[Abyss]

I figure Drogon just gets pissed, dumps Dany, razes everything and takes over.

"DROGON KING NOW. IRON THRONE IS GOOD BACKSCRATCHER. BRING SHEEP."

[QuickTidal]

I'm going to pick apart that blog post bit by bit (Cause I like breaking shit down), but yeah this guy STANS Dany hard...and can't seem to accept that he's into the Villain...which is fine, but I mean come on bro, accept it at least.

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I’m going to proceed as if all the things that Benioff and Weiss say in the post-episode featurette are stupid and wrong, however. For one thing, she doesn’t make it personal. After all, if the sight of the Red Keep suddenly causes her to fly into a rage — “in that moment on the walls of King’s Landing, when she’s looking at that symbol of everything that was taken from her” — then why does she immediately start torching the city instead of the Red Keep?

This is pretty clearly for Cersei first and foremost. It's to show the woman who rebuffed her attempts at surrender, and killed her bestie in front of her (and had her sex toy Euron kill her dragon)...that death was coming. It was not coming swift. It was coming slowly, inexorably, and inevitably. They literally juxtapose the carnage with Cersei watching it with growing dread as her underling explains that her beliefs about the defences in place own't save her. It was clear from a filmic angle. Miguel Sapochik is not amateur.

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Benioff and Weiss also explain away her decisions by citing her lack of advisors and guidance. But what she has really lost are allies. Her allies have betrayed her, all of them but Grey Worm. They don’t quite admit that they have; they use sophistry to pretend they haven’t, or their high opinions of themselves, or they betray her offscreen when we don’t have to see them struggle with their decisions. But they’ve all betrayed her. She is completely right about that, and she sees it more clearly than anyone else in the show.

The only person who pre-KL burning really betrays her outright, is Varys. Tyrion is still fighting for her, As is Jon, as is anyone else on that side of the conflict. Jaime held true to his word, his going to KL to be with Cersei doesn't reneg on what he promised her in the North. Ect. Her advisors are literally telling her to let Cersei surrender, and she's just not having it even though she puts in some theatrics to appease Tyrion. This should be the first sign to the blogger that things are not as he sees them....but never mind.

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Sansa is actively working to turn Jon against her,

She fucking THREATENED Sansa to her face, and told her basically "bend the knee or we about to have some problems!"...and Sansa was like "nah". This is not hard. Sansa was right, and a badass.

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Arya tells Jon that it was right to make a deal with Daenerys and also to break it as soon as convenient

Because she's SMART, and knows that Dany is dangerous and bad for the kingdoms. FFS Arya is the north fucking star of "justice" on GoT....that this dude can say this with a straight face is a travesty.

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Tyrion has been talking treason with Varys and gives him the crucial intel he has (apparently) been sending by raven to all the other kingdoms

Tyrion stays quite true to her until his brother is threatened...and innocents in KL...I mean, who does this dimwit think TOLD Dany about Varys' treasonous words?! Telling Varys about Jon/Aegon is not a betrayal, it's just info until Varys acts on it...only Dany considers that a betrayal because it threatens her claim...but we can't overlook that it's as ephemeral a claim as Jons is...she's just cutthroat in wanting it.

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and Jon started it all by disobeying her.

Oh fuck you. FUUUUUUUCCCCKKKK you. Does this guy get the irony of saying that someone betrays her by DISOBEYING her? Like What the everloving fuck? "Do what I say otherwise you're betraying me!".....that um...not how this works if we are equal allies homey.

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[Along with the open revolt of the Starks

Please note that in Aaron's dictionary "open revolt" is trying to talk Jon into not trusting a foreign conquering Queen...who isn't legit in charge of anything in Westeros...yet.

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Tyrion’s loyalty to his brother remains a problem

Yes, gods forbid he support the one person in his whole life who stood up for him, helped him, and made him feel like he wasn't the monster his sister and father told him he was. Yeah, fuck loyalty to that guy...support this crazy ass queen instead. She's earned it, right?

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as does his constant stream of terrible advice,

What terrible advice? You can't exactly call it terrible just because Dany chooses to actively ignore it.

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and what’s perhaps worst is that — like Jon — he seems to think he can betray her without it really being a betrayal.

Let's be clear, he actively campaigns for her and tries to get her to do the right thing all the way up until she burns KL...the ONLY thing he really does that goes against her wishes is freeing Jaime...who wasn't going to do anything to help Cersei keep the city anyways, so capturing him was stupid on the face of it. He just helped her, and she very likely would have killed him if he'd stayed prisoner, so you know what? Justified.

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Even the Onion Knight betrays Daenerys when Tyrion asks him to help smuggle Jaime into the city and why on earth would he do that?

Because he's a good person, and understood the family and relationships at the heart of the matter, and he respected and was friends with Tyrion. And he's seen people claiming to be "kings" burning people before...*cough*Stannis*cough*

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What on earth are they all thinking?

They were thinking maybe this queen who seems to let nothing stand in her way on the march to the throne....isn't the best person to have on the throne after all? This isn't hard.

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Daenerys is the only person thinking clearly

If you are conquesting, birthright-peddling displaced queen who has a horde of barbarians, and eunuch soldier-slaves, and uses dragons to burn people...sure...but I'm not sure that's the side of history you want to be on bro...

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We see them make the same mistakes over and over again and refuse to learn from them; because we like them

He says this unironically about the other characters....while he should be turning that around and pointing it at him and his desire to believe Dany was right.

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But while Jon’s actions are in character for him — this isn’t the first time he’s tried to say no to being King, or ordered his people to accept an alliance they don’t want — why on earth would he think he could be successful this time? Has he learned nothing from his experiences? Sansa refuses to trust anyone else — as she has many times — but her situation has changed quite a bit. And wasn’t the last lesson she learned from Littlefinger that sometimes you do have to trust your family, not betray them? (Now that she’s installed in Winterfell, you’d think that the safe choice for her family would be not to break your word to your brother, immediately, just so you can piss off the dragon queen). Arya goes on a commando murder quest because that’s what she does, but she already had a moment — with Hot Pie, in episode 7.2 — where she decided to give up her murder quest and go home to Winterfell; why is she back on her old bullshit? And Tyrion, my God, Tyrion is supposed to be incredibly clever and literally everything he does fails; is he not clever enough to re-examine his decision-making process?

I like this bit because it's particularly idiotic. He asks why Jon would continue to try to do something that failed in the past....because that's who Jon fucking is, you numpty, have you not been watching? He comments on Sansa and then tries to ask why she's not following the advice of Littefinger....the motherfucker she saw KILLED because of his shit..like what? He claims that because Arya seemed to reject her list/enemies quest in S7Ep2 that somehow she's just going to ignore her skills when the whole of the North is under attack. He comments on Sansa "breaking her word to Jon"...but are we going to try to pretend that Sansa telling Tyrion and Jon trusting her not to do so is not EXACTLY in character for both of them? And Tyrion has been clever like 90% of the time of the show...yes things went south for him after he killed his father, and after he got in with the dragon queen...but she literally ignores most of his advice...so the idea that his plans fail is obtuse when Dany barely follows them to begin with.

Example:

Tyrion: Stop when you hear the bells, k?
Dany: Okay....but naw.

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We like these characters, so we accept them staying the same and refusing to learn from their many fuck-ups.

Oh, you mean like people? Yeah, that sucks dude. I don't know what to tell you.

Quote

And there are so many because none of these characters have any flexibility.

Hey guys, the foreign queen who claims the throne is hers is here to rule us...lets be flexible, k?

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When their situations change, they keep doing the same things, making the same mistakes, and having the same results.

Yes, Theon surely never changed due to his experiences/situations did he? Fuck you.

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Tyrion is the worst, and most self-deluding: every time he faces a difficult problem — divided loyalties or a choice of what to lose — he tries to use A Clever Plan to have it both ways. Over and over again, it fails. Over. And. Over. Again.

Citation needed. This guy keeps using this line of reasoning...and never ever supports it (but hey, he fucking REFERENCES the episode where Arya once expressed a wish to go home; priorities)...

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Rationality is the ability to learn: to extrapolate from past experiences, to analyze the present situation, and to anticipate possible future outcomes. None of these idiots are rational; they keep doing the same thing but expecting a different result (just as we do by watching) and we accept it because we recognize their characters doing the things their characters do, and because we like their characters, we’re happy to watch it on our screens.

The entire previous paragraph said this exact same thing. He's just repeated himself. I mean, bravo? I guess word count was important?

[QuickTidal]

cont.

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But the only rational person, here, is Daenerys.

Imagine calling the birthright-peddling dictator who just burned the city of innocents...fucking rational.

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When Jon and Tyrion do really dumb things that blow up in their face — or when Sansa and Arya act in stunningly short-sighted ways — the show gets away with it because they are Our Heroes.

Citation needed. Seriously, the only time this guy backs up his more broad, and sweeping grand statements like this...is when it benefits his "Dany is right" angle.

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And when Tyrion literally engineers the escape of his brother so that he can engineer the escape of Cersei, the Queen’s main enemy

One would hope that this numpty understands that Cersei is only Dany's enemy because she sits the throne that Dany feels is hers by Birthright, nothing else. Tyrion is also aware that people who cross Dany, don't live (see: Varys). Freeing Jaime is not about freeing Cersei, that's an afterthought to get Jaime on board...Tyrion only cares about freeing and saving his brother. That's the bit that this guy misses. This wasn't about betraying Dany, it was 100% about two family members supporting each other in extraordinary circumstances. I'm sorry in his thrust to inexplicably call Dany right for her actions, he misses the nuance of one of the strongest scenes in the series.

Quote

In both cases, this is just an honest and a clever man doing what’s necessary because their Queen won’t.

Incorrect. He's doing it because he knows Jaime is toast otherwise. You literally don't have to overthink it past that.

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we overlook how well she’s learned the lessons that Olenna and Cersei have taught, and how completely in line with those lessons her actions are.

Except neither Olenna or Cersei's lessons are GOOD lessons of benevolent leaders.

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But a deeper problem is that we don’t want to admit that Daenerys is right, because we don’t want to admit what monarchy is.

What? No. The fuck?

Quote

There are no good kings and queens

There have been plenty in Westeros. People who have ruled quite benevolently and reigned over periods of peace and prosperity.

Quote

Jon Snow would be a good king, maybe, and his reign would be extremely short

Note: Aaron can see the future.

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And she wins. She has an effectively unkillable dragon

Sorry, what happened to the last dragon again?

Quote

and her army is victorious

Thor *squints: Are they though?

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while Jon and Tyrion and Sansa and Arya were out there doing literally nothing,

Jesus...REALLY? Arya trying to help civilians get safe is nothing...Jon trying to cease the bloodshed, is nothing...man, fuck this guy.

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she ran the board. No one loves her, but is anyone going to fuck with her? Is anyone really going to fuck with her? After that?

]

Perhaps you're new to ASOIAF bro, but shitty kings and queens don't exactly stand cleanly out of reach. See Cersei, or Mad King Aerys, Aegon the Unworthy, ect.

Quote

I guess we’ll find out next week. But if there’s any realism left in this show, they won’t. She might be wrong to imagine that her reign will be any different than those before her; she shows every sign of being the latest iteration of every king or queen ever.

Someone get this dude a copy of the Dunk & Egg stories STAT.

Quote

The problem, ultimately, is not that Daenerys is a mad queen; there is no such thing.

There very much is.

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It’s a redundant phrase.

It's not.

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To be a king or queen is to win the game, and to win the game, everyone else has to lose, and die.

Except not. Fighting over a throne without a successor might be a game, but regular succession is quite frequently not.

Quote

That’s the game.

The game he's referring to here is largely the one created by Robert's Rebellion. Before him, the line of succession was fairly clear, bad rulers amongst the lot over 300 years aside.

Quote

And if the fantasy of “High Fantasy” is always that absolute rulers might rule well and kindly and with good intentions for their people, then Game of Thrones has abruptly woken up and remembered what a queen is.

This guy doesn't read much high fantasy. I'd love to introduce him to Queen Miriamele, for example.

---------

So yeah, the guy fought hard to make us see a villain as 'right'...but main his augments are weak AF, quite unsupported, and really quite unintelligent. He also brought up American politics at one point...and my eyes rolled out of my head.

[Nevyn]

Abyss, on 15 May 2019 - 05:04 PM, said:

I figure Drogon just gets pissed, dumps Dany, razes everything and takes over.

"DROGON KING NOW. IRON THRONE IS GOOD BACKSCRATCHER. BRING SHEEP."

Does Drogon marry Ghost to unite the houses?

Or is that too much CGI?

[polishgenius]

QuickTidal, on 15 May 2019 - 06:40 PM, said:

This guy doesn't read much high fantasy. I'd love to introduce him to Queen Miriamele, for example.

Dude hasn't even read Lord of the Rings or if he has he didn't read it properly.

[QuickTidal]

polishgenius, on 15 May 2019 - 06:43 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 15 May 2019 - 06:40 PM, said:

This guy doesn't read much high fantasy. I'd love to introduce him to Queen Miriamele, for example.

Dude hasn't even read Lord of the Rings or if he has he didn't read it properly.

Agreed. The whole bent of the second half the blog post is "Monarchies, and kings and queens are bad, mkayyyyy, so you need to accept that to see Dany is right, mkkaaayyy?"

Patronizing guy who doesn't read fantasy trying to wax poetic about fantasy.

[Gorefest]

Nevyn, on 15 May 2019 - 06:42 PM, said:

Abyss, on 15 May 2019 - 05:04 PM, said:

I figure Drogon just gets pissed, dumps Dany, razes everything and takes over.

"DROGON KING NOW. IRON THRONE IS GOOD BACKSCRATCHER. BRING SHEEP."

Does Drogon marry Ghost to unite the houses?

Or is that too much CGI?

That would be my dream ending.

[worry]

Cause, on 15 May 2019 - 10:40 AM, said:

worry, on 15 May 2019 - 10:21 AM, said:

Cause, on 15 May 2019 - 07:22 AM, said:

worry, on 15 May 2019 - 04:16 AM, said:

Very interesting take on the episode imo: https://lareviewofbo...ones-the-bells/

If they not trolling thats very scary.

Its like reading an apology for Hitler.

Killing all those people was in fact a rational act?

Reading the article (purely) as Dany apologia seems off base, whether you agree or disagree with its thesis. It’s an exposition of the ep through the frame of power. ‘Rational’ is in contrast to ‘mad’ isn’t it?

'Daenerys is not the “mad queen.” She is certainly not in a great place at the moment, but not only does she have a history of murdering her enemies with a gruesome calmness — as she did last night — I want to propose that her current problem is not a lack of rationality. Her problem, if it is a problem, is that she thinks killing her enemies is fine, and she allows herself to decide who her enemies are, and she’s decided that people we like (and, also, generalized innocent people) are her enemies'


Mad people don't think they are mad. They have rational (to them) reasons for doing what they do. Their madness is that within 3 standard deviations of 'normal' no one else agrees with them. She burnt a city of 1 million people alive to kill Cersei, teach the people of Westeros to fear her and make sure she is never challenged again. And... to protect all future generations against tyrants! Say what?

She is now a tyrant. Slavery is over... so long as all free people obey her. She killed more than 1 out of 7 of her future potential subjects I'd argue. Rather then secure her rule we can be confident that most of the westerosi around her now want her dead. Just because she acted rationally to her mind, or even to her past character does not make what she did rational.

and

Who are Daenerys’s enemies? The answer is incredibly easy, despite Tyrion’s soft-hearted words about hostages and enemies: anyone who opposes her is an enemy, anyone who does not bend the knee. She kills enemies, allies, and bystanders when they refuse to bend the knee; this has been true of her for a long time and has continued to be true. When Varys betrays her, he becomes her enemy and she kills him; when the people of King’s Landing fail to reject Cersei and bend the knee to Daenerys, they become her enemies and she kills them; when Sansa, Arya, Jon, and Tyrion betrayed her, they became her enemies and she will kill them, or try.

The city had surrendered, they had bent the knee. She killed them all anyway to prove her power. She is mad, if not mad evil.

Exactly. It's a condemnation of kingly power, which is inherently -- no matter the rhetoric -- built on a threat. It's inherently violent. "Do as I say, or else." There are no benevolent masters. The circumstantial rationality of an act doesn't change that. Henry VIII had a rationale for what he did to his wives. And nobody calls him the Mad King. George Washington owned people. Nobody calls him the Mad President. But all kings and all masters are mad because all kingship is madness. It's all immoral. Nevyn hit the nail on the head when he called it a sideshow.

Incidentally, I do think the author elides one fact to make his point: that Dany, as much as anyone, wants to have it 'both ways.' She wants love and fear, believing both are necessary for healthy rule...but in Westeros she doesn't get love, only fear. IIRC this is actually made text, not just subtext on the show. But even healthy rule is immoral, because it's rule. So whether we as the audience hope for a 'kind' ruler over a cruel one, or a 'rational' ruler over a mad one, we're rooting for something immoral either way.

Or not. I'm sure Jon Snow will make a great king, because he doesn't want it.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

It's a little depressing to realise I'm looking forward to Lindsay Ellis' promised breakdown of this season more than I am the final episode.

[QuickTidal]

It's fantasy fiction worry, not real world kings and queens.

[worry]

WHAT?!?!

[Tiste Simeon]

I like QT. He's got sass.

[paran falcon]

My daughter just showed me this. Lol!








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Number of downloads: 0

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'More than 150,000 fans sign a petition to remake Game Of Thrones Season 8 with competent writers'

https://wikiofthrone...YmdB64QiwiTIyd4

Petition:

https://www.change.o...mpetent-writers

[polishgenius]

As flawed and in places downright rubbish as I think this season is, I agree with Kitchenwitch Hazel about that.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

polishgenius, on 16 May 2019 - 04:37 AM, said:

As flawed and in places downright rubbish as I think this season is, I agree with Kitchenwitch Hazel about that.

Also agreed, I'm not sure where "I'm disappointed" crosses into making a petition for a remake/to get someone fired/something that is little better than online bullying.

[Aptorian]

Strongly disagree, polish. This Twitter person I'd basically doing the "If you're not a cook, you can't critize the way the food tastes" argument.

It's not that the story took a left turn. It's that the show took a nosedive. Time travel and teleportation to handwave characters being in the right place. Ruthless and genius minds suddenly becoming impotent to handwave amateurish deplomacy. Military forces being employed like a toddler was making decisions. CGI so bad it looks like people are doing a stage play, etc.

[Maark Abbott]

Aptorian, on 16 May 2019 - 05:50 AM, said:

Strongly disagree, polish. This Twitter person I'd basically doing the "If you're not a cook, you can't critize the way the food tastes" argument.

It's not that the story took a left turn. It's that the show took a nosedive. Time travel and teleportation to handwave characters being in the right place. Ruthless and genius minds suddenly becoming impotent to handwave amateurish deplomacy. Military forces being employed like a toddler was making decisions. CGI so bad it looks like people are doing a stage play, etc.

Westeros became Dexter Season 5-6.

[Malankazooie]

Aw man. I just read that they wanted to have wight Hodor appear in the army of the undead but were unable to make it happen (conflicting schedules with the actor who plays Hodor?). Man, that would have been so sweet and endearing to see Hodor in attendance when the NK confronted Bran in the godswood. I bet there would have been some hesitation and then a feeble attempt to say 'hodor' before he tore Bran to bits. It always comes down to 'missed opportunities', doesn't it just?

[QuickTidal]

polishgenius, on 16 May 2019 - 04:37 AM, said:

As flawed and in places downright rubbish as I think this season is, I agree with Kitchenwitch Hazel about that.

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 16 May 2019 - 05:50 AM, said:

polishgenius, on 16 May 2019 - 04:37 AM, said:

As flawed and in places downright rubbish as I think this season is, I agree with Kitchenwitch Hazel about that.

Also agreed, I'm not sure where "I'm disappointed" crosses into making a petition for a remake/to get someone fired/something that is little better than online bullying.

Agreed/thirded. This is the sort of asinine thing that fandom does now when it doesn't like something...(same is true of the "google bad writers" thing that BK mentioned, that was reportedly a concerted effort to fiddle with google to make that happen by disgruntled assholes).

Same was true of TLJ. I may outright hate that movie, but the petition to get it re-made or struck from canon or whatever is utterly moronic.

But yes, this is where we are. Social media has basically birthed a generation of people who think that because they don't like a piece of art, they can tear that art away if they are loud enough.

Question: Has ANY petition at Change.org EVER done any good? I doubt it.

Aptorian, on 16 May 2019 - 05:50 AM, said:

Strongly disagree, polish. This Twitter person I'd basically doing the "If you're not a cook, you can't critize the way the food tastes" argument.

It's not that the story took a left turn. It's that the show took a nosedive. Time travel and teleportation to handwave characters being in the right place. Ruthless and genius minds suddenly becoming impotent to handwave amateurish deplomacy. Military forces being employed like a toddler was making decisions. CGI so bad it looks like people are doing a stage play, etc.

No one said "don't criticize art" apt.

They are saying "don't try to get that art struck from humanity and remade, because that's fucking ridiculous". Criticize it all you like.