A Rant of Ice and Fire
May. 20th, 2019 10:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zesty_pintoO hai Monday.
So we did it: we binged through the final season of Game of Thrones. I now get why people were frustrated and, yeah, even the season before I could see a lot of the seams falling apart.
I kept thinking about how the last time Dany conquered a city, there was a rising resistance among the nobility. I thought King's Landing was razed to the ground and she was going to say "screw it, I'm going back to Meereen" or even go to Dragonstone are rule from there.
A lot of the leaps in logic just frustrated me. Tyrion should have known Cersei more than anyone but she still outsmarted him in every way; in truth, I would have accepted it if it turned out there was a mole in Dany's group, or the warlocks from back in the early season came into play. I would have even accepted it if Bran was the one doing it from behind the scenes.
The Battle of Winterfell? There was no way any of the battle tactics made sense. Yes, you're fighting a literal wall of the dead, but you don't fight a wall with cavalry. A couple of good flaming payloads on catapults would have made sense too. Sure they wouldn't have access to wildfire, but pitch, tar, anything along those lines would have done wonders. The rest of the fight would have made sense in the castle itself where the congestion of monsters could be controlled.
And then by the end of it, Dany still had a ton of resources despite how few survivors were found. Half of what was there, sure, but still.
There would have also been conflict. That many people in one castle would have fomented annoyances. There would have been refugees looking for asylum at King's Landing. The crypts are big, but nowhere near the scale of all the people in the Northlands.
Qyborn honestly should have turned the entire Kingsguard into undead like The Mountain at this point in reaction to dragons. Cersei would not have cared at this point and done whatever it took to win. In fact, I was wondering if she planted wildfire to make it look like Dany did it, but that was thrown away on account of a human sympathy piece of King's Landing getting razed to the ground and Dany living in its ashes.
And then there's Dorne, who didn't seem to care despite how they wanted to support Dany. They could have applied pressure to the Lannisters.
Dany being ambushed by ballista made no sense to me as well. They went from fast loading to extremely slow as well and I just didn't understand.
And the sacking of King's Landing never explained the wildfire explosions!
The Red Lady living just for the sake of fighting the Others made no sense to me, either. I thought she sought the Lord of Light to bring the religion.
In the books, Beric kept coming back to life. So I honestly expected him to keep coming back. It felt like such a waste of bringing that into the show if he was going to die in the battle of Winterfell so readily.
I honestly expected more undead creatures in general: mammoths, more giants, etc. They really shouldn't have killed off the people in the North so easily, imo, as they had survived up there so easily until they let the Starks in there. Coldhands could have given tactics about this from understanding how to survive them.
Despite all this, the ending was decent albeit with a sinister thought towards the end. Remember the nature of the ruler and what happened to their predecessor.
I'll also add this SciAm article about the shift in style was apparent with the later seasons and I agree wholeheartedly. It felt more like watching "Walking Dead" but with more concern about who dies which just frustrated me more.
I'll add that part of the things that made some of the series' more popular characters is that they survived in spite of them defying norms because they acknowledged their unconventionality and fought to do what was necessary to maintain that. Their plot armor should have been because they knew how to work against the grain, not as a result of it. It's like if I was allowed to win a puzzle contest because I am left handed and not because I understood how to solve something faster as a result of being the guy who has to adapt to using right handed instruments with a left hand. It makes no sense otherwise.
Less serious crap to rant about: Robin Arryn being alive to the end despite being a very weak hemophiliac makes me wonder if Littlefinger saved him from a mother with Munchausen syndrome.
Bronn being Master of Coin means everyone is screwed. That treasury is going to lead to some beautiful brothels in the decades to come.
Samwell proposing democracy did make me laugh as well.
In the books, Jon Snow proposed taking the free folk into the commons owned by the Night's Watch. Since the Night's Watch has no more purpose, I would have thought they'd happily stick around and farm. Tormund being all "nah, I'll pass" seemed appropriate. I'm being generous too and assuming that the writers still went with it.
Anyway, it's done, so I'm done with it too. Thank god. I'll look forward to watching "Hanna" next, whose initial episode actually intrigued me.
So we did it: we binged through the final season of Game of Thrones. I now get why people were frustrated and, yeah, even the season before I could see a lot of the seams falling apart.
I kept thinking about how the last time Dany conquered a city, there was a rising resistance among the nobility. I thought King's Landing was razed to the ground and she was going to say "screw it, I'm going back to Meereen" or even go to Dragonstone are rule from there.
A lot of the leaps in logic just frustrated me. Tyrion should have known Cersei more than anyone but she still outsmarted him in every way; in truth, I would have accepted it if it turned out there was a mole in Dany's group, or the warlocks from back in the early season came into play. I would have even accepted it if Bran was the one doing it from behind the scenes.
The Battle of Winterfell? There was no way any of the battle tactics made sense. Yes, you're fighting a literal wall of the dead, but you don't fight a wall with cavalry. A couple of good flaming payloads on catapults would have made sense too. Sure they wouldn't have access to wildfire, but pitch, tar, anything along those lines would have done wonders. The rest of the fight would have made sense in the castle itself where the congestion of monsters could be controlled.
And then by the end of it, Dany still had a ton of resources despite how few survivors were found. Half of what was there, sure, but still.
There would have also been conflict. That many people in one castle would have fomented annoyances. There would have been refugees looking for asylum at King's Landing. The crypts are big, but nowhere near the scale of all the people in the Northlands.
Qyborn honestly should have turned the entire Kingsguard into undead like The Mountain at this point in reaction to dragons. Cersei would not have cared at this point and done whatever it took to win. In fact, I was wondering if she planted wildfire to make it look like Dany did it, but that was thrown away on account of a human sympathy piece of King's Landing getting razed to the ground and Dany living in its ashes.
And then there's Dorne, who didn't seem to care despite how they wanted to support Dany. They could have applied pressure to the Lannisters.
Dany being ambushed by ballista made no sense to me as well. They went from fast loading to extremely slow as well and I just didn't understand.
And the sacking of King's Landing never explained the wildfire explosions!
The Red Lady living just for the sake of fighting the Others made no sense to me, either. I thought she sought the Lord of Light to bring the religion.
In the books, Beric kept coming back to life. So I honestly expected him to keep coming back. It felt like such a waste of bringing that into the show if he was going to die in the battle of Winterfell so readily.
I honestly expected more undead creatures in general: mammoths, more giants, etc. They really shouldn't have killed off the people in the North so easily, imo, as they had survived up there so easily until they let the Starks in there. Coldhands could have given tactics about this from understanding how to survive them.
Despite all this, the ending was decent albeit with a sinister thought towards the end. Remember the nature of the ruler and what happened to their predecessor.
I'll also add this SciAm article about the shift in style was apparent with the later seasons and I agree wholeheartedly. It felt more like watching "Walking Dead" but with more concern about who dies which just frustrated me more.
I'll add that part of the things that made some of the series' more popular characters is that they survived in spite of them defying norms because they acknowledged their unconventionality and fought to do what was necessary to maintain that. Their plot armor should have been because they knew how to work against the grain, not as a result of it. It's like if I was allowed to win a puzzle contest because I am left handed and not because I understood how to solve something faster as a result of being the guy who has to adapt to using right handed instruments with a left hand. It makes no sense otherwise.
Less serious crap to rant about: Robin Arryn being alive to the end despite being a very weak hemophiliac makes me wonder if Littlefinger saved him from a mother with Munchausen syndrome.
Bronn being Master of Coin means everyone is screwed. That treasury is going to lead to some beautiful brothels in the decades to come.
Samwell proposing democracy did make me laugh as well.
In the books, Jon Snow proposed taking the free folk into the commons owned by the Night's Watch. Since the Night's Watch has no more purpose, I would have thought they'd happily stick around and farm. Tormund being all "nah, I'll pass" seemed appropriate. I'm being generous too and assuming that the writers still went with it.
Anyway, it's done, so I'm done with it too. Thank god. I'll look forward to watching "Hanna" next, whose initial episode actually intrigued me.
