Game of Thrones.
What to say about Game of Thrones?
I'm one of those annoying people who start most conversations about GOT with the phrase, "well, if you've read the books..." I won't be that guy today. However, there is something to be said about how the excellence of the first seasons paralleled the excellence of the first novels in A Song of Ice and Fire. Then, just as GRR Martin went off the rails in books 4 and 5 and has since faced terminal writer's block, so too did the HBO series begin to falter as they were forced to simplify Martin's increasingly labyrinthine plots and construct a satisfying conclusion to the epic in the time allotted them by the network.
For all of the wonderful things about GOT, the conclusion was less than satisfying.
First, the transformation of Daenerys from the Breaker of Chains to Rage Monster, to what? Nice tits Hitler? was just unconvincing for me. I get that there are parts of her personality, and her family history, that make a descent into Aerys II-like madness possible. But the show didn't do nearly enough work to make the psychotic genocide of King's Landing a believable part of her character. People online who point to her actions in Slaver's Bay or among the Dothraki as evidence of her instability are using very different and often justifiable exercises in violence and power as a post hoc justification for what is really a cheap plot device that turns a major protagonist into the series's final nemesis with the ringing of a few bells. Boo! Do your work, Show Runners. That being said, once the show had her burn women and children alive by the tens of thousands, for no reason other than rage, and once they had her super creepy "you will be made to care," speech framed in a way that would make Leni Riefenstahl blush, Dany had to go. Jon did a good days work sticking her with the pointy end.
Next, the show just straight up threw away the entire premise of the series by crowning Bran. The great thing about ASOIAF was that it tried very hard to get real politics right. GOT took all that brutal, hard nosed, Machiavellian scheming from early in the show and said, "Too hard. Let's just hope for a happy ending, shall we?" I mean, Bran. Fuck. First off, Day One, Bran has to go to war with the North, right? That has to be Tyrion's advice. I mean, if the North can make a legitimate claim for independence, then what about Dorne? What about the Iron Islands? Daenerys more or less promised Asha and Theon independence, why didn't Asha just say, "Yeah, us too?" The new Dornish prince (they couldn't think up a name for this guy in 2 fucking years!!!) would have just said, "Yeah, since we were late to this whole Seven Kingdoms thing, we'd like out, too. 'Unbowed Unbent Unbroken,' dude." The Reach can, apparently, buy and sell the rest of the Seven Kingdoms, so why wouldn't Bronn of the Blackwater just say, "Rebuild King's Landing? Nah, I'll be too busy fucking whores." The Riverlands and the Eriye are likely to align themselves with their blood relatives in the North. Pretty soon, you are just down to the Stormlands and poor Gendry Baratheon, who is going to be in so far over his head that he will be lucky last a year without taking a knife to the ribs and the Lannisters of the Westerlands, and after their recent losses they may have to consider reworking their words to something more like, "A Lannister will gladly pay you Tuesday for a Bowl of Brown today." So, yeah, that whole thing rang very false to me. It would have been more reasonable to just do away with the Kingdom altogether. Just return to a pre-Aegon world of seven kingdoms.
Then, the disposition of the most powerful Army in Westeros, The Dothraki and Unsullied, was handled, it seems to me, mainly by hand-waving. In the real world, a king like Bran the Broken would see these men as huge, existential problem, even if they are the reason he is sitting on the slag heap which is now the Iron Thrown. Do the Dothraki just go back to Essos and their lives as hardscrabble nomads? Why??? They are, apparently, the only undisciplined hoard of barbarian horsemen who are able to defeat heavily armored and highly disciplined infantry at will. Wouldn't the entire history of the Dothraki lead you to believe that they would just start looting and raping on a Ghengis Khan-like scale across the fertile, largely supine, Westeros landscape? These are a people who routinely, and without hesitation, kill each other for matters of honor. Are we to believe they will just head home after Jon Snow takes the Black? Khal Drogo tore out a man's tongue through his throat for calling Dany a whore. Jon should have been creatively and creatively dismembered that very night, right? Everything we know about Dothraki culture makes it seem unlikely that many, or even any, would decide to settle down and become small farmers in Riverlands or weavers or smiths in King's Landing. They have deep contempt for settled agriculture and urban life, the chances they would just convert to the Faith of the Seven and integrate into the Kingdom is fanciful. Now, the good news for Andals is that, long term and without the support of dragons, heavily armored and disciplined infantry have a huge advantage over undisciplined light cavalry whose entire military doctrine can be summed up in a single word, "Charge!" In the show Grey Worm and the Unsullied just sail off to Naarth. Naarth. The most ruthless killing machines ever created by man, a heartless, conscienceless, pitiless, remorseless and unstoppable army who has never know peace or lived by any means other than slaughter, are just sailing to Naarth for some fun on the beach? To Naarth. Home of the Peaceful People, a land of absolute vegan pacifists. OK. That is nice. As a tag line. But how does that work out exactly? The dream of Missandei and Grey Worm was a dream for two people. This is 5,000 or more Unsullied. Did you see the look on Grey Worm's face? What will they do? They have no skills, they can't farm, fish, herd, or engage in any productive labor. How will they eat? Poor Naarth. On the other hand, in the books, anyone who travels to Naarth dies of Butterfly Fever within the year. So... poor Grey Worm.
Finally, there is the Tyrion solution to the problem of Monarchy: have the king chosen, not by primogeniture, but by election from among the great houses of Westeros. Oh,for fuck's sake, GOT. First, Tyrion is ostensibly on trial for his life as a traitor. Why on Earth does he get to start proposing solutions to the political issues facing the nobility of Westeros? Second, if it is going to be an election, HOW IS THAT BETTER??? OK, we can all agree, after 10 years of war and rapine, after dodging the triple bullets of the Night King, Cersei the Tyrant and Mad Queen Daenerys, choosing Bran the Broken, a near immortal, near omniscient, tree-human hybrid, to lead the kingdom through Winter and into a Dream of Spring makes sense. OK. Fine. But what happens after Bran? Is there an "after Bran?" How will that work? Brynden Rivers was going on strong as the Three-eyed Crow at the age of 128, does that mean that generations of Westerosi will be born, live and die never knowing another king? Suppose Bran lives to be 200 years old, how does he adapt himself to a changing world? Imagine if George Washington was still alive, still president. How would we handle it if he died? More importantly, over the course of 200 years, the chances of Bran's ideas significantly diverging from those of this people increases from 0 to 1. Then what? He is the Three-eyed Raven. How do you sneak up on someone who knows everything that ever happened and everything that ever will happen who can, at will, send his mind into the mind of anything or anyone he wants. Ick. How does Bran not become the God-Emperor of Dune? And remember, this is the best case scenario! Bad case is that Bran lives a normal life and dies at, say, 80, in his own bed, with a belly full of wine, and a girl's mouth, etc. What then? The only large empire that used an election system like this for a long time was the Holy Roman Empire. That only worked because it was pretty much a pro forma rubber stamp on the next in line to the throne via primagenture. Bran will have no surviving children, so by right, it will go to the child of Sansa. But what if Jon found Ygritte 2.0 and bore a new Targaryen heir? Now we have a dilemma, and one not particularly amenable to the noble houses from south of the Neck. What if the various grandee's do not agree? What if the succession is disputed? We know what happens from our own history. It means WAR. We are right back where we started. And this will happen again, and again, and again. It is a recipe for instability and more violence.
Anyway, that is my take.
I'm one of those annoying people who start most conversations about GOT with the phrase, "well, if you've read the books..." I won't be that guy today. However, there is something to be said about how the excellence of the first seasons paralleled the excellence of the first novels in A Song of Ice and Fire. Then, just as GRR Martin went off the rails in books 4 and 5 and has since faced terminal writer's block, so too did the HBO series begin to falter as they were forced to simplify Martin's increasingly labyrinthine plots and construct a satisfying conclusion to the epic in the time allotted them by the network.
For all of the wonderful things about GOT, the conclusion was less than satisfying.
First, the transformation of Daenerys from the Breaker of Chains to Rage Monster, to what? Nice tits Hitler? was just unconvincing for me. I get that there are parts of her personality, and her family history, that make a descent into Aerys II-like madness possible. But the show didn't do nearly enough work to make the psychotic genocide of King's Landing a believable part of her character. People online who point to her actions in Slaver's Bay or among the Dothraki as evidence of her instability are using very different and often justifiable exercises in violence and power as a post hoc justification for what is really a cheap plot device that turns a major protagonist into the series's final nemesis with the ringing of a few bells. Boo! Do your work, Show Runners. That being said, once the show had her burn women and children alive by the tens of thousands, for no reason other than rage, and once they had her super creepy "you will be made to care," speech framed in a way that would make Leni Riefenstahl blush, Dany had to go. Jon did a good days work sticking her with the pointy end.
Next, the show just straight up threw away the entire premise of the series by crowning Bran. The great thing about ASOIAF was that it tried very hard to get real politics right. GOT took all that brutal, hard nosed, Machiavellian scheming from early in the show and said, "Too hard. Let's just hope for a happy ending, shall we?" I mean, Bran. Fuck. First off, Day One, Bran has to go to war with the North, right? That has to be Tyrion's advice. I mean, if the North can make a legitimate claim for independence, then what about Dorne? What about the Iron Islands? Daenerys more or less promised Asha and Theon independence, why didn't Asha just say, "Yeah, us too?" The new Dornish prince (they couldn't think up a name for this guy in 2 fucking years!!!) would have just said, "Yeah, since we were late to this whole Seven Kingdoms thing, we'd like out, too. 'Unbowed Unbent Unbroken,' dude." The Reach can, apparently, buy and sell the rest of the Seven Kingdoms, so why wouldn't Bronn of the Blackwater just say, "Rebuild King's Landing? Nah, I'll be too busy fucking whores." The Riverlands and the Eriye are likely to align themselves with their blood relatives in the North. Pretty soon, you are just down to the Stormlands and poor Gendry Baratheon, who is going to be in so far over his head that he will be lucky last a year without taking a knife to the ribs and the Lannisters of the Westerlands, and after their recent losses they may have to consider reworking their words to something more like, "A Lannister will gladly pay you Tuesday for a Bowl of Brown today." So, yeah, that whole thing rang very false to me. It would have been more reasonable to just do away with the Kingdom altogether. Just return to a pre-Aegon world of seven kingdoms.
Then, the disposition of the most powerful Army in Westeros, The Dothraki and Unsullied, was handled, it seems to me, mainly by hand-waving. In the real world, a king like Bran the Broken would see these men as huge, existential problem, even if they are the reason he is sitting on the slag heap which is now the Iron Thrown. Do the Dothraki just go back to Essos and their lives as hardscrabble nomads? Why??? They are, apparently, the only undisciplined hoard of barbarian horsemen who are able to defeat heavily armored and highly disciplined infantry at will. Wouldn't the entire history of the Dothraki lead you to believe that they would just start looting and raping on a Ghengis Khan-like scale across the fertile, largely supine, Westeros landscape? These are a people who routinely, and without hesitation, kill each other for matters of honor. Are we to believe they will just head home after Jon Snow takes the Black? Khal Drogo tore out a man's tongue through his throat for calling Dany a whore. Jon should have been creatively and creatively dismembered that very night, right? Everything we know about Dothraki culture makes it seem unlikely that many, or even any, would decide to settle down and become small farmers in Riverlands or weavers or smiths in King's Landing. They have deep contempt for settled agriculture and urban life, the chances they would just convert to the Faith of the Seven and integrate into the Kingdom is fanciful. Now, the good news for Andals is that, long term and without the support of dragons, heavily armored and disciplined infantry have a huge advantage over undisciplined light cavalry whose entire military doctrine can be summed up in a single word, "Charge!" In the show Grey Worm and the Unsullied just sail off to Naarth. Naarth. The most ruthless killing machines ever created by man, a heartless, conscienceless, pitiless, remorseless and unstoppable army who has never know peace or lived by any means other than slaughter, are just sailing to Naarth for some fun on the beach? To Naarth. Home of the Peaceful People, a land of absolute vegan pacifists. OK. That is nice. As a tag line. But how does that work out exactly? The dream of Missandei and Grey Worm was a dream for two people. This is 5,000 or more Unsullied. Did you see the look on Grey Worm's face? What will they do? They have no skills, they can't farm, fish, herd, or engage in any productive labor. How will they eat? Poor Naarth. On the other hand, in the books, anyone who travels to Naarth dies of Butterfly Fever within the year. So... poor Grey Worm.
Finally, there is the Tyrion solution to the problem of Monarchy: have the king chosen, not by primogeniture, but by election from among the great houses of Westeros. Oh,for fuck's sake, GOT. First, Tyrion is ostensibly on trial for his life as a traitor. Why on Earth does he get to start proposing solutions to the political issues facing the nobility of Westeros? Second, if it is going to be an election, HOW IS THAT BETTER??? OK, we can all agree, after 10 years of war and rapine, after dodging the triple bullets of the Night King, Cersei the Tyrant and Mad Queen Daenerys, choosing Bran the Broken, a near immortal, near omniscient, tree-human hybrid, to lead the kingdom through Winter and into a Dream of Spring makes sense. OK. Fine. But what happens after Bran? Is there an "after Bran?" How will that work? Brynden Rivers was going on strong as the Three-eyed Crow at the age of 128, does that mean that generations of Westerosi will be born, live and die never knowing another king? Suppose Bran lives to be 200 years old, how does he adapt himself to a changing world? Imagine if George Washington was still alive, still president. How would we handle it if he died? More importantly, over the course of 200 years, the chances of Bran's ideas significantly diverging from those of this people increases from 0 to 1. Then what? He is the Three-eyed Raven. How do you sneak up on someone who knows everything that ever happened and everything that ever will happen who can, at will, send his mind into the mind of anything or anyone he wants. Ick. How does Bran not become the God-Emperor of Dune? And remember, this is the best case scenario! Bad case is that Bran lives a normal life and dies at, say, 80, in his own bed, with a belly full of wine, and a girl's mouth, etc. What then? The only large empire that used an election system like this for a long time was the Holy Roman Empire. That only worked because it was pretty much a pro forma rubber stamp on the next in line to the throne via primagenture. Bran will have no surviving children, so by right, it will go to the child of Sansa. But what if Jon found Ygritte 2.0 and bore a new Targaryen heir? Now we have a dilemma, and one not particularly amenable to the noble houses from south of the Neck. What if the various grandee's do not agree? What if the succession is disputed? We know what happens from our own history. It means WAR. We are right back where we started. And this will happen again, and again, and again. It is a recipe for instability and more violence.
Anyway, that is my take.