#grrm deserved a better adaptation

[so-what-then]

House of the Dragon season 2 review

Highlights:

Better Aegon.

Criston becoming a decent character.

Giving Rhaena parts of Nettle’s subplot.

The idea of Daemon’s vision quest in theory.

Aemond trying to get shit done, what a king 👑

Lowlights:

Literally everything else.

Not a single redeeming female character. Not a single one.

Alicent is a punk bitch.

Rhaenyra is fucking stupid.

Why. Would you make Mysaria, the sneaky worm lady, a pacifist philanthropist?

Helaena reduced to pacifist spoiler machine when she could've been a confused oracle with her own arc.

Where 👏Are 👏The 👏Battles👏?

Nothing happens even when stuff is happening! No one's death means anything!

Dialogue sucked. How many more moody shots of characters staring into the middle distance and meditating on the unfairness of the world do we need?

“The innocents” MAN FUCK THE INNOCENTS THIS IS WAR.

They neutered and sidelined my boy Corlys! His subplot deserved more.

Daemon’s vision quest should have lasted 2 episodes tops.

Stop with the “sOnG oF ICe&fIRe” omg so stupid.

We don’t need forced queer rep from Rhaenyra and Mysaria of all people 🥴

The dragonseeds plot development happens in the most scooby doo way possible.

While giving Rhaena more to do is good in theory, having a dragon roam freely has consequences for the lore.

Honestly what the show chose to include and not include is baffling. Why drop Jace’s time in the North? Why not show Rhaena attempting to tame Seasmoke instead of referencing it in passing? Why include another shot of Alicent looking depressed? Why is Gwayne there if he doesn't do anything? Why show a Rhaenyra and Alicent sleepover multiple times??

In conclusion, hollywood feminism and stupidity ruined hotd. Don’t let the media gaslight you into thinking otherwise, this show is sexist as hell and butchers the source material.

[hightowerz]

what ryan condal and sara hess have done to house of the dragon is insulting. it’s insulting to grrm, it’s insulting to the actors and actresses who have given so much, it’s insulting to the fans. do they think we cannot comprehend the inherit nuance and tragedy of the original story? we are being spoon fed an adaption of a story that isn’t even good. there’s no complexity in the story or the characters, they make it abundantly clear who we need to root for. they make some characters saints and other characters absolutely awful and… for what? it’s so clear they do not care about the story. they don’t care about how carefully and intricately it was crafted, they don’t care about the characters. this goes beyond it simply being different because it’s an adaptation. they don’t care about the story and its message. it’s truly just a fanfic and a giant cash grab. this story deserves better.

[horizon-verizon]

On this here day, GRRM wrote an entry clarifying several things about the dragon lore in his novels, and it vindicates so many Dany stans/Daenerys as the Azor Ahai:

Saying dragon "mysteries", in-world, will be revealed in the last two books AND Septon Barth got a lot right. I'm taking that to mean that dragons change sex (Viserion, here you come, baby!), like two particular Twitter mutes I have (danylanzhou and Branwynwitch). It also seems like he's confirming that dragons and the first 40 Valyrian families (which include the Targs, then and now) mixed dragon blood with their own in some long past ancient event AND that only these families, therefore, can bond with dragons to rides them safely or befriend them.

Which means Nettles is definitely of Valyrian/Targ-descent, which really should have been obvious. One of my mutuals also asserted that this makes the idea of Nettles-Sheepstealer/Rhaena-Morning being interchangeable for their supposed HotD merging GRRM-disapproved bc he makes a point to say that dragons don't tend to move far from their lairs that are usually very high up in mountains and volcanos. Sheepstealer can't be going to the Vale while having a lair in Dragonstone:

As for the thought of Sunfyre flying miles to get to Dragonstone...this is where he/they were born and where the real magic that sustains dragons is coalesced from hundred of years. It makes sense for him/them to fly to this castle even if Aegon weren't there after he had been bodied by Meleys/Meleys & Vhagar, looking for recovery. This is where the Targs get most of their eggs/dragons and it is near where most dragons in Westeros make their lairs.

Note that he says, in the very last paragraph, how:

Fantasy needs to be grounded.  It is not simply a license to do anything you like. Smaug and Toothless may both be dragons, but they should never be confused. Ignore canon, and the world you’ve created comes apart like tissue paper.

It appears he is VERY not happy about something to do with dragons in the show's second season, how they bond in the show, how a certain dragon is "explained" to have traveled a too-long distance for a certain pale-locked young girl who has been trying to hatch her own dragon for years...I see you GRRM, fighting for Nettles AND Rhaena I see.

Oh, and just bc he said he liked epi 2, doesn't mean that he cannot critique anything about HotD ever again...he is the writer and creator of this universe that they are capitalizing on. As long as a writer of any genre stays logically consistent and relatively undiscriminatory in their original writing, they definitely can tell any of us readers what is real and not real or possible in their own creations! That this is even up for debate is a travesty to logic.

Mind you, this is the same man who said the show and the book are two separate canons AND that adaptations "nowadays" tend to fail bc the adapters think they can make the story "better" and ignore critical lore details. And in his latest commentary on HotD's S2 first two episodes, he says, and I quote:

“Rhaenyra the Cruel” has been getting great reviews, for the most part.   A lot of the fans are proclaiming it the best episode of HotD, and some are even ranking it higher than the best episodes of GAME OF THRONES.   I can hardly be objective about these things, but I would certainly say it deserves to be in contention.   The only part of the show that is drawing criticism is the conclusion of the Blood and Cheese storyline.   Which ending was powerful, I thought… a gut punch, especially for viewers who had never read FIRE & BLOOD.   For those who had read the book, however… Well, there’s  a lot of be said about that, but this is not the place for me to say it.   The issues are too complicated.   Somewhere down the line, I will do a separate post about all the issues raised by Blood and Cheese… and Maelor the Missing.  There’s a lot to say.

Note that the latest post was about epi4 and this one I just linked is only abt epi 1 &2....so where are his thoughts for the hated/comedic epi3?! (we see each other, George). (BTW, I gave my thoughts on his thoughts about 1 & 2, HERE.)

I'll say it once again: though GRRM praised the portrayal of grief, defended Cheese being lost, and loved the dog (the last I don't fault anyone for, I also loved them) in the Blood & Cheese episode, he also expressly talks AROUND how Blood & Cheese and Helaena actually interacted and comments on the Maelor-lessness (therefore the lack of Sophie's Choice) that many people--inclu myself--have been saying was a huge problem.

Now we have two different sources that seem to support the ideas of:

GRRM both not being as "involved" with the actual writing of this show for a bit AND not approving of a lot of critical changes

HotD's writers cannot create anything truly "canon" or "real/true" for this universe, it only can make any sort of "sense" if it also retrieves information from the original tale, which is not really just F&B but THE ENTIRE SET OF AVAILABLE BOOKS!

[agentrouka-blog]

Have you read the last post of GRRM in Not A Blog? He wrote this:

That was all back in 2022, but very little has changed since then.   If anything, things have gotten worse.   Everywhere you look, there are more screenwriters and producers eager to take great stories and “make them their own.”   It does not seem to matter whether the source material was written by Stan Lee, Charles Dickens, Ian Fleming, Roald Dahl, Ursula K. Le Guin, J.R.R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, Raymond Chandler, Jane Austen, or… well, anyone.   No matter how major a writer it is, no matter how great the book, there always seems to be someone on hand who thinks he can do better, eager to take the story and “improve” on it.   “The book is the book, the film is the film,” they will tell you, as if they were saying something profound.   Then they make the story their own. They never make it better, though.   Nine hundred ninety-nine times out of a thousand, they make it worse. Once in a while, though, we do get a really good adaptation of a really good book, and when that happens , it deserves applause. I can came across one of those instances recently, when I binged the new FX version of SHOGUN.

Seems he is pissed at HBO?

Yeah, he was good at pretending he didn't mind the changes in GOT, but I remember reading that before the series, he had a lot of people come to him and propose how they would adapt the books, sometimes only focusing in Jon, or Dany, and he didn't like those ideas because they weren't taking into account they were not the only main characters. He was also against adapting his books because he knew the technology wasn't good and wouldn't be a good production.

With GOT, he defended the differences, but in the latest post you can read between the lines how dissappointed he was with the adaptation of his books.

I mean, he could have said that before SHOGUN he was fine with GOT (or HOTD), right? I imagine he doesn't mention them because... well, he prefers to be part of the writers and try to save some of his ideas, and you want to have a good environment, is better if you don't criticize them, right?

Whoa. That is not a subtle dig, isn't it?

He makes no mention of HOTD or GOT but the sheer omission itself seems incredibly damning to me.

[bohemian-nights]

I adore Matt playing Daemon, but honestly he deserves much better. Accepting the role in such trash show cause there was Paddy wasn't that good choice, cause it's not fair he's always gonna get the most uncomfortable scenes to film. He's brillant and professional so i know he'll be amazing, but this shit is not Fire and Blood and Emma will never be my Rhaenyra. It's them the reason why the character is basically ruined, cause no, Rhaenyra isn't supposed to be masculine, and isn't supposed to be soft with Alicent, but i know the real villain here is Ryan for choosing her with the purpose on turning this story to nothing but queerbaiting agenda. GRRM should have never allowed that. He should have fought to adapt HIS story. It was better having animated show, at least wouldn't have been ruined.

It is a real shame what they are doing with Daemon. Matt is a terrific actor so seeing him regulated to a sh*tty script. This goes for most of the actors because they can only work with what they are given.

I strongly dislike Miss Maegor, she’s an awful character, but the show version of her has deviated from book canon so for that I will fault Ryan.

As far as GRRM is concerned, he is here for a check at the end of the day. I don’t think he really cares that much as long as they stick to the overarching premise🤷🏽‍♀️

[andsalttheearthbehindyou]

November reading wrapup

hmmm pretty good month for quantity but hit or miss for quality, i either loved or hated almost all of these. 💆🏻‍♀️

1. the lover, marguerite duras — tumblr girl classic, ur fav web weaving posts almost definitely feature a snippet of this. like woah 😭 ok very timeless very vivid and real. I did cry.

2. icebreaker, hannah grace — this is EMBARASSINGGGGGG i was going to a hockey game and was like woah let me get into this mindset... into this world… THIS BOOK WAS MISLEADING i thought itd be equal parts hockey world ice skater world equal parts romance and no.. it was nothing of the sort... this was just tooooo porny like WAY too much, even for me. AND I USED TO WRITE SM- *gunshot*

3. throne of glass, sarah j mass — does anyone have any good fantasy series recs that arent this?? like this is what years without winds of winter will do to a woman. im settling for this subpar garbage. but i am gonna keep reading it bc what else do i have, george???

4. mickey7, edward ashton — been on my tbr since rob pattinson was announced to be the lead in this in the bong joon-ho movie… i feel like with the creatives behind it thisll end up being one of those rare bones and all situations where the adaptation is wayyyyy better than the book. but idk. book itself was whatever good concept but didnt even really go anywhere. i thought that i had guessed a twist lie 3 quarters of the way thru but there was no twist literally nothing happened. therefore MID

5. blood meridian, cormac mccarthy — the only other time i had like a visceral tummy churning reaction to a book like this was when i read theons chapters in a dance with dragons 😭😭😭 anyway i like the lack of quotation marks and i also find it easier to write without them SHOOT ME

6. death valley, melissa broder — im really endeared to broder as a writer because i feel like she can only do one thing really well and shes very self aware of that.. which i respect.. also what the protag is going thru here at the start of the book is something ive also gone thru and it felt very strangely accurate and bizarre as a real person reading about a fake person going thru it. and literally within the book the protag references how writers poorly portray their characters accurately 'going thru it' (i keep saying going thru it bcoz im trying not to spoil even tho no ones gonna read my recs ALTHO this one deserves to be read i think) so that was cray and meta but umm what im trying to say is.. melissa i wanted to go to ur book signing i literally had my day cleared in my planner for u. why did u have to cancel the event.

7. indelicacy, amina cain — public announcement i guess but hey girl @noumenongirl i think you would love this one i dont know why but the whole time i was reading i was just like woah she’d love this😭 i liked it a lot

8. the penelopiad, margaret atwood — this is what circe by madeline miller wanted and tried to be but failed tremendously at.....

9. crown of midnight, sarah j mass — was better than throne of glass in the beginning actually but then they halfway thru lost me again..

10. the assassins blade, sarah j mass — im just hate reading at this point like i dont have anything else to do. Celaena youll never be daenerys girl like stop

11. elvis and me, priscilla beaulieu presley — ohhhh…. :,(((( my fav celeb memoir yet i think.....

+ bonus — im gonna add this to my december list but im like 75% of the way with fourth wing rn, good fawking heavens i wishthat grrm could trademark copyright the concept of dragons like i dont think anyone should be allowed to write about DRAGONS only him. like mini spoilers for fourth wing SORRY but WHY DO THE DRAGONS SPEAK ENGLISH, WHY DO THEY EVEN SPEAK AT ALL....cringe. but better than throne of glass at least😭 but it doesnt take much to be better than throne of glass to be fair. OK reading wrapup over.

[ladymorghul]

Idk if I'm in the minority here, but I think that all the praise Condal & Co are getting is a bit... undeserved ? I mean, I'm not claiming that season 1 of HotD was a failure or anything because it definitely had its good sides, but still, what's with all the comparisons with GoT? Not to mention that these comparisons always serve just to stress how D&D were completely incapable in adapting the story and that HotD is far superior in almost every aspect. Honestly, even though I wasn't happy with everything in GoT, especially in season 7 and 8, I must admit that people tend to exaggerate when it comes to criticising that show. I didn't like some things even from the beginning, but generally speaking, it was mostly well adapted while they still had something to adapt (thank you, GRRM). Also, it's only fair to compare season 1 of HotD to season 1 of GoT. And the fact is that Condal & Co deserve even more criticism than D&D since they had the example of GoT and they saw what happens when you trade the quality of the story for visual spectacle, or when you shorten the season, or when you make the characters inconsistent... Despite all that, they have already made the same mistakes that were the main reasons why the quality of GoT (storywise) dropped significantly in the latter seasons. I do hope that season 2 will be better and that we won't get another episode 9, the prophecy, that Alicent will finally be ride or die for her kids and Daemyra no. 1 hater after B&C and that all Rh*enicent nonsense, real or imagined, will disappear, that the shortened season won't harm the story much..., etc. However, I'm not too hopeful and still believe that season 1 of HotD had far more flaws than season 1 of GoT. And if they continue that way, I'm not sure what to expect by the time season 4 airs.

i'm so sorry but thankfully i have not seen this opinion being popular? i think anyone who think s1 hotd was better than s1 got is clowning. storytelling, lightening, consistency... it just does not compare. also, some of hotd fame came from being a product of got. nothing in hotd s1 had any impact similar to daenerys targaryen bringing back the dragons

[fromtheseventhhell]

did people actually hate sahnsa or they just didn’t like her as much as arya and her stans and s*phiet took that personally?! her character is the worst written character in the show is unbelievable. a recycled cersei 2.0 and it’s all her and her ego’s fault. give dumb people some attention and they will never stop being annoying . i don’t know how but the writers were the whitest most cliched writers ever. they saw that cersei and sahnsa are dumb and get called dumb by everyone and said: yea that’s realism, that’s complex, guys they wear dresses and work through the system, they are politicians and no one hears them GUYS COMPLEXITY. meanwhile dany and arya just bc they are smart and bold and angry and do more then cersei or sahnsa ever did for ANYONE in their privileged lives in the books, were reduced to girl bosses of the show, one died bc no one loved her in contrast to amaZIng qitn, and the other didn’t care abt anything, not even being a hero who saved humanity, the connection to jon that they have in the books, pure and full of love, nonexistent obviously, and fucked away to god knows where. these two are the main female characters, the pillars on whom this story even had the grounds on when grrm started writing ?!?! how did they do this to these two??? I am glad dany stans took the show down. DESERVED. I don’t want Arya’s actress near the jonsnowshow, let them have their weird j*nsa show together with kit. s*phiet already trashed on arya and maisie..let s*phie and kit have their porn together they are so weird fr with each other. I can’t take anything seriously past s4. putting sahnsa on the center was thedowngrade. and I am glad the fans dragged it to filth. and they should drag it to filth till the books are out and u all get proved wrong. can’t believe they did this to emilia too!! arya and dany deserved better

What's funny is, that's exactly it. It's not that Sansa receives some super special, "feminine" only hatred from fandom it's just that she's not as popular as her stans (and Sophie) wanted her to be. The show did a lot to boost her importance and popularity BUT that also happened around the same time to quality of the writing started to go down. D&D were making changes as early as the first season of course, but when they decided to give Jeyne's plotline to Sansa they were officially done with adapting the books. And you know what? People noticed. They were, rightfully, calling out the poor writing of the entire show but Stansas (and Sophie 💀) took it personally because they liked the importance she was being handed. It wasn't even the writing itself that they liked because despite the increased emphasis on her character, she wasn't actually doing much in the later seasons. Along with that there were plenty of reasons to dislike how she was written. And it still didn't give her the popularity people wanted. Daenerys and Arya were, and are, still fan favorites despite how much they were flattened and warped. Stansa's just thought that she was so great that everyone would start hating Dany and Arya and fawn over their fave instead.

As for the actors, my sympathy's solely lie with Emilia. She was the one who cared the most about her character and having her accurately adapted from the books but the writer's went out of their way to destroy Dany. One of the reasons I want the books to be finished, besides the obvious, is because I want her to experience Dany getting the writing she deserves in some form at least. Arya's character was done dirty but at the time Maisie was fully on board with it (though to her credit she has since admitted that the ending was bad). You can tell Sophie was very invested in Sansa's perception (she was very much projecting on her and liked the favoritism), and she's probably the only cast member actually happy about the show ending. Kit's feelings towards the ending feel artificial and more rooted in him wanting to get his spin-off off the ground.

Tbh I do think that Sophie coming back for the spin-off is more unlikely then Maisie, just from the fact that Kit doesn't personally like Sanas's character which is pretty funny. If there's one thing we don't have to worry about it's Jonsa happening with him being involved in the writing. Not even having George on board would make me interested in whatever story they have to tell though because it has to follow that horrible show. I do love that D&D shot themselves in the foot with their writing; they got fired from the project they rushed to finish GOT for and the show is universally considered one of the worst series finales of all time 😂

[ceoofhelaegon]

I don't know how unpopular/popular this opinion is but honestly

Book!Aegon>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Show!Aegon and it's not even close

Book!Helaena>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Show!Helaena

The Genius writers thought they did something with her character when they just add dragonsdreams in her character and thought that was enough while at the same time, they have taken away her son Maelor (it would suck so bad if they made b&c about Jaehaerys and jaehaera) , they took her bond with dreamfyre as well, book!Helaena has a very strong bond with her dragon and she loved flying, they have took the people's love for her. How can it be believable now if the smallfolk rose against Rhaenyra because of Helaena's death? If they ever adapted that part anyways. And don't let me start about Aegon, i am still and i will always be bitter about his characterization in the show. They have took a grey, complex and flawed character from the book then turned him into the antichrist in the show lmao. They thought rape wasn't enough so they add the part of him watching his bastards children kill eachother for shits and giggles when it's canon that the only thing that made Aegon so cruel and ruthless is the death of his son Jaehaerys. They literally made him much worse that what Mushroom has ever claimed about him and then start gaslighting us that they made him a sympathetic and grey character 😍

Nonnie, you’re a person after my own heart.

I do think that Helaena was also a dreamer in the books, I mean GRRM didn’t give her Dreamfyre for no reason.

B&C being between Jaehaerys and Jaehaera is honestly so dumb, it clearly says “a son for a son” so it will always be obvious that Jaehaerys will die, they’ll be no suspense…but the writers already butchered so much, what’s one more thing?

Helaena is crowned by her mother, and becomes Queen WITH Aegon but only one woman is allowed to becoming Queen in the show.

Helaena should be WAY more than her dreams, she’s a great mother and yet she hasn’t spent any time with her children. She helps Alicent with the peace terms, convinced Aegon to send them yet she only talks in prophetic words. Just when it comes to the toast (it was funny but it doesn’t scream loyalty from the greens to each other).

Aegon being a bully to his brother, with the Strong kids?!

Also, we can’t forget the main criminal offence that was not having Aegon defend Helaena and being angry at Jace trying to dance with her, the dancing never happened in the books, god, I hate it here.

Aegon saying that he will sail away to never being found, was straight up character assassination and I’m tired to pretend it wasn’t. When the ONLY reason he accepted becoming a King was to protect his FAMILY?! His children, his wife? His mother and brothers? Fuck the writers, ngl.

Alicent not crowning Helaena was absolutely disgusting, the Kingmaker Ser Criston Coke made the King and Alicent, the Queenmaker, made the Queen. (my Alicole agenda is showing 😭)

Some fellow greenies are way too comfortable saying that in the show, Aegon abuses Heleana like it’s a sport, I get not liking Aegon in the show but saying this as if they saw it happen? When Heleana is more than comfortable making fun of him? When Helaena doesn’t care about Aegon being near her? Yeah, no.

They also love to say, this isn’t the books, okay? Doesn’t stop the fact that I want a better character, I want a better Aegon, he’s the man of the house in the books, and in the show he’s pathetic. TGC deserves better.

But yeah, hopefully season 2 will be better even tho the damage is done.

[meanqueens]

HOTD characters are so....toothless. Give them agency, give them pride, give them anger, give them ambition, give them passion, give them everything GOSH! I do believe that the young Rhaenyra had more spark than the old one but that's not because of Emma, it's the writing, like Rhaenyra lost her shine. I guess that's something that they are going to explore more next season during the Dance but I would have loved to see more of that. And I would have LOVED Alicent letting Viserys' body rot like in the book, for all the years of bitterness, abuse and neglect she had endured because of him. And why not murder him, that's what he deserve.

thank you for your ask!! just brainstorming, but perhaps it’s a similar situation as with the later GOT seasons: the writers are trying to fill in the blanks of what is essentially an outline, but they are not equipped to do so. perhaps the current HOTD team would be better suited to adapting a full novel rather than what is effectively a history book with conflicting narratives and a dash of actual characters. really i just want to see what went down in that writers’ room, like how did we get here? why did we decide to go the route that we went? grrm may have been involved, but this didn’t feel like a complete story of his. it didn’t feel like a complete story at all. and if we’re not here to tell a full story, then why are we here?

[jackoshadows]

Sorry to vent on your ask box lol but I get really angry and depressed sometimes at the state of asoiaf. It's not just that it had a terrible adaptation but also the author didn't finish the books and won't even let anyone finish for him or tell us the ending and it really doesn't deserve that because those characters are so great they deserve much better. I always feel like giving up on the series but I just love the main characters so much, they deserve the world. It's just really depressing that their only ending will be the show ending. Idk it feels like someone I loved died young or something? It's very sad

Vent away!

It really is sad that the only ending we will get for asoiaf is the one on the godforsaken show written by ultimate hacks Benioff and Weiss. They are all to blame - GRRM for not finishing this tale in nearly 30 years and D&D for being these talentless white men failing upwards, who wanted to be done with the show, refused to hire a diverse writer's room and were writing for the actors instead of the characters.

Imagine the readers who have been reading these books since they first began in the nineties? Imagine how long they have waited?

AFfC came out in 2005. The last Sansa chapter (published 17 years ago) is older than even book Sansa (13 years old). Jon Snow is still dead, Daenerys is still in Essos and hasn't even met Tyrion yet. Arya is still pottering around in Braavos.

To have an idea of the scale of the problem, GRRM has only written part I of his original trilogy!! There's still two entire parts left.

That's one of the other reasons for why I am not watching HOTD. Instead of completing the original story, he's busy with all his side projects. Watch as he now works on F&B part II or Dunk and Egg and all that, everything except try his very best to finish ASoIaF.

I am sticking around because I love these characters as well and am hoping to get to read how their stories really end in my lifetime. Not sure how long I am going to be sticking around though. If TWoW is not out in the next couple of years, I can see most of us moving on. Especially with how toxic this fandom is, throwing tantrums over fans celebrating characters with events.

Till then, I think our little corner of the asoiaf fandom is lovely and it's been nice to discuss the canon characters and their story arcs, with some supertalented folks in this fandom creating content 🤗. If we don't get GRRM's ending, then our ending for these characters will be the ending. That's how I will be dealing with it.

[fedonciadale]

Hello! I get really tired of non-asoiaf fans act like the series is just boobs and dragons and nihilism. I feel like they're wrongly judging the books for the show's flaws (and it seems to always be lotr stans for some reason? Like that series is amazing, why must they trash ours?) So I was wondering, what would you say are the true themes of the books? I don't think at all that Martin is a nihilist who enjoys miserable endings and hates love. Thank you.

Hi there!

As a LotR fan myself I feel called out. haha!

Well, jokes aside. I think that it is of course rubbish to judge a book by how it is done on television/in a movie. It should be obvious that D&D made ASOIAF to be about dragons, boobs and nihilism and that you can't judge the books by the adaptation.

There is one thing though where GRRM is certainly at a disadvantage - especially in regard to Tolkien. He himself said that he wanted to address some of the things he had problems with in LotR, the notorious quote about "Aragorn's tax policy" and therefore, sorry, not sorry, GRRM set the stage himself, the stage where he is compared with Tolkien.

And there is one thing you can say about Tolkien: His books might be shorter than ASOIAF but he finished them and with a satisfying ending as about everyone can agree on. Bittersweet in the best sense of the word.

So, GRRM has himself to blame for being compared to Tolkien. And as long as the books are unfinished, GRRM is going to fall short. It might well be that his ending is bittersweet in a good way, that it will be satisfying, that he will address the problem of resurrection and of everyday politics in a better way than Tolkien did. But he has yet to prove that!

I would actually argue that the whole character of the books is so different that any comparison is moot, but that is my opinion. And I would certainly not put them "against" each other. And in my experience LotR fans do not attack GoT? I mean experiences on tumblr can be very different, but apart from the occasional frustrated ASOIAF fan (and I'm one of them) who praises LotR they are not pitted against each other?

I actually happen to agree with you that GRRM is not a nihilist and you can argue in favour of that. You can quote that he himself said that he wants to write about the "human heart in conflict with itself" and he has already done that and done that very well. But as long as we don't have his ending (not an ending, but his ending) we can make and argument and even a solid argument but the ultimate proof is not to be had.

I think that every one of the main characters has a main important theme: Love and Duty for Jon, Mercy and Revenge for Arya, Selfishness and Altruism for Dany, Use and Abuse of Power for Sansa, Loyalty and Betrayal for Jaime and so on. And the way GRRM approaches that is not nihilistic, there is hope (like when Eddard said: What if we prevail?) but it's not as visible as in LotR. No flower crown on the head of a fallen statue of a king touched by a single ray of sunshine in GRRM's world. That does not make it better or worse. It makes it different.

But it also means that many people do not see it. Many people do not see that Ned's "The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword" is a parallel to Gandalf's: "Many who live deserve death and many who die deserves life? Can you give it to them? Then don't be so rash in condemning them to die" (quoting from memory here).

So, there is humanity and hope in ASOIAF: I think that all the people who were saved or spared by the Starks will have a severe impact on the story (not necessarily all of them good, because that would be very unlike GRRM: Good actions don't always have good consequences, but they have good consequences often enough that it makes a difference if people are good!). I think the Stark legacy of good rule will prevail but as for now we don't see that yet.

I mean the last book will be called "A dream of Spring" which should tell you all, but before GRRM does not finish the books, you can argue all you want. The ultimate proof that it is not a nihilistic grimdark novel nobody will want to read in fifty years is just not there. And that's on GRRM.

Sorry, not sorry. JRRT cannot be dethroned by a man who set out to write better and didn't accomplish the most basic thing of all - which is finishing his story, so that it can be judged as a whole. LotR is still one of the most read books in the world and it will continue to be read.

Just being "promising" is not enough to pass the exam.

And that he let D&D finish the story in such a frustrating way does not help his case. I mean it's not necessarily how GoT ended it is mostly how it was told, and season 7 and 8 were a waste of money.

So, I would say: O.k. GRRM I believe in you: I believe that ASOIAF is not just dragons and boobs and grimdark story telling:

Do me a favour and PROVE ME RIGHT!

Thanks for the ask!

[thebeltanequeen]

The (Blurred? Nonexistent? Inconsequential?) Line Between Canon and Fanon: An Impromtu Essay by Me

I’m currently have an existential crisis. An absolute, balls to the walls, pull my hair out, stare at the walls wondering what the meaning of existence is, kind of existential crisis. Why, you may ask? Because the older I have gotten, the more Fanfiction I have read. That’s normal. Millions of other people read fanfic like me. Well, in the past few years, I have also realized that the more fanfiction I have read, the less shits I give about the actual canon of the media I love. I care less and less about what “actually” happened, and delve into fanon instead. It’s as if the two have SWITCHED ROLES in my brain. The canon is the lie, and the fanon is the truth. This used to not be the case though, so how did we get here? And why… why is this realization sending me into an absolute spiral of insanity? Why do I feel like I have been sucker punched in the jaw? Let me explain.

I’ve been reading and dabbling in writing my own fanfiction for over twelve years. It used to be an escape, a way to further delve into my latest obsessions and become consumed by them. I have this annoying habit of also picking ships that do NOT become endgame, so I’ve always sought out fanfiction as a balm for my shipper’s soul as well. I still read fanfiction as if my life depends on it… but now it’s at the expense of reading new books. Watching new media. When I do eventually dip my toes into a new fandom, I either reject it quickly or become consumed again and make a grab for fanfiction… but in the past few years, something in not only me, but in fandoms in general has shifted.

The difference between me now, and me back then is this… I used to uphold the canon as sacred. Untouchable. Set in stone. The only credible source for the media I consume. All of the fanfiction I read was just beautiful window dressing. A lovely past time to further increase my dopamine intake.

This is no longer the case.

Now, when I read and write fanfiction, it’s as if it is an act of protest. I am actively seeking to reform the narrative. It’s to “take back” the story, the characters, EVERYTHING, for myself. To make it anew. To make it perfect. I’m not alone either. I see you. I see all of you. Now more than ever, I see more and more of us doing this exact same thing.

THIS is why I am having an existential crisis. I have just realized that I will no longer be content with the canon. Ever. Even the canon of my favorite media. It’s not enough. It’s no longer enough. It won’t ever be enough again. Why? Because there will always be places where the canon is falliable. The authors of the canon, are falliable. As an author myself, this is at once an alarming yet powerful realization.

I went to college for creative writing. At the beginning of my academic career, I thought of fanfiction as a beautiful fairytale world. It was glorious, but it was other. Separate. Not as credible as canon. Had I read fanfiction better than the media it was based on before I entered college? Absolutely, but in my head it still didn’t matter because the canon was the word. The canon was the law. As a writer, I held the power of the author (and by extension the power of myself) as sacred. By the end of college, that began to change.

The more I was taught about writing, the more I came to realize that sometimes, authors are just straight up WRONG. Sometimes, there’s soooooo much potential… AND THEY JUST FUCK IT UP!!!!!!! The bones are incredible, but the canon is weak, the logic is lacking, the story makes no sense, the characters don’t reach their full potential and you know what? I’m tired. I’m tired of it. This is why fanon is canon’s salvation. Fanon makes canon look pathetic. But… if I accept the fanon as the reality, and make the canon the lie, does that still make it fanon? No. I don’t think it does. I think fanon has become something other. Something greater.

I have become disillusion by “published” or “credible” books. 95% of the novels I actually buy at the store today are garbage. Trash. Half written nonsense that only serves the purpose of paying people. I’m TIRED OF IT. I’ve become disillusioned by the “power” of the author. I have become disillusioned by canon. FUCK canon, quite frankly. Rip it apart. Dissect it. Take out it’s beating heart and transplant it into a new body. Give it the soul that the narrative was begging for. REVIVE IT. LET YOUR OWN IMAGINATION MAKE IT ANEW. Characters mean too much to people. Fiction means too much to people. Stories mean too much to people for anything less. Only then will you or I be satisfied.

Now, even an impromptu, unedited, gibberish essay is not complete without examples. I’ll start with one that you probably thought of while reading this. Game of Thrones. I think that two years ago, the ending of the most influential show of the entire decade, is where my subconscious began to shift in this direction. Now, I doubt my opionions about GoT are the same as yours, but you know what? It DOESN’T MATTER because FANON CAN FIX THE CANON. The stories that meant so much to millions can be fixed by accepting the fact that THE CANON ISN’T THE LAW! IT FUCKED UP!!!! CANON DOESN’T DESERVE TO SPEAK ANYMORE!!!! TAKE BACK THE STORY AND TRANSFORM IT INTO A VERSION TRULY WORTHY OF THE GLORIOUS BONES IT HAS!!!!!

We also can’t ignore the role that monetization plays in the media we consume. Why leave our fiction in the hands of just the big names? Why let money dictate what is real and not real? WHY SETTLE FOR MEDIOCRE STORYTELLING JUST BECAUSE IT WAS SOLD TO YOU AND THEREFORE IT’S “LEGIT CANON”??? FANFICTION IS FREE, AND THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PIECES OF WRITING I’VE EVER READ WERE WRITTEN BY FANFIC AUTHORS WHO DID IT FOR THE STORY. WHO DID IT FOR THE ART. WHO ACTUALLY DID IT JUSTICE. FUCK THE CONCEPT OF FANON AND CANON. THE STORY WE WANT IS ALL THAT MATTERS. GET MONEY OUT OF HERE.

Ahem. To avoid going on even more of a tangent, I’ll move on and give the example that triggered my existential crisis in the first place. Sailor Moon. To give some background, Sailor Moon is it for me. I have grown up with it. I’ve watched it my entire life. As a child, I ran around with my toy moon rod and desperately wanted to be Usagi. Ironically, I grew up to be quite a bit like her (but with Rei’s temper admittedly). It is my comfort show, my happiness. It makes me laugh, it makes me cry. I never tire of it. It makes my heart swell. I have never, nor will I ever, love any piece of media the way I love Sailor Moon. Flash forward to today, I watched Sailor Moon Eternal, the two new movie adaptations of the Dream arc in the manga (stick with me non-manga and anime lovers). I liked the films, but I was left with a deep, disatisfied yearning. I want back the feeling of complete bliss I experienced while watching the 90’s anime as a child. The problem with this? I’ll never get it back. I’ve just realized this. I’ll NEVER get it back. Why? Because it’s no longer the perfect version of Sailor Moon that it was to my young eyes. Crystal, while good, is also not the perfected version I seek in my adulthood, and Eternal has not scratched my insatiable itch. I am heartbroken because I’ve realized that Sailor Moon in its perfect form doesn’t exist anymore. If I held any canon sacred, it was this. But the story is flawed. The manga is flawed. The anime is flawed. It’s not infallible, as much as it truly, deeply hurts me to admit to the world and to myself. The only perfect version of Sailor Moon is the one in my heart. It’s the one I choose to piece together for myself with the building blocks that others who came before me have handed over.

Another, more recent example of falliable canon is The Grisha Verse. More specifically, the Shadow and Bone trilogy. I was brought in to the fandom by Ben Barnes’ depthless eyes and magnificent scruff. And you know what? I liked the story, but I stayed for Ben Barnes. I liked the Darkling so much that I bought the entire grisha verse books. It was a premature decision. I’ve only made it halfway through Storm and Seige, and you know what? I’m tired of the canon already. It’s not that great. The bones are there, but it could be SO. MUCH. MORE. I haven’t read the crow books yet, and by all accounts Leigh Bardugo has improved tremendously as a writer. Which incidentally proves my point. Authors are falliable. Ergo, the canon is falliable. I can’t help but think while I read these books, “Damn. I could write this better.” and you know what? I’ve read fanfics that HAVE written it better.

Am I saying this to trash Bardugo? Or even GRRM? (Yes I admit to trashing D&D but that’s beside the point ahem…). NO. I am NOT trashing the writers. I’M A WRITER. I GET IT. YOUR STORY IS YOUR BABY. I G E T I T . But I’ve realized, and what I think future authors will also have to realize, is that fiction doesn’t belong to anyone. As soon as it’s out the door, the fiction no longer belongs to the author. It belongs to us. The people. That’s what is beautiful about fanfiction. It’s not here for the money. It’s not here for the clout. It’s here for the fiction itself. Plain and simple. It belongs to no one and everyone.

In the past, I would have fought this. I would have wanted my work’s canon to be law. To be the word, the truth, the way etc. Now? I can’t be a hypocrite. I can’t be selfish. It isn’t about the author. It’s about the vision. It’s about the story, the narrative, the characters. It’s about art. And sometimes, the authors give birth to the idea (and they deserve credit for that without a doubt), but it’s also true that sometimes, someone else just writes it better. Someone else quite simply saw the vision, the story, the characters, more clearly than the author did. I make this vow now, as an author, to strive for the vision. If someone takes my vision and does it better than me, that only improves my perspective of my own story. It improves the world of fiction as a whole. It makes me better.

So, canon? Fuck the canon. Take back the story. Take back the characters. Take back the art. Fiction is ours. It belongs to us, and we can do with it what we please. Let’s strive for OUR OWN perfected version of the media we love. Canon doesn’t truly exist. The concept of Fanon doesn’t even exist anymore in the way we used to think of it. The author’s version of events is their own Fanon of the story. Canon is meaningless now. There is only the story that you accept in your own mind. There is only the story that I accept in my own mind, no matter how different it is from yours. There is only the art. There is only the limitless potential of countless people’s imaginations. Let’s continue to collaborate and celebrate beautiful stories together, in any conceivable way, over and over and over again, until the end of time.

Fin

[alinaastarkov]

It's very transparent how you acuse Sansa fans of flaws you possess. You call them shallow for focusing on Sansa's beauty, yet they're very critical of how her looks affect her narrative and atract predatory men towards her. They prefer focusing on her mental characteristics instead of her beauty. Meanwhile, you're desperate for everyone to perceive Arya as pretty, you have a whole tag about her beauty and think her tale is a "ugly ducking" one. The nerve of accusing others of being shallow...

*cracks knuckles* Okay bitch let’s go

Sansa stans, the ones I always speak of, are shallow because they only started liking Sansa because of her beauty and her ‘traditionally feminine’ interests, and because they think she is ‘hated’ by everyone else because of this, except, no. We don’t hate Sansa. If we dislike her, as I have said before, it’s not because she’s ‘traditionally feminine’ or ‘beautiful,’ it’s because she is horrible to her sister to the point that it affects her mental health for years, she refuses to acknowledge any of her bad behaviour and, more recently, because she’s poisoning a child and no do not come at me with why she’s not doing that i don’t wanna hear it 

Now, Stansas, such as yourself, are focused on her beauty, they just don’t admit it because *surprise* they know it will make them look shallow. It’s what attracted them to the character because these “mental characteristics” (not a real phrase) do not appear for a while. In the first books, she is not likeable. And that is the point. She is not supposed to be a hero. She was created for the purpose of sewing discord in the Stark family. That is a direct quote from GRRM himself so take it up with him. Those who aren’t fans will say she does not get much better, but there is some growth that makes her more dynamic and interesting. I do not care if they are “critical of how her looks affect her narrative and attract predatory men towards her” because I’ve rarely seen it and, if they are, that does not stop them from being fans because of her looks/ being obsessed with her beauty. In fact, it makes it more obvious because they are discussing specifically how her beauty affects the narrative. If that is not ‘being obsessed with her looks’ I don’t know what is. And all the “mental characteristics” (still not a phrase) they focus on are completely made up. They talk about her empathy (where?), her resilience (which is only achieved by her erasing the part she played in her family’s downfall), her compassion (again where? and at the same time they call Arya a psychopath. Arya. of all people) and whatever else which don’t exist in the books. So excuse me if I see Sansa stans touting abilities and traits that Sansa doesn’t have and see through that nonsense to find the real reason they’re such fans.

Now, there is a very specific reason we reiterate that Arya is pretty. It’s because there is a TON of canon evidence that says she is, but people still call her ugly, or ugly in comparison to her sister, or say that Jon or Gendry should be with Sansa because they deserve someone pretty, which wtf?? Suggesting that Arya isn’t pretty (which is wrong) means she doesn’t deserve love?? Does anyone else hear how fucked up that is?? We’re not desperate, we’re just sick of seeing Arya be disrespected because of her looks, especially when, in the books, she is pretty. Ned says so, Gendry says so, Lady Smallwood says so, Jon says so, are ya’ll just gonna let me keep listing people or should I stop? Also anon I did not know I had a whole tag for Arya’s beauty? Seems like someone has been stalking my blog and knows more about it than I do. 

You know what this ask tells me about you, anon?

I personally have never said her story is an ugly duckling one because, again, the books say that Arya has always been pretty. If people do think this, it’s because the ugly duckling story is not about beauty, it’s about the duckling discovering he was never a duck and that’s why he didn’t belong, and he finds his true family (or ‘pack’ if you will) amongst other swans who understand him. And this is where Arya’s story is headed. Breaking out of the stifling patriarchal society and making her own family, becoming her own kind of woman and leader, and feeling accepted.

All of Arya’s fans like her because she is strong, emotional, quick-witted, resilient, compassionate, kind, adaptable and so many other traits I can’t be bothered to name. We don’t care about her beauty, but we rightfully feel the need to defend her against gross claims of ugliness meaning she is not worthy. That’s a terrible attitude to have, and the ugly thing is just straight up not true. I’m sorry that our fave has more depth than yours, I’m sorry that you spend hours combing through blogs you hate just to send anons at them, I’m sorry your fandom has terrible priorities actually i’m not sorry it ain’t my problem why should i be sorry? But none of that is my fault. That’s just the way it is. Get better values and leave me alone i don’t know why i ask ya’ll never do. anyway come at me bitches i got nothing but time

[aboveallarescuer]

Daenerys Targaryen in A Storm of Swords vs Game of Thrones - Episode 3.3: Walk of Punishment

In this series of posts, I intend to analyze precisely how the show writers downplayed or erased several key aspects of Daenerys Targaryen’s characterization, even when they had the books to help them write her as the compelling, intelligent, compassionate, frugal, open-minded and self-critical character that GRRM created.

I want to make it clear that these posts are not primarily meant to offer a better alternative to what the show writers gave us. I understand that they had many constraints (e.g. other storylines to handle, a limited amount of time to write the scripts, budget, actors who may have asked for a certain number of lines, etc) working against them. However, considering how disrespectful the show’s ending was to Daenerys Targaryen and how the book material that they left out makes it even more ludicrous to think that she will also become a villain in A Song of Ice and Fire, I believe that these reviews are more than warranted. They are meant to dissect everything about Dany’s characterization that was lost in translation, with a lot of book evidence to corroborate my statements.

Since these reviews will dissect scene by scene, I recommend taking a look at this post because I will use its sequence to order Dany’s scenes.

This post is relevant in case you want to know which chapters were adapted in which GoT episodes (however, I didn’t make the list myself, all the information comes from the GoT Wiki, so I can’t guarantee that it’s 100% reliable).

In general, I will call the Dany from the books “Dany” and the Dany from the TV series “show!Dany”.

Scene 3

BARRISTAN: The Walk of Punishment is a warning, Your Grace.

DAENERYS: To whom?

BARRISTAN: To any slave who contemplates doing whatever these slaves did.

In the books, the context in which we first see the Plaza of Punishment (yeah, the type of building was changed) is very different:

The Plaza of Pride with its great bronze harpy was too small to hold all the Unsullied she had bought. Instead they had been assembled in the Plaza of Punishment, fronting on Astapor’s main gate, so they might be marched directly from the city once Daenerys had taken them in hand. There were no bronze statues here; only a wooden platform where rebellious slaves were racked, and flayed, and hanged. “The Good Masters place them so they will be the first thing a new slave sees upon entering the city,” Missandei told her as they came to the plaza.

At first glimpse, Dany thought their skin was striped like the zorses of the Jogos Nhai. Then she rode her silver nearer and saw the raw red flesh beneath the crawling black stripes. Flies. Flies and maggots. The rebellious slaves had been peeled like a man might peel an apple, in a long curling strip. (ASOS Daenerys III)

As we can see:

In the books, Dany goes to the Plaza of Punishment because she's going to buy save too many Unsullied and the Plaza of Pride wouldn't fit them all. The names are very appropriate: Dany is going to undermine the pride of the slave masters (the absence of bronze statues of harpies reinforces that fact) by punishing them for what they did to the slaves (which feels like a sort of karmic payback, for she begins a successful anti-slavery rebellion in the very place where the slaves were punished for rebelling) and showing them that they are just as mortal and vulnerable as the people they were oppressing. In the show, all of this significance is lost because show!Dany goes to the Plaza Walk of Punishment before she even makes the deal.

In the books, the slaves are racked, flayed and hanged for disobeying their masters. In the show, they are whipped and then strapped to a cross until they die.

There is a reason why the place was changed from Plaza to Walk: the shooting location in Essaouira had a line of cannons that couldn't be moved, so they decided to build "cannon covers" with the crosses of the dying slaves.

I don't mind that the method of punishment itself was changed (from flaying to crucifixion) or even that the Plaza of Punishment was turned into the Walk of Punishment, only that the location was shown in the inappropriate moment. I can't see any reason why the Walk of Punishment could not have been where the deal was about to be finished only for show!Dany to rebel against the masters and free the Unsullied (like how it happened in the books in the Plaza of Punishment).

Another change in the context of the scene taking place in the Plaza/Walk of Punishment has to do with who is talking to Dany and what is the purpose of the scene. I will quote again both the show dialogue and (parts of) the book passage to emphasize my point:

BARRISTAN: The Walk of Punishment is a warning, Your Grace.

DAENERYS: To whom?

BARRISTAN: To any slave who contemplates doing whatever these slaves did.

~

There were no bronze statues here; only a wooden platform where rebellious slaves were racked, and flayed, and hanged. “The Good Masters place them so they will be the first thing a new slave sees upon entering the city,” Missandei told her as they came to the plaza.

[...] One man had an arm black with flies from fingers to elbow, and red and white beneath. Dany reined in beneath him. “What did this one do?”

“He raised a hand against his owner.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

In the books, Missandei (a former slave) explains to Dany why the Plaza of Punishment exists. That makes their interaction more powerful, since we're listening to someone who, at some point, likely felt the urge to run away only to see these slaves and realize that it would be more sensible to resign herself to the misery she was in. Also, Dany instinctively understands why the Plaza of Punishment exists before Missandei tells her ("a wooden platform where rebellious slaves were racked, and flayed, and hanged"). In the show, show!Barristan is the one who explains to show!Dany why the Walk of Punishment exists, which is less meaningful in comparison. Also, D&D have show!Dany ask him to whom the Walk is a warning, implying that she can't think of any ideas on her own and making this another case of her being dumbed down in comparison to her book counterpart.

In the books, one of the purposes of the scene is to call attention to the unfairness of these punishments - no person should be "racked, and flayed, and hanged", especially not for a reason as relatively trivial as "rais[ing] a hand against his owner". However, because the level of oppression and social inequality is so high in Astapor and Slaver's Bay as a whole, it's normal procedure to torture and kill someone for insubstantial motives. In the show, since show!Barristan was never a slave like Missandei was, he can't possibly know why they were punished ("doing whatever these slaves did"). Now, of course, one might argue that the scene still causes outrage because no one deserves to be subjected to that level of torture, but it's still quite a shame that the reason why the slave was punished was cut - not only that would have made the point even more explicit, that only happened because they erased the perspective of a former slave.

*

DAENERYS: Give me your water.

JORAH: Khaleesi, this man has been sentenced to death.

DAENERYS: Here, drink.

This series has a habit of framing acts of compassion and kindness as meaningless ones - as @turtle-paced​ reminded me, examples include show!Ned's trying to save show!Joffrey (how his attempt was framed in the show, in particular), Talisa's kindness to the Lannister squires who got murdered in S3, the old lady who tried to help show!Sansa in S5 only to get murdered by show!Ramsay and show!Doran's efforts to make peace. @secretlyatargaryen​ also called attention to how show!Meera was callously dispatched after multiple seasons helping show!Bran to go back home. I would also add how no one in Braavos was willing to help show!Arya after seeing her stomach wound (and then the one person who helps her is assassinated) or how show!Arya's attempts to save a child and her mother in "The Bells" led to naught.  

This scene is another clear example that fits the pattern. Instead of creating a scenario in which show!Dany tries to give water to a dying slave only for him to refuse:

Why couldn’t the show writers have had Dany explaining what, in her perspective, makes her worthy of being considered a queen?

Or why couldn’t they have kept Dany’s anger at seeing Jorah talk about the Unsullied as if they were objects to be sold?

Or why couldn’t we have had Dany saying that a queen must listen to all, highborn and low?

All of these examples were entirely cut from the series, which is a shame because they signal that the books are ultimately validating Dany’s efforts to help the oppressed (while it is true that they don’t shy away from the negative ramifications at the same time, her attempts are no less justified and necessary). This scene doesn't convey the same message.

*

BARRISTAN: Leave this place, Your Grace. Leave tonight, I beg you.

JORAH: And what is she to do for soldiers?

BARRISTAN: We can find sellswords in Pentos and Myr.

JORAH: Is it "we" already, Ser Barristan? If you want to sit on the throne your ancestors built, you must win it. That will mean blood on your hands before the thing is done.

DAENERYS: The blood of my enemies, not the blood of innocents.

JORAH: How many wars have you fought in, Ser Barristan?

BARRISTAN: Three.

JORAH: Have you ever seen a war where innocents didn't die by the thousands? I was in King's Landing after the sack, khaleesi. You know what I saw? Butchery. Babies, children, old men. More women raped than you can count. There's a beast in every man and it stirs when you put a sword in his hand. But the Unsullied are not men. They do not rape. They do not put cities to the sword unless they're ordered to do so. If you buy them, the only men they'll kill are those you want dead.

DAENERYS: Do you disagree, Ser Barristan?

BARRISTAN: When your brother Rhaegar led his army into battle at the Trident, men died for him because they believed in him, because they loved him, not because they'd been bought at a slaver's auction. I fought beside the last dragon on that day, Your Grace. I bled beside him.

JORAH: Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, and Rhaegar died.

I'm quoting the entire exchange to highlight, again, how much the show overfocused on show!Jorah's opinions over show!Dany's or show!Barristan's.

Let's separate his arguments:

1) JORAH: And what is she to do for soldiers?

~

2) JORAH: Is it "we" already, Ser Barristan? If you want to sit on the throne your ancestors built, you must win it. That will mean blood on your hands before the thing is done.

~

3) JORAH: How many wars have you fought in, Ser Barristan? [...] Have you ever seen a war where innocents didn't die by the thousands? I was in King's Landing after the sack, khaleesi. You know what I saw? Butchery. Babies, children, old men. More women raped than you can count. There's a beast in every man and it stirs when you put a sword in his hand. But the Unsullied are not men. They do not rape. They do not put cities to the sword unless they're ordered to do so. If you buy them, the only men they'll kill are those you want dead.

~

4) JORAH: Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, and Rhaegar died.

Now let's separate show!Barristan's arguments:

1) BARRISTAN: Leave this place, Your Grace. Leave tonight, I beg you.

~

2) BARRISTAN: We can find sellswords in Pentos and Myr.

~

3) BARRISTAN: When your brother Rhaegar led his army into battle at the Trident, men died for him because they believed in him, because they loved him, not because they'd been bought at a slaver's auction. I fought beside the last dragon on that day, Your Grace. I bled beside him.

Finally, what does show!Dany have to say?

1) DAENERYS: The blood of my enemies, not the blood of innocents.

The protagonist of this storyline is also, sadly, the one who least expresses her opinions on the matter of buying the Unsullied or not. (She also asks for show!Barristan's opinion and asserts that she is the last dragon, but these are not arguments/thoughts that add to the discussion)

Before I examine each line (which I will do in a sec), I want to pay close attention to the direction (which, let's have in mind, was solely Benioff's). The camera barely focuses on show!Barristan's face while he makes his first two arguments above, making them seem like an afterthought:

But it always focuses on show!Jorah's face when he is talking:

And while the camera does focus on show!Dany's face when she reiterates the importance of sparing innocent lives:

It's also true that the show erased too many of her opinions/viewpoints (as I will show below).

In terms of screentime, show!Barristan's first two arguments receive 6 seconds. Show!Jorah's first two arguments receive 12 seconds. Show!Dany's sole argument receives 3 seconds. Show!Jorah's third argument receives 39 seconds. Show!Barristan's third argument (which is actually a line from Dany in the books) receives 18 seconds. Show!Jorah's fourth argument receives 6 seconds. Approximately, then, we have: 57 seconds for show!Jorah, 24 seconds for show!Barristan and 3 seconds for show!Dany.

Now I'm going through each of these characters' arguments.

1) JORAH: And what is she to do for soldiers?

The first point is actually one that Dany is shown onpage bringing up in the books:

“When I leave Astapor it must be with an army, Ser Jorah says.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

~

“Yet I must have some army,” Dany said. “The boy Joffrey will not give me the Iron Throne for asking politely.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

It isn't out of character for Jorah to make this argument - in fact, he does so in the previous chapter when he proposes that Dany changes course to Astapor. However, since they are adapting events from ASOS Daenerys II (when they are already in Astapor), it's another instance in which the show writers would rather have a supporting male character have his voice heard rather than Dany's.

Also, more importantly, Dany is not making this argument to justify slavery like show!Jorah is:

“Even those who bent their knees may yearn in their hearts for the return of the dragons.”

“May,” said Dany. That was such a slippery word, may. (ASOS Daenerys II)

~

“My brother visited Pentos, Myr, Braavos, near all the Free Cities. The magisters and archons fed him wine and promises, but his soul was starved to death. A man cannot sup from the beggar’s bowl all his life and stay a man. I had my taste in Qarth, that was enough. I will not come to Pentos bowl in hand.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

The reason why getting an army before she gets to Pentos is so important for Dany is because she lived in poverty before and knows that she can't rely too heavily on anyone - she learned that when no one would help her brother, she learned that again when no one would help her in Qarth even with her dragons. She doesn't want to be powerless, but, at the same time, she doesn't want other people to be powerless as well. Having show!Jorah say these things doesn't have the same significance because he didn't have the same experiences that Dany did nor does he care about the slaves' plight.

So, yeah, that change is doubly awful: it prioritizes a male slaver over a female revolutionary.

2) JORAH: Is it "we" already, Ser Barristan? If you want to sit on the throne your ancestors built, you must win it. That will mean blood on your hands before the thing is done.

~

3) JORAH: How many wars have you fought in, Ser Barristan? [...] Have you ever seen a war where innocents didn't die by the thousands? I was in King's Landing after the sack, khaleesi. You know what I saw? Butchery. Babies, children, old men. More women raped than you can count. There's a beast in every man and it stirs when you put a sword in his hand. But the Unsullied are not men. They do not rape. They do not put cities to the sword unless they're ordered to do so. If you buy them, the only men they'll kill are those you want dead.

Show!Jorah's second and third arguments are actually one and the same and are expressed by Jorah in the books as well:

“Your Grace,” said Jorah Mormont, “I saw King’s Landing after the Sack. Babes were butchered that day as well, and old men, and children at play. More women were raped than you can count. There is a savage beast in every man, and when you hand that man a sword or spear and send him forth to war, the beast stirs. The scent of blood is all it takes to wake him. Yet I have never heard of these Unsullied raping, nor putting a city to the sword, nor even plundering, save at the express command of those who lead them. Brick they may be, as you say, but if you buy them henceforth the only dogs they’ll kill are those you want dead. And you do have some dogs you want dead, as I recall.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

However, there are still issues with how they presented his argument in the show.

One, the show writers interspersed Jorah's argument in the show scene, which shows how much they want to reinforce it.

Two, they have show!Jorah undermine show!Barristan (who is anti-slavery) three times:

JORAH: Is it "we" already, Ser Barristan?

~

JORAH: How many wars have you fought in, Ser Barristan? [...] Have you ever seen a war where innocents didn't die by the thousands?

~

JORAH: Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, and Rhaegar died.

Look at show!Barristan finding no response to these points and his expressions indicating that he lost the argument:

By the time of this particular scene, show!Barristan had joined show!Dany's entourage one day ago (we know this because Kraznys said that show!Dany only had one day to decide if she would buy the Unsullied or not). Even if it's understandable (on a Watsonian perspective) that show!Jorah would distrust show!Barristan for that reason, it's less understandable (on a Doylist perspective) that the writers would use this reason to undermine show!Barristan's anti-slavery arguments or that they would write show!Jorah being distrustful of show!Barristan for that reason rather than the actual reasons in the books (i.e., Jorah being constantly disrespectful of Dany's boundaries and trying to isolate her from any man who, in his mind, threatens their relationship).

In contrast with the show, Dany has been with Barristan for enough time to trust him to be her sole companion when she meets Kraznys and the Unsullied. In fact, she brings him partly as an excuse to avoid to be alone with Jorah again after he kissed her without her consent:

He has a good face, and great strength to him, Dany thought. She could not understand why Ser Jorah mistrusted the old man so. Could he be jealous that I have found another man to talk to? Unbidden, her thoughts went back to the night on Balerion when the exile knight had kissed her. He should never have done that. He is thrice my age, and of too low a birth for me, and I never gave him leave. No true knight would ever kiss a queen without her leave. She had taken care never to be alone with Ser Jorah after that, keeping her handmaids with her aboard ship, and sometimes her bloodriders. He wants to kiss me again, I see it in his eyes. (ASOS Daenerys II)

And then there is the fact that the show writers have show!Barristan find no counterargument to show!Jorah's point below, as if that meant that it is too good to be questioned:

JORAH: How many wars have you fought in, Ser Barristan? [...] Have you ever seen a war where innocents didn't die by the thousands?

This happens because this moment was taken out of its original context in order to present show!Jorah as the "realist" one. Let's look at how the scene (which is only between Dany and Jorah) goes in the books:

“When Aegon the Dragon stepped ashore in Westeros, the kings of Vale and Rock and Reach did not rush to hand him their crowns. If you mean to sit his Iron Throne, you must win it as he did, with steel and dragonfire. And that will mean blood on your hands before the thing is done.”

Blood and fire, thought Dany. The words of House Targaryen. She had known them all her life. “The blood of my enemies I will shed gladly. The blood of innocents is another matter. Eight thousand Unsullied they would offer me. Eight thousand dead babes. Eight thousand strangled dogs.”

“Your Grace,” said Jorah Mormont, “I saw King’s Landing after the Sack. Babes were butchered that day as well, and old men, and children at play. More women were raped than you can count. There is a savage beast in every man, and when you hand that man a sword or spear and send him forth to war, the beast stirs. The scent of blood is all it takes to wake him. Yet I have never heard of these Unsullied raping, nor putting a city to the sword, nor even plundering, save at the express command of those who lead them. Brick they may be, as you say, but if you buy them henceforth the only dogs they’ll kill are those you want dead. And you do have some dogs you want dead, as I recall.”

The Usurper’s dogs. “Yes.” Dany gazed off at the soft colored lights and let the cool salt breeze caress her. “You speak of sacking cities. Answer me this, ser—why have the Dothraki never sacked this city?” (ASOS Daenerys II)

Dany doesn't offer any answer to the question of innocents dying by the thousands, but that's because GRRM writes it so that Jorah ends his line of reasoning with the argument that buying the Unsullied will cause less deaths in her war in Westeros. Right after that, GRRM shows Dany making good observations and gathering more knowledge, which showcases her intelligence. The show, on the other hand, hammers home one particular perspective in a way that the books didn't in order to make show!Jorah look "realist".   

Also, while we don't see Barristan explicitly replying to Jorah's arguments in the books (because, again, the context was both a) altered so that that would happen in the show and b) manufactured so that he would lose the discussion), I imagine he would remind Dany of this very important bit of information if he were to have a discussion with Jorah in front of Dany in the books like they did in the show:

“When I leave Astapor it must be with an army, Ser Jorah says.”

“Ser Jorah was a slaver himself, Your Grace,” the old man reminded her. (ASOS Daenerys II)

Which, conveniently, the show chooses to ignore entirely.

I spent a lot of time talking about show!Jorah's second and third arguments, their context and their framing because they undermine the original takeaway of Dany's storyline. I'm going to talk about show!Jorah's fourth argument later.

Now, let's move on to show!Barristan's arguments.

1) BARRISTAN: Leave this place, Your Grace. Leave tonight, I beg you.

~

2) BARRISTAN: We can find sellswords in Pentos and Myr.

All of these arguments are expressed in the books, but the context is, once again, different:

“Bricks and blood built Astapor,” Whitebeard murmured at her side, “and bricks and blood her people.”

“What is that?” Dany asked him, curious.

“An old rhyme a maester taught me, when I was a boy. I never knew how true it was. The bricks of Astapor are red with the blood of the slaves who make them.”

“I can well believe that,” said Dany.

“Then leave this place before your heart turns to brick as well. Sail this very night, on the evening tide.”

Would that I could, thought Dany. “When I leave Astapor it must be with an army, Ser Jorah says.”

“Ser Jorah was a slaver himself, Your Grace,” the old man reminded her. “There are sellswords in Pentos and Myr and Tyrosh you can hire. A man who kills for coin has no honor, but at least they are no slaves. Find your army there, I beg you.”

“My brother visited Pentos, Myr, Braavos, near all the Free Cities. The magisters and archons fed him wine and promises, but his soul was starved to death. A man cannot sup from the beggar’s bowl all his life and stay a man. I had my taste in Qarth, that was enough. I will not come to Pentos bowl in hand.”

“Better to come a beggar than a slaver,” Arstan said.

“There speaks one who has been neither.” Dany’s nostrils flared. “Do you know what it is like to be sold, squire? I do. My brother sold me to Khal Drogo for the promise of a golden crown. Well, Drogo crowned him in gold, though not as he had wished, and
I ... my sun-and-stars made a queen of me, but if he had been a different man, it might have been much otherwise. Do you think I have forgotten how it felt to be afraid?” (ASOS Daenerys II)

In the books, we are privy to Dany's perspective all the time. This scene (as I said both in this post and here) displays how her empathy for the slaves is informed not just by her moral principles or cultural values, but also by her own experiences as someone who struggled with poverty and was a slave herself. 

In the series, show!Dany's voice is almost entirely erased and show!Barristan's is undermined to enhance show!Jorah's (as I showed above). Also, even if some of Barristan's points are also added in the show, we don't see him realizing how the rhyme he learned was accurate in more ways than he expected, we don't see him reminding Dany that Jorah was also a slaver and we don't feel his outrage at seeing the Unsullied's training (because, in the show, they had show!Jorah accompany show!Dany rather than him):

“You have lived long in the world, Whitebeard. Now that you have seen them, what do you say?”

“I say no, Your Grace,” the old man answered at once.


“Why?” she asked. “Speak freely.” Dany thought she knew what he would say, but she wanted the slave girl to hear, so Kraznys mo Nakloz might hear later.

“My queen,” said Arstan, “there have been no slaves in the Seven Kingdoms for thousands of years. The old gods and the new alike hold slavery to be an abomination. Evil. If you should land in Westeros at the head of a slave army, many good men will oppose you for no other reason than that. You will do great harm to your cause, and to the honor of your House.”

“Yet I must have some army,” Dany said. “The boy Joffrey will not give me the Iron Throne for asking politely.”

“When the day comes that you raise your banners, half of Westeros will be with you,” Whitebeard promised. “Your brother Rhaegar is still remembered, with great love.”

“And my father?” Dany said.

The old man hesitated before saying, “King Aerys is also remembered. He gave the realm many years of peace. Your Grace, you have no need of slaves. Magister Illyrio can keep you safe while your dragons grow, and send secret envoys across the narrow sea on your behalf, to sound out the high lords for your cause.”

“Those same high lords who abandoned my father to the Kingslayer and bent the knee to Robert the Usurper?”

“Even those who bent their knees may yearn in their hearts for the return of the dragons.”

“May,” said Dany. That was such a slippery word, may. (ASOS Daenerys II)

This scene accomplishes a couple of things - not only it reinforces to the audience that what we are seeing is wrong, it also sets up Dany's conflicting feelings about her father and establishes, again, that Dany's decision to go to Astapor is shaped by her past experiences (namely, as I already said, that she's already struggled too much to not have a healthy dose of skepticism with regard to how much help other people are willing to give her). Basically, the scene emphasizes the anti-slavery messages of Dany's storyline and services Dany's characterization. 

The show's scene accomplishes none of that.

Show!Barristan's third argument is the most explicit example of the show writers being uninterested in Dany's perspective:

3) BARRISTAN: When your brother Rhaegar led his army into battle at the Trident, men died for him because they believed in him, because they loved him, not because they'd been bought at a slaver's auction. I fought beside the last dragon on that day, Your Grace. I bled beside him.

Let's look at the context of this line in the books:

“Viserys would have bought as many Unsullied as he had the coin for. But you once said I was like Rhaegar ...”

“I remember, Daenerys.”

“Your Grace,” she corrected. “Prince Rhaegar led free men into battle, not slaves. Whitebeard said he dubbed his squires himself, and made many other knights as well.”

“There was no higher honor than to receive your knighthood from the Prince of Dragonstone.”

“Tell me, then—when he touched a man on the shoulder with his sword, what did he say? ‘Go forth and kill the weak’? Or ‘Go forth and defend them’? At the Trident, those brave men Viserys spoke of who died beneath our dragon banners—did they give their lives because they believed in Rhaegar’s cause, or because they had been bought and paid for?” Dany turned to Mormont, crossed her arms, and waited for an answer.

“My queen,” the big man said slowly, “all you say is true. But Rhaegar lost on the Trident. He lost the battle, he lost the war, he lost the kingdom, and he lost his life. His blood swirled downriver with the rubies from his breastplate, and Robert the Usurper rode over his corpse to steal the Iron Throne. Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, Rhaegar fought honorably. And Rhaegar died.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

In the books, this line is not about Rhaegar at all! This is about Dany projecting her own values and ideals on Rhaegar because she wants to find a way out of the slave trade and thinking about what her biggest inspiration might have done (though she later admits she doesn't really know what he would do) would help her be more sure about what to do. This line is all about Dany!!!! By transferring her line to Barristan, not only the show writers are prioritizing a man's voice over hers, they are also making it about another man when it should be about her. 

And now we get to show!Jorah's fourth argument (which is a response to show!Barristan's third argument), which I said I would comment later:

4) JORAH: Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, and Rhaegar died.

To quote myself on the significance of his advice,

Jorah didn’t really know who Rhaegar was, so I don’t think this sentence is necessarily reliable. The spirit of his advice is simple, however: Jorah is trying to normalize the training of the Unsullied and the existence of slavery in general as necessary evils if Dany is to win the game of thrones.

On the other hand, these words were also useful in another sense: sometimes you can’t play by the rules if you intend to succeed, especially not if these rules and conventions and institutions treat other people as interchangeable objects to be sold and invalidate your sense of morality. Barristan’s advice was also helpful, not in the sense that she should leave the city, but rather that she should not be a part of the slave trade. And so, like with Viserys and Drogo, she will find a solution that was informed by both of these men’s advice while also being her own: by refusing to view the slaves as objects to be traded, Dany considered the deal illegitimate and sparked an abolitionist campaign that would influence an entire continent. In other words, Dany did not play by the rules (like Jorah advised), but not by compromising her moral principles, but because of her moral principles (like Barristan advised).

However, because show!Dany's voice and motivations are so blatantly disregarded, the show can't develop her character in the same way.

Speaking of show!Dany, here's the one thing she has to say in the discussion of whether or not to buy the Unsullied:

1) DAENERYS: The blood of my enemies, not the blood of innocents.

This doesn't really say anything new about her line of thought that we didn't already know from episode 3.1, in which she agonized over the thousands of babies that would be (and would continue to be) killed if she became complicit in the slave trade. Show!Jorah, on the other hand, gets brand new arguments here.

By comparison, here are the arguments that Dany gets to make in the books (that are either erased or given to someone else). I'm not counting her reactions while she witnesses the Unsullied's training:

 “Even those who bent their knees may yearn in their hearts for the return of the dragons.”

“May,” said Dany. That was such a slippery word, may. In any language. (ASOS Daenerys II)

~

Would that I could, thought Dany. “When I leave Astapor it must be with an army, Ser Jorah says.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

~

“My brother visited Pentos, Myr, Braavos, near all the Free Cities. The magisters and archons fed him wine and promises, but his soul was starved to death. A man cannot sup from the beggar’s bowl all his life and stay a man. I had my taste in Qarth, that was enough. I will not come to Pentos bowl in hand.”

“Better to come a beggar than a slaver,” Arstan said.

“There speaks one who has been neither.” Dany’s nostrils flared. “Do you know what it is like to be sold, squire? I do. My brother sold me to Khal Drogo for the promise of a golden crown. Well, Drogo crowned him in gold, though not as he had wished, and
I ... my sun-and-stars made a queen of me, but if he had been a different man, it might have been much otherwise. Do you think I have forgotten how it felt to be afraid?” (ASOS Daenerys II)

~

“How many men do they have for sale?”

“None.” Was it Mormont she was angry with, or this city with its sullen heat, its stinks and sweats and crumbling bricks? “They sell eunuchs, not men. Eunuchs made of brick, like the rest of Astapor. Shall I buy eight thousand brick eunuchs with dead eyes that never move, who kill suckling babes for the sake of a spiked hat and strangle their own dogs? They don’t even have names. So don’t call them men, ser.”

“Khaleesi,” he said, taken aback by her fury, “the Unsullied are chosen as boys, and trained—”

“I have heard all I care to of their training.” Dany could feel tears welling in her eyes, sudden and unwanted. Her hand flashed up and cracked Ser Jorah hard across the face. It was either that, or cry.

Mormont touched the cheek she’d slapped. “If I have displeased my queen—”

“You have. You’ve displeased me greatly, ser. If you were my true knight, you would never have brought me to this vile sty.” If you were my true knight, you would never have kissed me, or looked at my breasts the way you did, or ...

“As Your Grace commands. I shall tell Captain Groleo to make ready to sail on the evening tide, for some sty less vile.”

“No,” said Dany. Groleo watched them from the forecastle, and his crew was watching too. Whitebeard, her bloodriders, Jhiqui, every one had stopped what they were doing at the sound of the slap. “I want to sail now, not on the tide, I want to sail far and fast and never look back. But I can’t, can I? There are eight thousand brick eunuchs for sale, and I must find some way to buy them.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

~

“Tell me, then—when he touched a man on the shoulder with his sword, what did he say? ‘Go forth and kill the weak’? Or ‘Go forth and defend them’? At the Trident, those brave men Viserys spoke of who died beneath our dragon banners—did they give their lives because they believed in Rhaegar’s cause, or because they had been bought and paid for?” (ASOS Daenerys II)

~

“The blood of my enemies I will shed gladly. The blood of innocents is another matter. Eight thousand Unsullied they would offer me. Eight thousand dead babes. Eight thousand strangled dogs.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

Everything that show!Dany has to say on the matter is concentrated on the last passage quoted, and its points are scattered across 3.1 and 3.3.

If the show writers cared about Dany's characterization, we would see how she presents different arguments to Barristan (that she needs an army because she has been poor before) and Jorah (that buying the Unsullied is immoral) at the same time and that both counsellors influence her decision to rebel against the masters in their own ways, as I explained in the quote above.

If the show writers cared about Dany's characterization, we would get hints that she feels that it is her moral duty to stay and help the Unsullied ("Would that I could", "There are eight thousand brick eunuchs for sale, and I must find some way to buy them", etc).

If the show writers cared about Dany's characterization, we would leave this scene with the impression that she already knows what she will do by the time she decides to trade one dragon for all of the Unsullied and the untrained boys. Instead, while we know that show!Dany wants to spare innocents and only kill her enemies and their soldiers, there isn’t enough evidence hinting at her eventual rebellion against the masters. In fact, she is still asking show!Barristan what he thinks, making it seem that she is still unsure of her plan or that she is more reliant on their viewpoints than she is in the books. That's the problem of interspersing lines and plot points between episodes: this discussion could have served for episode 3.1 (in which, if they were faithful to the books, show!Dany would have still been concocting her plan), but it doesn't for episode 3.3, in which they have it happen minutes before she makes her fateful decision.

So, in this exchange, we get very, very little about what show!Dany thinks. Show!Jorah is the one in favor of buying the Unsullied, show!Barristan is the one against it. One could argue, like @rainhadaenerys​ said to me, that show!Jorah is portrayed as the devil and show!Barristan as the angel on show!Dany's shoulders, similar to how show!Davos is the angel and show!Melisandre the devil on show!Stannis's. The show's influence may explain why some people think that Barristan is the one who motivated Dany to begin her anti-slavery rebellion. The books certainly don't allow that interpretation because Dany's voice remains front and center in the discussions, but the show is dead set on erasing it.

We end the exchange with this:

BARRISTAN: When your brother Rhaegar led his army into battle at the Trident, men died for him because they believed in him, because they loved him, not because they'd been bought at a slaver's auction. I fought beside the last dragon on that day, Your Grace. I bled beside him.

JORAH: Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, and Rhaegar died.

DAENERYS: Did you know him well, Ser Barristan?

BARRISTAN: I did, Your Grace. Finest man I ever met.

DAENERYS: I wish I had known him. But he was not the last dragon.

It's not true in the books that Barristan knew Rhaegar well:

“Did you know my brother Rhaegar as well?”


“It was said that no man ever knew Prince Rhaegar, truly. I had the privilege of seeing him in tourney, though, and often heard him play his harp with its silver strings.” (ASOS Daenerys I)

I've already talked about how the show writers gave Dany's lines to show!Barristan, so I won't belabor the point. What I will say is that Benioff's emphasis on show!Dany's awareness that she is the last dragon is very questionable in its intent/framing. In and of itself, that original line is okay - women are often looked down upon if they express confidence both in Westeros and in our world, so it can be refreshing to see show!Dany claiming that Rhaegar was not the last dragon because she knows that she is. It can be refreshing to see a woman whose pride is depicted as a positive trait rather than one that propels her downfall. I'm sure that's the takeaway that what many viewers got from that scene and from show!Dany's trajectory in general in season three.

However, let's see what Benioff says about her in interviews:

Benioff: Dany is so defined by her dragons, they're so much a part at this point, they define her so much that when they're taken from her, it's almost like she reverts to the pre-dragon Daenerys, you know, everyone is a bit defined by who they were when they were an adolescent, you know, no matter how old you get, no matter how powerful you get, and Daenerys was a scared, timid, abused adolescent and I think when her dragons are taken for her, all those feelings, all those memories and emotions are triggered and come back and all the confidence that she's won over the last several months, it's as if that just evaporates and she's back to being a really frightened little girl. (D&D's Inside the Episode 2.6)

~

Benioff: Dany has her lovable side, but she is also ruthless, and she is also fiercely ambitious and, funnily, like a Littlefinger style ambition where she's trying to climb this, you know, the social ladder. It's almost like a Joan of Arc kind of ambition where she feels like she has this almost divine mission and nothing's going to prevent her from achieving it, and that might mean sacrificing those who are closest to her. (D&D's Inside the Episode 3.3)

~

Benioff: I think she becomes harder to dismiss, you know, for a long time people have been saying, even if she was alive, you know, really, the only threat she poses is her name, she's a Targaryen, great, but she's a little girl in the edge of the world, so she's starting to knock on people's doors a little bit. (D&D's Inside the Episode 3.4)

Right from the beginning, we can see that Benioff didn't really see show!Dany's pride and confidence and ambition positively. Not only does he think those aspects are dependent upon her dragons and her family name, he also thinks she has a "Littlefinger style ambition" and an "almost divine mission" that she will embark while thinking that "nothing's going to prevent her from achieving it". All of these statements mischaracterize Daenerys Targaryen, so I end up looking askance at the end of the scene for knowing that he's the one who wrote and directed it.

(Also, now that we know in hindsight that the show writers are not just going to strip show!Dany of many characteristics of her book counterpart, but also villainize her and kill her for the very confidence she is displaying here ... I can’t give them any credit.)

Dany does assert her identity and titles in a chapter that they are adapting in this episode, but the context (as usual) is entirely different:

Dany knew she would take more than a hundred, if she took any at all. “Remind your Good Master of who I am. Remind him that I am Daenerys Stormborn, Mother of Dragons, the Unburnt, trueborn queen of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. My blood is the blood of Aegon the Conqueror, and of old Valyria before him.”

Yet her words did not move the plump perfumed slaver, even when rendered in his own ugly tongue. “Old Ghis ruled an empire when the Valyrians were still fucking sheep,” he growled at the poor little scribe, “and we are the sons of the harpy.” He gave a shrug. “My tongue is wasted wagging at women. East or west, it makes no matter, they cannot decide until they have been pampered and flattered and stuffed with sweetmeats. Well, if this is my fate, so be it. Tell the whore that if she requires a guide to our sweet city, Kraznys mo Nakloz will gladly serve her ... and service her as well, if she is more woman than she looks.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

First, in this quote, we get a hint that Dany is intent on either freeing the slaves or not being complicit in their oppression ("she would take more than a hundred, if she took any at all").

Second, we see that Dany reminds Kraznys of her identity after she spent a very long time being belittled and mocked and ridiculed due to his fervent misogyny and xenophobia. Unlike show!Dany, she is bringing up her titles because she was being disrespected, not because she wants to bring them up for their own sake. In other words, the book's scene doesn't intend to frame Dany as arrogant, though it seems that the show's scene does.

*

I have thoughts about the show's change of Dany's dress, but I'll leave them to the section about her clothing.

So, to begin talking about the negotiation scene on a positive note, there are some aspects that the show remained faithful to the books to.

The first is that show!Dany is explicitly shown to be doing what she is doing because she wants to help the slaves:

It's funny to gif this scene as if show!Dany were rolling her eyes, but that's not what she is actually doing in the scene: she looks above, at the slaves, and then decides to risk one of her dragons for them. That much is unambiguously clear.

The second detail in common is this:

MISSANDEI: There are 8,000 Unsullied in Astapor. Is this what you mean by all?

DAENERYS: Yes. 8,000. And the ones still in training as well.

Show!Dany wants to free all of the slaves, so she asks for the eight thousand Unsullied and the untrained boys, just like Dany:

“Of thousands, there are eight. Is this what she means by all? There are also six centuries, who shall be part of a ninth thousand when complete. Would she have them too?”

“I would,” said Dany when the question was put to her. “The eight thousands, the six centuries ... and the ones still in training as well. The ones who have not earned the spikes.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

Unfortunately, this is all there is in terms of similarities. There are far more differences.

MISSANDEI: Master Greizhen says they cannot sell half-trained boys. If they fail on the battlefield, they will bring shame upon all of Astapor.

DAENERYS: I will have them all or take none. Many will fall in battle. I'll need the boys to pick up the swords they drop.

First of all, unlike in the show, there is a master willing to sell the untrained boys to Dany:

“We cannot sell half-trained boys,” one of the silver-fringe Grazdans was saying to the others.

“We can, if her gold is good,” said a fatter man whose fringe was gold.

“They are not Unsullied. They have not killed their sucklings. If they fail in the field, they will shame us. And even if we cut five thousand raw boys tomorrow, it would be ten years before they are fit for sale. What would we tell the next buyer who comes seeking Unsullied?”

“We will tell him that he must wait,” said the fat man. “Gold in my purse is better than gold in my future.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

Second, while Dany makes the argument that show!Dany is seen making:

“In a year I shall be in Westeros,” said Dany when she had heard the translation. “My need is now. The Unsullied are well trained, but even so, many will fall in battle. I shall need the boys as replacements to take up the swords they drop.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

They cut what Dany says right afterwards:

She put her wine aside and leaned toward the slave girl. “Tell the Good Masters that I will want even the little ones who still have their puppies. Tell them that I will pay as much for the boy they cut yesterday as for an Unsullied in a spiked helm.”

The girl told them. The answer was still no.


Dany frowned in annoyance. “Very well. Tell them I will pay double, so long as I get them all.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

Because the show writers chose to only have show!Dany say that she will “need the boys to pick up the swords they drop”, it makes it seem that her request to get them is more strategic than empathetic. It's not; as we can see above, if they had added the bolded parts above, it would have made it even clearer that she is doing what she is doing solely because of her altruism.

MISSANDEI: Master Kraznys says you cannot afford this.

KRAZNYS: Her ship will buy her 100 Unsullied, no more.

MISSANDEI: Your ship will buy you 100 Unsullied.

KRAZNYS: And this because I like the curve of her ass.

MISSANDEI: Because Master Kraznys is generous.

KRAZNYS: What is left will buy her 10.

MISSANDEI: The gold you have left is worth 10.

KRAZNYS: I will give her if it stops her ignorant whimpering.

MISSANDEI: But good Master Kraznys will give you 20.

KRAZNYS: Her Dothraki smell of shit ...

MISSANDEI: The Dothraki you have with you…

KRAZNYS: ... but may be useful as pig feed.

MISSANDEI: The Dothraki you have are not worth what they cost to feed, but Master Kraznys will give you three Unsullied for all of them.

KRAZNYS: So, ask this beggar queen, how will she pay for the remaining 7,877?

The show also decreases the value of Dany's goods a lot.

In the books, Dany is willing to sell Illyrio's three ships (rather than one):

“...But my ships you can have. The great cog Balerion and the galleys Vhagar and Meraxes.” She had warned Groleo and the other captains it might come to this, though they had protested the necessity of it furiously. “Three good ships should be worth more than a few paltry eunuchs.”

The fat Grazdan turned to the others. They conferred in low voices once again. “Two of the thousands,” the one with the spiked beard said when he turned back. “It is too much, but the Good Masters are being generous and your need is being great.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

Have in mind that 2,000 is their worth after Dany chose to pay double for the Unsullied and the untrained boys. Normally, they would be worth 4,000. But let's be generous and use 2,000 ... This means that each ship is worth around 666 Unsullied. 

And yet, in the show, her ship is worth 100 Unsullied.

In the books, this is how much Dany's gold and trading goods inside the ship are worth:

“Your men have gone through my ships and tallied every bead of amber and jar of saffron. How much do I have?”

“Sufficient to be buying one of thousands,” the Good Master said, with a contemptuous smile. “Yet you are paying double, you are saying. Five centuries, then, is all you buy.”

In the show, however, show!Dany's gold is only worth 10 Unsullied.

As for the Dothraki, before the slavers make an offer, Dany makes it clear that she will not sell them (or any of the people in her retinue, or any of their possessions):

“My crown is not for sale.” When Viserys sold their mother’s crown, the last joy had gone from him, leaving only rage. “Nor will I enslave my people, nor sell their goods and horses.[”]

Do I think leaving this part out means that show!Dany would be willing to enslave the Dothraki? Absolutely not, it wouldn't make sense with her characterization (watered down as it is). However, would it have cost much for the show writers to have her make it clear that she won't enslave them? Doesn't seem so.

Why is the decrease in the value of Dany's possessions important to have in mind? Because, in the books, it matters that she had other choices rather than the one she ultimately makes:

Two thousand would never serve for what she meant to do. I must have them all. Dany knew what she must do now, though the taste of it was so bitter that even the persimmon wine could not cleanse it from her month. She had considered long and hard and found no other way. It is my only choice. “Give me all,” she said, “and you may have a dragon.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

Dany "found no other way"? If she just wanted an army, she had plenty of other ways:

If she just wanted an army, she could have offered all the trading goods in the ships and gotten the 1000 Unsullied that Jorah advised her to get (unlike show!Jorah, Jorah explicitly recommends a specific number of soldiers - "a thousand swords")

If she just wanted an army, she wouldn’t have offered to pay double for the untrained boys.

If she just wanted an army, she could have given the trading goods and the ships and left with 2000 Unsullied.

If she just wanted an army, she wouldn’t have thought that she must have them all" and that “[i]t was [her] only choice” to offer them a dragon.

By stripping show!Dany of these options, the show writers undercut the extent of her altruism, for they erase the fact and Dany had other alternatives and still chose the moral one. In the books, it was never necessary for her to risk her dragon, but she did it anyway; in the show, 123 Unsullied was not enough to form an army, so one could, on a superficial read, argue that she's only doing what she's doing out of convenience.

Then, we get to the part in which show!Dany actually offers a dragon to the masters:

MISSANDEI: Master Kraznys asks how you propose to pay for the remaining 7,877 Unsullied.

DAENERYS: I have dragons. I'll give you one.

BARRISTAN: You will win the throne with dragons, not slaves, Your Grace.

JORAH: Khaleesi, please.

KRAZNYS: Three dragons.

DAENERYS: One.

KRAZNYS: Two.

DAENERYS: One.

MISSANDEI: They want the biggest one.

DAENERYS: Done.

KRAZNYS: Done.

Before I talk about how her advisors react, let's talk about how show!Dany's sacrifice is being undermined again: in the show, instead of being shocked that show!Dany is willing to sell even one dragon, Kraznys thinks he is entitled to ask for more of them. Let's see the masters' reactions in the books:

“Give me all,” she said, “and you may have a dragon.”

There was the sound of indrawn breath from Jhiqui beside her. Kraznys smiled at his fellows. “Did I not tell you? Anything, she would give us.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

~

“Tell them I await their answer.”

She knew the answer, though; she could see it in the glitter of their eyes and the smiles they tried so hard to hide. Astapor had thousands of eunuchs, and even more slave boys waiting to be cut, but there were only three living dragons in all the great wide world. And the Ghiscari lust for dragons. How could they not? Five times had Old Ghis contended with Valyria when the world was young, and five times gone down to bleak defeat. For the Freehold had dragons, and the Empire had none.

The oldest Grazdan stirred in his seat, and his pearls clacked together softly. “A dragon of our choice,” he said in a thin, hard voice. “The black one is largest and healthiest.”

“His name is Drogon.” She nodded.

“All your goods, save your crown and your queenly raiment, which we will allow you to keep. The three ships. And Drogon.”

“Done,” she said, in the Common Tongue.


“Done,” the old Grazdan answered in his thick Valyrian.

The others echoed that old man of the pearl fringe. “Done,” the slave girl translated, “and done, and done, eight times done.”

As we can see, the masters are shocked that Dany would think that it's reasonable to offer even a single dragon. They can't hide how eager they are to control one (especially considering their past history with Old Valyria, which is another observation showcasing Dany's intelligence that the show erased). Their only request is to choose the biggest one, not to take one or two more. What's more, having show!Dany assert that she will only give one dragon makes it seem that her selflessness only goes so far, which is not at all what the purpose of the original scene was.

Now, on to what show!Dany’s advisors think of her trading one dragon for the Unsullied ...

DAENERYS: I have dragons. I'll give you one.

BARRISTAN: You will win the throne with dragons, not slaves, Your Grace.

JORAH: Khaleesi, please.

~

JORAH: Khaleesi, a dragon is worth more than any army.

BARRISTAN: Aegon Targaryen proved that.

DAENERYS: You're both here to advise me. I value your advice, but if you ever question me in front of strangers again, you'll be advising someone else. Is that understood?

In the books, Jorah never questions Dany's decision like show!Jorah is seen doing in the scene. In fact, he is the one who takes Barristan away from the negotiation scene (likely because he wants to get back into Dany’s good grace after he forced a kiss on her and she avoided him and later (rightfully) slapped him in the face):

“Give me all,” she said, “and you may have a dragon.”

[...] Whitebeard stared in shocked disbelief. His hand trembled where it grasped the staff. “No.” He went to one knee before her. “Your Grace, I beg you, win your throne with dragons, not slaves. You must not do this thing—”

“You must not presume to instruct me. Ser Jorah, remove Whitebeard from my presence.”

Mormont seized the old man roughly by an elbow, yanked him back to his feet, and marched him out onto the terrace. (ASOS Daenerys III)

Also, as I said here, I’m pretty sure Dany shared her plan to revolt against the masters with Jorah and her bloodriders.

Another reason why it bothers me to see show!Jorah reacting so negatively to the exchange show!Dany just made is that ... What else could she have done to get the Unsullied? Obviously, 123 of them wouldn’t be enough to get an army. In the books, before they sail to Astapor, Dany questions how she is going to buy the Unsullied and Jorah shows what she can do to buy them:

“That is what you will find in Astapor, Your Grace. Put ashore there, and continue on to Pentos overland. It will take longer, yes ... but when you break bread with Magister Illyrio, you will have a thousand swords behind you, not just four.”

There is wisdom in this, yes, Dany thought, but ... “How am I to buy a thousand slave soldiers? All I have of value is the crown the Tourmaline Brotherhood gave me.”

“Dragons will be as great a wonder in Astapor as they were in Qarth. It may be that the slavers will shower you with gifts, as the Qartheen did. If not ... these ships carry more than your Dothraki and their horses. They took on trade goods at Qarth, I’ve been through the holds and seen for myself. Bolts of silk and bales of tiger skin, amber and jade carvings, saffron, myrrh ... slaves are cheap, Your Grace. Tiger skins are costly.” (ASOS Daenerys I)

As we can see, Jorah is able to roughly estimate that Illyrio's trade goods will guarantee one thousand soldiers for Dany because "slaves are cheap". In the show, he either made a wrong calculation or neither him nor show!Dany thought of making one in the first place, which dumbs both of them down.

Now, I have a guess as to why show!Jorah is made to disagree with show!Dany's decision - that's, again, because Benioff empathizes with him over Dany. I've already showed above and in episode 3.1 how show!Jorah's viewpoint is consistently prioritized over show!Dany's or show!Barristan's and how he even receives new arguments that make him seem "realist". We should also have Benioff's statements in this interview in mind:

“It’s a hallmark of a number of scenes in [A Storm of Swords] where, in retrospect, I should have seen it coming because George laid out all the pieces, he had given you all the clues,” Benioff said. “The best kind of surprises aren’t the ones that come out of nowhere. The best ones are where after you see it you’re asking yourself, ‘Why didn’t I see that was coming?’ I remember reading [Dany planning to give up Drogon to the slaver] and thinking, ‘Oh, this is kind of disappointing.’ When the real plan was revealed I think I even called [Weiss]. This was before we had met with George, when we were still trying to figure out if this show was possible. The culmination of that scene was one of those moments when we were like, ‘We got to make this f–king show.’ It was very gratifying seeing that wish fulfilled … I think it will be one of the most staggering things ever put on television.” (x)

To be fair to him, at least he acknowledges that GRRM left many clues that that was going to happen (though he didn't add them in the show). But my point is that he was disappointed at Dany when he thought she was giving Drogon up. Since show!Jorah's perspective has been prioritized over the other characters' to the point of the audience being made to empathize and experience the events with him rather than with Dany, it only makes sense that he has the same feelings that Benioff did when he first read the book.

Another thing I want to mention is how Benioff is motivated by the spectacle rather than how the culmination is tied to Dany's characterization. This is partly why, I suspect, so many of Dany's words and thoughts were erased - he prioritized the viewer's shock rather than allowing the viewer to see where she is coming from. (That's similar to the buildup - or lack thereof - to Littlefinger's trial in season seven, when we ended up seeing the events from his perspective rather than the Starks' because they would rather shock us than make us empathize with the actual leads)

As for show!Barristan, some of his book counterpart's arguments are kept in the show - namely, that Dany should win the throne with dragons rather than slaves and that Aegon proved that a dragon is worth more than an army in the Field of Fire. Even so, Barristan's moral outrage has been erased, as I already showed with the book evidence quoted above (here are some examples). 

And then there’s show!Dany’s reaction to their dissent:

DAENERYS: You're both here to advise me. I value your advice, but if you ever question me in front of strangers again, you'll be advising someone else. Is that understood?

Look, I have no problem with this scene in and of itself. Show!Dany makes it clear that she’s willing to listen to them, but that her authority can’t be undermined in front of other people (even more so when these people are already prone to underestimate her).

However, some crucial details are missing in this scene compared to the books:

Arstan Whitebeard held his tongue as well, when Dany swept by him on the terrace. He followed her down the steps in silence, but she could hear his hardwood staff tap tapping on the red bricks as they went. She did not blame him for his fury. It was a wretched thing she did. The Mother of Dragons has sold her strongest child. Even the thought made her ill.

Yet down in the Plaza of Pride, standing on the hot red bricks between the slavers’ pyramid and the barracks of the eunuchs, Dany turned on the old man. “Whitebeard,” she said, “I want your counsel, and you should never fear to speak your mind with
me ... when we are alone. But never question me in front of strangers. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Your Grace,” he said unhappily.


“I am not a child,” she told him. “I am a queen.”

“Yet even queens can err. The Astapori have cheated you, Your Grace. A dragon is worth more than any army. Aegon proved that three hundred years ago, upon the Field of Fire.”

“I know what Aegon proved. I mean to prove a few things of my own.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

Unlike in the show, Dany is shown empathizing with Barristan ("She did not blame him for his fury. It was a wretched thing she did."). She doesn’t want to be complicit in the slave trade, and she certainly doesn’t want to sell one of her children, but it’s still the moral duty of a queen as she sees it.

Unlike in the show, Dany is the one who takes the initiative to make it clear to Barristan that she wants his honest advice, just not in public. Unlike in the show, she never threatens to send him away.

They also cut the part in which Dany says that she knows what Aegon proved and that she means to prove a few things of her own, another hint that she will forsake the deal because it should have never been acknowledged as one to begin with.

Before I talk about show!Dany's first one-on-one interaction with show!Missandei, I have to comment on this part:

DAENERYS: I'll take you as well, now. You'll be Master Kraznys' gift to me. A token of a bargain well struck.

MISSANDEI: She asks that you give me to her, as a present. She asks that you do this now.

In the books, Kraznys voluntarily gives Missandei to Dany:

“The Unsullied will learn your savage tongue quick enough,” added Kraznys mo Nakloz, when all the arrangements had been made, “but until such time you will need a slave to speak to them. Take this one as our gift to you, a token of a bargain well struck.”

“I shall,” said Dany.

The slave girl rendered his words to her, and hers to him. If she had feelings about being given for a token, she took care not to let them show. (ASOS Daenerys III)

Now, does this change mean that show!Dany sees show!Missandei as an object to be sold? No. For one, as Emilia Clarke says:

Clarke: Dany sees a lot of herself in her and can kind of see that it's a young girl who's capable of much more than the position she's in. 

If show!Dany is able to empathize with show!Missandei on that level, it's much more likely that show!Dany asked to have show!Missandei so that she could free her from Kraznys (who is unabashedly cruel and misogynist). That being said, it is still an unnecessary deviation that can lead to pointless misunderstanding from the viewers.

While show!Dany and show!Missandei discuss some of the same issues that Dany and Missandei do in the books, their first one-on-one meeting is very condensed and altered in several key ways.

DAENERYS: Do you have a name?

MISSANDEI: This one's name is Missandei, Your Grace.

DAENERYS: Do you have a family? A mother and a father you'd return to if you had the choice?

MISSANDEI: No, Your Grace. No family living.

DAENERYS: You belong to me now. It is your duty to tell me the truth.

MISSANDEI: Yes, Your Grace. Lying is a great offense. Many of those on the Walk of Punishment were taken there for less.

Show!Dany begins asking if show!Missandei had a family that she would like to return to, which implies that show!Dany would let her go if show!Missandei had one (again, this is another moment challenging the idea that show!Dany only saw show!Missandei as an object). Show!Missandei replies that she doesn’t, however. This leads show!Dany to remind her that she needs to tell her the truth, which doesn’t make sense. Why would show!Missandei lie about it? Especially since, in the books, Dany doesn’t outright say that “it is your duty to tell me the truth”, merely that “you serve me now” when she wants to confirm with Missandei information that she got from Kraznys about the Unsullied:

“Are these Unsullied truly fearless?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“You serve me now. Is it true they feel no pain?”

“The wine of courage kills such feelings. By the time they slay their sucklings, they have been drinking it for years.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

Dany is not reminding Missandei of the need to tell her the truth because she is mistrusting Missandei right off the bat like show!Dany seems to be doing with show!Missandei, she is asking that question because confirming these details will be crucial if she means to turn the Unsullied to her side when she risks both her life and those of her retinue to free them. But the show beats on that dead horse and even has Missandei answer that she wouldn’t lie because to do so would lead her to the Walk of Punishment. It decontextualizes why Dany reminded Missandei of the need to tell her the truth in the books.

Missandei is treated differently by Dany in the two mediums in other ways. In the book, Dany is shown onpage freeing her right away and names her one of her handmaids in case she decides to stay with her:

“Missandei is no longer a slave. I free you, from this instant. Come ride with me in the litter, I wish to talk.” Rakharo helped them in, and Dany drew the curtains shut against the dust and heat. “If you stay with me you will serve as one of my handmaids,” she said as they set off. “I shall keep you by my side to speak for me as you spoke for Kraznys. But you may leave my service whenever you choose, if you have father or mother you would sooner return to.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

In the show, they have show!Dany say that show!Missandei can’t lie because “you belong to me now”, which makes it seem like a master talking to a slave. However, we know that show!Dany frees show!Missandei at some point as well (the latter says so in season seven), the show writers just didn't bother to show it onscreen because, as this meta is hopefully showing, they don't care about Dany's characterization. In any case, show!Dany doing anything but that wouldn’t make sense neither with how she reacts to the Unsullied’s plight nor with Emilia Clarke’s interview. If they had followed the book’s exchange more closely rather than invented new dialogue, there wouldn't have been any confusions.

They have show!Dany confirm with show!Missandei the information she got from Kraznys about the Unsullied:

DAENERYS: Is it true what Master Kraznys told me about the Unsullied? About their obedience?

MISSANDEI: All questions have been taken from them. They obey, that is all. Once they are yours, they are yours. They will fall on their swords if you command it.

However, they forgot to include the most relevant part of exchange, plot-wise: Dany asking Missandei if the Unsullied could be used against her if Dany were to resell them.

“If I did resell them, how would I know they could not be used against me?” Dany asked pointedly. “Would they do that? Fight against me, even do me harm?”

“If their master commanded. They do not question, Your Grace. All the questions have been culled from them. They obey.” She looked troubled. “When you are ... when you are done with them ... your Grace might command them to fall upon their swords.”

“And even that, they would do?”


“Yes.” Missandei’s voice had grown soft. “Your Grace.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

Dany is making this hypothetical question because she wants to know if there’s any way that the Unsullied can be turned against their previous owner, which is what she intends to do in order to rebel against the masters and free the soldiers.

Then show!Dany reminds show!Missandei that, by following her, she might be vulnerable to many possible misfortunes:

DAENERYS: And what about you? You know that I'm taking you to war. You may go hungry. You may fall sick. You may be killed.

This does happen in the books, but the context is different.

“Missandei is no longer a slave. I free you, from this instant. Come ride with me in the litter, I wish to talk.” Rakharo helped them in, and Dany drew the curtains shut against the dust and heat. “If you stay with me you will serve as one of my handmaids,” she said as they set off. “I shall keep you by my side to speak for me as you spoke for Kraznys. But you may leave my service whenever you choose, if you have father or mother you would sooner return to.”

“This one will stay,” the girl said. “This one ... I ... there is no place for me to go. This ... I will serve you, gladly.”

“I can give you freedom, but not safety,” Dany warned. “I have a world to cross and wars to fight. You may go hungry. You may grow sick. You may be killed.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

In the books, as I said, Dany frees Missandei right away, says she might leave her service when she wants to and then warns her of the harsh conditions she will face if she remains with Dany.

In the series, show!Dany reminds show!Missandei of the obstacles she will have to face if she remains with her primarily because she wants to know if show!Missandei is as obedient as the Unsullied, not because she is primarily concerned about show!Missandei’s safety and free will. Again, I don’t mean to be critical of show!Dany here - I do think she had show!Missandei’s best intentions in mind (and that she freed her afterwards offscreen). I’m only saying that the writers could have conveyed that in a more unequivocal way ... like how the books did, y'know.

Like in the books, show!Missandei also says valar morghulis when show!Dany warns her of the dangers of staying with her, but her answer is different from Dany's:

DAENERYS: Yes, all men must die. But we are not men.

~

“All men must die,” Dany agreed, “but not for a long while, we may pray.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

I don't think this is the worst line ever made for show!Dany, but I definitely prefer the book one and it's sad to revisit that quote now that we know that both show!Dany and show!Missandei will be dead by the end of the series.

Show!Missandei also seems to become fond of show!Dany way too quickly. That line “but we are not men” seems to have the intent to build a feeling of solidarity between these two women (and this is corroborated, again, by Emilia’s interview quoted above); indeed, in the next episode, show!Missandei will give Kraznys a smirk when show!Dany admits that she was fooling him all along. In the books, however, not only we never see Missandei’s reaction to Dany’s rebellion, but her feelings about being given away to Dany seem much more complicated - understandably so.

“I shall keep you by my side to speak for me as you spoke for Kraznys. But you may leave my service whenever you choose, if you have father or mother you would sooner return to.”

“This one will stay,” the girl said. “This one ... I ... there is no place for me to go. This ... I will serve you, gladly.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

~

She looked troubled. “When you are ... when you are done with them ... your Grace might command them to fall upon their swords.”

“And even that, they would do?”


“Yes.” Missandei’s voice had grown soft. “Your Grace.”

Dany squeezed her hand. “You would sooner I did not ask it of them, though. Why is that? Why do you care?”

“This one does not ... I ... Your Grace ... ”


“Tell me.”


The girl lowered her eyes. “Three of them were my brothers once, Your Grace.”

Then I hope your brothers are as brave and clever as you. (ASOS Daenerys III)

Even if Dany has noble intentions and frees her right away, where would she go? What would she do? How would she survive? Does she have a better option? These are questions that Dany will only directly confront in the next chapter, when plenty of Astapori freedmen will choose to follow her instead of staying in the city. In Missandei’s case, she seems more resigned than anything else in the books.

Also, even if Dany freed Missandei, it doesn't prevent the latter from looking "troubled" and seriously consider the possibility that Dany may order all the Unsullied to kill themselves. Her former master had no problem humiliating and torturing her, why would Dany be any different?

The show could have acknowledged these complications, but it didn’t - that’s why it sucks so much: it pretends to be telling a morally complex tale (see Benioff saying how hard it is for Dany to choose between violence/"realism" and idealism) while it actually undermines the anti-slavery viewpoints (especially Dany’s) and oversimplifies the (positive and negative) ramifications of Dany’s crusade. If it actually intended to be a morally complex tale like it pretends to be, we would see the Astapori refugees in the show. Instead, they would rather overfocus on how show!Dany is becoming “more violent” as her crusade continues (see this).

My comments on the Inside the Episode 3.3

Benioff: Dany has her lovable side, but she is also ruthless, and she is also fiercely ambitious and, funnily, like a Littlefinger style ambition where she's trying to climb this, you know, the social ladder. It's almost like a Joan of Arc kind of ambition where she feels like she has this almost divine mission and nothing's going to prevent her from achieving it, and that might mean sacrificing those who are closest to her.

Weiss: Giving away one of the dragons seems like a completely insane thing to do, especially the biggest one. I mean, we know that, historically, the biggest dragons were bigger than school buses and they were weapons of mass destruction and able to lay cities to waste in minutes, and no matter how big or effective your army of 8,000 soldiers is, taking even a small city is going to be a kind of a dangerous prospect for them, and the idea that she's going to give away what they see is her real future for a chance at a small army now seems insane to them.

Benioff: As @rainhadaenerys​ already said in her tags here, Benioff's comments make it seem like Dany's "lovable side" is secondary to her ruthlessness or her ambition or her "almost divine mission". Check out my list of passages showcasing Dany's moments of empathy and compassion VS in which ways the prophecies drive Dany's story (and also this meta) VS the moments in which Dany uses/considers using violence. The former obviously outweighs the latter two. I also recommend reading this meta debunking claims that Dany is "entitled" or "arrogant", for these false accusations are related to the mischaracterization of Dany as someone who is "fiercely ambitious" (that's because they are all tied to her heritage and her goal to take back the Seven Kingdoms). Finally, I don't know why the heck Benioff is saying that she might sacrifice "those who are closest to her". Time and again we see that she is not willing to sacrifice people for her personal goals - she won't sell anyone from her retinue or any of their belongings nor will she leave the slaves behind at the mercy of the masters. Her risking one dragon is an action that's supposed to highlight how far she is willing to go to "protect the ones who can't protect themselves". Why doesn't he ever bother to talk about her selflessness? Why is it always about her ambition or a "divine mission" that is nowhere to be found in Dany's consciousness in the books? 

Weiss: It's annoying that he's talking about show!Jorah as if he were against show!Dany's decision to trade a dragon for the Unsulllied (which he never was in the books), but I've already written about that extensively in this post. His description of the dragons as being "able to lay cities to waste in minutes" is questionable, as well as his description of 8,000 men as "a small army".

Show!Dany's clothes

This episode adapts events from ASOS Daenerys II (which has no description of her clothes) and ASOS Daenerys III, in which we see her wearing this dress for the negotiation scene:

She had chosen a Qartheen gown today. The deep violet silk brought out the purple of her eyes. The cut of it bared her left breast. While the Good Masters of Astapor conferred among themselves in low voices, Dany sipped tart persimmon wine from a tall silver flute. She could not quite make out all that they were saying, but she could hear the greed. (ASOS Daenerys III)

This scene exhibits Dany's political skills - by using a dress that calls attention to her body and arouses the masters, she disarms them and potentially makes them more amenable to her offers.

I also think it's significant that the dress is Qartheen, for their culture (as seen through Dany's eyes) is marked by flattery and adulation and politeness and dishonesty.

In the show, however, show!Dany is still using the blue dress:

Unlike in episode 3.1 (which adapted a scene in the docks in which she was using Dothraki clothing), now I can't say that the dress is spiritually faithful to the one from the books. It's another opportunity that they missed to highlight aspects of Dany's characterization that tend to be overlooked (in this case, her intelligence).

There is a 2012 interview in which Emilia Clarke addresses the matter of the Qartheen fashion:

FaB: Some fans were irked at the news that the Qartheen fashion of leaving one breast exposed was not being adhered to, as it was in the books. And speaking as a heterosexual male, I suppose that’s a shame… yet I also think, visually, it would have been extremely distracting to the eye. Was this ever discussed?

EC: This was indeed discussed! I remember when I was filming in Croatia seeing a copy of book 2, and the front cover picture was of Dany in the ‘traditional Qartheen fashion’ and you could say that I was rather taken aback. There are lots of things to bear in mind when adapting a book for the screen, and yes we all agreed that if this was kept as a visual reference, it would take away from the drama and integrity of Dany’s storyline as she grows into such a strong Khalessi.

Emilia's thoughts must be respected, especially considering what she's been through on set. Also, have in mind that I'm a gay man speaking about the issue of female nudity in media, so I don't have the full awareness to discuss it like women do because I'm not a victim of the male gaze. If I'm being callous, please let me know.

With this caveat in mind, I don't think having show!Dany wear a Qartheen dress in this scene would "take away from the drama and integrity of Dany's storyline". In fact, it would have been an example of nudity being used to display Dany's shrewdness rather than to sexualize her. It would have been an example of her nakedness being normalized rather than fetishized (like it will be in episode 3.7, when she stands up naked to show!Daario just ... because).

[jesterkoops]

That Emmy shit-storm on the horizon

While I’m overjoyed with the Emmy nominations for acting, directing (for Nutter and Sapo, not the other one), Ramin and Nina (because they all deserved it), we now have to brace ourselves for the gaslighting over the writing, and all the fandom drama that comes with it (like we haven’t suffered enough this year as it is). And I’m already exhausted, so here’s my take on it.

Whether you like it or not, actors have to be professional. I think it’s ridiculous of fans to expect actors to go to official events or give official interviews for nominations and say “yeah, the writing was shit and we never should have been nominated for this season”. I am not famous nor work in the entertainment industry but, sadly, that’s what “professionalism” is considered to be, even in my line of work: if anything happens in the university/department that might attract media attention, we get emails saying not to talk to the press unless we are “briefed” on how to handle it and cleared to go. And as much as I might be fed up with several aspects of my job or working for my boss, if I knew I was giving a public interview about it, I’d be incredibly uncomfortable saying that out loud, while having no problem ranting about it in private every. single. day. It sucks, that you have to be (to varying degrees) dishonest in order to be considered professional, but that’s where we are at. And, look, maybe some of them even genuinely believe the writing to be great. While it’s disappointing to hear that coming from the mouth of someone you admire, - and I personally lose respect for anyone who tries to genuinely defend this season as well written (because it defies any logic or intellect) - they are free to express that opinion, just as we are free to criticise them, lose interest in them, mute them, unfollow them and so on.

However, whether you like it or not, people can be critical of anyone involved in production and people who are hell bent on defending these statements should understand that dismissing criticism the way they’re doing (i.e. “people are just upset it’s over/they didn’t get what they wanted”) doesn’t win cast and crew any favours, if anything, it’s just going to alienate everyone even more than the plot already has. This behaviour is the equivalent of a student given a fail by all the examiners but being awarded a degree nonetheless, and dismissing the fails as “wrong” because obviously you cannot get a degree if you fail, so those who gave the student a fail didn’t know what they were talking about. While many who criticised the show have provided lengthy and thorough analyses and explanations as to why they feel that way, nobody who’s defended it has provided anywhere near the level of detail to justify their opinion. At most, it amounts to “take my word for it, D&D really cared about the story” or “it wouldn’t be this popular if the writing were bad”. To use the student analogy again, it’s like the examiners providing pages of pages of feedback to justify their grades, while the student goes “nah! in my opinion I worked hard and I deserve the degree, so I’ll take it anyway!”. This is as close to gaslighting as it comes, and nobody likes to be gaslighted.

It’s also hypocritical. When audiences praise a show and make it big, you never hear anyone involved in production saying that it’s blown out of proportion, or silly, or they’re just being emotional and irrational. However, the moment the audience turns against the show, suddenly they are being irrational and are just upset because the did not get what they wanted/expected (and, no, that is not necessarily a dirty word - if a work of fiction is built upon setting certain expectations, especially in terms of quality of the writing), and can’t really recognise good writing. So if we can’t recognise good writing, what does that say of the hype when the show was considered “good” by the majority? You can’t have your cake and eat it too. 

While taking it out on the actors for the writing, or escalating things to death threats and personal insults isn’t civil, it’s also silly to ask fans, who are, for the most part, average people, with average jobs, who sometimes find their only escape and pleasure in fiction (and who had to pay HBO subscriptions for years to watch this show), to feel sorry for two millionaires, who were in the extremely privileged position of working on the biggest show on tv (and who, unlike the average worker, won’t get fired or won’t see their money taken away from them, no matter how poorly they perform), for being criticised when they blatantly rushed and half-assed their job because they were bored. They “worked hard”? Well, so what? Plenty of people “work hard” in the world and aren’t shielded from criticism just because they do, if the final product isn’t up to standards. People aren’t “being mean” to D&D (or the actors defending them) because they want to be mean. They are being mean because they feel toyed with, conned, and their intelligence insulted when they’re being told that all the stuff they paid attention to and that the show built its entire reputation on actually didn’t mean shit in the end. It’s like asking someone who hired a construction company to build them a house and waited 8 years for it to be finished not to be pissed off when the roof ends up being built out of straw and has holes in it. 

Furthermore, Game of Thrones did not become big because of D&D’s genius: they didn’t invent it. They took GRRM’s work and adapted it to the screen, which makes the job much much much easier than creating something from scratch. On top of that, most of the praise the show has received was over the first 3-4 seasons of the show, when the show was still, by and large, more or less sticking to the books. The ratings kept growing not because the writing was so amazing in later seasons, but because, in the era of binge-watching, more and more people catch on later onto those first seasons and want to see how it ends. It’s TV 101: ratings in later seasons are a result of the quality of the previous seasons, because people cannot know in advance what they’re going to be watching. It’s the reason early seasons of any shows have lower ratings, despite often being better quality, while rating decline after the quality has already begun to decline. 

They also lucked out not only in having wonderful source material ready for them to use, but in having an HBO budget and flexibility to do whatever they wanted, an amazing casting director who picked an incredibly talented cast, and in being surrounded by talented writers, directors, composers and so on. They suffer from the exact same kind of misplaced egomania Chris Carter suffered from on The X-Files, where he thinks he’s some kind of genius for making what, at the time, was the biggest show on TV. In that case, at least Chris Carter can be praised for having created the characters and that world, but the situation is very similar. He’s a mediocre writer who lucked out by having all the pieces fall into place around him (actors, writers, directors), and his total failure at doing anything else afterwards (other than running TXF further into the ground with his revivals) is where D&D will likely be in a few years.

The reason all this “damage control” is making things even worse than they already were is because it gives the impression that that the bottom line in this is that the audience’s reaction to a work of fiction only counts as far as it’s positive and makes the production big and rich, and when it’s negative it has to be dissected for “wrongs” and dismissed as irrational or exaggerated, while showrunners are owed praise no matter what they do, by being boosted (and made rich) by feverish hype, but shielded by equally feverish criticism.