[TV/Books] Game of Thrones ***SPOILER Discussion***

[Razzako]

First of all burning people alive without emotion showed us there was always something wrong with her.

Criticism lies on the issue that they showed us there was something wrong with no appropriate build up at all, disregarding her entire development done over 8 years.

Secondly, I think todays episode showed us that she's not mad in the way the Mad King was. She's choosing fear as a means to power in a fully rational and calculated manner. I thought the episode was mostly solid.

That's not what they were conveying. Remember the Varys scene, and the analogy that mentioned when a Targaryen is born, a coin is tossed and the whole world holds its breath (paraphrasing)? He was implying that she might be mad and everyone would suffer, before dying he even wished he was wrong for the good of everyone.

Turns out she was mad, Varys was right, and that's exactly what the writers were conveying to the audience. The same kind of mad her father was. Burning innocents is not a "rational and calculated manner", she had an emotional breakdown when the bells rang, how could anyone possibly say that was calculated and rational move? We may even see her having an emotional struggle filled with regret of burning all of those innocents next episode. That or just full blown mad, no fucks given, we'll see. Sadly at this point, I've just given up, hopeless.

[Jayma]

People saying it was out of character for dany clearly haven't took much notice of how so got to her position shes in now by killing who ever got in her way, and losing her dragons etc and her own council betraying her etc there was no flowers or hugs of peace signs with her

What a simplistic bad take. What does killing whoever got in her way have to do with lawn mowing King's Landing completely ignoring Cersei & the Red Keep.

[Razzako]

She was cold and ruthless not a mass murderer of women & children.
FFS she locked up her own Dragons because they potentially killed one child.

There's just no argument to justify such a blatant disregard for her character. It was quite literally uncharacteristic of her to burn them all.

[Varodoc]

At this point the Westerosi have caused more damage to Westeros than the Night King. The irony. DnD indeed said that the Night King was neither a villain nor evil.

[Razzako]

DnD indeed said that the Night King was neither a villain nor evil.

What??

[Jayma]

Essentially they will kill 3 Villains in 4 episodes. The first 2 said about 10 words total the entire season. The last one was a villain for less than 2 episodes.
None of it feels even close to fulfilling.

[eschatological]

There is some S Tier level justification going on in this thread. I spent all of last week saying that Dany going mad was the only story arc that made sense, I was told there was no way DANY, the MHYSSA, the CHAIN BREAKER, etc etc etc would ever target, on purpose, civilians and the downtrodden.

And now, having seen the final product on screen and bemoaning the shitty execution of what should be a relatively simple plot, I'm now told by these same people that it was perfect and set up for years (which I pointed out last week). It's not. It's like the mindless fans of this show get all their talking points from Emergency Awesome, and consolidate around them and never budge. It's literal propoganda at this point.

1) "Dany was fully justified in burning the people, they supported Cersei/cheered when Ned Stark was beheaded!" That's like blaming the slaves of Mereen for never rising up and throwing off their master before Dany arrived with fucking dragons. The smallpeople don't know the truth of the story, the audience does. As far as they know, Ned was a traitor and their king, the son of a previously very popular king, showed strength and no mercy.

2) "The Northerners are savage and rapey lol how did you not see that coming?!?" The Northmen, to a House, echo their Lords. The defining characteristic of all these Houses is that they are loyal to their leaders. For the Karstarks, that means they didn't care for prisoner of war conventions, and slaughtered two prisoners, and all of Karstark rebelled when Robb served the King's Justice on their Lord for that crime. The Northerners in the Riverlands post Red Wedding were all Roose Bolton's men, a sadistic fuck. A Feast of Crows talked about Wolves being just as bad as Lions from the smallfolks' perspective, but those were the Vargo Hoats of the world, and not the Starks themselves. Presumably all those men are dead now, or sworn fealty to Jon. But most of the Houses in the North fell more in line with the Starks, then not (even the Karstarks wouldn't rape and pillage, and they're under new leadership that bent the knee to Jon). House Mormont, House Manderly, House Umber who had one bad apple from a non-heir who helped Ramsay out in return for killing his older brother and allowing him to be Lord. Ned Stark's men were a reflection of him. Robb had his Young Wolves. And Jon had a coalition of Northerners who had literally named him the new King in the North. They shouldn't have done that.

3) "Grey Worm is justifiably angry!" No, no he's not. He was made a eunuch along with the rest of the Unsullied specifically to avoid emotions, and to be the most disciplined unit in the world. But his girlfriend (who he shouldn't even have) dies, and suddenly he's all about the mad queen and her agenda. They've literally shoehorned a romance between a eunuch and what was supposed to be a 12 year old girl in the books just to build to this literally shit moment.

4) "Yeah but Cleganebowl was hype!" Man, it felt as empty to me as the duel between Anakin and Obi Wan at the end of Revenge of the Sith. Beautifully shot, but empty. Sandor's desire for revenge doesn't even make sense any more at this point. He's literally survived death countless times, and his brother's reign of terror is over because the literal Red Keep is collapsing. There's no reason he needs to confront Gregor. He isn't trying to make a path for Arya, he's not preventing Cersei's escape, nothing. Cersei literally just walks past him and exits stage left. I guess Arya COULD have come with him and just ended her there. From the previews of the next episode, the Red Keep looks largely intact, so I suppose Arya could have survived even though all the foundations seemed to collapse on Jaime and Cersei.

5) "Jaime was always gonna go back to Cersei, it makes sense for his character!" No. Nope. Nuh uh. His whole time in the Riverlands negotiating Riverrun's surrender was about his character growing past Cersei's toxicness. His defending of Brienne from Vargo Hoat and their subsequent friendship was him moving past Cersei. His entire arc is about quitting Cersei. It now seems like he went north just for fanservice fucking of Brienne, which is kinda gross if you think about it too long.

Man, the apologists for this show are fucking hilarious. I liked LOST far more than this.

[Varodoc]

What??

D.B. Weiss: "I don’t think of the Night King as a villain," he said. "He is not like Joffrey, or Ramses [sic] … To me, evil comes when you have a choice between that and good, and you choose the wrong way. The Night King doesn’t have a choice; he was created that way."

Benioff "I don’t think of him as evil, I think of him as Death,” Benioff told EW. “And that’s what he wants — for all of us. It’s why he was created and that’s what he’s after.”

Essentially they will kill 3 Villains in 4 episodes. The first 2 said about 10 words total the entire season. The last one was a villain for less than 2 episodes.
None of it feels even close to fulfilling.

Actually, the last villain was also hyped up since the first scene of the entire series.

[Warning]

Criticism lies on the issue that they showed us there was something wrong with no appropriate build up at all, disregarding her entire development done over 8 years.



That's not what they were conveying. Remember the Varys scene, and the analogy that mentioned when a Targaryen is born, a coin is tossed and the whole world holds its breath (paraphrasing)? He was implying that she might be mad and everyone would suffer, before dying he even wished he was wrong for the good of everyone.

Turns out she was mad, Varys was right, and that's exactly what the writers were conveying to the audience. The same kind of mad her father was. Burning innocents is not a "rational and calculated manner", she had an emotional breakdown when the bells rang, how could anyone possibly say that was calculated and rational move? We may even see her having an emotional struggle filled with regret of burning all of those innocents next episode. That or just full blown mad, no fucks given, we'll see. Sadly at this point, I've just given up, hopeless.

I don't see the coin flip being about mad/not mad, but rather about being a blessing or blight upon the world. Burning people can be a strategic, rational decision if the goal is inspiring fear. Which for her it was, as evidenced by her conversation with Jon. You can call that mad as well, clearly no normal person would do that, but its a different kind of mad from seeing things that aren't there or ranting and raving. I would call it cruel, ruthless or evil instead. I think your right that there was emotion involved as well when the bells rang, but it wasn't the lunacy of a raving madman. It was the cruel and cold realization that her victory was not a sufficient payback for what had been done to her, she wanted more.

[Gorsameth]

I don't see the coin flip being about mad/not mad, but rather about being a blessing or blight upon the world. Burning people can be a strategic, rational decision if the goal is inspiring fear. Which for her it was, as evidenced by her conversation with Jon. You can call that mad as well, clearly no normal person would do that, but its a different kind of mad from seeing things that aren't there or ranting and raving. I would call it cruel, ruthless or evil instead. I think your right that there was emotion involved as well when the bells rang, but it wasn't the lunacy of a raving madman. It was the cruel and cold realization that her victory was not a sufficient payback for what had been done to her, she wanted more.

"surrender isn't good enough let's burn down the red keep" I could understand. And the civilian casualties from doing that could still force the upcoming conflict with Jon.

But instead she goes "Lets burn a million people that had nothing to do with any of it".
That's not Daenarys.

[Razzako]

I don't see the coin flip being about mad/not mad, but rather about being a blessing or blight upon the world. Burning people can be a strategic, rational decision if the goal is inspiring fear. Which for her it was, as evidenced by her conversation with Jon. You can call that mad as well, clearly no normal person would do that, but its a different kind of mad from seeing things that aren't there or ranting and raving. I would call it cruel, ruthless or evil instead. I think your right that there was emotion involved as well when the bells rang, but it wasn't the lunacy of a raving madman. It was the cruel and cold realization that her victory was not a sufficient payback for what had been done to her, she wanted more.

The thing is that it's not really about how you, in particular, see it. It's about what the writers were conveying. And it's pretty obvious too, considering:

1. The episode is called "The Bells".

2. She was shown having an emotional struggle when the bells rang.

3. What I mentioned regarding Varys previously, the whole thing was basically foreshadowing.

4. Multiple characters shown having a moral struggle during the massacre, Jon is probably the most obvious example. I think Arya at the end, staring at the charred bodies of the mom and daughter is yet another example at this?

She's turned out to be mad as her father, out of nowhere.

Burning people for sure can be strategic and rational, and I agree that she decided to rule by fear multiple times throughout the show. But in this particular episode, what she did was not rational nor calculated, it was purely emotional. And it was a huge deal too.

[Jayma]

D&D are just not good character writers.
They have no idea how to get from point A to point B.
Simplistic & predictable in a bad way. How does literally every fan theory end up more satisfying and imaginative than what these 2 idiots came up with.

[Razzako]

D.B. Weiss: "I don’t think of the Night King as a villain," he said. "He is not like Joffrey, or Ramses [sic] … To me, evil comes when you have a choice between that and good, and you choose the wrong way. The Night King doesn’t have a choice; he was created that way."

Benioff "I don’t think of him as evil, I think of him as Death,” Benioff told EW. “And that’s what he wants — for all of us. It’s why he was created and that’s what he’s after.”

Oh okay, thanks for the quotes. So to them, the NK was just, say, "Death", because he was created to be Death I guess?

[Nevrex]

This episode was...Interesting.
Like others have already said, not a single scorpion bolt hit the target (or even moved it seems). Kind of odd when there is one every 2 meters, all over the city.

About Danny, that was unexpected. I thought she will burn the tower where Cersei was but nope... I get it, she can be cruel at times but this was just silly. There's nothing to rule over now, good job.

[Byuiso]

Totally out of character what Dany did. She's mad now and she did what her father planned on doing.
Like someone said earlier. Dany locked her dragons up for Drogon killing a child. Now she leveled an entire city and murdered thousands of innocents for no reason. She won the war, they surrendered. She didn't want to be queen of the ashes... she certainly became what she didn't want to be.

They really did the show a real disservice by rushing it the way they did. I read HBO wanted 10 seasons and D&D wanted 8. They definitely needed at least 8 full seasons. Even with 80 minute run times the show needed more, a lot more.

Bran becoming king is such a horrible ending. Bran is a demi-deity now, he doesn't concern himself with mortal affairs but he will care enough to be king? Makes the least amount of sense for Bran to become king but it looks like that is what he is going to do. He lost his humanity, he wants nothing, he has no emotions and he can see everything but he cares to become king but not enough to stop Dany before she does what he knew she would do?
The most powerful character in the show as well as the most detached character becomes the ruler...

[Prokne]

Which brings us to the major issue with the series as a whole - i.e. how overpowered dragons are. As you've said, no mortal army could reasonably stand a chance against them, which is why I feel it would have been better if the real threat to Danny and her dragons was the Night King, not Cersei. It would just be more reasonable to expect that a supernatural being has some way of countering dragons.

I think the NK was the only real threat for the dragons. The show seems to have realized the problem of keeping up a conflict that is so one sided. Instead of doing what was believable and having the dragons just destroy any human resistance, then turn towards the NK and find out they are vulnerable (which would add to the perceived power and threat of the NK), they hobble the dragons by using them sub optimally in battle and have the characters make bad strategic decisions.

[Chelly]

I hope I'm not the only one disliking the fucking overuse of CGI. Like before the Cleganebowl fight when they both stood there staring each other down - the mountain looked so out of place, you could easily see it was all greenscreen.

This goes for a lot of the scenes in this show - but mainly the later seasons.


Just looks like ass.


I also wanted a much much much more satisfying end to Cersei. She deserved way harsher shit than just some pebble on her head.

[Dacien]

I'm glad I'm an easily-pleased, simple man. I think the show is great. I don't have the refined tastes for all this "character development" or "quality writing".

[Ihavewaffles]

31:40 Winds of Winter & Dreams of Spring books are both finished according to Ser Barristan Selmy




Seeing how I have my books as soft cover, I dearly want the whole collection in hard cover leatherbound..

[Prokne]

2. She was shown having an emotional struggle when the bells rang.

She's turned out to be mad as her father, out of nowhere.

Burning people for sure can be strategic and rational, and I agree that she decided to rule by fear multiple times throughout the show. But in this particular episode, what she did was not rational nor calculated, it was purely emotional. And it was a huge deal too.

It seemed that she had decided before the battle that she was going to burn King's Landing to the ground. She reconsiders her plan when the bells ring, but decides she has to go through with her plan. Grey Wurm doesn't seem to be surprised when she starts burninating either.

And she isn't crazy. She is super pissed, but not crazy. Burning a whole city as a sign of force when no one seemed to want the welcome her as queen is a valid strategic decision. Burning a whole city because you think everyone is out to get you is paranoid and crazy.