Game of Thrones

[Avaitor]

And what was with that scene where Sansa says getting raped by Ramsay made her a better person?

Yeah, that line rubbed me the wrong way. Trauma doesn't have to be the only way to give a person experience and growth, unless you're D&D I guess.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Why does Tormund even want to go back North of the Wall? There's no wildlife or anything edible up there thanks to the White Walkers. It's all dead land unless the Night King was secretly planting wheat up and tending to cows in his ice fortress.

[Dr. Insomniac]

[Avaitor]

Something I've thought about- doesn't Daenerys validating Gendry's status as a Baratheon also validate his claim to the throne, if anything adding another heir to take it before her?

[Dr. Insomniac]

Yeah, but given Cersei's still on the throne despite having no legitimate claim, and nobody at King's Landing is disputing it like they did for Joffrey even though she killed their equivalent to the Pope, succession rights have been thrown out the window. Maybe Dany's just really, really hoping Gendry will be too thankful with his new status to consider usurping her.

Spoiler

And if the last episode leaks are true, the claim to the throne will be entirely moot.

[close]

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Preston actually brought up how Dany naming Gendry as a Baratheon basically gives him a competing claim to the throne....if this series aas still following any sense of the feudal rules and logic that it used to.

Likewise, he also pointed out how stupid it was that Tyrion and others were making a big deal out of Brienne being a virgin when that's in fact a pretty basic fucking expectation of any highborn woman who has not yet been married.

He also points out how ludicrous it is that the episode itself reminds us that Dany still has the full support of Dorne yet we have not seen a single unit of the Dornish army and not even a mention of them having been in any battles with the Crown's forces (and of course they don't show up outside of King's Landing with Dany and her forces). The same goes for the armies of The Reach which she did get to re-swear fealty to her last season after she fucked up an entire unit with Drogon.

Also, the fact that nobody knows who currently holds Storm's End, despite it being the second biggest military stronghold next to King's Landing is fucking laughable. And the fact that Gendry, whi has never been officially recognized as Robert's bastard has assigned himself the sir-name Rivers really proves to me that D&D don't give a shit anymore, since even a basic book fan like myself knew that Rivers wouldn't make sense given that Gendry was born to a father from Storm's End.

[Dr. Insomniac]

And how there's apparently a new prince of Dorne, but we have no idea if it's Quentyn, Arianne in drag, or someone who found Doran's chair and claimed dibs.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

The show established that Trystane was his only son, and that Oberyn only had three legitimized bastards, and since they said it was a prince of Dorne as opposed to a princess, it would have to either be a nephew of Doran's estranged wife Mellario or some other random house that won out in a power struggle.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Speaking of the claim to the throne, I'm thinking about how the writers seemed to learn the wrong lessons from writing Joffrey. They were apparently too pleased when he became a breakout character that they attempted to make new Joffreys with Ramsay and modern Cersei. But forgot as evil as Joffrey was, he still suffered consequences just like the heroes did. None of his advisers respected him, and after killing Ned and killing Robert's bastards, he was essentially a puppet king with no genuine power of his own thanks to his age and lack of experience. But then they forgot all that with Ramsay, letting him kill his family members and fight on the frontlines of battles without any side-effect, and continued doing that when Cersei never went through any losses after blowing up the Great Sept or let random servants see her incestuous relationship. It's like if Joffrey killed Tywin in front of all of King's Landing, revealed he was a product of incest with not a trace of Robert's blood, and then ripped open his clothes to reveal a six-pack. All while every Westerosi clapped.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

You can tell that show Ramsay and his actions were largely an invention of D & D to be the next Joffrey when his show role was significantly expanded from his book role. He's a terrible person in the books, but firstly he's more isolated to Theon's story-line (of which Sansa isn't even close to involved with), and he's also given nowhere near as much actual power and authority as his show counterpart.

In general, looking back on everything past season four (the last season that George R. R. Martin wrote an episode four and confirmed to have consulted with the show-runners), it seems like with limited source material to work with, the two of them weren't sure how to carry the story forward with the same appeal that it had up to that point, so they decided it would somehow be better to exaggerate the elements of the show that fans had the most positive reactions to and dial those up to over-the-top levels to the point of bordering on self-parody. People liked the clever one-liners? Easy, they'll just throw a few of those in every episode, except without any of the wit or context or implied double-meanings to go with it. Everyone likes how smart of a character people like Tyrion, Littlefinger, and Varys are? Great, now we can have every scene they're in just be the stereotypical "I'm plotting" shtick with the characters talking about how smart and clever they're being without actually doing anything smart or clever within the context of the plot (It's a wonder how Dany hasn't burned Tyrion alive at this point for all of his major fuck-ups). The show did well with feminists for it's progressive portrayal of female figures by showing how they survive and rise to the occasion in a feudal system that puts them down while also realistically working within the confines of that system? Blah! George R. R. Martin is a hack! The show writers can do it ten times better by having every woman in the show act like they are on top of the world and make any male characters who dare question them in any capacity look like the biggest douches. You think Arya is a troubled character who has been taken to a supremely dark place after having to witness many consecutive horrifying and traumatizing experiences at such a young age? Nope. She's a complete bad-ass that can savagely kill anyone she wants without any consequences, and they are always unquestionably evil while she is a paragon of justice. It's also alright that she acts like a complete bitch to everyone she meets from after her training is complete. It's not a character flaw, she's perfect in every way. Should we do the same exact thing with Dany? Yep, though her characterization will inexplicably be changed to her going crazy in the last two seasons even though she doesn't act any differently than normal and this change will only be reflected in how other characters react to her for no good reason at all. Also, rinse and repeat with Sansa Stark, the Sand Snakes, Olenna Tyrell, Cersei, and so on and so forth. Fuck people like Catelyn Stark, she didn't go nuts killing other people, she just supported and counseled her son and tried to save her family to the best of her ability. Not enough stabbing people. And I think there was another character called Brienne....but you know, she barely has to be put to any use once Jaimie is in the middle of another story-line.

Also, the writers do address how people said the pacing of the show is too slow at times. So now characters will conveniently warp to whatever location that they need to be at, time, distance, and reasonable methods of travel be damned. The plot needs to move forward somehow. Though, Gilly's baby can and will always stay the same exact age even though apparently everyone else ages by years.

And, that's pretty much what we're dealing with, here.

This video is somehow even more relevant now than it was a couple of years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek2O6bVAIQQ

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

You know that it's bad when even the casual fans have caught on to the BS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahoHDU0T44I

[Avaitor]

I'm seeing that a lot of people aren't happy with the way the show is treating Dany in the last episode, even calling out a lot of Tyrion and Varys' bad calls. And I really can't help but blame them, since her descent is feeling pretty forced. And it doesn't even have to, as the Targaryen's mental health has always been suspect (I mean, all that incest...), but while she's always had her questionable moments, the show and Martin have always tried to build Dany to be a little more stable as opposed to Viserys' meltdowns or Aerys own descent. If this is Martin's intent, it really feels like D&D were struggling to come up with how to build to it and hoped that we'd take Sansa's sense of distrust and Jon's sense of duty over her. Except if anything, it's only seeming to make Sansa more dislikable, and prove how dim and unfit Jon is.

[Dr. Insomniac]

[Dr. Insomniac]

So had he won, what was the Night King going to do after turning all of humanity into Wights? At least with Infinity War, Thanos' answer was retire to a garden. What was the Night King's plan after human extinction? What was he even doing in those thousands of years before finding Craster babies to transmogrify? Sleeping? Meditating? It reminds me of that episode of JLU where after hearing about Brainiac's plan to absorb and destroy all information, Luthor mocks it for being unambitious and hijacks the plan for something more grandiose. What was the Night King going to do with a barren ice planet?

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'd like to point out that the image of Whites as "Ice Zombies" as so many people put it, is completely an invention of the show. The White Walkers themselves are not described to be particularly ugly or monstrous in appearance, and actually do occasionally talk, albeit in a language that no character in the books thus far can discern. The Whites that act as their foot soldiers also have some level of intelligence and memories of their past lives as evidenced by the Night's Watchmen turned into Whites from book/season one knowing the layout of Castle Black and also exactly where to go to attack commander Mormont.

It's also implied that the Children of the Forest and Bloodraven aren't as nobly intentioned as they let on, with a lot of people (including Preston), theorizing that the White Walkers aren't a generic evil force.

Also, no Night's King exists as far as we know, yet. There's just an ancient legend of one having existed thousands of years ago.