A Song of Tits and Wine (Spoilers!)

[Skalpadda]

I think there are simple answers:

1. They don’t have enough ships to transport everyone.

2. They want to blockade King’s Landing and prepare for a siege and holding Dragonstone is a big part of that.

If we want to chase logical tails re: strategy here, then actually the big question is: why hasn’t Euron taken Dragonstone if he really has this wildly superior naval force? It’s incredibly strategic and near King’s Landing as you say.

1. So why not have everyone take the land route where they have a bigger advantage, and the chance to pick up at least some scraps of forces (maybe even hook up with something significant like the Dornish) along the way, instead of the massive risk of sailing a much inferior fleet ahead to King’s Landing. Oh yeah, the blockade, but…

2. The idea that they’re going to blockade King’s Landing with their paltry fleet while Euron is around is laughable. They use “the dragons will destroy them” as a line to defend this tactic, but that just makes it worse. Euron cost them their Dorne and Highgarden fleets and by extension lost them entirely. He took out Yara and burned another fleet outside Casterly Rock, forcing the Unsullied to march across the continent. They should be taking him extremely seriously. If the dragons can take them out that easily, why on earth didn’t Dany hunt them down and torch them immediately then?

They also know that they’re facing weapons that can hurt the dragons now. Drogon gets grounded by just one of the things in the Spoils of War, so even if they don’t count on them improving the design, they should be very, very wary about counting on the dragons to give them complete superiority.

Why Euron hasn’t taken Dragonstone, I think I wondered why Cersei has just left it alone somehwere above in season 7. If we want to assume the Cersei-aligned characters are actually clever it seemed to work exceedingly well as bait. Cersei hasn’t shown any interest in the place ever for some strange reason and Stannis didn’t even leave a token force to hold it. I guess maybe they’re just not worried because they’re thinking they have naval superiority and don’t want to force Dany onto land where they’re not as strong if they don’t have to? I have no idea.

I watched the planning scene again after the episode and their plans just seem terrible. It starts out recounting losses (only half the Dothraki? How?), then Varys says Cersei is losing allies by the day, but Dany is too impatient to want to gather allies even though “the balance has grown distressingly even”, so they compromise (I guess?) on the siege tactic. Tyrion says something about the populace of King’s Landing being more likely to revolt now that it’s winter, even though we see later in the episode that it’s not winter in King’s Landing. They handwave Euron with dragons. Tyrion says “once they see that Cersei is our only enemy, her reign is over”, but how will siegeing the city show that? Then Dany says “the longer I leave my enemies alone, the stronger they become”, even though Cersei is “losing allies by the day”.

I don’t think they’re “lying”. I think they’re making extremely flip comments which are not intended to be taken at all seriously - and that’s something they’ve done the whole time in those things.

But why? What possible reason could they have for saying a bunch of nonsense that just makes them look bad? Occam’s razor would suggest that’s actually about as much thought as they put into things.

If it wasn’t for the fact that, as they’d pointed out, they’d already lost control of the city once, I’d agree. But they have.

I might have just forgotten about something, but what are they referring to here? The riots under Joffrey? I don’t remember that actually amounting to much in the end, and why would they assume Cersei wouldn’t be able to keep control better than Joffrey, especially as Cersei has the whole “foreign savage usurper riding a giant monster” card to play.

I don’t think that’s really fair to her. She’s in a tough position because she’s having to rely on the love of a bunch of people who inherently distrust her in a way that the people of Essos didn’t. Prior to “Dracarys” I don’t think she felt she could get away with it. But she effectively got permission with that phrase to “BURN IT, BURN IT ALL!”, old-skool Targaryen stylez.

The whole strategy of saving King’s Landing does sort of hinge on Tyrion and Varys convincing her though, she’s been champing at the bit to just swoop in and end it the whole time. Varys… who tried to assassinate her, and Tyrion who I can’t remember giving her a single piece of good strategic advice. Those two have lost her an enormous amount of forces with very little to show for it. It’d be straining my suspension of disbelief if I had any left.

Not really. People were utterly horrified by that kind of thing in the past too, when the people were their “own” people, and KL is the “own people” of the majority of the characters on the show from a cultural perspective. Against foreign others or religious enemies sure.

Riverrun (and the entire Riverlands), Highgarden, Winterfell, Harrenhal, The Blackwater, the Ironborn invasion, Astapor, Mereen, Yunkai, The Greyjoy Rebellion, Robert’s Rebellion, the many Targaryen wars, and on it goes, and that’s just stuff from the show. So many atrocities, many against their “own people”, and the idea that having one battle for King’s Landing to end it all would lose Dany the support of everyone. No, I don’t buy that.

At this point the question should be whether Dany even has the forces to mount an assault in the first place.

Re: Dothraki charging by themselves I agree - they actually do appear to do that in show, but it’s less clear and it seems like it was at least close to the show. I agree actual overconfidence, particularly re: Lord of Light would have been nice. None of that is particularly a winnable plan though, which I guess is my point.

I thought that was what happened at first, but the reactions (or lack of them) of the characters seems to rule that out. And it was never a winnable battle in the field, I’m onboard with that, but they could have made the desperate defence make more sense, which I also think would have made it more tense and scary.

[Jerkzilla]

Ah I forgot about that bit, fair point!

[LexW]

I’ll have more comments later but I suspect a lot of this comes from adapting the books and wanting to keep it simple enough for TV whilst not contradicting whatever info GRRM has given them. GRRM says this is sparse info but I am serious when I say his vision of sparse is likely dozens of pages. In the books Euron has a dragon killing horn as Shadoko helpfully reminded us. In the show, rather than suddenly introducing a powerful magic item which would have been pretty weird, they gave him anti dragon ballista. This probably why they only damaged Danys fleet rather than sinking it. In the books a confrontation within the range of fixed defences at Dragonstone would have likely been inconclusive, but the horn might have killed Rhaegal. This might also be why Dany didn’t burn the fleet. If, in the books, she knows about the horn, she would not be able to attack them safely. And the horn kills the blower, I believe that’s correct, but presumably either that’s where Euron dies in the books, or he gets someone else to blow it.

Also, in the books, I strongly imagine Dany leaves a large garrison at Dragonstone. This could potentially prevent Euron from taking it, and could also explain why she is so confident in heading there. Also note that Dragonstone will have fixed defences and they were likely close to those when they were ambushed. I was told she left a garrison in the show but I don’t have the reference. Still it’s a saner assumption than that she didn’t.

This seems like an interesting thread to pull actually.

[Shadoko]

In the books Euron has a dragon killing horn as Shadoko helpfully reminded us.

Dragon-controlling actually, IIRC. I speculated that if the zombie dragon ever makes it to the book this thing might see an unexpected use at some point. He blows it at least once to show it off to the Ironborn, which indeed kills the user. Euron doesn’t give a fuck of course, because Euron is a walking embodiment of medieval toxic masculinity. I mean we’re talking about a guy who, in one of the book’s scenes (perhaps his introduction scene ? I’m not certain) basically murders an entire ship on his own, then has sex with his concubine three times in a row before realizing that he’s gravely wounded and bleeding all over the place, and deciding that he’ll heal the wound by drinking and fucking even more. He’s almost cartoonishly evil, yet has this kind of bigger-than-life-yet-believable aspect that makes him terrifying.

[LexW]

Good point - so maybe he grabs Rhaegal and/or Drogon has to kill Rhaegal.

Also if the horn kills by internal burning, I wonder if it would kill a fire-wight like Jon, or a fireproof fucker like Dany, or a fireproof fucker like the Night King.

EDIT:

Riverrun (and the entire Riverlands), Highgarden, Winterfell, Harrenhal, The Blackwater, the Ironborn invasion, Astapor, Mereen, Yunkai, The Greyjoy Rebellion, Robert’s Rebellion, the many Targaryen wars, and on it goes, and that’s just stuff from the show. So many atrocities, many against their “own people”, and the idea that having one battle for King’s Landing to end it all would lose Dany the support of everyone. No, I don’t buy that.

I can’t make you buy it, but you’re claiming these are all “atrocities”? That simply is not true. Wars between armies are not inherently atrocities except in the most modern of minds, and certainly not to “advanced medieval” like these guys are. Further, the only ones that even arguably are atrocities, or involve them, have the atrocities carried out by “baddies” - i.e. Lannisters or Boltons or the like, or by Dany herself.

• Riverrun - Small scale, Lannisters
• Highgarden - Unknown scale, Lannisters
• Winterfell - Small scale, Boltons
• The Blackwater - Not an atrocity, destruction of an enemy fleet with low if any civilian casualties
• Harrenhal - Er… I honestly don’t remember but I’m going to say “Lannisters”
• Ironborn Invasion - Unknown scale, Greyjoys
• Greyjoy Rebellion - Unknown if civilian casualties, Greyjoys
• Robert’s Rebellion - Unknown scale, no civilian massacres known to be carried out by Robert’s side, whereas Aerys TARGARYEN, Dany’s Dad wanted to BURN DOWN KINGS LANDING seem familiar?! And was stopped from doing so by Jaime Lannister, and even enemies of the Lannisters are basically glad that Jaime did this. I am admit it’s fucked up the show didn’t point this out more obviously, because I’m sure most of the audience doesn’t remember.

Targaryen wars I can’t speak on, haven’t read the history book that came out more recently. Astapor, etc. is all on either assholes from Essos, or Dany herself.

My point here, which maybe wasn’t clear, was that the Starks and their allies (including Baratheons, but not Stannis post-becoming a religious burndamentalist) do not generally willingly and intentionally massacre large numbers of civilians in the name of a military target. It’s abhorrent to them. You have to remember that Ned, remember that guy, died for honour. Everything bad that happened to him, happened because of honour. And I get it, you’re saying, but honour is DUMB and arguably it is, and arguably Ned was a moron. But guess who is more or less exactly like Ned (and this is even clearer in the books, where they just keep on saying it)? Jon.

Jon is not going to go for any plan that involves BURNING DAT SHIT DOWN. Call him dumb if you like, but it’s consistent and reliable characterisation, and true in both the books and the show. Jon does dumb shit all the time because just like his supposed uncle (I am increasingly wondering if R+L=J is actually true or Bran pulling a complicated fast one), he’s all honour, all the time. He willingly brought the Wildlings - horrible barbarian scumbags - on to our side of the wall, because he didn’t want civilian casualties, and you think he’ll what, go “Okay Dany I guess that’s fine…” if she wants to burninate a few tens of thousands of people, like her dear old dad.

So Dany has two options:

1. Go rogue and BURN DAT SHIT DOWN. That, she knows, is unlikely to end well, but she’s prone to flying off the handle so…

2. Work with Jon to find some sort of solution that doesn’t involving going all Aerys Targaryen on this shit.

I think it’s fair to predict that that solution, in the end, after siege fails, is going to be some of “covert strike”, probably involving the Onion Knight smuggling a team into King’s Landing to attempt to whack Cersei and Jackoff Sparrow. I think it’s also fair to predict this will probably go very, very, very, very, very wrong. I think this will be where an awful lot of the remaining characters die.

What I was wondering was why Dany didn’t just hunt down and torch Euron’s fleet back in season 7, when Dany didn’t know about the anti-air cannons and Euron didn’t have them.

Yeah, what I’m saying is in the books, she probably knows about the horn somehow, at this point, and the showrunners thus didn’t have her destroy the fleet, but also failed to do a scene where they created an alternate explanation for her not destroying the fleet.

I was also not wondering why Euron didn’t take Dragonstone after Dany left, but why Cersei (or anyone else) never bothered inbetween Stannis leaving and Dany arriving. Grabbing a strong strategic castle left empty at that point would have made sense.

Sure, and that’s a reasonable question. The likely answer is that forces were overcommitted elsewhere and there was no particular strategic benefit to controlling that stretch of sea more strongly. I haven’t analysed this so if you have more in-depth stuff I am interested.

Those two have lost her an enormous amount of forces with very little to show for it.

I think it’s clear Dany doesn’t operate the same way as you, though. She’s never been a “rational analysis” type, which is why rational analyses of situations often fail to sway her. You are arguing from a Tywin Lannister position, not a Dany position. And that’s why this particular criticism is rare. I hear a lot of frequent criticisms on the internets, but that ain’t even in the top 100.

But why? What possible reason could they have for saying a bunch of nonsense that just makes them look bad? Occam’s razor would suggest that’s actually about as much thought as they put into things.

/shrug - I don’t agree. I’ve seen countless short PR interviews with TV writers and directors who have made amazing things, and the vast majority of them come off in short PR interviews as complete fucking idiots. This is why I stopped watching “behind the scenes” stuff for shows I like, and why I place no weight on it.

Now, lengthy, serious documentaries with proper interviews? They often give a very different picture. But “behind the scenes”-type stuff that comes out with each episode of a show? That just makes everyone look stupid. I can’t think of a single show which does it that’s an exception.

I might have just forgotten about something, but what are they referring to here?

I mean… when the entire city was taken over by the Sparrows? Cersei walking naked through the streets, etc? It was kind of most of a season…

I agree that it isn’t a sure thing, but also not unreasonable to see if you can make it happen. King’s Landing is just a well-defended castle with limited civilians like Winterfell usually is - it’s one of the largest cities on the planet (if not the largest - gigantic by medieval standards - I think only Istanbul would have rivaled it in the real world in this general technological era), and the people wildly outnumber the Lannister forces, probably hundreds to one.

But am I saying it will work? No prediction is that it will not, and I don’t think the dragon is necessarily going to work in Dany’s favour. My prediction is they will try, reasonably enough, a roll of the dice, but fail.

I suspect we agree on that much at least.

I thought that was what happened at first, but the reactions (or lack of them) of the characters seems to rule that out.

Yeah - there seems to be some dismayed looks but only a few - like they charged early, but not like it was entirely unexpected. I agree that your changes would have made it more tense, but I don’t agree with some people that the episode was somehow ruined or even really damaged by not going that way. I don’t think the tension was ever going to work all that well because there are simply so many wights. Re: two trenches - that makes more tactical sense, sure, but I don’t think it makes dramatic sense - they were already at 82 minutes.

It’s a bit like Aliens and the deleted scenes with the sentry guns. They make tactical sense and make the marines seem more competent, but the utterly bog down the film and waste time.

[Skalpadda]

On Dany not attacking Euron, in this episode it makes perfect sense, and yes it’s probably the case that Dany had some forces left at Dragonstone. What I was wondering was why Dany didn’t just hunt down and torch Euron’s fleet back in season 7, when Dany didn’t know about the anti-air cannons and Euron didn’t have them. It’s not like they’d have to worry about their precious civilians or anything, and Dany can cover the entire coast in less than a day. so what was stopping her then?

I was also not wondering why Euron didn’t take Dragonstone after Dany left, but why Cersei (or anyone else) never bothered inbetween Stannis leaving and Dany arriving. Grabbing a strong strategic castle left empty at that point would have made sense.

[LexW]

Have edited above to reflect answers.

[Skalpadda]

I can’t make you buy it, but you’re claiming these are all “atrocities”? That simply is not true. Wars between armies are not inherently atrocities except in the most modern of minds, and certainly not to “advanced medieval” like these guys are. Further, the only ones that even arguably are atrocities, or involve them, have the atrocities carried out by “baddies” - i.e. Lannisters or Boltons or the like, or by Dany herself.

Well, yes, I was arguing that having a battle over King’s Landing would be seen as a normal part of the war. You’re the one who just said:

Not really. People were utterly horrified by that kind of thing in the past too, when the people were their “own” people, and KL is the “own people” of the majority of the characters on the show from a cultural perspective. Against foreign others or religious enemies sure.

Riverlands small scale? Tywin sent mercenaries and the Mountain in there to literally terrorise, steal, rape, torture and murder everyone and everything in their way, specifically targeting the smallfolk. We have the battles between Stark and Lannister armies and then continued devastation even after the Red Wedding. It’s a big deal in both show and books. That sounds way worse than whatever Dany would have planned for King’s Landing. The point of listing these conflicts is to point out that battles over towns and cities (which happen in all of them) are normal in this world.

I don’t buy the entire characterisation that an immediate battle at King’s Landing would necessarily have been worse than any previous fights. The only reason the Blackwater and some of the others can be considered “small scale” in terms of destruction is because they failed. The only thing that’d reasonably have to be burned to the ground would have been some fortifications and maybe torching the Red Keep. Sure, now Cersei has loaded it up with smallfolk, but not then.

Ned didn’t hesitate assaulting cities during his two wars. No one told Stannis, or Renly, or Tywin, or Cersei, or Robb, or Jon, or Barristan, or Yara, or Balon, or Jaime, or Robert, or Greyworm, or anyone else that they shouldn’t assault cities because civilians might get caught in the middle. It was perfectly normal warfare.

Now, if they actually wanted to try and isolate Cersei and win a hearts and minds as things stand now, they’d go grab Edmure, Sweet Robin, ask mr Dornish Prince to send some bannermen (if not his entire unscathed army) and whomever else they can scrape together on the way down and show up outside King’s Landing with the biggest army they can muster carrying banners from all over Westeros. They should at least have united the North, Vale, Riverlands and Dorne, and could probably get whatever scraps remain of the Stormlands to turn up. Maybe even try for some Reach lords fancying revenge after Highgarden. The one positive thing that’s happened after losing Dorne and the Reach is that Dany has regained some political support, which was shown in the war room meeting, and she could genuinely act as a unifier against Cersei (whom practically nobody should like, and she’s also brought a bunch of foreign soldiers to Westeros now).

Not a chance they would ever spend the time on something like that in the show at this point, but that’s what I’d see as the natural thing to do, and no one in the show even suggests anything like it.

I think it’s fair to predict that that solution, in the end, after siege fails, is going to be some of “covert strike”, probably involving the Onion Knight smuggling a team into King’s Landing to attempt to whack Cersei and Jackoff Sparrow. I think it’s also fair to predict this will probably go very, very, very, very, very wrong. I think this will be where an awful lot of the remaining characters die.

Yeah, Varys, Arya, Tyrion, Davos and Jaime at least know about the passages beneath the Red Keep. It begs the question why Arya isn’t volunteering to just go in and bake some pies. Cersei is even on the List, but oh well.

I think it’s clear Dany doesn’t operate the same way as you, though. She’s never been a “rational analysis” type, which is why rational analyses of situations often fail to sway her. You are arguing from a Tywin Lannister position, not a Dany position. And that’s why this particular criticism is rare. I hear a lot of frequent criticisms on the internets, but that ain’t even in the top 100.

Dany isn’t the only person who could voice those ideas though. I mean she has, she’s been pedalling between suspicion and treating Tyrion as the most valuable man in the world, there just doesn’t seem to be any rhyme nor reason to why she or anyone else holds him in such regard. Maybe we just see and hear different things, but Tyrion being not much more than a vehicle for dick jokes and generally a bit useless seems a fairly mainstream criticism now.

I mean… when the entire city was taken over by the Sparrows? Cersei walking naked through the streets, etc? It was kind of most of a season…

Well, the Sparrows were utterly destroyed, there’s no leadership structure to start that kind of thing in KL now. They were talking about starving the city and Tyrion talked about seeing uprising first hand, which makes me think they’re referring to the riots under Joffrey, which IIRC were ended when Stannis emerged as a clear enemy and in the end the relief from Highgarden. It’s been years since I saw season 2 and even longer since the book though, so I might be forgetting things.

I’m just gonna stop there because it’s getting stupidly long. You might be right that I just haven’t seen enough behind the scenes clip-stuff to properly judge that bit, but absent any other reasoning in the show or elsewhere I still find the whole thing very silly.

[BillButNotBen]

I just watched The Last of the Starks (Ep4) and I thought it was pretty good. (so it’s been interesting to pop in here late and read 29 posts mainly talking about problems that mostly didn’t really impact me at all).

After the epic/exhausting Long Night, it was a nice mostly low-key episode that mainly focused on some nice character interaction and getting back to all the mistrust and backstabbing.
I thought there were lots of really nice little scenes, like Brienne, Pod, Tyrion and Jaime drinking, both scenes with Brienne and Jaime, little ones with Sansa, the Hound, Arya, etc…
Oh, and Jon basically saying goodbye to his entire past.
The ones with Tyrion and Varys talking were really good, probably the best in the episode.

Overall, I thought they did a great job showing Dany feeling isolated, becoming paranoid, losing most of her emotional support (Jorah, Missandei, Rhaegal) etc…
TBH, I was never much of a Daenerys fanboy in the earlier seasons, with her arc seemingly just ‘random annoying blonde who can’t act is apparently destined to win this whole thing and be queen because reasons’.
But Emilia Clarke seems to have suddenly become a decent actor, and her whole Anakin-but-better-done fall to the dark side and becoming a Mad Targaryen is much more interesting.

Agreed, Euron’s super accuracy with a ballista was pretty unbelievable, but then again this is a show with dragons and white walkers and as such I’ll cut it some slack on those kind of things… as it was a pretty cool ‘out of the blue’ moment.

I’m not so worried about all the tactical issues as none of them seem that egregious.
She left forces at Dragonstone (half the dothraki and unsullied?) and it’s her base, and the ships are faster, and she does seem to think she’s going to destroy Kings Landing pretty easily. So it doesn’t seem dumb to have half her forces head there while the rest follow more slowly on land.
Though it does seem that we’ve totally abandoned the thing in the first few seasons where it took weeks for even news of events to travel.

[Vandelay]

I didn’t hate this one as much as some people seem to have. Then again, that is likely because I’m thinking more of the character bits in the first half, rather than uninteresting pirate shenanigans and death of a character that always was fairly uninteresting anyway. Those did have problems and I can’t really disagree with those mentioned here, but not enough to take away my enjoyment of the first half (and I would be lying if I said I particularly disliked the rest).

I am of the opinion now that the rest of the series should just be medieval fantasy pals get pissed. For all of the epic scale shown off, those moments really have been highlights of this season so far.

[LexW]

Ballista addenda - re-listening to the books, I noted something which may explain the ballistas - dragonbone.

Dragonbone is a dark, metallic substance, very flexible and incredibly strong, and used to make bows which can be much more powerful than normal bows. King’s Landing has shit-tons of dragonbones stored in the castle basement.

Note the ballistas in the show are not gleaming steel. They’re a dark metallic substance. I’m not saying it’s definite but it would explain everything. If they ballistas appear in the books I am quite sure this will be what they are, because it’s set up repeatedly early in book one (Dany gets a dragonbone bow, Tyrion thinks about dragonbone and it’s uses).

[Skalpadda]

I’d have liked it if Valyrian steel was involved in the dragon-killing weapons in some way. I’d buy it as penetrating dragon scales when combined with the improved weapons technology (they wouldn’t have to depict the ballistae as freaking AA-cannons), and it’d be a super-limited resource (having to melt down priceless swords to kill dragons) and not seem completely overpowered. At the moment both King’s Landing and Euron’s fleet would appear to be completely dragon-proof. Dragonbone scorpions firing valyrian steel-tipped arrows I could get behind.

That’s some high level nerdery though, not something I’d expect the show to get into.

[LexW]

Yeah that seems much more book-y than show it. I still suspect the ballistas are largely “standing in” for something else which would threaten dragons - though it may be they’re a mix - i.e. there are super-ballistas in the book but probably much fewer in number, and there’s the horn. Is it interesting that this concept came up a couple of times in book 1 and hasn’t been relevant since though - could be an abandoned idea, could be good ol’ long-range GRRM foreshadowing.

Another book note - the dragons used to conquer Westeros were ridiculously larger than Dany’s ones. Balerion, the biggest one, was so wide at the head/throat that he could swallow a mammoth whole, which means, even assuming his neck thickened out, he probably had wingspan of about 800ft (going by show proportions - the book dragons seem to have wildly unrealistically short wings). Meraxes, the next biggest could have had a horse ride into his mouth, which means his head was maybe 1.5-2x the size of the head of Drogon. I don’t think any amount of high-end ballistas would have done more than piss off a basically Kaiju-sized dragon like Balerion. Balerion also breathed “black flame” rather than normal flame. So I guess these guys can power up quite a bit if they don’t stop growing.

[Shadoko]

Is it interesting that this concept came up a couple of times in book 1 and hasn’t been relevant since though - could be an abandoned idea, could be good ol’ long-range GRRM foreshadowing.

Honestly at this point in the books the horn is pretty much, as you said, a massive unknown. It only appears in Euron’s POV chapters, and as far as we know, he could be completely mistaken about its real power, or the thing could basically be anything but what Euron expects it to be. It’s Valyrian after all.

Also apparently it seems that Daenery’s dragon skills actually work as a pool spread on all of her dragons given that the single remaining dragon now managed to steamroll Euron’s fleet as well as the entirety of the ballistas with utter ease.

[Skalpadda]

Oh well.

I’d just like to point out that they clearly show that it’s perfectly possible to take King’s Landing without murderizing a gazillion civilians, as long as Dany doesn’t go completely loco because the plot demands it, which no one had any real reason to think would happen 1½ seasons ago.

Also apparently it seems that Daenery’s dragon skills actually work as a pool spread on all of her dragons given that

I could make some argument about getting surprised before and being better prepared now. or whatever. It’s just the good old trope of things and characters being as lethal or competent as the plot needs them to be at any given moment though.

[Shadoko]

Re : Mad Queen. I think they missed an opportunity in the way they presented it. As it stands, it’s pretty much Dany snapping and going full mad queen because she’s a fucking Targaryen, son. I think there was a better way to do it. Instead of having her snap and become mad, just make it a logical side-effect on the assault on King’s Landing. Show that KL can’t be taken by surprise this time, or have Cersei make a last stand in the Red Keep, making Dany use her dragon as a terror weapon. It wouldn’t justify burning King’s Landing, but instead of Dany becoming mad queen out of the fucking blue it would feel more like a natural continuation of her methods. After all, since the beginning Dany has relied a lot on “dragon scorches the bad guys” as a means to solve problems - the problem is that now she’s conquering a kingdom, she’s in front of a populous city that’s littered with wildfire. Presenting it that way wouldn’t absolve Dany ; it would however show that the problem is not that she’s a Targaryen, the problem is that she’s a conqueror and she’s got a fucking WMD at her side - which would hammer several points the show has already made home.

Cleganebowl did not disappoint though.

[Skalpadda]

They did set up Dany’s switch a bit more than Targaryen = cray cray, to be fair. We’ve seen her feeling ever more isolated, the deaths of Rhaegal and Missandei, and what she thinks is the betrayal by nearly all her allies. Problem is it essentially happened over two episodes and a bunch of the details were kinda clumsy.

The first comment I saw about this episode was something like “why didn’t they keep Rhaegal alive and have him killed as the bells of surrender start ringing”, and it would have been nice to have some more motivating trigger beyond “Dany was mad as hell, snapped and just really wanted to fuck shit up”.

I suspect this is the broad strokes of what’ll happen in the books. Thematically it fits, although I expect loads and loads of character arcs and details to go very differently.

[Vandelay]

I would actually say that there was really nothing out of the blue with this.

She has been heading down this path for a long time, basically ever since she has had the power of dragons.
There has been plenty of moments of her choosing to feed people to her dragons, as well as use other methods of torturous death on her enemies, long before she set foot on Westeros. We the audience just haven’t objected to it until now because she was doing it to people that we saw as evil, mainly those that profited from the slave trade. I only really saw it during a re-watch leading up to this season, but I actually think it has been rather brilliantly done.

Thought this was a really cracking episode and possibly the best this season. Some really great climaxes to some arcs happened here.

I have no doubt the Internet will focus on a couple of silly moments (how did one dragon suddenly take out that whole fleet and smash through the gate from the inside without any warning?), but those are fairly minor quibbles.

[Shadoko]

Again my issue is less with the foreshadowing than with the way it was introduced - Daenery scorching King’s Landing as an unjustified, semi out of control act of war that is a direct result of the method she’s always been using would, I think, have made more sense, but I’m no writer, and I’m theorizing in the void, outside of the narrative and technical constraints of the show. Again I have issues with the presentation only, which makes it look like she’s completely snapped rather than a logical result of her methods - which are the methods the Targaryen, and the Valyrians, have always used, and are not tied to a person’s particular madness, but rather to the whole “glorious conqueror with a dragon” ethos (and deconstructing that would very well be in the “subverting fantasy expectations” angle). This is a purely personal and badly subjective point of view, but in the way it is presented (again, outside of the foreshadowing - those are two different things) it does kinda feel like this is entirely due to Dany’s emotional instability, while a more meaningful point could have been made (and indeed, has already been sort of made in the show, see how Robb ended up) about the use of uncontrolled power in the hands of a monarch who, no matter how pure her intentions are, is using force (magical force in this case) as her main tool, with the same means leading to the same result regardless of intent.

(I mean, regardless of Dany’s emotional state, this is basically the war in Iraq, fantasy edition. You’re bringing a weapon whose full power is massive overkill against the target - in this case, Drogon, who’s a motherfucking flying death ray - in a complex, messy combat situation with civilian populations caught in the middle. This is bound to go badly, Mad Queen or not, because the core issue is in the very premise, i.e putting such a power in a monarch’s hands.)

I do think this article summarizes parts of my issues with that quite well.

Also re:Rhaegal’s death, yes, I think it would have worked better the way Skappalda describes it. Have Dany lose her dragon in font of the city would provide a very logical motivation for her to go “fuck it let’s napalm the bloody place to death because we can’t hope to take it cleanly.”.

[Skalpadda]

Yeah, I’m on record thinking that character motivations and setups have been clumsy for seasons, so I’m not gonna argue it was well done, just that they actually tried. Dany has ample motivations for wanting to nuke Cersei and her entire army, and they give her motivations for wanting to get rid of Jon and her other Westerosi allies, but I don’t know why she’d torch all of King’s Landing after winning the battle easily.

Was it just the cold conclusion that everyone’s died or betrayed her and she’s not going to be as popular as Jon, so since ruling by fear seems her only option she feels forced to do something terrible out of desperation?

Was she just really angry and spoiling for a fight and that’s why the bells ringing seemed to set her off as the city surrendering would rob her of her bloody revenge?

Or did everything just pile up and push her over the edge into proper crazy? Maybe the last episode will make it clearer.

Thinking about the Rhaegal thing, having him go down over the city and then as he’s wounded on the ground have a mob of soldiers and civilians attack him (there’s precedent for smallfolk killing off dragons in the books). So as the bells start tolling Dany sees her wounded helpless “child” attacked by the very people she’s convinced herself she’s there to “liberate” and there’s your motivation for just going “No, fuck everyone”.

Dany has done properly crazy and borderline evil stuff before, I’m okay with pushing her into crazy territory, but this is still the same character that locked up her dragons (her children) when they killed one little girl in Mereen, so it needs to be set up in a more definite way.

Varys went out like a suicidal idiot. Filled the purpose of making Dany feel betrayed, sure, but couldn’t he have done something a bit more in character than committing suicide by dragon queen?

Cleganebowl… I’d actually have liked something more akin to the books, where Sandor just kind of gives up and seems to find some kind of peace. Instead he seems to do that for Arya, who has done much, much worse things than the Hound ever did?`Okay, it’s an ending for him, I guess. Wouldn’t be surprised if Arya is back to cold-bloodedly murdering people in the last episode though.

Euron, Jaime… ugh. Had Euron’s character not just been a completely silly cartoon that might have been a more okay ending but I could never take him seriously so it just felt like an unnecessary fight.

Arya as the eyes on the ground felt like a weird choice. Like, I’m not going to worry about her at all. She’s a mass-murdering, face-stealing, ultimate evil-slaying super ninja. Have Davos and Gendry be the eyes on the ground. They’re among the few genuinely sympathetic characters the show has left and have a real personal connection to the small folk of King’s Landing.