#like bringing up the Andals or the First Men in contrast to the Targaryens

[problemswithbooks]

Not going to lie it's a little weird to see people who are huge fans of the Targaryens try and down play the bad stuff they did.

Like when they say they didn't colonize Westeros they just conquered it. As if that's any better.

By definition, no the Targaryens didn't colonize Westeros, but that's less because they were so much better than the First Men or Andals and more because they simply couldn't. The Valyrians did colonize the places they conquered in Essos, but by the time Aegon crowned himself King of Westeros all but his family remained of the pure blooded Valyrians.

They couldn't colonize in the traditional sense of the word because there were only a handful of them left--not a large scale population that could come and take over all the lands and Houses of Westeros.

But that doesn't mean conquest is better. It's still subjugating and controlling people with military force.

It's also weird when they argue that Westeros did better under the Targaryens so actually the conquest was good. Did Westeros have some really despicable policies or constant fighting, sure, but a country--or a batch of countries, having bad morals or infighting doesn't give someone else the right to take them over and instill themselves as King. That is the kind of excuse the US uses all the time and every thinks that's pretty shit.

But the prophecy? What about that?

Well, it's honestly kind of stupid, or in the very least makes Aegon and any of his family that heard it look stupid. If he legitimately had a dream of the world ending unless one of his family had their ass on a united Westeros throne it was brain-dead not to flaunt that like no tomorrow. In world where there's magic and dragons, where the Targaryens already saved themselves from the Doom of Valyria a hundred years prior there would be no reason for Westeros to believe it.

I'm sure some of the Lords would have still resisted regardless, but it still would have made it much easier for the Targaryens over all to rule if the entire country was under the impression they needed to be in charge to save the world. Heck, it also might have put a damper on some of the later infighting like the Dance if everyone had known. Could it have caused some problems, sure, but concealing from everyone but the heir is dimwitted simply because they could easily be killed off before passing it on.

But even if Aegon thought he needed to be King of Westeros to save the world that doesn't mean his conquest was good. If that was the case the Andals taking over Westeros from the First Men was justified to because they believed it was their promised land. Or were desperate to escape slavery under the Valyrians. But of course neither of those is a good excuse to subjugate an entire continent.

Another talking point is to point out that the real colonizers are the First Men and Andals not the Targaryens. As I said before that doesn't quite hold up because it's very likely given how they took over Essos that had more than a handful of Valyrians survived the doom they would have colonized Westeros or at least continued to colonize Essos.

On top of that the First Men colonized Westeros somewhere between 8,000 to 12,000 years ago, and eventually made peace with the Children of the Forest, worshiping their Gods, learning from them and all of them coming together to build the Wall. The Andals came to Westeros, at the earliest 2,000 years ago and colonized both the First Men and the Children of the Forest.

Meanwhile, by the time of Aegon's conquest of Westeros the Valyrians had only been gone a hundred years. Aegon was far more closely related to colonizers then the ancestors of the First Men and Andals that lived in Westeros when he conquered it. So to act as if it's only the Westerosi that have the blood of colonizers in their veins just isn't true. The Targaryens do to and it's much more recent.

And this isn't me saying the Targaryens are evil. The First Men and the Andals have some really awful stuff in their history, and even during the main books do some horrendous stuff. No one in this book series or the TV shows it's based on are entirely clean of fault or even unforgivable stuff like genocide, slavery or colonization.

My point isn't that the Targs are so much worse then the rest of the Houses in Westeros. Just like every other House they have good and bad members. And even the good ones have done terrible things while the worst of the worst sometimes do very very heroic things.

I don't like the argument that simply by being a Targaryen a character is bad or doomed or should fail. But that doesn't mean pretending the House is actually perfect and if they did something bad, like conquering a country and subjugating it's people under a Ruler they didn't want it's fine, plus those people actually deserved it because 2,000 years ago they did evil stuff themselves.

[joannalannister]

Lady Joanna, may I please ask if you have any thoughts on Loren the Last and any other past Monarchs of the Westerlands? (I ask this having already commissioned and posted an illustration of King Loren on deviantArt, but genuinely wondered if you had ideas for any of his predecessors and thought one might as well include the first "modern" Lord of the Rock).

OooOOoooo omg this is you? I saw it this morning on DA, It’s gorgeous! Do you plan to post it on tumblr? I would love to reblog it from you, along with the other ones!

My main interest in the Lannister kings is that GRRM uses them to continue to explore themes present in the main series. For example, the relationship between the body and the self (or identity), and #body as battleground, is something that goes all the way back to Lann the Clever, who supposedly “sired a hundred bold sons and a hundred lissome daughters, all fair of face, clean of limb, and blessed with hair ‘as golden as the sun.’” 

GRRM/Yandel establishes ~The Lannister Identity~ as people who are beautiful, able-bodied (“clean of limb”), and golden-haired … people who are gender-conforming ie men who are “bold” and Masculine to the point of Toxicity, and women who are thin and gentle and graceful (“lissome”) … 

When the text says this, we’re supposed to say, “Wait. That’s bullshit.” (So much of Yandel’s writing is Bullshit.) Because characters like Genna immediately spring to mind. Genna who is fat and so much bolder than her timid husband. Genna “Get the Trebuchet” Lannister who is anything but gentle. Or Tyrion, who is disabled and who has white hair instead of gold and who in his own words would rather die in bed than in battle. (This is why Tyrion is Not A Targaryen; Tyrion is the linchpin of GRRM’s deconstruction of ~The Lannister Identity~.) 

And so, continuing this deconstruction in TWOIAF, just a few paragraphs after the “bold sons” passage, we get Loreon V, who “was dubbed Queen Lorea, for he was fond of dressing in his wife’s clothing and wandering the docks of Lannisport in the guise of a common prostitute.” I don’t know if Loreon would have considered themself trans or genderfluid or what, but Loreon undercuts the Bold, Masculine image that House Lannister would like to present to the world. And the fact that Loreon would rather be perceived as a common prostitute than a king … that’s a profound rejection of Lannister classism and elitism imo. I love how GRRM builds House Lannister up so that he can tear down its most vile aspects. 

The other ASOIAF theme that crops up here that I’m interested in is the duality of man. It’s not something readily apparent in the individual Lannister kings mentioned in TWOIAF, because we usually only get a sentence or two describing them, but it’s the way that GRRM writes it. In one sentence, Yandel praises the Lannister kings for their wisdom and their valor, only to follow it with this sentence: “Yet Casterly Rock also housed many a weak, cruel, and feeble king.” 

And my favorite example of this in TWOIAF is Tyrion II versus Tyrion III. Tyrion II was known as the Tormentor who delighted in making women bleed, while Tyrion III was a great conciliator, bringing the Andals and the First Men of the Westerlands together through marriages. We know from GRRM that Tywin named Tyrion, and I feel 100% certain that Tywin named Tyrion for Tyrion II the Tormentor, but I like to think GRRM named Tyrion for both. Or rather, GRRM created both of these Tyrions for the World Book, so that Tyrion Son of Tywin could be named for both of them to fill in that backstory. Tyrion has done some horrible things, but I believe he’s also capable of doing great things. (Such great things.) 

The heroes will always be remembered. The best.““The best and the worst. […] And a few who were a bit of both. 

And so we come to Loren the Last. 

Do you know who I think of when I think of Loren? I think of Lancel, Kevan’s son. 

When Tyrion was recounting the tale of the Field of Fire in AGOT, he says, “King Loren had escaped, and lived long enough to surrender, pledge his fealty to the Targaryens, and beget a son, for which Tyrion was duly grateful.” 

Now – this is just my impression!! maybe I’m wrong!! – my impression here has always been that Loren was a young man when he set foot on the Field of Fire – young enough that he hadn’t yet fathered any sons before his surrender. 

So imagine, if you will, a young Loren, not long a king, “cursed with all the certainty of youth, unleavened by any trace of humor or self-doubt, and wed to the arrogance that came so naturally to those born blond and strong and handsome. His recent elevation [to the throne of the Rock] had only made him worse.” 

The Gardener king needed the Lannister armies more than the Lannister armies needed him imo. Highgarden would have fallen easily to the dragons, but Casterly Rock? Never. So what madness possessed King Loren to leave the safety of the Rock and voluntarily meet the Targaryens and their dragons in the field? I believe Loren was “too young, too bold, too eager for glory” (like a lot of other Lannister boys). 

Loren must have thought he couldn’t lose. And for a few golden moments, it was high summer for House Lannister.

The hosts met on the broad plains of the Reach, amidst golden fields of wheat ripe for harvest. When the Two Kings charged, the Targaryen army shivered and shattered and began to run. For a few moments, the chroniclers wrote, the conquest was at an end … but only for those few moments, before Aegon Targaryen and his sisters joined the battle.

But it is high summer for House Lannister. So why am I so bloody cold?      –Tyrion, ASOS

(There are so many parallels between ASOIAF history and the main sequence of events, I love it. Whether it’s the Conquest or the War of the Five Kings or the War for the Dawn, the Lannisters can’t stand against the fire, and they shouldn’t try.) 

Oh, how he must have regretted his folly. 

Loren Lannister […] knelt as a king and rose as a lord.

The sense of loss here – of failure – to have a major part of your identity stripped from you and to be branded with that shameful sobriquet, “the Last,” a title that calls to mind Jon Connington’s words to Tyrion as “the last and least of our company”.

This newly minted king, who reigned so briefly, only to lose everything because of his pride. 

Imagine walking off that field, the sickly sweet smell of charred flesh all around you. 

Imagine the horror of it:

Ravens soared through a grey sky on wide black wings, while carrion crows rose from their feasts in furious clouds wherever he set his steps. […] From the pyres of the dead rose black columns of smoke and white-hot ashes. My work, thought […] Lannister. They died at my command. […]

So many dead, so very many. Their corpses hung limply, […] unrecognizable, hardly human. Why did I kill them all? He had known once, but somehow he had forgotten.

What madness possessed Loren to leave the safety of the Rock and meet the dragons in the field? “He had known once, but somehow he had forgotten.”

Perhaps Loren stepped onto the Field of Fire as a young man, but I believe he left it an old one. 

“Near four thousand men had burned that day, among them King Mern of the Reach.” 

Imagine turning your horse for home with that many ghosts. 

Imagine Loren’s once-mighty army, now greatly diminished, marching back up the Ocean Road. In every village, every town, every holdfast they pass by … imagine the accusing eyes of all the women of the west, the highborn and the low, the widows and orphans and now-childless mothers. 

Imagine how many of Loren’s friends died on the Field of Fire. The male half of Loren’s court must have been decimated, and the female half might have taught Barbrey Dustin a thing or two about hate. 

And after the dust settles…

How crushing must it have been to be the last and least of thousands of years of Lannister kings?  The last and least of such a proud lineage? 

Imagine walking through Casterly Rock, the seat of Lannister kings, the Rock itself like a throne at the edge of the Sunset Sea. And in every hall, every gallery remain the trappings of a lost monarchy, a constant reminder, as if Loren could ever forget. 

“Loren […] lived long enough to […] beget a son”

Again, this is just my headcanon, but I imagine Loren died young, with only the one son to his name. 

(We don’t know Torrhen Stark’s age AFAIK, but in contrast to young King Loren, I imagine Torrhen was an older man. He was certainly a wiser one.) 

idk, Loren hits all of my Lannister feelings. The Romanticism-capital-R, the tragedy, the hubris, the trainwreck of it all. 

And this is, like, probably totally irrelevant to everyone but me, but this:

Loren Lannister […] knelt 

makes me also think of this: 

Yet Grand Maester Pycelle tells us that when Aerys II announced Ser Jaime’s appointment from the Iron Throne, his lordship went to one knee and thanked the king for the great honor shown to his house. Then, pleading illness, Lord Tywin asked the king’s leave to retire as Hand.

The loss, the tragedy, the failure to protect the people we love … it kills me every time. Every time. 

(I paralleled Tywin and Loren in my fanfic, they give me Emotions.) 

Also Loren and I share the same name, his is just the male spelling :) Since you asked for my thoughts and that is definitely something I think about :)

Also also, I would be remiss if I did not mention @racefortheironthrone’s essays on the politics of the Westerlands, which analyze the policies of Lannister monarchs in detail

Part I

Part II

Part III

***

I don’t know if this satisfies your curiosity? Whenever people ask vaguely for my thoughts on a broad subject, I’m like, “But which thoughts? Headcanons I made up? Close examinations of the text? Both? Character-driven or thematic? An ASOIAF-only approach or in the context of the larger fantasy genre?” and then I just spray unfocused thoughts all over the place, if I answer broad questions at all. 

Anyways, this is far too long already, so I hope that satisfies! 

[humblemagic]

a meeting of equals

She had not wanted to come South, to risk enduring more abuses at the whim of another Southron ruler. Since Joffrey had proved himself a monster, she had only ever wanted to go home and remain within the walls of Winterfell. But Jon speaks truth as if everyone surrounding him does the same. He is transparent and unaccustomed to the life at court, and Sansa has been told that the dragon queen is even more beautiful than Cersei.

She arrives at Dragonstone with only her sworn shield and Brienne’s squire, Podrick, despite Jon’s protestations. She is greeted by Missandei, the queen’s most trusted advisor, and her former husband. A smile lightens her grim expression at the sight of him. Tyrion was always kind to her. She feels safer with him here.

“What can one sword do against the Mother of Dragons?” Sansa asks when Missandei bids them to relinquish their weapons.

“Quite right,” her first husband laughs.

The dragons fly overhead, and Sansa cannot help the look of wonder and astonishment that crosses her face. They are majestic. And terrible.

“How have you fared in the years since I’ve seen you, my good wife?”

“As I was married after, I believe you are now set free from your vows, my lord, though I admit I have not been quite as happy in my second marriage as I was when we were wed.I am quite happy to set eyes on you again.” She looks away from the blush reddening his cheeks.

“And I you, though I am surprised Lord Snow did not come himself.”

“Winter is here, and his attentions are better kept North. I hope you do not find me lacking as an emissary.”

“Of course not. You are most welcome at Dragonstone and, I beg you to believe, quite safe. Queen Daenerys values loyalty. If you bend the knee, you will be afforded her protection.”

Sansa gives a noncommittal sound.

Tyrion and Missandei lead them into a great barren hall made of stone.  Across the room, rigidly sat on her throne is a slight girl of no more than nine and ten, Sansa guesses. Her advisors walk to stand to either side of it.

“You stand before Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, rightful heir to the Iron Throne, rightful queen of the Andals and the first men, protector of the Seven Kingdoms, the Mother of Dragons, the Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, the Unburnt, the Breaker of Chains,” Missandei introduces.

Breaker of Chains, Sansa thinks, and yet you mean to use those dragons to enslave us all.

“I present to you Sansa Stark, eldest daughter of Lady Catelyn and Lord Eddard Stark, the Winter Rose, Winterfell’s Reclaimer, Princess of the North, Lady and Blood of Winterfell.”

“Thank you for traveling so far, my lady. I hope the seas weren’t too rough.”

“Not at all, Your Grace,” Sansa answers. “I have heard of your trials and accomplishments and commend you for returning to your home.”

Her eyebrows lift in surprise. “Thank you, Lady Stark. With that commendation, I must assume you are here to bend the knee like your forefathers before you.”

“I understand the assumption as Your Grace may not be aware of the strife between our families beginning with the kidnapping and rape of my dear Aunt Lyanna Stark by your brother, Prince Rhaegar, and the murders of our liege lord, Rickard, and his son, Brandon Stark, by your father, King Aerys.” She brings her hands together in front of her.

“Lady Stark, I ask your forgiveness for the crimes committed against your family. I am not my brother or my father. I have outlawed raping and reaving in the Iron Islands, and I have no intention of repaying loyalty with the death. I ask you not to judge me by the sins of my family.”

“That is kind. Many women will be spared torment,” Sansa nods.

Queen Daenerys leans back on her throne, her back straightening at the acknowledgment of her benevolence. “Torrhen Stark, the last King in the North, swore fealty to House Targaryen in perpetuity. I am the last Targaryen. Honor his vow. Bend the knee.”

“Will you apologize for your family’s crimes in one breath and negate the consequences to them in the next? I mean no disrespect, Your Grace, but you ask House Stark to honor an allegiance to your House that no longer bears weight. We must agree to leave past allegiances and crimes alike behind.”

The corners of her mouth lift in a facsimile of a smile. “If you have only come to break faith with House Targaryen, why are you here?” she demands.

Lord Tyrion’s gaze darts to Sansa anxiously. Those who anger the dragon queen do not survive long.

“To become allies, of course.” She gives the queen a genuine smile, a smile called up from her times with Margaery surrounded by scents of the sea and good humor. “Apart from the North, the kingdoms of Westeros will be yours. I hope that you are open to discussing a trade agreement that will come into effect when you take your throne.”

“We do not know each other, Lady Stark. Allow me to begin remedying that.” The queen stands, walking towards Sansa with slow steps, her hands stiff at her sides. “I spent my life in foreign lands. So many men have tried to kill me. I don’t remember all their names. I have been sold like a broodmare. I’ve been chained and betrayed, raped and defiled. Do you know what kept me standing through all those years of exile? Faith. Not in any alliances or gods, not in myths and legends. In myself. In Daenerys Targaryen.

“The world hadn’t seen a dragon in centuries until my children were born.,” she continues. “The Dothraki hadn’t crossed the sea, any sea. They did for me. I was born to rule the Seven Kingdoms, and I will rule. All of them. By declaring himself King in the North, your bastard brother is in open rebellion. Can you tell me what happens to those who rebel against the crown?”

Will you obey now, or do you need another lesson? Sansa is reminded of forcefully. The last time she was brought before a monarch to answer for her brother’s perceived crimes, she would have knelt and begged for mercy. But there is no mercy in this world, no knights or heroes. She lifts her chin.

In the pause she takes to temper her tone, Lord Tyrion speaks first.

“I believe Lady Stark is quite tired from her journey, my queen,” he says, drawing the queen’s attention. Sansa’s eyes remain on the threat before her. “If it pleases you, we could continue the discussion over supper after she rests.”

“It pleases me to have an answer to my question.” Lord Tyrion retreats. “Lady Stark?”

Sansa clears her throat delicately. “I do not discount your might, and you have my admiration and sympathies for the trials you have overcome as I have said, Your Grace. To answer your question, I must ask one of my own. At one point, there were five kings in Westeros: Kings Joffrey, Renly and Stannis Baratheon, King Robb Stark and King Balon Greyjoy. Now, there are three monarchs. Which crown would you find House Stark in rebellion against?”

“You said this woman was smart.” Queen Daenerys accuses Lord Tyrion.

“One of the most intelligent ladies I have encountered,” he affirms.

“In the time she’s been here, she has admitted that I will take the throne, still refused to bend the knee, and now she means to mock me.”

“Lady Sansa,” Lord Tyrion starts, capturing her gaze. “I once promised that I would never hurt you.” The queen watches curiously. “Though our marriage was in name only, I took that vow very seriously. I still do. Queen Daenerys can be trusted. She will avenge your father. Your brother will be Warden of the North, and you will be as safe there as you were when you were a child.”

“The North will never be safe under a Southron ruler,” she says, her unyielding tone at contrast with the softness of her expression. “She has already threatened the king’s heir.”

Queen Daenerys contradicts, “I threatened your brother who has no right to call himself king.”

“Were your family ties so weak that you don’t know any threat to my brother is a threat against me?” She lets rage color her voice, stepping closer, her chin raising another notch. “The Northern lords and ladies chose to follow Jon and name him their king. You need no rights to what is freely given.”

The woman stares at her stonily as if none of Sansa’s sound words can move her.

Frustrated, Sansa steps closer. “I imagine you think diplomacy is beneath you. You have armies and dragons. What can stand against you?”

“I’m sure you’ll tell me,” she drawls.

“After the Lannisters named my father a traitor, my brother, Robb, was made king and led his armies against them. He won every battle. The people revered him as I am sure yours do you. With dragons and more men than can be counted with the eye, they must think you an insurmountable wall of force. The people called Robb the Young Wolf. They said that he could not be killed. Then, he was. The Boltons and the Freys cut my mother’s throat to the bone, murdered his pregnant wife and took his head. Why?

“He had enough might to rule the North and overthrow the Lannisters,” she adds. She ignores the false glaze of boredom in the queen’s eyes and continues in a bemused tone. “I have the scars to prove it. Yet, fierce as he was in battle, he never was good at diplomacy. He ostracized his bannermen, and,” her pitch falls like a blade, “ they betrayed him.”

“She speaks true. My father orchestrated the attack, but Stark’s own bannermen executed it.”

The queen is no longer feigning disinterest. Her eyes lock on Sansa’s with rapt attention. When Sansa speaks again in a lower tone, the queen’s head leans forward slightly.

“‘What do you want that you do not already have?’ When you sit the Iron Throne, surrounded by subjects who bent the knee only to save their lives and the lives of their people, I do not wonder what your answer will be. I know. You will want to be safe without your dragons or guards close at hand. You will want for true allegiance. Lords who hate you will swear fealty to you to save their lives, but I will not lie to you. I knew that an alliance with the North would not be sufficient to satisfy you. I knew that one sworn shield and her squire could not protect me should you decide to execute me as an example. I answered your summons anyway,” she pauses to give the queen time to decide on the reasons Sansa might have. “The North remembers. We have greater fears than death. My bannermen will not follow someone they do not trust. Will you work to earn it?”

There is nothing in the queen’s expression that belies the answer she will give. Queen Daenerys closes the distance between them, looking at her intently. Sansa forces herself to appear as calm as the first snow. She will die here rather than live the rest of her days in fear of the dragon queen’s wrath.

“The men will follow your brother, and he follows you,” the queen surmises.

Sansa gives no answer. There is none that helps her cause. To rebut it is to deem herself useless. To acknowledge it undermines him.

“And how do I earn your trust, Lady Stark?”

“With patience, Your Grace. With time, King Jon may find that you are worthy to lead the North. If you are not amenable, I must return to my brother with the news that you have refused an alliance with House Stark and our allies, House Arryn and House Tully.”

Instead of flushing with anger at the threat, the queen’s face becomes alight with the first true smile she gives Sansa. “I will not wait forever.”

“No, I would not expect you to. I only ask that you give a House that has been betrayed and nearly ruined time to know you as the queen Lord Tyrion believes you to be.” She lowers her head deferentially.

“In the meantime, you will stay here to get to know me.” She quirks an eyebrow, waiting for Sansa’s nod of agreement. She turns to Missandei. “Please show our guests to their rooms.”

With that, she walks away, and Sansa watches her go.

The tension does not leave her shoulders until she is within her chambers with the door barred. It is only then that she lets the relief she feels make her limbs tremble and her knees weak. She sits on the edge of the bed, hands clutching its sides, exhaling slowly. Her head aches as if she has been sewing intricate designs for hours.

How quickly she turned to threats, Sansa thinks, rubbing her temples.

Despite her willingness to kill, Sansa cannot deny that the queen does impress her. Not many monarchs would have allowed a stranger to convince them to wait for true loyalty. She is different. Cersei would have made an example of Sansa, not seemed genuinely pleased to be threatened. But it is not enough. In the morn, she will offer fleece and wool for the queen’s armies in exchange for dragonglass. She will bide her time, offering glimpses of trust, until Jon has enough to win the war against the dead. She cannot afford to do otherwise.

[reactingtosomething]

Kris Reacts to Game of Thrones: 703, “The Queen’s Justice”

“A Failure of Imagination”

The Setup: I (Kris, aka @omeletsforpepper​) am not the only one of us who keeps up with Game of Thrones, but I am going solo for reactions to it this season (until maybe the finale). This could change, but my plan is to pick out a theme (not necessarily “the” theme) of the week’s episode, and discuss in depth just one or two scenes/sequences that involve it.

SPOILERS for and through season 7, episode 3 of Game of Thrones below.

Though the title of this post is spoken by Olenna Tyrell, it also applies to the problem faced by Jon Snow (“…He’s King in the North”) in his first encounter with Daenerys Stormborn, of House Targaryen, rightful heir to the Iron Throne, rightful Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Protector of the Seven Kingdoms, the Mother of Dragons, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, the Unburnt, the Breaker of Chains. On what turns out to have remained the strangely minimalist advice of Melisandre (couldn’t she have done Thoros’s whole “look into the flames and tell me what you see” thing?), Daenerys has summoned Jon to bend the knee. But of course, he’s come to ask for help fighting an army of ice zombies. Oh, and right, her father killed his grandfather and uncle, whereas his ancestor swore fealty “in perpetuity” to hers.

As in Jon’s arguments with Sansa earlier in the season, the Dragonstone story in this episode benefits hugely from bringing together characters we’ve rooted for in their own “home” contexts — what’s more, largely unambiguous heroes who’ve overcome or at least survived villains we were happy to see topple and burn (often literally) — and pitting their agendas against each other. Though they absolutely SHOULD NOT BANG (see new section Further Reading below), given the difficulty of wartime resource allocation there’s a productive storytelling tension between their equally legitimate, if maybe not equally time-sensitive, concerns.

Or, well, maybe “productive” is a little generous. 

Jon’s struggle — getting Dany and company to believe him about the encroaching threat of the Night King — is a struggle of a different kind for the audience to accept. Here’s a woman who’s seen and done things that were supposed to be impossible, or at least of a bygone era. Again and again she’s come up against people who underestimated her because they refused to believe she was everything she claimed. And we’re supposed to accept that she doesn’t consider for a second that Jon might be telling the truth? Especially in a scene that goes out of its way to remind us that Daenerys is a voracious reader well-versed in Westerosi history? Even if she wasn’t more than smart enough to make the connection between a supernatural threat embodying winter and her own literal firepower, she should know first-hand the perils of dismissing such a story as mere myth.

Yes, the show gets her there, eventually (in a sequence that if nothing else is gorgeous shot after gorgeous shot on the coast of Spain, probably with a little CG enhancement), but it doesn’t feel like an earned arc. She shouldn’t have needed that much convincing. Would there have then been an absence of conflict that’s problematic in screenwriting? Sure. But an artificially generated conflict that’s in tension with previously established characterization is just as big a problem.

The throne room scene is also hurt by the fact that Dany’s argumentation is shockingly bad, and it’s unclear that the show fully realizes this. Again, yes, it says the right words, when Jon rightly suggests that if Daenerys can’t be held accountable for the sins of her father, neither can he be held to the oath of his ancestor. But by having Designated Reasonable Man Tyrion push Daenerys’s agenda even when she’s not around, the show makes the impasse feel a little more “Gotta Hear Both Sides” than “hey Dany here’s a reality check.”

https://twitter.com/saladinahmed/status/891859659514105856

Here is a conflict that, if better handled, might have been a strong enough engine to substitute for Dany’s implausible skepticism regarding the White Walkers. Daenerys planned her journey to Westeros saying she aimed to “break the wheel,” but that revolutionary ambition is nowhere to be seen (Cersei’s characterization of her notwithstanding) as she argues for reasserting an ancient status quo. I’d have liked someone to point this out.

Jon, despite his own romanticization of old things and old ways, has recently shown greater moral and political imagination by gender-integrating the army of the North, making true allies (not mere subjects) out of the wildlings, and (gladly) handing the oversight of Winterfell to Sansa. Though his enemies in politics and espionage have been superficially less impressive than Dany’s, they took him much more seriously as a threat and arguably required greater creativity and conviction to thwart. In the process he has lost any sentimentality for the sacredness of any particular power structure.

https://twitter.com/eveewing/status/891852536126349313

So with pragmatic advisors like Tyrion and especially Varys at Dany’s side, why hasn’t it occurred to anyone that totalitarian rule might not be necessary and inevitable? I half-jokingly mentioned this after the premiere, contrasting GoT’s ostensible endgame with the resolution of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s first year writing Marvel’s Black Panther: T’Challa and his mother and sister convene a council to write a constitution and transition Wakanda to an at least partially democratic government. 

The more I think about it, the less I think such a conclusion should be written off as silly for Game of Thrones. I’m not saying that I think it’s headed there — if it were, I suspect the seeds would have been planted by now, as they were no later than the second issue of Coates’s BP — but I do think it would have been a workable one, and specifically a worthy character challenge for Daenerys, the Prince(ss) Who (Maybe) Was Promised.

ALL THAT SAID, I really enjoyed the middle sequence of Dragonstone scenes. Partly this was because of how amazing they looked, but we also got some nice reminders that Thrones has a cast as good on paper as any on TV, most of them a comfortable seven years into their performances. In practice, only a few of them have consistently gotten material as strong as they deserve, Peter Dinklage being one of those few (and even for him, not a lot last year). So it was inevitably satisfying that even where the dialogue sometimes fell short, “The Queen’s Justice” provided the circumstances for great character moments.

Kit Harington has often had too little to work with besides noble frustration, but he’s found an interesting unity in Jon’s dueling martyr and imposter complexes, and his scene with Tyrion was one of my favorites he’s ever done. Especially that little speech about how Jon has proven right everyone who told him not to meet with Dany. Maybe just because I know a little something about kicking myself while I’m down, or maybe because truly self-critical introspection (as opposed to some variation on “what if I’m just not strong enough”) still feels rare among heroes of Jon’s traditional heroic mold.

For her part, Emilia Clarke has often had too little to work with besides dramatic speeches, but she’s reliably great at them, and when she does get quieter moments she usually carries them off with a well-modulated haughtiness. Dany’s pouting about Jon’s refusal to bend the knee belatedly gains an interesting shade in their second scene together, coming as it does while both of them are trying to extend olive branches. The show also demonstrates some increasingly rare restraint in its dialogue, by not taking Dany’s recollection that like her Jon has lost two brothers to a point where she has to explicitly express her condolences. She’s a little too proud for that, especially right now, but they can both file it away in their heads as something they have in common.

Given the relative flatness of their arcs over the years (even Jon’ s temporary death couldn’t slow his Inevitable Rise to Power, and few believed it would stick), Daenerys and Jon are the characters in whom Thrones most threatens to succumb to embracing the genre cliches it’s built its reputation on subverting. Their stories have thus required every ounce of actor-delivered nuance they could get. Despite my problems with how Dany is written here, “The Queen’s Justice” nevertheless manages to be a series highlight in part because it finally presents both Dany and Jon with challenges to their respective Destinies that we can’t assume will be inevitably vanquished: each other. “The Queen’s Justice” doesn’t stick the landing of this conflict between protagonists quite as well as it did with Jon and Sansa’s argument in the season premiere, but at least the show knows how valuable this raw material is.

And again, this location is just an incredible gift to Mark Mylod’s direction and to the show’s cinematography:

As for my very favorite beats of the episode:

TYRION: I’d very much like to believe that Jon Snow is wrong. But a wise man once said that you should never believe a thing simply because you want to believe it. DAENERYS: Which wise man said this?

T: I don’t remember. D: Are you trying to present your own statements as ancient wisdom? T: I’d never do that. To you.

That one was too easy for the writers, but the line readings saved it.

A better moment even on the page:

JON: You’ve been talking to Tyrion. DAENERYS: He is my Hand. J: He enjoys talking. D: We all enjoy what we’re good at. J: I don’t.

Oof.

Further Reading

Now that Game of Thrones is off-book, creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have shown a deeper inclination towards embracing these tropes than George R.R. Martin has. […] If Jon and Daenerys bang, it will further indicate that post-Season 6, Game of Thrones is seeking to simply be traditional epic fantasy rather than seeking to have a dialogue with it. - Lauren Sarner for Inverse

But “Game of Thrones” has always encouraged us to look past the things that are easy and make us feel good. And if any show has been a cautionary tale about the difference between female empowerment and true social change, “Game of Thrones” has been it. - Alyssa Rosenberg for The Washington Post

While there have been moments in the past where Game Of Thrones has moved swiftly, this type of breathless pacing is new, and I frankly find it equal parts alarming and refreshing. - Myles McNutt for The AV Club

Talking to men: a play in four acts - Keely Flaherty on Twitter

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