Bloods EndBlade of TyshallePunch dimensionRegistered Userregular
If there had been a scene where they went to ring the bells and found them all cut, then we could have gotten
Dany continuing to destroy but arguably justified by their lack surrender, showing her continual descent but not moustache twirling evil
And Cersei having more of a character arc than doing fuck all
And bonus of maybe jaimie seeing that they've been the city has been given no way to surrender and his sister would rather have everyone murdered than surrender, and keeping his narrative arc
So other then the fact that this really could have used a few more episodes I have to admit I'm not nearly as mad as the internet seems to be.
Except for one thing.
“Gold shall be their crowns and gold their shrouds,” she said. “And when your tears have drowned you, the valonqar shall wrap his hands about your pale white throat and choke the life from you.”
they already cut that last part though. they went to trouble of filming the prophecy scene and chose not to include the part about the valonqar.
??? What...would even be the point of that scene? Without the prophecy?
it was used as background for Cersei's hatred and mistrust of Margaery. to show that it wasn't just a mother fearful of losing her son(s) to another woman, but that this younger Queen was coming to take everything Cersei held dear. funnily enough, considering where we are now, it was entirely about the journey with no eye towards the ending.
It's also why Cersei was so frosty with Sansa and antagonistic with Tyrion.
Black lives matter.
Law and Order ≠ Justice
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I've been meaning to get this off my chest for a while.
Naw, the defining characteristic of a Wyvern is the tail not the forearms being wings.
I mean sure these aren't the perfect realization of European/DnD dragons but they're flying lizards with a "Fuck You" fire breath weapon and that's pretty much a dragon.
I don't see how the shape of the tail could be the defining characteristic over leg-count. Tail shape can vary, but they're always portrayed as bipedal with winged forearms.
I actually can't remember how Dany's dragons are described in the books.
Anyway, I guess "Mother of Wyverns" wouldn't sound as cool.
This was pages ago but damn if I'm not getting some use out of my brain sucking up useless information for decades:
Wyverns having two legs is more of a UK mythology thing. Doesn't pop up as consistently in other European descriptions.
What is more global is wyverns having a poisonous stinger (e.g. the wyvern on the medieval banner of Wessex) or fish tail for those that were aquatic.
Also griffins, hippogriffs. Honestly those animals that traded were pretty dumb and should have held out for wings with no swapsies for their front legs.
I feel my long-standing low opinion of Dany was validated tonight
Yup. And while to some this was an expected result, with seeds subtly placed all the way through, turning her from a fan favorite into a villain, almost out of nowhere, isn't going to go over well.
I saw someone mention it's no different than Joffrey taking Ned's head, or Frey and Bolton at the Red Wedding. The difference is, the show didn't spend 70 hours making Joffrey, Walder or Roose a person to cheer for, at all. Everyone spent their entire screen time either ambivalent (Roose prior to), or actively wishing they were dead.
There are hundreds of children in the real world named after her. Because people were emotionally invested in her, because they were made to care about her. They're not going to care that it makes sense from the hints dropped here and there. This is Superman snapping innocent bystander necks. Seeded justification doesn't matter.
I've never been a big Dany fan myself (hate the idea of "owed birthright", I'm fine with destiny, but "I deserve this" just pisses me off). But I know several people that are going to be furious at this, as unless you REALLY paid attention, and viewed Dany with a lens of suspicion from the start, it seems like it turned on a dime.
Yeah, as someone who has pointed out on these forums for years that Dany is a megalomaniac and has no morally superior claim to the throne given her primary cause is outlawing slavery, which has been outlawed in Westerns for centuries, I find Dany's "turn" to madness to be entirely inconsistent with her characterization thus far.
Plenty of people, book readers in particular, have expected Dany to eventually become a Mad Targaryen. In this case, issue is clearly one of execution.
This is where I'm at. I have no problem if GRRM outline calls for Dany to go mad Targaryen. It's just they really screwed up the pacing and storytelling of it. For example, in the book they talk about how Aerys was a good king for a while before descending into madness. In the show we have 1 throw away line from Maester Pycelle around how he was good before succumbing to dreams of fire and blood. Otherwise we are constantly reminded that he was pretty much the mad king. Additionally the show goes out of it's way it seems to show you that you are either mad or not from birth. Her brother or Cersei's children as examples. We don't get any information about other Targaryen kings that went mad or how it's onset happens.
I can see what they were going for. Building her up to the best hope Westeros has then have her slowly fall to madness. The problem is they spent 6 season building her "good" side up. She was rash and had a temper but those aren't madness, plenty of "good" characters had those traits. All the people her dragons attacked were "bad" people (slavers, warlocks, terrorists, etc), and none of it was done irrationally for the most part. When the dragons attacked innocent people, she locked them up. Then they spent 2 terribly written and short seasons trying to build her madness. Other than marching her troops without rest, she very much seemed to still care about the innocent people. Hell even in this episode she nodded to Tyrion that she'd stop the attack if the innocent people backed her. Last episode she met Cersei for one last try.
All they had to do was put in a scene in the last season where she suffers some personal tragedy. Maybe magic Euron captures her and eventually Jorah gets her back or something but afterwards she's unnecessarily cruel and jealous. Maybe killing all the survivors of the battle on Roseroad without mercy. Then throw in some dream sequences of cities burning or whatever. Then you could keep characters like Varys loyal but she kills him anyways believing he's a traitor, with a lot more impact. She could be irrationally jealous of Jon and some rando. Just do anything that makes us think that she's a different person.
I may not have liked this ending (the whole madness thing seems dubious based on what is in the fire and ice wiki and more like a lack of good judgement and a hot temper Targaryen's can have; other than Aerys who was mad), but at least it would have made sense. All I want is the same narrative cohesion as the first 5 seasons.
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Handsome CostanzaAsk me about 8bitdoRIP Iwata-sanRegistered Userregular
Not the people of the city. Everybody else in the 7 kingdoms. She basically single handedly sacked the biggest strongest fortification in the 7 kingdoms. The message being if I did this to kings landing what do you think I would be willing to do to anybody else who dares step out of line? That is ruling through fear.
Yeah it totally worked for Aerys.
Aerys was batshit crazy. Most of the targaryans had led through fear and it had worked for a long period of time. An iron fisted tyrant who at least is sane and logical can be worked with. A rabid beast like aerys you can't work with and his own insanity makes it so that the only real option for survival is kill him before he kills you.
They turned on Aerys because he was unpredictable and dangerous. He was unpredictable and dangerous because he was batshit crazy but that's besides the point. If Dany had killed a bunch of civilians as collateral damage that she didn't really try to avoid while taking the city I'd be on board with this, but that's not what happened.
Edit: She went full cartoon villian even after she had instilled enough fear to ensure obedience.
I kinda think everyone just got very tired of making this show. Fitting, considering Martin’s inability to finish his own work.
Maybe Martin just fed them garbage advice so he could slam dunk on them in the end. All he wants to hear is "the books were better" and he'll do whatever it takes.
I kinda think everyone just got very tired of making this show. Fitting, considering Martin’s inability to finish his own work.
Maybe Martin just fed them garbage advice so he could slam dunk on them in the end. All he wants to hear is "the books were better" and he'll do whatever it takes.
Not the people of the city. Everybody else in the 7 kingdoms. She basically single handedly sacked the biggest strongest fortification in the 7 kingdoms. The message being if I did this to kings landing what do you think I would be willing to do to anybody else who dares step out of line? That is ruling through fear.
Yeah it totally worked for Aerys.
Aerys was batshit crazy. Most of the targaryans had led through fear and it had worked for a long period of time. An iron fisted tyrant who at least is sane and logical can be worked with. A rabid beast like aerys you can't work with and his own insanity makes it so that the only real option for survival is kill him before he kills you.
They turned on Aerys because he was unpredictable and dangerous. He was unpredictable and dangerous because he was batshit crazy but that's besides the point. If Dany had killed a bunch of civilians as collateral damage that she didn't really try to avoid while taking the city I'd be on board with this, but that's not what happened.
Edit: She went full cartoon villian even after she had instilled enough fear to ensure obedience.
Given that Jons blood claim to the throne is stronger than hers and after varys made it clear that the secret is out I think Danny realized the best way for her to cement her claim to the throne was the same way her ancestors did. A show of force so powerful that none dared resist. I think they did the switch too abruptly but honestly after what she did to kings landing as bad as it was I can see it as her way to shut down the potential challenge before it starts. She is not going to sit on the throne due to blood she is doing it by right of conquest.
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mojojoeoA block off the park, living the dream.Registered Userregular
I kinda think everyone just got very tired of making this show. Fitting, considering Martin’s inability to finish his own work.
Maybe Martin just fed them garbage advice so he could slam dunk on them in the end. All he wants to hear is "the books were better" and he'll do whatever it takes.
GRRM with the heel turn off the top rope
mojojoeo on
Chief Wiggum: "Ladies, please. All our founding fathers, astronauts, and World Series heroes have been either drunk or on cocaine."
Not the people of the city. Everybody else in the 7 kingdoms. She basically single handedly sacked the biggest strongest fortification in the 7 kingdoms. The message being if I did this to kings landing what do you think I would be willing to do to anybody else who dares step out of line? That is ruling through fear.
Yeah it totally worked for Aerys.
Aerys was batshit crazy. Most of the targaryans had led through fear and it had worked for a long period of time. An iron fisted tyrant who at least is sane and logical can be worked with. A rabid beast like aerys you can't work with and his own insanity makes it so that the only real option for survival is kill him before he kills you.
They turned on Aerys because he was unpredictable and dangerous. He was unpredictable and dangerous because he was batshit crazy but that's besides the point. If Dany had killed a bunch of civilians as collateral damage that she didn't really try to avoid while taking the city I'd be on board with this, but that's not what happened.
Edit: She went full cartoon villian even after she had instilled enough fear to ensure obedience.
Given that Jons blood claim to the throne is stronger than hers and after varys made it clear that the secret is out I think Danny realized the best way for her to cement her claim to the throne was the same way her ancestors did. A show of force so powerful that none dared resist. I think they did the switch too abruptly but honestly after what she did to kings landing as bad as it was I can see it as her way to shut down the potential challenge before it starts. She is not going to sit on the throne due to blood she is doing it by right of conquest.
There are a great many ways the turn makes sense. A lot of them could be easily combined. But we're left wondering which it was due to the sparse buildup that made it look like bells were the issue.
Nothing much more for me to add here, so all I'll say is that I'm real real disappointed in the how they ended Jamie's arc. I mean, what's the takeaway here? Some people can't be redeemed, no matter how much promise they show?
I'm sorry but it really feels like the show was trying to frame Jamie and Cersei's final moments as a touching and tragic end to a pair of naive star-crossed lovers which is just so completely tone-deaf as to baffle me. I understand Cersei's motivations for what she did, that doesn't mean I feel sorry for her, she did some fucked up horrible shit! She had her death coming! Lena Heady is of course a great actress, but to get this scene of her falling into Jamie's arms as everything comes crumbling down around a character who totally deserved her fate was just a huge WTF for me. Add to this the complete scuttling of all of Jamie's character development and, retroactively, I just go "so what's the take away here? Jamie finally learns the value of true honor and self-sacrifice, only to will himself to forget all that so he can go die in the arms of the single most toxic person in his life?" What did that even contribute to the plot or either of these character's arcs?
Cersei wanting to protect her babies doesn't justify what she did in any way shape or form. She could have abandoned her ambitions at any time after Joffrey's death, but refused to do so. Her children (except maybe Joffrey) died BECAUSE of her, not despite her. The only tragic aspect of Cersei's character is her complete lack of self-awareness, which makes her totally compelling as villain, yes, but not as a misunderstood tragic hero.
Jamie's fate was always tied to Cersei's, but what we got felt insulting to me.
Also, I actually didn't hate the Arya plot. We get a moment to definitely see that Arya has not succumbed to becoming a horrible murder monster. She tries (and fails) to help, she lets go of her revenge list, she's now firmly in camp good guy and I'm ok with that!
But then there was the horse...
During that entire, weirdly drawn out, scene, my family and I are all looking at each going "Um... are we missing something here? Why are we supposed to care about this horse? It's the Golden Company dude's horse? Ok, so what?"
One (not so simple) change that could have been made to that scene that would have totally changed it from "WTF" to "HOLY SHIT YES": Replace the horse with Nymeria. That would have gotten a huge pop out of us, and nicely closed the loop on Arya's arc.
I feel my long-standing low opinion of Dany was validated tonight
Yup. And while to some this was an expected result, with seeds subtly placed all the way through, turning her from a fan favorite into a villain, almost out of nowhere, isn't going to go over well.
I saw someone mention it's no different than Joffrey taking Ned's head, or Frey and Bolton at the Red Wedding. The difference is, the show didn't spend 70 hours making Joffrey, Walder or Roose a person to cheer for, at all. Everyone spent their entire screen time either ambivalent (Roose prior to), or actively wishing they were dead.
There are hundreds of children in the real world named after her. Because people were emotionally invested in her, because they were made to care about her. They're not going to care that it makes sense from the hints dropped here and there. This is Superman snapping innocent bystander necks. Seeded justification doesn't matter.
I've never been a big Dany fan myself (hate the idea of "owed birthright", I'm fine with destiny, but "I deserve this" just pisses me off). But I know several people that are going to be furious at this, as unless you REALLY paid attention, and viewed Dany with a lens of suspicion from the start, it seems like it turned on a dime.
Yeah, as someone who has pointed out on these forums for years that Dany is a megalomaniac and has no morally superior claim to the throne given her primary cause is outlawing slavery, which has been outlawed in Westerns for centuries, I find Dany's "turn" to madness to be entirely inconsistent with her characterization thus far.
Plenty of people, book readers in particular, have expected Dany to eventually become a Mad Targaryen. In this case, issue is clearly one of execution.
This is where I'm at. I have no problem if GRRM outline calls for Dany to go mad Targaryen. It's just they really screwed up the pacing and storytelling of it. For example, in the book they talk about how Aerys was a good king for a while before descending into madness. In the show we have 1 throw away line from Maester Pycelle around how he was good before succumbing to dreams of fire and blood. Otherwise we are constantly reminded that he was pretty much the mad king. Additionally the show goes out of it's way it seems to show you that you are either mad or not from birth. Her brother or Cersei's children as examples. We don't get any information about other Targaryen kings that went mad or how it's onset happens.
I can see what they were going for. Building her up to the best hope Westeros has then have her slowly fall to madness. The problem is they spent 6 season building her "good" side up. She was rash and had a temper but those aren't madness, plenty of "good" characters had those traits. All the people her dragons attacked were "bad" people (slavers, warlocks, terrorists, etc), and none of it was done irrationally for the most part. When the dragons attacked innocent people, she locked them up. Then they spent 2 terribly written and short seasons trying to build her madness. Other than marching her troops without rest, she very much seemed to still care about the innocent people. Hell even in this episode she nodded to Tyrion that she'd stop the attack if the innocent people backed her. Last episode she met Cersei for one last try.
All they had to do was put in a scene in the last season where she suffers some personal tragedy. Maybe magic Euron captures her and eventually Jorah gets her back or something but afterwards she's unnecessarily cruel and jealous. Maybe killing all the survivors of the battle on Roseroad without mercy. Then throw in some dream sequences of cities burning or whatever. Then you could keep characters like Varys loyal but she kills him anyways believing he's a traitor, with a lot more impact. She could be irrationally jealous of Jon and some rando. Just do anything that makes us think that she's a different person.
I may not have liked this ending (the whole madness thing seems dubious and more like a lack of good judgement and a hot temper other than Aerys who was mad), but at least it would have made sense. All I want is the same narrative cohesion as the first 5 seasons.
They had ample opportunity to have her fall into paranoia &c. in Mereen, or at least point towards it. Especially with the Sons of the Harpy. You could have had a half dozen betrayals among locals who she elevated to her counsel. Even better, have that happen before Tyrion shows up and then have him and some Westeros Lords say the exact same lines at Dragonstone/Winterfell as what the betrayers in Mereen said even if they're mostly just idioms or referencing an old Valyrian fable or something.
Part of what I really enjoyed about the early seasons was how much the show tended to let things breathe. You need to build up to a major plot point, but rather than have that just take up the first 30 minutes of an episode they'd have it take up 10 minutes of 3 prior episodes to really build up the tension needing to be released. If they had gone with 80 instead of the 72 it might have been able to do the characters justice. It even might have needed 90 or 100 episodes to get there without cutting corners. Unfortunately they didn't.
I think almost every single thing that has happened this season could make for a fantastic story, but it depends on getting even a single glimpse of what the fuck these characters really feel about what’s happening. We see Dany make her choice like 20 minutes into the episode and never again do we see her emoting. Is she upset at any point? Is it a struggle to keep burning this city down as the scale of what she’s doing sinks in? Is she so caught up in revenge that she’s dead-eyed and methodical? I have no idea. Any of that could inform her character, but it’s not there.
The show loves to make monumental choices and then cut away from the results. Jon tells his family that he’s actually a Targaryen, and we cut away. How does he really feel about that? Fuck, how does Arya feel about that? These two were the closest of Ned’s kids, and they found out that the basis of their closeness isn’t what they believed it was. But no, we cut away.
Missandei is killed, and we cut away for days or weeks to Dany perilously close to her edge. Jon gets propositioned for the kingdom by Varys, he rejects it, and we have no idea what his feelings are any more. He appears with Dany to make it clear that he doesn’t love her any more, but why was he there? And why doesn’t he love her any more? Cousin marriage is common as fuck, so the Aunt business is basically meaningless. Dany has restrained herself at every opportunity up till now, so he’s got no moral reason to fall away. But they establish that he doesn’t love her and then we cut away.
I hate that it’s possible to fill in some meat on these bones and tell a story befitting what these characters have been through, and the show just hasn’t pulled it off. I’m not going to call it laziness and I’m not going to say they don’t care, because that’s bullshit. Look at the sheer effort that went into each and every production element of this season and tell me it’s lazy or evidence of wanting to bail. There’s heart here, and the sheer force of will of the performers almost makes up for the writing lapses.
No, the problem is that the writers never fully understood what worked in the story and what didn’t work. Or what people really loved about the series. Between GRRM’s writing and everything from the cast to the crew, this failure was papered over for years. They didn’t coast, they just flew against all odds for much longer than anybody could have expected.
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mojojoeoA block off the park, living the dream.Registered Userregular
What did Jaime do that was after shoving Jaime out the window that was a sign he was growing as a person?
Not being a total cock to Brienne when they’re the only two people in the room? Joining the fight in the north? Those both seem pretty weak to me, and they’re interspersed with threatening baby catapults and raping (don’t care, showrunners, you showed what you showed) Cersei in the crypts.
Even his famous saving of the city from Aerys was self-interested: Jaime would have been blown to smithereens too, Aerys planned to blow himself and his guards up and be reborn as a dragon.
He was interesting as an amoral, deeply selfish character without ambition for the throne, in contrast to all the people committing atrocities trying to get it.
Honestly, all those little girls should be proud of their name and remember why they shouldn't let a bunch of idiotic men control their lives. This was possibly the most misogynistic piece of television I've ever seen and I watched TV in the 80s.
Dany is the hero of the piece, this is garbage. Every episode since the 3rd one has just been some kind of weird bet on who can make the worst episode.
If you can't do something good, then just do something obvious.
Jumping into the bearpit to save Brienne.
Getting Tyrion out of King's Landing ahead of his execution.
Risking his life to save everyone in the north, knighting Brienne, literally every single second of his narrative arc showed him becoming a better person but also realizing that his sins were unforgivable and trying to find out what that meant to him.
What did Jaime do that was after shoving Jaime out the window that was a sign he was growing as a person?
Not being a total cock to Brienne when they’re the only two people in the room? Joining the fight in the north? Those both seem pretty weak to me, and they’re interspersed with threatening baby catapults and raping (don’t care, showrunners, you showed what you showed) Cersei in the crypts.
The baby catapult thing was him dealing with the fact that no matter what he does he'll always be remembered as the Kingslayer and be viewed as an asshole so he might as well use it to his advantage. He's definitely not happy about still being viewed as bipedal trash by the Blackfish and, worse, a kindred spirit by Walder Frey.
Just recognising that his relationship with Cersei was toxic as fuck and running the hell away was a huge marker of growth for him.
Trying to claim that Jaime hadn't grown at all since episode one just seems... entirely contrary to what's been portrayed on screen. Up until these last couple of episodes, arguably.
I can see why she would do it. Kings Landing was a thorn in her side since she arrived. Hold the city and the throne was the last step to her being the legitimate queen. She listed to those who told her not to sack the city right away and what did I cost her?
Her best friend
Two dragons
Half her forces
She also saw the man she loved become a threat to her reign.
She has reasons to hate this city and want it to burn. But the way they set her up to do it, after they had surrendered is just
Asides as a book reader who still appreciates these episodes because they inform my re-read in delightful ways:
The valonquar prophecy isn’t spoken but it’s still arguably fulfilled. Tyrion gave Jaime the escape plan that led to Cersei’s death, and Jaime has his hands on her face as the ceiling collapses. Cersei’s options closed in until there was no other possible outcome due to the choices of her little brothers. She waited too long, it’s not that she didn’t have the lead role in her own demise, but the particular form of it is almost solely attributable to her siblings. Prophecies having multiple possible fulfillments is a thing I’ve always liked in the series.
Jon becoming King now after killing Dany is a solid tragic tale, if that’s where we’re going. All he ever wanted to be was a Stark, and it’s the only thing he can never have. It’s a nice spin on the destined hero trope, and it’s sufficiently heartbreaking on its own.
The Hound laughing at the absurdity of his life and circumstances as his brother chokes the life out of him was just amazing. I never really gave too much of a shit about seeing this particular confrontation play out, but Sandor got one last bitter laugh in before his death/murder-suicide and I appreciated it.
Yesterday I was defending the series, saying people were justifiably annoyed but blowing it out of proportion. But no, after last night, this shit is really stupid. They got bored of making the show and they should have handed it off rather than burning it to the ground, no pun intended.
I was really encouraged by the entire episode, right up until they decided that Daenerys needed crazy eyes. They shortly follow this up with the stupid Euron vs Jamie fight.
I haven't seen one thing that would have led me to believe that Daenerys would have just up and burned thousands of innocent women and children.
Just recognising that his relationship with Cersei was toxic as fuck and running the hell away was a huge marker of growth for him.
Trying to claim that Jaime hadn't grown at all since episode one just seems... entirely contrary to what's been portrayed on screen. Up until these last couple of episodes, arguably.
I'd also say that even if he went back for Cersei, it didn't completely invalidate his growth. He's trying to make her stand down and leave whereas in years past he would have been helping her fight. Plus he knows he's been an awful person and that some good deeds since don't absolve him of that.
Bloods EndBlade of TyshallePunch dimensionRegistered Userregular
Good thing it turned out she didnt need half her forces.
Or a quarter.
Or any of her forces.
She could have taken by herself in a morning run to Starbucks
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mojojoeoA block off the park, living the dream.Registered Userregular
Just recognising that his relationship with Cersei was toxic as fuck and running the hell away was a huge marker of growth for him.
Trying to claim that Jaime hadn't grown at all since episode one just seems... entirely contrary to what's been portrayed on screen. Up until these last couple of episodes, arguably.
season 7 staying with his men and fighting at the dragon ambush. Bronn urged him to go.... he stayed with his men.
Chief Wiggum: "Ladies, please. All our founding fathers, astronauts, and World Series heroes have been either drunk or on cocaine."
Jon Snow: "I love you and you are my queen."
Dany: "He doesn't love me"
The scene went -
Jon: you are my queen
Dany: but is that all I am to you?
*kiss while jon is holding back, no longer in love with his aunt*
Dany: ok then
He could still smell Varys' cooked flesh wafting in through the window, which killed the mood for him.
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Dany continuing to destroy but arguably justified by their lack surrender, showing her continual descent but not moustache twirling evil
And Cersei having more of a character arc than doing fuck all
And bonus of maybe jaimie seeing that they've been the city has been given no way to surrender and his sister would rather have everyone murdered than surrender, and keeping his narrative arc
It's also why Cersei was so frosty with Sansa and antagonistic with Tyrion.
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This was pages ago but damn if I'm not getting some use out of my brain sucking up useless information for decades:
Wyverns having two legs is more of a UK mythology thing. Doesn't pop up as consistently in other European descriptions.
What is more global is wyverns having a poisonous stinger (e.g. the wyvern on the medieval banner of Wessex) or fish tail for those that were aquatic.
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This is where I'm at. I have no problem if GRRM outline calls for Dany to go mad Targaryen. It's just they really screwed up the pacing and storytelling of it. For example, in the book they talk about how Aerys was a good king for a while before descending into madness. In the show we have 1 throw away line from Maester Pycelle around how he was good before succumbing to dreams of fire and blood. Otherwise we are constantly reminded that he was pretty much the mad king. Additionally the show goes out of it's way it seems to show you that you are either mad or not from birth. Her brother or Cersei's children as examples. We don't get any information about other Targaryen kings that went mad or how it's onset happens.
I can see what they were going for. Building her up to the best hope Westeros has then have her slowly fall to madness. The problem is they spent 6 season building her "good" side up. She was rash and had a temper but those aren't madness, plenty of "good" characters had those traits. All the people her dragons attacked were "bad" people (slavers, warlocks, terrorists, etc), and none of it was done irrationally for the most part. When the dragons attacked innocent people, she locked them up. Then they spent 2 terribly written and short seasons trying to build her madness. Other than marching her troops without rest, she very much seemed to still care about the innocent people. Hell even in this episode she nodded to Tyrion that she'd stop the attack if the innocent people backed her. Last episode she met Cersei for one last try.
All they had to do was put in a scene in the last season where she suffers some personal tragedy. Maybe magic Euron captures her and eventually Jorah gets her back or something but afterwards she's unnecessarily cruel and jealous. Maybe killing all the survivors of the battle on Roseroad without mercy. Then throw in some dream sequences of cities burning or whatever. Then you could keep characters like Varys loyal but she kills him anyways believing he's a traitor, with a lot more impact. She could be irrationally jealous of Jon and some rando. Just do anything that makes us think that she's a different person.
I may not have liked this ending (the whole madness thing seems dubious based on what is in the fire and ice wiki and more like a lack of good judgement and a hot temper Targaryen's can have; other than Aerys who was mad), but at least it would have made sense. All I want is the same narrative cohesion as the first 5 seasons.
They turned on Aerys because he was unpredictable and dangerous. He was unpredictable and dangerous because he was batshit crazy but that's besides the point. If Dany had killed a bunch of civilians as collateral damage that she didn't really try to avoid while taking the city I'd be on board with this, but that's not what happened.
Edit: She went full cartoon villian even after she had instilled enough fear to ensure obedience.
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Maybe Martin just fed them garbage advice so he could slam dunk on them in the end. All he wants to hear is "the books were better" and he'll do whatever it takes.
We have plenty of evidence this isn't true.
All he wants to hear is "The Jets win!"
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Given that Jons blood claim to the throne is stronger than hers and after varys made it clear that the secret is out I think Danny realized the best way for her to cement her claim to the throne was the same way her ancestors did. A show of force so powerful that none dared resist. I think they did the switch too abruptly but honestly after what she did to kings landing as bad as it was I can see it as her way to shut down the potential challenge before it starts. She is not going to sit on the throne due to blood she is doing it by right of conquest.
GRRM with the heel turn off the top rope
If I had hair like that I wouldnt wear a helmet either.
There are a great many ways the turn makes sense. A lot of them could be easily combined. But we're left wondering which it was due to the sparse buildup that made it look like bells were the issue.
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just so we're clear, you are talking about the horse yeah?
I'm sorry but it really feels like the show was trying to frame Jamie and Cersei's final moments as a touching and tragic end to a pair of naive star-crossed lovers which is just so completely tone-deaf as to baffle me. I understand Cersei's motivations for what she did, that doesn't mean I feel sorry for her, she did some fucked up horrible shit! She had her death coming! Lena Heady is of course a great actress, but to get this scene of her falling into Jamie's arms as everything comes crumbling down around a character who totally deserved her fate was just a huge WTF for me. Add to this the complete scuttling of all of Jamie's character development and, retroactively, I just go "so what's the take away here? Jamie finally learns the value of true honor and self-sacrifice, only to will himself to forget all that so he can go die in the arms of the single most toxic person in his life?" What did that even contribute to the plot or either of these character's arcs?
Cersei wanting to protect her babies doesn't justify what she did in any way shape or form. She could have abandoned her ambitions at any time after Joffrey's death, but refused to do so. Her children (except maybe Joffrey) died BECAUSE of her, not despite her. The only tragic aspect of Cersei's character is her complete lack of self-awareness, which makes her totally compelling as villain, yes, but not as a misunderstood tragic hero.
Jamie's fate was always tied to Cersei's, but what we got felt insulting to me.
Also, I actually didn't hate the Arya plot. We get a moment to definitely see that Arya has not succumbed to becoming a horrible murder monster. She tries (and fails) to help, she lets go of her revenge list, she's now firmly in camp good guy and I'm ok with that!
But then there was the horse...
During that entire, weirdly drawn out, scene, my family and I are all looking at each going "Um... are we missing something here? Why are we supposed to care about this horse? It's the Golden Company dude's horse? Ok, so what?"
One (not so simple) change that could have been made to that scene that would have totally changed it from "WTF" to "HOLY SHIT YES": Replace the horse with Nymeria. That would have gotten a huge pop out of us, and nicely closed the loop on Arya's arc.
Not a bangs fan, sorry
They had ample opportunity to have her fall into paranoia &c. in Mereen, or at least point towards it. Especially with the Sons of the Harpy. You could have had a half dozen betrayals among locals who she elevated to her counsel. Even better, have that happen before Tyrion shows up and then have him and some Westeros Lords say the exact same lines at Dragonstone/Winterfell as what the betrayers in Mereen said even if they're mostly just idioms or referencing an old Valyrian fable or something.
Part of what I really enjoyed about the early seasons was how much the show tended to let things breathe. You need to build up to a major plot point, but rather than have that just take up the first 30 minutes of an episode they'd have it take up 10 minutes of 3 prior episodes to really build up the tension needing to be released. If they had gone with 80 instead of the 72 it might have been able to do the characters justice. It even might have needed 90 or 100 episodes to get there without cutting corners. Unfortunately they didn't.
The show loves to make monumental choices and then cut away from the results. Jon tells his family that he’s actually a Targaryen, and we cut away. How does he really feel about that? Fuck, how does Arya feel about that? These two were the closest of Ned’s kids, and they found out that the basis of their closeness isn’t what they believed it was. But no, we cut away.
Missandei is killed, and we cut away for days or weeks to Dany perilously close to her edge. Jon gets propositioned for the kingdom by Varys, he rejects it, and we have no idea what his feelings are any more. He appears with Dany to make it clear that he doesn’t love her any more, but why was he there? And why doesn’t he love her any more? Cousin marriage is common as fuck, so the Aunt business is basically meaningless. Dany has restrained herself at every opportunity up till now, so he’s got no moral reason to fall away. But they establish that he doesn’t love her and then we cut away.
I hate that it’s possible to fill in some meat on these bones and tell a story befitting what these characters have been through, and the show just hasn’t pulled it off. I’m not going to call it laziness and I’m not going to say they don’t care, because that’s bullshit. Look at the sheer effort that went into each and every production element of this season and tell me it’s lazy or evidence of wanting to bail. There’s heart here, and the sheer force of will of the performers almost makes up for the writing lapses.
No, the problem is that the writers never fully understood what worked in the story and what didn’t work. Or what people really loved about the series. Between GRRM’s writing and everything from the cast to the crew, this failure was papered over for years. They didn’t coast, they just flew against all odds for much longer than anybody could have expected.
Do you have statistics on people with dracarys tattoos? I'll await your answer with a popcorn bucket and sooooo muuuuuch schadenfreude.
I mean my "Senator Palpatine 4ever" tattoo also aged poorly.... never saw episode 3 coming man.
come on man, it says 'England' right there in that tattoo...
Not being a total cock to Brienne when they’re the only two people in the room? Joining the fight in the north? Those both seem pretty weak to me, and they’re interspersed with threatening baby catapults and raping (don’t care, showrunners, you showed what you showed) Cersei in the crypts.
Even his famous saving of the city from Aerys was self-interested: Jaime would have been blown to smithereens too, Aerys planned to blow himself and his guards up and be reborn as a dragon.
He was interesting as an amoral, deeply selfish character without ambition for the throne, in contrast to all the people committing atrocities trying to get it.
Dany is the hero of the piece, this is garbage. Every episode since the 3rd one has just been some kind of weird bet on who can make the worst episode.
If you can't do something good, then just do something obvious.
Getting Tyrion out of King's Landing ahead of his execution.
Risking his life to save everyone in the north, knighting Brienne, literally every single second of his narrative arc showed him becoming a better person but also realizing that his sins were unforgivable and trying to find out what that meant to him.
The baby catapult thing was him dealing with the fact that no matter what he does he'll always be remembered as the Kingslayer and be viewed as an asshole so he might as well use it to his advantage. He's definitely not happy about still being viewed as bipedal trash by the Blackfish and, worse, a kindred spirit by Walder Frey.
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Trying to claim that Jaime hadn't grown at all since episode one just seems... entirely contrary to what's been portrayed on screen. Up until these last couple of episodes, arguably.
Her best friend
Two dragons
Half her forces
She also saw the man she loved become a threat to her reign.
She has reasons to hate this city and want it to burn. But the way they set her up to do it, after they had surrendered is just
So
Dumb
The valonquar prophecy isn’t spoken but it’s still arguably fulfilled. Tyrion gave Jaime the escape plan that led to Cersei’s death, and Jaime has his hands on her face as the ceiling collapses. Cersei’s options closed in until there was no other possible outcome due to the choices of her little brothers. She waited too long, it’s not that she didn’t have the lead role in her own demise, but the particular form of it is almost solely attributable to her siblings. Prophecies having multiple possible fulfillments is a thing I’ve always liked in the series.
Jon becoming King now after killing Dany is a solid tragic tale, if that’s where we’re going. All he ever wanted to be was a Stark, and it’s the only thing he can never have. It’s a nice spin on the destined hero trope, and it’s sufficiently heartbreaking on its own.
The Hound laughing at the absurdity of his life and circumstances as his brother chokes the life out of him was just amazing. I never really gave too much of a shit about seeing this particular confrontation play out, but Sandor got one last bitter laugh in before his death/murder-suicide and I appreciated it.
I haven't seen one thing that would have led me to believe that Daenerys would have just up and burned thousands of innocent women and children.
I'd also say that even if he went back for Cersei, it didn't completely invalidate his growth. He's trying to make her stand down and leave whereas in years past he would have been helping her fight. Plus he knows he's been an awful person and that some good deeds since don't absolve him of that.
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Or a quarter.
Or any of her forces.
She could have taken by herself in a morning run to Starbucks
season 7 staying with his men and fighting at the dragon ambush. Bronn urged him to go.... he stayed with his men.
He could still smell Varys' cooked flesh wafting in through the window, which killed the mood for him.
Harry Strickland as a name just sticks out so much.