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Were the Starks the real villains of Game of Thrones all this time?


Khal Rhaego Targaryen

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The "real villains", as in the top villains?  Of course not.  But by the end, some of the Stark characters either demonstrated "bad guy" behavior or were victims of really bad writing.

Did Sansa intentionally withhold the Knights of the Vale from Jon during the Battle of the Bastards so that she could be hailed as the true hero of the battle when they showed up?  Logically, that is the only possible explanation, and that would make Sansa a psychopath... but that was not the writers' intention.  They just wanted to have a "surprise" victory just when it looked like they were going to lose, so Sansa as a character was destroyed due to their bad writing.  Also because the writers' concept of "character growth" is that Sansa becomes a cynical nihilist who is "grateful" for Joffrey, Ramsay, Littlefinger and all the others because otherwise she would still be a "little bird".  Grateful for being tortured and raped... were the writers out of their minds?  (Yes.)

Likewise, there is no logical reason why Bran did literally nothing during the "Long Night" except sit in the godswood as "bait", unless he was waiting for all these terrible events to happen so he could eventually be named king.  "I can never be lord of anything" and "Why do you think I came all this way?" are contradictory idiocy which makes Bran look like he is a master villain... except the writers are not subtle.  They didn't leave his villainy unstated so we can cleverly figure out on our own.  They wrote the show so "football players and soccer moms" can cheer and fist-pump in bars, not to invoke complex thought.  Bran was not intended to be a villain because they would have said so if he was.  The decimation of his character was because Bran is a "magical" character, and they cut magic out of his story... therefore cutting out Bran's story entirely.  Bran being king is the ending George Martin gave them, but they cut out his entire road to getting there because the fantasy show writers hate fantasy.

I hate Show Arya after she returns from Braavos.  Call her a villain, and I will agree.  I hate the Freys, but I don't hate all the Freys.  The show cut out the fact that there are decent male Freys (Perwyn and Olyvar).  We were supposed to cheer Arya as she induced a mini-genocide wiping out all Frey men, but I did not cheer.  But again, the show did not intend for her to be a villain.  Arguably, she was the "hero" of the show.  Though they never called her this, she was "the princess who was promised" by killing the Night King and ending the "Long Night".

Jon is my favorite character in the books, but I have no affinity at all for his show character.  He's not villainous, just pointless.  Jon's sobbing after killing the psychopathic tyrant who just murdered a million people saying what she did was an "impossible choice" certainly would have ruined his character if it wasn't already ruined by bad writing, bad direction, and bad acting.

Daenerys is obviously the "real villain" of the show.  I think she is destined for tyranny in the books too, but not quite like that, and she is also the victim of extremely bad writing.  But the writers aren't subtle.  "Bran is a villain because he manipulated events to become king" would be subtle villainy; Daenerys burning a whole city down for no real reason is glaringly obvious villainy, something that the show writers think that even "football players and soccer moms" can understand.  (It is their condescending attitude toward football players and soccer moms, not mine.)

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 11/18/2022 at 5:55 PM, BlackLightning said:

But they changed the ending of the Bells in post-production? How do you know this?

IINM, Emilia Clarke revealed this because she was utterly shocked by the episode. Also, some have pointed out that you can still see some of the Wildfire in the CGI, so it was changed (apparently) at the very last minute for reasons that make no sense. 

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1 hour ago, TheNecromancerofMirkwood said:

IINM, Emilia Clarke revealed this because she was utterly shocked by the episode. Also, some have pointed out that you can still see some of the Wildfire in the CGI, so it was changed (apparently) at the very last minute for reasons that make no sense. 

I think the impression in that episode is that when Daenerys is burning the city, some of Drogon's flames reach some of the caches of wildfire and detonate them, adding to the chaos.

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On 12/8/2022 at 9:35 AM, StarkTullies said:

The "real villains", as in the top villains?  Of course not.  But by the end, some of the Stark characters either demonstrated "bad guy" behavior or were victims of really bad writing.

Did Sansa intentionally withhold the Knights of the Vale from Jon during the Battle of the Bastards so that she could be hailed as the true hero of the battle when they showed up?  Logically, that is the only possible explanation, and that would make Sansa a psychopath... but that was not the writers' intention.  They just wanted to have a "surprise" victory just when it looked like they were going to lose, so Sansa as a character was destroyed due to their bad writing.  Also because the writers' concept of "character growth" is that Sansa becomes a cynical nihilist who is "grateful" for Joffrey, Ramsay, Littlefinger and all the others because otherwise she would still be a "little bird".  Grateful for being tortured and raped... were the writers out of their minds?  (Yes.)

Likewise, there is no logical reason why Bran did literally nothing during the "Long Night" except sit in the godswood as "bait", unless he was waiting for all these terrible events to happen so he could eventually be named king.  "I can never be lord of anything" and "Why do you think I came all this way?" are contradictory idiocy which makes Bran look like he is a master villain... except the writers are not subtle.  They didn't leave his villainy unstated so we can cleverly figure out on our own.  They wrote the show so "football players and soccer moms" can cheer and fist-pump in bars, not to invoke complex thought.  Bran was not intended to be a villain because they would have said so if he was.  The decimation of his character was because Bran is a "magical" character, and they cut magic out of his story... therefore cutting out Bran's story entirely.  Bran being king is the ending George Martin gave them, but they cut out his entire road to getting there because the fantasy show writers hate fantasy.

I hate Show Arya after she returns from Braavos.  Call her a villain, and I will agree.  I hate the Freys, but I don't hate all the Freys.  The show cut out the fact that there are decent male Freys (Perwyn and Olyvar).  We were supposed to cheer Arya as she induced a mini-genocide wiping out all Frey men, but I did not cheer.  But again, the show did not intend for her to be a villain.  Arguably, she was the "hero" of the show.  Though they never called her this, she was "the princess who was promised" by killing the Night King and ending the "Long Night".

Jon is my favorite character in the books, but I have no affinity at all for his show character.  He's not villainous, just pointless.  Jon's sobbing after killing the psychopathic tyrant who just murdered a million people saying what she did was an "impossible choice" certainly would have ruined his character if it wasn't already ruined by bad writing, bad direction, and bad acting.

Daenerys is obviously the "real villain" of the show.  I think she is destined for tyranny in the books too, but not quite like that, and she is also the victim of extremely bad writing.  But the writers aren't subtle.  "Bran is a villain because he manipulated events to become king" would be subtle villainy; Daenerys burning a whole city down for no real reason is glaringly obvious villainy, something that the show writers think that even "football players and soccer moms" can understand.  (It is their condescending attitude toward football players and soccer moms, not mine.)

The show's attitude towards brutal violence was all over the place.  I don't doubt that the hanging of Olly, the torture of Meryn Trant, the massacre of the Freys, Varys revealing  the sorcerer in his box, the poisoning of Joffrey, the feeding of Ramsay to his dogs , LF's sham "trial",  were all meant to be fist-pumping moments.  As were the killing of slavers and rapist khals (until Tyrion retconned them as bad).  Bizarrely, they thought that viewers would be upset by the deaths of the Tarlys. 

The thing is, you can't place sympathetic characters in a medieval world at war, and not expect them to behave like leaders in a medieval war zone.

 

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On 12/20/2022 at 4:27 AM, TheNecromancerofMirkwood said:

IINM, Emilia Clarke revealed this because she was utterly shocked by the episode. Also, some have pointed out that you can still see some of the Wildfire in the CGI, so it was changed (apparently) at the very last minute for reasons that make no sense. 

I saw that. 

I just always thought of it as some idiotic last-minute decision to add to the fireworks by "remembering" the wildfire caches still littered around the city.

 

So, apparently.... the decision to have Dany destroy the entire city and kill hundreds of thousands of people was done last minute in post-production.

Just when I thought that they couldn't be bigger assholes.

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1 hour ago, BlackLightning said:

I saw that. 

I just always thought of it as some idiotic last-minute decision to add to the fireworks by "remembering" the wildfire caches still littered around the city.

 

So, apparently.... the decision to have Dany destroy the entire city and kill hundreds of thousands of people was done last minute in post-production.

Just when I thought that they couldn't be bigger assholes.

I think it would have been a far better, and genuinely tragic, ending, had they just stuck to Jon killing Daenerys in order to save Sansa and Arya.  Just as Ned sacrificed his honour in order to save Jon, so Jon sacrifices his, in order to save Ned’s children.

He would never forgive Sansa for forcing that choice upon him.

But “soccer moms” can’t be expected to understand anything as sophisticated as a conflict of loyalties.  So, they had to go with Dany slaughtering civilians.

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2 hours ago, SeanF said:

But “soccer moms” can’t be expected to understand anything as sophisticated as a conflict of loyalties.  So, they had to go with Dany slaughtering civilians.

Given everything that has come out about Dave & Dan, I think you're giving them too much credit.....

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/23/2022 at 1:53 PM, SeanF said:

.

But “soccer moms” can’t be expected to understand anything as sophisticated as a conflict of loyalties.  So, they had to go with Dany slaughtering civilians.

If they can grasp politics as shown in other parts of the show they can grasp a conflict of loyalties.

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