Game of Thrones

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I have a lot of feelings about the universe of this show. It seems like a lot of the characters make really nonsensical decisions and after a while it really starts to piss me off.

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^ these things are somewhat accurate.

The reason why people can't handle the Starks getting dicked over is because those people think there is inherent value to objects, actions, and feelings. I think the ultimate lesson to be gained from the plot insofar as it relates to the Starks is that being a rational person gets random results when dealing with irrational people, no matter how fair and logical one is acting. The mistake I think

a lot

of people are making in their analysis of audience reaction is in thinking that GoT shows that rationality is inherently flawed. This falls into the same trap in that one is assuming that rational behavior can be inherently anything. In other incarnations of this universe, the caprices of the irrational people around them could have led the Starks to stereotypical shiny protagonist heaven on earth. There's no particular reason why things had to happen in this plot other than that they did.

Just IMO.

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I dunno that I agree with your argument that all this is essentially random, with no narrative end goal in mind from GRRM. I do think there is a moral of sorts that kind of arises from the fact that realism is taken to the extreme here. And it's this: just because we have been conditioned by popular culture to think that Good Guys are winners doesn't mean that it's necessarily true--Good Guys have self-inflicted disadvantages that put them in an impossible postion when facing Bad Guys of the same level.

I think it's clear that GoT (and SoIaF) tries to explore the lives of fictional characters and the consequences of their actions outside the controlled environment of fiction and narrative causality. The thing is, the fact can't be escaped that it's still fiction, and it would fall apart without narrative structure. And as long as it's an ongoing project, that's not a pressing concern, but it has to end at some point, and when it does, it needs something meaningful to end on. And at that point, the illusion of an uncontrolled environment will shatter--the rises and falls of all the houses will be put in a perspective where random happenstance is no longer an excuse for anything.

Good and Bad are entirely meaningless terms, though.

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god that was uncomfortable to watch

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Eh the boltons are kind of too much as characters tbqh

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oh my goodness

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I wouldn't really worry about what the director thinks? it's pretty obvious to anyone who watches it.

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it's not irrelevant that he's dumb. the show is a lot bigger than him and the vast vast majority of people who watch that scene would see it as rape regardless of what he has to say.

but I guess I just prefer to call ignorant people dumb and then ignore them when I'm able to. you're not wrong, I just have enough distance from the issue to be able to not have a gut reaction to it

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so admittedly I haven't read as far in the books as the show has gotten, but I've poked around the awoiaf site, and uh.... did this Bran storyline happen in the books?

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it's not game of thrones if I don't say "wow, that's fucked up" at least once

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well that was profoundly awful to watch

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I've really enjoyed that this season has done away with pretensions of art and is just making great, satisfying, schlocky television

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wait, we didn't get Cleganebowl?

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THIS IS AN OUTRAGE

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ballistas were fun as a raising the stakes macguffin for sure but the doesn't stop most of the physical "reality" of the show from being dumb and unrealistic if you stop and think about it

also yeah cersei should have just smacked em all down right there and spent the rest of the show with just artsy shots of her casually being a bamf

but nooooooo gotta have more episodes

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I'm gonna go home and sleep with my sister!

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yeah, same here. TWOW will be great.

I hope so. The past two haven't really been that great.