DrForester
Kills Photobucket
So, for the first time since Season 1, an episode has not been nominated for a Hugo award.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
*UNMARKED SPOILERS ALL BOOKS* Game of Thrones |OT| - Season 6
- Thread starter Steelyuhas
- Start date
- Status
That's what I was getting at, yea.
I mean, sure the story is a shitshow, but I don't see Ellaria's reasoning as so far beyond belief. She's blinded by outrage at Doran's inaction in avenging her lover/his brother. Note that Ellaria only cares about Oberyn, not "the Martell line" or family.
Off topic, and setting aside "does any episode of Season 5 deserve a nomination for anything", aren't the Hugos a clusterfuck now? I only half-followed this whole Puppy thing last year but I remember from the man GRR himself:
I think the Sad Puppies have broken the Hugo Awards, and I am not sure they can ever be repaired.
Is that still a going concern? How credible are the Hugos right now?
hipsterpants
Member
Not sure if this needs to be spoilered or not, future speculation related to Jaime.
Of course I don't have much hope of this happening, but holy shit it would be great. Now I'm just setting myself up for disappointment.
Having the Sparrow spill the beans to Jaime about Lancel to ruin their relationship would be such a GoT thing to do. Spend like 1.5 seasons showing how much he cares then it all gets fucked up instantly. It would get him to the point he's at in the books without all the introspection and internal thoughts they can't show in the show. Then he can go to the Riverlands or w/e and become awesome book Jaime.
Of course I don't have much hope of this happening, but holy shit it would be great. Now I'm just setting myself up for disappointment.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
They're still a problem in the nomination process. They got two Anti-"SJW" books nominated, and are probably responsible for getting an episode of My Little Pony nominated (it equality, an extreme from of equality as evil).
Red Arremer
Member
I know love makes blind but still, there's so many things that are wrong with Ellaria's decision to murder both of the Martells. At the very least, in her position, I would've kept Trystane as a hostage and rule Dorne with him as a puppet instead. Killing him of all people served no purpose (and ironically, the Sand Snakes were appalled by the thought of Cersei assassinating Trystane in the books). Ellaria isn't just some commoner that is killing other in the streets, she's the paramour of a nobleman, and even though she doesn't have any sort of official status, she was gracefully accepted into the Martell family, and kept around even after Oberyn's death. If anything, she should've been graceful for Doran not kicking her out the very second Oberyn was killed. He still saw her as a member of the family.
In any reasonably written scenario, what do you think would happen? The following:
- Dorne might be more accepting of bastards, but without a ruler to legitimize them, they cannot take control. This will leave a power vacuum.
- The nobles loyal to the Martells would be outraged at the murder of their liege lord and his innocent heir and completely pull their support for Ellaria.
- The Dornish houses rivaled to the Martells would take advantage of the power vacuum and either attempt to take control themselves, or ally themselves with an outside power to help them get put onto the throne of Sunspear in exchange for future support. We don't know much of the political situation in Dorne, other than that the Yronwoods are the Martells' fiercest rivals (in the books at least; we know nothing of Dorne's situation in the show).
- Even people who supported the assassination of Doran likely would be upset at the murder of his son, who is both innocent and could've been a valuable hostage. Heck, Doran himself could've been made a puppet, he was feeble enough.
- Oberyn was insanely close to Doran. It certainly was not in his interest to have his brother and nephew murdered, even for revenge or outrage over the "not doing anything" to get said revenge.
There is absolutely no scenario in which Ellaria's "plan" would have any sort of positive outcome. There are literally only negative consequences to this. It's not like they killed some low-ranking noble nobody gives a shit about, either. The reason why D&D killed the Martells off was to have the "shock" of Dorne's leader getting assassinated and pushing a spear through a kid's head, get rid of some of the many characters and have "badass women in charge" or something idk.
Dorne should be plunging into a massive, bloody civil war, but given that we're talking about D&D here, there will be absolutely no consequences for Ellaria and the Sand Snakes, all of Dorne will unite behind them, and they will be immediately marching against the Lannnisters. Cause of course they will.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
Couldn't Dorne try to ally itself with someone who will take the Iron Throne so the King can legitimize them? I doubt they will team with the Lannisters, but maybe with Highgarden.
Red Arremer
Member
Not sure if the Dornish would accept someone legitimized by the Iron Throne, but I guess that could work.
Though, a Dornish alliance with the Tyrells would be very unlikely, given their animosity towards each other.
Regardless, that would require planning ahead, and having that alliance already in place. Right now, technically speaking, Ellaria and the Sand Snakes have absolutely nothing.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
Hasn't be much animosity between them in the show though.
Red Arremer
Member
It's been implied, actually. When Oberyn was in King's Landing there was this scene of the Small Council where Oberyn asks "Am I master of something now, coins, ships?" and Mace Tyrell gets all puffy going "Lord Tywin and I have determined that I should be master of ships long before you" or something like that.
But yeah, regardless, the point in my edit still stands.
This is a great post. Entirely agree.
Red Arremer
Member
They were on Jaime's ship, which was anchored in King's Landing. This is according to the official GoT website. Apparently Trystane was still on board due to "grief".
Your angle on this is weird. Why is all of that examples of "bad writing" and not examples of "a character who is making dumb decisions"?
ThePrequelsSuck
Banned
Is s6 any good? i haven't watched this show in a while.
elrechazado
Banned
Is this a serious post? is bad writing ever possible in your opinion or is it all always just bad decisions by characters that are just fine in-universe?
That's a waste of good meat. You want Ghost to go hungry?
Yeah and why did the other black brothers leave his body out in the cold in the first place, knowing about the wights.
I came here to post similar sentiments so I completely agree.
The part I bolded is my biggest problem with the show's deviation from the book's Dornish plot. Not accounting for the political and military fallout from such a drastic move makes the world seem less believable and it trivializes Dornish politics.
The show is what introduced me to this story, but what kept me interested (obsessed really) is how well thought out and realistic the politics of the world were portrayed. It also undermines the political challenges that other characters have been navigating with much more trepidation. For instance, why doesn't Dany just kill the remaining masters after she conquers Mereen? Why didn't Cercei just kill Tyrion? Why doesn't Ramsay just kill Roose?
I could list more characters, but I'm sure you get the point. Killing people with power has consequences. Ignoring those consequences hurts the storytelling and makes it hard (for me) to suspend my disbelief.
Probably just every character at Castle Black being dumb rather than bad writing.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
It's been implied, actually. When Oberyn was in King's Landing there was this scene of the Small Council where Oberyn asks "Am I master of something now, coins, ships?" and Mace Tyrell gets all puffy going "Lord Tywin and I have determined that I should be master of ships long before you" or something like that.
But yeah, regardless, the point in my edit still stands.
Yeah, I don't think it's a plan. Just a thought I had. Because isn't only the king who can legitimize a bastard? I know lords can chose to raise them well, but to actually legitimize them I thought needed the Kings consent.
S5 wasn't very good and S6 is off to a "meh" start.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
Nah. Jon comes back and his heritage is confirmed then it's the big twist as the show starts on to the final story arcs.
Of course bad writing is possible, but none of that big post actually made a case for badness here. At most there's an implicit it's like "I don't want to watch characters make dumb decisions" there, which is fine but personal. If it turns out that the Snakes come out of this all riding high and respected and loved by Dorne, then we can talk about how characters who deserve to fail keep winning, and then we can call that bad or sloppy or whatever. Or we can say that we're worried it'll go in that direction and then decide not to see it through.
But let's actually engage with the story as told. A bunch of those criticisms are totally extratextual. As far as we know, for example, there aren't any other noble houses in Dorne. So maybe that's a point of dissatisfaction we could argue: "I don't like how the show isn't about intricate political machination and intrigue in the same way that the book was." But even there, that's not "bad" writing, that's just writing a different kind story than the one you want. Which is a legitimate thing to feel and be frustrated by... it's just not particularly interesting since we've known that the show isn't as interested in political cloak-and-dagger for several years now.
I don't really like anything about Dorne, personally. It's hard to see how any of this is relevant to any of the stories that matter to me. So maybe I'd say it's bad writing to devote time to this extraneous concern. I certainly level that criticism at Martin for the totally directionless slog that was Feast and Dance. I'd definitely say that D&D haven't done a great job of editing those works down into the interesting parts.
What do the wights have to do with anything? As far as anybody knows, wights are raised by a white walker or raised from the corpse of a person felled by a white walker. Do the Watch think there's a walker wandering around in Castle Black? Do any of the mutineers suspect their brother of being a walker?
This isn't like the Walking Dead where all corpses stand back up.
Corpses at Castle Black have been reanimated and tried to kill the Lord Commander. Everyone knows this.
Reddit caught that Trystane's death is a reference to the House Sigil. He or another one of his family members is probably dying that way too in the books. https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/4gkkbi/spoilers_everything_something_people_may_have_not/ (Poster version!: http://ih1.redbubble.net/image.89091895.6115/raf,750x1000,075,t,f89f2b:1617e563f0.jpg )
Jon Snow is a special corpse. R+L ≠ W
bishopcruz
Member
Yeah, but they died NORTH of the wall. This is one time where I don't think the writers messed up. I cling to it, as situations like it are becoming increasingly rare.
But why would anyone at Castle Black think that? All they know is that dead bodies have been coming back to life. They should have burned him immediately.
Didn't they kill the wildings and brothers who were killed at the battle at Castle Black.
He was clearly planning on attending the funeral since he was painting her eyes on rocks. And possibly not coming into the city because Jaime wanted to give Cersei some time to grieve before letting her know Trystane was with him. She can be volatile when it comes to her children.
Doran's death scene is still weird to me. It is definitely supposed to be just after the ship leaves in season 5. All 4 principle characters are wearing the same costumes so did Jaime/Trystane send a raven from the ship? But then if Doran died immediately, well before Trystane, Ellaria has managed to keep it a secret or at least stop the news reaching Kingslanding by Raven. (are ravens faster than a ship?)
That only happened to corpses they brought back from the other side of the Wall, never anyone who died on this side of it.
Red Arremer
Member
I was about to go to bed, and I promise I will get back to you on the rest of your postings, but I want to just pick this particular line out because that one is quick to respond to, as it is in fact objectively wrong.
There are other Dornish noblehouses in the show. In the scene in Season 4 where Tyrion, Bronn and Pod sit on the road waiting to greet Doran Martell, they see the Dornish entourage approach, and Pod starts listing off like 4 or 5 different Dornish houses. I specifically remember the Manwoodys and the Dalts being part of it.
Of course, as I mentioned in my initial post about what the assassination should be causing, we do not know the political situation in show Dorne, so it's difficult to say which houses would be loyal, neutral or rivaled to the Martells, if any. Regardless, even if the Dornish nobles don't give a shit or were rebellious against Doran for not taking more overt revenge for Oberyn's death, there should be political fallout for Ellaria and the Sand Snakes.
As said, I will respond to your other points when it isn't 2 AM.
I think the guy that one Sand Snake that was with Ellaria (they all seriously are so hard to distinguish from me) killed with the throwing knife was supposed to be the Maester. And since it's implied the entire rest of the Martell staff was in on the assassination, it's unlikely anyone else would've sent a message by non-raven means.
Davos has sensed it. There has been an awakening.
That's because they've been burning the people who died since then.
There's so much hand waving in GoT.
bishopcruz
Member
On another note, is anyone tired of this conversation?
Cersei: Bad things are happening, our enemies are all around us!
Jaime: I don't care, you are the only thing I care about, we're the only two people who matter.
Cersei: But bad things are happening... our enemies mean to kill us.
Jaime: I will kill everyone who tries to stand between us. I will kill everyone who isn't us.
It's like it happens at least once a season.
Cersei: Bad things are happening, our enemies are all around us!
Jaime: I don't care, you are the only thing I care about, we're the only two people who matter.
Cersei: But bad things are happening... our enemies mean to kill us.
Jaime: I will kill everyone who tries to stand between us. I will kill everyone who isn't us.
It's like it happens at least once a season.
What if everyone who is us is the enemy? What if us is the enemies? What do then Cersei? Sex will make better.
Oh word I totally forgot about that scene. Sort of highlights the reason the whole Dornish thing is a mess. The fact that other houses simply exist doesn't really give us anything to go on re their interests, motivations, stances on Doran as a leader, ambitions, etc. But I'm really not interested in the show digging into Dornish rivalry politics given how much it's elided of the more interesting, say, Northern rivalry politics. They're definitely hitting a weird "uncanny valley" here where the non-lead-character Houses are too poorly drawn to be interesting, but still present enough that their absence gets conspicuous. Like what in the fuck have the rest of Robb's army been doing since the Red Wedding? The Bolton plan to consolidate power by marrying Sansa was always thin because we never saw tension between Bolton and Karstark or Umber or whatever.
The show politics in general have been very bilateral in nature. Even when Stannis was at war with everyone, he was only really engaged with one enemy at a time. Littlefinger, instead of playing a web of allegiances with Lords Declarant that have internal rivalries, only really dealt with The Vale as a body.
Or because nobody's died by a White Walker's blade or in the presence of a White Walker since. Maybe you'd be more cautious in their position, but they're not being unreasonable.
Non-spoiler answer: I don't know what the Sansa Crew is going to do now (assuming she doesn't die of hypothermia) It is a LONG way to castle black and it is walking into bad weather so going North doesn't seem wise. Bolton men (presumably) control the Neck so it won't be easy to go South. Where is Littlefinger?
Spoiler speculation
I don't think they will meet until the battle is over, Sansa will be busy with Littlefinger and his troops. Littlefinger will be part of the Northern conspiracy and betray the Boltons with some other Northern lords. imo
Ganzlinger
Member
At this point, I just hope my favorite character doesn't get screwed by this mess.
- Status