TV: What Are You Watching?

[IAmBatman]

Still quite possibly the greatest television show of all time, but like a lot of great shows, they probably peaked a few seasons too early.

[Dad_Scaper]

Originally Posted by Yodaking

I thought last week was one of the worse episodes of the entire series. If that is where they eventually wanted to go with her character, then they should have built up to it. It wasn't earned at all, the whole show has been rushed story wise for a while now and it's clear they didn't know what to do once they moved past the books.

I don’t understand this position. It’s all there, imho, but I won’t engage here out of consideration for spoilers. Maybe later with a spoiler tag when I’m not thumb posting.

[Arch-vile]

I've lost my love for Game of Thrones with these last 2 episodes. It feels like events are just happening because the writers want them to, not because they are created by character motivations or actions. Lots of cool moments but nothing that makes them work as a cohesive story. If they had taken the full 10 episodes and/or used some smarter dialogue & editing I think it would have been a very good ending.

[Dad_Scaper]

Geez. I don't know what you guys have been watching, but the bread crumbs extend neatly all the way back to Season 1, and are particularly noticeable this season. I'll share my analysis later, in a spoiler, but I have to get ready to click on the "Process Wish List" button right now.

[Ronin]

I also really wasn't feeling the last episode of Game of Thrones. Or most of this season, really. I'm questioning a lot of what they chose to spend time on last season, with the context of what this final season looks like.

The pacing feels weird to me in general, and I really wish they'd wrapped up one of their big 'endgame' plot threads last season (White Walkers attacking/who will rule Westeros) and left the other as the focus for this one. This season is basically two miniature arcs anyway, with those two plots wrapping up one after another.

I think the direction for Dany makes sense, but the execution felt rushed to me.

[Dad_Scaper]

I am so disappointed. I thought I got in a perfect click, but I'm 3,488 in line for processing. :/

Anyway, on to GoT. Please do not open this spoiler if you are not caught up.

Spoiler Alert!

Some people appear to have some sentimental attachment to Dany. Let's first look at her background, then we'll look at signs that she was capable of this, then we'll look at what has changed recently that made this more likely, and then we'll look at her in-the-moment calculations leading to her decision. Finally, we'll look at @vegietarian18 's criticism, which is somewhat different from the "lazy showrunners" story.

Preliminarily, though, I will say (along with many of you) that there have, in fact, been soft spots in the storytelling in the last two seasons. I think, for instance, that the Iron Fleet ambush of Dany in this season was kind of dumb. Dany is not meant to be the brightest character, but she is not so stupid that she would be flying so low that she would be vulnerable to that kind of attack. How does a whole fleet hide behind a rock? So if you want to say that D&D got that wrong, then go for it. No objection from me.

Last season, I thought that pretty much all the Good Guys cooked up a stupid plan to try to get Cersei to come around, and it seemed like a clumsy plot device to get a dragon into the hands of Team Dead. I thought last season was the weakest of all, for a number of reasons, but many of them turn on that decision and the consequences of it. I think this season has been pretty strong, though.

So. With that preliminary out of the way.

1. Dany is a Targaryen by birth, and she married into being a Dothraki. She lionized the Dothraki lifestyle so much that, even when she knew what it was - conquer, destroy, rape - she worships Drogo's memory and named a dragon for him. That is who she is: a conqueror. She's never had a problem conquering, and she has always been effective at acquiring armies. At guiding a civilian population, though? Teaching lessons by putting heads on spikes and incinerating prisoners, and assassinating leaders by burning them to death in their own building.

She is not the sentimental person that some people seem to think she is. Do not forget that she would not come north to help defend the human race until after Jon surrendered the entire North to her. She already had feelings for him, and she knew the stakes, but she would not come until he bent the knee. Her number one priority is and always has been conquering her way to the throne.

2. Signs that Dany was capable of this: She already said she would burn King's Landing. It seems to me that people forget this. Her advisors always pulled her back, but she's always had this instinct to be a brutal leader. Whether it's force marches, or (as I said) murdering prisoners, or putting heads on spikes, she has always been indifferent.

Note, for instance, that when Sansa asked what dragons eat, Sansa was taking the role of someone managing a castle and preparing for a siege. Dany's response - "whatever they want" - was good for a laugh, but it demonstrated an indifference to the people, which was typical of her.

3. Recent changes have made this change more likely. Tyrion and Varys, who have both regularly advised her against needless violence, are gone or have lost favor. (Side note: I think the treatment of Tyrion is very interesting. I think he is being deliberately written as someone who has burned out on Playing the Game. Which is what you hear, earlier this season, when he says to Varys that sometimes you just have to pick one and go with it. I think he's a bit burned out, and it's clouding his judgment, and I think that that is a deliberate choice and not sloppy writing.) Missandei and Jorah, who were both in her inner circle but not really advisors, are both dead. Jon has rejected her.

She is *alone*, and she has always demonstrated an ability to make poor decisions without her inner circle dragging her to prudent choices.

4. As for her motivation in the moment, I think this piece is the most important and is the most overlooked. Jon's secret is out. She knows she will not be respected or loved, and she knows that - despite Jon's stated attachment to her - she will not be treated as a queen when there is someone at her side with a superior claim to the throne. "Let it be fear," she said.

The only way she can secure the throne against schemers and rebels, in her mind, is to put the people of Westeros in fear of her. King's Landing was a lesson for all of Westeros, in her mind, not to resist. It was a message to Sansa; it was a message to everyone. "Do not resist me." She is, after all, a conqueror. People who do not address this piece of her decision-making process are, IMHO, missing the point.

5. Wrapping up this section, I think that what we saw last week was more in line with GRRM-style fantasy writing than anything we've seen on this show in several years. I strongly suspect that this was always intended to be her arc. That's my guess. It's well supported by the written text, as I've written above.

Dany has always put her ambition for the throne above all else, and this is the only way she could secure it, given Jon's superior claim. Now nobody will dare oppose her. This is Dany.

video

As for Vegie's criticism, "what does this mean for girls and dragons and princesses," I think the best leaders in this show are, almost exclusively, women. Including my favorite:

Spoiler Alert!

video

But of all the major characters, there is one who demonstrates both the desire to be royal and the absolute capability to lead, both in military and civilian affairs. She is, IMHO, the character with the best arc in the last two seasons, and she is Exhibit A in the refutation of this particular criticism of the show's treatment of Dany: Sansa Stark.

edit: My son, who is a more dedicated fan of the show than I am, pointed out that Jorah actually *is* (or was) an advisor to Dany, and was one of the voices in her inner circle counseling moderation. And now he's gone. It was also noted that Dany did not encourage her troops to raid and pillage in the Dothraki fashion, but I stand by my earlier point on that matter. She honored Drogo and the Dothraki way, and was often violent (or dissuaded from violence by her advisors).

Here endeth my defense of the show. I am aware that it is not above reproach, but I have enjoyed this season very much. I encourage those who have not seen it yet to watch with an open mind, despite all the churn on social media.

[vegietarian18]

Spoiler Alert!

I actually have no particular problem with the show doing things this way, this is definitely the ending that Martin envisioned for his story. (Well, I wasn't a fan of the 30 minutes of people burning alive in King's Landing. That seemed unnecessary and I doubt Martin will do it quite so viscerally. But anyways.)

I disagree with the people who say evil Dany wasn't set up, but you can't argue that it was set up to the degree of evil that she turned to.

But my major concern with it is mostly what you say. I don't see it entirely as a feminist thing but that is part of it. I don't think the Dany crazy plotline would have been done with Jon, obviously, as it wasn't. Mostly it's a fantasy thing to me. I don't see it as helpfully subversive or metacritcal to end your fantasy series with one of the heroes slaughtering thousands, it's just cynical to what the point of fantasy is. The story makes Dany do dragon war crimes without really interrogating anything about real war crimes, it's just "other fantasy series are dumb because they ignore that reality has war crimes".

We'll see how the last episode turns out and maybe it will help my opinion on things. But narratively, I can't see how it will.

[Dad_Scaper]

Ah, but...

Spoiler Alert!

... it’s not “crazy.” It’s a calculated decision in service of her singular mindset. I think calling her decision an uncalculated one, made on the spur of the moment and out of character, does force that reading on it. But that’s on the reader, because the text amply supports the reading that she made an evil decision in her own best interest. As I argued above.

[chas]

And now I get to disagree with almost everyone, in a non spoilerish way. The worst episodes for me were 3 & 4!

[Dad_Scaper]

Put that in a spoiler, @chas , please. People don’t know who’s alive and who’s dead. Thanks!

edit: Or what the current state of relationships is. I don't understand how that could possibly be considered "a non-spoilerish way." Except for the absence of the tags.

edit 2: @IAmBatman , could you please put spoiler tags on that part of Chas's post? As a community service? Thanks, bud.

edit 3: Thanks, @chas . In case the issue is how to use spoiler tags, here's how it works. Mark the beginning of the spoiler with [spoiler], and the end of the spoiler with [/spoiler].

And for those curious to know how I pulled off the trick of writing it out without it happening, there are a couple of ways to get that effect, but I did it with the "noparse" command.

[vegietarian18]

Spoiler Alert!

Well, the finale made it a little better for me. It made Daenerys as "always a conqueror" a little better and made the threat of her future conquering a credible reason for Jon to kill her.

My complaint I guess is that it feels like they railroaded Daenerys to make the ending happy for everyone else. Even Jon going to the wall is like, fine for him, he likes it there. Like I can't help but feel for the people who validly liked Daenerys and get totally called out for liking her despite her flaws when every other character gets to be pure and good. Sansa is never called out for scheming, Arya is never called out for being a psychopathic murderer, Tyrion is called out but never specifically, just for being around bad people.

I don't know what to think to be honest. It's an odd ending and not exactly what I was expecting in either direction. I think the whole season would be stronger if the White Walkers were handled better.

[IAmBatman]

My wife definitely qualifies as one of those people you mention.

B+. It was fine enough. As a show, the beginning and middle are its best legacies, though, not how it ended.