Game of Thrones - I finished it!

[MarkVIIIMarc]

One disc from Netflix at a time I FINALLY finished Game of Thrones almost for old time sakes.

After avoiding spoilers for a couple years I'm late to the game but here it goes:

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I saw it pretty spoiler free except I knew people were not thrilled with the ending. What got them riled up?

-The battle vs the undead was pretty epic. Aria's killing blow was cool.

-Was there a lack of telegraphing of Daenerys and Grey Worm going all Anakin? At least you could tell they were trying to set Anakin up to fall. The killing of Missandei was pretty cold blooded but I am not sure I was properly worried except for Jon Snow having mentioned the bells a few times. Was there more a few episodes or seasons before I should have noticed?

-Jamie Lanniester pulled an equally sudden about face declaring himself no good because of his past sins. I was kinda hoping for more there.

-The last episode held my attention well. Daenerys suddenly being ready to love John Snow again caught me by surprise but their back and forth and him killing her was well done. Why didn't Drogon kill John Snow? Melting the throne was a good visual though.

-Sansa as Queen of the North....eh. The crack about Democracy was great though.

-In the greater sense I thought the ending left open sequels for Aria and John. Were folks upset John Snow didn't get to be king?

[factotum]

People were upset with season 8 for several reasons, as I understand it:

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- The Night King had been set up as this major threat over the course of many seasons, and for him to die so suddenly and easily just didn't pay that off in any way.
- Jaime just going back to his sister in the end just threw away the entire character arc he's been on since the start. They could have justified that by simply having him say "She's my sister, I must protect her" to make it obvious he wasn't thinking with his genitals rather than his brain, but they didn't do that.
- Dragons are apparently really, really vulnerable to the Scorpions of the Iron Fleet, except when they're not.
- The series had never really concentrated on the fact Daenerys was utterly insane--that's gone into in more depth in the books, but she seemed like a generally likable character on TV, to the extent that people would name their children after her. For her to then just start slaughtering civilians who are surrendering obviously upset people.
- Why did Tyrion, who was a prisoner at the time, apparently have the power to choose the next king? Why did he choose Bran? Even if "Bran had the best story" (which is obviously arrant cobblers), how is that a good criterion to choose such an important role?

Basically, the whole problem boils down to this: the last season was rushed. It should have been twice as long to allow some of the plots to be worked out better, but the showrunners were anxious to end it because they had a Star Wars gig they were moving on to (since cancelled, I believe).

[TheSummoner]

Spoiler: A Long Winded Reply

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I saw it pretty spoiler free except I knew people were not thrilled with the ending. What got them riled up?

-The battle vs the undead was pretty epic.

If this comes off rude, that's not my intention, but when you watched the battle, were you thinking about what you were watching or just sitting back and enjoying the show? If it's the latter, that's fine, but the big complaints about the battle are from people in the former camp. The battle is by far one of the worst fantasy battles I've ever seen. The tactics on display are downright moronic. And this is coming from a series that originally sold itself on being gritty and grounded. Not "realistic," in that there are still fantasy elements, but one where logic still applies and things not explicitly different than the real world still operate as one would expect them to in the real world. Not an all encompassing list, but here's a few highlights.

The Cavalry Charge
Imagine for a second that you are a medieval serf. Your lord has rounded you and your friends up to go to war with a rival you've never heard of in a land you've never seen. You've been given some some training and a sword and maybe even been in a few small skirmishes. But now you're forming up for a proper battle. In the distance, you see the enemy coming at you. Large men in heavy armor wielding big heavy lances charging at you at full speed. You've been told that if you hold the line, you'll be safe, but your nerves fray. If those men come at you, you're a dead man. Even if the line holds, you're are going to die when those lances come at you. You panic and you run. The guy next to you sees you running and he panics. Soon your formation is breaking as men flee and the last thing you feel is a lance buring itself into your back.

Cavalry charges done well are devastating, but they're not an instant-win condition. A wall of spears or better yet, pikes will stop them. Horses aren't stupid and they aren't suicidal. They won't run headlong into a wall of blades. Usually, the cavalry will use their superior mobility to strike at the flanks or the rear. Deal a strong blow, kill some men and hopefully panic the rest. If not, then get out while they're still reeling, before they can drag them off their horses and get ready for another strike.

Now let's compare to the Dothraki charge. First off, the Dothraki are not heavy cavalry. They're expert horsemen, sure, but they've got no armor, no lances, nothing that makes for a good cavalry charge. The best way one could use light cavalry like them is as mounted archers. Maybe they could do some good damage with a charge, but far less than proper heavy cavalry and they're far more vulnerable doing so. The Dothraki charged from the front, where their foes were best able to take the charge... Maybe if they hadn't decided it was a good idea to do a cavalry charge in pitch black conditions, they may have been able to use their mobility to flank the enemy. And of course, they were charging an army of undead. The undead feel no fear, so they're not going to panic. The undead feel no pain, so even being poorly armed, there's nothing stopping the ones who aren't outright trampled and crushed from grabbing on and dragging the dothraki to their deaths.

It's no wonder it ended with them being wiped out (though half of them got better next episode). The charge was idiotic. Load the Dothraki up with bows and as many arrows as they can carry. Have them ride alongside the dead and fire until their quivers are empty and then return for more arrows. The only thing that could've stopped them would be the Night King himself since he's also mounted and on a big scary undead dragon at that! But even if he does come after them, there's only one of him. If they scatter, he can't chase all of them.

The War Machines
There is no reason someone would ever deploy their war machines in front of their line. They were entirely undefended and each got off like one shot before being overrun and rendered useless for the rest of the battle. They're powerful, but they're vulnerable. An army can do good damage with them, but they have to protect them or else they're about as useless and worthless as they were in this battle. A commander who doesn't eat paste would deploy them behind his line, or better yet, behind defensive fortifications. And speaking of...

The Walls
Why do people build castles? It's because strong walls are a powerful force multiplier and a great defensive tool. If your enemy wants to kill you, he has to overcome your walls. If he tries to bypass you, then you can freely harass him and if he chases you, you have a safe place to return to. So if there's an enemy coming to attack and there's a castle available to the defenders, why would anyone deploy his army outside of the walls. The cavalry is one thing, since they rely on their mobility, but it's a complete waste of resources and the defender's lives to have their infantry outside of the friggin walls.

Deploy the men on the walls. Covering every inch of them that can hold them. War machines either on top or behind. Even if the undead eventually overcome the defenses (dragonbreath nuke or otherwise), it will be much harder for them to do so. The defenders would hold out for longer, bring down more undead in the process, and lose less lives doing so.

The Crypts
They are facing an army of the living dead. Led by a creature they know is capable of raising the dead and commanding them. What possible reason would they have for thinking a crypt, filled with dead people would be a safe place for anyone to hide.

The Rather Short Night
A major theme of the story has been from the start that the Game of Thrones is ultimately pointless. When the Long Night comes, it doesn't matter whose butt is on the world's most uncomfortable chair. The dead do not care and only by standing united can humanity overcome and survive. Killing off the Night King as they did and leaving the last three episodes to go back to the petty squabbling for the throne undermines that theme. It means that in the end, Cersei was a bigger threat than death itself and that a pointy chair really is the most important thing after all. The story suffers for it.

I could beat the (un)dead horse further, but I think I've said enough as it is. The tactics on display were completely idiotic. We're supposed to believe that the protagonists are intelligent and experienced in war and that this is a setting where the smallest mistake can lead to a character's death. The Long Night was a joke.

Aria's killing blow was cool.

It came out of nowhere (both in the narrative sense and literally). The white walkers plot had been centered around Jon from the very beginning. In the end, he really didn't accomplish anything. In a sense, the story made a promise. It followed him as he joined the Night's Watch and grew to become a leader. He was one of the only people who saw the real threat and worked to stop it. It kept building as the story continued, and as a viewer, you would naturally expect that it's leading to something. And then Arya jumps out of nowhere and steals the climax to the story arc. An arc she had nothing to do with and no involvement in. Sure, it "subverted expectations," but as a result, it was completely unsatisfying.

Was there a lack of telegraphing of Daenerys and Grey Worm going all Anakin?

There was no build up. Mother of dragons, breaker of chains, the woman who spent how long waging war in the east to put an end to slave trade and then in the course of an episode she snaps and barbecues a city. And for emphasis, Daenerys didn't just fly up to the Red Keep and nuke it, killing Cersei and whoever else was inside in the process. Daenerys did not fly to the red keep, attacking Lannister soldiers and burning a path of destruction along the way. The civilian deaths were not just collateral damage and unfortunate casualties of war.

Daenerys zig-zagged through the city after the battle was already won when there were no longer any soldiers opposing her, leveling entire city streets filled with civilians cowering in their homes, deliberately avoiding her primary target. She intentionally went out of her way to target civilians and target as many as possible. She gained absolutely nothing for doing so and destroyed much of the city she wanted to rule.

It's a complete 180 of her character up to this point. You can't just flip a switch and have a character turn into a bizarro version of themselves and expect it to work. That sort of change needs buildup and progression and there just wasn't any. People who try to defend it point out that she's done cruel things in the past, but those have always been to people who either hurt her, opposed her, or had otherwise committed atrocities. This wasn't against slavers who gleefully abused their slaves. This wasn't against Cersei who killed one of Daenerys' close friends. This was against a bunch of civilians.

Jamie Lanniester pulled an equally sudden about face declaring himself no good because of his past sins. I was kinda hoping for more there.

It undermines his character arc. Once it's all said and done, he's back to where he was at the beginning. His plotlines and character growth amount to nothing.

Sansa as Queen of the North

Fine in and of itself, but the North declaring itself independent just doesn't hold up. With her brother as king, there's no reason Sansa would want to. There's also no reason the other kingdoms (in particular, the Iron Islands who had fought bloody wars for their own independence and Dorne that had resisted conquest and only become part of the Seven Kingdoms through marriage) would just let it happen while still subjecting themselves to Bran's rule (and him being king is an entirely different discussion in and of itself)

In the greater sense I thought the ending left open sequels for Aria and John. Were folks upset John Snow didn't get to be king?

People were upset because many of the plot points make no sense or don't hold up to analysis when you reflect on it. People were upset because plotlines that they had followed for years and become invested in were wrapped up in incredibly unsatisfying ways for the sake of "subverting expectations". People were upset because characters began to act in incredibly out of character ways.

Subversion of expectations for its own sake is not clever writing. It's a lazy trick increasingly used by writers who aren't nearly as clever as they think they are. Doing something unexpected only works if that unexpected something still makes logical sense. Ned Stark's death is shocking and unexpected because he is built up as the main character and the audience expects the main character to struggle but overcome and succeed in the end. Instead, Ned loses his head. But Ned's death is a direct consequences of his choices and in particular, his mercy and honor. His enemies take advantage of it and he dies for it. The same holds for Robb's death - in the books at least, the show botched his plotline too. I don't know if you've read them, so I won't go too far into specifics, but in the books, Robb breaks off his engagement because while delirious and wounded, he sleeps with another woman and chooses to do the right thing by marrying her. He doesn't just decide that he doesn't want to marry Walder Frey's daughter. His honor dictates that he do right by her and in doing so, he insults Walder Frey who takes revenge. It is unexpected, but the clues are there and the events that take place make sense given the personalities and motivations of the characters involved. When there is no throughline though, you don't have a clever twist, you have a non-sequitur. Arya killing the Night King is a non-sequitur because that plotline builds up around other characters. Suspense and tension build but right at the climax, it veers in another direction entirely. Daenerys leveling King's Landing is a non-sequitor because her characterization is that of someone who believes in her right to rule but also believes in taking care of her subjects. She may be cruel to her enemies, but she doesn't harm innocents. Her character is built up in that direction and then suddenly veers in the opposite direction entirely.

[Kornaki]

It's probably worth pointing out that many of the flaws of the last season grate a lot more if you spend a week in between each episode dissecting what happened vs watching them all in a single day.

That is to say, you'll probably realize you noticed everything that's mentioned in this thread, but it will bother you more the more you think about it. Just enjoy the last season as you remember it.

[McStabbington]

The Summoner, I think, pretty accurately summarized a lot of the nitty-gritty details, so instead of doing that, I'll go for a broader and more high-level criticism.

Basically, the show stopped emphasizing how the nature of the characters shaped the plot, and instead started using the plot to demand that characters behave in certain ways, solely to get pre-determined plot outcomes. Rather than Character being King, which was the show that I fell in love with and got me invested in the books, Plot was King in the last several seasons, with characters whipsawing in motivation to fit what the Plot needed them to do. I was displeased with this turn of events.

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Daenerys is kind of Exhibit "A" of this change in approach, because for about 95% of the series, Daenerys' character is very clear, and very consistent: she's a person who styles herself a queen based partly on her bloodline, but also partly by the fact that among the nobility, she suffers fates akin to those routinely suffered by the dregs of society, so she empathizes uniquely with the dregs of society. Where most nobles don't even ask the question about what justifies their right to rule, Daenerys does consider this question, and she comes up with a relatively positive answer: I deserve to rule partly because that is my heritage, but also because I protect the weakest and poorest in society. And while yes, there is a downside to this answer, namely that when she's thwarted, Daenerys tends to massively overreact, that overreaction is almost exclusively reserved for some of the most vile people in the story. She burns slavers, and rapists, and kidnappers, and abusers. Which in turn means that she is discriminate in how she uses power, and how she abuses power.

She's not ideal, but she is comparatively just.

And then along comes the second to last episode, and whoopsie daisie, wouldn't you know, she's got an inborn flaw that when she hears bells, her Targaryen Madness Genes kick on, and into full "Dude, that girl is cccrrraaayyy. . ." mode she goes. Suddenly, instead of targeting only people who are 1) evil and 2) actively thwarting her, she's just indiscriminately Dresden-ing an entire city.

This . . . does not emotionally resonate with me. And it does not emotionally resonate with me not because I'm sore about what Daenerys is doing, or because I have a crush on her and don't I feel stupid, or because I just don't recognize high art. No, it doesn't emotionally resonate with me because I don't recognize this character that Emilia Clarke is suddenly being asked to play. You can call this indiscriminate killer "Daenerys" all you want, but my mind just keeps fixating on the fact that I know Daenerys, and this isn't Daenerys. Daenerys can be brutal, but not indiscriminately so, not against people she has no reason to think have done her or her followers any harm. And you can tell me all you want that all this time, she's really been indiscriminate, but I'm not going to believe you, and it's not going to emotionally resonate with me because I don't believe you.

Once you recognize that I won't feel "emotional" payoffs if the only way to get those payoffs is to break with what you've established about the character, most of the objections that I and other viewers had about the last season become pretty clear and understandable.

And in fact, a lot of the eyebrow-raising moments over the last season become explicable as the writers realizing "oh crap, we've got Martin's ending, and we've got seven seasons in the can where we haven't really built to this, so let's contrive plot hangup after plot hangup to annoy Dany, and hopefully by the end, we can work around the fact that we're undermining her character." So the fact that the North is saved by Dany, but doesn't in any way change their attitude towards Dany? It's there not because that makes sense, but because Dany has to be annoyed into firebombing King's Landing. The fact that the populace of King's Landing is behind Cersei, even as she uses them as human shields, kills their religious leaders and breaks every taboo they have? It's not there because that makes sense, but because Dany has to be annoyed into firebombing King's Landing. The fact that dragons apparently have the fortitude of a large hummingbird? It's not there because that makes sense, but because Dany has to be annoyed into firebombing King's Landing. The fact that Euron plays the Game of Thrones with AI cheat mode enabled, what with his ability to spawn Ironborn wherever it would frustrate Dany's game plan most, have the Ironborn follow him even though he got elected king on a pledge to ally with Daenerys, and his ability to keep a fleet hidden from the air until he can sneak attack, is there not because that makes sense, but because Dany has to be annoyed into firebombing King's Landing.

And the net result is not that I feel emotional payoff. It's that I start looking for a controller to toss across the room in frustration, because the writers are clearly cheating to get to the end they're supposed to get to. It's not simply that the plot is king, but that the plot warped itself into a parody of its own established rules just to get to a pre-determined end, rather than do the more difficult task of, ya know, actually telling a story that might lead to that pre-determined end.

[Lethologica]

Spoiler: Daenerys s8

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Dany always styled herself champion of the weak and downtrodden. Just like she styled herself rightful ruler of Westeros. Just like she gave herself all those titles in Meereen. It was a nice fantasy, each time. But when it was challenged, what did she do? Burn, break, destroy. Rule by power, rule by violence, rule by dragons, abandon it all when she seized on her next goal. Burn Astapor, crucify the Masters, burn the khals, burn the Tarlys, on and on. Fire and blood. An attitude going back to the threats she made in Yunkai and before, and crystallized when her attempt to chain her dragons in Meereen turned out poorly and all she was left with were her dragons unrestrained (metaphor alert!). All very well as long as it was happening to people we didn't like (like the Masters - except that one guy, oops!) or didn't think about (like the luckless Astaporians and Meereenese left behind), and it was nice to think it only happened because of how awful those bad people were with their slaving and their threatening Dany and so on, but there was always more to it than that. When it came to people we did like, the main question wasn't why she snapped, it's what took her so long.

This still amounts to a criticism of D&D making Dany's finale heel turn sudden instead of building to it properly in the last few seasons, just not from the perspective that Dany before then was clearly righteous.

[Eldan]

Daenerys reduced three cities to civil war, poverty, plague and cannibalism. She did remove the slavers, but then she put nothing in place. No real power structure, no economy, just come in, kill the rich, take their loot, enjoy the adoration of the poor for a while, then leave them to starve.

Now yes, the last few episodes were rushed and badly done, but the seed of that motivation was there from season 1. Two at the latest.

[factotum]

There's a difference between being a poor administrator--which I don't think anybody would have a problem saying Dany was--and slaughtering innocents for the lulz.

[Lethologica]

Spoiler: Are we still doing spoilers?

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Dany was never just a poor administrator, and she wasn't just burning innocent people for the lulz. "Let it be fear." "Mercy is our strength. Our mercy towards future generations who will never again be held hostage by a tyrant." The plan was to burn everything - while being seen as a great liberator, because evil Cersei was holding them all hostage. The bells piss her off because they represent a populace neither willing to overthrow their tyrants for her (as she complained previously) nor willing to accept, in her mind, the consequences of their failure to do so. And because their attempt to have it both ways spoils her own attempt to have it both ways. The burning which she rationalized as an unavoidable casualty of saving the people from tyranny was actually, all along, a punishment of the ungrateful people who won't save themselves and won't let her 'save' them. They don't love her enough to overthrow Cersei for her? Then they can be a lesson in fear for the rest of Westeros. She wanted love, but she'll take fear.

Among all the stupid nonsense that permeates the show once Dany gets to Westeros, this moment actually makes sense.

[McStabbington]

Spoiler: Are we still doing spoilers?

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Dany was never just a poor administrator, and she wasn't just burning innocent people for the lulz. "Let it be fear." "Mercy is our strength. Our mercy towards future generations who will never again be held hostage by a tyrant." The plan was to burn everything - while being seen as a great liberator, because evil Cersei was holding them all hostage. The bells piss her off because they represent a populace neither willing to overthrow their tyrants for her (as she complained previously) nor willing to accept, in her mind, the consequences of their failure to do so. And because their attempt to have it both ways spoils her own attempt to have it both ways. The burning which she rationalized as an unavoidable casualty of saving the people from tyranny was actually, all along, a punishment of the ungrateful people who won't save themselves and won't let her 'save' them. They don't love her enough to overthrow Cersei for her? Then they can be a lesson in fear for the rest of Westeros. She wanted love, but she'll take fear.

Among all the stupid nonsense that permeates the show once Dany gets to Westeros, this moment actually makes sense.

Spoiler: Well, at least I'm still doing spoilers

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See, respectfully, I have to disagree with that interpretation, because that interpretation requires that we ignore just how long Dany held off on attacking King's Landing directly. And it also ignores what the authors themselves said about Dany's motivations.

Which really speaks to the central problem that I was trying to highlight: it's not so much that your interpretation has no grounding in the text. It does, and I'm not going to deny that. What I am going to say is that that the text was deliberately rendered schizophrenic enough to support every and all interpretations, in an attempt to get to the end by hook or by crook. The text says, ultimately, "we didn't really care why Daenerys burned King's Landing, and we'll give you mutually-inconsistent reasons why she did, so long as you're willing to ignore the fact that it didn't fit with her origin, nor did it constitute an appropriate dramatic or narrative arc."

Now, for the moment, let's set aside the larger considerations that Dany's King's Landing strategy entailed, whether it was wise or foolish overall, or whether the authors arbitrarily raised their standards for Daenerys. Let's just set those arguments aside, and look strictly at what David and Dan said, and what was shown on television. What was shown on television was a character whose first impulse was to attack, sure. But whose second impulse was always to listen to her advisors, and whose third impulse was always to reign in her own aggressive impulses after her advisors told her not to act on her aggression.

You know what that makes her? A not very aggressive leader. Sure, her impulses are aggressive. Her proclivity is towards aggression. But her actions are what we measure, and her actions are those of someone that recognizes judiciousness when presented to her, and who will temper her own instincts to heed judicious counsel. In that respect, she's literally no different than President Josiah Bartlett on "The West Wing", who also had the impulse early on in Season One to really hit the buggers where it counts, but who, when presented with a plan to obliterate a civilian airport, thought better of it and decided to go with the limited, targeted attacks that he was presented with in the original attack plan. Especially when we compare her with bloodthirsty nobles like Tywin Lannister or Ramsay or Roose Bolton, she's introspective and prudent and moderate in a way that they are not.

Further, your theory about what happened when the bells sound is belied by the author of the episode's own words. Again, D.B. Weiss specifically said in the after-episode feature that it was in the moment when she heard the bells that she took the action she did, because it was only when seeing the city, and the Red Keep, and hearing the bells, and everything that had been denied to her, that she decided to "make things personal." Those are his words. Well, if that's the case, then it's not some complicated or premeditated act of aggression to punish the people. It's her just going bonkers after winning.

Which I think speaks to the main problem. It's not that you're misreading the text, though I would say you are being somewhat selective. Rather, it's that any and all interpretations require a selective reading of the text, because the writers never cared enough about why or how Dany reached the conclusion that she did to deliver one conclusive rationale for why she did so. They just wanted a special effects sequence, and they knew they had to turn Daenerys into Westerosi Palpatine because Plot, so whatever reading of the text you preferred that gets you to "oh, she's Westerosi Palpatine" was fine, they were happy to provide you with just enough textual evidence to support that position. If you squint, and if you ignore a bunch of other stuff.

The end result, as a consequence, is largely meaningless, because it was not designed with meaning in mind. There's no moral to this, and there is no story. There's just an obligatory set piece that they had budgeted X dollars for in this episode, and whatever way they accomplished this, was just fine. Which, hey, if you're interested purely in special-effects extravaganzas that make little or no sense, that's great. Just last night, for instance, I finished up watching all of "Ash vs. Evil Dead", which is deeply unconcerned with things like "sense" or "plot". Giddily so, in fact. My problem is not with the concept of meaningless entertainment. Rather, it's that I was told to expect sense from the plot of "Game of Thrones"; that was literally its selling point in the early going.

[Lethologica]

Spoiler: Well, at least I'm still doing spoilers

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See, respectfully, I have to disagree with that interpretation, because that interpretation requires that we ignore just how long Dany held off on attacking King's Landing directly. And it also ignores what the authors themselves said about Dany's motivations.

Which really speaks to the central problem that I was trying to highlight: it's not so much that your interpretation has no grounding in the text. It does, and I'm not going to deny that. What I am going to say is that that the text was deliberately rendered schizophrenic enough to support every and all interpretations, in an attempt to get to the end by hook or by crook. The text says, ultimately, "we didn't really care why Daenerys burned King's Landing, and we'll give you mutually-inconsistent reasons why she did, so long as you're willing to ignore the fact that it didn't fit with her origin, nor did it constitute an appropriate dramatic or narrative arc."

Now, for the moment, let's set aside the larger considerations that Dany's King's Landing strategy entailed, whether it was wise or foolish overall, or whether the authors arbitrarily raised their standards for Daenerys. Let's just set those arguments aside, and look strictly at what David and Dan said, and what was shown on television. What was shown on television was a character whose first impulse was to attack, sure. But whose second impulse was always to listen to her advisors, and whose third impulse was always to reign in her own aggressive impulses after her advisors told her not to act on her aggression.

You know what that makes her? A not very aggressive leader. Sure, her impulses are aggressive. Her proclivity is towards aggression. But her actions are what we measure, and her actions are those of someone that recognizes judiciousness when presented to her, and who will temper her own instincts to heed judicious counsel. In that respect, she's literally no different than President Josiah Bartlett on "The West Wing", who also had the impulse early on in Season One to really hit the buggers where it counts, but who, when presented with a plan to obliterate a civilian airport, thought better of it and decided to go with the limited, targeted attacks that he was presented with in the original attack plan. Especially when we compare her with bloodthirsty nobles like Tywin Lannister or Ramsay or Roose Bolton, she's introspective and prudent and moderate in a way that they are not.

Further, your theory about what happened when the bells sound is belied by the author of the episode's own words. Again, D.B. Weiss specifically said in the after-episode feature that it was in the moment when she heard the bells that she took the action she did, because it was only when seeing the city, and the Red Keep, and hearing the bells, and everything that had been denied to her, that she decided to "make things personal." Those are his words. Well, if that's the case, then it's not some complicated or premeditated act of aggression to punish the people. It's her just going bonkers after winning.

Which I think speaks to the main problem. It's not that you're misreading the text, though I would say you are being somewhat selective. Rather, it's that any and all interpretations require a selective reading of the text, because the writers never cared enough about why or how Dany reached the conclusion that she did to deliver one conclusive rationale for why she did so. They just wanted a special effects sequence, and they knew they had to turn Daenerys into Westerosi Palpatine because Plot, so whatever reading of the text you preferred that gets you to "oh, she's Westerosi Palpatine" was fine, they were happy to provide you with just enough textual evidence to support that position. If you squint, and if you ignore a bunch of other stuff.

The end result, as a consequence, is largely meaningless, because it was not designed with meaning in mind. There's no moral to this, and there is no story. There's just an obligatory set piece that they had budgeted X dollars for in this episode, and whatever way they accomplished this, was just fine. Which, hey, if you're interested purely in special-effects extravaganzas that make little or no sense, that's great. Just last night, for instance, I finished up watching all of "Ash vs. Evil Dead", which is deeply unconcerned with things like "sense" or "plot". Giddily so, in fact. My problem is not with the concept of meaningless entertainment. Rather, it's that I was told to expect sense from the plot of "Game of Thrones"; that was literally its selling point in the early going.

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Dany was okay at practicing restraint as long as it didn't cost her anything. You are comparing her actions at the beginning of the Westeros campaign, when the enemy was mostly an abstraction and "the people" could still be won over to her rightful rulership, to her actions at the end of the campaign when the enemy was personal and the people supported her enemy and she was deeply insecure about her illegitimate claim. Like I said before, D&D took too long in the honeymoon period and didn't leave themselves enough time for setup, but to think the error is making her snap is to make the same error D&D did: paying too much attention to the shiny thing and not enough to the background.

The introspective, moderating impulse is Dany's desire to be loved. To be the fantasy. But that impulse never stood up to testing.

This isn't new. She listened to her advisors in Yunkai, in Astapor, in Meereen. Each time she has learned that listening to moderation gets her betrayed, hated, backed into a corner, but she can always rely on fire and blood to see her through. And wasn't it justified, after all? Her life was threatened, her people were threatened, her enemies were bad people, and when she won the people loved her (Mhysa) or at least knelt (the Dothraki).

This time was supposed to be different. She'd won in Essos (putting aside for a moment what that cost Essos), but this was her homeland, her rightful throne, her people. The people didn't love her - she wasn't naive - but she could do this the 'right' way and become beloved. Only it wasn't her homeland. And doing things the right way didn't work. And she didn't have the rightful claim. And the people weren't hers. And they never came to love her, not even her lover. So she fell back on what she knew would work.

This doesn't make her worse than Tywin or Ramsay or whoever else, it makes her different. She's driven by strong, unstable, and conflicting emotions. She's not a calculated perpetrator of atrocities or a wanton sadist. But that doesn't make her incapable of similar atrocity.

I could reconcile D&D's comments with my reading - for example, by taking it as when Dany flipped from not caring who got burnt to actively wanting to burn the town - but frankly, D&D's comments about when they think Dany made the decision mostly show that they didn't think it through beforehand. And again, I'm not disputing that they screwed things up colossally. When you say:

so long as you're willing to ignore the fact that it didn't fit with her origin, nor did it constitute an appropriate dramatic or narrative arc.

The part that I disagree with is more that it didn't fit her origin, rather than that D&D failed at constructing the narrative arc. This was always her trajectory, but they pussyfooted it because, like everything else about the show once they ran out of book material, they didn't know what they were doing and opted for conservative choices and shallow thrills. In this case, that amounts to keeping Dany likable as long as possible and making her snap a big CGI-laden twist, even though the arc was, and demanded, something different.

[RCgothic]

My main issue was that the last two seasons rushed and then failed to stock the landing as a result. Remember when it took entire seasons for characters to get anywhere? Time in which we get to know them and for them to learn and grow?

Lolnope, everyone can now get anywhere in half an episode. Time for character development? None.

[mindstalk]

Lindsay Ellis has two good videos on the problems:
youtube.com/watch?v=hys_m3BPTS8

youtube.com/watch?v=BGr0NRx3TKU

A blog post analyzes the problems of the battle for Winterfell acoup.blog/2019/05/04/new-acquisitions-that-dothraki-charge/ and he has other posts about things like the loot train Dany burns. The late military stuff is shoddy and nonsensical if you think about it as actual military actions and not spectacle.

As for Dany, I would say that while she's had her dark streak, burning urban civilians en masse is at the utter bottom of things she would be likely to do. This is the girl who as a child bride tried to stop the Dothraki from raping slaves.

If you want to make the audience squirm, show her burning the Red Keep -- which would actually make sense -- and how that kills not just Cersei but all the servants stuck in it. Of course you might have to first spend some time showing servants or ordinary soldiers for us to care about.

Or, if you have the Starks continuing to be grumpy about her -- though as Lindsay points out, Sansa's hostility to Dany makes no sense and apparently the writers pointed to "pretty woman jealousy" as aa reason -- then it would make sense for her to snap and burn them or Winterfell. She's done a lot to help them, lost a dragon because of that, and they're still ungrateful! BURN. And they're Westerosi nobles whose family helped overthrow her own, exactly the sort of people *she* would be suspicious of. It would fit right in with the death of Ned or the Red Wedding: a shocking death of beloved main characters that flowed (somewhat) logically.

But of course that might be *too* shocking for the audience, so late in the game.

Or you could have her do what Aegon the Conqueror did, flying around and burning those who resist, like she did the Tarlys. Wouldn't be as demoralizing for the audience as her killing the Starks, would make us more and more uncomfortable with her "I deserve to be queen because of my family and dragons". Of course that would also take more time.

Or becoming queen easily, then ****ing things up through revolutionary idealism, the way she failed to stabilize Mereen. Like she makes decrees about women or smallfolk, and starts burning examples. Whoops, more time.

Dany's thing is that she actually does mean well, but also feels entitled, and is largely *good at* flambee. We used to compare her to a Solar Exalt, elsewhere: "I want to reform society but I'm mostly good at killing people."

But going full Nazi war criminal? That was just lazy writing by producers who gave themselves an arbitrary time limit and couldn't be bothered to finish things up properly.


Meanwhile on other topics, Bran becoming king makes no sense, in either process or outcome. The Seven Kingdoms all going independent again would make far more sense: the North's already broken off, the Iron Islands and maybe Dorne are already inclined to break away, the Iron Throne is slag, paramount lords would rather be independent than subject to a king, the whole place is too big to forcibly unify without a cheat code like dragons, a Stark has absolutely no blood claim to the throne and is the wrong religion and Bran makes all that worse by being a creepy magic cripple in a land used to handsome warrior-kings or beautiful dragonlords...

If GRRM actually wants Bran on the throne then he has a lot of work to do to make that plausible. A last minute speech by a prisoner at a tiny council of lords on the spot doesn't cut it.

[mindstalk]

More problems:

How do everyone respond to the mysterious wipeout of House Frey? Shrug.

Does Arya tell her family she's avenged their losses, and if so how do they react to that, or to Arya being a mass poisoner who turned people into pies? Shrug.

How do the Starks react to learning Jon's parentage, that the central conflict of their childhood was not "Dad cheated on Mom" but "Dad lied"? How does Jon the Bastard react to not being a bastard? Shrug.

How do the people of King's Landing react to Cersei killing the Pope and blowing up the Vatican? Shrug.

Dany burned a big wagon train of food, so King's Landing is going to be starving now, right? Shrug.

The show kept dropping spectacle without consequence. And remember, "no time" isn't a valid response, because the showrunners chose how much time they would have. Even if they hadn't, they were choosing how to use the time they had.


Speaking of pies, Arya's vengeance was powerful, but I have problems with it. Arya is a killer, but she doesn't seem to be into grand guignol; going to the work of turning people into pies, just for a few seconds of horror on Walder's face before she kills him, seems unlike her. Also, how did she, as a lone undercover servant, turn two full grown men into pies without anyone noticing? The whole thing seems like a fanservice version of something from the book that was done by different people who had actual control of a kitchen.

Killing House Frey seems more like her: going by her words, she seems to have very precisely invited the Freys actually at the Red Wedding. It's a mass killing but only of those we could agree are guilty. (Well, ignoring matters of forced obedience to a lord.) Still some problems: We could ask "how did she know" but I can easily imagine that 'Walder' would work it out; we can ask "how did she know some servant wouldn't sneak a drink of wine and give the game away" ...and that's a real question, though I can imagine 'Walder' telling the servants he was adding a laxative to the wine as a practical joke, to scare them off without getting them to alert the Freys. I shouldn't have to do that much work to explain something unlikely, though. And finally there's "wow, did she carry that much magically effective poison away from the House of White and Black, or what?"

I don't really object to all that Arya stuff, but it could have been done better.

Even more realistically she would have killed Walder, and maybe a few other high level Freys, and slipped away to other targets.

[factotum]

Or, if you have the Starks continuing to be grumpy about her -- though as Lindsay points out, Sansa's hostility to Dany makes no sense and apparently the writers pointed to "pretty woman jealousy" as aa reason -- then it would make sense for her to snap and burn them or Winterfell. She's done a lot to help them, lost a dragon because of that, and they're still ungrateful! BURN. And they're Westerosi nobles whose family helped overthrow her own, exactly the sort of people *she* would be suspicious of. It would fit right in with the death of Ned or the Red Wedding: a shocking death of beloved main characters that flowed (somewhat) logically.

But of course that might be *too* shocking for the audience, so late in the game.

I suspect they didn't do that because they were aiming to get to the conclusion GRRM told them was required, e.g. Dany going mad and slaughtering everyone. The problem here is that they didn't set that up properly in the earlier seasons--book Dany is definitely portrayed as being considerably less stable than show Dany was, so when she goes off the deep end it'll be believable; show Dany was generally portrayed as being in the right and only killing evil dudes. Maybe some other showrunners would have had the courage of their convictions and would have ignored George's character development in favour of their own, but those weren't the ones we had.

[McStabbington]

"Required" might be a strong word; I don't know how much creative control George had over the series, and I certainly don't see any hand on the wheel after Season 4.

Really, I think there's a much easier explanation at play: David and Dan underestimated Martin's skill as a writer, and overestimated their own. They were sure they could condense Martin's sprawling epic into something tightly-knit and equally cohesive without much trouble. And their success in the first four seasons convinced them that they could do this quite nicely and neatly.

Then they actually tried to start tying the loose ends up, and all of their scissor work on the plot started coming apart. Turns out, you can't just cut out Aegon, and plug in Cersei, because that just makes no sense. Turns out, you can't just cut out Lady Stoneheart, and plug in Arya, because that turns a fan favorite character into someone feared and despised, even and despite of the nonsensical damage control they attempted with the character. Turns out, you can't just cut out Euron, widely assumed to be the Night King analogue that will bring down the Wall in the books, and replace him with Hot Topic Pirate.

In other words, I think it was only when they started to hit the endgame that David and Dan realized just how out of their depth they were, and how Martin was a better writer than they'd given him credit for. But by the time they realized that, it was already too late to save their show. It's a meta-explanation, but one that explains a lot of what we've observed. I think one of the reasons David and Dan have been comparatively quiet over the last year or so is that they know that the fan reaction, which has been both visceral and almost entirely trained on them, is entirely fair, and that they George Lucas'ed the ending of the show.

[Eldan]

This is the girl who as a child bride tried to stop the Dothraki from raping slaves.

I mean, yes, but they were also slaves that her husband was capturing for her to finance her conquest of Westeros.

[factotum]

I mean, yes, but they were also slaves that her husband was capturing for her to finance her conquest of Westeros.

We're blaming a fourteen year old girl for the actions of her much older husband, in a highly patriarchal society?

[Ibrinar]

"Required" might be a strong word; I don't know how much creative control George had over the series, and I certainly don't see any hand on the wheel after Season 4.

Really, I think there's a much easier explanation at play: David and Dan underestimated Martin's skill as a writer, and overestimated their own. They were sure they could condense Martin's sprawling epic into something tightly-knit and equally cohesive without much trouble. And their success in the first four seasons convinced them that they could do this quite nicely and neatly.

Then they actually tried to start tying the loose ends up, and all of their scissor work on the plot started coming apart. Turns out, you can't just cut out Aegon, and plug in Cersei, because that just makes no sense. Turns out, you can't just cut out Lady Stoneheart, and plug in Arya, because that turns a fan favorite character into someone feared and despised, even and despite of the nonsensical damage control they attempted with the character. Turns out, you can't just cut out Euron, widely assumed to be the Night King analogue that will bring down the Wall in the books, and replace him with Hot Topic Pirate.

In other words, I think it was only when they started to hit the endgame that David and Dan realized just how out of their depth they were, and how Martin was a better writer than they'd given him credit for. But by the time they realized that, it was already too late to save their show. It's a meta-explanation, but one that explains a lot of what we've observed. I think one of the reasons David and Dan have been comparatively quiet over the last year or so is that they know that the fan reaction, which has been both visceral and almost entirely trained on them, is entirely fair, and that they George Lucas'ed the ending of the show.

To be fair they probably expected to have the final books (or at least the next one) to work from. The changes could have caused some problems for that but it probably would still have gone better if they could have adjusted the book story.

[Kyberwulf]

I don't know why but I want to Defend Sansa on this point.

Everyone has a reason to be hostile towards Dany. She has a Habit of coming in Killing or enslaving everyone she comes in....er... I mean "SAVE" .... contact with in the show. She has a habit of Killing all the people in power, and then leaving the cultures she's been in ruins... and poorly managed. Sansa has made it clear she doesn't want to ruled by anyone anymore. Dany is coming in and saying .. if you don't bow down to me and worship as a savior. I will kill you all. That was BEFORE she revealed her true nature.

Also, I got the feeling from the show, that they know about Arya. I mean it's the way they interact with her. Also the way she seems to gloat over everyone. I just don't think they really care. The Frays are dead. So. I mean what are you expecting.. a scene were they give her a cake or something. A scene were they chew her out for killing them?

[GloatingSwine]

We're blaming a fourteen year old girl for the actions of her much older husband, in a highly patriarchal society?

If this is a surprise to you, you haven't seen an argument about Daenerys in long enough to forget how they go...

Basically, the show stopped emphasizing how the nature of the characters shaped the plot, and instead started using the plot to demand that characters behave in certain ways, solely to get pre-determined plot outcomes. Rather than Character being King, which was the show that I fell in love with and got me invested in the books, Plot was King in the last several seasons, with characters whipsawing in motivation to fit what the Plot needed them to do. I was displeased with this turn of events.

Let's face it it largely started doing that in about season 5, it just took a while for it to generate enough momentum to derail the whole train.

[Wulfnor]

Yeah season 8 really sucks.

[Eldan]

If this is a surprise to you, you haven't seen an argument about Daenerys in long enough to forget how they go...



Let's face it it largely started doing that in about season 5, it just took a while for it to generate enough momentum to derail the whole train.

I'^m not saying she's to blame for the slaves being taken. Of course not, she's a 14 year old and basically enslaved herself.

But what I'm saying is that she's always been very good at compartmentalizing. Is that the right term? She has always used violence and violent people to her own ends, while simultaneously performing good deeds. And she's been very good at forgetting that the terror was partially always caused to benefit her and that her good actions are not as good as she'd like to think. The slave raids with the Dothraki were a start of that character arc, is what I mean. Not her fault, but the start of that character tendency.

[Psyren]

Everything mindstalk said, and definitely watch the Lindsay Ellis takes if you haven't already.

Season 8 is garbage, and retroactively tainted my enjoyment of the series to the point that I just watch highlights from earlier seasons on YouTube and will probably never sit down to go through the whole thing again.

My main consolation is that D&D were revealed for the hacks they are, and rightfully bear the brunt of the blame instead of the actors, or GRRM himself.

[Clertar]

This is my view. I think that most of the criticism is nitpicking, to be honest. Nitpicking to justify a genuine disappointment because, even though we know that both the novels and the show brutally deconstruct the fantasy epic genre, a lot of people still wanted a Return of the King style end to Game of Thrones (a huge epic battle against the undead horde and a face-off between Jon and the Night King, followed by Jon Targaryen becoming king of the Seven Kingdoms ruling happily with Daenerys as his queen; cue a lengthy epilogue where we see Jamie and Brienne riding side by side as happy knights errant).

I personally really enjoyed that the show went back to being the mean, gritty and realistically unexpected series that it was in the early seasons.

[mindstalk]

But it wasn't realistic at all, it was absurd.

It would be very easy to show a dark side to Dany the Conqueror, but given how things were going that would involve burning Starks, not civilians. Or you could show people starving because Dany had burned their food. Burning KL was cheap and unearned.

King Bran makes no sense. The only way it could make sense would be if he was put in as a weak puppet placeholder, and even then it doesn't work. What we actually got, "who has a better story", is absurd on the face of it and doesn't even make sense on its own terms. How does Bran have a better story than anyone else? It's just stupid.

Grey Worm should have killed Jon for killing Dany; Jon surviving is pandering to an unrealistic happy ending, given the flow of events.

This isn't nitpickery, it's criticism of lazy and bad writing.

[factotum]

So it's gritty and realistic that the Iron Fleet apparently forget how to use their Scorpions between episodes? They shot a dragon out of the sky with great ease in one episode, then, in the next episode when the sole remaining dragon attacks the fleet, I don't think they got a single shot off. Also, you'll have to tell me what other shows you've been watching that have those gritty and realistic ice zombies and dragons in them.

[mindstalk]

Mean, gritty, and realistic that all the surviving Stark kids had happy endings, that Bran got a position of supreme power he did not thing to gain or earn, that a sellsword like Bronn becomes lord of Highgarden, that Dany loses her Unsullied and Dothraki to ice zombies except then she doesn't, that armies and fleets bounce around with no regard for the huge distances and logistics involved...

[TheSummoner]

This is my view. I think that most of the criticism is nitpicking, to be honest. Nitpicking to justify a genuine disappointment because, even though we know that both the novels and the show brutally deconstruct the fantasy epic genre, a lot of people still wanted a Return of the King style end to Game of Thrones (a huge epic battle against the undead horde and a face-off between Jon and the Night King, followed by Jon Targaryen becoming king of the Seven Kingdoms ruling happily with Daenerys as his queen; cue a lengthy epilogue where we see Jamie and Brienne riding side by side as happy knights errant).

I personally really enjoyed that the show went back to being the mean, gritty and realistically unexpected series that it was in the early seasons.

Yes, people want a huge epic battle against the undead horde (I'll leave out the Night King because at least as of now, he's a show only creation and we don't know if he will exist in the books). This is the single biggest thing that has been foreshadowed since the beginning. What is the very first scene in the very first episode/prologue chapter of the very first book? The dead walk and the others are a threat to the living. What are the words of House Stark that are repeated constantly throughout the series? Winter is coming. This is built up so much that it's basically the central theme of the story. Winter is coming. Winter is coming. Winter is friggin coming. The petty politics and fighting mean nothing because winter is coming. It doen't matter who sits on the world's least comfortable chair because winter is coming.

Oh my sweet summer child … What do you know of fear? Fear is for the winter, my little lord, when the snows fall a hundred feet deep and the ice wind comes howling out of the north, when the sun hides it face for years at a time, and little children are born and live and die all in darkness while the direwolves grow gaunt and hungry, and the white walkers move through the woods.

The Others … Thousands and thousands of years ago, a winter fell that was cold and hard and endless beyond all memory of man. There came a night that lasted a generation, and kings shivered and died in their castles even as the swineherds in their hovels. Women smothered their children rather than see them starve, and cried, and felt their tears freeze on their cheeks.

In that darkness, the Others came for the first time … They were cold things, dead things, that hated iron and fire and the touch of the sun, and every creature with hot blood in its veins. They swept over holdfasts and cities and kingdoms, felled heroes and armies by the score, riding pale dead horses, and leading hosts of the slain. All the swords of men could not stay their advance, and even maidens and suckling babes, found no pity in them. They hunted the maids through the frozen forests, and fed their dead servants on the flesh of human children.

It's the thing that has been built up from the beginning. Winter. Is. Coming. Everything else is a distraction because as soon as winter arrives, none of it matters anymore. And when the story goes out of its way to build something up that much. To foreshadow is as heavily as A Song of Ice and Fire does, then it's making a promise to the reader that there will eventually be some payoff. The show completely failed to deliver all for the sake of "subverting expectations". Despite being the most involved in the plotline north of the wall with the undead, Jon does nothing of value in the climax of that story arc. Winter comes and goes in a single episode and it turns out that the REAL threat was Cersei all along. I cannot possibly state this strongly enough, this single choice undermines every bit of buildup from the very first scene. All that talk of winter is coming and in the end, winter didn't matter.

Everything else you mentioned people could take or leave, I imagine. I don't care if Jon becomes king in the end or dies, but the huge amount of buildup for his plotline demands some actual resolution. As for Daenerys and Jamie, the problem with them is that all character development is thrown out the window so the plot can suddenly jerk in the way the writers needed it to. The story determines what actions the characters take rather than the actions the characters would take setting the course the story follows. People don't read these books or watch the show based on them because they expect everyone to live happily ever after. The two most talked about things in the series are Ned's death and the Red Wedding and those certainly go against what people would typically expect. But those are actually handled well. You don't expect it when going in blind, but the clues are there and you see them in hindsight. The actions taken make sense given the motivations of the characters involved. Ned shows mercy and Cersei exploits it. She fails to account for Joffrey's impulsiveness or cruel nature and the result sets off a war directly challenging the position of power she was trying to secure. Robb sleeps with a nobleman's daughter while wounded and delirious and his honor demands he marries her. (or in the show, just because he decides he doesn't want to honor his agreement with Walder Frey). Walder Frey is deeply insulted and this drives him into switching sides. Roose Bolton sees the way the wind is blowing and chooses to be on the side of the war he believes will win. The result is that the Freys take revenge on the northerners and the Boltons join in on the plot to secure their own position. Contrast this with season 8 where Daenerys deciding that to celebrate defeating the Lannister soldiers and King's Landing falling into her hands, she needs to have a barbecue and every peasant in the city is invited... Because bells or something. The former is built up and clever while still being unexpected. The latter comes out of nowhere. Could've worked with some proper build-up and competent writers, but the show had neither.

[Psyren]

But it wasn't realistic at all, it was absurd.

It would be very easy to show a dark side to Dany the Conqueror, but given how things were going that would involve burning Starks, not civilians. Or you could show people starving because Dany had burned their food. Burning KL was cheap and unearned.

King Bran makes no sense. The only way it could make sense would be if he was put in as a weak puppet placeholder, and even then it doesn't work. What we actually got, "who has a better story", is absurd on the face of it and doesn't even make sense on its own terms. How does Bran have a better story than anyone else? It's just stupid.

Grey Worm should have killed Jon for killing Dany; Jon surviving is pandering to an unrealistic happy ending, given the flow of events.

This isn't nitpickery, it's criticism of lazy and bad writing.

This. Trying to defend the slop we got as an aversion to grit or realism is utterly ridiculous. If grit was the goal, the consequence-free pablum we got and transforming Dany into a cartoonish supervillain because... genetics I guess? RNG? ...is nonsense. Bronn leapfrogging every noble family in the Reach to assume control of Highgarden is nonsense. Jon getting to retire in the zombie-free wilds is nonsense. Replacing the monarchy with an oligarchic council of landed gentry (and Davos for some reason) is nonsense. Daenerys easily sacking the city with a single dragon and half her army mere days after they fought for their lives against hordes of undead is nonsense. And don't even get me started on the hatchet-job they did with Jaime.