#a last-year plot but the writers' room apparently feel it needs to be revisited

[isfjmel-phleg]

It was wonderful to see my family this week but what a relief to be home.

[crazy-loca-blog]

Personal thoughts on Open Heart, Book 2, Chapter 13 (with some glimpses to previous chapters)

Note: As the title says, these are just personal opinions on Choices books and chapters. Of course, you may agree or disagree with them, I only use this platform to express my thoughts on what I read every week and what I’d like to see in the next chapters, because none of my friends play Choices so I have no one to comment the books with.

I’m really sorry because this post ended up being super long, but there is so much I need to write about Open Heart after those incredible chapters that PB has been delivering in the last few weeks that I had to stop for a moment and revisit all that has happened as well as some of my ideas about what might happen in future chapters (this is not intended to be an OH blog but seriously guys, this is the only book that gives me those “I need to write about this” vibes at the moment).

I know some people are quite disappointed for how things developed in Chapter 13… BUT… I think this chapter is actually kind of a “bridge” (just like in the songs) to introduce new plots, so I’d definitely tell you not to get desperate. One of the things that this series has taught me over time is that everything has a reason to be. Except for the cases we solve (that tend to change every chapter), the rest of the plot has its own slow pace and development, so as I’ve said before, with a third book already confirmed and in the works, there is no need to hurry things, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the conflicts are not fully solved by the end of Book 2.

For me, it was always very obvious that the huge amount of unsolved subplots in this book would have their breaking point at the same time at some point of the story. Now I’m guessing that the senator incident was just the tip of the iceberg and that there’s so much more that we still haven’t seen… so I can’t think of a more appropriate title to Chapter 13, because yes, it was a “time bomb”… and I also think this is far from over, so I’m expecting Chapter 14 to kind of follow the same path.

So right when we were waiting for our MC to show some evident PTSD signs after what happened in Chapters 10, 11 and 12, PB throws us Chapter 13 and everything that had been accumulating for a long time already and seemed to have no special meaning for the plot, exploded, which actually scares me because it seems no one is mentally capable to help the rest of the gang at the moment. So while PB dares to give these people a break, let’s try to organize this “mess” and see how I think things will go with our friends:

Aurora Emery: Everything seems to be fine with Aurora now, and that might explain why we didn’t see her in Chapter 13. But sadly, I have a bad feeling. One of the reasons why she left Edenbrook and went to Mass Kenmore was because Tobias apparently didn’t know who she was. But now that we know that June has been sleeping with Tobias for who knows how long… did he really NOT know who Aurora was when we met him at that diner? Bryce Lahela: Another character who seemed to have disappeared this week is the hottest scalpel jockey in town. Do you really think PB forgot about him? Because I’m seriously expecting his parents to arrive in Boston just to try to take Keiki back home with them (maybe during Chapter 14?). If this happens, I can already tell it will be super heartbreaking, because I don’t know if she can actually emancipate from her parents or to stay with Bryce as her legal guardian. The Lahela siblings simply don’t deserve this.

Kyra Santana: Kyra is the first of the characters who seems to have her issues solved, so I’d say she’d finally made it safe to Book 3 (unless something truly unexpected happens). We know that she is getting better (I love you Bryce!) and I can’t wait to see her become the rock of this gang. The girl has already gone through A LOT, and she is enjoying her second chance in life, so there’s plenty of advice that our gang could take from her to deal with difficult times. I’m so waiting for her character to become a central part of the healing process!

Rafael Aveiro: I think the writers are still trying to figure out how to reincorporate Raf to the story, so it’s very predictable to say that we won’t see him soon. However, I don’t know if you guys realize how HUGE this character has become after the incidents in previous chapters, especially when it comes to the relationship with the MC. No matter if you’re romancing him or not, from now on, NO ONE in this series will understand the MC as Raf does and vice versa. And I can’t wait to see how PB exploits this new and unique bound between them!

Elijah Green: Elijah is another character who seem to have solved his main issue in this book (keeping boundaries with Sothy), but it surprised me how affected he was at Danny’s funeral. I’m also expecting to know what happened with Phoebe, as we haven’t seen her in this book… where is she? What happened with that relationship? Anyway, I think it’s safe to say that Elijah has also made it to Book 3.

Sienna Trinh: Finally our BFF had the guts to stand up to Mitch. In the process, we discovered that the guy was a problem not only for Sienna, but also for the nurses and other professionals, given all the support she received. However, I’m still super worried about our dolphin partner. Even though she tries to hide how she truly feels about things, we all know she sucks at it. Danny was her LI and I can’t believe she isn’t a mess now. I think it’s the right moment for her to have a heart to heart conversation with the MC.

Jackie Varma: My feelings towards Jackie are weird. I wasn’t a fan of her “tough love” in Book 1… and I LOVE HER in Book 2 (I think she actually has the best and most underrated character development in this series so far)… but right now I want to punch her… seriously! What the hell are you thinking, girl? I don’t understand a thing of what she did in Chapter 13, but I’m pretty convinced that the presentation was fake, the Gary excuse was fake, but the money that she’s receiving from Panacea is very real. Also, who was this woman that left her so confused? She’ll have lots of explaining to do in future chapters.

Ethan Ramsey: I honestly didn’t see that coming… it was shocking, painful and heartbreaking, and I think not even Ethan knew how huge everything was until he saw his mother dying at the hospital. Now I have so many questions! Was she looking for him because she wanted help to treat her addictions? Was she looking for money to get more drugs? Did his father know about this? Was she already an addict before leaving Alan and Ethan 25 years ago, and Ethan didn’t know about it or did he block that memory of his mind? This is going to be intense, to say the least, and I think this might be some subplot that will be dragged to Book 3.

Farley: Who would have thought a few weeks ago that I would be adding the landlord to this post? Probably no one. But there is something about him that doesn’t add up. His behavior has changed A LOT, all of a sudden, and you can see he has the word “guilt” written all over his face. I personally can’t stop thinking he’s the one who sold the canister to Travis. If we go back a few chapters, Travis said that when he bought that thing he only received an account number. But the person who sold him the canister and received the money probably did see who was paying for it. He was also too reluctant to answer Jackie and the MC’s questions before being admitted… I don’t know guys, despite his case was solved quite fast (I laughed so freaking hard when Ethan said he was a PITA!) I don’t trust him at all.

Esme Ortega: We all were waiting for a chapter focused in our intern… but I don’t think we expected it to go this way. I know a lot of people are talking about an assisted suicide case, but I think there is more than meets the eye. Esme is probably the best intern this year, so I can’t imagine her making the mistake of not adjusting the dose, as well as I can’t imagine her not knowing that assisted suicide is illegal in Massachusetts. You may also think that her emotions and how she felt about Levi blurred her rational thinking, but I’m in denial. There is just something that doesn’t add up here. She doesn’t even seem to remember giving him the wrong dose. Then what went wrong? Will we have to face another trial, this time from the mentor side?

Declan Nash: Another character that I didn’t expect to write about in a post. I’m still disappointed because I would have loved to see Declan in that room instead of Bobby, Danny or Rafael. But now I can see that Esme’s case may help us to finally get rid of this guy (let’s be honest, he hasn’t been a big contribution to the development of the plot in Book 2 so he wouldn’t be missed). I don’t think he just appeared by chance in this chapter. We already know that Panacea trials weren’t working on Levi, so even though he apparently died because of Esme’s mistake, I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up discovering something HUGE about irregularities in the trial processes led by Declan, especially because I can’t remember seeing an informed consent where a patient with a severe adverse event (in this case, a severe kidney damage) caused by a study is allowed to participate in a new similar study (I might be wrong though).

Our MC: Of course I had to include our MC here. There’s so much to be explored about “Casey Valentine” that it would take a full post to analyze their past, their present and their future. But I think one of the biggest lessons that Chapter 13 left them was that life continues and people move on. Our MC is stuck on what happened and they’re making their biggest effort to keep going, but I don’t know how much they’ll be able to handle without collapsing. All of our gang is grieving Danny and Bobby, and at the same time they’re dealing with their own personal issues… and I can bet our MC will reach their breaking point when they realize they can’t do anything to help their friends because “Casey” has reached a point where they can’t even help themselves.

[jaimetheexplorer]

Oh, let’s go back to the start

WARNING: negative review ahead! 

Game of Thrones is over, and it’s never coming back.

I think many viewers all over the world thought that once this day came, they would wish they could do it all over again because boy, what a great journey it was. Or they would be eager to rewatch the whole show and look out for all the little clues they missed and revisit characters and storylines they might not have previously paid attention to.

Instead, most of us are left with a bitter taste in our mouth, and many of us are left wondering why we even bothered investing our time and emotional energy (not to mention money) in the first place. This is because the final season of Game of Thrones did not make fans wish they could go back to the start and do it all again, but, rather, took many of the plots and characters people knew and loved back to their start, at best, if not to an even worse place.

Game of Thrones changed television as we know it, but this has never been a flawless show. Plot holes and questionable adaptations had been criticized for many years. Book readers in particular have been very vocal about the quality (or lack thereof) of the show’s writing. Yet I feel people kept coming back to see how it all would end, because, surely, the endgame would still be worth the investment. 

Season 8 then came. Much criticism can be raised to the first half of season 8 for having wrapped up the Night King/fantasy storyline too quickly and with almost nothing in the way of explanation. While I understood and shared some of that grievance, I also thought that it was perhaps not that overwhelmingly disappointing, and that it could make some sense from a narrative and logistic perspective. Little did I know, however, as the credits rolled on the third episode of the season, that that instalment was symptomatic of a much more dangerous problem that was just around the corner, which would butcher most of what people loved about this story that had been built up so slowly across years (i.e. its characters), at lightning speed, in the remaining episodes.

From a character perspective, at least the deaths in the battle of Winterfell were mostly well earned and actually wrapped up their characters’ arcs in a meaningful way. Jorah died protecting his Khaleesi. Theon died protecting the home he helped destroy, fulfilling his redemption. Lyanna died taking down a giant. Melisandre died after having fulfilled her purpose. Edd died to protect one of his best friends. Beric died to protect Arya so she could save humanity. While Jon and Dany were not the saviours of mankind, like everyone expected them to be, they were still instrumental in helping humans to victory; Jon having done all the work to bring together almost the entire continent to fight the threat and Dany providing valuable help with her dragons and armies. Underwhelming, perhaps, but it didn’t damage any character. 

I never expected things to go smoothly afterwards. I enjoyed the political tensions between Jon, Dany and Sansa and was looking forward to seeing Dany become greyer as she struggled in a different continent and with competition. I knew Jaime was going to be in King’s Landing again at some point, to wrap up his storyline, and wouldn’t just shack up in bliss with Brienne for the entire rest of the season. I knew beloved characters would probably die (even though I had hopes for several, not just mine). But I did not expect that, from episode 4, the story would begin spiralling into a cruel, sadistic and nihilistic mess that would continue until the very end and spare almost no character that wasn’t named Stark. Nearly all the evolution, all the progress, all the journeys that people kept coming back for, year after year, were invalidated in the span of three episodes, bringing them back to square one, if not worse.

Jon, assassinating his aunt/lover, broken by the fight and taking a black for which we don’t even understand the need for anymore. Dany, her long journey to Westeros ending with being murdered by her nephew/lover for having gone from grey to Mad Queen in the space of two episodes. Jaime, apparently accepting that all these years have only taught him that his true self is a hateful man, obsessed only with his sister to the point of destroying anything that is good, pure and innocent and does not deserve to be caught up in their mess. Brienne, essentially ends up right back where she started, serving in a celibate order after learning that love is not not meant to last for women like her and failing to prevent the death of the man she loved (and having to write her rejection down, to add insult to injury). Cersei, trying to pass off Jaime’s child as someone else’s, her prophecy discarded completely and facing no comeuppance for her actions. Missandei, freed from chains to end up executed in chains. Sandor, dying in the fire that traumatized him his entire life. And even the ones who did not face bitter endings did not move much from where they either started or had been for a long time: Tyrion (who lost much of his charm and intelligence this season just to watch the world burn around him) and Davos ended up in the same sort of advisory position they were in all along. 

The ending was advertised as a bittersweet, Lord of the Rings type ending, but there was a lot more bitterness than there was sweetness in this. Especially when it comes to romance. Rarely is life so cruel to couples, and the only sweetness was reserved for Sam and Gilly, who everyone knew had been safe for years and who, let’s face it, never elicited particularly strong emotional investment from anybody to qualify as a payoff. 

Sansa came out perhaps the strongest in the end, which is well deserved. But this was not just the Sansa story. There were a dozen other plots and characters people cared about, and they almost all were served a fate that made you feel like there had been no point in their journeys all along. And for a show that wanted to subvert expectations (!!!1!1!), it ended ticking the most predictable boxes in terms of characters fates: all the bad guys are dead (and the one “good guy” that died broke bad in order to justify her assassination), all the redemptive characters are dead too, and only the good guys are left.

So here we are, at the end of the biggest show of all time, with an ending that retroactively ruined most of what made it so big in the first place and left little room for excitement, if any. 

The sad thing is that all of this was easily avoidable. When people say that delivering an ending that satisfies everyone is impossible, that is very true, especially for a show with such high expectations. But delivering an ending that disappoints nearly everyone, is actually equally as hard, if not harder, and yet... they managed to achieve it. 

Finishing a story is never easy, but I think the important thing to keep in mind is that what makes people stick with a series is the journey they are taken on (especially when they are asked to invest years of their lives into a story). If the journey starts to suck, that’s when you lose numbers. So if you have a good enough journey, with all the ups and downs and angst and drama you like, which makes people stick with it for years, you’ve accomplished 90% of the task. The ending is just the icing on the cake and it needs to provide a payoff that is consistent with that journey and does not make the audience feel like they never want to eat what’s underneath that icing ever again. 

This does not mean handing out fanservice left and right. But there’s a difference between succumbing to fanservice and destroying literally everything that made people come back for more and that the story had been building up towards. There’s a difference between fanservice and delivering an ending that is unpredictable not because it emerged from a subtle thread woven within the story that was always present if only people paid attention, but because it came out of nowhere and/or had little to no buildup within the story, and/or went in the completely opposite direction to where the buildup was pointing towards. 

I see some complaints about the criticism this season is receiving saying people are too emotional about it and therefore not being objective. And yes! Of course people get emotional about stories! What kind of writer doesn’t want people to become emotionally invested in their story, and just see it as a giant, sterile, plot-driven spectacle? This is why humans are attracted to stories in the first place! And this is particularly true of a story like ASOIAF which is entirely built upon the concept of character perspective. This is why, while slow, the first two episodes were still highly rated: they were character-driven. This is why, despite The Long Night being criticized for an underwhelming conclusion to the WWs storyline, it was not even remotely near the huge dealbreaker the last three episodes were for the audience. That is because The Long Night disappointed in wrapping up the plot, while the rest of the season crashed the characters. I feel like D&D’s never really understood how crucial character-driven perspective was (they didn’t even remember Sam was a major POV character!) and so wrote the show as a sterile, shocking, plot-driven spectacle that eventually made people sick due to the total lack of care with which the characters they know and love were handled. 

And let’s stop pretend that misery and nihilism at all costs is “adult storytelling” while hope and a sense of fulfilment is for children. Adults need hope too, perhaps more than children, because we know just how tough life can be, whereas children often don’t. Dramas can be great tools to show how people face and overcome tragedies and conflict, find the silver linings and some comfort in the chaos, even if things ultimately don’t end the way they expected they would at the start. All Game of Thrones has shown us, in the end, is how people fail and how little changes. No matter how hard the journey, no matter the effort, no matter the loss, most of these beloved characters might as well never have set off on their journeys at all, given the results. 

While this kind of storytelling can work and be compelling for a single season, or a single book, or a single movie, once you ask people to invest years of their lives, you will never land the ending with this last minute, bait-and-switch approach. 

So who wants go back to the start, now, and rewatch the story of these characters once again, knowing most of them end back to square one? Who thinks that it was worth the journey, if we end up exactly where we started? I certainly don’t. 

[gotgifsandmusings]

Quick asks roundup

I’m going out of town this afternoon for labor dabor, and probably won’t be around much during the weekend. Thought I’d answer a few asks below--just a grab bag, with a vague focus on S7. Should be able to do a video one of these next week, and Julia and I are eyeing a UBS podcast episode pretty soon too.

Anonymous said to gotgifsandmusings: Have you read David Benioff's book City of Thieves? I'm curious how it compares to GoT.

I haven’t, no. I’m not sure if that’s something I want to subject myself to (it has been mostly positively received from what I know, though not across the board) when there’s so much I’ve been putting off reading as it is.

Anonymous said to gotgifsandmusings: Is cerseï pregananant in the boox?

She’s actually gregnant.

Anonymous said to gotgifsandmusings: Just read your criticism about Fair Game and wholeheartedly agree. You touched on the core of why your (and Julia's and Caroline's and Jess' and Turtle's) GoT analysis are so great: they understand the intersection of narrative flaws and social issues. Sure, some people may complain that they don't want "SJW" stuff, except, y'know, you don't stop being a feminist when you write a review. As you say, media is not produced in a cultural vacuum. Sadly, I admit I feel reluctant to...... Actively criticize GoT with people around me because the ones who dislike it also dislike ASOIAF and fantasy/sci-fi ("The show is bad because GRRM is a bad writer who isn't really character-driven, but it's not surprising since genre stuff is awful"). That sucks :(

Yes, exactly! This is in reference to this piece by myself and Julia, btw. That’s really depressing about that perception of genre fic, especially given what Martin does being so unique. I’ve never particularly understood that attitude; I want to read about cool places and stuff happening as much as I want to read about weighty character journeys, and why scoff at any that pull off both? Though Julia has a piece on that too. 

But absolutely, as we said, it’s asinine to ignore the ways culture shapes media and vice versa, and often the reason the writing is so poor is because it’s so sensationalist or reliant on shitty tropes and stereotypes. “Just enjoy it (or critique) without focusing on social issues” is the ultimate sign of privilege, and it drives me crazy because it’s tossed out as an appeal to “objectivity.” IF YOU’RE IGNORING PEOPLE’S EXPERIENCES YOU’RE ALREADY NOT BEING OBJECTIVE.

Anonymous said to gotgifsandmusings: I'm curious why you guys interpret Cersei's internalized misogyny as nothing to do with gender dysphoria. All because Cersei doesn't break down during her period doesn't mean you must read her as cisgendered. She treats femininity like her least-favorite subject in school, not like part of herself. You're welcome to read her story as about women internalizing misogyny, but her thoughts feel familiarly trans, and outright denying that reading closer-to-earths her

This is really interesting, and my assumption would definitely a result of my own distance with that experience. Are there any metas on it? I haven’t really considered this before (I’ve seen the case argued for Brienne), and I’m not very convinced Martin had much intentionality here, but that’s a reading of her character I’d definitely like to learn/think more about.

Anonymous said to gotgifsandmusings: How can Euron "Crow's Eye, Terror of Pentos" Greyjoy come across as such a wimpy villain that I'm missing Ramsay? Hell, effing Joffrey could have torn that cuddly pooh bear a new one.

But...he’s the storm. You weren’t quaking in your boots when his fleet armada magically descended on Yara’s?

Anonymous said to gotgifsandmusings: I haven't seen anyone else comment on this, but did you notice Cheryl says "You expect me to command our troops to fight beside foreign scum?" almost immediately before telling Jaime she's bringing the foreign Golden Company from Essos to fight beside their troops? Do you think the writers ever make it to second drafts or do they just knock out the first on the back of a Hooters napkin over Natty Ices and fist bumps and say, nah, we're good bro?

A showpologist would tell you it’s clearly demonstrating what a horrible hypocrite she is and actually rather cutting commentary.

It’s really, really hard for me to imagine a world where Operation Capture a Wight received a look-over. A whole lot of what they do feels thoroughly unedited.

Anonymous said to gotgifsandmusings: Hey, I really appreciate all your GoT analysis. 1) Is Cheryl's assistant actually Ezri Dax? 2) Did you see Linda's episode review where she called D&D "smug idiots?" 3) Is it possible to enjoy GoT as schlock? I can't and don't, but It is certainly bad enough and dumb enough. Thanks!

Thank you :)

1) According to wikipedia, Ezri Dax’s actor is currently starring in “Corrupt aka Trust No One” and “Where’s my Baby”, but I’m glad you made me look her up, because the resemblance there is quite uncanny. The maid is played by Sara Dylan, and has actually been a consistent, recurring character since Season 2. Apparently her name is “Bernadette” because why not.

2) Was it her newest review? I do listen to those in the background of work when I’m doing spreadsheet kind of stuff, so I may not have caught that exact phrase, but I did hear the part where she basically said “just don’t even bother writing a plot. Only write battles because everything else is terrible.”

3) I mean, the people enjoying GoT are watching schlock, so it must be possible. I happen to think the ardent defenders/honeypotters aren’t the majority, and most people turn it on to watch dragons for 60 minutes, then talk about how cool the dragons looked the next day at work. It’s just that GoT comes with a stamp of “SMART ADULT SHOW” for reasons that will never cease to amaze me. So yeah, totally, but for me, I have a hard time enjoying something when the more you think about it, the worse it gets.

Anonymous said to gotgifsandmusings: I would bet my right hand that someone in the GoT writers' room probably rewatched season 1 which is why there's so many callbacks to it like Arya's "that's not you", Dany's infertility, Bran's "I told you not to trust me", etc etc. Like it just seems so obvious that they realized they ran out of content and decided to just revisit past seasons to make themselves seem smart and like they planned ahead so much.

Oh 100%. Season 1 was this year’s Lord of the Rings, which they had obviously binged before last year. I love it because then all the critics are like, “ohh my god it’s so well-planned and deep.” But no. It’s essentially grinning into the camera going “remember when?”, completely on par with Gendry’s boat joke.

Anonymous said to gotgifsandmusings: The writers gave up 3 seasons ago, but it feels like no one was really trying this year. The cast looked bored. The wigs were trash: Dany's fire-proof wig is also boatsex-proof and freezing wind-proof. The costumes were either too anachronistic for a so-called prestiege Medievalesque Drama or straight up uninspired: Cersei's modern office wear, Dany and LF are shopping at the same department store, Lyanna S dressed up for a college roman-themed party. I guess the special effects were ok.

I’m very, very hesitant to call out costuming because I know Michele Clapton is like, making up these immaculate honeypots and ordering the finest fabrics from Lithuania to pull everything together. But...yeah, as a viewer everything was kind of clearly ridiculous (Euron’s jacket), and EVERYTHING WAS BLACK with the exception of Deadpan’s coat, that was, I’m sorry, objectively hideous. The reason people fawned over it was because it was actually contrasting the blah they had been seeing all season.

As for the cast, I mean...I think these guys are decent actors who get into their roles when they can. But who could get into anything happening at this point? Stuff happens, don’t question it. The directing was probably fine (I don’t know enough about that stuff), but when the script is fundamentally lazy and uninspired, it’s going to bleed into everything.

Anonymous said to gotgifsandmusings: (Regarding episode 7) So the only leak that didn't come true was "Cersei's" bed of blood prediction and I'm wondering if she'll miscarry next season because morally evil incest women like Cheryl don't deserve babies while morally good (with the help of our friendzoned Saint T🙏) incest women like Deadpan get to conquer infertility and birth a Targ with the help of Jonny Cardboard's magic seed. That would be one boring Aegon 2(3?) infant. Thoughts?

Honestly, I can’t make heads or tails of why she was even pregnant. Larry didn’t need that to stay on her side at all, and the only thing I can think was that it added an extra TWIST for us. Haha, viewer! You thought she might have actually wanted to fight the threat because of her unborn kid and how many times we’ve told you her only redeeming quality is her motherhood, but now she’s EVHUL and even idealized motherhood can’t save her!

I guess it’s...kind of trope busting?

I kind of agree though, I don’t see them letting a BAD woman give birth and mother. At the same time, I don’t see how enough time can even pass where this would be a relevant plot-point to anything. So...I just, I don’t get it. I’ve gotta figure out how to structure my sexism & s7 analysis, and going back and revisiting Cheryl is probably going to be one of the most confused parts of it. I see many paths for how this unfolds, and none of them are really too promising.

Alrighty, gotta cut it here for today. Everyone have a safe labor day weekend (I guess there’s no heightened risk for non-Americans, but a safe weekend all the same), and I’ll talk to you guys later!