Game of Thrones begins....

[grumbler]

But with better writing she would have also accidentally legitimized his right to the throne.

You have a weird idea of what makes "better writing."   

[The Minsky Moment]

The idea that there are no Baratheon cousins, second cousins, third cousins, etc whatsoever seems unlikely to be true. 

Agreed but the TV show radically simplifies the family trees - e.g. IIRC there are a couple of missing Tyrell heirs.

[crazy canuck]

Tommen was the last Baratheon claimant.  Once he died, it was either Daenerys or pick a usurper.

The idea that there are no Baratheon cousins, second cousins, third cousins, etc whatsoever seems unlikely to be true.

Interestingly, in books that go into great depth describing the extended families and familial relationships of the great houses, I don't recall any mention of them.

Edit: come to think of it the cousins are the Targaryens.  They were hiding in plain sight. 

[Habbaku]

Yeah, part of the reason that Robert Baratheon was more than a mere usurper was because he's 1/4th Targaryen himself, along with Renly and Stannis. More an Orleanist than a Plantagenet.

[Solmyr]

The lore is that bastards have no inheritance rights unless legitimized by their father or a reigning monarch.

Dany did just that after the Winterfell battle.

And because of that he is now her vassal.  As Tyrion pointed out, it was a smart move.

And this will probably also get completely ignored in the last episode. I'd be surprised if Gendry even shows up at all anymore.

[Habbaku]

99% chance they show just about everyone in the last episode, if only briefly. Maybe in the background.

I figure the first half will be wrapping up the story and the last half will be various epilogues.

[Berkut]

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/may/16/stop-the-nitpicking-this-season-of-game-of-thrones-is-miraculous-the-bells

The major sticking point for many was Dany's apparent transmogrification into an unhinged tyrant, as if this was something that happened in the space of five sour-faced minutes. Dany has been burning people alive since Mirri Maz Duur in season one, and has scorched her way through the Tarleys, Varys, the slavers, the loot train and scores of others ever since. Her moral unravelling has been glacial, her innate, entitled Targaryen madness always percolating, its worst impulses tamed and feared by Tyrion, Jorah, Varys and, latterly, Jon. Following the loss of her best friend, her ersatz father, two of her "children", her squeeze, her rightful claim to her birthright, the adoration of her people and her entire reason to exist, it wasn't much of a stretch to accept that her brittle grip on reason would snap. Graduating from only burning those who "deserved" it to chargrilling anyone in her way, including allies who would likely soon become foes, was no giant leap. It seemed inevitable.

The performances have been terrific, the set-pieces staggering, and the writing – while not up to the standard of earlier seasons – has succeeded in creating shock-and-awe moments right to the last. Whoever is left digging through the rubble for the Iron Throne in the end, it probably won't be who you wanted, or for the reasons you hoped for. Wasn't that the point all along?

Remember Olly? The kid who was a steward for Jon and ended up stabbing him and getting hanged for it?

He got more scenes to slowly show why he did what he did than Daenerys had to explain her actions.

And more to the point, while we can look at Olly and see that his murdering Jon was wrong, it made sense from his perspective and what he valued.

Dany becoming more and more ruthless, and even more and more unhinged? Sure, that is fine. Hell, her character arc is a profound one, and pretty much drives the entire narrative of the show. It's been amazing, in fact.

But that arc worked under some basic principles, some foundational values she held that she used to justify her quest for power.

And that was always, always, ALWAYS the desire to see justice for those that never saw it otherwise. Freeing slaves, freeing the Unsullied.

Hell, the debate between her and Tyrion and Jon over how to handle Kings Landing was presented as a question (and an age old question) between the use of force to meet a just end, and how that force creates collateral damage, often harming the very end the force was intended to achieve.

But this isn't what happened.

To use the Vietnam analogy, the argument  of "What if you must destroy the village in order to save it" is one of military ethics. If we have a village we want to save from the horrible Viet Cong, but in the act of liberating it we end up destroying it, then how can that be ethical? It is a interesting dilemna, and that was the argument Daeny, Jon, and Tyrion were having.

But what happened? That has NOTHING to do with that argument. She didn't destroy Kings Landing in the act of liberating it, she destroyed it AFTER it was liberated.

She was not some US captain calling down artillery on the very village they are trying to save, she was Lt. Calley at My Lai butchering people because they are mad and pissed off. That is not a question of the ethical use of force when it will cause damage to others.

That is what pisses me off about this latest bit of stupid writing. It doesn't even make any sense in the context of its own narrative. Her destroying Kinds Landing AFTER the battle is over is completely irrelevant to the actual argument they spent time setting up.

[Berkut]

trying to save one example of shit, lazy writing by citing another example of shit, lazy writing isn't that useful

[Berkut]

This is excellent:

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-real-reason-fans-hate-the-last-season-of-game-of-thrones/?redirect=1

[katmai]

I was going to suggest that article, thanks a lot Berkut.

[grumbler]

Thanks for the link, Berkut.  The piece is marred a bit by the fact that he uses "antihero" when he means "antagonist" (an antihero is a character like Tyrion, not one like Cersei), but I think he hits the nail on the head when he explains what has changed about GoT and why fans don't like the change.

[celedhring]

This is excellent:

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-real-reason-fans-hate-the-last-season-of-game-of-thrones/?redirect=1

Thanks, this is very interesting. I think he's wrong though, the only truly main character GoT has ever killed is Ned Stark. And being the first season it's always easier to pull that off. People watched the show because they identified themselves with people like Tyrion, Dany, Jon, etc... who are the ones that always drove the narration and have been kept safe until the very end. So it's no true "institutional" narrative like - for example - an Eisenstein film is, or Brecht's theater since he brings that one up. But Martin - and the show did a great job of adapting it - was masterful in weaving a character-driven story with the story of the institutions of Westeros. I.e. The Red Wedding is brought about by Robb falling in love with a servant - a very personal foible of his, not tectonic forces directing his downfall.

And I think that's been kept faithful to the very end, just written sloppily. The show hasn't really changed storytelling dynamics. Dany's madness is the logical culmination of Martin's pessimism about tyranny being an unevitable outcome of the fight for power in society - it was just badly written.

I agree on all of his other points, though, about the pitfalls of traditional western narrative (a topic that greatly interests me). But it's the one that people's craved since Ancient Greece, we're wired that way. Speaking of which, The Wire's ratings were always rather poor for a reason.

[crazy canuck]

@ Berkut- Thank you, that is it exactly.  Although I did not think about it in those terms until I read the article.  Very much appreciated.

@ Cel - he did fall in love but as the article states the individual characters are not deprived of agency;however, their individual decisions are not what drives them he story.  The Red Wedding would have been a very different story if it was just a question of falling for the wrong girl. The thing that made it interesting was the wider contexts in which that happened.  On a person level Robb is oblivious to what he is done.  But the viewer/reader has a strong suspicion the Lannisters are the puppet masters.  The result was a shock for the audience who was following the psychological love story.  But for those paying attention to the wider political dynamics it was a predictable outcome.

I did not understand why so many people did not see it coming.  I had thought it was because the books did a better job at foreshadowing.  But this article provides a better explanation.

[celedhring]

Their decisions do drive the story though. Just because it's an aggregate of several characters doesn't make it an institutional story. It's their opposing wants what drive the conflict, following a theme of the corrupting nature of power. Martin does a big job of conveying their PoV, their emotions, their psichologies, and how those drive their decisions and transform the world around them (in mostly tragic ways). The Wire is a more apt comparison, since he brings that example up. The protagonist and antagonist forces are really abstracted there and the characters just tools to convey them. They are transformed by the world and not the opposite.

[grumbler]

Cel, I think the point is that Robb's decision to fall in love with the wrong girl turned tragic not because of his choice, but because that decision violated the promise he had made in that society to marry a Frey.  The book handled it better, IMO, because he was obligated to marry the noblewoman he had deflowered, and it was entirely possible that the Lannisters had set up a honey trap.  Robb made a decision that was only disastrous because of the society he was in. In modern Western societies, that love story would have been praiseworthy.