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So what was the third "oh shit" moment?


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Burning down King's Landing is not really 'that' irrational.  It would certainly be a lesson about supporting the wrong person going forward, it's the same lesson that Tywin taught with House Reyne and the Red Wedding, only on a larger scale. One of the problems with the show was that all these characters have witnessed massive brutality throughout the story, have even in many instances participated in brutality, in child and civilian killing, and yet suddenly, went all OMG The Children!!  The People!!  And flipped out over what is pretty standard conqueror behavior. I just didn't find Tyrion's about face over Dany's actions to be believable considering that he supported his vile family for most of the series and that he even still tried to save his evil sister at the last minute and then wept over her bones.  ? 

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23 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

If she kills as many people as the Night King though? He says greater and more dangerous threatS - plural - and collapses Ice and Fire into the same kind of elemental threats that represent climate change. He's not really ranking them here, although he did that in the original outline and put Dany as threat #2. Anyway, this was the interview that gave away the ending for me.

When we think of fire, why do we think of Daenerys?

The true counterparts and equivalents of the Not-Night King and the Others would not be Daenerys and dragons; it would be R'hllor and inhuman fire mages?

Daenerys and the dragons are actually the fire counterparts to the Stark children and the direwolves.

I feel like there's a greater game that's being played. One between the gods R'hllor and the Great Other and their superhuman/magical followers: Red Priests/Children of the Forest and Bloodraven/Benerro. They will be naturally opposed and I feel like Bran and Daenerys (but especially Bran) are pawns in that game of thrones.

I do think that Daenerys and the Starks will be at odds (if not outright hostile enemies) and Jon will be caught in the middle. But I don't think it will be for reasons as stupid as the trainwreck they call a TV show. In fact, I don't think they were ever going to get along. I've never ever felt like they would all be like some big happy family. Not only are there massive cultural differences, but the fire (Targaryen) and the ice (Stark) are on two separate trajectories.

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29 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Burning down King's Landing is not really 'that' irrational.  It would certainly be a lesson about supporting the wrong person going forward, it's the same lesson that Tywin taught with House Reyne and the Red Wedding, only on a larger scale. One of the problems with the show was that all these characters have witnessed massive brutality throughout the story, have even in many instances participated in brutality, in child and civilian killing, and yet suddenly, went all OMG The Children!!  The People!!  And flipped out over what is pretty standard conqueror behavior. I just didn't find Tyrion's about face over Dany's actions to be believable considering that he supported his vile family for most of the series and that he even still tried to save his evil sister at the last minute and then wept over her bones.  ? 

Exactly.

No one cries when Aegon and his sisters killed hundreds of thousands of men atop their dragons. No one criticizes Aegon for setting all of Dorne on fire during the First Dornish War.

Why Daenerys?

This quote comes to mind.

“Teach her that if you criticize X in women but do not criticize X in men, then you do not have a problem with X, you have a problem with women.”

King's Landing needs to be burned. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, Daenerys is probably going to have a very good reason to destroy the city. All the groundwork for a greyscale pandemic has already been laid. And remember what happened back in A Clash of Kings when the Reach and the Riverlands stopped sending food to the capital? Well, winter is here now and so there's going to be much less food.

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41 minutes ago, Jabar of House Titan said:

When we think of fire, why do we think of Daenerys?

The true counterparts and equivalents of the Not-Night King and the Others would not be Daenerys and dragons; it would be R'hllor and inhuman fire mages?

I think Bran represents earth magic which is a balance between the two, because dragonglass is a mix of earth and fire, while Ned's sword is a mix of ice and fire. Plus all the woods and trees and forests and all that Grateful Dead stuff GRRM apparently likes. It's dark in a Germanic fairy tale/Norse way to trick the reader, but I dont think it's necessarily a threat to the realm. That would be Ice AND Fire, the Others and Dany/dragons, which is what he states in the interview. I think the religions are there to hype up Daenerys as a savior also there to trick the reader.

30 minutes ago, Jabar of House Titan said:

King's Landing needs to be burned. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, Daenerys is probably going to have a very good reason to destroy the city. All the groundwork for a greyscale pandemic has already been laid.

A successful management of quarantining was given in Fire and Blood with Oldtown and the way they handled the pandemic. Burning the city to the ground wasn't seen as the best way to solve things.

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1 hour ago, Cas Stark said:

Burning down King's Landing is not really 'that' irrational.  It would certainly be a lesson about supporting the wrong person going forward, it's the same lesson that Tywin taught with House Reyne and the Red Wedding, only on a larger scale. One of the problems with the show was that all these characters have witnessed massive brutality throughout the story, have even in many instances participated in brutality, in child and civilian killing, and yet suddenly, went all OMG The Children!!  The People!!  And flipped out over what is pretty standard conqueror behavior. I just didn't find Tyrion's about face over Dany's actions to be believable considering that he supported his vile family for most of the series and that he even still tried to save his evil sister at the last minute and then wept over her bones.  ? 

Tyrion burned thousands with wildfire to keep his disgusting nephew in power.  Now, he's clutching his pearls because Dany has to use - violence - to become Queen.

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8 minutes ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

I think Bran represents earth magic which is a balance between the two, because dragonglass is a mix of earth and fire, while Ned's sword is a mix of ice and fire. Plus all the woods and trees and forests and all that Grateful Dead stuff GRRM apparently likes. It's dark in a Germanic fairy tale/Norse way to trick the reader, but I dont think it's necessarily a threat to the realm. That would be Ice AND Fire, the Others and Dany/dragons, which is what he states in the interview. I think the religions are there to hype up Daenerys as a savior also there to trick the reader.

Actually, Ned's sword is a mix of ice, fire, earth (steel comes from iron ore which is of the earth) and some unknown magic substance.

That's a good point about Bran though.

But since this is the song of ICE and FIRE we are talking about, I feel like Bran is more aligned with ice magic. His father is a Stark (ice) and his mother is a Tully (water). Daenerys is obviously fire. Jon is the actual song, the confluence of ice and fire in one. Bran, Jon and Daenerys are our three most principal characters as far as the heart and soul of the story are concerned. All of their arcs are closely tied with magic and have a lingering air of mystery, suspense and otherworldly paranormal action about them. All of their arcs are also tied with wildness/savagery, isolation and the absence of "civilization."

I'm sorry but I can't shake the feeling that the CoTF and/or Bloodraven are up to no good. Melisandre is often very unreliable but the fact that she sees a link between the Great Other, Bloodraven and now Bran is a cause for concern. Her powers aren't the problem; the problem are her interpretations and her methods. On top of that, there seems to be a tie between Bloodraven and Euron Greyjoy.

So, the religion of the old gods is separate and apart from Daenerys. But they have everything to do with Bran and, soon enough, Jon.

18 minutes ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

A successful management of quarantining was given in Fire and Blood with Oldtown and the way they handled the pandemic. Burning the city to the ground wasn't seen as the best way to solve things.

The pandemic wasn't greyscale. Greyscale literally turns men into monsters with stone for skin. Remember the zombies from the movie 28 Days Later or I Am Legend: that's what pops up in my mind when I think of greyscale.

So, when the alliance between Cersei/Euron takes off and the two retake King's Landing from Aegon or Daenerys (more than likely Aegon), who knows what horrors they are going to be bringing to the city. Fire and Blood told us the first look at the story of Aerea and Balerion and their trip to Valyria. Some ungodly monstrosity nearly killed Balerion and left him injured/handicapped for years. Euron apparently has gone to Valyria and is linked to some kind of submarine monstrosity. Could this be the thing that mauled Balerion?

Patchface also seems to be warning the characters (or teasing them) about what lies under the sea. Davos' chapters in A Dance with Dragons seems to be encouraging that by describing how he finds some of the people of the Sisters and White Harbor to be strangely built. Of all people, Melisandre is afraid of Patchface.

Why?

There seems to be a link between what Patchface saw/experienced and what Euron could do? Sea monsters and submarine hellions in King's Landing perhaps?

And then with the way Qyburn is carrying on with his experiments...yikes.

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2 hours ago, Jabar of House Titan said:

I'm sorry but I can't shake the feeling that the CoTF and/or Bloodraven are up to no good. Melisandre is often very unreliable but the fact that she sees a link between the Great Other, Bloodraven and now Bran is a cause for concern. Her powers aren't the problem; the problem are her interpretations and her methods. On top of that, there seems to be a tie between Bloodraven and Euron Greyjoy.

I agree with you there, I'm not a fan of Bloodraven's meddling or Melisandre's zealotry. I hope Bran figures things out on his own. 

2 hours ago, Jabar of House Titan said:

The pandemic wasn't greyscale. Greyscale literally turns men into monsters with stone for skin. Remember the zombies from the movie 28 Days Later or I Am Legend: that's what pops up in my mind when I think of greyscale.

If they're just inhuman monsters there's no moral quandary at play for her storyline. It's just another battle against the ice zombies without any difficult choices, not to mention a misapplication of what "dragons" actually mean.

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8 hours ago, SeanF said:

Now, he's clutching his pearls because Dany has to use - violence - to become Queen.

This had the same effect on me as when Daemon Blackfyre stood up covered in mud and someone cheered “The Brown Dragon!”: I burst out laughing. Now every time I’ll read a Tyrion passage I’ll imagine him playing with the pearl necklace around his neck. Thank you, Sean! :lmao:

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12 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

Burning down King's Landing is not really 'that' irrational.  It would certainly be a lesson about supporting the wrong person going forward, it's the same lesson that Tywin taught with House Reyne and the Red Wedding, only on a larger scale. One of the problems with the show was that all these characters have witnessed massive brutality throughout the story, have even in many instances participated in brutality, in child and civilian killing, and yet suddenly, went all OMG The Children!!  The People!!  And flipped out over what is pretty standard conqueror behavior. I just didn't find Tyrion's about face over Dany's actions to be believable considering that he supported his vile family for most of the series and that he even still tried to save his evil sister at the last minute and then wept over her bones.  ? 

Sure.  Even someone as honourable as Ned Stark took part in the first sack of Kings Landing (he was rightly appalled by the treatment of Elia and her children, but not the rest);. Robb's men hanged tavern girls in the Riverlands;. Tormund and Ygritte murdered innocent villagers;. Tyrion burned men with wildfire, to keep a usurper in power etc. etc.

But, for some reason, Varys and Tyrion start questioning Dany's sanity in Season 7 because she's not a European rights lawyer in 2019.

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4 hours ago, SeanF said:

Sure.  Even someone as honourable as Ned Stark took part in the first sack of Kings Landing (he was rightly appalled by the treatment of Elia and her children, but not the rest);. Robb's men hanged tavern girls in the Riverlands;. Tormund and Ygritte murdered innocent villagers;. Tyrion burned men with wildfire, to keep a usurper in power etc. etc.

But, for some reason, Varys and Tyrion start questioning Dany's sanity in Season 7 because she's not a European rights lawyer in 2019.

Yeah, it all happened too fast, too many plot corners cut, too many short circuits.  Varys was trying to poison her before she burned KL down??? Which, considering he served Bob and Joffrey for years, really, also, made no sense.  She had literally not done anything out of the ordinary at that time except become depressed over her losses, and I say this as someone who wasn't a Dany fan. Same with Jon killing her, after um, a speech?  One speech?   If he really loves her and knows her, wouldn't he wait to see what her actions were following the speech?  See if she can be reasoned with...there is always more time to kill her later...

I did like Tyrion's 'first they came for the slavers' speech, but it still needed a much better laid context for Jon's actions.

ETA...the show had long been rewarded for these 'shocking and surprising' twists that in the later years were not well grounded in the plot, and so, they seem to have miscalculated on Dany, and rather than laying real groundwork on her turn toward megalomania, they made it a SHOCK!  But, she was too popular of a character and had years of being shown as a [barely flawed] badass hero, so it all went down very poorly with the viewers.

 

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9 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Yeah, it all happened too fast, too many plot corners cut, too many short circuits.  Varys was trying to poison her before she burned KL down??? Which, considering he served Bob and Joffrey for years, really, also, made no sense.  She had literally not done anything out of the ordinary at that time except become depressed over her losses, and I say this as someone who wasn't a Dany fan. Same with Jon killing her, after um, a speech?  One speech?   If he really loves her and knows her, wouldn't he wait to see what her actions were following the speech?  See if she can be reasoned with...there is always more time to kill her later...

I did like Tyrion's 'first they came for the slavers' speech, but it still needed a much better laid context for Jon's actions.

ETA...the show had long been rewarded for these 'shocking and surprising' twists that in the later years were not well grounded in the plot, and so, they seem to have miscalculated on Dany, and rather than laying real groundwork on her turn toward megalomania, they made it a SHOCK!  But, she was too popular of a character and had years of being shown as a [barely flawed] badass hero, so it all went down very poorly with the viewers.

 

I thought Tyrion's speech to Jon was a piece of sophistry.  Firstly, he lied by saying that Dany murdered people at Astapor.  Slave dealers and soldiers were killed there, but that was not murder.  In fact, she specifically ordered restraint.  The real criticism to be made of Dany is that she left a power vacuum behind her at Astapor.  Then he exaggerated the number of crucified slavers at Meereen (163 not "hundreds") while ignoring its context (the crucifixion of slave children). By all means criticise Dany for not giving them a trial, but let's not pretend that anyone else would not have carried out very brutal retaliation for that crime. Then "everywhere she went, evil men died".  And?

I'd like to think that Tyrion was just playing Jon in order to save his own neck, but I suspect it was  sloppy writing. They treated Tyrion as a magical dwarf, perfectly perfect in every way, trying to rein in this crazy bitch the whole time, when in fact, every bit of advice he gave her was useless.

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4 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I thought Tyrion's speech to Jon was a piece of sophistry.  Firstly, he lied by saying that Dany murdered people at Astapor.  Slave dealers and soldiers were killed there, but that was not murder.  In fact, she specifically ordered restraint.  The real criticism to be made of Dany is that she left a power vacuum behind her at Astapor.  Then he exaggerated the number of crucified slavers at Meereen (163 not "hundreds") while ignoring its context (the crucifixion of slave children). By all means criticise Dany for not giving them a trial, but let's not pretend that anyone else would not have carried out very brutal retaliation for that crime. Then "everywhere she went, evil men died".  And?

I'd like to think that Tyrion was just playing Jon in order to save his own neck, but I suspect it was  sloppy writing. They treated Tyrion as a magical dwarf, perfectly perfect in every way, trying to rein in this crazy bitch the whole time, when in fact, every bit of advice he gave her was useless.

I never really condoned her Astapor massacre, book or show, but it was played off as much more benign in the show.  The more fundamental problem was that there was a double standard going on.  Dany believed herself to be better, fairer and more just than other rulers.  Okay, I never bought that, her abolitionism was always used by her and her fans as a shield against the rest of the atrocities and bad judgment she committed, BUT she certainly wasn't objectively 'worse' than any other rulers we see in the story, and even given her atrocities, she still was more just and fair than many other leaders, so that is what makes Varys and Tyrion turning on her not work.  We're supposed to see burning KL as TOTALLY SO MUCH WORSE than anything else we saw, but, me, I thought she had a point that KL could and should have revolted, and so that the general population did bear some guilt, but even believing that they were all victims, leveling a city is not that out of the ordinary, and if we were to believe that Dany had cracked somehow, we needed more scenes to substantiate this.  

I definitely came to hate Tyrion and wanted him dead, he was a hypocrite and if anyone drove Dany mad, it was him through his completely bad advice.

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8 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

I never really condoned her Astapor massacre, book or show, but it was played off as much more benign in the show.  The more fundamental problem was that there was a double standard going on.  Dany believed herself to be better, fairer and more just than other rulers.  Okay, I never bought that, her abolitionism was always used by her and her fans as a shield against the rest of the atrocities and bad judgment she committed, BUT she certainly wasn't objectively 'worse' than any other rulers we see in the story, and even given her atrocities, she still was more just and fair than many other leaders, so that is what makes Varys and Tyrion turning on her not work.  We're supposed to see burning KL as TOTALLY SO MUCH WORSE than anything else we saw, but, me, I thought she had a point that KL could and should have revolted, and so that the general population did bear some guilt, but even believing that they were all victims, leveling a city is not that out of the ordinary, and if we were to believe that Dany had cracked somehow, we needed more scenes to substantiate this.  

I definitely came to hate Tyrion and wanted him dead, he was a hypocrite and if anyone drove Dany mad, it was him through his completely bad advice.

But, it turns out that Daenerys was Satan anyway, so Tyrion can be let off the hook.

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16 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

I agree with you there, I'm not a fan of Bloodraven's meddling or Melisandre's zealotry. I hope Bran figures things out on his own. 

Bran is probably going to do what Sansa and Arya are doing: play along for a while out of fear only to come to their senses and escape/fight back.

He won't be in that cave forever. He's going to get out.

Frankly, I feel like Bloodraven is worse/scarier than Melisandre.

16 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

I agree with you there, I'm not a fan of Bloodraven's meddling or Melisandre's zealotry. I hope Bran figures things out on his own. 

If they're just inhuman monsters there's no moral quandary at play for her storyline. It's just another battle against the ice zombies without any difficult choices, not to mention a misapplication of what "dragons" actually mean.

Well, I didn't say they were inhuman monsters.

Have you seen I Am Legend or 28 Days Later? The zombies weren't undead or inhuman, they were sick and their sickness had some gnarly physical and psychological side effects.

If Samwell, Alleras or someone at the Citadel discovers a possible cure for greyscale or a way to safely quarantine the infected and Daenerys burns them all anyways (regardless if they were visibly infected or not), then there's your moral quandary.

Or if Euron takes over King's Landing and turns it into some kind of Lovecraftian hellzone and Daenerys nukes the city even though Jaime, Arya and Jon are on the ground trying to rescue/evacuate survivors, then you have the moral quandary you were looking for.

Basically, the last couple episodes of this show could have been Chernobyl. The heroes might have set out to deal with King Euron and/or the greyscale epidemic on a more cautious fashion but Daenerys (who might have been isolated on Dragonstone at this point and thus excluded from the plans) can rush in on dragonback and firebombing the entire city and everyone therein before duking it out with Euron.

Then we could've gotten to see the drago-nuclear fallout and how Daenerys accidentally made the situation worse.

 

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3 minutes ago, Jabar of House Titan said:

If Samwell, Alleras or someone at the Citadel discovers a possible cure for greyscale or a way to safely quarantine the infected and Daenerys burns them all anyways (regardless if they were visibly infected or not), then there's your moral quandary.

Or if Euron takes over King's Landing and turns it into some kind of Lovecraftian hellzone and Daenerys nukes the city even though Jaime, Arya and Jon are on the ground trying to rescue/evacuate survivors, then you have the moral quandary you were looking for.

All possible and I like some of these ideas, but mass murder will always have an irrational element, so I don't really think too hard about giving Dany more logical reasons to do it. I'm satisfied with the reason that was implied on the show - the people of Westeros didn't give her the mhysa treatment, so she gave them the Mirri treatment. "Let it be fear" is enough reason for me. 

 

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