#take the scene where jon snow and dany meet for example

[lemonhemlock]

Thoughts on dany

I just gave my thoughts on Dany, anon. :)) I don't much like hypocritical characters when they're presenting themselves as Morally Righteous and positioning themselves on the moral high ground. Most people have a degree of hypocrisy in them, but IMO Dany just takes the cake in a way I find personally annoying. What contributes to my irritation is when characters like this receive hero-framing and are not called out by the text for the bullshit they pull - hence why I have a similar problem with Rhaenyra.

Dany's framing is less heroic in the book - that's the biased narrator at play - but in the show they did this weird thing where she'd say mad shit about everyone dying awful deaths for daring to oppose her, yet it was filmed like a badass Marvel movie scene. Which is why a lot of people got the wrong impression and now we're saddled with Targnation.

[raya-rhaenyra-ahsoka]

Why Daenerys Should've Stayed Longer in the North Than Attack Cersei Too Soon (Which is a dick move, really) PART 1

I have said this before and I will say it again, D&D f*cked up Season 8. Honestly, there were a lot of missed opportunities with regards to plotlines. And don't even get me started on why they boycotted the Reeds, that's another story.

Also, we're gonna be talking about the possible strategies against an invasion army that has actual people in it, not ice zombies with super-speed and pyrophobia. We're way past that. The stabbiest of the Starks had already defeated Ice Darth Maul, so let's move on.

Anyway, I still think that Dany should've stayed in the North. Not permanently though, just until she has enough allies and armies to scare the living daylights out of Cersei's ass. And here's why:

WINTERFELL IS IN A STRATEGIC LOCATION.

Defense. In Max Brooks' The Zombie Survival Guide, Winterfell falls under the fortress category under the types of defense. Technically, it's a castle rather than a fortress. It is an impregnable structure with all the facilities to supply probably the whole population of the North. It has a greenhouse to grow food, which is appropriate for Westeros' long winters. According to Ned Stark, the castle can withstand a siege with only 500 men manning it against an army of 10,000. Plus, Dany's remaining dragons could easily barbecue an invading army what she did with the Lannister army in the Reach after defeating the Tyrells and taking Highgarden.

Here's a map of the North for reference: (You can pretty much see where Winterfell is, right?)

Source: awoiaf.westeros.org

Terrain. Winterfell is easily accessible since its location is in the heart of the North both literally and figuratively. It has its advantages as well. The North is the largest of Westeros' 7 Kingdoms. It is vast (it takes weeks to travel from the Neck to Winterfell, wtf?!). With regards to Sun Tzu's Art of War, Winterfell's strategic location can easily spot an approaching enemy, and if they come unprepared, its forces can easily defeat them. Thus, a Southron army wouldn't know how to navigate the lands they're not familiar with (let alone get into the North itself and past its defenses, but that'll be discussed later). Let's take into account Stannis Baratheon's failed siege on Winterfell, and how easily Ramsay Bolton's army defeated them down to the last man.

Climate. The North, in general, has a cold and temperate climate. They even get snowfalls in the summer. A Southron army wouldn't be accustomed to its climate, let alone the dangers of the wolves that roam the kingdom. Plus, if they run out of supplies, like food, there aren't many crops because most of its lands are barren due to the cold and snow. (So yeah, good luck with that!)

So yeah, Daenerys is technically at a place where it's appropriate to say:

AN ASSAULT BY LAND IS A DEATH SENTENCE.

The Riverlands. If Cersei orders her army to march North, they would have to pass the Riverlands. Like literally, here's a map:

Blue lines are the borders of the Riverlands, while the Red line is the Kingsroad. (Source: pinterest.com)

And everyone pretty sure remembers that the Great House or the Overlords of the Riverlands are the Tullys of Riverrun.

Now, this is where it gets interesting. The remaining Starks in Winterfell namely, Sansa, Arya, and Bran, have Tully blood through their mother, Catelyn. So technically, because of their family ties, they're likely already allies.

Debts of Gratitude. With Arya massacring the Freys of the Crossing, she had supposedly freed her uncle, Catelyn's brother, Edmure Tully from their grasp. Now, I don't know how that scene would've gone, (because D&D decided to focus on other things), but it would go something like: Hi Uncle! I killed the Freys, you're free now. Go back to Riverrun, call your banners or something and tell them you're back!

Edmure to his bannermen:

Because of that, I think Edmure would have this huge debt of gratitude towards his sister's children. And with the Tully words being family, duty, honor, Edmure wouldn't hesitate to gather an army. So if the Starks go, Hey, Uncle! Cersei is harassing us, send help!

Edmure's response would be:

The Vale of Arryn. I think the Vale would've joined the Starks as well, the same way they aided Jon Snow in the Battle of the Bastards. Because again, they have family ties. The current lord of the Vale is Robin Arryn, and his mother, Lysa Arryn, was of the Tully family-she was Catelyn and Edmure's sister. With the Starks killing that annoyimg smooth-talker, Littlefinger, they had basically saved Robin from his manipulating ways. With Yohn Royce as the witness on Littlefinger's trial, he would eventually tell Robin the truth about who really killed his mother. So if the Starks will ask for his help to join their cause, Robin will very much likely help his cousins.

So once they march up North, Edmure with the Tully and Vale Armies will be waiting at the Trident.

SWAMPS + CRANNOGMEN + MOAT CAILIN = IT'S A TRAP!

The Neck. Let's face it, if Cersei's army managed to get past the Rivermen and Valemen, there's no way they'll get past the Neck. This southernmost region in the North is known for its swampy terrain, with lizard-lions (basically crocodiles/alligators) lurking in the murky waters.

Here's a map of the Neck for reference:

The Green areas are the swamps, the Red line is the Kingsroad, while the Yellow line passing through the Green area is the Causeway. (Source: awoiaf.westeros.org)

The Crannogmen. Call them what you will, frog-eaters (yes, they do eat frogs), mudmen, bog-devils, but you must never underestimate the swamp people because you'll never know what'll hit you. They are called such because of their habit of living in small villages formed from reeds and thatches and that sit atop floating islands. And despite their short stature, the Crannogmen are talented hunters and warriors. Thus, they have adapted to the harsh environment and have learned to use it to their advantage.They use guerilla tactics and apparently a notoriously difficult people to conquer. In other words, they are the perfect example of the small but terrible type of people. The Crannogmen are ruled by House Reed with its current lord, who is none other Ned Stark’s bff, Howland Reed, a.k.a. Meera, and Jojen’s Dad, who holds court in their floating castle (yes, you read that right. A castle that floats.), Greywater Watch. Yep, the one who delivered the fatal blow to Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning was a f*cking Crannogman, this guy:

Since Ned’s children (Bran and Rickon) and Howland’s children (Meera and Jojen) are also good friends, there’s no doubt that they’ll definitely back them up when they have to. The Reeds are their bannermen after all. Though I think Meera would have to push Bran out of his chair to get even, but still.

The Causeway. The only road that connects the North to the other kingdoms is the Kingsroad. The causeway is the only dry road, the only navigable passage, and the only safe route for armies to travel through the swamps of the Neck. (Refer back to the map) It is also narrow. In the Art of War, narrow passes can be used to your advantage. With the Crannogmen familiar with the terrain, all they have to do is garrison it and wait. You can imagine being ambushed by short people hiding in the trees with poison darts or step on the traps they placed on the road and drag the horses and men into the murky waters to be eaten by the lizard-lions. If they have steel armor on, they’d have lower chances of survival. They might not get eaten, but they’d drown, so yeah, good luck!

Moat Cailin. Still, if they get past the wrath of the Crannogmen, they’ll meet their end at Moat Cailin. These ruins of an ancient stronghold command the Causeway as it passes through it. So anyone who travels North by land has to go through the causeway and Moat Cailin. It is an effective natural chokepoint that had protected the North from southern invaders for thousands of years. Its three remaining towers are usually manned with bowmen who’s ready to shoot a rain of arrows to enemies who will dare pass. And with the Starks back at Winterfell, it is most likely garrisoned by the Crannogmen. 

A Southron army would have no chance at all and would never get past the Neck, thanks to the small but terrible and lovable crannogmen of the swamps. Also, only two women were known to ever kill a White Walker and one of them lives in the Neck.

I’d watch out for her too. Shout out to our girl, Meera Reed! Because all she got from Bran was a lousy thank you after she dragged his Stark ass across the frozen tundra.

That's it for Part 1, you guys. This turned out to be longer than expected. The link for Part 2 is here.

[low-budget-korra]

The Last of Us part II - SPOILER

Well, I read a lot of comments about Joel's death, coming from people who are just genuinely upset about losing a beloved character. So I decided to write about why I don’t agree with the argument that death was just shock value or weak storytelling/plot

First let's remember the universe in which the game takes place. It is a violent world. Shall we remember how other prominent characters died?

Sarah - A girl, a child who died in her father's arms. I will comment more on it later

Tess - Infected and shot dead off camera

Henry and Sam - Sam is infected and killed by his older brother Henry, who kills himself soon after

David - Ellie breaks his face with the machete in one of the most hard to watch scenes from the first game

Marlene - Killed in cold blood by Joel

Some unimportant characters who were also killed in a violent way in cold blood like the two guys that Joel tortured and killed, and David's friend that Ellie also killed

But what about The Last of Us part II?

Joel - Tortured and killed

Scar Face guy - Dead with a stab to the neck

Nora - Infected, tortured and killed by Ellie (ps: or ellie may also have "just" tortured her and left her to die)

Owen - Murder

Mel - Pregnant and murdered

Manny - Murdered

Jesse - Murdered

Yara - Her arm is broken with a hammer, she is stabbed and shot to death many times

Did you notice something in common that is repeated in both games? Well, the uncommon in that world must be more peaceful deaths like dying of old age and not the violent ones.

And it is worth mentioning that this violence does not forgive anyone, it can be a creep son of a bitch like David or an innocent child like Sarah. It is, in fact, a merciless world.

Well, let me start commenting on Sarah again. Her death was a shock to most of the people who played or saw the walktho of the first game and we can say that this is one of the factors that leads to the end where we had Joel rescuing Ellie from the hospital after already saw her as his daughter.

Let's not forget also that it is implied in the first game that Joel had to do a lot to survive, would he have done everything the same if Sarah hadn't died on the day of the outbreak? Difficult to say but I believe that not, losing her daughter that way destroyed Joel and certainly made him a tougher person. For example, for sure the time he tortures the guys there to find out where Ellie was taken wasn't the first time he did it. Oh and I'm not judging.

So it can be said that Sarah, her death was one of the things that led us to meet the Joel that we saw 20 years after the outbreak in the first game? Yes.

Can we also say that her death was shock value, to show the player the tone of the game? Yes, although I don't agree with whoever thinks that.

And I do not agree precisely because her death had real consequences for the protagonist, it was important in terms of storytelling and it was not just there to shock the audience and show that TLOU was a really heavy game.

The same goes for Joel's death.

Do you think that if Joel had died a more "peacefull" death as an infected or a "simple" shot to the head, it would have the impact it had for Ellie? Do not forget that Ellie has ptsd to have witnessed this. And her obsession with revenge also highlights the weight that witnessing that had on her psychological.

In a bizarre way Joel's death was a consequence of his own actions. If he had not killed the surgeon, Abby would not have felt this overwhelming loss that Ellie would experience years later and thus would not seek revenge as obsessively as Ellie does later.

Ah but Joel killed everyone in the hospital to save Ellie. Understandable but even so, it does not free him from the consequences of that

Do you want an example of shock value? Just look at the entire eighth and final season of Game of Thrones where they did a lot of nonsense just for "subvert expectations". Had it felt right that Arya was the one to ki the night king?No. Had it felt right Jaime had thrown off all the development from past seasons and run into Cersei's arms? No. Did it feel right Dany goinging crazy in the penultimate episode?No.

But why not? Because the show had seasons to establish that Jon Snow would kill the night king since his entire arc was there in the north. Develop Jaime's character, taking him out of Cersei's influence. Dany is always treated like someone who is merciful, the breaker of chains...

Now seriously, this looks like Joel's death?

"ah, but he was acting different, he was out of character" you guys did notice How much Ellie changed him? After Ellie, Joel becomes someone more "peacefull"and nice to others. Thats why he helps Abby and also cuz he was not alone and because the're infecteds run after them so they didnt have much of a choice. It was a mistake in a world where this is equal to death.

A violent, brutal and unfair death but totally consistent in a world where we see this a lot during gameplay and a direct consequence of the character's actions in the previous game or a violent death taken out of nowhere just to surprise us?

Okay, I know how hard it is to overcome the death of a character we love, I still get upset when I remember Lexa from The 100 or Xena or the Red Wedding in GOT ... actually the red wedding, is yet another example of brutal death but totally in agree with the world in which got set and also a direct consequence of the actions of certain characters.

I focused in Joel's death because is the most controversial thing of the game. Even tho a huge part of the fandom were already predicting his death and making all those theorys about It. And even tho we are all expecting Dina's death to be the Ellie's arc and we are all ok with Dina's character be only that: an fuel to Ellie action or wherever.

This ended up bigger than i expeced and i still dont coment about other important parts of the game. But i will do it soon

Anyway, the thing is don't let that feeling of upset for Joel make you be unfair with a game so well done in praticaly every way possible. A game that even tho it will be easy for them just put a lot of fan services, they didnt. A game that dares to instill compassion and debates in times like ours.

And Just... If you didnt like the game is okay, just is not because thinks ended up different than you expected that means the game is bad or something like that

[moon-ruled-rising]

as the rain hides the stars

read the full story on ao3...

VIII: wearing a warning sign

Bite my tongue, bide my time,

wearing a warning sign.

Wait ‘til the world is mine

-Billie Eilish, “you should see me in a crown”

The palace’s watergarden was built at the request of Maron Martell, husband to the first Princess Daenerys and the one from which Dany got her name, for his visiting family. The greenhouse was humid with plants native to Dorne and several different water fixtures mimicking the ones in the real Watergardens. It was the most peaceful place in the whole complex and where Dany escaped to when everyone else was occupied.

Floating in the gardens was a tradition for her, born from the days when she and Elia would sneak snacks from the kitchens and have a picnic. And sometimes, Rhaegar would join them but those were the days before Aerys’ health took a turn for the worse. Rheagar never picnicked with them again.

Her little tradition was the same every time. After she completed the necessary duties of the night, she would meet Jorah in the concert hall attached to the ballroom, change, and then slip into the gardens unnoticed. It was her sacred alone time and now it was sullied by a trespasser. 

The figure was obscured by the shadows of the palms and backlit by the dim gallery. They made no effort to move from the side of the room.  

“I’ll ask one more time, who are you?”

“I’m sorry. I was just looking for an empty room.”

He ventured another step into the garden, the moonlight settling over his angular features, highlighting the unmistakable arrogant youth in his face. It was him. 

Fuck, she cursed and turned her eyes up to the Gods, you won’t let me catch one break. 

“What are you doing in here?”

Despite the warm air, a shiver passed through her. Her hair clung to her arms and the slip to her thighs. She crossed her arms over her chest.

He shrugged off his suit jacket, “Just looking for a quiet place.”

He held it out to her. She looked from the jacket in this hand to his face. 

“Nothing no one hasn’t seen before.”

Even in her intimate state, she needed to keep her sense of authority. She knew her appearance made him uneasy and she planned to exploit that. She wrung her hair as she stepped out of the pool, water dripping from the hem of her slip onto the Dornish marble tile. 

“Please?” He offered her the jacket again.

His expression was soft. He wasn’t commanding her or trying to even the odds. It was a simple offer. A chill gently shook her and she snatched the suit jacket from him. It was warm and smelled of orange blossoms and hearty herbs, a cologne she didn’t recognize.

“These are the queen’s private gardens, no one should be here.”

“No offense, Your Highness, but you’re in here.”

She looked him up and down, then straightened her posture, “I’m a member of the Royal House Targaryen, I’m allowed to go wherever I please.”

“Princess, what would like me to do?” Jorah questioned from behind her.

Dany jumped at the sound of his voice. She’d been so focused on Jon she forgot Jorah was still in the room. She could have him take the prince away and go back to her floating but she was too wound up from the intrusion to find peace again. And she wasn’t ready to retire.

“You can go, Sir Jorah, I’ve got this under control.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

He was only going to wait outside the proper entrance so he could escort her back to her rooms. 

“Alright, Your Highness.”

As soon as he was gone, Dany took up the bottle of whiskey and settled at the edge of the pool.

“So, you’re the poor fool they’re trying to chain me to.” 

“Aye, I’m Prince Jon of the-.”

“I know.”

She took a pull from the bottle before offering it to him. He took it.

“You spent the whole night avoiding me,” he pointed out.

“And I was doing very well until you got adventurous.” She surveyed him out of the corner of her eye. “Elia and Missy gave you glowing reviews, if you care to know.”

“Why send them to talk to me when you could’ve done it yourself?”

“Because I didn’t want to.”

She remembered her promise to Elia, about giving Jon a chance. A thought struck her. Was this prince going to give her the same chance?

“What have you heard about me?”

“That you’re calculated. You’re fast and loose and you burn through men like wildfire.”

There it was. He already made up his mind based on fictitious information spread by petty old hags and jealous debutantes. If that was what he expected of Daenerys, she was more than happy to give it to him.

“And despite all of that you’re somehow convinced I would be a good match? That you would want me to stand at your side for the rest of your life?”

She swished her legs through the water, watching the way it slid off her legs. 

“Of course not but if it means my people live through winter…”

“What’s it like?”

“The North?”

“No, Dorne,” she simpered then rolled her eyes, “Yes, you’re home. What’s it like?”

“It’s cold and it snows a lot.”

“Doesn’t sound like the proper place for a Targaryen.”

“It’s not.”

She should’ve been offended, angry even, but his comment rolled off of her like the water on her legs. The alcohol of the night inhibited her ability to feel much else but deep contempt.

“Well you’ll have to find someone else to grant your aid.”

“You’re not going through with the arrangement?”

“Why would I want to?”

“You would be helping a whole country.”

“Ask yourself this, what does my country have to gain from this?”

He went silent and not in contemplation. She took the whiskey back.

“You see, this marriage is a way for Rhaegar to sell me off. He sees it as a way to settle me down and ship me away so I’ll stop ruining his day with revealing headlines. He doesn’t care about the North, he cares about his reputation.”

It was not Rhaegar’s fault that he was so protective of the Targaryen name. The dynasty stayed in power for 800 years by adapting and changing, making people like them and setting an example of the highest kind. As he’d told her earlier, the people were growing tired of the burden the monarchy represented and any step out of line, any crack in their perfectly moulded facade would be an invitation for the destruction of the Targaryen line.

The worst part was, Dany couldn’t imagine a life of not being a royal. She’d gone to university and experienced something like it there. But even then it was easy for her and money was never an issue. If the crown fell, everyday would be uncertain and her life would be in danger.

“I don’t care what your family gets out of it, as long as my people get what they need to survive.”

She stood, bottle still clutched in hand, “What do you know of marriage treaties?”

“Not much.”

Perfect. 

“They’re just like regular ones. They require that representatives of the two parties sit down and discuss terms and agreements. While I assume you’re already sold on the fact that your country needs me to secure supplies, there’s still the very tricky matter of my opinion.”

She approached a statue of two lovers, bare and frozen, their mouths inches away. She heard his dress shoes on the tile as he followed.

“That’s why my family came south. To convince you to say yes, to help us.”

“No.” she turned on him. “You were dragged here to be appraised like cattle.” 

Her features were placid despite her need to scream. To rage. To raise her voice and burn him with her words.

“You know what you have to do and you’ve made up your mind. But me? I get to decide whether or not this whole operation happens.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why would you need to convince me to help you if my word didn’t matter on this subject?” 

He was silent again. His eyes betrayed nothing but Dany got the feeling he knew what was coming next. In their stillness, Dany took in how the moonlight laid on his strong face. Something about the scene awoke an urge within her.

Dany was well aware of her affinity for pretty men. Hells, the whole world knew she couldn’t say no to an attractive face. Under normal circumstances, nothing would stop her from adding the Northern Prince to her collection but this conquest came with a significant amount of baggage. And there was an edge to him that reminded her of Daario.

Daario. She hadn’t told him where she was going before she left. He probably thought she was still mad at him and that was why she wasn’t home. When in truth, she’d hardly looked at her phone since her flight took off. And the few times she did, there were no missed calls or text messages.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a harsh laugh from the prince.

“What?” she demanded.

“All day I’ve been told to play nice and make a good impression on you and your family.”

“As you should,” she affirmed, the corner of her mouth tugged into a pleased grin.

“But you… you-”

“I what?”

“You’ve been a rude bitch the whole night.”

Dany supposed she deserved that but it didn’t lessen the sting. She fought hard to keep her composure, the same self-satisfied smirk standing vigilant. She knew the people of the court compared her to fire but Dany liked to think of herself as the personification of the element. Beautiful and warm from a distance, scalding and dangerous up close. 

If she was fire, he was cold, unyielding ice. 

“Did you expect anything less?”

“I don’t want this any more than you-”

“Then why make such an effort?”

“Have you seriously not heard a word out of my mouth? My people are in danger! Our economy isn’t strong enough to secure trade with anyone else. You’re their only help so get off your damn high horse and realize that there are people more important than you.

“I know what it’s like to have people whispering behind my back and calling me names that I don’t deserve. Our lives and positions come with baggage that not even we understand but unlike you, I haven’t decided to take it out on everyone around me and burn more bridges than I build.”

His brief rant brought him closer to her and she caught another whiff of his cologne. She tilted her chin up to meet his gaze but her smirk was gone. There was a fierceness in his eyes that reminded Dany of herself. He was ice but there was a fire burning in there, deep below his cool exterior. Dany would usually fight until she’d worn down her opponent but she’d been put in her place three times in one day. She was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to go to bed. 

“Here,” she whispered, taking a step back and holding up the bottle of liquor.

“What’s this for?” “If you want to marry me, you’re going to need that and a lot more,” she told him.

She looked upon his face one last time before she turned to leave.

“Does this mean you’ll go through with it?”

Dany paused and looked over her shoulder. Her hair and slip were nearly dry, but she kept Jon’s suit jacket wrapped around her. Her intention was to melt him, to reduce him to nothing more than water under another burning bridge. But he tempered her and shrank the uncontrollable blaze of her nature.

“The North sounds like a lovely country. I would like to see it some time.”

She slipped out the greenhouse door, making her way back to her apartments, Jorah trailing dutifully behind her. He didn’t ask questions, he heard it all. 

The back hall was quiet considering there was a party still blazing nearby. The distant sounds of music and numerous conversations muffled by the thick walls. The rooms flanking it shut up, waiting for their occupants to return. It reminded her of walking through their summer home on Dragonstone.

The ancient keep stood empty for most of the year, used only for exclusive diplomatic trips and the Targaryen’s summer vacations. The first few hours there were spent breezing through the lifeless corridors and reveling in the solitude.

Dragonstone was meant to be bestowed to Viserys, since he was second eldest, but after his death the lands and titles fell to Dany. She planned to make it her permanent residence when she eventually settled down but if things went according to Rhaegar’s plan, she wouldn’t need to worry about that. 

They arrived at her door and she thanked Jorah and went inside. Still wrapped in the prince’s suit jacket, she shook out her hair and lay across the settee. The exhaustion she forced to the side settled in, weighing her limbs down, but her mind still rattled with the words Jon said.

No one looking to gain her favor had ever spoken to her like that, no one ever dared. They were overly nice, bought her expensive things, and complimented her to no end. All in an effort to appease her scaley nature and get somewhere, and it always worked. When their relations inevitably bored her, they said nothing and found someone else to bide their time. There was never a time they called her out on her behavior.

Rhaegar tried but their confrontations focused on public habits, not so much her behavioral ones. And the words hurled around in those verbal scuffles never stuck. They didn’t dig their claws into her already abused brain and drag her down a long and winding path of second guessing. 

Luckily, a knock at her door pulled her away from a downward spiral of overthinking. Elia swept into the room with Missandei on her arm. They were blushing and bubbly, glowing from the social atmosphere. 

“It’s so dark in here,” Missy commented as Dany reached up to turn on the lamp. 

“Did you get to talk to Prince Jon?” Elia asked, her voice a mixture of business and giddy girlishness.

As if they were teenage girls at a sleepover about to discuss their crushes.

“Yes, we had quite the discussion,” Dany answered, allowing herself a stupid smirk.

The women looked her up and down. Missy pursed her lips as she sank into the seat at the vanity. 

“Oh, Dany, please tell me you didn’t-”

“Don’t worry Elia, nothing happened. Nothing fun anyway. This-” she tugged at the fabric around her- “was just a gentlemanly gesture.”

“Is that where you disappeared to?” Missy questioned.

“We just happened to run into each other.”

“And?”

“We talked.”

“What did you talk about?” pressured Elia, still standing.

She’d shifted her weight and placed her hands on her hips, employing her motherly nature. “I’d prefer not to say.”

“Daenerys…”

A warning.

“Elia, I’ve made up my mind. About the marriage.”

Missy sat up straighter.

“And what did you decide?”

“I decided that I need more time. A month at least before anything is official. I need to tie up some … loose ends.”

Elia swooped down to hug Dany, pulling her up from the bed. Dany wished she could share in the queen’s happiness but she felt devoid of anything but deep seeded dread. And she’d left out the very crucial detail of Rhaegar’s black mail.

“I’ll tell Rhaegar in the morning, he’ll be overjoyed. I’m so glad you’re considering this. You’re going to be an amazing queen.”

Missy cleared her throat, “I’m really sorry to rain on the parade, but Dany won’t be a queen. She’ll still be a princess. In order for Dany to become Queen of the North, she needs to be granted the crown matrimonial.”

“How do you know this?”

“Missandei studied world governments as part of her degree in Public Relations.” Dany informed Elia. 

“And a quick glance back at my notes on the North told me that traditionally the Crown Matrimonial is only granted once the consort in question proves themselves worthy through an act of honor and great courage.”

The princess frowned and looked toward Elia.

“When you attend the contract meeting tomorrow, bring it up. I’m sure Rhaegar will have it amended to the documents.”

Dany didn’t try to fight back the yawn that crawled its way out, hoping it would remind Elia that she was tired and wanted to sleep. The queen gave her another tight squeeze and hugged Missandei before saying her goodbyes and slipping from the room. Missy was staying with Dany because the guest apartments were for diplomatic guests only. 

Not long after, there was another knock on the door. Dany let out a groan of frustration and got up to answer it. She expected Rhaegar, but it was only the night maid stopping by to collect the dresses. She finally removed the suit jacket and gave it to the woman, requesting that it be express cleaned and returned to Prince Jon first thing in the morning.

“I can’t believe you’re getting married… in a month,” Missandei sighed as they lay on Dany’s bed.

Dany stared at the ceiling, trying to calm her racing mind, “Me neither.”

If she had her way, by the end of the month, there would be no wedding and the past twenty-four hours would only be a bad memory.

[vicleesi]

About GoT Episode 4:

First of all, I’m completely exhausted from turning a blind eye to the multiple flaws in the D & D scripts (and it was they who wrote this episode). The strength of Game of Thrones came right from the details thanks to the incredible world that George R. R. Martin created and D & D destroyed. So no, I will not spare you them.

- The beginning was good. I just do not understand why Jon made his speech without looking at the survivors of Winterfell.

- The party dinner was generally good. In these last seasons, Game of Thrones has managed to maintain a good quality in the interaction between characthers. Episode 2 was basically all that and it was good for me. The problem is when GoT starts off for the story  - which is already lost.

- Daenerys’s loneliness was well portrayed. Too bad the series prematurely killed Selmy Barristan, did not it?

- First failure of attention to detail that detracts from the series’ worldbuilding: Gendry Rivers, what? Is he from the Riverlands, by any chance? Bastard born and raised in King’s Landing is named after Waters. His name was Gendry Waters (actually it was just Gendry, since Robert never recognized him as his bastard son). Why change that, D & D? To be different?

- I wish Gendry good luck trying to persuade the Storm lords to bend over to a bastard who does not understand a thing about ruling a castle. But of course the series will not talk about that. At least they did not give Storm’s to Brienne or to Davos (by the way, when the Davos family will show up?)

- Leaving a bit out of order, but taking advantage of feudal politics, what’s going on in Dorne?” D & D mentioned a new Prince of Dorne who swore loyalty to Daenerys. Hi? What? When? Who? WHY??? D & D had the brilliant idea of ​​making the Martells exterminate each other and still reap the rewards of their genius. Dorne remains the worst arc in the series and quite possibly one of the worst book-media visual adaptations ever.

- They also mentioned Riverrun again. What happened to the Riverlands after the Freys all died? Where is Edmure Tully? Who controls Riverrun?

- Writers creating a whole scene by saying that Brienne is a virgin. Not necessary.

- There was not a crippled nephew of Daeron Targaryen. D & D creating Targaryens whenever they want, although there is a well-defined story in the books. (FIRE AND BLOOD)

- There was finally a scene between Sandor and Sansa. It only took 4 episodes to happen. Once again they put Sansa as the product of her suffering, justifying the idiot choices D & D made for her character. Nothing new, otherwise it was a totally forgettable dialogue (I already forgot).

- The Bronn Paradox: If Bronn is not serving Daenerys while the war is rolling, who guarantees that he will receive his castle in the end? Especially considering he was utterly disillusioned with the promises of the Lannisters to the point of being ready to kill his two best friends? In fact, did D & D forget that Jaime himself had offered Highgarden to the Bronn last season?

- Again, as for Gendry, I wish Bronn good luck in trying to establish his feudal dominion over the proud lords of Highgarden who did not even tolerate the right Tyrells, and the Tyrells were an old family and had already been entrenched in there for centuries. Of course, D & D do not care.

- The Paradox of the Wildlings: Why were they known as wildlings? Because they tried to conquer the Wall from time to time and were always looting the North in search of resources and riches. Because their land was a shit, where nothing grew and it was always winter, basically. Now the they finally made it through the Wall and gain access to the best lands, even more with the support of the Winterfell and Starks. What do they do? That’s right: they go back to their shit place because D & D have that same shit on their heads.

- What else is north of Winterfell and south of the Wall are lands with no one, thanks to the King of the Night.“ But the wildlings choose to go back to Castle Black and, by all means, beyond the Wall. Seven Hells.

- I will not even comment on Jon’s scene sending Ghost away.” If it was for him to appear that way, it was better for the wolf to have been m.i.a as before.

- Sam Tarly is a Night’s Watch man. Men of Night’s Watch should not have children. When will anyone say that? Did not Jon even mention it? What happened to Night’s Watch? Why is Sam still dressed in black? If he’s out, why did not he become Lord Tarly?

- The arc of Night’s Watch is going to be without conclusion anyway? Are they gone?

- The army of the living has lost only half its men? It was not what it looked like in episode 3. But okay, D & D create and describe armies whenever they think it’s valid - just like Night’s Watch, apparently.

- As they are doing this season, D & D cut important dialogue scenes because they do not know what to write. In the first episode they cut off Daenerys before she finished threatening Sansa. In the second episode they cut their scene together before Dany could answer the question “What about the North?”. At the end of it cut the scene Jon x Dany in the crypts. Now they cut the scene of Sansa and Arya discovering that Jon is not their brother. Why, man? What is the reason? I’m shocked that D & D did not cut Jon’s reaction to finding out that he’s a bastard of Rhaegar and Lyanna (yes, he’s a bastard, D & D, no matter how many fanfics they write).

- Arya in the first moment: we are a family! Arya in 2nd moment: left King’s Landing, goodbye Winterfell, until never again! and yes she left for good, she said she ain’t coming back!

That was the good part of the episode. Let’s go to the bad part!!

- So you want to tell me that Euron can hit three harpoons in a dragon in mid-flight?“

- So you want to tell me that Daenerys from the sky was unable to see the Greyjoy fleet hidden behind an islet?”

- So you want to tell me that Daenerys never considered the possibility that it was a bad idea to sail to Dragonstone as they knew Euron controlled the seas there?“

- So you want to tell me that Rhaegal was not killed by the zombie dragon brother in the apocalyptic Battle of the long night fighting for the fate of the men’s kingdom only to die in the next episode in a few seconds for Euron Greyjoy’s magical harpoons?

-So you want to tell me how easy it is to kill dragons like that?” It amazes me that Aegon conquered Westeros three hundred years ago.

- Daenerys should have flown directly to King’s Landing and fired at everything after the Rhaegal’s death. Fire and Blood!!

- Jaime returning to Cersei: hi? What the fuck? If it is to join her and not kill her right away, Jaime will be the greatest example of character assassination that D & D has committed since Stannis Baratheon.

- How did Team Dany know that Missandei had been captured? Euron made propaganda, sent in the email?

- Is Varys loyal to Jon Snow? REALLY? What does Varys know about Jon Snow? When did he meet Jon Snow? When did they share at least one scene together? They never talked. Varys never saw him rule. Where do the writers get these crazy ideas?

- Nonsense to be creating intrigue over the marriage between Jon and Daenerys. She will need to get married to have children and continue the dynasty. Who is she getting married to, Hot Pie?

- By the way, there have been marriages between uncles and nieces among the Starks. Brothers Jonnel and Edric Stark married their nieces Serena and Sansa Stark some 150 years ago to try to end a crisis of succession, since their father, Rickon, heir to Winterfell, had been killed in the conquest of Dorne. It would not surprise me if GRRM specifically placed these marriages in history just for this situation that was raised in the conversation between Tyrion and Varys. In fact, marriages between uncles and nieces were not exactly uncommon in our own history. In Brasil, Dom Pedro I was grandson of D. Maria I of Portugal, who was married to his uncle, D. Pedro III, precisely to avoid a dynastic crisis.

- Again the bullshit that Robert’s Rebellion was built on a lie. I imagine the Crazy King burning the Lord of Winterfell and his heir and begging for Ned and Robert’s head did not influence that at all.

- Dany is an emotional woman who’s going crazy. So we need a rational man to help her.

- Dany is an emotional woman who’s going crazy. So we need a rational man to help her!!

- Oh, excuse me if I repeated myself, but this nonsense does not go down. They disrespected Daenerys, disrespected her journey, disrespected even the “girl power” they tried to do last season (Dany, Olenna Tyrell, Cersei and the Martells). The mysoginism of these so-called D & D appearing once more to claim another innocent victim.

- Why did Cersei not kill Tyrion?

- Why did Cersei not kill Daenerys?

- Euron does not suspect anything after Tyrion reveals he knew Cersei was pregnant?“ Since Euron himelf knew only minutes ago?

- D & D really put an end to the apocalypse so we can have Cersei grinning in the last three episodes? Is this serious?

- Euron is Cersei’s puppy. Euron in the series is another completely character , they should have changed his name in the adaptation as they did with the Asha (Yara).

- No turning back with the Night King. D & D make us muggles.

- Finally: where’s the winter ??? It seems King’s Landing is in the tropics.

- Cancel this and the next two episodes. Let GoT finish in episode 3, at least so we would have something minimally satisfying. D & D continue to insult the viewer’s intelligence.

"At least the show’s songs never fails to please.”

*this analysis is not mine I translated from a brazilian friend

[fortunatelylori]

GOT: That awkward moment when Daenerys Targareyen turned into Mount Vesuvius

Oh, rejoice all you Dany critics, all you Jonsas and all you Sansa stans! Our deliverance is here! From this day on we can finally shed the shackles of the anti-Dany tag, stop censoring the conqueror’s name and go wild in the Daenerys Targareyen tag! Dark Dany has arrived! 

Praise be! Praise be!

General impressions

This was, by far, my favorite episode of the season. Miguel Sapochnik really delivered on this one. It looked stunning, the fighting was interesting and realistic in that it showed the type of carnage that is handed down when an army attacks a highly populated city and the visual effects were incredibly impressive. 

This shot right here might just be one of my all time favorite GOT shots: 

It was also, frankly, a relief to finally have Dark Dany out in the open. The show has skirted around the issue of Dany’s turn to the dark side since season 2. If you were shocked by what happened in this episode and think it came out of nowhere, you have no one to blame but yourself. In this corner of the fandom we have been speculating Dany would end up burning King’s Landing for years. 

Also ...

That’s season freaking 2, you nincompoops!  

And they really weren’t stingy on the Mad King imagery now that the Her Darkness is here. Dany starts the episode looking like this: 

What is the most pressing thing on khaleesi’s mind? 

Girl! If you’re so worried about Jon’s lustrous, romantically jealous, always put together cousin, do yourself a favor, put a comb through that hair, slap some foundation and blush on and get a freaking grip! You need to be bringing your A game to this fight!

Luckily, Tyrion decides to give Dany the incentive she needs in order to tend to her person hygiene ... Getting ready for an execution, of course!

Dany is wearing a piece from the Targareyen nuclear winter collection. Very avangarde. 

Things don’t improve from here and, as we all know, she ends up Dacarys-ing her entire fandom: 

The city surrenders, the bells ring just as Tyrion had stressed through out the episode and Dany ponders ... She’s come to Westeros expecting to be embraced and loved. Being loved and accepted is very important to Dany. Without those two things, granted unconditionally and uncritically, she feels undervalued. King’s Landing ends up paying for that lapse in adoration: 

This episode, GOT decided to take a break from ripping off How to Train your Dragon and decided to rip off Pompeii (2014) instead: 

Pompeii:

GOT:

Pompeii:

GOT: 

Pompeii: 

GOT: 

So yeah, guys! Daenerys Targareyen is a cataclysmic event! Can I get a hallelujah? Cause this delulu, sexually frustrated, teenage soccer mom is having fun!

Apart from the sweet taste of vindication giving me LIFE, the reason why I enjoyed this episode so much is that it focused on the 3 characters who actually had an arc this season. Apart from Dany, those are: 

Arya Stark

I think the most important line Arya has uttered this entire season was this: 

Arya: I know death. It has many faces. I look forward to seeing this one. 

In true GOT fashion, be careful what you wish for. Arya is confronted with the most extreme versions of death imaginable, first in the specter of the Night King and his armies. And now, in the shape of Daenerys Targareyen and her dragon raining fire on a defenseless city. 

And while the White Walkers rattle Arya’s cage, they don’t manage to break through it. Her reaction to the destruction of King’s Landing is far more emotional than what she experienced during the Battle for the Dawn. 

I think that’s because the White Walkers were existential threats, catalysts of violence. They were not willfully cruel, they weren’t there to punish. They had a purpose and they served that purpose until the end. 

The destruction of King’s Landing, on the other hand, is a human act. Someone makes the decision to destroy this city, burn people alive, murder and rape them. Daenereys chooses to do this: 

The Stallion that Mounts the World serves Arya the most extreme lesson in revenge she could have ever gotten and the results finally break through Arya’s shell. 

Another top ten GOT shot: 

This is so visually striking! The blood framing her eyes just jumps at you. She looks like a rag doll on the verge of being tossed against a wall. This girl who has gone through such harrowing experiences, the brilliant assassin who ended the Night King is now in danger of being squashed as if she were an ant. 

It really drives home not just the immense power Dany is wielding but also that in being rendered powerless, Arya always manages to find strength in herself and her basic empathy: 

I’m really curious how her arc is concluded next episode. 

Jaime Lannister

I was never a Braime shipper so, while I get your dissapointment, guys, I definitely don’t share it. I absolutely love how Jaime’s arc was concluded. I do think there will be differences in the books (I still believe Jaime is the valonqar). However this: 

was foreshadowed back in season 1: 

Cersei: Jaime and I are more than brother and sister. We shared a womb. We came into this world together. We belong together. 

Jaime’s story started with Cersei, he dedicated more than 20 years of his life to this relationship, to the detriment of everything else in his life. It feels natural to me that his arc would end with hers, as well. 

I think, in a really sad way, Brienne was Jaime’s last stitch attempt at getting Cersei out of his system. That would explain his awkwardness during their sex scene. And it almost worked, because Brienne is someone Jaime cares about. However when faced with the possibility of Cersei dying, Jaime goes back to her because he can’t bare to let her go through that alone. 

I mean ... if you look up the definition of tragic couple, I half expect a picture of Cersei and Jaime to pop up. And I find it supremely ironic that the couple who shocked and disgusted everyone back in season 1, now gets a tearful reunion, the male character fighting a death duel to get back to the woman he loves and the woman who hardened herself against everything finally becomes human in the arms of the only person she truly wants.  

This, to me, is love ... 

Yes, I’m fucked up. Let’s not dwell on that! 

However, as much as I enjoyed watching these three characters make their way through this episode, there are still two things that managed to tarnish this episode for me. 

Let’s start with the obvious, shall we? 

Jon Snow

This used to be Jon Snow, back when he had a POV and a spine.

In this episode Jon Snow stands idly by while a man gets burned alive: 

Jon’s POV continues to be blocked and, at this point, I’m tired of trying to figure out what is going on behind the curtain. I’m just not willing to do it anymore, simply because Jon’s actions this episode speak louder than any supposed intention he might have in acting the way he does.

I want you to follow this conversation very carefully: 

Varys: We both know what she’s about to do. 

Jon: That’s her decision to make. She is our queen. 

Varys: Men decide where power resides, whether or not they know it. 

Jon: What do you want? 

Varys: All I’ve ever wanted. The right ruler on the Iron Throne. I still don’t know how her coin has landed but I’m quite certain about yours. 

Jon: I don’t want it. I never have. 

Varys: [...] You will rule wisely and well, while she ...

Jon: She is my queen. 

This discussion is crucial to the ultimate question of whether or not Jon Snow bares responsibility for what happens in King’s Landing. And I would say that based on this, the answer is a resounding yes. 

Varys starts plotting in episode 4, the moment he realizes that Dany is about to treat King’s Landing and all its inhabitants to some good ol’ fashion fire and blood. He tells Jon in this scene that they both know what she’s about to do. Jon doesn’t contradict him. He hankers down on the “whatever my queen wants” party line. 

Whether or not Jon is political or simply a idiotic coward, the fact remains he knows enough of Dany at this point to figure out there is a strong possibility that she will sack the city and many, many innocent people will die. Varys is trying to get him to act. He’s had chances to formulate some sort of resistance against Dany since episode 1. He has chosen not to. He’s chosen not to plot against her, he’s chosen to tell her the truth about his parentage instead of using it to his advantage, he’s chosen to abandon the dragon he could have used against her and to keep those closest to him in the dark about his motivations. 

He’s made his choices. If he’s done it out of love for Dany, than he’s an irresponsible and selfish fool. If he’s done it to protect the North and his family, he has done so at the expense of everyone else in Westeros. Either way, these are the consequences: 

This man, and I’m very sorry to say it, is not fit to be anyone’s king. In this episode he barely manages to keep his men from killing indiscriminately and raping women. He doesn’t even take charge of protecting civilians and trying to take them to safety, the way Arya does. 

Instead, Jon drags his men after him and runs from the city with his tail between his legs.... 

I just .....

My other point of contention with this episode doesn’t really have much to do with the episode itself but rather that the set-up for the pay-offs delivered here wasn’t done properly in past episodes. For example: 

Cersei’s downfall: We all knew it was coming and it was bittersweet and moving. However they’ve given Lena Heady barely anything to do all season. She’s had a total of 4 scenes so when the end eventually comes, it feels shortsighted and incomplete. 

Claganebowl: Another one that was telegraphed in advanced. The scene itself is brilliant however the set-up for it is so hamfisted. The Ds couldn’t think of another way these two could meet but for Sandor to just up and decide with no prior warning that he’s going to KL. Why now so damn particularly? In that vein, The Mountain is supposed to be a mindless zombie. How come he is now perfectly capable of disobeying orders from both Cersei and Qyburn? 

Arya’s story: As I mentioned, I absolutely loved Arya in this episode. However, I can’t help but wish they had put more work in her POV and in her revenge vs. humanity dilemma to truly make Sandor’s advice and her journey through the burning city as emotionally rewarding as it could have been. 

Tyrion: I get that I’m not allowed to understand what the hell is going on with Jon, but why has that extended to Tyrion all of a sudden? Tyrion starts off the episode betraying his only friend and condemning him to a fiery death and for the life of me I don’t understand why. He’s clearly terrified of Dany. Considering her state of mind when he informs her of Vary’s betrayal, she’s one step away from executing him as well. When he sets Jaime free, he seems resigned to being executed by her later on. So why not try to work with Varys to overthrow her? It certainly isn’t that he thinks she’ll make a good queen. He can’t possibly think that in this episode. Is it greed and desire for power? They haven’t done a good enough job for me to buy into that wholesale. So what is it? 

Favorite scenes: 

The “Are you unforgiven too?” scene: 

So close, no matter how far Couldn't be much more from the heart Forever trusting who we are And nothing else matters

All the while, the Lannister theme plays in the background .... PERFECTION!

The “Love Thy Brother” scene: 

I know I criticized the set-up but the scene itself is spectacular. The visuals alone are breathtaking. The fighting is brutal and absolutely horrendous. And the two of them falling into a bottomless pit of flames, feels particularly chilling and sad considering the Hound’s fear of fire. 

My favorite part of the scene, though, is the cutting back and forth between Sandor and Arya. Coupled with their conversation that convinces Arya to give up her list, this creates a wonderful parallel between the two characters and a nice bookend to their twisted but, surprisingly, poignant relationship. 

The “In the queen’s ashes” scene: 

Maisie Williams has been a real champ this season. And this episode, in particular, was her coup d’grace. I absolutely loved her acting in this scene. On top of that, the imagery of the destruction around her, the eerie quiet after the chaos that had come before and ultimately the discovery of the charred bodies of the woman and child she had tried to rescue, with echos of the Stark theme in the background, make this a truly outstanding scene.

It becomes even more poignant when you think that this is the city that started Arya’s tragedy when her father was executed and her book wish that King’s Landing would burn to the ground. When faced with the reality of it, Arya finds empathy, not satisfaction.

In the BTS, the Ds compare Arya to Virgil taking her journey through hell and it truly feels that way. Up until she jumps on that horse and fades into the fiery landscape.

Beautiful!

Episode MVPs:

Lord “It’s been an honor, sir!” Varys

I’m going to nominate only one MVP for this episode because this man truly is in a league of his own.

He is the true hero of this episode and the fantasy show equivalent of a martyr. He is the only one ... THE ONLY ONE ... that actually tried to stop Dany from committing genocide. And as thanks for his bravery and commitment to saving innocent lives, he was betrayed by his best friend and burned alive.

[gascon-en-exil]

Joining the Game Late: S6E10 “The Winds of Winter”

Synopsis

Loras’s trial gets underway, featuring ceremonial mutilation. Tension ramps up the at the Red Keep as the Mountain prevents Tommen from leaving and Pycelle gets knifed by birds and so does Lancel. Margaery figures out the plot a minute too late, and the High Sparrow traps everyone inside the sept as it explodes and Cersei enjoys her wine. She enjoys it even more on Septa Unella’s face, right before she sends the Mountain in to have his undead way with her. Tommen beholds the devastation and nopes right out of window. Jaime puts Walder Frey in his place, and Arya takes notes from Titus Andronicus when it comes time to kill him. Sam and Gilly make it to Oldtown; Gilly is still excluded from everything, but she’s also spared the sight of Sam cumming from the sight of the Citadel’s library. Jon exiles Melisandre from the North after Davos forces her to confess about burning a little girl alive. Jon and Sansa come to an understanding about the battle and about trust, but Sansa may be courting Littlefinger on the side. Olenna makes an alliance with the Sand Snakes, and also Varys is suddenly there. Daario gets reassigned to governing Meereen on Tyrion’s advice, and Tyrion sucks at consoling but becomes Dany’s Hand anyway. Benjen gets Bran as far as the Wall, where Jon Snow’s parentage is finally revealed via a flashback tree. Jon is the king in the North this time, while Jaime returns to King’s Landing to see Cersei crowned queen. Dany sets sail with about half the world behind her.

Commentary

Where do I even begin with this episode? It jerks the plot forward toward the beginning of the end of this story in so many different ways, and so much just happens, that covering it all in one post would be an exercise in futility. Hmm...I think I’ll follow the show’s example and do some heavy consolidating to just get this down to two major points.

I have to say that, however the last two seasons may fumble the fallout (or lack thereof) from Cersei’s mass vengeance, in the moment it’s absolutely brilliant to watch. The tension builds constantly throughout the opening scenes, helped along by a musical scoring filled with contemplative piano and other instrumentation not usually used in GoT, and even as you know what’s going to happen the experience of seeing it is an utter thrill. Despite how horrible this all is - how Cersei’s personal body count skyrockets into the hundreds in an instant, how vicious the specific punishment she doles out to Septa Unella is, how coldly she dispenses with her son’s body after his suicide, and how she ascends the Iron Throne a tyrant draped in black and flanked by her zombie bodyguard and her mad scientist - it’s so satisfying in a twisted way that you can’t help but feel her triumph. It’s easy to compare the explosion of the Sept to the Red Wedding, a shocking twist that kills off an assortment of named characters. Where the difference lies is whose arc is important here. The Wedding was the culmination and close of Robb and Catelyn’s arcs, with the perpetrators being comparatively underdeveloped petty villains (also Roose Bolton, but it’s not like he amounted to much in the end other than as a weak excuse for Ramsay’s villainy). Notably this episode also features the execution of Walder Frey, and it’s telling that Jaime telling Walder in the scene before his death that the Freys lucked into infamy and have been weak and useless besides landed harder than Arya feeding Walder his sons and then slitting his throat. He’s just stop #1 on her murder tour of Westeros.

But the destruction of the Sept of Baelor is all about Cersei getting back at her numerous enemies. You could make the argument that several of the characters who died this episode, like Margaery, Tommen, and possibly Loras, were in positions where they still could have had ongoing arcs had they not been blown away by Cersei - and that in this sense the act was a cheap bit of condensing the show’s plots down as it heads into the endgame. I’ll come back to that idea as my second point, but for as much as I personally identified with the Tyrells and didn’t care for their greatly reduced story presence come Season 5 I’m less bothered by their deaths than I thought I would be. Cersei is just a much stronger character than all of them, and that she would do something as large and atrocious as this speaks to both her resourcefulness and her lack of subtlety. She didn’t bother trying to play the High Sparrow like Margaery was, or make a show of devotion to get out of torture as Loras did in his last moments. She just blew them all up, damn the consequences...even when one of those consequences was her son’s life.

Of course it is also true as I said that this single episode narrows the focus of the King’s Landing story significantly, which is something you can witness the rest of the episode doing on a larger scale. This is most obvious in the scene where Olenna meets Ellaria and the Sand Snakes, where she lampshades how pointless they are as characters by not even bothering to learn their names or let them speak. Then Varys shows up out of nowhere, and next we see of any of these characters they and their armies are sailing alongside Daenerys as she finally leaves the tired Meereen arc behind (in the hands of her lover, whose arc can’t go much anywhere else) and sets off for Westeros. Already the show is visibly coalescing around the three major contenders for the Iron Throne in its final two seasons: Cersei reigning over King’s Landing, Jon proclaimed king in the North with Sansa loyally(?) at his side, Daenerys commanding an armada of the many friends and allies she’s made on both continents. It’s all very predictable table setting for the last act, but with a show as big as GoT there was inevitably going to be a time when this was necessary as there just aren’t that many players in its game still on the board. There’s still a few loose threads floating around, like Sam being a nerd in Oldtown or Arya on her murder spree or Bran flashing back to major plot reveals (Jon’s not a bastard, but a Targaryen! - I’m not shocked, but I did enjoy the ironic cut from the flashback to the Northern houses hailing Jon as king based on his false paternity) or Brienne and the Hound just MIA, but these are the three big players. I’m very eager to see how the show stumbles as hard as I’ve heard it does from here.

One last note, however: while the way it was worked into the story was incredibly clumsy Davos confronting Melisandre was a beautifully raw bit of catharsis against a character who’s never had to face external consequences for her actions. Davos has always been one of those characters I’ve found quietly enjoyable even if there’s not much personal appeal there, and his anguish and rage over Shireen’s death sells this moment even if you stop and think that this is coming an entire season too late. This is one example of what GoT’s critics means when they point out that most of these actors are strong enough to smooth over questionable writing choices such that they’re easier to excuse even if you still notice them.

[tormundjonthings]

GOT Politics Thoughts! (I know, I’m not original)

So I’ve been thinking a lot about the last couple seasons again after reading the finale script last week, specifically about how Game of Thrones handled politics in it’s last few seasons. A lot has been written about how the characters or relationships or fantasy elements were bungled, but I’m interested in how they  muddled the political end too. And not just the in universe politics, like conflicts between houses or the challenges of moving/feeding armies. Although...that also pretty much vanishes, outside of that stray line of Sansa’s from s8 about feeding Dany’s armies (which is mainly there so Dany can get in a sick line about how cool dragons are.)

No, I’m more interested in how the larger political questions / parallels to politics in the real world vanish or become so confused that any message is lost entirely.

Lets venture back a few seasons, say to like season 5, and look at  some of the big political topics being addressed. (This got SUPER long, so more under the cut) 

Political Question One: What are borders? 

The storyline at the Wall was always one of the most interesting parts of the show to me, mostly because of the nature of the conflict between the Nights Watch and the Free Folk. The the Wall was always a foil to the pettier political games happening elsewhere in the series. That whole Mormont quote “when the dead rise, do you think it matters who sits on the Iron Throne?” Like they’ve got a big, giant existential disaster to deal with, makes all the squabbling between houses look pretty damn silly!

Yet they also participate in some of this political squabbling, which is very interesting to me! They spend several SEVERAL seasons dealing primarily not with the existential threat at hand, but trying to fight off people who largely just want to escape to safety. 

The reason Jon Snow is one of my favorite characters in the series is that he’s one of the very few people who looks at an underlying bit of “common political wisdom” in Westeros, something that’s been unchanged for thousands of years regardless of who sits on the Iron Throne, and says, “Hey, this is both very wrong and very dumb.”

He meets the Wildlings, notes that they follow the same religion as the North, speak the same language, have a lot of the same customs, and most importantly notes that they’re just people trying to live their lives in safety. 

Some of them raid and kill, yes. But lets be honest...plenty plenty plenty of people born and bred in the Seven Kingdoms do that too.

The division between people of the Seven Kingdoms is entirely arbitrary. Other people in the series have noted this (Benjen, Tyrion) but Jon actually tries to do something about it. He says they’re all the same, that the Free Folk are part of the realms of men, and manages to get many of them south of the Wall. 

This is incredibly controversial; he’s broken a huge political taboo here. The northern Lords hate “Wildling invaders.” Many members of the Nights Watch don’t care much about the White Walkers and see the Free Folk as their primary enemy. This is so controversial that Jon is murdered for it. 

Now, if you live in almost any part of the world right now, you’ll note that this has many, many parallels to real life events. Especially if you see White Walkers as Climate Change. People trying to escape to safety from disasters and the complete immorality of holding up largely arbitrary borders in the face of existential threats to humanity is already an enormous political issue, and likely to be more so in the years to come. This is a good thing, maybe an essential thing, to explore and talk about through fiction right now. 

So how is it handled after Jon is resurrected? Well...it kind of isn’t really. Some of the northern Lords are pissed about it when Jon asks for support during the Battle of the Bastards, but Robb’s old mess-ups are generally more the issue there. Apparently all the Nights Watch members who were uncool with it get hung for treason and...no one else in the manned castles says anything. There are some pissed off northern Lords again who mention Wildling invaders once they’re back in Winterfell but its pretty much skated over and they still all crown Jon king like immediately. The focus on borders and arbitrary divisions, how harmful and damaging they can be, which was a big part of the Wall plotline for several seasons, is pretty much just dropped. 

Political Question Two: What is a Revolutionary?

So this is pretty much the whole question surrounding Dany’s plotline. I do  think, especially in her earlier seasons, that Dany genuinely felt sympathy for enslaved people in Slavers Bay and wanted to free them. Like, if Jon is one person who looks at the underlying nature of this world and sees injustice, the other person who does so is Dany (at least initially.) I do truly think she saw parallels to her own terrifying situation when Viserys sold her to Drogo, and she wanted to help.

The problem is, despite her dragons and her military power, she is absolutely the wrong type of person to lead a revolution. 

This is actually a quote from my sister, we were talking and she said “Dany is the kind of person who believes in a better world, but can’t see that she’s not the one who can bring that world into being.” 

Dany was raised by an insanely scary brother who constantly went off about his rightful claim to the throne and their noble family history. The only adults in her life were the kind of Targaryen loyalists who wanted to see the precious heirs safe, or else the kind of people who thought they could get something out of Viserys and repeated his own bullshit back to him. 

This has all clearly sunk into Dany; despite the fact that she started the incredibly huge political project of ending slavery, something that will require years YEARS of work, she still constantly wants to go off to Westeros and rule because she believes it’s her right. She’s also got a huge self myth about herself as a queen, and what that means, versus an interest in being a leader. 

I’m not a politician, I’m a queen. 

She likes to command, demand, pull the whole fire and blood thing. This all comes from her upbringing, from her understanding of who the Targaryens were and what they conquered/deserved.

Her status as someone from an old Westerosi house also means that she has a tendency to trust the rich and well named, especially rich people from Westeros, waaaaay more than she should. Trusting Tyrion, for example, is a huge huge error. Especially, again, given that she’s attempting the truly revolutionary project of ending fucking slavery. Tyrion is part of an old rich house, part of an old rich system. He is from a culture that does not have slavery, but he is still from a culture with a HIGHLY stratified class system. Fundamentally, he’s got more in common with the slavers than the slaves. Which is why he listens to the slavers, why he comes up with the oh so reasonable compromise of phasing slavery out over several years, and why he gives the slavers HUMAN BEINGS as presents to seal the deal.

One of the most interesting scenes in the entire series for me is the bit directly after Tyrion makes this deal, when we see Missandei and Grey Worm’s reaction to it. They are horrified. 

Because the ones with a real read on this situation, the ones Dany should let have more input, are absolutely Missandei and Grey Worm. They are the two people the former slaves look to most when they have questions. They are seen as leaders by Dany’s base in the city, the formerly enslaved peoples. They are the ones who have suffered under the hands of this system, who know that it is not wise to make “reasonable compromises” with the kind of people willing to own human beings. The kind of person willing to buy and sell people will always try to take advantage, there is nothing to which they won’t sink. You don’t use them, they use you.

Yet Missandei and Grey Worm’s power is largely often ceremonial. Dany makes a lot of her real big choices listening to people like Jorah, like Tyrion. People from old Westerosi houses. Because she’s been raised to value that kind of power.

Dany’s whole plotline; her freeing slaves quickly without a plan, then letting the slavers into her ear, letting them take back some control, and ultimately leaving the situation in a whole mess to gain more personal power, is a great example of why top-down revolutions, revolutions where a wealthy savior wants to free/help the less fortunate, do not generally work out. 

For a revolution to stick, for it’s ideas to stick, it needs to be led by those from below, people who are fully invested, people who understand the monstrosities of the system. People like Missandei and Grey Worm.

That whole scene where Dany talks to Tyrion about breaking the wheel is also super interesting to me. Because...they are both part of the wheel. And as long as Dany’s goal is still to rule, and Tyrion’s goal is to help her, they aren’t going to break that thing. That wheel won’t break until monastic power, until rule by a few families, ends, and that’s not really Dany’s goal. Because she wants to rule. And her family is part of the wheel. 

Again...all of these poltical questions are important. We live under a system where the few, the very rich, rule us. This power is often inherited (because money is often inherited.) Some of them say they want to help...but ultimately nothing really changes. 

And there’s a pretty recent example in world history of slavery ending, but politicians failing to root the perpetrators of that system out of power. Letting those people stay in power, letting them use influence and take advantage, led to slavery essentially returning in a different form (hello 13th amendment of the US Constitution!) So it’s an important thing to explore through fiction.

I kind of thought all this was going to come to a head, especially with Missandei and Grey Worm. Dany clearly trusts them with some power, but she lets Westerosi advisors like Tyrion make more and more of her decisions. The whole plotline with Missendei and Grey Worm is them moving past their trauma and becoming more self-actualized people. I thought they’d start to challenge Dany. I thought maybe they’d take issue with Dany’s desire for power at any cost, especially use of the Dothraki, who famously take and sell slaves. I thought they’d take issue with Dany wanting to leave  for Westeros at all, with leaving the slaves of Mereen in such a desperate, hopeless situation. I thought maybe the show would highlight how becoming more folded into the powers that be in Westeros and ignoring the downtrodden people she met in Essos led to her downfall. It certainly seemed to be heading that way.

But then...Missandei and Grey Worm were relegated fully to the background. They don’t differ with Dany on anything at all in the last half of the series. Issues were raised with how Dany was approaching power, but most of these were centered around her individually being a bad person, having the “Targaryen madness,” not with her being part of a system that sees rule by a few powerful families as just and right. It’s just all a problem of one person being insane and power hungry! Not a problem of systems!

And then a member of another house on the wheel takes control at the end, but he’s from the Good House...so it’s framed as a win!

Political Question Three: What happens when the rich ignore the poor / What happens when religious movements redirect class consciousness? 

This is one I really really wanted the series to get more into. The smallfolk are often talked about and seen in the background as the true victims in the wars that tear through Westeros. They suffer and starve and die because of things they had absolutely no say in, so a few people they’ll never meet can have a little power. And this tension between the poor and the rich was building throughout the series; the smallfolk were getting pissed the fuck off. That riot in King’s Landing where the poor literally tear the septon to pieces still gives me chills. 

And we finally, finally started to see this start to come to a head with the Sparrows. I think it’s really interesting that they chose to use a religious movement. Religious grifters often do swoop in during moments of desperation and steal the energy / direct people away from class consciousness to build their own power. And the poor are so desperate for something anything different that it becomes easy for these grifters to thrive. 

And the High Sparrow is this kind of religious grifter to his bones. It’s very interesting to me that when we finally learn his backstory, he wasn’t truly poor. He was a merchant, and one doing pretty okay. If Westeros had an emerging middle class, he was part of it. He wasn’t the lowest of the low in Flea Bottom; Gendry for example was likely worse off. But the Sparrow presents himself as of the poor, part of the poor, truly one of the people, and because of this he is able to build a shitton of power very quickly from smallfolk who are fed up with all the bullshit and want to see something anything done about it.

And I was very interested in this! Again, this is a good political problem to discuss; religious movements and charismatic grifters build power all the time by telling people that really they’re unhappy because of “these sinners or outsiders” and not because of the larger systemic issues. A LOT OF THAT has been happening lately. 

Like this was the moment that the political scheming of people like Cersei and her absolute lack of interest in helping the people she’d supposedly ruling should have come home to roost. I was interested to see what would happen; how that tension would be resolved, IF that tension could be resolved.

And then...Cersei just blows up the Sept of Baelor and apparently every single member of the reactionary religious movement was inside of it because it’s never really brought up again. 

There are no riots, no anger from the smallfolk at her destroying both the major religious figures AND the major religious site for a large chunk of Westeros. People still gladly flock to Cersei when Dany shows up with dragons, even though they KNOW Cersei is very willing to blow people up. It’s just..all dropped. Cersei spends the next several seasons drinking wine and wearing spiky dresses. 

Granted, there were a few big political issues that D&D still tried to discuss through the end but uhh...I don’t think they did very well. For example - 

They Tried! #1 - White Walkers = Climate Change and the Uselessness of the System as Usual in the Face of Existential Threats

So I do think D&D were kind of going for this a little bit, and it was certainly discussed a lot in all the blogs and meta posts leading up to season 8. And there was a lot of talk, especially in season 7, about how silly the petty political differences between Cersei and Dany were in the face of such a threat.

But the fact that the White Walkers were destroyed relatively easily all things considered, without fundamentally changing the existing power dynamic, without being forced to resolve the differences between Dany and Cersei...kind of ruins this whole parallel. Jon’s been saying throughout the whole series that they needed to fully unite to defeat the threat but uhh...they didn’t unite with Cersei and they still won so I guess it was all good! 

Don’t worry guys, we don’t need to fundamentally approach politics differently to deal with climate change, lets just go to Antartica and stab the carbon emissions monster in the heart!

And the fact that ultimately the main battle of the series, the finale of the series, was focused on the various ruling houses opposing each other...kind of ends up saying that the most important thing really is the petty politics after all. 

Well that’s a bad message!

They Tried! #2 - Dany the Imperialist

Now of all the political messages D&D were trying to get across in the series, I am absolutely 100% certain this one was intentional. They were trying to draw parallels between Dany and modern imperial regimes, specifically the US. 

It’s all over that last script, explicitly. The dragons have frequently been portrayed as weapons of mass destruction, nuclear weapons, and in the script here there is an explicit connection between the destruction of King’s Landing and Hiroshima, an atrocity committed by the US. In the finale script, they also use the phrase “they burned the village in order to save it” which is a famous quote from a US general regarding the destruction of a Vietnamese village by American troops during the Vietnam War. 

And Tyrion’s whole speech about Dany destroying evil men looking great from afar but horrible when you’re on the ground / closer to the reality of it has clear US parallels. The US often uses humanitarian justifications for war (taking out dictators, spreading democracy, etc) and does not much care about the atrocities the actual human beings who live in those countries face when their countries are torn apart by war (Afghanistan and Iraq are prime examples of this.)

They are very very clearly trying to make this parallel. To make a political point about how imperialism is bad. But Jesus Christ, it’s so muddled. 

For one, it’s uhhh not great that the perpetrators of these atrocities are largely non-white and the victims are members of a culture that closely parallels western Europe. Given that the way the last several hundred years have played out...it’s usually been the other way around. This shows a lack of care in D&D’s part in truly wrestling with this topic, a lack of interest in really dealing with real world politics and history. Just no interest exploring how imperialism and white supremacy, how the idea that “we come from a ‘superior culture’ so clearly we know what’s best and can go around the world doing as we please” are INCREDIBLY linked.

For two...it’s mostly just Dany that’s the problem. Jon doesn’t want to destroy King’s Landing, Varys doesn’t, Tyrion doesn’t. Grey Worm does, but he’s barely a character at this point in the story. They all give her like, a million outs. Especially the bells. And those bells ring, the battle is won, but Dany decides to go on her murder rampage anyway. 

The problem isn’t a system, it’s one person who has “the madness!” It’s one person being a psychotic dictator, and all the problems are solved when that person gets stabbed. 

Which is absolutely not how it works in real life. We didn’t just go to war in Afghanistan in Iraq because George Bush was a bad person. If we had, we would have been out when Obama got into office. The US went to war in those countries because of a giant system of war and profit, a system that benefits many many people, that has been built over the past several generations. The US went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and stayed there, because weapons contractors wanted to be there so they could make money. Because oil companies and heavy mineral companies wanted the resources those countries had. Because the military itself has a huge amount influence over the government, and to justify their massive budget and continued influence they need to have things to do. The Afghanistan War continues loooong after the death of Osama Bin Laden because of a whole web of CEOs and lobbyists and generals and politicians, all of whom benefit from it. The problem is not one person. It’s a fundamental flaw in how the system is set up. How it rewards those who can buy influence. 

And it’s so so clear to me that D&D do not understand this. Like...even a little. They don’t think in terms of systems, just good people and bad people. That’s why the end of the series, which is still a fucking monarchy, is framed positively. Because it’s not the system of power that’s the problem, it’s just that bad people were in charge! But now the good people are in charge, so it’s all good!

They like talking about the tragedy of war, like referencing historical atrocities in scripts, like talking about how deep it all is. They love to talk about how they wanted to create a fantasy series grounded not in magic, but political reality. But they have no understanding of political reality beyond the most basic basic shit. Like war is bad dontcha know! Yeah, no shit!

So these two messed up the characters, they messed up the fantasy, but they also messed up the part they claimed to care about most, the politics. Because they’re dumbshits. 

Jesus this got long. If you read all this, thank you for listening to the ramblings I wrote while I should be working. 

[ragnarssons]

I’m sorry I’m new to the music side I haven’t really paid attention but you kind of made me open my eyes and so I was listening to all the music and was just wondering how you could tell which ones were made/written for dany. I’m sorry if that’s a stupid question I didn’t know how to word it.

Well it depends, do you mean this season or in general? About the “Stay Here for a Thousand Years” or all the tracks in general? So to be clear, on Game of Thrones, all of the “Houses” have a particular theme. The Lannister theme is reminiscent of the Rains of Castamere, it’s kinda their vibe. Cersei as Queen taking on her own had a new vibe added to that, and it was the piano theme that appeared on ep6x10 and came back several times through s7 and s8.  House Stark is representated by the cello, so cello heavy themes are House Stark and characters related to House Stark/storylines related to House Stark. House Stark Theme | which is reminiscent to The Last of the Starks which is their final piece. Where is added this idea of “epicness”, future, possibilities brought by these characters’ storylines: Sansa becoming Queen, Arya sailing away, Jon going North. It still has this cello vibe, core of House Stark and their theme, but it doesn’t have the same melancholy/sadness it used to have for a very long time when House Stark was to the ground, over and over again. (note, it’s also mixed with the Game of Thrones main title, mostly because it’s the final theme of the season and that’s where they closed the episode- it also kinda proves that the story was about House Stark - at least on the show - they opened the show, they’re closing it). We also have added to that one, Arya’s House of the Undying Theme, these bits of Arya’s theme when she was with the Faceless Men and she left - I don’t remember the name of that piece, but it’s played here. Jon Snow’s theme, is also heavily featured in the last track: this one. Sansa’s theme at its core is still really the one of her family: sad cello often played over her scenes, for a very long time. And then it morphed into this “joyfully melancholic cello” (I don’t know how to describe iiiiit) that plays also at some point - well during Sansa’s coronation. It first appeared during her “The Lone wolf Dies but the Pack Survives” scene with Arya on s7. Anyway, all that to say that the Starks have had a vibe that’s always been reminiscent in all the House Stark characters, and it’s come back and been mashed up together for their very last scenes. It really is really beautiful and it just shows how the characters have morphed, how their House is still what it was at its roots but how they’ve grown and what the legacy of these characters are. The theme starts with notes that are very reminiscent of Ned Stark, and evolves into something that is Arya, Sansa and Jon’s identity. Anyway, as for the rest we have the Lannisters, it’s really generally circling around the Rains of Castamere vibes, it’s always there. What is cool about the Lannisters is mostly Cersei: Cersei has a theme from s5 and going. But her theme is heavily related to the High Sparrow and the faith. It starts as this theme, mix of a Lannister theme and an organ. And it merges into this gorgeous theme for Cersei’s revenge: the organ comes back, but this time, to symbolize the Faith’s destruction rather than Cersei’s.As for Dany, well she was the only one of her House. So actually most if not all of the House Targaryen themes are hers. They’re all about her, tbh. Ramin Djawadi has composed a lot of pieces for Daenerys- like A LOT, I think she has nine soundtracks for s5 alone, for example. The first whispers of her theme are here, technically, on the first steps (literally) of Daenerys towards her destiny, when she meets Khal Drogo. The ironic thing, is that Dany’s theme also starts with some light cello. Not as “deep” as House Stark, but it’s still cello and it has its importance later on. Before that, she has no theme, it’s Viserys’ theme (kinda) that steps over her. The drums are only whispers at that point, and then it grows bigger and bigger as she gains power. This one, is the final version of her s1 theme- BEFORE her dragons are born. Now in the end of the video, we can hear a new version of her theme; the appearence of voices as she’s become something else, the Mother of Dragons. The one who brought magic back into the world! On s1 her theme grew as something like a Dothraki warrior theme, she’s become the Unburnt + Khal Drogo’s Khaleesi, something that is hers but not totally. So her theme has pieces of instruments that were used for the Dothraki related themes- especially the the Armenian duduk flutewhich is used to symbolize the Dothrakis in Ramin Djawadi’s music. Dany’s music grows bigger and bigger as she gains her roles and goes through victory after victory: as I said, by the end of 1x10 when the dragons are born, the “ah ah ahhhhhs” are appearing, because that’s how her theme merges. The “ah ah ahhhhs” are related to the dragons. To Daenerys, becoming more than the Khaleesi of a man, who is proving her strength on a “human level”. She’s something else, she’s more, she’s “the stuff of legends” that people will sing about. The final version of this theme, is at the end of s2 when the dragons finally breathe fire, at the House of the Undying. Name of the track? Well, Mother of Dragons, of course! Which is a perfect balance of “victorious Dany”/Mother of Dragons and Unburnt Dany. And Mother of Dragons really becomes the strong basis of ALL the Daenerys’ themes coming forward. At her core, Daenerys is the Mother of Dragons, the victorious, the Unburnt once again at the end of s2. S3 adds to that, as Daenerys becomes the Breaker of Chains. It’s this theme: and yet you notice it always has the same basis- the flute, the “ah ah ahhhhs”, everything that has made Dany and Dany’s theme so far. This is when she starts building her army, when she starts to conquer. Herself doesn’t know clearly WHY yet, at the beginning of ep3, Daenerys does get this army in order to have an army to sail to Westeros. Her journey on s3 is slowly becoming the Breaker of Chains and the “Mhysa” of the people- hence why s3 for Dany ends with the Mhysa theme. And even tho the basis of Daenerys’ theme, which are the instruments that we can hear in the background are the same, here, it’s really a sung music. It’s a whole music, that could be transcribed as in universe, people singing across the world, everything that Daenerys Targaryen has accomplished. She’s officially become the Mother of the People: Mhysa as they call her. And let’s remember that because it comes back to what I said about her s8′s theme. All that morphes into her usual theme, her “Dany theme”, with the Dohtraki vibes, the Mother of Dragons vibes and all. And here, her theme is Big! It’s Dany full force, Dany at her peak, Dany embracing an unexpected destiny that will lead her to greatness. The “ah ah ahhhhhs” are growing and growing, because it’s truly a moment where she reaches the top: she has three growing Dragons, an army, Ser Barristan, Ser Jorah, a close friend (Missandei), and she’s adored. And that’s where Breaker of Chains really appears, after s3, onto s4. Daenerys didn’t just free the Unsullied because she wanted an army, now she has a new quest, a new purpose, a new destiny. A new title to her long list: Khaleesi, Mother of Dragons, Breaker of Chains. We start with the same flute, the same vibes, what has been Daenerys’ theme ever since the beginning of the show, it’s still here. And it’s morphing into a lament - basically Dany lamenting for the children she sees crucified before reaching Mereen - and it merges into more of a “justice”/revenge theme where she follows her path: we know which one, where she conquers the city and abolishes slavery. The “Dany notes” - like really, how to call them I can’t really transcribe them on a post like that - are still here, and they’re growing and growing. The Mhysa theme is also all merged into this one, truly is one of the best Dany themes. S4 is where Dany kinda “stops” for a while. She decides to stay in Mereen. So there is no real progression in her theme for a while. Her next theme is Forgive me, at the end of s4 (it’s featured on s5′s soundtrack but it appears on s4 first but it gets bigger on s5 after 5x08 when Daenerys really does banish Jorah again). It’s a tragic theme, where Dany kinda loses a lot of her “superb” because her Jorah betrayed her: Dany is really falling from grace at the end of s4. It’s also really the first time Jorah and Dany have a theme: a theme that will come back later on the show, on s5 “officially” and on s6 and merges back into something big because that’s where she accepts him again. At the very end of s4 for Dany, the Breaker of Chains theme comes back, but only the lament part: because in becoming a leader of the people, Daenerys had to choose to chain her dragons. The idea of breaking chains is becoming harder and harder for Daenerys. These are Dany’s biggest betrayals: she was the victim of one, with Jorah, and the second one where she betrays her children and tbh, basically, her Oath as their Mother and a Breaker of Chains. Dany’s next pivotal moment is A Dance of Dragons, so we have the Daenerys theme mixed with the Sons of the Harpy’s one. And it basically becomes a war theme. Daenerys’ war theme: Daenerys with what she has, her dragons who are loyal to her and will follow her as proved by Drogon on this very same episode, her army, everyone loyal to her. It’s also where the French horns appear on her themes: and that’s to symbolize the FORCE of her now full grown dragon(s). And they’ll be part of her theme going forward. And this theme will then also come back to Daenerys’ theme going forward. We still have the flute, the magical notes that are always related to Daenerys as a Mother of Dragons, especially since it’s the moment she sees Drogon again after a while. And then it merges into something more, once again: Daenerys embracing another one of her destinies. Daenerys becoming a dragon rider, and we’re back with the “ah ah ahhhhhhs”. Daenerys’ next big theme after that is Khaleesi. We finally have a theme called Khaleesi for her: and here it’s very reminiscent of Daenerys the Unburnt, Daenerys the Khaleesi that she was on s1. Daenerys freeing people from oppression once again, and the praises are coming back: this time tho, they’re chanted in Dothraki and not in Valyrian like in Mhysa. She becomes a Khaleesi in her own rights, she proves HER strength to all the Khalasar and they all bow to her: this theme has become more about her than about the Dothraki. Her next theme is Reign. And it has everything: it’s Khaleesi Dany, Queen Dany, Mother of Dragons Dany, Unbent Dany, Daenerys Targaryen. That is higher than her peak. She’s accomplished everything she has to accomplish in Mereen and Essos: she has eliminated her enemies, the threats to her “new order” and she’s come out of it, victorious. And Daenerys’ final Essos-y theme is Winds of Winter: again, a theme that is sung in Valyrian and is a CRAZY theme. It’s basically chanting Daenerys coming, the “hero” coming. It’s full of hope, and yet it’s still Daenerys’ theme, it’s what it has morphed into after everything she’s been through: drums, voices, horns, everything is here! Tbh to me that’s why 80% of Dany’s storyline in Westeros is disappointing, because this theme seemed so promising. To me it’s really GoT’s most epic theme ever. After s7, Daenerys became very stagnant. Daenerys’ theme on s7 starts with Dragonstone: it sounds like the accomplishment of Daenerys. She’s back home, she’s where she thinks she belongs, everything that is Daenerys is here, with a part of “accomplishment” and excitment that is added to the whole lot. Daenerys is home, and we have the flute coming back for that: Daenerys at her basis, the flute playing while she walks around the beaches at Dragonstone for the very first time, reminiscent of the baby she was when she was born here. And then we have the voices swelling again, reminding us of the woman she has become: when she sees the Red Doors, which are a big goal to book!Dany even tho it was never expressed from show!Dany. And then we have this amazing piece where she’s walking to her Destiny, and it stops when she reaches the Throne. The Unburnt, Queen, Khaleesi theme comes back. She’s, symbolically, steps away from her Throne, her final goal. Her lifelong dream. The spoils of War basically has Daenerys’ horns symbolic of her Dragons. It is kinda the stuff of nightmare in this soundtrack, but mostly when it’s seen from a Lannisters perspective. If I were to say “there was a foreshadowing of Mad!Queen Dany” I’d say it’s this piece of music, that did a better job to kinda “announce it” or make us fear for it, than the writing of the show ever did. It still has notes of victorious Dany, but this time, it’s over the ashes of things we know: the Lannisters theme and even tho we can freely hate Cersei, by this point of the story, she has detached herself from her usual “Lannisters theme” and became more of an “independant” person. So yeah, the Lannisters theme here is mostly about Jaime and hearing these two sounds clashing has something of a tragedy. She has a theme she shares with Jon: it’s called Truth and everyone knows which one it is, lol. It plays when they sleep together. The cello is back, proeminent in this theme: it’s a thing both Jon as a Stark and Dany from her original theme have in common. It has the three “magical notes” as I call these coming from Daenerys theme, and the “swelling” of Jon’s theme coming from his House Stark heritage. It’s basically the clashing, body and soul of Jon Snow and Daenerys- not really as representative of their Houses, but as people. Like Rhaegar and Lyanna. That’s why there isn’t “more notes” of House Stark and House Targaryen themes. It’s about Jon and Daenerys as people, not truly about their House or their name. This soundtrack has a variation in See You for What you Are which plays during their 7x06 scene and during their 7x04 scene in the cave. Now as for s8 since I can’t say I really comprehend Dany’s journey, it’s really hard to say. What I could see as a soundtrack really related to Dany on s8 is “The Bells” - and yes, it’s THAT far. It’s basically the music playing during Dany’s downfall. The pure lack of foreshadowing during all this time could be transcribed through that as well: we have no soundtrack, up until this point, kind of implying Daenerys going mad. Nothing telling us that Daenerys is “turning” from what we’ve seen of her so far, for 7 seasons. And again, it’s not totally about Daenerys for a very long time; it’s mostly a countdown with a music swelling and swelling for dramatic purpose. And then around the middle of the track you have this tragic, almost war cry, last “scream” of hope, that dies slowly as Daenerys “turns mad” and these three “magical notes” that were so symbolic of Daenerys so far, are dying and are becoming more and more distorted by the music swelling and swelling. That’s really symbolic of some kind of madness, of rage, of “power” taking over Daenerys and who she’s been so far: again, an amazing piece, far better than the writing of the season itself. And it merges into “the Last War” which is basically, the horror. And it’s basically everything Daenerys has been the symbolic of for so long, being turned “dark”, all her victories being reduced to something very very dark where there is no victory, no hope, the voices don’t swell. It’s really about how Daenerys’ force as a character becomes more destructive than liberative. And then when the voices rise and the music explodes, it’s all about horror more than anything heroic. The thread of Daenerys’ character is still here and everything turns to ashes: her goals, everything she’s stood for. We hear the French horns but they’re symbolic of destruction and despair here. We hear her Dothraki theme but it’s not strong in the sense of victory. It’s strong as in “stepping on everyone else”. The “ah ah ahhhhhs” are no longer going up, they’re going down. That’s basically Dany’s downfall. And apparently Ramin has chosen to turn Daenerys from Mhysa, Mother of Dragons, as “Master of War” because this theme is for her as well. Thank you, Ramin, for not calling it “the Mad Queen” or whatever bullshit. And this one is a very sad theme: we do hear all of Daenerys’ “core values” but all of it is twisted by the same “dark effect” we hear in the Last War. Following Dany’s downfall through the soundtrack is actually very sad. The same instruments are used, but not with the same “impact”, Daenerys’ essence is twisted. And what do we have at the end of it? A lament. A lament because Daenerys as we knew her and loved her, is dead here. She was dead before Jon stabbed her. And the lament sings the notes that were before, so representative of Dany the hero, Dany liberating people in the right way. Really, it’s heartbreaking. She touches the Throne, she’s THERE, she’s won, but she’s lost herself in doing so. And the music is not victorious, it’s not hateful, it’s not “evil”, it’s tragic. Ramin doesn’t want you to hate Daenerys with these themes, he wants you to mourn for her.In her final moments of love and trust - after everything - with Jon, it’s “Be with me” that plays, and we have some of Daenerys’ “light” coming back, swelling, before DYING. Really dying, because Jon kills her at that moment. The flute came back, symbolic of Daenerys’ long lost innocence, who she was when she started this journey on 1x01. Again, no hatred, no destruction, no “evil Queen”: Daenerys is a tragic hero, whose flame is killed, like that. The swelling comes back on The Iron Throne for Drogon’s grief, Drogon coming for his Mother, but the Mother of Dragons’ theme is tragic here too. Drogon has lost his Mother. Really, whatever shit D&D did to her, this soundtrack is an ode of love to Daenerys and it’s really beautiful- I think I said it 500 times already. The way Daenerys’ final piece explodes with sadness and tragedy. She’s not a monster, she was not “the enemy”, the world destroyed her (I would even say the world of MEN destroyed her) and that’s what Ramin Djawadi wants us to remember of her. In the additional pieces, we have “Stay for a Thousand Years” that is about Daenerys. Now yes, it has the “Truth” vibes, that could have us believe that it’s about Jon and Daenerys. BUT, the lyrics are the Mhysa’s song lyrics. It’s Valyrian, and everything Valyrian is 100% without a doubt, related to Daenerys. It’s about Daenerys. Daenerys is also the one voicing her desire to “Stay here for a Thousand Years” on the show, when they reach the cascades with Jon. This theme is about how Daenerys died for love, how tragic it ultimately is. It’s about how what could have been of Daenerys had they stayed there for a Thousand Years like Daenerys wanted at some point, when she was sky high, happy and in love with a man who wasn’t a threat to her. No, this song is not about Jon, it’s about an “ideal” of Daenerys that died when war came and duty came, and ultimately tore Daenerys down: she lost love, she lost faith, she lost her core duty as a savior and a hero. It’s really a mourning piece for Daenerys’ character as a whole, the woman she was before she fell from grace and became… whatever D&D wrote her to be in the end. And that’s totally my interpretation, but the fact that these lyrics, about Daenerys the savior, Daenerys the hero, being sung over a melody that is called TRUTH is a way for Ramin to say who Daenerys truly was. She was not “the evil Queen all along” like HBO and D&D and the actors are trying to have us believe right now. She was a hero for a very long time, and that’s how she should be remembered. All that to say that as you can hear through all of this, the Dany related themes all have the same… “back bone”, the same vibes, the same identity. And that’s how you can tell a certain theme is about a certain character.TLDR; probably a wayyyy too long answer to a question that probably didn’t require that much. But I love Ramin Djawadi’s music too much not to dive into it, especially when it’s about Daenerys so *shrugs* it’s a whole journey. Djawadi’s entire music dedicated to Daenerys is a journey. Each character had an identity in the music itself, and that’s what makes it so powerful. It’s not about the moments, it’s about the characters, and them morphing and changing and evolving. The music, as the story, follows them. Because ultimately, as I say that a lot of times, the story should be about the characters and not the other way around. What drives the story and everything around it, are the characters. It shouldn’t be shock value or plot twists, or the story over the characters. That’s what tanked GoT in the last two seasons (at least, if not more for some characters like Stannis or the Sand Snakes, for example) in my mind. How the characters became simpler and simpler (or extras, like Jon on s8) while the story tried to become what it wasn’t meant to be.

[lupinusalbus]

Jon Snow will have to Choose

A compelling scene took place at the end of season 7 between Jon Snow and Theon Greyjoy.  When Theon muses that Jon Snow always knew what was right, Jon replies that while it might appear that way from the outside, he has done plenty of things that he regrets.  Theon makes his observation about Jon having a good sense of knowing right from wrong in the context of his own moral brokenness.  In the not too distant past, Theon  betrayed the Starks by taking over Winterfell.  In the course of these events, he also killed two farm boys and claimed that they were Bran and Rickon Stark.  Theon appeared to pay dearly for his offenses when Ramsay transformed him into “Reek” by torturing and mutilating him.

Since those events, Theon has somewhat redeemed himself by helping Sansa and most recently by embarking on a mission to rescue his sister, Yara.  But of course on Game of Thrones, not every horrible deed receives retribution and the innocent or honorable often suffer unjust or cruel fates.  As Littlefinger observed to Sansa, “There is no justice in the world, unless we make it”. Of course for Littlefinger, the statement was deployed as part of his scheme to manipulate Sansa.  Yet as a truism for Game of Thrones, it seems to hold water. In Westeros, there is a paucity of fairness, but there is a feudal system through which Lords mete out justice after a fashion, and there is also the chivalric code of knights.  As we have observed, however, these function in a piecemeal manner and can break down very quickly.  Power grabs such as Theon’s, and even worse, are all too common, and life can be very brutal indeed.

The conversation with Theon is meant to demonstrate how far from the norm Jon Snow stands on the continuum of leaders in Westeros.  Theon specifically admires what Jon told Cersei during the Dragonpit meeting, but the audience knows that Jon has demonstrated exceptional qualities from early in the story. He has consistently protected underdogs and remained true to his ideals, even though there was disillusionment along the way.  He is usually right on the front line of any cause that he believes in and is compassionate, fair and loyal.   He is very brave, perhaps even to the point of being foolhardy at times; yet is also shy and humble.  He has many friends, treats people well, and is not a backstabber.

All of his admirable qualities have developed over many seasons and add up to Jon Snow being an ethical person with a good conscience.  This is a quality shared by all of the Starks, at least to a degree.  It even makes them appear to be naive when they are out of their element and placed into environments where intrigue and betrayal are the rule.  So when Theon tells Jon that he always has known what is right, the writers are definitely reminding us to believe  it.  For the general audience, this is a great thing, because Dany, as Jon’s partner, has been set up as a heroine.  The awesomeness of the dragons, the fire, her beauty and her power are perhaps all meant to blind us to a different possibility:  that Dany is actually a bad guy, or will become one.  Jon being unmasked as a pretender would perhaps be even worse, but Jon himself may be setting us up for this when he admits to Theon that he has done plenty of things that he regrets.

The theories in favor of Jon Snow being in some way a “pretender” with respect to Daenerys are plausible only because we know who Jon Snow is.  One of his most defining characteristics is his commitment to saving the North and Westeros at large from the Night King.  He had this sense of dedication even before he was named King in the North, and this issue was his reason for traveling to Dragonstone in the first place.  After he arrived, Dany told him in the cave that she would fight for him only if he bent the knee.  The drama between them continued on, with Jon eventually and somewhat inexplicably, bending the knee  after Dany loses a dragon beyond the wall and promises to fight with him. 

The theories  attempt to make sense of his bending the  knee and not so much that Jon may be attracted to Daenerys.  Although Jon does seem to be put off by Dany’s imperious demeanor and is skeptical of at least some of what he is being told by her followers, that he finds her to be attractive is not surprising.  She is a beautiful woman who is in love with Jon, and she undertakes an awesome and dramatic rescue of the wight-hunting party which demonstrates her bravery.   Jon has not heard a full account of Dany’s activities, only what he has been told by Tyrion and Missandei.  

Surely Jon knows that it would be foolish to give away the North for love, especially for the love of a Targaryen.  He surely knows it on his own, but he was also warned by Sansa not to make stupid mistakes in season 8, episode 1, and he also heard many negative comments from the Northern Lords before he left for Dragonstone.  Jon has also had his loyalties tested by a woman in the past when he chose returning to the Watch over staying with Ygritte.  This shows that he was able to prioritize competing causes, difficult as the choices were.  In other words, he did not sacrifice “all” for love.  So bending the knee purely for love of Daenerys is out of character for Jon, and would seemingly contradict everything that he stands for.  

Of course Jon may love her and want her assistance, but Game of Thrones did not develop a “proper” love story between these two characters.  We are shown Jon being guarded and polite in his interactions with Dany, while Dany is shown to be falling in love with him.  Davos, Jon’s advisor, appears to be prodding Jon a bit with regard to Dany, while  Dany’s allies seem to be troubled by Jon’s growing influence over her.   In this respect the “love” relationship seems entirely one-sided until the scene where Jon pledges to Dany after the Wight hunt.

What is really at stake in the question of whether or not Jon really loves Dany?  If he loves her, that love is integral to his decision to bend the knee; if he doesn’t love her, he is manipulating her in order to insure her help.  He would therefore be a liar and not the person he claimed to be at the Dragonpit.  However for many people, the stakes are sufficiently high for such a ruse to be justified.  What is Jon Snow’s reputation as an honorable man compared to the risk of all life being wiped out by the AOTD?  Or perhaps Jon is occupying a gray  area as he did in his relationship with Ygritte.  He may be attracted to Dany, yet if his true loyalty were to be tested in some way, he would stick with his Northern or Stark Loyalties.

Perhaps this is where the show is actually going: Jon has mixed motives.  He really does have feelings for Dany, but he will soon be forced to choose between her and the Starks. A similar thing has happened to Jon before, in his relationship with Ygritte, and Jon chose “duty” over love. In that relationship, Jon’s mixed loyalties were always part of the story arc.  In season 7, Jon doesn’t learn the extent of Dany’s objectionable activities in the past, but only hears positive spin from her supporters.  As soon as the two arrive at Winterfell, the truth is going to drop about Jon’s true bloodline and about something Dany did to his best friend’s family, which will likely be viewed as an atrocity in Westeros.  And Dany will have to choose as well, when Jon is revealed to be a Targaryen.

If Jon does have mixed motives to some degree, he would be “saved” from being viewed as a cad by the audience, yet he would still be made to feel a great deal of angst over his relationship with Daenerys when the information about himself and what happened to Samwell’s family is revealed in the first episode of season 8.  If circumstances compel Jon to turn on Dany (for example if she can’t accept him as the true heir, and/or she commits more atrocities of some kind),  then Jon may feel that he has no choice but to stop her.  His choice will be difficult, but obvious; and he will have regrets.

[typicalttuesdaynight]

Why GoT Seasons 7 & 8 Suck

this is just going to be me rambling. i have a lot of thoughts and i plan to go through all of them. 

[1] jon and daenerys. for years, fans have theorized and predicted that these two would meet, fall in love, and have some sort of relationship. BUT ! when they finally had a scene together, my god, i could not have been more bored. those two, on their own, are some of the most interesting and admirable characters to ever exist, but the dialogue they shared was terribly bland. and that scene?? where jon took her down to the caves to show her the drawings on the walls???? it was at that moment where i was like okay, fuck off, what the fuck is this. this is not game of thrones. this is way too amateur and silly to be an actual scene on game of thrones. 

[2] gendry!!!!!!!!! for gendry to run to the wall, send a raven to daenerys on dragonstone, and have daenerys fly over to jon is absolutely ridiculous. i know that at some point, daenerys had to go beyond the wall, but that was such an unnecessarily convoluted way of doing so. the pacing is all over the place. 

[3] this show really took two of the most intelligent and clever people (varys and tyrion) and made them completely, unbelievably stupid and useless. what did varys even do towards the end? what was the point of him being there at all??????? and tyrion! tyrion has been giving dany horrible advice since DAY ONE. if we look at the last 2 seasons, the only idea that he’s been able to come up with is to negotiate with cersei. they do this (1) when they bring a wight down to king’s landing (2) when that doesn’t work out, and he meets her in private in an attempt to reason with her (3) when they met outside the gates of king’s landing in season 8 (4) when he releases jaime to go and convince cersei to surrender. what the FUCK did tyrion expect out of this? cersei is not someone you negotiate with. he should know that, of all people. 

[4] jaime lannister, you fuck. jaime, if you must know, is one of my favorite characters. he is so wonderfully complex, he is the perfect characterization of george r r martin’s depiction of being morally ambiguous in a morally ambiguous world, and he has had one of the most brilliant story arcs. which is why his final scenes feel devastating and senseless. for him to tell tyrion that he “never really cared much for the people” is completely out of character and 100% false. it directly contradicts the conversation he has with brienne in the bathtub, where he tells her about killing the mad king. that scene is one of the most raw, honest scenes of the whole show, and it just feels hopelessly cheapened with the way he died.

[5] the long night. contrary to popular sentiment, i didn’t actually hate the long night. in fact, i loved it. i loved watching every second of it, even when arya killed the night king. regardless, even if you are the biggest arya fan ever, you have to admit that it doesn’t make much sense, story-wise. what was the point of bringing jon snow back to life? what was the point of creating literal YEARS worth of conflict between jon and the night king, only to have the nk killed by some last second sneak attack??? for the amount of build-up they allotted for the white walkers, it just needed to be longer. the long night could have lasted several episodes. maybe half a season. even though the episode was brilliantly produced, it simply doesn’t satisfy the conflict and rising action. 

[6] daenerys, you poor thing. listen, i’m not arguing with the decision to make daenerys go mad. i, like many others, have a problem with the execution of it. i was watching the “inside the episode” after ep 5 finished, and david & dan basically explained that “there have been signs from the beginning” and that “you should have seen this coming.” ma’am, i think not. yes, daenerys has always been ruthless ever since she came into power. however, she has also continuously shown that she is a reasonable person. even when it went against her morals, she reopened the fighting pits. the only horrible thing she did prior to the king’s landing incident was burn the tarly’s alive, and that’s only because they outwardly opposed her. the entire city surrendered. (except for cersie) they rang the bells! what reason did she have then for burning them? in season 7, she said that she is “not here to be queen of the ashes,” because she knew that it would be insensitive and cruel to take the iron throne that way. in the season 8 finale, however, we see her legitimately believe that what she did was right; that she has liberated people by incinerating them. that is not someone who has had a ruthless edge all her life, that’s someone who’s gone fucking insane! so no! you cannot use her past actions to justify the genocide she singlehandedly committed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i’m not the first person to say this, and i’m definitely not the last, but: foreshadowing is NOT THE SAME THING as character development! you need some sort of build-up; you need to portray her downward spiral over a reasonable period of time. i really believe that david & dan gave up some much needed storytelling for the sake of being “unpredictable.” sir, i don’t know if you knew this, but you can still be unpredictable but also have the story make actual sense! take the red wedding, for example. it was one of the most surprising, horrific things ever to happen on television. but when you watch it a second time, you can see that all the signs were there! that the last two seasons has led us to this very moment!!!!!!!!! 

regardless, the show will always remain one of my favorites. the acting, lighting, sound, cinematography, costumes, make-up, editing, direction, and music (!!!) were absolute perfection. that fact can never be looked over or forgotten, ever. 

[cometsweepandleonidsfly]

David Sims: “ As a fan of the TV show, I felt battered into submission. This season has been the same story over and over again: a lot of tin-eared writing trying to justify some of the most drastic story developments imaginable, as quickly as possible....[T]ime and time again in recent years, Benioff and Weiss have opted for grand cinematic gestures over granular world building, and Drogon burning the Throne to sludge was their last big mic drop.

Spencer Kornhaber: The penultimate episode of Game of Thrones gave us one of the most dramatic reversals in TV history, with the once-good queen going genocidal. The finale gave us yet another historic reversal, in that this drama turned into a sitcom. Not a slick HBO sitcom either, but a cheapo network affair, or maybe even a webisode of outtakes from one. Tonally odd, logically strained, and emotionally thin, “The Iron Throne” felt like the first draft of a finale.

When Dany torched King’s Landing last week, viewers were incensed, but I’d argue it was less because the onetime hero went bad than because it wasn’t clearwhy she did. Long-simmering madness? Sudden emotional break? Tough-minded strategy? A desire to implement an innovative new city grid? The answer to this would seem to help answer some of the show’s most fundamental inquiries about might and right, little people and greater goods, noble nature and cruel nurture. Thrones has been shaky quality-wise for some time now, but surely the show would be competent enough to hinge the finale around the mystery of Dany’s decision.

Nope. The first parts of the episode loaded up on ponderous scenes of the characters whose horror at the razing of King’s Landing had been made plenty clear during the course of the razing. Tyrion speculated a bit to Jon about what had happened—Dany truly believed she was out to save the world and could thus justify any means on the way to messianic ends—but it was, truly, just speculation. When Jon and Dany met up, he raged at her, and she gave some tyrannical talk knowing what “the good world” would need (shades of “I alone can fix it,” no?). But whether her total firebombing was premeditated, tactical, or a tantrum remained unclear. Whether she was always this deranged or just now became so determines what story Thrones was telling all along, and Benioff and Weiss have left it to be argued about in Facebook threads.

The Dany speechifying that we did get in this episode was, notably, not in the common tongue. Though conducted in Dothraki and Valaryian and not German, her victory rally was clearly meant to evoke Hitler in Triumph of the Will. It also visually recalled the white-cloaked Saruman rallying the orc armies in The Two Towers, another queasy echo. People talk about George R. R. Martin “subverting” Tolkien, but on the diciest element of Lord of the Rings—the capacity for it to be seen as a racist allegory, with Sauron’s horde of exotic brutes bearing down on an idyllic kingdom—this episode simply took the subtext and made it text. With the Northmen sitting out the march, the Dothraki and Unsullied were cast as bloodthirsty others eager to massacre a continent. Given all the baggage around Dany’s white-savior narrative from the start, going so heavy on the hooting and barking was a telling sign of the clumsiness to come.

Jon’s kiss-and-kill with Dany led to the one moment of sharp emotion—terror—I felt over the course of this bizarrely inert episode. That emotion came not from the assassination itself but rather from the suspense about what Drogon would do about it. For the dragon to roast the slayer of his mother would have been a fittingly awful but logical turn. Instead, Drogon turned his geyser toward the Iron Throne. Whether Aegon’s thousand swords were just a coincidental casualty of a dragon’s mourning or, rather, the chosen target of a beast with a higher purpose—R’hllor take the wheel?—is another key thing fans will be left to argue about.

Then came the epilogue, a parade of oofs. David, you say you were satisfied by where this finale moved all its game pieces, and if I step back … well, no, I’m not satisfied with Arya showing a sudden new interest in seafaring, but maybe I can be argued into it. What I can’t budge on is the parody-worthy crumminess of the execution. Take the council that decides the fate of Westeros. It appears that various lords gathered to force a confrontation with the Unsullied about the prisoners Tyrion and Jon Snow and the status of King’s Landing. But then one of those prisoners suggests they pick a ruler for the realm. They then … do just that. Right there and then. Huh?

It really undoes much of what we’ve learned about Westeros as a land of ruthlessly competing interests to see a group of far-flung factions unanimously agree to give the crown to the literal opposite of a “people person.” Yes, the council is dominated by protagonist types whom we know to be good-hearted and tired of war. But surely someone—hello, new prince of Dorne! What’s up, noted screamer Robin Arryn?—would make more of a case for another candidate than poor Edmure Tully did. Rather than hashing out the intrigue of it all as Thrones once would have done, we got Sam bringing up the concept of democracy and getting laughed down. The joke relied on the worst kind of anachronistic humor—breaking the fourth wall that had been so carefully mortared up over all these years—and much of the rest of the episode would coast on similarly wack moments.

It’s “nice” to see beloved characters ride off into various sunsets, but I balk at the notion that these endings even count as fan service. What true fan of Thronesthinks this show existed to deliver wish fulfillment? I’m not saying I wanted everyone to get gobbled up by a rogue zombie flank in the show’s final moments. Yet rather than honoring the complication and tough rules that made Thrones’ world so strangely lovable, Benioff and Weiss waved a wand and zapped away tension and consequence. You see this, for example, in the baffling arc of Bronn over the course of Season 8. What was the point of having him nearly kill Jaime and Tyrion if he was going to just be yada-yadaed onto the small council at the end?

One thing I can’t complain about: the hint that clean water will soon be coming to Westeros. Hopefully, someone will use it to give Ghost a bath. As the doggy and his dad rode north of the Wall with a band of men, women, and children, the message seemed to be that where death once ruled, life could begin. Winter Is Leaving. It’d seem like a hopeful takeaway for our own world, except that it’s not clear, even now, exactly how and why the realm of Thrones arrived at this happy outcome.

Lenika Cruz: Do I have answers? Who do you think I am—Bran the Broken? Before I get into this episode, I need to acknowledge how unfortunate it is that Tyrion decided to give the new ruler of the Six Kingdoms a name as horrifyingly ableist as Bran the Broken. You could, of course, argue that the moniker was intended as a reclamation of a slur or as a poignant callback to Season 1’s “Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things,” when Tyrion and Bran first bonded. But given the “parade of oofs” this finale provided—including the troubling optics of Dany’s big speech—it’s hard to make excuses for the show.

Now that we’ve gotten our “the real Game of Thrones/Iron Throne/Song of Ice and Fire was the friends we made along the way” jokes out of our system, where to begin? I basically agree with Spencer’s scorched-earth take on “The Iron Throne.” I was already expecting the finale to be a disappointment, but I didn’t foresee the tonal and narrative whiplash that I experienced here. At one point during the small-council meeting, my mind stopped processing the dialogue because I was in such disbelief about the several enormous things that had happened within the span of 15 minutes: Jon stabs Dany. Instead of roasting Jon, Drogon symbolically melts the Iron Throne and carries the limp body of his mother off in his talons. A conclave of lords and ladies of Westeros is convened, and Tyrion is brought before them in chains, and they know Dany was murdered, and Tyrion argues for an entirely new system of government while being held prisoner by the Master of War of the person he just conspired to assassinate. Excuse me? (The way that Grey Worm huffed, “Make your choice, then,” at those assembled reminded me of an impatient father waiting for his children to pick which ice-cream flavor they want.)

David, Spencer—of the three of us, I’ve been the most stubborn about thinking this final season is bad and holding that badness against the show. I don’t fault viewers who’ve become inured to the shoddy writing and plotting, and who’ve been grading each episode on a curve as a result. But I personally haven’t been able to get into a mind-set where I can watch an episode and enjoy it for everything except stuff like pacing issues, rushed character development, tonal dissonance, the lack of attention to detail, unexplained reversals, and weak dialogue. All of those problems absolutely make the show less enjoyable for me, and I haven’t learned to compartmentalize them—even though I know how hard it must have been for Benioff and Weiss to piece together an airtight final act solely from Martin’s book notes.

...Much like with last week’s episode, I can actually see myself being on board with many of the plot points in the finale—if only they had been built up to properly and given the right sort of connective tissue. For all the episode’s earnest exhortations about the power of stories, “The Iron Throne” itself didn’t do much to model that value.

For example, I can’t be the only one who was let down, and at a loss for a larger takeaway, after seeing a high-stakes contest between two ambitious female rulers devolve after both became unhinged and got themselves killed. After all the intense discussion about gender politics that Thrones has spurred, and after seeing characters such as Sansa, Brienne, Cersei, Daenerys, and Yara reshape the patriarchal structures of Westeros, we’ve ended up with a male ruler (who once said, “I will never be lord of anything”) installed on the charismatic recommendation of another man and served by a small council composed almost entirely of … men.

Perhaps there’s no deeper meaning to any of this. Or perhaps this state of affairs is a commentary on the frustrating realities of incrementalism. I am, of course, beyond pleased that Sansa Stark has at least become the Queen in the North—a title that she, frankly, deserved from the beginning. But I haven’t forgotten that this show only recently had her articulate the silver lining of being raped and tortured. Nor am I waving away the fact that Brienne spent some of her last moments on-screen writing a fond tribute to a man who betrayed her and all but undid his entire character arc in one swoop. My sense is that the show’s writers didn’t think about Thrones resetting to the rule of men much at all, and that they were instead relishing having a gaggle of former misfits sitting on the small council. See? the show seemed to cry. Change!

At times, Thrones gestured more clearly to the ways in which the story was going a more circular route; this was especially true of the Starks. Jon headed up to Castle Black and became a kind of successor to Mance Rayder—someone leading not because of his last name or bloodline but because of the loyalty he’s earned. Arya’s seafaring didn’t feel out of character to me—it fit with her sense of adventure and reminded me of her voyage across the Narrow Sea to Braavos all those years ago. Sansa became Queen in the North in a scene that recalled the debut of “Dark Sansa” in the Vale, but that felt like a true acknowledgment of how much her character has transformed. I’ll admit, the crosscutting of the scenes showing the Starks finding their own, separate ways forward was beautifully done. It made me wish the episode as a whole had been more cohesive, less rushed, and more emotionally resonant.

Spencer, I think you smartly diagnosed so many of the big-picture problems with the finale—the sitcommy feel, the yada-yadaing of major points, the many attempts at fan service. So rather than elaborate even more, I’ll end this review by saying something sort of obvious: Viewers are perfectly entitled to feel about the ending of Game of Thrones however they want to. After eight seasons, they have earned the right to be as wrathful or blissed-out on this finale as they want; it’s been a long and stressful ride for us all. I’m genuinely happy that there are folks who don’t feel as though the hours and hours they’ve devoted to this show have been wasted. I know there are many others who wish they could say the same thing.” 

[tatticstudio55]

Jonerys and the myth of Orpheus& Eurydice

“Only a few feet away from the exit, Orpheus lost his faith and turned to see Eurydice behind him, but her shadow was whisked back among the dead, now trapped in Hades forever.” 

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus_and_Eurydice) 

There is an orphic "something” to the Jon/Dany storylines, especially when put side by side. I’ve already dug in it a bit, but wanted to explore the matter further, especially since there’s an astounding amount of material to talk about.

We’ll start with two side by side chapters from ASOS: first, a Dany POV chapter covering the sack of Meereen, and second, a Jon POV chapter where he’s being send by Thorne to kill Mance Rayder. From a mythocritical perspective, Jon is Eurydice (the loved one stuck in the land of the dead) while Dany is Orpheus (the one who tries to retrieve his wife/her lover from Hades). Each character remains mostly consistent with these roles all through the story.

The sack of Meereen curiously evokes an intrusion in the forbidden land of the dead. The “land of Hades” stands in the middle of a waste, beyond a river (the Styx) dirty with the impure thoughts of humans, is guarded by a three headed dog (Cerberus), harpies, and, of course, giant gates.  Meereen, on the other hand, is

1)      Surrounded by a burnt waste from one side

2)      Surrounded by the Skahazadhan from the other (described as “brown” and “thick”. We’re told that the city sewers are emptied in the Skahazadhan and that the masters of Meereen get their water from deep wells within the walls of the city.)

3)      Guarded by harpy heads

4)      Hiding behind seemingly impenetrable walls

5)      Meereen itself isn’t particularly fertile. Not technically a waste, but almost (one reason why the slave market grew so prominent there)

6)      The bloodshed of the fighting pits (supposedly) appease ghiscari gods and meereenese call it the “art of death”.

7)      The dysentery epidemy ravaging the refugee camps just outside the walls of Meereen, in ADWD, also creates a strong imagery (thousands of refugees on the brink of death trying to get inside the “lands of the dead”)

So, there’s obvious parallels between Meereen and the mythological land of Hades. A few (living) heroes from the Greek mythology manages to cross from the lands of the living to the lands of the dead: Heracles, Psyche, Theseus, Orpheus. In ASOIAF/GOT, Daenerys achieve the impossible as well and take Meereen.

Now, in the next Jon POV chapter we’ve got Jon inside the elevator cage, going down the Wall to meet kill Mance Rayder. Jon is perfectly aware that, whether the mission “succeeds” or not, he’s not making it out alive:

The sky was slate grey, the sun no more than a faint patch of brightness behind the clouds. Across the killing ground, he could see the glimmer of a thousand campfires burning, but their lights seemed small and powerless against such gloom and cold.

A grim day. Jon Snow wrapped gloved hands around the bars and held tight as the wind hammered at the cage once more. When he looked straight down past his feet, the ground was lost in shadow, as if he were being lowered into some bottomless pit. Well, death is a bottomless pit of sorts, he reflected, and when this day's work is done my name will be shadowed forever. – Jon, ASOS

Jon’s inner thoughts on his surroundings closely matches common depictions of the Asphodel Meadows: it’s grey, it’s gloomy, it’s grim. It’s associated with death. Moreover, unlike Dany, Jon isn’t going down there as a conqueror/savior, but as a prisoner (Thorne gave him no choice), inside a cage nonetheless. Fun fact: in this chapter, Jon and Tormund discusses how Tormund’s daughter got married to a man who crept inside their tent during the night and stole her. Tents in ASOIAF/GOT – especially in Dany’s narrative arc – are linked with death and sorcery, so it’s not impossible that Tormund’s anecdote about his daughter might mirror Orpheus’s intrusion in the lands of the dead to steal back his wife Eurydice. And let’s not even get into what awaits Jon in Mance’s tent: Mance’s wife, Della, about to give birth (later, we learn that she died from it), and the horn of Joramun (blowing in it would apparently destroy the Wall, which keeps – as Mance reminds Jon – the dead from crossing. Hum.)

It’s interesting because, as I suggested in another post (On Jongritte and Jonerys), Dany’s last ADWD chapter portrays her as a distorted orphic figure who keeps telling herself that she’s lost if she looks back, while in Westeros (if temporality align), Jon is already dead and/or on the verge of being resurrected. The two ASOS chapters I discussed above illustrates Jon and Dany as they descend into the lands of the dead, whereas in Dany’s last ADWD chapter, we’ve got the pair (Orpheus/Dany and Eurydice/Jon) simultaneously returning to the land of the livings (literally for Jon, metaphorically for Dany, as she’s just fled Meereen).  

These, however, aren’t the only instances of the Orpheus/Eurydice subtext in the Jon/Dany narrative: Dany’s fever dream in AGOT and Jon’s nightmare inside the crypts of Winterfell are another example: both dreams takes place in (or starts in) cold, empty, macabre spaces filled with ghastly presences. Dany, as Orpheus, is running toward her red door (the “exit”), while Jon, as Eurydice, hears over his head the noises of a feast he’s not allowed to attend (the land of the livings, symbolically).

There’s also a scene from 7x06 where Daenerys looks back… just in time to see Jon being grabbed by dead men and dragged under.

AND let’s not mention Daenerys’s ties to music and the musical trope: her brother was a great musician (who happened to play of the same instrument as Orpheus: a harp/lyre). Her dragons “sang” when they were born. A clever fellow somewhere figured out that Daenerys’s name read backward was “serenade”. Knowing that Orpheus’s most notable attribute was his musical talent, I’m keen on considering that significant.

Thoughts?

[thelawyerthatwaspromised]

Tyrion’s Season 7 Arc - Wrong about Almost Everything

And how it affects the dynamic between Jon and Daenerys and the audience’s perception of political!Jon.

Tyrion Lannister has been built up by the show to be a character that survives on his wits and can out-think everyone in the room. His track record in Season 7 was....not good.

There are those that believe Tyrion is being set up for a betrayal in favor of the Lannisters. I believe this is incorrect as my theory is that Tyrion, who was previously projected as an intelligent and perceptive character, is having the rug ripped out from under him in terms of Daenerys’ belief (and the audience’s belief) in him as a wise character in order to drive Daenerys away from what he “believes” in.

Since Tyrion was united with Daenerys, he’s presented an idealized version of what we HOPE Daenerys would turn out like. He counsels caution. He tries to keep innocents alive. He believes his wits can prevent disasters.

Because Tyrion is associated with Daenerys, we also assume that Daenerys believes in this “new world”. She repeats some of his better lines. She knows he’s an articulate man or a “charmer” as Davos put it. 

“Articulate men are right just as often as imbeciles.”

~ Tyrion, 5x09

(Wow did Davos have Tyrion pegged IMMEDIATELY upon just reading the scroll sent for Jon).

I believe it was intentional that Davos and Tyrion didn’t really interact much as Davos is significantly better at reading people and Davos’ expositions would reveal too much of Tyrion’s deficiencies in understanding Jon’s intentions.

So Tyrion was wrong almost all of the time. But for the first half of the season, Tyrion and Dany are still the Dream Team in the eyes of the audience. Yet we are shown bits and pieces that make us doubt Tyrion.

PHASE 1: TYRION’S WAR PLANS OPENLY DOUBTED AND THEN FAILING

“That’s very nice to hear [...] but Margaery was loved and now what’s left of her? Just ash.”

~ Olenna, 7x02

We have the first scene with Olenna where she dismisses the “Not here to be Queen of the Ashes” slogan by Daenerys.

Fans love Olenna...but Olenna doesn’t care about the game at this point. She wants revenge and destruction of House Lannister. We have Daenerys giving Olenna a look - yet I believe it’s also a look for Tyrion of “this better work!”

Daenerys agreed to this plan. She relied on Tyrion’s wits and he convinced her this was the way to win the Iron Throne. The plan failed when Euron attacked the Iron Fleet and Jaime abandoned Casterly Rock to take Highgarden.

Daenerys publicly shames Tyrion on the beach at Dragonstone, like any great leader would. The audience is left thinking Tyrion is a bad battle strategist.

PHASE 2: TYRION IS REPEATEDLY SHOWN MISREADING OTHER CHARACTERS

Tyrion has previously been very good at anticipating character’s moves by identifying their intentions. But Season 7 saw his track record flipped spectacularly when it comes to this skill.

Bronn

Tyrion makes an assumption that Bronn is all prepared to switch sides and that he arranged Tyrion to meet with Jaime at his own risk. Tyrion is HALF right. There was some risk for Bronn, but Bronn is also exactly right when he says he delivered two traitors in Tyrion and Varys right to Cersei’s front door. Tyrion didn’t really consider this angle. Bronn has found a way to out maneuver Tyrion in the event that Cersei decides that she will simply kill them.

I also will note the look Varys gives when Tyrion mentions switching “loyalties”.

After Bronn gives his little speech about how he can remain self serving, Varys gives a smirk and Tyrion realizes Bronn is in a much better position than he first thought. Tyrion essentially concedes, saying “it’s good to see you again”. It’s a nice fun moment for the audience and an example of Tyrion misreading a situation.

It’s a small moment...but again Tyrion is bested.

Cersei

Tyrion found out after the fact that Jon Snow had bent the knee. He had just lectured Jon about learning how to lie. I think that’s  important...but that’s for another day.

Tyrion has to tell Cersei he didn’t know Jon Snow bent the knee. So now Tyrion isn’t even plugged into what’s happening in his own camp. The audience says “wow, he’s doing terribly at his job!”

He’s also completely misreading Cersei and falling into her trap.

Even before Tyrion walks into the room with Jaime, he assumes Cersei will murder him. No, Cersei is laying a trap for him and murdering her little brother would serve absolutely no purpose in defeating her enemies. It would only guarantee her destruction. But Tyrion thinks Cersei only wants to kill him and that he’s significantly more clever than she is. Tyrion’s biases against Cersei's intellect ultimately are what cause Cersei’s ruse to be believed.

He has no great answer for her when she asks why he supports Daenerys.

“She’ll make the world a better place”

"You said she’d burn the Red Keep”

Tyrion didn’t anticipate a debate and clearly hasn’t really thought a lot about WHY he should be following Daenerys.

Then Tyrion thinks he makes some great insightful observation.

He tells Cersei he knows she’s pregnant. To Tyrion, it’s the key to getting the ceasefire. For Cersei, it’s simply the last piece to the puzzle for her betrayal.

Jon Snow

It’s my belief that Tyrion significantly misread Jon Snow. 

“There’s more to Foreign Invaders and Northern Fools than meets the eye.”

“[Jon Snow] is in love with you.”

So why did Daenerys not believe him?

“Jon Snow’s not in love with me.”

She hasn’t ever really dismissed that someone is in love with her before like this. Not so outright. But I actually believe Daenerys has read Jon better than Tyrion. The irony is that he has observed Daenerys longingly staring at Jon. He basically convinces her to act on HER feelings while also completely misreading Jon and his ultimate goals. He’s basically shifted his influence directly to Jon.

That’s why we got this look:

Tyrion sees his influence slipping away. To a man he underestimated and fully believed was acting with 100% honesty.

So why does Tyrion’s arc in Season 7 matter?

Tyrion proclaims he’s an excellent judge of character in 7x02 and we chuckle along because we believe him. He’s leading the audience along into believing that Jon Snow is a simple Northern Fool who can be convinced to join their side by simple methods.

His initial misread of Jon is extremely important. He thinks Jon will join their cause because he hates Cersei. Jon doesn’t like Cersei, but he does not care about the Iron Throne or the people fighting over it.

Jon shocks them when he essentially tells them he doesn’t care about any of their politics.

So Tyrion tries to figure out what Jon wants:

He concludes it’s only Dragonglass because that’s what Jon tells him.

BUT JON WENT TO DRAGONSTONE FOR DANY’S ARMY AND HER DRAGONS

“But if the Army of the Dead makes it past the Wall, do we have enough men to fight them?”

~ Davos, 7x02

This is the key to the entire Jon arc...and Tyrion misses it. He thinks Jon just wants to mine worthless rocks and then he’ll be good to go to join Daenerys. Jon certainly needs the Dragonglass...but that is NOT his priority.

“Give him something by giving him nothing.”

Tyrion is, again, half right. She’s giving Jon “nothing” in the grand scheme of things. He needs more than the Dragonglass. He has all the glass he needs by 7x05 when he’s ready to leave Dragonstone yet he knows it’s still a futile fight:

So if the Dragonglass didn’t satisfy him...what would? Daenerys’ entire army. Tyrion didn’t see this coming. He now sees that Jon’s goals are not his goals and are not Daenerys’ goals.

How did this deal end up working out for Jon? He just added:

Dragonglass 

Dothraki horde

Unsullied army

2 dragons

To his fight for the North. Sansa’s last update puts his forces at 20,000 fighting men. That is absolutely the maximum he could contribute to Daenerys and that’s assuming he loses NOTHING to the Night King.

If everything went exactly as planned, there is no way Daenerys comes back South for Cersei with anything close to her original force when she departs for the North.

He just negotiated the most lopsided political deal in GoT history because he was willing to bed her and tell her she’s special.

Tyrion told Daenerys not to leave to rescue Jon and the Magnificent 7 North of the Wall because he can see how Jon is completely altering their plans and how he is using it to his advantage.

So Tyrion’s progression with Jon Snow goes from:

Happily inviting him and extolling his virtues to:

Actually helping  (unknowingly) Jon start to manipulate Daenerys to:

Being angry that Jon didn’t lie to Cersei and Jon bending the knee and not following his plan (note also that Jon wrote to WF saying he bent the knee, and Tyrion didn’t know???) to:

Outright suspicion of Jon’s motives and his impact on Daenerys’ campaign for the Throne.

Tyrion is becoming an outsider again. 

Tyrion was given a great set of cards to work with at the beginning of Season 7 and squandered it by not understanding his enemies or “allies”.

Tyrion didn’t magically become stupid though.

He simply made mistakes in anticipating how other characters like Jon, most specifically, have changed since he last saw them.

Tyrion’s track record will undermine him when he tries to communicate with Daenerys that he doesn’t believe Jon Snow necessarily has her best intentions in mind.

Daenerys could completely alienate herself from Tyrion because Tyrion has been wrong so many times recently, yet on THIS, his observation of what Jon is gaining and Daenerys is losing, he will be EXACTLY RIGHT.

The audience will be confused. If Tyrion is wrong so many times, how can he be right about the most honorable guy everz!?

Further, this has led soooo many Daenerys fans to agree with her extreme measures which have systematically been at odds with what Tyrion has cautioned almost every single time.

Viewers think that Tyrion is wrong about stuff, Daenerys has seen some limited success using dragons, therefore Tyrion’s beliefs in preserving life must also be disbelieved. It will also make them disbelieve Tyrion’s conclusions about Jon.

The only other person firmly in Daenerys camp is also suspicious of Jon but will also be disregarded because he must simply be “jealous”:

The show is creating suspicion around every other character that surrounds Daenerys, as far as motives go, except for one:

The humble, Northern Fool, who knows nothing. They’ve created an environment where the smarter characters will be completely disbelieved when they identify Jon’s plans. It will also create an even more extreme reaction from Daenerys once some form of fracture develops between herself and Jon and she will eventually find out that her betrayal for love already happened: Jon loves and serves the North and his entire odyssey to Dragonstone was built around him doing whatever necessary to bring her army and her dragons North.

In order to make that story line happen, characters like Tyrion had to be completely deconstructed in terms of their credibility to shield the one character from doubt that Daenerys and the audience should have suspected all along.

[oadara]

Similarities between Jonerys and Reylo

As the popularity of the paring between Kylo Ren/Ben (KRB) and Rey of Jakku (aka Reylo) increases among the Jonerys fandom there have been some questions as to why, those of us who ship both, find similarities between these two couples (I know Reylo is not a couple, yet, but I’ll refer to them as such for the purposes of this mini-meta).

If you are looking at these two couples and try to make a one-to-one comparison between the two, you’re not going to find it. Jon isn’t KRB and Dany is Rey or Jon isn’t Rey and Dany isn’t KRB. Not only are these stories geared towards different audiences, they are a different genre and are going about their storytelling in different ways. A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones is a political and personal drama told through the lens of medieval fantasy. While Star Wars is a fairy tale told through the lens of a Sci-fi Space Opera Western.

The similarities I’ve noticed are of a thematic and symbolic kind and although the individual character have some similarities between each other, the real similarities are seen when looking at the paring as a whole and how they are presented to us throughout the story. This is based on my interpretation of both these couples, others might view things differently. Eventually, I would like to expand on these similarities but for now, I’ll do a quick run through of the similarities I’ve noticed between the two pairings.

Balance

This is not an uncommon theme in stories but it’s central theme of both these tales. A Song of Ice and Fire, of the bat we know that this story is about two opposites either coming together in battle or love or both. Ice and Fire or Water and Fire are two elements that sit opposite from one another. Our central characters Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow are representatives of these opposing elements and many of us believe that through their union the balance lacking from Westeros will finally be achieved.

On the other hand, we have Star Wars whose central theme is the balance of the Force between the light and the dark. In this trilogy, these opposing forces are represented by Rey of Jaklu and Kylo Ren, aka Ben Solo.  When they are first introduced they are on opposite sides of a war that has been raging for a few generations.  Rey becomes KRB’s prisoner but soon proves to be a true challenge for him. Her strength in the Force is equal to his, something he has not encountered before. “Darkness rises and light to meet it,” says Snoke, insulating the divide between the two but it also insinuates a coming together of the two.

Generational Saga

The other big theme in both these stories is that of the current generation reckoning with the mistakes of their ancestors. Although ASoIaF revolves primarily around the House Stark, the expanded world of Ice and Fire revolves around House Targaryen and it is their actions throughout their history of ruling that have shaped Westeros to what it is today. On the other hand, Star Wars is the generational saga of the Skywalker family and how their connection to the Force has shaped the galaxy.

Pretty much everything that has happened in ASoIaF can be traced to past mistakes and the most immediate of those are the actions of The Mad King, Aerys Targaryen and those of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark. The event surrounding the doom romance and Aerys actions throughout are what has led us to the current predicament our protagonist find themselves in at the beginning of the story. Although many things have happened throughout the course of the series, we see Jon and Dany confronted with the mistakes of the immediate and not so immediate ancestors. Dany facing the slave trade promulgated by the Valyrians and Jon facing the consequences of the exiling of the Free Folk to beyond the Wall. Both of these characters not only have to fix the past mistakes and by doing this they are forgiving a new path, a third way if you will.

In the case of Star Wars, it all started with the doomed love of Anakin and Padme. Their love, described as possessive, lead to Anakin’s downfall and the emergence of Darth Vader and all the chaos it brought to the galaxy. Luke was able to help his father redeem himself, however, the darkness still remained and now Anakin’s grandson KRB has inherited that legacy. His return to the light will finally heal the wound his grandfather created. And who best to help Ben redeem himself than his counterpart within the force Rey.  

Mirrored Couples

One additional element to the generational saga piece is how both Jonerys and Reylo mirror couples an important couple that was integral to the beginning of the story. In the case of ASoIaF, I’ve often said that Rhaegar and Lyanna’s union brought war, while Jon and Dany’s will end the war.

In the case of Star Wars, the love Anakin had for Padme was possessive and the fear of losing her drove him to the dark side of the force. The compassionate love that Rey offers to Ben will turn him from the dark to the light, also ending the war between the First Order and the Rebels.

Yin and Yang

This is an obvious visual similarity between these two pairings. In ASoIaF the most overt example of this is the coloring of Jon and Dany’s animal familiars. Drogon’s black to Ghost’s white with just the slightest hint of red. Through the TV series, we see this visual yin yang represented by the filters used in filming to characterize Jon and Dany’s story. In Jon’s case, we see the more muted blues and Dany the bright oranges. This is representative of the Ice/Fire or Yin Yang of the story.

With KRB and Rey, the yin-yang symbolism is much more obvious, because the Force itself is defined as Light and Dark. We see this with whites and black playing against each other’s in most of their scenes together. In addition, you see the reds and blues of their chosen Force also used in contrasts with each other. There is a specific scene in The Last Jedi where Kylo goes from cold blues to the warm reds of Rey’s fire during one of their Force Bond sessions.

Social Status

This similarity is particularly interesting for me as it’s so typical of the fairy tale genre. While the truth of Jon’s parentage has been revealed to the audience the characters themselves (except for Bran and Sam) are completely ignorant to it. As far as the in-universe narrative is concerned we have a Queen who is decedent from generation after generation of kings and queens and falls in love with a bastard. Even as a bastard Jon is of noble heritage, however, the stigma of being a bastard has followed him throughout his life, but Dany never even mentions it nor does she bring it up to him. The perceived difference in their social status is not important to her or him.

While on the other hand, we have the dark prince of a Star Wars Ben Solo falling for a scavenger, whose parents were nobodies. There is a clear divide in their social standing. However, unlike Dany who just didn’t feel the need to address it, Ben Solo, and his severely lacking social skills, reared their ugly head. While reminding her she’s a nobody, he then very suavely adds, but not to him. Jokes aside, I do believe Ben thinks of Rey as someone whose special, and in the novelization of TFA we learn that Ben has compassion for Rey and is punished for it by Snoke.

So, while these couples are perceived by the outside world to be from two vastly different social status while the pairs themselves have or eventually will see past that.  

Equals

Okay, I literally just talked about the differences in their social status and now I’m calling them equals. Yes, that’s exactly what I’m doing. To the outside world, there’s a firm difference in their place in society, however, for the couples themselves they perceive their counterparts as their equal.

Dany and Jon see in each other someone who understands the burdens of ruling, of leadership, of personal sacrifice for the good of their people. They see someone who can understand the burdens they carry because they themselves has carried it. In each other, they see their equal, something they have yet to have encountered.

For Rey and KRB is much more clearly stated because they are literally the Force counterparts to one another. Their skills and power come from the same well and one is just as powerful as the other. In fact, the scavenger Rey bested the elite trained KRB twice.  She is his equal and he knows it, and that is something he admires in her.  

The Greater Good

The books aren’t there yet, however, on the TV show we see Dang giving up her pursuits if the throne to go fight in the Great War against the Wight Walker. I think it’s important to note that Jon didn’t make the decision for her. He presented his case, poorly, but with the help of Tyrion and some super convenient and crazy events, Dany was able to see what really mattered.  

This hasn’t happened yet in Star Wars but I believe that story is headed in the direction of having KRB turn his back on inter-galactic domination and help the Resistance to end the war

Rey presents KRB with the opportunity to turn toward the light but he’s not ready to take it. He’ll have to figure that out on his own and come to the decision on his own. But because Rey has shown him the way he knows there is a chance.

Loneliness

This is an important element for both these couples. Even though they are all special in their own way, for one reason or another all have felt isolated from their family and society. There is a deep loneliness for all of them which began in their childhood.  

In Jon and Dany’s case, it’s loneliness but also isolation. For Jon, his status as a bastard kept him a step apart even from his family. Even those who loved him couldn’t change the fact that as a bastard he was viewed differently than them. For Dany, it’s her exile to a country where she has no connections except for her brother. As well as her poverty while still having the social status of a princess. She could never fit in and her lack of resources meant that she was unable to put down roots.

In the case, KRB and Rey is the lack of connection with others. KRB couldn’t connect with his father because Han couldn’t relate to Ben’s connection to the force. And while Leia could relate with Ben in that regard her work as a Senator and General kept her away. We all know that his connection to Luke ended disastrously and whatever connection to Snoke he has been one of control and abuse. For Rey, she was abandoned and left to the care of uncaring strangers. She has no connection to anyone when we meet her. She forms attachments quickly because of her deep loneliness.

Their Bonds

The loneliness they all feel, the sense of not belonging anywhere is the foundation for the bond that Jon & Dany and Ben & Rey form with one another.  

Jon and Dany seek belonging and acceptance. They have felt so isolated for so long that they just want to feel that they have found a place or someone they can belong to, that they can be themselves with. They find that in each other because of their shared experiences as leaders but also because of their upbringing. Their journey, as I have written many times, parallel one another and this creates a unique bond between the two of them.

In the case of KRB and Rey, the deep loneliness they both feel is literally bridged by their Force Bond. We are being shown how connected they truly are when their shared Force allows them to see one another from across the galaxy. In fact, the connection is so strong that they are able to touch one another, even though they are millions of miles away from one another. In each other, they see someone who is in need of connection but not just any connection, a connection based on compassion. Regardless of their circumstances, they have compassion for one another and the pain they see in each other.

The Gray Zone

One of the most notable things about ASoIaF is the complexity of its characters and the different shades of gray among them. Our heroes, while fighting for a common good, have engaged in acts that are deemed controversial. They make mistakes and are far from perfect. However, at the end of the day, they are heroes, just grayer than usual.

For Star Wars the dichotomy between KRB and Rey is much starker. Rey is a hero; she chose the light side of the force and she does the right thing and fights for the common good. KRB is a villain, he’s chosen the dark side of the force and is fighting for his own ambition. However, I believe the story is making its way towards a creating a gray flawed hero in KRB. His actions will eventually help the war and redeem him.

There are other themes and similarities I see in between these characters but many of them are found in your standard protagonist on their path through the Hero’s Journey. But I think enough similarities exist between these two couples that it’s notable and interesting to discuss and understand better.  

[fortunatelylori]

JONSA: The infamous “undermine me” scene

About a week ago @jonsa101 posted a meta regarding the “undermine me” scene in season 7 (episode 1).

She discusses this particular exchange between Jon and Sansa:

Jon: You are my sister but I am king now.

Sansa: Will you start wearing a crown? (Sansa Snark is in the house, guys!)

Jon: When you question my decisions in front of the other lords and ladies, you undermine me.

 In the meta she identifies the “undermine me” line as a romantic trope that she’s seen play out in many different contexts. If you guys haven’t read the meta yet, please go and read it. @jonsa101 always has some very interesting interpretations and theories regarding the show and I really enjoy her meta work. 

 I was already planning on discussing this scene in detail as part of my upcoming series on all the Jonsa scenes but since she tagged me in the meta, I thought I’d discuss it now.

I have to say that after reading her post, I had a look at lists of romantic tropes as well as my favorite research source – youtube – in order to try and find similar examples of the “undermine me” line. I’m afraid I came out empty on this one.

 However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that whether or not you identify this particular line as a trope, the whole exchange between them ticks a lot of romantic tropes off the list as I’ll show below.

 This is one of the things that always bothers me about people calling Jonsa shippers delusional. Even if Jonsa never becomes canon, it’s very much a fact that the writers are playing with romantic expectations in all of their scenes. You can’t swing a stick in the direction of these two without one trope or another hitting you smack in the face. So at the very least, Jonsa shippers are responding to these visual and storytelling devices. Hardly a delusion.

 For the interests of this meta I will focus strictly on the tropes used in this particular scene, which considering that it’s only 3 minutes long, I was shocked to find out is more than 1. For reference, I’m working off the list of romantic tropes found here as well as use the explanation they give for each of them. When you have the time, check it out. It’s like an Easter Egg Hunt for Jonsas.

 Like an Old Married Couple: These two people are very close and tend to bicker with each other.

 This is where I would actually place the “undermine me” line. In fact this is where I would put this entire exchange:

Jon: You are my sister but I am king now.

Sansa: Will you start wearing a crown?

Jon: When you question my decisions in front of the other lords and ladies, you undermine me.

Sansa: I can’t question your decisions anymore?

Jon: Of course you can but …

Sansa: Joffery never let anyone question his authority. Do you think he was a good king?

 Ahem … guys, I reeeally don’t think you’re fighting over what you think you’re fighting over. Also can you air your dirty married laundry in private? You’re making everyone uncomfortable!

 Now, Like an Old Married Couple is usually served with a generous helping of the Belligerent Sexual Tension and/or Unresolved Sexual Tension tropes on the side. Which would explain the seemingly random insert of Joffery in this whole conversation (there’s more to it than that but more on that later). I mean doesn’t every girl compare her brother to her ex-boyfriend? Isn’t that a thing that people do all the time?

 The thing that is very interesting here is the way these two are operating. There’s nothing really sibling-like about this interaction. This is two partners having a fight.

 But this is where it gets interesting. Because this exchange is followed by another trope:

 Aww, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: No matter how much they fight, they really do care about each other very much.

Jon: You think I’m Joffery?

Sansa: You’re as far from Joffery as anyone I’ve ever met.

Jon: Thank you!

 Throughout my series on the Jon/D*ny romance (X) (X) (X) (X) (X), I kept talking about how Jon and Dany never seem to reach a consensus or resolve anything in any of their fights. Every Jonsa scene comes in direct contrast to that. It isn’t the absence of fighting that makes a couple work, it’s them being able to resolve and move on from a fight that does. And this is where this trope comes in. No matter how hard Jon and Sansa have a go at each other, you are never left in any doubt that they care about one another.

 But there’s more …

 Dismissing a Compliment: A character doesn't believe something nice their Love Interest tells them.

Sansa: You’re good at this, you know.

Jon: At what?

Sansa: At ruling.

Jon: No …

Sansa: You are. (beat) You are.

 Why don’t you say it again, Sans? I don’t think he heard you the last two times …

 Sansa: They respect you. They really do …

 Ok, ok. Sheesh! Are we also going to talk about how cute his hair looks today and how dreamy his eyes are?

 This is followed by the hyper-analyzed “but” lines:

 Sansa: … but you have to … Why are you laughing?

Jon: What did father used to say? Everything before the word but is horseshit.

 This may or may not have plot implications later on but for the purposes of what we’re analyzing here, the point I’m trying to make is that Jon is dismissing every nice thing Sansa has said about him and focuses only on the word “but”. Because he’s Jon Snow … You can’t pin a compliment on this guy to save your life.

Also …

 Laugh of Love: The tendency to laugh when in the presence of your Love Interest.

 (no idea who made this. sorry but thank you!)

As well as pretty much every other scene he has with her. Either Sansa is a proficient stand-up comedian or Jon is just really, really happy whenever he’s around her, even when he’s angry at her. Totally platonic, guys! Nothing to see here!

 Caught the Heart on His Sleeve: Ship Tease moment where one partner grabs the other partner's arm/sleeve.

(gif credit to @baelerion)

Complete with Jon looking down to see Sansa touching him either because his senses are overloaded or because he can’t feel anything through the thick sleeve of the jacket Sansa most likely made for him. Also notice that this is described as a ship tease. We’re teased all right …

 Sigh of Love: Sighing dreamily when in the presence of or thinking about your Love Interest.

And because Jon can’t let Sansa steal the spotlight on this one:

(gif credit to @baelerion​)

This is not a competition but if it were, Jon would win. Sorry, Sans! His is longer and deeper. Still love you though!

 And lastly ….

 Like Parent, Like Spouse: A character's Love Interest is similar to one of their parents, be it in looks or personality.

 In every god damn episode they have together and also here:

In conclusion, for those at home not keeping count, that’s 7 tropes used in a 3 minute scene. Is it any small wonder this might seem familiar to people? Either way you want to slice it, you have seen these visual and narrative cues in other stories. Tropes don’t become tropes because no one ever used them.

 Now I did title this meta “the infamous undermine me scene” for a reason. That’s because this scene, as almost all Jonsa scenes, has three layers that are all thrown at the audience simultaneously. Two of these layers are good, one of these layers is BAD. Let’s see if you guess which is which:

 What the characters are fighting about

 This is where the whole text vs. subtext analysis comes in. Ideally, any scene in any story you ever read or watch, should have both a surface level as well as subtext. Now and again you will get scenes, out of necessity, that are simply what they say on the tin but writers are actively dissuaded from doing this on the whole. It would be very boring and frankly poor storytelling if subtext was non-existent and people simply talked at each other, complete with an accurate, objective narrative on what they’re saying and why they’re saying it. To put it simply, it wouldn’t be a satisfying journey for the audience.

 So what is the surface level? Well, this is a direct follow-up to the preceding scene where Jon pardons Alice and Ned and Sansa argues against it. The argument got pretty heated between the two of them so now we’re given a scene where we can see the resolution of said argument.

 What you should keep in mind at this stage is how that argument ended:

Sansa: They died fighting for Ramsay. Give the castles to the families of the men who died fighting for you.

Jon: […] I will not punish a son for his father’s sins and I will not take a family home away from a family it has belonged to for centuries. That is my decision and my decision is final.

 Check-mate, as they say. Jon won that argument. He is the king and he made his decision. Case closed. On a purely surface level, that argument was finalized. We didn’t really need the “undermine me” scene unless we attempt to infer things that are no presented to us directly.

 Which brings us to …

 What the characters are really fighting about

Jon: You are my sister but I am king now.

Sansa: Will you start wearing a crown?

Jon: When you question my decisions in front of the other lords and ladies, you undermine me.

 The question here is why does Jon feel undermined? I think the answer is not because he doesn’t want Sansa questioning his decisions, as she seems to believe. Nor is it because he suspects some sort of nefarious ulterior motive (we’ll leave that for that pesky 3rd layer we’ll talk about shortly).

 We all know Jon values dialogue and collaboration. What we also know is that whatever Sansa says affects him very deeply. You can deduce this from their scenes but, for confirmation, we also have Kit saying that Sansa “twists” Jon. So we can assume that their argument hurts him in some way and even though he put his foot down during the meeting, he still feels the need to clarify the issue with her which is why they’re having the conversation.

 Now people have pointed out that, as one of his vassals, Sansa has every right to question him publicly. The problem is that’s not how Jon sees her. He very distinctly separates Sansa from the rest of his court. And since we already had the “we need to trust each other” scene at the end of season 6, I think it’s safe to assume that he sees the two of them as a unit that is supposed to be on the same page so the fact that Sansa speaks out against him in public, instead of privately, feels like a betrayal.

 There’s also his character and history to consider. Jon has never been the kind of person to take criticism very well, mostly because he’s felt unworthy and rejected all his life. And now he’s gone from the Bastard of Winterfell to King in the North in the span of a few months. That would leave just about anyone feeling uncertain of how much people truly trust their judgement.

 However, if there’s one thing you learn sooner or later, is that there are two sides to every story. That’s why it’s never a good idea to side with one party whenever couples fight.

 Because if we look at things from Sansa’s perspective, you can see how she might feel dismissed. The fact of the matter is Jon isn’t the world’s greatest communicator and failed to talk his decision over with Sansa before announcing it to the Council, which in turn makes Sansa feel sidelined, hence her aggressive snark and Joffrey digs. And we get an explanation of that here:

Sansa: He [Ned] was trying to protect us. He never wanted us to see how dirty the world really is but father couldn’t protect me and neither can you. So stop trying.

 Sansa is operating under a false assumption as well. Jon looks at their argument and feels undermined. Sansa looks at Jon avoiding her counsel and thinks that he does it because he sees her as his little sister that is in need of protection.

 Now Jon, bless his heart, does try to put Sansa in the little sister box at times but he fails at it miserably, partly because Sansa doesn’t let him and partly because what he needs from her is very far removed from what sisters usually provide.

 So there they are … two “siblings” stuck on a balcony having a lovers quarrel. Just another day at Winterfell.

 Which brings us to what I like to call …

 The “D&D screwing with us” layer

 Why do I say that the writers are screwing with us in this scene? Well, because of this:

Sansa: Joffery never let anyone question his authority. Do you think he was a good king?

 There is absolutely no reasonable explanation for why they felt the need to bring Joffery, one of the worst people this show has ever inflicted on us, in this conversation. Firstly, because there is no parallel to be drawn between Jon and Joffery in this situation. For one, if Joffrey was the king here, Alice and Ned’s heads would be decorating the walls. They would certainly not have been brought back into the fold which is what Jon has done for them. Secondly, since Jon is very much talking his head off to Sansa at the moment, it’s pretty obvious that he isn’t above explaining his reactions.

 What she says is, honestly, incredibly insulting which is why she backtracks out of it as quickly as the writers would allow:

Jon: Do you think I’m Joffrey?

Sansa: You’re as far from Joffrey as anyone I’ve ever met. (all the while looking extremely guilty)

 If the mention is here in order to clue us in on the fact that Sansa views Jon as something other than her brother, by comparing him to the only person she’s ever had romantic feelings for, there’s again no need for that. Seven romantic tropes in one 3-minute scene is more than enough to get that point across.

 So why do the writers have her say this? I would argue that this mention is in here in order to advance the “darkSansa” agenda, particularly since this is a scene where Jon says he feels undermined by her twice.

It doesn’t matter that Sansa backtracks on the Joffrey fiasco, it doesn’t matter that she tells him she doesn’t want to undermine him, while desperately sighing with loving eyes that she wants him to listen to her.  The “darkSansa” idea sticks.

 And that’s because the audience support is very much skewed  in  Jon’s favor. Being on tumblr, sometimes you forget that the Jonsa fam is very much the minority and that exclusive Sansa fans are the unicorns of this fandom (#love4unicorns). The vast majority of this audience will not look at Jon as an unreliable narrator, as every character in this show is, but as the ultimate authority on how this scene should be viewed.

 If he says he feels undermined, then it must be because he’s being undermined, which by extension means that Sansa will betray him. And her mentioning Joffery only helps to further antagonize the audience against her.

 Does that mean the Ds want us to hate Sansa for no particular reason? Not really. What they really, really want is to, yet again, beat the “Starkbowl” horse until it expires from exhaustion. And they’re willing to compromise emotional development and cut off the audience from essential POVs to achieve that.

 In season 6, when they first teased Starkbowl, they did it for emotional turmoil. They gave us that beautiful, heart breaking reunion scene only to immediately have Sansa start to be seemingly duplicitous. Because wouldn’t it be just so tragic that after Jon found new purpose in life through Sansa and she finally found safety and comfort with someone that actually cared for her, she would turn everything on its head and betray him?

 In season 7, they wanted to resurrect it because of the Littlefinger twist ending. This little “Joffrey” titbit and the “undermining” conversation helped plant the seeds for it so when Arya (another fan favorite) began accusing her of plotting against Jon, the audience would have this early scene to fall back on, despite the fact that Sansa continuously supports Jon’s policy while he’s away and constantly talks about him, to the point where she almost sounds like Sam talking about Gilly.

 What I’m trying to get at with this example is that the writers are not operating in good faith when telling this story. They will constantly throw things in to tease plot points that never come to pass. I don’t like this narrative choice at all, because it requires being cut off from certain characters POVs (Jon and Sansa are champions of this in season 7) which in turn puts distance between the audience and them, when the core of good storytelling to me is seeing characters wrestle with decisions and emotions not off-screen, but right before our eyes.

However, at the very least, what all of this should tell you, is that you should never simply relay on what the ‘explicit’ meaning of a scene is because there’s far more lurking beneath the surface.