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

[Zaktar]

There are usually people who support real life tyrants and monsters as well, and often those who either think they couldn't have done what they did, or rationalize it because they like the person more than they hate the crime. The way people get engaged with the content is more entertaining to witness than the show.

[Adamas102]

Just because you dare a Danny "fanboie" or on the D&D Suck Bandwagon, does not mean there were not hints of Danny burning the city down. Unexpected...yes. Necessary...probably not. Done for the sake of a twist...maybe. But still the possibility was always there.

No one is arguing about whether it was possible. It’s a fictional story, pretty much anything can be written and acted out, but that doesn’t mean it’s done well in terms of the overall narrative.

It wasn’t an extreme example. Tyrion talked a lot about whores in the early seasons. As you noted, under the right circumstances having him visit a whore house in s8e5 might work, though for the most part his character had progressed past the point of only caring about drinking and fucking, and it would have been jarring for him to suddenly revert back to old Tyrion at such a strange time. Likewise, Dany spoke a lot about burning down cities when she was still a child wannabe-monarch basing her life on her brother’s propaganda. Under the right circumstances of course she could revert back to the immature fiery temper she used to display, but she had for the most part developed beyond that. The point is that the writers did a shit job of getting her from where she had gotten as a character (even at the very start of the episode) to “lol time to burn everyone”.

[Poe]

Does it matter? 100 000 or a million, she would still kill all those civilians.

You claimed that there were just as many innocents in those cities as in King's Landing. I was correcting your math.

[wunksta]

This was always going to happen. Remember her vision? She was always going to be queen of the ashes.


The only problem is that D&D didn't make a smooth transition and so it feels kind of jarring. It could have made more sense if there was a direct trigger instead of just the bells. Like if Rhaegal had died during the fight or after the surrender.

[Shadowferal]

I find it amusing that the actors had difficulty saying anything good about this season.

[MakeMeLaugh]

This was always going to happen. Remember her vision? She was always going to be queen of the ashes.


The only problem is that D&D didn't make a smooth transition and so it feels kind of jarring. It could have made more sense if there was a direct trigger instead of just the bells. Like if Rhaegal had died during the fight or after the surrender.

That's snow, not ashes. There are even icicles there.

[Jastall]

She was ready to burn Yunkai and Astapor to the ground. There was just as much innocent civilians in those cities than there were in King's Landing.

I don't even remember if Yunkai exists in the show.

Astapor she never tried to burn, she killed the upper class then left the city, which is irresponsible as hell but hardly even close to the same as methodically slaughtering the inhabitants street by street.

[Endus]

That's snow, not ashes. There are even icicles there.

Ashes often look like snow. And the more relevant point is, that's the throne room in the Red Keep, and it's not just destroyed and open to the air, it's empty. The only voices she hears in this vision are those of the dead.

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I don't even remember if Yunkai exists in the show.

Astapor she never tried to burn, she killed the upper class then left the city, which is irresponsible as hell but hardly even close to the same as methodically slaughtering the inhabitants street by street.

Nobody was saying she did even worse things earlier in the show.

Foreshadowing is about showing a hint of a future possibility. You have her say "I'll burn your city to the ground" in Season 2, and in Season 8, she . . . burns a city to the ground. That's how it works.

[Jastall]

Nobody was saying she did even worse things earlier in the show.

Foreshadowing is about showing a hint of a future possibility. You have her say "I'll burn your city to the ground" in Season 2, and in Season 8, she . . . burns a city to the ground. That's how it works.

For pete's sake, again, "it was foreshadowed" does NOT mean "it's fine". Tons and tons of potential actions are foreshadowed in the show and never come to pass, such as Jon confronting the Night King which didn't happen because our expectations had to be subverted and a character with 0 links to the King did him in instead. Or the semi-Valonquar prophecy in the show that amounted to absolutely nothing. That this time this particular foreshadowing had a payoff does not mean we should accept the action as a done deal.

The point is that the magnitudes of Dany's actions before this episode, and the magnitudes of the actions committed here, have no common measure. The character development to get her there was incredibly rushed, and her actual reasons are very unclear unless you hear the writers just state them in the post-episode feature (and even then it doesn't line up with what the episode actually showed us anyway). Previously all her targets fell under the acceptable standards of her day when it came to warfare and politics. Now she goes out of her way to commit an atrocity that would have made Tywin himself pause and caused Jaime to murder Aerys. She didn't cross a line, she crossed a dozen lines in a single jump and the show's writing did not earn that because the season was incredibly rushed.

Picture this: we've seen Tyrion kill hundreds, maybe thousands of soldiers with Wildfire. We've seen him threaten to murder everyone in the Red Keep during his trial. Would that alone make it fine if he decided to ignite Wildire under the Red Keep and burn thousands to death, commoners taking shelter included? Or would it be too much of a jump between his previous characterization and current one? Or if Jon decided to hang an entire village, foreshadowed by him hanging those who murdered his ass?

[Frontenac]

I don't even remember if Yunkai exists in the show.

Astapor she never tried to burn, she killed the upper class then left the city, which is irresponsible as hell but hardly even close to the same as methodically slaughtering the inhabitants street by street.

Yes, Yunkai exists in the show. I suggest you look at the clip someone has posted in an earlier post. A fleet composed of ships from Yunkai, Astapor and Volantis are bombarding Meereen. What Dany plans to do? "I will crucify the Masters, set their ships to fire, kill every last one of their soldiers and return their cities to the dust."

When you destroy a city, there's a chance that its citizens will die with it...

The difference between then and now is that in Essos she always had advisors to change her mind. She is now left with no advisors she can trust. Therefore, in her rage she follows her first idea. Is it sane? No. But there was foreshadowing of the extreme measures she could take.

[PACOX]

@Jastall Dany is just Aegon (the first, not Jon), hear great, great, great, whatever uncle/grandfather without his surprise factor.

Her invasion is very similar to his own with the variations being what might get her killed (I hope).

What they should have done was referenced her similarities to him more as she views herself as a savior because people forget how her family came to power.

The irony is that Aegon (Jon) will end the house is the finale follows natural progression.

[Jastall]

@Jastall Dany is just Aegon (the first, not Jon), hear great, great, great, whatever uncle/grandfather without his surprise factor.

Her invasion is very similar to his own with the variations being what might get her killed (I hope).

What they should have done was referenced her similarities to him more as she views herself as a savior because people forget how her family came to power.

The irony is that Aegon (Jon) will end the house is the finale follows natural progression.

Aegon accepted the surrender of the Lords of Westeros, however. He killed thousands in battle at the Fields of Fire but did not continue burning things after his victory. Same for Harrenhall where he stopped after Harren was torched. Aegon and his sisters were far less merciful towards Dorne... but the Dornish never surrendered, their reputation comes from the fact they kept going even as the Targaryen burnt every castle and holdfast they could get their dragons on (but not Sunspear or the nearby city itself, notably). All in all Aegon was indeed a ruthless conqueror but there are no records of him going out of his way to massacre commoners. Unless the show's backstory on him significantly differs from the book's, of course.

@Frontenac see my response above. Words are wind, as the books put it so often, and foreshadowing is not good enough when a character makes such a significant shift.

[Frontenac]

Aegon accepted the surrender of the Lords of Westeros, however. He killed thousands in battle at the Fields of Fire but did not continue burning things after his victory. Same for Harrenhall where he stopped after Harren was torched. Aegon and his sisters were far less merciful towards Dorne... but the Dornish never surrendered, their reputation comes from the fact they kept going even as the Targaryen burnt every castle and holdfast they could get their dragons on (but not Sunspear or the nearby city itself, notably). All in all Aegon was indeed a ruthless conqueror but there are no records of him going out of his way to massacre commoners. Unless the show's backstory on him significantly differs from the book's, of course.

@Frontenac see my response above. Words are wind, as the books put it so often, and foreshadowing is not good enough when a character makes such a significant shift.

And read mine again. It is not a question of words. She would have done it if Tyrion had not convinced her otherwise. I mean, you have a woman who was able to crucify all those masters, give a man to her dragons to burn and eat. We have been shown she is unable to take "no" as an answer and how she can react to a rebuke. She is able to commit atrocities. The only shift is in the scope of it all.

[Zaktar]

For pete's sake, again, "it was foreshadowed" does NOT mean "it's fine". Tons and tons of potential actions are foreshadowed in the show and never come to pass, such as Jon confronting the Night King which didn't happen because our expectations had to be subverted and a character with 0 links to the King did him in instead. Or the semi-Valonquar prophecy in the show that amounted to absolutely nothing. That this time this particular foreshadowing had a payoff does not mean we should accept the action as a done deal.

The point is that the magnitudes of Dany's actions before this episode, and the magnitudes of the actions committed here, have no common measure. The character development to get her there was incredibly rushed, and her actual reasons are very unclear unless you hear the writers just state them in the post-episode feature (and even then it doesn't line up with what the episode actually showed us anyway). Previously all her targets fell under the acceptable standards of her day when it came to warfare and politics. Now she goes out of her way to commit an atrocity that would have made Tywin himself pause and caused Jaime to murder Aerys. She didn't cross a line, she crossed a dozen lines in a single jump and the show's writing did not earn that because the season was incredibly rushed.

Picture this: we've seen Tyrion kill hundreds, maybe thousands of soldiers with Wildfire. We've seen him threaten to murder everyone in the Red Keep during his trial. Would that alone make it fine if he decided to ignite Wildire under the Red Keep and burn thousands to death, commoners taking shelter included? Or would it be too much of a jump between his previous characterization and current one? Or if Jon decided to hang an entire village, foreshadowed by him hanging those who murdered his ass?

The difference is that those events aren't foreshadowed, they are just more extreme versions of one event which ignore context. If Jon had been talking about hanging people, threatening to hang people, held back from hanging people, and then was betrayed and suffered a string of major losses, and was talking about hanging an entire village, we might consider his doing so well set up.

[Jastall]

And read mine again. It is not a question of words. She would have done it if Tyrion had not convinced her otherwise. I mean, you have a woman who was able to crucify all those masters, give a man to her dragons to burn and eat. We have been shown she is unable to take "no" as an answer and how she can react to a rebuke. She is able to commit atrocities. The only shift is in the scope of it all.

The scope IS important, mind you, and the surrender is also an important point, the Masters were still at war with her when she said that. I've no doubt she would have set fire to the fleets and slaughtered the masters, but at this time she still had a soft spot for the slaves and it would have been out of character for her to go out of her way to torch them all after the fighting was done.

So... yeah it kinda remains words. Or at least initial intent, which is not the same thing as action. To say nothing of the fact that Dany's hatred of the Masters was well established in the show, whereas in King's Landing she outright ignores Cercei in favor of torching the commoners of King's Landing whose worse crime towards her was not loving her unconditionally.

[xcess]

And read mine again. It is not a question of words. She would have done it if Tyrion had not convinced her otherwise. I mean, you have a woman who was able to crucify all those masters, give a man to her dragons to burn and eat. We have been shown she is unable to take "no" as an answer and how she can react to a rebuke. She is able to commit atrocities. The only shift is in the scope of it all.

So you'll be fine if Sansa and Arya goes and slaughters people cos they already have a thirst for it with Ramsay and Littlefinger and Freys ?

[Independent voter]

For Avatar/GOT fans.

[Marfrilau]

So you'll be fine if Sansa and Arya goes and slaughters people cos they already have a thirst for it with Ramsay and Littlefinger and Freys ?

That's actually a very good comparison. Would anyone find it believable if Arya suddenly started massacring women and children? She has been ruthless in killing her victims aswell. But just as with Dany she has been shown to avoid hurting those she considers innocent.

[Darththeo]

he could just not respond to such accusations. People gonna get annoyed that he lied if it turns out it was true. People are gonna buy the books if they wanted them in the first place

If he ignored them or stated "no comment" ... he would get bothered by questions, giving an answer is better than no response in this case.

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Why would he have held off on releasing one book, let alone two?

They literally gave a reason in the quote.

[Aurrora]

Can’t be that, he released a book during the show already. No shitstorm followed.

The last Song of Ice and Fire book he put out was a couple months into the first season, they probably didn't even have an agreement to adapt the entire series at that point.