I think we're going to find out.
Spoilers Game of Thrones - Season 7
- Thread starter dahj
- Start date
What kept her motivated for the entire series? Her perceived birthright to the Iron Throne. She thought that she'd be welcomed but brought an overwhelming force just in case. Piece of cake, right? Not really. She was outmaneuvered early on and lost valuable assets and allies. She got frustrated and told Jon she was losing and wanted his advice because she was tired of hearing restraint from the others.I don't get where this "Dany's one step from flipping out and going proper mad" thing is coming from
As the story goes forward, I suspect that she'll have more reasons for frustrations. I think there will be a siege at Kings Landing and she won't like the waiting. There may be disent among the advisors and some might not survive. More frustrations, delays, and absent advisers is a bad combination. Especially after she tasted the power of her dragon and ground forces.
Remember, she feels like she is entitled to the throne. She doesn't take lightly to anyone who doesn't bend the knee.
There's an echo in here.
Here I was, minding my own business on Facebook, when some life-less schlep started spouting out spoilers from the HBO hack. At first I thought he was just postulating a theory. By the time I realized he was dispensing spoilers, I'd already read the whole thing.
So, now I know how several long-running threads will be tied up, and the FINAL FATE of a long time character.
People are jerks.
At least based on the show, I think people are trying to paint far too broadly with the "incest makes you crazy" brush because it's just not supported by what we're shown.
Cersei, for all that her actions appear to us as an audience to be out of control, is actually clearly very much IN CONTROL; she's sociopathic as hell and may even be veering towards psychopathy, but she's still 100% sane, and Dany is also likewise not suffering from any of the insanity that plagued her father.
Viserys and Joffrey weren't insane, either, for that matter; they were definitely more psychopathic than their parents and/or siblings, but they were likewise possessed of all their normal mental faculties.
Cersei, for all that her actions appear to us as an audience to be out of control, is actually clearly very much IN CONTROL; she's sociopathic as hell and may even be veering towards psychopathy, but she's still 100% sane, and Dany is also likewise not suffering from any of the insanity that plagued her father.
Viserys and Joffrey weren't insane, either, for that matter; they were definitely more psychopathic than their parents and/or siblings, but they were likewise possessed of all their normal mental faculties.
Well, it's Game of Thrones, everyone is flawed.
Less so than anyone else on the show. When someone threatens your throne, you kill them, it's not the vengeful thing to do, it's just the thing to do, Robert murdered babies that threatened his throne.
Yes she gets pissed off and angry at times, but Dany has always shown restraint and willingness to find another way when others haven't. It's unreasonable to think that she has to be as cool as a cucumber all the time, heck, even Jon beat Ramsey almost to a pulp and Sansa fed him to the dogs, and nobody's wondering when Jon will flip...
Those aren't strictly flaws when it comes to queens/kings, you have to be a bit of a dick to rule people, and people have to bend the knee.
I think there's a tiny bit of gender bias going on here, because when Stannis exhibited those exact same traits, he was hailed as One True King and "Stannis the Mannis" who doesn't take shit from nobody. He even murdered his own borther and Mance Ryder for not bending the knee, and nobody called him arrogant or entitled, because that's just what kings do.
Any "slack" given to Stannis was because 1. He was obviously set up to fail and 2. He wasn't ever really made out to be the protagonist. No one wanted him to be king, no one thought he would be king, I'm not sure even he wanted to be king. He thought it was rightfully his though and felt obliged to take it, just like Dany does, and he followed that divine right to the destruction of everything he loved and eventually his own death. Thematically, he is the example that Dany can either learn from or follow suit.
One thing I like about the show is that it should make us realise that we watch it from within the context of Earth history, which has infused us in the west with ideas based on Greek philosophy, Christ's teachings, Roman influences on social organisation, architecture etc, British Abolition of the Slave Trade in 1807, Lincoln's emancipation proclamation, and Marx's theories of society, economics, and politics. None of this exists in the GoT world, which appears to be loosely based on feudal medieval Europe around the 13-15th centuries, although without access to gunpowder weapons, which were first used in 13th century Europe. Old Valyria plays the role of a lost sophisticated civilisation similar to Atlantis - GRRM has stated it is the equivalent of the Roman Republic in our world but not the Roman Empire founded by Augustus. The maesters appear to be very protective of their knowledge to preserve their existence and they do not appear to have an agenda other than to serve the elite. There appears to be a high degree of religious tolerance, which is not typical of Earth's past. The High Sparrow wasn't depicted as hating other religions as far as I recall; he primarily wanted to drain the swamp of King's Landing.
I think you missed the part where newly converted Stannis had heretics-including family members-burned at the stake.
That said, there isn't wide-spread religious tension of the sort we saw in the middle ages thanks mostly to the circumstances in this particular period of history. The Andal invasion and their imposition of their religion of the Seven on Westeros was millennia ago and until recently the faith militant had been disarmed for centuries.
At the time the books take place, religion in Westeros has taken a back seat to politics as the Septum was rendered impotent by the Targaryens. There's no great schism within the faith or large scale opposition from an equally influential outside religion, mostly because the Doom of Valyria shattered Essos into (until recently) mostly independent city states around the coast beset by emboldened marauders that dominate the continent's interior.
The "tolerance" of the Old Gods in the north seems mostly just old pagan traditions dying hard and nobody in the south caring enough about what stubborn think, so long as the Septum tithes keep rolling in. In short, it's less an overall philosophy of religious tolerance and more a case of the apparatus of organised religion being to weak to do anything about it.
I suspect this was by design on the part of GRRM, presumably because he didn't want to deal with that aspect of medieval history.
His immediate goal certainly, though I'm sure he would have gotten around to seeing to the body once the head was free of rot.
He may have been outwardly humble and softly spoken but don't forget the violence and oppression he ordered against those he deemed opposed his goals. Don't think he wouldn't have dealt with Red priestesses and priests and their congregations any less harshly, given the opportunity. That movement had holy crusades and pogroms in the making written all over it.
I tend to view the Order of Maesters as being a parasitic organisation, with no larger agenda beyond self perpetuation. Certainly at some point in the past they were driven by some basic goal to spread and preserve knowledge, but the inevitable mindless bureaucracy has long since taken over any such purpose, leaving it pretty stagnant.
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Yeah, I don't recall watching the burning of several heretics. In season 2, Melisande was allowed to burn statues of the Seven and she later poisons Maester Cressen when he attempts to poison her. In season 4, Stannis sacrifices one of his bannermen, his brother-in-law Ser Axell Florent, to the Lord of Light - perhaps that's the event you're referring to. If Stannis also burned other heretics, which I don't recall, it was certainly counterpointed by the deaths by fire of his wife and child before Brienne finally finished him off.
I haven't felt very minded to rewatch the series. I view the latest offering and leave it at that. I just can't be bothered to delve too deeply into the world of GoT - probably because I'm not terrible fond of the fantasy genre. Retrospectively, I don't understand my interest in JRRT's Middle Earth when I was a teenager - probably hormones or something.
Well they were burned at the stake and his stated justification for doing so was "he was an infidel". So yes, that's what I'm referring to.
Sociopathy/psychopathy is a mental disorder that most likely has genetic markers. Being a psychopath means, by definition, that you are insane--so I am not sure what you are arguing?
Leslie Jones and Seth Meyers hysterically MST3Kified "The Spoils of War" with a surprise guest on Meyers' talk show last night:
If you're clinically insane, you have no control over your mental faculties. Both sociopaths and psychopaths retain control of their own minds and are therefore not, by definition, insane.
I remember reading something that had nothing to do with GOT and some twat posted about Joffrey being killed.
Here I was, minding my own business on Facebook, when some life-less schlep started spouting out spoilers from the HBO hack. At first I thought he was just postulating a theory. By the time I realized he was dispensing spoilers, I'd already read the whole thing.
So, now I know how several long-running threads will be tied up, and the FINAL FATE of a long time character.
People are jerks.
GOT spoilers should get you a lifetime internet ban
I wouldn't mind doing it after already having seen the episode, but I agree that's a no go for the first viewing."That's a dragon, stupid!"
^That was hysterical, but I could NOT watch anything with someone doing that!
Keep in mind that we're not just talking about one generation of incest. We're talking about many generations of inbreeding over centuries. That will lead to a number of genetic defects. Regardless, the track record is not good for the Targaryens and Lannisters.
I would be inclined to recommend some requirement that the royals marry commoners, but, given the situation with Jamie and Cersei, that might not be a good enough solution.
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