Works where you were surprised to learn you were in the minority of viewers

[Darth Credence]

Walter had countless opportunities to get out of a highly illegal, highly dangerous business and he kept going, endangering his entire family in the process. He killed or ordered the deaths of numerous people in cold blood. He emotionally manipulated every person who cared about him (particularly Skylar and Jesse). And he did it all for explicitly selfish reasons.

Skylar smoked, had an affair, and went along with the impossible situation Walt thrust her into. She's no saint, but she does not deserve to be spoken of in the same sentence as her husband. Walter is clearly the villain and none of his family members even come close. This "everyone in Breaking Bad sucks" crap is rampant and annoyin.

Skylar also could have put an end to it all at any time after season 3 started. All she had to do was tell her sister what was going on (or tell the cops when she was trying to have Walter thrown out). She has a lawyer repeatedly telling her to get out and go to the police. When Walt moves out and signs the divorce papers, she could have just let him go but did not. She's not as bad as Walter, because Walter did it, but that "went along with" bit is far, far worse than you imply. Plus, before she knew about Walt she was already working for Ted and signing off on the cooked books - she didn't stop that until after she knew about Walt.

Skylar was not a good person, independent of what Walt did. The death of Hank is as much on her as it is on Walt - neither of them pulled the trigger, and both had ample opportunity beforehand to do something about it.

[Peelee]

Skylar also could have put an end to it all at any time after season 3 started. All she had to do was tell her sister what was going on (or tell the cops when she was trying to have Walter thrown out). She has a lawyer repeatedly telling her to get out and go to the police. When Walt moves out and signs the divorce papers, she could have just let him go but did not. She's not as bad as Walter, because Walter did it, but that "went along with" bit is far, far worse than you imply. Plus, before she knew about Walt she was already working for Ted and signing off on the cooked books - she didn't stop that until after she knew about Walt.

Skylar was not a good person, independent of what Walt did. The death of Hank is as much on her as it is on Walt - neither of them pulled the trigger, and both had ample opportunity beforehand to do something about it.

Anecdotal, but the discussion here is first I've ever encountered of Skylar not being a good person (which i agree with) that isn't centered on her "mistreatment" of Walt.

Also, Hank's death is not on her as much as Walt. It was a direct action of Walt being, as i described before, street-brain-dead.

[Keltest]

Anecdotal, but the discussion here is first I've ever encountered of Skylar not being a good person (which i agree with) that isn't centered on her "mistreatment" of Walt.

Also, Hank's death is not on her as much as Walt. It was a direct action of Walt being, as i described before, street-brain-dead.

Eh. I think if you see someone playing with matches in your house, and you and they both know its dangerous, and you tell them its dangerous but don't stop them, you have some responsibility for when your house catches on fire. Maybe not as much as the person playing with your matches, but if you enable them, you have responsibility too.

[Peelee]

Eh. I think if you see someone playing with matches in your house, and you and they both know its dangerous, and you tell them its dangerous but don't stop them, you have some responsibility for when your house catches on fire. Maybe not as much as the person playing with your matches, but if you enable them, you have responsibility too.

Sure, and i agree she is culpable. I just don't believe it's "as much as Walt".

I'll readily admit i could have been more clear on that.

[Saph]

Skylar smoked, had an affair, and went along with the impossible situation Walt thrust her into. She's no saint, but she does not deserve to be spoken of in the same sentence as her husband. Walter is clearly the villain and none of his family members even come close. This "everyone in Breaking Bad sucks" crap is rampant and annoying.

It's been too many years since I watched the show, so I can't give you specifics, but I remember gradually noticing over the course of the series that Skylar actually had lots and lots of opportunities to improve, turn around, or bail out of that 'impossible situation'. Pretty much just like Walt. Except that with Walt the show makes it really explicit with the message of, "no, he absolutely DID NOT have to do all this, he had an alternative that he deliberately turned down again and again". With Skylar it's never made explicit, but she very consistently keeps on taking the easy-but-wrong path over the hard-but-right one.

And for the record, I don't think everyone in Breaking Bad sucks. I had quite a bit of sympathy for Marie and Hank and especially poor Gomez. Skylar and Walt, though . . . yeah, they absolutely do.

[Ionathus]

Jimmy's got charisma out the wazoo.

Also, Jimmy is both book-smart when he applies himself (he is clearly a very capable legal mind) and street smart. Walter is street brain-dead. Dude jumps into bed with the first person available every single time. Jimmy was successful because of who he was, Walter was successful in spite of who he was.

This is a very good point. Going back to Breaking Bad now, Walt is a phenomenally more pitiful character than I remembered him. He's just...so oblivious. I know that's probably somewhat unfair, as now that I've seen BCS prequel material I know exactly how professional and careful Gus's operation was, and that makes Walter's fumbling attempts to negotiate or strategize even more laughable.

Rewatching Breaking Bad, some of Walter's scenes are absolutely agonizing. This jackass just will. not. shut. up. At least when Jimmy starts running his mouth, he's usually got something compelling to say and I can believe that he talked his way out of something. But Walter is just...ugh. Some of his ego-fueled rants are genuinely painful. Bryan Cranston knocked it out of the park, creating a character that could appear reasonable and good-intentioned and intelligent to me on a first watch, but with undercurrents of ego and shortsightedness that are so plain to see on rewatch.

Anecdotal, but the discussion here is first I've ever encountered of Skylar not being a good person (which i agree with) that isn't centered on her "mistreatment" of Walt.

Also, Hank's death is not on her as much as Walt. It was a direct action of Walt being, as i described before, street-brain-dead.

Yes, that's a huge step up from the usual discourse. Skylar has genuine flaws and she made the wrong call. But at least people on here aren't pulling the "actually Skylar is the real villain, Walt only ever killed all those people because she made him feel emasculated!!!"

Echoing your opinions for Hank's death. Even if Skylar is culpable in Hank's death legally as a co-conspirator, she was not the one with the previously-established relationship with a murderous gang of white supremacists. In fact I'll go a step further than calling Walter street-brain-dead in his dealings with Jack's crew: He knew exactly what he was getting into. He knew how nasty these people were, and he worked with them to execute a bunch of hush-up prison murders anyway. And then he called them in on his own brother-in-law, if only for a few minutes. The fact that he (wrongly) thought he could control Jack's gang doesn't change the fact that Walt was okay using them for murder. That goes beyond lack of street smarts and goes into full-blown serial killer territory.

(I'm aware you were probably implying that part as well, just wanted to call it out explicitly)

[Ionathus]

And for the record, I don't think everyone in Breaking Bad sucks. I had quite a bit of sympathy for Marie and Hank and especially poor Gomez.

Don't forget Bogdan! Bogdan is blameless.

But check out this beautiful line from his entry on the "Breaking Bad wiki":

Bogdan Wolynetz
Bogdan is Walter's non criminal nemesis

[Morgaln]

Jimmy's got charisma out the wazoo.

Also, Jimmy is both book-smart when he applies himself (he is clearly a very capable legal mind) and street smart. Walter is street brain-dead. Dude jumps into bed with the first person available every single time. Jimmy was successful because of who he was, Walter was successful in spite of who he was.

Jimmy reminds me a lot of Discworld's Moist von Lipwig, but before the events of Going Postal. A smart, capable and charismatic con man who never thinks that the things he does are actually harmful to people. Unfortunately for Jimmy, he doesn't get a patrician to help rehabilitate him...

[Darth Credence]

Anecdotal, but the discussion here is first I've ever encountered of Skylar not being a good person (which i agree with) that isn't centered on her "mistreatment" of Walt.

Also, Hank's death is not on her as much as Walt. It was a direct action of Walt being, as i described before, street-brain-dead.

Walt Hank would have lived had she told Marie when she first found out, told the police when they asked her about criminal activity when she tried to throw him out, told the police after any of the times her lawyer explicitly told her to go tell the police (it was made pretty explicit that she had an off-ramp, too, with the lawyer telling her repeatedly), told the police when she is suspicious that Walt had something to do with the failed attempt to kill Hank, told her sister that the money came from Walt breaking bad rather than gambling, if she had turned him in rather than asking him to turn himself in when she thought he was in danger, or if she had not taken a bunch of the money and given it to Ted preventing Walt from getting them out in Season 4. (All of that happened prior to her being scared for her life around Walt. She had another opportunity to tell her sister after that, but backed out. That could have saved him, too.) Probably wouldn't have saved his life if she hadn't pushed to run the money laundering business, but that certainly shows her that she was all in at that point.

But the final thing that makes her every bit as responsible as Walt, if somehow all of that wasn't enough? Hank knew, talked to her about it, and gave her the opportunity to help take Walt down. She wouldn't help. Later, Walt and Skyler go to dinner with Hank and Marie to drop off the blackmail confession. She was fully in at that point. She broke bad as much as Walt did.

[Peelee]

Jimmy reminds me a lot of Discworld's Moist von Lipwig, but before the events of Going Postal. A smart, capable and charismatic con man who never thinks that the things he does are actually harmful to people. Unfortunately for Jimmy, he doesn't get a patrician to help rehabilitate him...

Walt would have lived

Until the cancer got him, or a hitman. If you want to argue about how Walt would have lived, Walt would have lived, Walt would have lived if he had accepted Gretchen's help.

She was fully in at that point. She broke bad as much as Walt did.

Nope. She never would have had people killed, as a quick example. No matter how you dice it, Walt was worse. Which, aside from accuracy, I'm not concerned much with because she was still pretty entrenched by her own volition, as all the opportunities she had to pull out and stop you pointed out are correct.

Again, I'm not saying that she was innocent or clean. Just that i hated people who gave her so much **** specifically because of how she acted towards Walt.

[Mordar]

I don't really care whether or not you like Dany the character, but if a power-hungry maniac who sets an entire city on fire is a "Mary Sue," then the term really has lost all meaning.

Well, I was mostly contemplating everything up to the last 2 episodes or so...other than the author-insert criteria, I think she fits the mould, though moreso in the series than the books.

ASIDE: Isn't "fits the mould" a funny turn of phrase? Since you don't put formed things into a mould to see if they fit...it seems there is a "fits into the mould of" version of the idiom and that makes more sense to me. Assume it has been shortened over the years...

2)I have a theory that Star Wars caught fire originally because it left so much for the public to fill in with their own imaginations, and explaining all of those things, as you said, makes the world smaller than we can imagine, shallower and cheaper.

Oh so very much yes. While I like definitive ends to specific stories (generally dislike the "whatever happens when the door opens at the end is up to your imagination" elements), I really don't want every nook and cranny illuminated with spotlights, every tiny thing explained and dissected...leave room, sometimes *lots* of room around the edges and I generally enjoy it more. I pity the children who must play imagination within such rigidly confined and fully explained fantasies. {not that such a thing would occur because children are immune to such adult stupidity most times}

Literally because Mars Needs Moms flopped and the execs decided it must be because people don't want to see "Mars" in a title, not because... who would want to see the premise implied by "Mars Needs Moms"?

Heard similar. Hard to imagine geniuses like those learning to breathe much less running studios and making multi-million dollar decisions.

Well, I feel strongly enough to say I find this wildly wrong, but not strongly enough to argue about a band and man whose existence ended 30 years ago, because whose mind is going to be changed about that?

I wonder if this is a product of time and place, and musical rivalries. I have definitely changed opinion about music (and books and movies) from less formative eras - 60s, 70s, and earlier - so perhaps those were less emotively built than those of my formative years.

New opinions:

James Bond was much less "-ist" than many of his contemporaries, and would very likely be considered progressive in most circles.

- M

[Metastachydium]

The "[x] Sue" is such a useless lens for looking at fiction that I generally hate to use it. Daenerys is written as special, as a sort of stock fantasy protagonist and a messiah figure, and I don't think that's inherently a bad thing.

Again, while "odd-coloured hair and eyes, last member of the Advanced Super Race with Extra Super Power, wronged by all the strawmen, salivated after (in one way or another) by every other male (and some of the strawmen too), kinda hard to suffer but the story keeps vindicating 'em and their stupid decisions" is certainly a stock characterization – in self-insert fanfics and shlock fantasy. Mary Sue is simply a term conceived so that we have a name for them. Daenerys in such a stark contrast in terms of quality as characterization goes compared to other characters, even other characters filling stock niches, that I kinda came to believe Martin went deliberately overboard with her just so that he can subvert the whole thing somewhere down the line.

[Darth Credence]

Until the cancer got him, or a hitman. If you want to argue about how Walt would have lived, Walt would have lived, Walt would have lived if he had accepted Gretchen's help.

Nope. She never would have had people killed, as a quick example. No matter how you dice it, Walt was worse. Which, aside from accuracy, I'm not concerned much with because she was still pretty entrenched by her own volition, as all the opportunities she had to pull out and stop you pointed out are correct.

Again, I'm not saying that she was innocent or clean. Just that i hated people who gave her so much **** specifically because of how she acted towards Walt.

Sorry, that was a mistake typing. That was supposed to be Hank would have lived, not Walt. Clearly Walt wouldn't have lived, and we were talking about how she was every bit as culpable for Hank's death.

Walt was a worse person. Walt was no more responsible for Hank's death than Skyler was, because by that point, Skyler had had ample opportunity to put a stop to everything, and in the end joined Walt at least tacitly in blackmailing Hank.

I do not agree with anyone saying she was bad because of how she acted with Walt. I hate that as well - Walt was not a victim of anything except cancer. But I also hate that some think she was just in a bad situation, too. She broke bad. Everyone in the show broke bad in some way or another (except for Holly) - reducing the title to referring to only Walt is missing something about the show, IMO.

James Bond was much less "-ist" than many of his contemporaries, and would very likely be considered progressive in most circles.

- M

Book Bond, or movie Bond? There is enough of a difference between them that it matters, I think.

[Ionathus]

Sorry, that was a mistake typing. That was supposed to be Hank would have lived, not Walt. Clearly Walt wouldn't have lived, and we were talking about how she was every bit as culpable for Hank's death.

Walt was a worse person. Walt was no more responsible for Hank's death than Skyler was, because by that point, Skyler had had ample opportunity to put a stop to everything, and in the end joined Walt at least tacitly in blackmailing Hank.

"No more responsible than Skylar" my ass. One of those two people called the paramilitary white supremacist gang, and it sure as hell wasn't Skylar.

Skylar was on the level of an accomplice. She accepted that Walt was involved in the drug world and she didn't turn him in. She knew he was cooking meth, and she cooked his books for him. I think legality-wise, she could be charged with all of his crimes -- I know there's some rule about crimes done in a conspiracy applying to all involved members, even if they weren't involved in each individual crime. But I'm not talking legality, I'm talking morality. Skylar wanted to run out the clock on Walt's cancer. In her eyes that was preferable to turning him in and, let's be honest, blowing up her and her kids' lives, probably permanently. That was a selfish and naïve decision, absolutely, and she's responsible for a lot of wrongdoing as a result. But Walt is responsible for himself.

No matter how you slice it, Skylar's involvement will never be on the same level of guilt as Walt hiring literal assassins to assassinate people. Which is something Walt had already done, and it was exactly what he was doing again when Hank, Gomez, and Jesse showed up in the desert and he called Jack again. He regretted it and tried to call it off, but that was absolutely his intent.

[Peelee]

Sorry, that was a mistake typing. That was supposed to be Hank would have lived, not Walt. Clearly Walt wouldn't have lived, and we were talking about how she was every bit as culpable for Hank's death.

Ok, that makes more sense. Sorry.

Even then, though, she's pretty well removed from proximate cause. Like, by that argument, Saul is just as culpable. Again, I'm not arguing that they're not culpable. They're just not as culpable as Walt. Just as Walt is not as culpable as Jack.

[Errorname]

Again, while "odd-coloured hair and eyes, last member of the Advanced Super Race with Extra Super Power, wronged by all the strawmen, salivated after (in one way or another) by every other male (and some of the strawmen too), kinda hard to suffer but the story keeps vindicating 'em and their stupid decisions" is certainly a stock characterization – in self-insert fanfics and shlock fantasy. Mary Sue is simply a term conceived so that we have a name for them. Daenerys in such a stark contrast in terms of quality as characterization goes compared to other characters, even other characters filling stock niches, that I kinda came to believe Martin went deliberately overboard with her just so that he can subvert the whole thing somewhere down the line.

I don't think "last of their kind with special magic powers" is unique to fanfiction. Notably you're describing Superman and Last Airbender, and as I recall both of those are quite popular. Daenerys being the heir to a wiped out royal family is also not at all unusual for a fantasy story, nor is her obtaining some unique magical weapon that turns things in her favour.

The one thing I would agree with is that a lot of Daenerys's supporting cast is thinly sketched. That is fair, but I think "they're strawmen who exist to oppose or salivate after Daenerys" is a misdiagnosis, it comes down to fundamental issues with how Martin approaches Essos in general rather than specifically a Daenerys problem. Notably I think you start seeing the same problems when ADWD brings other PoVs to Essos, Tyrion and Quentyn meet a few standouts but a lot of the Essosi are thinly characterized and not memorable, and it does make Daenerys's chapters harder for me than her closest counterpart, Jon, who has a much more robust supporting cast.

Well, I was mostly contemplating everything up to the last 2 episodes or so...other than the author-insert criteria, I think she fits the mould, though moreso in the series than the books.

The endgame turn that they were obviously writing the character around is something that's pretty important to include in your analysis, I feel.

Like I could plausibly describe Arthur Dayne as a mary sue. Greatest knight who ever lived, special purple eyes, magic sword, beloved even by his enemies. But that requires ignoring the full text and doing no analysis of his role in it.

James Bond was much less "-ist" than many of his contemporaries, and would very likely be considered progressive in most circles.

I find that exceedingly hard to believe. The early films are already pretty rough and I'm given to understand the books were worse. Maybe not uniquely bad for the time, but certainly not progressive.

[sktarq]

Batman Begins: I just didn't like that movie at all. The plot was a convoluted mess and the villain destroyed his own credibility halfway through the movie. I disliked the movie so much that I could never bring myself to watch the sequels.

Was very meh'ed by the Nolan batman except the Dark Knight. This did have the advantage that I ended up seeing Judge Dredd in the 3D theatre
Speaking of which I was pretty happy with the that 3D craze for a bit. Sure most was trite shlock but both Dredd and Cave of Forgotten Dreams really used it to add to the movie and I am sad to see it go.

Dr Who never did anything for me. So I ignored it. Didn't care for the Simpsons either.

Same. For both and not liking the Simpsons in the 90's was apparently verboten for some reason...same with 90's SNL.

Nah, appreciation for John Carter has increased over time....

I will say the John Carter created so much that was later developed into more complete ideas that meeting the originals later seems derivative and trite.

Yeah. I never got the hate for Solo either. I enjoyed it. At the end of the day, it's a one shot film, and does exactly what it needed to do (tell the origin bits for Han Solo). It checked every single box it needed to check: His signature pistol? Check. Millenium Falcon? Check. Chewie? Check. Kessel Run? Check. Why he's a smuggler? Check. It had good dialogue and well written characters (and lets face it, the whole "robot rebellion" bit was hillarious). Harrelson's character made sense and fit in. Han's introduction into the criminal world worked and made sense. There were no glaring plot holes (which is a huge plus for me). And they snuck in a few easter eggs and character references/tie-ins along the way. What the heck did people actually expect from the film that they didn't get?

Needed to? eh no need for the movie and trying to pack it into one movie made it seem like he only had one adventure rather than building up his character over years and experience...and thus trite.
Good Dialogue and well written characters....well that is an opinion that many would argue against. In fact one could argue it undermined his character ace in the OT where he went from smuggler to general and at its core selfish to selfless. Sure TFA had already poleaxed his development because JJ is a trailer artist who can present to studio heads well...but there was no need to set fire to the good feels that remained of his growth.
Robot rebellion being hilarious...is one that I would also disagree with. Plus came off to many as preachy.
As for what they expected that they did get...a movie they didn't like and so didn't go (see Box Office) so later catch it out a friends house

The Mona Lisa is bland and boring.

I think what gets me on this one is that some of the big classic art pieces (say David) do live up to their reps. Plus to get to the Mona Lisa you usually head down this GIANT hallway that goes on half of forever is 30 ft tall and so full of art that they have to lean it where it hits the ceiling....And that hallway is full of amazing stuff but you are getting stampeded by people heading to or from the ML

As for myself I would say Rush (2013) The movie that for some reason was sold as a sports movie when really it is an amazing character study that happens to be told through racing. I adore the piece but it was not met with much of that...too talky for aport movie fans or something and involved sports so ew from a bunch of others.
Also Neon Demon. Which I found to be a great, slightly psychedelic, modern fairy tale but was not well beloved upon release.

Also I didn't really like the theatrical LotR sequels. I tend to find battle scenes boring unless we see plot/character growth via said fight scenes (See Dredd, Bourne Idenitity, and Atomic Blonde for example) and the battles of Helms deep and Pelenor just felt massively unbalanced compared to the movie. I do think the extended cuts redeemed them though.

I also did not care for the newer Godzilla kickoff movie. (Not minus one..that was amazeballs the one with the MUTOs) It seems to have been popular enough for sequels but its basic logic was so bad i stewed in my seat the entire time. It left me...insulted.

[Mordar]

Book Bond, or movie Bond? There is enough of a difference between them that it matters, I think.

That was the trick of it - yes, absolutely 100% book Bond. On a lark I decided to read them this year...was never a huge fan of the movies until Daniel Craig, and since I have been on a "classics of X" kick thought they would be worth a shot. *So* much better than I expected. See more below...

The endgame turn that they were obviously writing the character around is something that's pretty important to include in your analysis, I feel.

But I don't believe they were...I believe in GRRM's ability to write a successful conclusion to the character that the showrunners couldn't even approach doing. I think all of S7 was trying to be home-run swing payoffs, and almost all swings and misses. I believe that they recognized the huge following Clarke developed and so they turn the MS up to 11. I think even the ending was supposed to be Crowning Moment of Awesome or whatever, and instead it just went full serial psycho.

I know wikipedia is an easy target to punch down on...but the opening salvo of "...usually a young woman, who is often portrayed as inexplicably competent across all domains, gifted with unique talents or powers, liked or respected by most other characters, unrealistically free of weaknesses, extremely attractive, innately virtuous, and generally lacking meaningful character flaws..." lands pretty well until you get to the last clause, and even that says "generally".

Like I could plausibly describe Arthur Dayne as a mary sue. Greatest knight who ever lived, special purple eyes, magic sword, beloved even by his enemies. But that requires ignoring the full text and doing no analysis of his role in it.

But he wasn't a central character, and was presented as tragic duty...hard to MS when your page count doesn't exceed quaternary characters.

I find that exceedingly hard to believe. The early films are already pretty rough and I'm given to understand the books were worse. Maybe not uniquely bad for the time, but certainly not progressive.

If this was 8 months ago and someone said what I said I would have been right there next to you. The books are actually much better in quality and in perspective. Bond is far from infallible, needs rescuing on several instances, including by female characters, is forthright about his weaknesses, and is in general a much better person than that represented by any of the actors I've seen, perhaps not including Craig. The other "-ist" is less clear because of the nature of the time, but even there Bond is presented as more forward-thinking (which of course in today's terms means he is slightly less than 'fully horrible').

- M

[GloatingSwine]

It was very well received when it came out, and despite the clever Mel Brooks smacks on it Costner Robin is a much more enduring image than either Elwes Robin or Crowe Robin. So yeah, I'm with Korvin.

Unlike some Robin Hoods I could mention, that one had Alan Rickman.

That's pretty much enough to earn it its place really. Alan Rickman threatening to cut Costner's heart out with a spoon.

[Errorname]

But I don't believe they were...I believe in GRRM's ability to write a successful conclusion to the character that the showrunners couldn't even approach doing. I think all of S7 was trying to be home-run swing payoffs, and almost all swings and misses. I believe that they recognized the huge following Clarke developed and so they turn the MS up to 11. I think even the ending was supposed to be Crowning Moment of Awesome or whatever, and instead it just went full serial psycho.

I think D&D have a pretty skewed morality and portray a lot of stuff as cool and badass that is actually horrific, but when they want you to think something is bad they are not subtle and they are not subtle about Daenerys ending as a mass murdering monster. You don't accidentally have a character burn a bunch of civilians (including children) alive onscreen and suddenly pick up a bunch of villain coding.

It's not like D&D were shy about talking about their thought process. That's part of why everyone hated it so much, all their episodes were always immediately chased by a vidoc where the writers went and said things like "Dany kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet" before people could break out the redemptive readings for why the show wasn't as shallow and bad as it appeared to be. If they'd meant this to be awesome and cool, they'd have said as much, but they said the opposite.

I know wikipedia is an easy target to punch down on...but the opening salvo of "...usually a young woman, who is often portrayed as inexplicably competent across all domains, gifted with unique talents or powers, liked or respected by most other characters, unrealistically free of weaknesses, extremely attractive, innately virtuous, and generally lacking meaningful character flaws..." lands pretty well until you get to the last clause, and even that says "generally".

Just saying the definition again isn't going to make me change my mind about it. It's a fandom in-joke that broke containment, not a useful analytical tool.

I'd also question the "inexplicable competence" and "unrealistically free of weaknesses" parts of this analysis. Daenerys makes quite a lot of mistakes and bad judgement calls. I don't think you're meant to look at the fate of Astapor and think "yeah, that Daenerys is leaving only good things in her wake", and while the show doesn't go nearly as far with showing you some of the consequences of her actions or emphasizing her darker tendencies, they're also clearly trying to make her final turn more of a shock. That's bad writing, but the only reason they presented her as idealized as they did was because they meant to tear her down.

[Mordar]

Just saying the definition again isn't going to make me change my mind about it. It's a fandom in-joke that broke containment, not a useful analytical tool.

I'd also question the "inexplicable competence" and "unrealistically free of weaknesses" parts of this analysis. Daenerys makes quite a lot of mistakes and bad judgement calls. I don't think you're meant to look at the fate of Astapor and think "yeah, that Daenerys is leaving only good things in her wake", and while the show doesn't go nearly as far with showing you some of the consequences of her actions or emphasizing her darker tendencies, they're also clearly trying to make her final turn more of a shock. That's bad writing, but the only reason they presented her as idealized as they did was because they meant to tear her down.

For the record, not trying to change any minds or analyze anything. Just here to have a discussion about my opinion (and others') on an array of junk. If either opinion changes that's besides the point.

As someone else mentioned, she discounts the advice and experience of her best advisors and still succeeds at everything; she magically gets her inexhaustible armies most anywhere she wants; she flies across a continent and finds her nephewlover exactly where she needs to; she endures an unthinkable level of casualties but still wins...so I'd say that suggests some inexplicable competence. Her only weakness that pays off is letting her nephewlover stab her...probably in an attempt to make her tragic. The foolishness, impetuousness, cruelty...none of it stopped her from getting to the throne. So I agree those should be considered weaknesses, but are not depicted as such insofar as reaching her goals.

I do think some of my S7 dislike of the character is driven by the fact that they needed to do the heel turn in about 30 seconds, but IMO they *fully* sold out to make her the hero of the story for the vast majority of their creative control period...and I believe they would have written her bio as "Great Queen who returned dragons to Westeros, freed thousands of slaves and ended governments built on such practices, uprooted a horrible and oppressive regime lead by a terrible incestuous Queen (but not her, a different one), then tragically died at the hands of a heroic relative before she could bring peace to Westeros but shortly after she par-broiled, crushed or otherwise murdered thousands of innocent peasants including wee little children in a fit of despotic rage."

Not that Jon Snow is much better, by the way.

- M

[Peelee]

Oh, that reminds me.


I'm defo in the minority on not caring for Daniel Craig's Bond. Both the way he plays him and the movie plots and styles.

[Mechalich]

But I don't believe they were...I believe in GRRM's ability to write a successful conclusion to the character that the showrunners couldn't even approach doing.

I find this a strange belief, given that GRR Martin has not made significant progress on ASOIAF in over a decade and is 75 years old. The chances of him writing any conclusion whatsoever to the series are minimal. As for a satisfying conclusion, the series, left where it was at the conclusion of book five, was written into a massive hole, and the effort to get things out of that status and produce any ending other than 'ice zombies, everyone dies' would be positively herculean.

The final two seasons of GoT had a plethora of serious writing problems. Some of those were sourced directly to the showrunners, both in their general sloppiness and in their very clear desire to cut the remaining length of the show down below what it clearly needed to be to handle the remaining plot threads, but some of them were sourced to the very real fact that Martin left the show holding the bag.

I'm defo in the minority on not caring for Daniel Craig's Bond. Both the way he plays him and the movie plots and styles.

I think Casino Royale is great, but it's a one-off, and attempting to make sequels to it left that movie as an anchor around all subsequent Craig Bond films, dragging it down into this gritty and not-fun place where Bond doesn't belong.

[Mordar]

I find this a strange belief, given that GRR Martin has not made significant progress on ASOIAF in over a decade and is 75 years old. The chances of him writing any conclusion whatsoever to the series are minimal. As for a satisfying conclusion, the series, left where it was at the conclusion of book five, was written into a massive hole, and the effort to get things out of that status and produce any ending other than 'ice zombies, everyone dies' would be positively herculean.

The final two seasons of GoT had a plethora of serious writing problems. Some of those were sourced directly to the showrunners, both in their general sloppiness and in their very clear desire to cut the remaining length of the show down below what it clearly needed to be to handle the remaining plot threads, but some of them were sourced to the very real fact that Martin left the show holding the bag.

Fair point. I would clarify to say "I believe in he has the technical and artistic expertise to write a successful conclusion to this character, even if I have doubts if it will occur."

I think Casino Royale is great, but it's a one-off, and attempting to make sequels to it left that movie as an anchor around all subsequent Craig Bond films, dragging it down into this gritty and not-fun place where Bond doesn't belong.

Tonally I think that matches *much* more strongly with the books, though. Stunningly few gadgets, lots of post-war morality, very reluctant to even consider killing in anything other than a fair fight...BookBond is radically different from Connery, and orders of magnitude different than Moore/Dalton/Brosnan. Probably why I liked the books after the recent reading and could mostly take or leave the movies (except for the tank chase scene...whichever movie started with that got points from me).

- M

[Errorname]

As someone else mentioned, she discounts the advice and experience of her best advisors and still succeeds at everything; she magically gets her inexhaustible armies most anywhere she wants; she flies across a continent and finds her nephewlover exactly where she needs to; she endures an unthinkable level of casualties but still wins...so I'd say that suggests some inexplicable competence.

Having dumb plans, teleporting and having respawning armies is describing basically every character by the end of the show. The writers aren't giving her special treatment, the show just sucks generally.

There's no sense of strategy or logistics or attrition, people just win or lose depending on what the writers need to happen. There's two battles in Season 8 where the same parties (Daenerys and the Iron Fleet) fight, and Daenerys gets absolutely annihilated in one episode and then effortlessly wins in the next with no clear indication as to why.

Her only weakness that pays off is letting her nephewlover stab her...probably in an attempt to make her tragic. The foolishness, impetuousness, cruelty...none of it stopped her from getting to the throne. So I agree those should be considered weaknesses, but are not depicted as such insofar as reaching her goals

Considering that she gets stabbed for her foolish cruelty before she can sit the throne it literally does.

I do think some of my S7 dislike of the character is driven by the fact that they needed to do the heel turn in about 30 seconds, but IMO they *fully* sold out to make her the hero of the story for the vast majority of their creative control period...and I believe they would have written her bio as "Great Queen who returned dragons to Westeros, freed thousands of slaves and ended governments built on such practices, uprooted a horrible and oppressive regime lead by a terrible incestuous Queen (but not her, a different one), then tragically died at the hands of a heroic relative before she could bring peace to Westeros but shortly after she par-broiled, crushed or otherwise murdered thousands of innocent peasants including wee little children in a fit of despotic rage."

I can see why you'd think that prior to "The Bells" she wasn't being written as a villain and they were trying to make her seem like a good person, because in a lot of ways they were, but D&D's end state was always "oops, she's evil and the people who thought she was good were fools".

[GloatingSwine]

I can see why you'd think that prior to "The Bells" she wasn't being written as a villain and they were trying to make her seem like a good person, because in a lot of ways they were, but D&D's end state was always "oops, she's evil and the people who thought she was good were fools".

The problem with the thesis "Daenerys was just bad, actually", is that you can't really make it carry its weight unless you completely ignore everything about the culture she came from and the events of her life. She comes from a culture where the bloodline right to rule is totally ingrained, she has been handed from pillar to post between a succession of terrible people (cartoonishly so, in the case of the Dothraki, who are absolutely nothing like the historical nomad cultures GRRM says they're based on and a hell of a lot like rampaging Indians in the less progressive kind of Western movie. What else was going to happen except returning to secure her rule with force.

You have to, essentially, fully buy into the Great Man Theory, where events are driven by Great Men who aren't at all a product of their upbringing, culture, and the socioeconomic tides of their times.

Augustus couldn't have been Augustus without the last ~200 years of the Roman Republic happening first.

I'm pretty sure that GRRM's original intent ~30 years ago was to point out that a "true heir" coming back to take over (as is common not only in fantasy but also folk tales and romantic fiction of days past) is more likely to end in tears than cheers. But frankly I think Terry Pratchett beat him to that one in Guards! Guards! and arguably Frank Herbert beat him to it with Dune Messiah.

The specific criticism of the way it played out in the series was that there's also no internal logic to why she decides to go full Mad Queen. There's no clear answer to why Daenerys thought it was a good idea in that moment to burn a lot of **** down. And that's what you need to even approach what they were going for. A cohesive internal world that shows why the character does what they do, rather than just "plot needs this to happen so everyone can point and say "Dragon Lady Bad".

[Mechalich]

The specific criticism of the way it played out in the series was that there's also no internal logic to why she decides to go full Mad Queen. There's no clear answer to why Daenerys thought it was a good idea in that moment to burn a lot of **** down. And that's what you need to even approach what they were going for. A cohesive internal world that shows why the character does what they do, rather than just "plot needs this to happen so everyone can point and say "Dragon Lady Bad".

Based on what we know from the books, the most likely reason she goes down the Mad Queen path is that Young Griff 'steals' the throne out from under her by virtue of arriving in Westeros first and immediately on the heels of Cersei and Varys ruining basically everything in King's Landing. The show left out the Young Griff plot, which is an understandable choice, but that left a huge hole in the story. The showrunners, who clearly were overly enamored of Lena Headey's portrayal of Cersei - and it was a very, very good portrayal - simply left Cersei on the throne long after it made any sense for that to be the case, which turned everything that happened following Dany's return to Westeros a theater of the absurd.

I can imagine a sequence of events in the books going something like:
- Cersei blows up the Sept.
- Young Griff sweeps up from the south and takes King's Landing with almost casual ease, as the guards open the gates for him and Cersei is brutally executed.
- Young Griff is supposed to marry Dany as part of the plan, but this probably goes awry and he marries someone else, possible Myrcella Lannister (who's alive in the books), perhaps even Sansa.
- Consequently, when Dany finally does make it to Westeros, there's a married Targaryean on the throne who is not her, leaving her without a place, but wielding the power of at least one dragon and a massive army. That would be why she burns down the city (though I suspect Martin would just have her open the gates with dragonfire and let the Dothraki sack the city) and goes Mad Queen.

This set of events would force Jon Snow, facing the White Walker invasion, to ally with the Mad Queen to save the world, which is a very GRR Martin thing to make happen.

[GloatingSwine]

Yeah, but that's just conquest as usual. In the sociocultural environment of Westeros having a bigger army than the other guy and being on the right bloodline is the normal way you get to be in charge.

It doesn't really make any special point about the right to or nature of power that I think Martin is actually going for in the books based on things he's said both in and out of them, the idea of power as the shadow on the wall not a "real" thing. A pack of dragons and massive army that will do everything you say is a pretty "real" form of power. (I also think he's got a bit too much Great Man in his ideas when he talks about that though).

[Metastachydium]

I don't think "last of their kind with special magic powers" is unique to fanfiction. Notably you're describing Superman and Last Airbender, and as I recall both of those are quite popular. Daenerys being the heir to a wiped out royal family is also not at all unusual for a fantasy story, nor is her obtaining some unique magical weapon that turns things in her favour.

Nor is it unusual to have attractive characters. Or characters with weird eye colour. You can pick some individual elements out of the package and pretend the package is not there, but the package won't just disappear then an there.

The one thing I would agree with is that a lot of Daenerys's supporting cast is thinly sketched. That is fair, but I think "they're strawmen who exist to oppose or salivate after Daenerys" is a misdiagnosis, it comes down to fundamental issues with how Martin approaches Essos in general rather than specifically a Daenerys problem. Notably I think you start seeing the same problems when ADWD brings other PoVs to Essos, Tyrion and Quentyn meet a few standouts but a lot of the Essosi are thinly characterized and not memorable, and it does make Daenerys's chapters harder for me than her closest counterpart, Jon, who has a much more robust supporting cast.

Hrm. I don't remember Tyrion or Quentyn suddenly developing would-be-harems or getting forcibly validated at every turn just because they set foot in Essos.

The endgame turn that they were obviously writing the character around is something that's pretty important to include in your analysis, I feel.

As for the endgame: I'm just too lazy too quote the whole conversation, but especially for the series, it was a logical, if rushed (and poorly executed) conclusion (and even then, made infinitely more sense than a whole lot of things in the last two seasons, the baffling decision of the showrunners to try and set Cersei up as the Final Boss, as mentioned above by others, and the whole Great Council/epilogue insanity being massive outliers there, but I could also bring up killing off or lobotomizing every character too smart for the two D.-s to properly handle in S7, which makes me probably hate S7 more than S8 overall). Series!Daenerys always worked on a "give an absurd order to underlings; chide them for failing when they fail; use excessive amounts of violence; ? ; somehow actually profit" basis. And the anemic attempts to paint the whole deal as more nuanced (dragons are hard to control and are killing civilians! Slaves beat up older slaves and steal their toys! The old regime won't just roll over and die overnight because she told them too!) are invariably dropped without consequence long before we get into the idiocy that was the final two seasons.

[Gnoman]

If this was 8 months ago and someone said what I said I would have been right there next to you. The books are actually much better in quality and in perspective. Bond is far from infallible, needs rescuing on several instances, including by female characters, is forthright about his weaknesses, and is in general a much better person than that represented by any of the actors I've seen, perhaps not including Craig. The other "-ist" is less clear because of the nature of the time, but even there Bond is presented as more forward-thinking (which of course in today's terms means he is slightly less than 'fully horrible').

- M

This is complicated because a lot of the character traits that actually make Book-Bond much less vile than his reputation are coded. A surface read won't see them. A departed friend of mine did a really deep dive on the entire franchise over on Something Awful that adds an enormous amount of context, but without that it can be rough to see.

Ian Fleming, on the other hand, comes across a lot better just by reading the books, because Bond does a lot of blundering into obvious traps before being rescued by the girl of the book.