joined a monastery or Brother Ray's commune, if that's how they wished to develop his character.

Tyrion never really establishes how you can become  ruler by means of adopting a strategy of non-violent resistance to Cersei.  Cersei is not going to step down because people ask her nicely.

It’s not that Dany ignores his good advice.  She follows his advice repeatedly, with disastrous consequences.  The only way to rationalise Tyrion’s behaviour is that at some point, he decided he really didn’t want his siblings to lose, and was trying to sabotage her.  That's  why the presenter was expecting a big reveal, that Tyrion was actually a traitor.  That would have been logical.

More likely it’s terrible writing, which the presenter was right to call out.  As she said, it’s tell not show.  We’re told that Tyrion is very clever.  We’re shown that he’s a complete incompetent.  He’s like Baldrick in Blackadder, when he tells his master “I have a cunning plan…..”

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2 hours ago, SeanF said:

Since we were the ones providing them with an income, we've every right to call out what we think is unsatisfactory.

I think the two D’s wanted to portray Tyrion as the voice of wisdom, who has come to conclude that no war is ever worth fighting.  The problem is, such a philosophy is quite incompatible with being Hand to a Queen at war.  Tyrion should have joined a monastery or Brother Ray's commune, if that's how they wished to develop his character.

Tyrion never really establishes how you can become  ruler by means of adopting a strategy of non-violent resistance to Cersei.  Cersei is not going to step down because people ask her nicely.

It’s not that Dany ignores his good advice.  She follows his advice repeatedly, with disastrous consequences.  The only way to rationalise Tyrion’s behaviour is that at some point, he decided he really didn’t want his siblings to lose, and was trying to sabotage her.  That's  why the presenter was expecting a big reveal, that Tyrion was actually a traitor.  That would have been logical.

More likely it’s terrible writing, which the presenter was right to call out.  As she said, it’s tell not show.  We’re told that Tyrion is very clever.  We’re shown that he’s a complete incompetent.  He’s like Baldrick in Blackadder, when he tells his master “I have a cunning plan…..”

1) Huh, what do incomes and rights have to do with this? I was talking about analysis/criticisms being reasonable and accurate, as opposed to sloppy and nonsensical;

and Tyrion adopting that idealistic position being "nothing but the Ds playing favorites" and "not making any sense in the plot" and "he was on a dark downwards trajectory, becoming idealistic makes no sense" etc. is an often repeated claim that is inaccurate - it does make sense, he converts to that new view in his first s5 scene which those critics ignore.

 

2) Joining a monastery or Brother Ray wouldn't change the worldmao - the Brotherhood Without Banners would've been more up his alley.

3) "Tyrion never really establishes how you can become  ruler by means of adopting a strategy of non-violent resistance to Cersei.  Cersei is not going to step down because people ask her nicely."

 

I forgot the details, but he suggests the siege thing regarding KL.

 

"It’s not that Dany ignores his good advice.  She follows his advice repeatedly, with disastrous consequences."

Those disastrous consequences are due to Euron showing up everywhere without warning, not Tyrion's moderate politics - ambushes the ♡Ellayaria♡ fleet as they're underway to Cersei, ambushes Greyworm's after he's taken Casterly;

but no one acknowledges that in the dialogue (I think?), so that's the plot hole - had Euron showed up during her l00t train attack, he would've shot all the dragons and Daenerys's "aggressive politics" would've failed as much as Tyrion's moderate politics.

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1 hour ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

Those disastrous consequences are due to Euron showing up everywhere without warning, not Tyrion's moderate politics - ambushes the ♡Ellayaria♡ fleet as they're underway to Cersei, ambushes Greyworm's after he's taken Casterly;

but no one acknowledges that in the dialogue (I think?), so that's the plot hole - had Euron showed up during her l00t train attack, he would've shot all the dragons and Daenerys's "aggressive politics" would've failed as much as Tyrion's moderate politics.

First off, they chose a bad spot to land; they came ashore in hostile territory where it would be harder to muster support and where their big naval opposition already was.

Would have been safer to start out in friendly territory like Dorne or at Oldtown since Euron was already on the other side of Westeros (King's Landing); Olenna could raise her banners from Oldtown. Oh, and symbolism since Aegon the Conqueror was crowned in Oldtown; since Daenerys is projecting the image of being Aegon come again (minus two dragon riders), that should enhance her mystique. Maybe meld in a plot with Sam since he's there, he could inform them of White Walkers (theoretically). Move eastward to Highgarden and Dorne

If they start at Sunspear, Daenerys and Ellaria can promise revenge on the Lannisters. They march to Highgarden, Olenna raises banners; remember her family was a naval power and Mace's wife was a Hightower.

Phase 3: March up to Riverlands and bread and circuses; show Daenerys' benevolence, promote stability and justice, punish the wicked, cut Cersei off from the Westerlands, don't engage Euron's fleet , yada, yada, yada. Of course I don't know how Daenerys should tackle the Vale and the North.

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