Games of Thrones Unsullied thread

[Brian Fowler]

4 minutes ago, AxB said:

People who started reading the books after watching season one? If they didn't tapout halfway through the first book, if they read all the way to the end of Dance, they're probably on the Books > Show philosophy.

*Raises hand*

[AxB]

Wait... Aaron Rodgers was in this episode?

[Matt D]

Now if you want to read a billion pages of a series that actually handles Mercy beautifully, there's always the Malazan Book of the Fallen

[AxB]

I disagree. Malazan is just a sprawling mess of scenes with no relatable characters, and so many unconnected story arcs going on that you'd have to have some sort of obsessive personality disorder to keep track of all of them.

[Matt D]

7 minutes ago, AxB said:

I disagree. Malazan is just a sprawling mess of scenes with no relatable characters, and so many unconnected story arcs going on that you'd have to have some sort of obsessive personality disorder to keep track of all of them.

Nah. Everyone's relatable and it sure handles mercy well, which was my point. If he didn't keep introducing new cultures all the way to the last book with an anthropologist's passion, it'd be a hell of a lot better though, sure.

(Plus it's done, and satisfying in its ending, which is a hell of a thing in a world where Rothfuss and Lynch and Martin and even a guy who was as prolific as Jim Butcher all seem like they can't deliver anymore. Pretty soon, the only thing on the stands will be endless Brandon Sanderson novels as far as the eye can see). 

Edited May 13, 2019 by Matt D

[Beech27]

Tad Williams, whose trilogy inspired Martin to take a crack at the epic fantasy game in the first place, is still completing things; Abercombie has a new trilogy; Jemisin hasn't shown herself to be anything but punctual; and there's Lawrence, Weeks, et al. There's new big fat fantasy all the time, and I never get to 3/4 of it I'd like to, so I try not to worry about a lack here and there. Though if Martin gets around to it, I'll happily read. (The pending adaptation of Kingkiller is, if it happens, going to give us lots of nostalgic conversation fodder about a show passing the books, weird sexism, etc.) 

On the subject of mercy, I'm curious/nervous to see how that's handled in Amazon's second age Tolkien show, since that was his whole (very Catholic) thing. 

[ChesterCopperpot]

1 hour ago, AxB said:

Wait... Aaron Rodgers was in this episode?

 

[tigertooth]

On 5/11/2019 at 1:38 PM, tigertooth said:

I feel like they had a nice metaphor with the killing of Rhaegal -- who was barely able to fly -- as a symbol of Dany's foolish failure to wait and allow her forces to heal up.  But the way it played out didn't even involve Rhaegal's weakened state. There are a bunch of ways they could have blocked out the Euron ambush that would have been better logically and thematically. 

Yikes, the radically different treatment of the scorpion threat this week makes it even more clear that they totally screwed up Rhaegal's death. They just needed to make it clear that he was targeted so easily because he was beat down from the battle at Winterfell.  Dany still could have freaked out at the loss of her next-to-last 'child' and fled (as she did after Viserion was killed), leaving the Grey Worm fleet to get sliced and diced by Euron. Then it would make more sense that Dany/Drogon can wipe the floor with the Iron Fleet etc as long as Drogon is healthy and they get the drop on the scorpion-wielders rather than vice versa.

[jaedmc]

Cool another reason not to like the show. #GreenBaySucks

My problem with Dany going mental was that it's not enough for her to just "go crazy". There had to be a justification for the action. Her killing Varys was a psycho move that felt justified because he was being treasonous.  

I don't know what those people in King's Landing did wrong. When the bells rang and she started riding off, I thought she was just going to crush Cersei. But instead she started torching innocent people on purpose. Then she started accidentally killing her own soldiers. I don't know what the goal was or what she could gain. I mean she knows she has a problem with getting love and respect like Jon, so her choice is to go alllllllll the way in the other direction? So now she burned it down, what's next?

It's reminds me of Slavoj Zizek's thoughts on the Day After a Revolution. He used to joke about wanting to see V For Vendetta 2: Now What. 

So I hope this last episode is just her being queen and dealing with mundane urban infrastructure problems and budgetary concerns. The last scene is her getting a letter that all that work she did on the other continent has gone to shit while she's away. She looks at the camera and goes "Ay ay ay." The end.

[Craig H]

The after the episode review by D&D pointed out how Dany looks at the red keep and realizes it was something her family built hundreds of years ago and see this thing that's been taken from her sets her off.

Now, that's fine if all she does is just destroy the tower that Cersei was in.

There was zero fucking reason to destroy the entire city and kill all of those people. When they did the lead up to this episode, everyone tried to point out how attacking the city would lead to 10,000 innocent people killed because they would just be human shields. Dany's gripe was solely with Cersei and he army though, and she destroys that army in minutes. On top of that, the rest of the soldiers inside the city lay down their arms. And then the Unsullied, Dothraki, and others kill them anyway and Dany sets out just murdering innocent people just because. It's fucking lame and makes no sense even if she's gone "mad." I get that she has resorted to making people fear her if they weren't going to love her per what she said to Jon Snow, but what is there to rule over if you've killed everyone? She's the breaker of chains, but also the murderer of completely innocent people?

This is just another one of those things where in the moment I didn't have much of a problem with what I was seeing because it was so graphic and extreme. A day later though, and it's just really shitty and poorly done. 

[Matt D]

I'm pretty sure she did it all to inspire massive amounts of fear so no one will ever dare ally with Jon against her? 

That tempered by a strong desire to get revenge for what Cersei had done, the dragon more than the interpreter.

I mean, whether that's a sound reason to do anything or whether it's something any of her advisers had ever preached? Beats me?

I bet Khal Drogo would have been cool with it though. 

[John from Cincinnati]

SOMEBODY RING THE DAMN BELL

[Beech27]

The Dothraki and Unsullied acting as they did is basically supported by... every city sacking ever, so I don't need much to justify that. 

Dany, I don't think is practically motivated. That is, in that moment she isn't thinking that this will help her keep the throne. I think, instead, she sees the people as avatars of the rejection she's faced and feels--rather than thinks--in that moment that they are all present or potential conspirators against her, and thus should be treated like traitors. If you wanted to take it further, she's breaking her toys so no one else can play with them.

[Throat]

25 minutes ago, Beech27 said:

The Dothraki and Unsullied acting as they did is basically supported by... every city sacking ever, so I don't need much to justify that. 

Dany, I don't think is practically motivated. That is, in that moment she isn't thinking that this will help her keep the throne. I think, instead, she sees the people as avatars of the rejection she's faced and feels--rather than thinks--in that moment that they are all present or potential conspirators against her, and thus should be treated like traitors. If you wanted to take it further, she's breaking her toys so no one else can play with them.

That was my interpretation. If the people won't love her and they don't want her to have the throne, then goodbye people, goodbye throne. She's breaking the wheel in a way no one wanted her to.

Varys feared Littlefinger would destroy everything just to become king of the ashes, yet he ended up supporting someone who did just that. He wised up but it was too late.

Where's she gonna rule from now? Dragonstone? Isolated on a tiny island?

I never would've guessed that this would be how they'd solve the problem of how the raping, murdering and pillaging Dothraki would fit into Westerosi society once Dany took power. They won't! Just keep on doing what you do, fellas. The boss says it's cool. New company policy.

Edited May 13, 2019 by Throat

[piranesi]

I really want to not hate this because overall the show is taking some bold narrative steps that restore something of the original tone of the first few seasons (i.e. a "fantasy" show where there is no moral compass guiding the outcomes toward "balance" and there are no heroes, only strength and weakness and even strength is actually a weakness, etc.).

But the fact that they are going back to that but botching it so much only makes me fear that others won't take these chances again on such a grand stage.

There was enough there before the start of the season to signal that Dany had

1) created lots of problems for herself in the past and wasn't all that good at leadership

2) had a consistent pattern of craving adoration, not getting it, and then resenting that

3) Had backed herself into terrible corners a number of times thinking she was smarter than she is

4) Hadn't learned anything about tactics from any of those mistakes because her answer to them was always "fuck it, burn them all down"

5) Had always gotten away with it where the stakes were not as high as King's Landing

6) Had therefore never solved a problem without resorting to this mass-destruction weapon as a terror tactic

It wouldn't have taken much to properly set this up in the first half of season 8. But I think they wanted to preserve something of the shock. But you can't do "plot twists" with main-character development. They're two different elements. Main characters should probably mostly react to plot twists, not be them.

[Matt D]

I guess the other side of that coin is that they could have gotten to an interesting place, even outright war, without taking this step. We're always going to be comparing this to the ending in our heads,and to me, that ending had Dany on the Iron Throne and Jon back up in the north and the two at increasing odds whereas they wanted things to end peacefully, but people will always crave power or put tribal identity over the benefits of unity and the world just wasn't big enough for the both of them. Maybe there's less spectacle in that, but this is a hammer when the show's generally been more of a chisel. 

[jaedmc]

A chisel?

[Matt D]

Perhaps I'm being cleverly ironic. None of you will ever know.

[piranesi]

3 minutes ago, jaedmc said:

A chisel?

Oh come on you know. The Chisel asked the hammer to carry it across the river. And the Hammer was like "I'm a Hammer I'll sink." But the chisel was like "I trust you, Hammer, you can handle this." And so the Chisel climbed on the Hammer's back and they jumped in the water and sank and are now rusting at the bottom and the Hammer was like "But you said I could do it! Why?" and the Chisel is like "Dude, I'm a chisel. What do I know about anything? Just say the word over and over again and you'll know you shouldn't be taking the advice of a chisel."

 

[Matt D]

Just now, piranesi said:

Oh come on you know. The Chisel asked the hammer to carry it across the river. And the Hammer was like "I'm a Hammer I'll sink." But the chisel was like "I trust you, Hammer, you can handle this." And so the Chisel climbed on the Hammer's back and they jumped in the water and sank and are now rusting at the bottom and the Hammer was like "But you said I could do it! Why?" and the Chisel is like "Dude, I'm a chisel. What do I know about anything? Just say the word over and over again and you'll know you shouldn't be taking the advice of a chisel."

 

Exactly; now do the Mountain fashion watch:

[Niners Fan in CT]

I was hoping for a better ending for Jaime but I think his character arc did work because even when he was trying to save Cersei (who by the way was carrying his baby, right?) I was still cheering for him to make it out of there. I don't leave this show saying "man, fuck Jaime Lannister" he turned out to be a hero in his own way and oh by the way,  he did save the realm from the Mad King.  

[jaedmc]

29 minutes ago, Matt D said:

Perhaps I'm being cleverly ironic. None of you will ever know.

So Game of Thrones is our replacement for March Madness.

 

[Matt D]

1 minute ago, jaedmc said:

So Game of Thrones is our replacement for March Madness.

 

Read the post above yours and tell me what more or less it should be? 

[Niners Fan in CT]

Which brings me to Dany.  I think it was earned. It was rushed at the end (as was a lot of things, they needed 8 full ten episode seasons) but there is way more than enough here through the 8 seasons that show how Dany could end up being the Mad Queen.  Tons of examples of people walking her off the ledge. 

She had Jorah there to guide her.  She had Missandei there to be her best friend and adviser.  She had Tyrion as the hand.  They all either died or betrayed her. Someone with the mad gene needs a good team around them.  That was all gone.  And Snow couldn't show that he loved her either.  She had nothing left but her internal rage. 

I do think this is pretty close to the ending Martin would have come up with. She finally gets to her destination and then she burns it to the ground.  Martin is very anti-war,  I'm sure that's why we got all the imagery. It was a statement that told the viewer this is what war is and oh by the way there really aren't many good guys out here. Jorah had a line in previous seasons where a sword does something to a man in battle. Even the men who you think are good men,  a beast is unleashed from inside of them. 

I loved that dummy trying to test Jon fucking Snow of all people. Snow says "you ain't raping nobody on my watch" and he thought he was going to get over on the King of the North. Fuck off. 

[jaedmc]

6 minutes ago, Matt D said:

Read the post above yours and tell me what more or less it should be? 

Dany's work rate has been comparable to Seth Rollins overall. Lots of highspots to get the crowd going, but when you think back on it, it was really hollow.

Jon Snow is similar to John Cena in which he's wildly over, but his facial expressions can be a little over the top and his best matches were against better workers.

Tyrion is kinda like Daniel Bryan in that he has perhaps the best skills on the roster, but bad booking has brought out some of his worst habits.

If I could add polls to a thread after the fact I would.