My biggest issue with the finale is that they tried to make us feel guilty for supporting Daenerys' journey.

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

He's had shady villains as Hand's before, and as much as I don't like it, I think Tyrion is written to resume that post. I can see how he likes his political figures to have a ruthless side - but only insofar as they kill their family members and lovers, not masses of innocent people. Jon did  the former, albeit for better reasons. Still, kinslaying and lover slaying, its fine in GRRM's book apparently. Two things make me think this is the ending for the mains: His comments on his blog about how "IF ANYTHING" we can read about Penny, Victarion, Arianne, ect, in the books to come, and the answer to the question when a journalist asked how he felt about the ending of the show (paraphrasing) "Well I felt the same way I did when I came up with the ending."

As far as I can tell, kinslaying is something that has disastrous consequences for the person who does it in Matin's world.  In D& D's world, it's no big deal.

Come to think of it, book Tyrion has no issue with killing innocent people, such as the Smallfolk of the Vale.  He would be thrilled to see Kings Landing burn.

[Rose of Red Lake]

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

As far as I can tell, kinslaying is something that has disastrous consequences for the person who does it in Matin's world.  In D& D's world, it's no big deal.

Come to think of it, book Tyrion has no issue with killing innocent people, such as the Smallfolk of the Vale.  He would be thrilled to see Kings Landing burn.

But he doesn't want Flea bottom to blow up. I think he has his vengeful thoughts, but doesn't actually take the steps to act on them. Dany does though. There has to be a difference between the two. 

The punishment for kinslaying so far appears to be banishment for a period of time. I think Jon's ending isn't changing.

[SeanF]

24 minutes ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

But he doesn't want Flea bottom to blow up. I think he has his vengeful thoughts, but doesn't actually take the steps to act on them. Dany does though. There has to be a difference between the two. 

The punishment for kinslaying so far appears to be banishment for a period of time. I think Jon's ending isn't changing.

He does take those steps.  He supplies weapons to the Mountain Clans to kill peasants in the Vale. 

The punishment for kinslaying in the books is always bad. The son of Bael the Bard was flayed.  Bloodraven lost the love of his life, and was sent to the Wall.  Visenya's line failed.  Aegon II was poisoned.  If Jon kills Daenerys, the consequences for him will be profound.  In the show, it was presented like killing a dog that had gone rabid, but that's not the lore of the books.

[Mystical]

3 hours ago, SeanF said:

He would be thrilled to see Kings Landing burn.

So would show!Tyrion. This is one of the many reasons why his end makes no sense and just one of the many why this joke of a council won't last 6 months.

At the end of S4, Tyrion told the entire court during his trial how he wished he had let Stannis burn down KL because everyone there deserved it. Fast forward '4 years' and Tyrion brought a Dragonqueen to Westeros who happened to do just that. Conveniently another thing forgotten by D&D to pull this ending off.

[SeanF]

9 hours ago, Mystical said:

So would show!Tyrion. This is one of the many reasons why his end makes no sense and just one of the many why this joke of a council won't last 6 months.

At the end of S4, Tyrion told the entire court during his trial how he wished he had let Stannis burn down KL because everyone there deserved it. Fast forward '4 years' and Tyrion brought a Dragonqueen to Westeros who happened to do just that. Conveniently another thing forgotten by D&D to pull this ending off.

Oh yes, Tyrion was still whitewashed in Seasons 1 to 4, but much less so than in later seasons.  

When you change one character, you have to change the others who interact with them.  In the books, I'm sure Tyrion will function as Dany's evil genius, telling her  "it's better to be feared than to be loved" " mercy is just another word for cowardice" etc.

[Rose of Red Lake]

14 hours ago, SeanF said:

He does take those steps.  He supplies weapons to the Mountain Clans to kill peasants in the Vale. 

He gave them their payment, because he owed them a debt. He's not controlling what they do after that, and some didn't even go back to the Vale. Timett isnt working for him anymore or killing peasants on his orders. 

I think the author is putting him through the ringer, then having him mature/grow up in the last novel. D&D just wrote him that way throughout as if he was already wise and good.

Quote

In  the books, I'm sure Tyrion will function as Dany's evil genius,  telling her "it's better to be feared than to be loved" " mercy is  just another word for cowardice" etc.

And then Dany will take that to an extreme level that he is not comfortable with at some point because Joffrey wanted to be feared and also showed no mercy at the WRONG times.  Dany and Tyrion will be quite dysfunctional I'm sure. 

[Mystical]

29 minutes ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

I think the author is putting him through the ringer, then having him mature/grow up in the last novel. D&D just wrote him that way throughout as if he was already wise and good.

Except Martin will need to have Tyrion do a massive heel turn. Tyrion is still on a path sliding into darkness, that journey isn't over yet. He's going to end up doing much worse. And considering what he has already done up to this point, I would hate it if Martin rewards him for it. Also you don't change on a dime and Tyrion is a massive misogynist, how he treats people depends on their class, thinks about raping his sister every day, sees everything as a slight against him even when it's not, he's a rapist and so on. He better get his comeuppance at some point because people in this story always do.

Tyrion in the show is the cause for all the death that befell Westeros in the last two Seasons and he got rewarded for it by basically becoming King of the 6 Kingdoms.

[SeanF]

28 minutes ago, Mystical said:

Except Martin will need to have Tyrion do a massive heel turn. Tyrion is still on a path sliding into darkness, that journey isn't over yet. He's going to end up doing much worse. And considering what he has already done up to this point, I would hate it if Martin rewards him for it. Also you don't change on a dime and Tyrion is a massive misogynist, how he treats people depends on their class, thinks about raping his sister every day, sees everything as a slight against him even when it's not, he's a rapist and so on. He better get his comeuppance at some point because people in this story always do.

Tyrion in the show is the cause for all the death that befell Westeros in the last two Seasons and he got rewarded for it by basically becoming King of the 6 Kingdoms.

Yes, I'm still scratching my head why Tyrion and Varys went to the trouble of getting Daenerys to come to Westeros, and forging alliances with Olenna and Ellaria, yet seemed to think she could become Queen without waging war,  You'd think they'd have some inkling that Cersei was not the kind of person to just step down from being Queen if you asked her nicely.  In truth, it's just terrible writing.

 

[SeanF]

37 minutes ago, Mystical said:

Except Martin will need to have Tyrion do a massive heel turn. Tyrion is still on a path sliding into darkness, that journey isn't over yet. He's going to end up doing much worse. And considering what he has already done up to this point, I would hate it if Martin rewards him for it. Also you don't change on a dime and Tyrion is a massive misogynist, how he treats people depends on their class, thinks about raping his sister every day, sees everything as a slight against him even when it's not, he's a rapist and so on. He better get his comeuppance at some point because people in this story always do.

 

Yes, I think it would be a pretty bleak ending, if  Tyrion ended up being responsible for a string of appalling crimes, turned against Daenerys at the last moment, and finished up being made Hand of King Bran as a result.

[Rose of Red Lake]

41 minutes ago, Mystical said:

Except Martin will need to have Tyrion do a massive heel turn. Tyrion is still on a path sliding into darkness, that journey isn't over yet. He's going to end up doing much worse. And considering what he has already done up to this point, I would hate it if Martin rewards him for it. Also you don't change on a dime and Tyrion is a massive misogynist, how he treats people depends on their class, thinks about raping his sister every day, sees everything as a slight against him even when it's not, he's a rapist and so on. He better get his comeuppance at some point because people in this story always do.

Hey you're preaching to the choir, I just think GRRM's incessantly talking about how bad men can still be good kings is cover for exactly this ending with Tyrion, that I agree is undeserved. I think GRRM is going to piss people off just like D&D have, albeit in a different way.

[It_spelt_Magalhaes]

On 10/23/2019 at 11:30 AM, Mystical said:

He better get his comeuppance at some point because people in this story always do

Agreed. I'd want him to get his 'poetically screwed over ending'.

Unless... what if that's the moment the author is waiting for, to finally pull the rug out from under our expectations? 

Good things keep happening to bad people all the time.

That's as far as I could go in the realm of possibility. Anything else is conjecture.

Although? Wouldn't it just be par for the course, for Tyrion to be the 'big man in the highest castle' and finally figure out it's a shitty job? He's a prickly idiot who has not yet been in a position to be completely unable to shift the blame for all the shit in his life onto someone else. His father, his sister, his brother, his nephew, the Starks, the Tully sisters, Shae, Penny, his owners as a slave, and on and on, every person he abuses and harms... It's always something, never him.

And then.. it's the slap in the face. You're a shit person but that's just who you are. No more excuses.

And yes, I get it that it would, should take an impressive heel turn for him to become aware of the 'You're just like your father' in such a way that getting that final 'reward' would be fitting for a 'bittersweet' ending.

He's going seriously to shit, really becoming one of the worst people in the whole cast of characters. It'll take a triple pirouette. On ice skates.

But again, evenifs and couldvebeens. At the moment? The Tyrion we've read so far? It can only be a mockery, a caricature on the necessary detachment a ruler should have. Tyrion isn't detached. He's an emotional, vengeful, entitled asshole who feels the shit done to him must be paid back times ten, who believes the ends always justify the means and who will wreck all of Essos and Westeros to get his own back.

[SeanF]

Tyrion should end up with Casterly Rock, surrounded by lords, tenants, servants who detest him, gradually drinking himself to death.

[SeanF]

On 5/28/2019 at 9:46 PM, rustythesmith said:

You haven't answered any of the questions that moral relativism poses. What would you do if you were born into a slaving family in a slaving society such as Astapor or any of these cities that Dany has conquered? Until you can imagine a viable reason for why you yourself wouldn't be a slaver if you were born there, you have no justification for killing them. And neither does Dany.

The slavers are no more responsible for the slaves brought to their city than you are responsible for the blood diamonds brought to your finger or the blood oil brought to your car. If we're willing to trace causality to infinity, then everyone on earth is perpetuating horrible atrocities. There are plenty of people who would love to torture and kill you and I for the horrors we're perpetuating in our everyday lives. Thankfully for us, none of those people have dragons.

The justice or vengeance thing is pretty simple and it's defined for us in the books.

Are you taking pleasure in the task of justice? If yes, then it's revenge.
Is your goal to inflict pain? If yes, then it's revenge.

Doing either of these things will corrupt your conscience and set you on the slippery slope to Nazi-ism, to use your description. It's exactly the same message in the show.

What would happen if we were complicit in evil, and a Daenerys came along?

That's the question you need to ask yourself, rather than find ways of justifying evil.

The lives of the Good Masters' victims count for more than the lives of the Good Masters.

If  I had been raised in Nazi Germany, the chances are I'd have been a Nazi.  That would not make non-Nazis wrong to fight me, or to hang me for committing war crimes.

[Rose of Red Lake]

Is the point that Indiana Dany needs to shoot up Nazis? Sure, Dany could be a superhero swooping in to smite evil but how is that contributing ANYTHING NEW TO THE FANTASY GENRE

Exploring the illusion of power is new. I think Daenerys serves the same function that Cersei did for Sansa early on: as a challenge for people to see what she really is about behind the charming illusions. Learning how to see better isn't just a theme with Sansa, it's also going on with Tyrion, Jon, Arianne, Theon and others. Characters have to learn how to see without obfuscation. They have to learn how to separate propaganda from facts. They have to learn how to sense danger and avoid traps. The author is laying traps, for both characters and readers. Dany will also probably be challenged how to avoid traps when it comes to her perception of Jon. Jon, Tyrion, even Show!Varys -- all fell for illusions like early-book Sansa. Her theme permeates ALL the characters and becomes a major theme of the entire story. This warning is foreshadowed in Jon's chapters when he gushes about Targaryens and in Tyrion's chapters when he's shown to be susceptible to pretty women. While these traps are working on the characters, they also pacify and lull audiences into complacency. Even as Dany is doing something horrific, the show/books are telling them another: that Dany is "quite a woman" or that she is a gentle, caring mother of the people. So I dont think this is a story expounding on how evil people need to die or how people need to be saved from evil, I think it's about how Dany grows into a quintessential Targaryen and that means that she feeds on "horse and sheep alike." Whether her ire is on slavers or innocents; it doesn't matter. People have to learn how to anticipate what Dany will actually do. This is difficult because the author has written her as unpredictable and the traps are alluring. But she's not impossible to predict. 

[SeanF]

The thing is, Dany did nothing wrong at Astapor - at least as depicted in Season 3, Episode 4.  The killings were precise, and discriminate, of people who were a very great danger to humanity (in the books, it's a little more ambiguous who died.). D & D, through their mouthpiece Tyrion, were lying to the viewers by branding it as "murder."  

As to the books, I think it's entirely reasonable to question some of Dany's actions during her anti-slavery war.  But, the war itself is just.  Probably the only war in the books so far that's for a truly just cause.

[Rose of Red Lake]

On 11/3/2019 at 10:59 PM, SeanF said:

The thing is, Dany did nothing wrong at Astapor - at least as depicted in Season 3, Episode 4.  The killings were precise, and discriminate, of people who were a very great danger to humanity (in the books, it's a little more ambiguous who died.). D & D, through their mouthpiece Tyrion, were lying to the viewers by branding it as "murder."  

As to the books, I think it's entirely reasonable to question some of Dany's actions during her anti-slavery war.  But, the war itself is just.  Probably the only war in the books so far that's for a truly just cause.

Dany is corrputed by all of it though, because she becomes used to the idea that she's always right. Madame Defarge was a tireless worker for the French Revolution seeking "justice" for her murdered family (it is really vengeance) and Inspector Javert is an honorable policeman who believes what he's doing is right. These Dany types are all over literature, if you read widely you can see the trope. They have done "nothing wrong" in the past and they want to correct the world, but they are still positioned as the antagonist because they are inflexible, righteous, or consumed by vengeance.

[SeanF]

19 minutes ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

Dany is corrputed by all of it though, because she becomes used to the idea that she's always right. Madame Defarge was a tireless worker for the French Revolution seeking "justice" for her murdered family (it is really vengeance) and Inspector Javert is an honorable policeman who believes what he's doing is right. These Dany types are all over literature, if you read widely you can see the trope. They have done "nothing wrong" in the past and they want to correct the world, but they are still positioned as the antagonist because they are inflexible, righteous, or consumed by vengeance.

There is that risk, but I think it's preferable to take that risk, rather than to adopt Tyrion's approach (and D & D's) that cruelty and injustice are just the way things are, and you should just accept it, and let yourself be ruled by people who think of the Smallfolk as livestock.

Dany could have just accepted that slave-trading is how things are, purchased some Unsullied, plundered a few towns, and sailed away.  But, I don't think that would have been the morally correct course of action.

[Rose of Red Lake]

23 minutes ago, SeanF said:

There is that risk, but I think it's preferable to take that risk, rather than to adopt Tyrion's approach (and D & D's) that cruelty and injustice are just the way things are, and you should just accept it, and let yourself be ruled by people who think of the Smallfolk as livestock.

Dany could have just accepted that slave-trading is how things are, purchased some Unsullied, plundered a few towns, and sailed away.  But, I don't think that would have been the morally correct course of action.

Dany thinks the small folk are livestock now so...

I think you're fixated on her time in Slaver's Bay without asking how that affects her character. I also think some skepticism toward her actions over there is necessary. She couldn't have purchased Unsullied anyway without freeing them, so her very first act in Slaver's Bay isn't straightforwardly moral because she benefits by getting an army. It's sketchy. 

 

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

Dany thinks the small folk are livestock now so...

I think you're fixated on her time in Slaver's Bay without asking how that affects her character. I also think some skepticism toward her actions over there is necessary. She couldn't have purchased Unsullied anyway without freeing them, so her very first act in Slaver's Bay isn't straightforwardly moral because she benefits by getting an army. It's sketchy. 

 

I'm fixated on Slavers Bay, because that's what this thread is about, and because Tyrion's "evil men" speech is about how using violence against slavers and rapists is "murder" , and inevitably leads to the mass murder of innocent people.  That's a line of argument which is very helpful to the slavers and rapists of this world.

[Mystical]

On 11/4/2019 at 7:59 AM, SeanF said:

As to the books, I think it's entirely reasonable to question some of Dany's actions during her anti-slavery war.  But, the war itself is just.  Probably the only war in the books so far that's for a truly just cause.

It depends on the purpose and outcome of what one does and whether that can be seen as just or not. I'm pretty sure we are all in agreement that slavery is bad and has to end. However when slavery is the entire economic system like it is in Slaver's Bay, you better have a plan in place to replace the former economy with a new one. That was Dany's biggest mistake and why the situation for the slaves didn't really improve and why I don't see it as 'just'. Slaves were put in shelters where they prayed on each other to the point that we have slaves asking to go back to their masters because life was better. Then there is the resistances in all the freed cities that leads to constant uprisings which leads to even more bloodshed. Cities get bombed which leads to even more death and destruction. Slaves were on the streets with nothing (like that woman and her baby Tyrion gave a coin to).

If Dany had a solid plan for the economy and the foresight to leave a government and army in place to enforce the new system (whatever that is), then her cause might have been just. As it was, she freed a city then moved on with her entire army, no solid new government and the cities were retaken. Even when she decided to stay in Mereen, nothing changed. Tyrion was basically like 'hey masters/leaders, you have x number of years to figure out a replacement economy for slavery to support yourselves'. That is Dany and her government's job. Why not figure out how to best use former slaves and give them education and job training (trade, farming, cloth making, builders etc.) so they can make money to support themselves? I'm pretty sure a lot of them were already to some extend experienced in this. For example cloth making for classes high and lowborn (fine dresses, regular clothes etc.) can be a mass production to then be traded. That's an entire production chain in and of itself.