Game of Thrones (HBO) TV Show • Page 576

This show also has a problem with female characters being one extreme or another and failing at any kind of middle ground. There’s room for Brienne to break down her walls and show emotion at him leaving (like when she was knighted) without having her last major scene in the series be bawling in a nightgown in the snow. They deserve zero benefit of the doubt when it comes to how women are portrayed given the entire history of the show.

If their relationship had been developed more and that was just one scene out of many it wouldn’t stand out quite as harshly.

 

I don’t think thts her last major scene tho. She’s def coming south with Sansa if/when that happens

 

Assuming that's indeed her last scene. Either way though, I see your point.

 

Eh, I’m referring to her personal story more than whether or not she’s ever seen again in a professional context or in the endgame. I can’t imagine something else will happen that will speak more to who she is as a person than what we’ve seen already.

 

I think we get a goodbye from her to Jaime when she finds out he dies. And not a weepy emotional one but a classic Brienne no emotion type one.

But the whole series her character was a woman who wanted to be a knight and wanted to find love and her story ended with achieving both. I don’t think that’s too bad. I think she knows Jaime did love her, even if he couldn’t love her completely.

Edit-I should add her 3rd goal was to serve someone honorable that she believed in, but I think she was able to achieve that from the moment we met her haha. I guess Renly's honor could be questioned but Cat, and then her daughters on behalf of Jaime keeping his honor, and then Sansa herself. She's chosen wisely.

 

Her story is just like the rest of the season, fine on paper but disappointing at best and problematic at worst in the telling.

Except for the knighting, that was flawless.

 

I remember thinking the 2nd episode of this season "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" was pretty flawless overall.

*Edited to add that I just looked on Wikipedia and apparently David Benioff & D.B. Weiss are directing the final episode in addition to having written it.

 

Except for the specifics of the Arya storyline, that episode was very special and incredible. I would go back to parts of it out of context in a heartbeat.

 

I want to continue the Jon Snow being revived conversation simply because I don’t buy that it makes sense in context with the show’s rules about magic. Shouldn’t there be a payoff narrative-wise, not just talking about a literal pay-off for HBO? Lol

 

Well, he went on to take back Winterfell, be declared King in the North, and organize the armies of the kingdoms to fight against the Night King

 

Technically all of that was useless because Arya killed the Night King without any of that help

 

In what world is Arya even aware of the Night King, let alone in a position to kill him, without Jon being resurrected and "coming down from Castle Black with a wildling army and won the Battle of the Bastards", as Hot Pie put it? She was on her way to Kings Landing before that.

 

I mean Arya only goes back to Winterfell because she hears that Jon took it back from the Boltons.

 

It makes sense from the standpoint that Melisandre clearly has magical abilities within the series. I don’t know if the actual truth about the lord or light or how the magic works has been developed enough in the show to explain why it worked in that specific moment, but I don’t have a problem that it happened.

 

If Jon hadn’t come back they wouldn’t have been going on a wight hunt either and the NK wouldn’t have gotten a dragon, so there are ups and downs of his return. Lol.

He was important to the death of the NK as it happened for sure.

 

Fair enough. Thanks for explaining guys!

 

Someone said it in the thread weeks ago but when it comes to the Lord of Light, it does seem that a lot of the 'magic' from R'Hllor is mostly just blood magic and spells that have been dressed up in religion to try and cover up the fact that it's really just blood magic.

Of course, if the show took the time to do the books right, they would have pushed the narrative that the dragons being born brought magic back into the world again. But then that begs the question, where did Dany's magic come from/why were the dragons able to be born in the first place...I'm guessing that was blood magic too though, she sacrificed Mirri and her death paid for her life and the life of her dragon eggs.

 

Does the “blood magic” have any kind of rules to it or is it more of a science that leads to fantasy elements?

 

I am very curious to see how the story plays out if GRRM ever finishes writing the books. There's no reason he can't have changed his mind from when he 'gave them the notes' and have rewritten major parts of the story for his books.

 

I don't think it ever gets explained IIRC. The Shadowlands of Asshai have an almost mythical reputation of being a land where sorcerers and necromancers practice blood magic and human sacrifice and etc, but we never get any of it explained to us in the books. There's a Red Priest named Moqorro that travels with Victarion who seems to be more powerful than either Thoros and Lady Mel, but none of his magic is ever explained in depth. And then there's Quaithe from Asshai, who makes an appearence in season 2 of the show but plays a bigger role in the books, popping up all the time to give Dany advice and make predictions and shit. But it seems whispers and rumors of blood magic always swirl around the red priests, so I like the theory that they just wanted to practice blood magic out in the open so they spun a story of religion around it and now it's an accepted religion and practice haha.

The only other sources of explanation of magic comes from The World of Ice and Fire book, and that is written from the perspective of a Maester, and they just write off all magic as not really magic, so it's never explored in depth there to the point where you can say "aha! so that's where the magic comes from".

 

This is what goes through my mind when people discuss explanations for magic:

 

Alabama Woman Who Criticized Daenerys’ Sudden Heel Turn Now Totally Gets It

 

Honestly I don’t care how much science you throw at me, the fact that planes fly and big ass steel ships float will never not be sorcery to me.

 

Well the floating thing makes sense with buoyancy and all that. But you can't convince me that planes don't have some Lord of Light shit going on.