Game of Thrones: endings

Sansa's ending was perfect. She deserves Winterfell. For some reason she fights for the North's independence more than anyone, and she makes sense to rule it. I hope she has children so there's "always a Stark at Winterfell". Sansa, for all her childhood fantasies of King's Landing, for all her time spent there, comes to adore the North and I'm glad it's hers. Jon is the only other option, but I guess he selects his fate by slaying the queen.

Jon's fate is sad; he's the last Targaryen, raised by Ned Stark, erstwhile King of the North, heir to Aerys, savior of the Seven Kingdoms -- basically all high and mighty things -- yet he's resigned to watcher on the wall, and watching for what? Lost wanderers? The White Walkers are extinct (supposedly), the wildlings are friends, the whole North and Real North are united, what's the Wall for? What's the Watch for? Will they start climbing it for sport? Will they roam farther than ever before, in the gentleness of a Walker-less summer? Jon is the noblest individual in Westeros, by blood and by deed, so it's sad to seem him resigned. But his slight smile at the end, as he forges forth with Ghost and Tormund by his side, is encouraging. The Wall isn't punishment or prison for him, it's an old home, it's where he once swore to live out his days, it's perhaps anticlimactic but not unjust.

Arya's adventure is fun. I regret that she's leaving her family, leaving Gendry, leaving her home, all that she so valiantly protected, but I must admire the effort and find some joy in it. Part of me would love to see her and Gendry ruling Storm's End. As far as political positions, she could do worse than that. But Gendry would get the glory and the challenge; she'd just be his buddy. Also she's too great for Storm's End; she'd be a better knight of the North, Hand of Sansa, or Lord Commander of Bran's Guard. I'd like her serving her family and her home, not her own fancies. But maybe there's some fruit to be found in the West. And Westeros is too peaceful for her at the moment. She's bred for battle, whether the apparent or the incognito kind, and we're beginning a Pax Westerosi. How long it will last, none can say, but with the Lannisters, Targaryens, and White Walkers smushed, things are looking up.

Sam is a sensible Grandmaester. Tyrion is a sensible Hand; who else? Other than the Starks, who belong in the North, Davos is the only other person who has really advised royalty; he's a solid choice, but Tyrion is clearly craftier. Davos is the most grounded guy of all time, but Bran is already pretty grounded, and Tyrion is smarter.

I'm going to list my tiers of characters, like I did after I first watched the series. I'm not going to look back at those tiers, I'm just going to state my current ones.

1. Ned. I know I put Ned and Jon at the same level last time. But Ned is my perfect hero, while Jon goes through some rough patches. Ned actually has the advantage of only living through the infancy of the series. He's Brett Favre to Jon's Aaron Rodgers; I actually saw more of Rodgers, and from a mature lens, but Favre was the icon of my youth, and he was snipped before I could hedge my opinion of him. Favre lives on as my OG icon, like Ned. Maybe further seasons of Ned would have spoiled his perfection.
2. Jon: an almost perfect man. He makes some mistakes, he has to grow out of some immaturity early on, his ending is anticlimactic, he is sometimes boringly perfect, and he tarries too long at the Watch to be so constantly interesting as Ned. But he is a model man who inspires my love.
3. Arya: savvy, strong, yet heartfelt
4. Sansa
5. Jaime, Robert, Hound
6. Davos, Varys. Davos is a bastion of grounded, straightforward reason. He's the most common-sense no-nonsense guy of them all. He's not very awe-inspiring, but he's a solid guy to have around in any scenario. Varys is brilliant and savvy, a little treacherous, but a genuine servant of the realm, and a fascinating conversationalist.
7. Tormund, Brienne, Stannis. It may be strange to place stone-cold child-burning Stannis at a level with two undeniable heroes of the long night who are also consistent light bringers (pun intended). But here's the thing, I really like Stannis, if you remove the child-burning. He's tough and eloquent; I think his actor does a great job; the way he speaks is emblematic of tough strength. He's a Baratheon, who are Stark allies and stout warriors. Tormund and Brienne, for their valor and humor, just aren't my taste.
8. Theon
9. for the villains, see here

Need to place somewhere: Tyrion, Dany, Gendry, Grey Worm, Jorah, Sam, the direwolves, the dragons, Bronn, Cat, Robb

Lessons from Game of Thrones

Based on the show, the most obvious way to state Robb's fatal fault is that he tried to be honorable while allowing an aberration. Had he not lied to the Freys, they presumably wouldn't have massacred his house. Alternatively, had he leaned into his lie, he might have escaped it. Robb leans full tilt into the honorable lifestyle of his father, yet excuses his own clear aberration, promising himself to the Freys and marrying another. One can surmise he was too emotionally weak -- or young -- to materialize the honor his father lived by, yet he tried to sustain the principle. He breaks his own code and apologizes, which is the right way to restore the code, but it's dangerous to break in the first place. He faces the punishment of his own oath breaking. He needed to either keep his father's code the whole time, or lean into wartime survivalism.

Perhaps he allowed himself an aberration because he could see just such an exception on his father's record. Jon is a living symbol of honor's exceptions. The irony is he's not -- Ned never broke his honor (save perhaps at the end) -- but Robb doesn't know that. How often do we see our parents break their own codes, and thereby allow ourselves the occasional slip?

So there's the question of Ned's honor in the end. He dies the very moment he breaks his honor; yet Varys says he's a dead man anyway, and his lie appears to be his best shot at saving his children. Joffrey lusted for Stark blood regardless, so it's hard to say whether Ned broke his code for nothing, or whether it was his best shot. Or whether it actually hurt his children's chances! Had Ned refused to even appear before the mob, who knows how things would have transpired. Joffrey may not have pounced on such an auspicious opportunity to flex his power. Cersei, Sansa, and the like may have connived another fate for Ned, behind closed doors. Perhaps the lesson is that Ned's breaking of his own code is what precipitates his death, even if his death seemed materially imminent. Symbolically, it was the breaking. Perhaps the lesson, for he and Robb, is to hold one's code, as a single exception is the death of the code and the death of the holder.

Game of Thrones: understanding S8 events and character motivations

Would Jon really have killed Dany? First, we have to define a frame of reference for Jon. Since I haven't entirely read the books, and since there's a clear delineation in the series where Martin's direct inspiration drops off and the writing style changes, I'll define the real Jon as Jon in the first 6 or 7 seasons of the series: "6-7 Jon".

Jon is motivated by family, love, and transcending his bastard identity, but perhaps above all, he's motivated by the honor that drove his father. He's not a Varys, who always purely "served the realm". Therefore when Tyrion asks him to do "a terrible thing, but the right thing", Tyrion is speaking in the best interest of the realm, and therein lies the rub: is the right thing the best thing for the realm, or the honorable thing for the individual? And therein lies the rub: what's the meaning of this code of honor, if it doesn't serve the greater world? Why would Ned refuse Joffrey's claim, if seemingly everyone suffers in his refusal? Is that honorable, or selfish, or arbitrarily religious? Why would Jon keep his queen when seemingly everyone suffers for it, nor does she have the best claim? And therein lies the rub: does he break his oath for the good of the realm, or because her claim was proven false; and why do he and Ned care so much about traditional lines of succession; and if they do care so much, why does Jon support the Targaryen succession over others before or after them; and why does Jon continue to speak, to the very end, like Dany is his queen, when he plans to topple her and when lying is a cardinal sin in his mind? I think the most interesting question is the meaning of this "honor". I suppose it means keeping oaths, but why is that the summum bonum? I think it's a good code, in that it's simple and it generally serves everyone. If you're going to live by a code, you could do worse than this. And I get the idea of living by a code: you don't have to second-guess every decision, and your conflicting drives don't corrupt your actions. But true wisdom is not codified like that; it's fluid from moment to moment; it's spontaneous; you have to study each new moment with supple reasoning. The wisest people don't live by such codes; this is what separates Tyrion from Ned/Jon, and even Littlefinger from them. Tyrion is constantly considering the best outcome for the party he's serving; it's exhausting but it gets better outcomes than following a simple code, if you're smart enough and rational enough to keep it up. Littlefinger takes it even further, explicitly stating that he has one goal in mind (the Iron Throne with Sansa beside him), and he plays out every possible action in his head, assessing whether it satisfies that goal; but Tyrion is a better example because his goals are not so simple, not so self-serving. Tyrion is probably the best example of wisdom among the main characters (not pulling from Maester Aemon or anything).

So I'm saying Ned and Jon are not the best examples of wisdom. Their codes are simple and intuitive, which gain them respect and, to a degree, success and a sense of maintaining world order. But their success is characteristically neutered, as is their service to the world, and they surely don't find happiness through this code. Happiness and service cannot be cleanly codified; the world, and the soul, demand supple decision-making. If someone isn't brainy enough for that, a code such as honor isn't the worst they can do; it probably lands them in a better spot than the improvisation of Tyrion and Littlefinger would. Littlefinger himself says the Starks are slow, Ned calls himself primarily a soldier, and Jon says he doesn't like riddles. Ned and Jon are relatively straightforward, so a straightforward code serves them. I do think they're wise, but too pious to be wisest.

Anyway, 6-7 Jon wouldn't have killed Dany because his job isn't to serve the realm at all cost (unlike Varys), and killing his sworn queen is more of a breach of honor than it is an upholding of his oath to be "the shield that guards the realms of men". Alas, classic case of conflicting oaths. But I think the clearer path is to not murder your sworn queen, as "guarding the realms of men" is ambiguous in the first place.

Then again, Jon interpreted his oaths loosely when he lay with Ygritte and when he abandoned the Watch after his death. He's half Targaryen after all. But breaking his oath to Dany was too egregious, I think, for 6-7 Jon, so either Jon authentically evolves in S8 or, more likely, the writing fails to deliver authentic actions or at least to properly justify his actions. Most citizens of Westeros would egregiously break an oath for their own good or for the realm's good; but Jon isn't most citizens.

Would Dany really have decimated King's Landing? It's strange how instantaneous that decision was. As the bells ring, you can watch her expression turn to slaughter. Why, when the surrendering bells ring, do her eyes begin to smolder? That's identically the moment you relent, especially at the explicit advice of your counsels. But tell me too, why does she raze the whole city? I can see her attacking the Red Keep, that is, cutting the lion's head, but why burn the whole thing? How will that secure power for you and peace for the people in future generations? You're destroying so much infrastructure you'll have to rebuild, and decimating an innocent population who never swore for Cersei. You're creating fatal enemies for yourself (Jon, and probably others if Jon cowed away from the deed). You're mimicking your loathed father by setting fire to King's Landing. You're spinning the wheel you intend to break; how will that not make it harder to break? And why does all of that aggression fall on that one moment, the moment your enemies surrender? The power of sacking the capital just kindled her desire for more power? It feels out-of-character. Now, I saw her fury at Missandei's execution; her despair when her second dragon went down; her sense of betrayal at Jon's revelation, both the betrayal of her advisors for spreading the secret and the strange betrayal of the fates for lifting someone into the seat she was always made to occupy. She is angry, and more importantly, confused -- confused at her own destiny, in light of Jon's new identity, and she's eager to coax that destiny into existence, the one she's believed for years.

When I first saw S8, I thought these two actions I'm discussing -- Jon's regicide and Dany's massacre -- were uncharacteristic and unjustified. I still think so, but I don't think the show does too bad a job at supporting them. Jon's action is supported through his trend of interpreting his vows looser than Ned did his, and through Jon's revelation as a Targaryen, which endows him with a higher destiny. Even if he doesn't believe Targaryens are actually nobler, he knows they are more intertwined with nobility and with the fate of things than Starks are. He must have an elevated sense of worth and fate, knowing he's a Targaryen-Stark heir rather than a Stark bastard. So it isn't insane to think he would suddenly start reaching for the future prosperity of the realm as opposed to keeping to his simple humble code. As for Dany, her destiny is suddenly threatened in the person of Jon, and she sees how much they love him, so she resigns herself to the tactic of fear. Not only is she furious, she's desperate and confused, desperate to manifest the fate she always believed in. So in that way, she's a different person in S8 than prior seasons. Still, I'm skeptical either of these critical actions would have been taken by the characters as they were built up in the first 6/7 seasons. Jon is too honorable, and Dany is too kind. Her greed and desperation shouldn't have withered her heart so suddenly, and only a withered heart burns the capital to the ground with all the innocents in it.

Game of Thrones micro-acting

If Dany is supposed to be our favorite character, then Emilia Clarke ruins her. Even, or especially, when she's supposed to feel like family, she feels uncannily distant. She is painfully unromantic during the "warm up your queen" moment, and her sit-down with Sansa feels like a corporate "I'm better than you because I'm confronting conflict in the workplace with a level head." When she jokes that she only trusts two men in the world, Jon and "someone taller", her smile is sickening. And these are supposed to be the heartwarming moments -- I can't even list the multitude of unsavory pride moments.

I'm obsessed with Northern speech. I'm biased by loving the North in general, but the speech itself gets me too. Robb's full-mouthed "motha" before he dies; when Sansa says "anything" like "ennathen"; Ned scratchily saying "your grace" like "yu gtace"; Jon chopping off letters in his pronunciation like they were so many undead heads. I really haven't studied this linguistically, but I feel like Northern speech is characterized by missing letters and fuller-mouthed vowels. I love it -- louhve, not laeve.

Game of Thrones

Here's where I'm at.

S1 is terrific, albeit a little skewed toward the intriguing and trashy over the epic, or similarly, the political over the fantastical. But I don't think this means GOT/ASOIAF is founded on the political and the intriguing over the epic and the magical. The first scene in both the books and the series involves the Wall and the White Walkers; it thus grounds the franchise instantly in the epic and the magical, never mind the dominating threads of familial conflict throughout S1. "Winter is coming" was always an overarching arc; it defines our favorite house, and it largely defines the franchise from that first scene to the final season.

You might therefore wonder why the Long Night was one brief episode, and not even one of the last few episodes of the series. It's similar to wondering why the Scouring of the Shire ends LotR instead of Mount Doom. You get why the Grey Havens are the last chapter, but shouldn't it be Mount Doom, then going home, then Grey Havens, with no conflict in there, all resolution and tying things up? Similarly, you'd think the Long Night should be the final conflict of GoT, with just an episode or two after it to wrap things up peaceably. As it is, the series makes a statement that the game of thrones was the most definitive conflict all along, which feels silly, considering the existential threat of winter. I certainly believe Cersei and Co needed to be dealt with, but it's anticlimax after the existential threat is quelled. Well, you could argue this is just the way things played out: Dany helped in the Long Night, and then Dany died; she certainly didn't die before helping with the Long Night! Nor would the final vie for the throne be as interesting without her involved. So it makes sense that important political things happen after the Long Night. But the way it plays out isn't ideal, so I'm sure it could have been planned better. Maybe they just rushed it. Maybe there has to be political strife after the Long Night, but it deserves a handful of episodes, to take a breath after the existential threat is conquered, and then figure out where to go from there. Packing in the Long Night and the final vie in a few episodes feels anticlimactic.

Do I think the Long Night passed too easily? Probably. The deus ex machina in GoT is almost insufferable. Also, if the White Walkers are so easily killed with a single knick of Valyrian steel or dragon glass, and if such a knick has the potential to end the entire crusade, why are they fighting in the fray? If the Night King's death can end the entire crusade, and his death is so easy a single human can achieve it with one thrust, why is he so poorly guarded in the end? Also, how do so few of the massive ensemble of noteworthy characters die in the Long Night? If I remember right, it's basically Beric, Jorah, Theon... is that it? Three secondary characters sacrificed just to stop us from complaining that no one died in this enormously improbable struggle? Realistically, more would die, and the Night King wouldn't let himself get killed so easily. Arya wouldn't zoom past the guards. She'd try and fail and die.

I hope Martin rewrites the ending. I hope the show strayed from his guidance, or painfully condensed it. But I hope Martin has an ending in mind, right now. I hope he's just struggling to prose it together. I hope his writer's block is just for the prose and some secondary storylines; I hope he feels confident in his heart how the main storylines need to wrap up. And I hope he wrote it down, so when he dies, we can all see it, even if it's just a skeleton of a story. I'm not opposed to a happy ending, which is mostly what S8 was; I can't pull for a series ending that's as brutal as the S1 ending, or as the ending of storylines like Robb's, Cat's, most of the direwolves', etc. But S8 was not just a mostly-happy ending, it was a too-convenient ending, and it didn't feel justified. Perhaps it was just rushed. Lots of things in fantasy feel too convenient until you carefully study them. Maybe S8 just didn't give its story the right amount of study, the right ramp-up and cool-down. Maybe it needed 10 episodes, not 6.

Some of the magic feels random. I don't need all magic to be scientifically explained, but I like for it to feel consistent, and for there to be at least some evidence to chew on. Maybe there's more of that in the books. In the series, some of the magic comes out of nowhere, and feels too convenient or arbitrary. I guess if it were up to me, the magical elements would be fairly subtle, but the series would still find its epic identity. For example, battles that are perhaps unrealistic in scale, but not magical. The Wall is fantastical in scale, but it doesn't have to be magical. Even dragons are fantastical but not super magical. I like epic elements that may be fantastical but are not arbitrarily magical. The Battle of the Bastards is another example of something epic that's not magical, not even very fantastical, other than the annoying deus ex machina of the riders of the Vale. Even the undead are not unsettlingly magical to me. But the Lord of Light randomly resuscitating certain people feels too arbitrarily magical.

Game of Thrones

Dictated a few weeks ago

A couple of comments about aria she's ideal in season one: savvy and suite this is what you or Ned Stark wants your daughter to be like she's brave cunning and kind. She's a warrior thinking ahead to what she turns into. I love her competence and adventure, but I don't love her actual adventure nor the pompous air she acquires I don't love her adventure meaning I don't enjoy watching her in bravos nor her hopeless wandering in West us beforehand the bravo stuff is too far from home to detached from where my and her hearts, lie, and the Wester stuff is too hopeless and unhelpful. I want aria to be in the action doing great deeds for the things we really care about, but she has a long and tedious art once she finally gets to where she needs to be it's amazing for example what she does to the phrase and during the long night, but she's lost a bit of her old charm. She's everything she needs to be except sweet and charming. She's now too smooth almost pompous. She's perfect in season one she just has room to grow as any childhood and I still really like her later on, but it takes a while to get there and she's lost some of her Sharma along the way.

Not for Rob, the highlight of revisiting all these episodes other than simply absorbing every precious moment of Ned has been to witness Rob's maturing again. Rob is a much stronger character than I remember. I'm mostly remember him being a boy in season one and then him betraying the phrase pretty selfishly with his marriage and getting murdered. I mean, I remember him winning that battle and capturing Jaime but I've forgotten that there's actually a bit of time in which he's king of the north in season two and doing Kingley things it's great content because he's a compelling character. He's a worthy successor to Ned. I'll be young and in the end disastrous there's a worthy successor so it seems at least he's brave wise and honorable all out of young age, his fatal flaw is perhaps his romantic nature you can't imagine Ned would've betrayed the phrase out of love for another, but I found Rob a lot more compelling this time around a good example of someone in sort of my stage of life who has to make hard decisions as an adult has to decide who he wants to be in light of good role models but fright situations I was surely pulling for Rob the first time around and was devastated at the red wedding, but I think I'm pulling for him and appreciating him even more this second Time I'm seeing him is not quite so defined by the red wedding by what led up to it and it's consequences, but by being a Starr son with some great qualities and with a fatal flaw, everyone's got a fatal flaw unfortunately his manifest in one of the most devastating scenes in television so that threatens to define this character

Bugonia

Classic Lanthimos: discomfort mixed with aesthetic originality leads to an unsatisfying finish. That's been the story with Dogtooth, The Lobster, Poor Things, and now Bugonia. I haven't loved any of his movies, but I haven't disliked any. Bugonia isn't my least favorite of them; especially in the theater it was so intense; despite the weirdness people point out, it's actually intimate. There's some bold artistry, like Poor Things, but more pathos. Poor Things was too zombie; Bugonia was uncannily emotional.

I may be way off, but I suppose the title refers to the state of being like a bug, as in the bee analogy, similar to Antkind.

At first, Teddy appears caring and intelligent, and Michelle is insufferably corporate. Teddy could be a counter-culture hero, at first, like Dude Lebowski. Then he descends, past cruelty, to sheer insanity and even stupidity by the end, as we feel more and more sympathy for Michelle. Then it flips again, suddenly and definitively. But how much does it flip? Is Teddy a counter-culture hero, or the worst kind of villain? He was right all along -- genius, in fact -- but he tortured and murdered several sentient beings, terrestrial and extraterrestrial. Does his end (emancipating humanity) justify his means? Erik certainly doesn't think so, but I think sacrificing a few lives to emancipate species is an understandable if not justifiable pursuit. Teddy isn't a hero to me, but his villainy is much less clear in light of the ending. If you discovered this alien plot, which destroyed your mom and disenfranchised millions, what are the odds you'd act rationally?

There were a few moments that felt inconsistent with her humanity. She had opportunities to escape, and she squandered them. In hindsight, perhaps she was just trying to capture more information about this guy who's been trapping her species. I wonder if there were moments intended to convince the audience of her humanity that upon second watch would seem inconsistent with her alienness.

The ending struck me as dumb. Even if it was intentionally dumb, mirroring flat-earther two-dimensional thinking, it seemed like a wasted opportunity to do something really cool. Sometimes in a movie when the crazy thing you secretly want to happen happens, it's euphoric; this time it was just silly.

Lanthimos loves a good grimace. I can take some grimace, but I want it to pay off. There was a moment in Bugonia when I realized I wouldn't be happy with any ending, and that's been my experience with Lanthimos. It's upsetting and somewhat interesting and ultimately heartless. Maybe I need him to make a One Battle After Another, a hopeful heartfelt Lanthimos.

Bugonia reminds me of that other movie that feigns a heroine but that actually occurs in Plemons' head all along: I'm Thinking of Ending Things. I realize that technically Bugonia isn't all in his head, since Michelle survives Teddy's death and on the surface he was right all along. But the movie is really about the delusions of people like Teddy, and the fact that he was right all along with this absurd concoction is more of a satire than a vindication. So both movies really end up being a commentary on people like the Plemons character, and I can see why he was cast for both: his visage is frighteningly lonely. He was also a good choice for PSH's son in The Master, PSH being an icon of disturbed loneliness.

It's interesting that Lanthimos chooses to prove Teddy right in the end. Is it just for the cool twist, which flexes Lanthimos' aesthetic and storytelling boldness? Or is it because he thinks his message -- spotlighting people like Teddy -- is more potent if we pretend Teddy is right in the end? It gives Lanthimos a chance to showcase how stupid the delusion is, even when it's technically correct (not a delusion at all). When it occurred, I definitely assumed Lanthimos was just going for the tasty plot twist, but now I'm not so sure.

So how villainous or heroic was Teddy? I can't call him a hero, instinctively, due to his cruelty toward sentient beings and his general demeanor in the second half of the movie. At best he was trying to emancipate humanity, was scarred by his mother's plight, and was correct in his research, yet was understandably volatile in his execution, volatile enough to lose the badge of heroism. At worst he was avoidably delusional, the final scenes were a mock play of his fears, Michelle died on the electric chair, and he had tortured and killed several other people after the psychotic break involving his mother. So his villainy is either understandable volatility or willing delusion; both lead to the torture of sentient beings, but one may save humanity and the other is pure suffering for everyone.

I do think ends can justify means, and I do think intentions can justify actions. Examples: sacrificing one life to spare many; taking an innocuous action that anyone in good faith would take, which accidentally causes suffering. I don't think people should be legally or morally judged on the actions alone, but also on the motivations. And to a degree, that's true in the US: premeditated murder is punished harsher than involuntary manslaughter. But if I'm really being honest about a potentially controversial opinion that I haven't thought through, I don't think the US takes it far enough; I think driving a car at a BAC way over the limit should be punished the same whether or not you crash and kill someone, because at a certain level of intoxication, killing someone is simply a matter of chance, and you shouldn't be punished or spared due to chance. If it's negligent to drive at that BAC, because it could easily kill someone, you should be punished according to the negligence, not the consequences. I'm not sure what the punishment should be, between the current punishments of killing or not killing someone, I'm just saying the two shouldn't be punished so differently. But I'll admit I've been fortunate enough not to be close enough to situations like this to really explore the consequences. These are just my theories. But I'm pretty committed to judging people more by their intentions than actions. Note: negligence is part of the "intentions" calculation.

Game of Thrones S7/8

Here's my current take on S7/8. The first time around, I loved them, for they conjoined the Starks -- and, indeed, all storylines -- in a glorious and ultimately victorious collision.

I admit the writing diminishes. Maybe it's because Martin's standard was tucked away in a tent, busy plotting The Winds of Winter, while the TV producers felt the need to march on. Another way to say this is they were flying the plane while Martin was building it; but he might even be building a different plane! He built ~6 seasons of it, then hid away for the finish, but the producers said "we're already airborne!" So they finished it themselves. Maybe that accounts for the diminished writing, maybe for both the plot and the dialogue. Or maybe the plot is exactly as Martin intended, and he was telegraphing secrets to the producers from his tent. Either way, we lost Martin's standard for the dialogue, and we marched a little astray.

But even outside of dialogue, the production feels sappier and stupider. Granted, it feels less like a soap opera than S1, but somehow S1 was more intelligent. S7/8 have that stupidity of Hollywood epics, like superhero movies. S1 has the uncanny feel of a soap opera while actually being the most intelligent of them all. When S1 cheesily lingers on a distraught facial expression, there's still a lot going on behind the scenes, under the hood, inside the eyes. When S7/8 lingers like that, it just feels excessively dramatic like a superhero movie.

S7/8 also largely deliver reliefs and happy endings. Does that betray the spirit of GoT/ASOIAF? Or was Martin going for happy endings all along, it's just a long road getting there? We shall see, if Martin or his estate ever release TWOW and it gets this far in the narrative. Probably it won't, probably A Dream of Spring holds the answers and is not even started. Probably he has notes on how he wants it all to wrap up though, probably he's just struggling to churn out the prose for it all. Maybe, even of TWOW/ADOS are never published, we'll still hear how he intended to wrap everything up.

I still like S7/8 for their events. These are the sorts of things I always wanted to happen. Also, they're exciting. They just aren't as brutally authentic. But they're more enjoyable. Why be a miserable purist?

Usually I'm the miserable purist. Usually poor writing absolutely destroys a film/series/book for me. I guess that's a testament to how invested I was in the Starks' story, however the micro prose turned out.

Game of Thrones

In my choppy breezing through the full series, I find myself watching more of S7 than any prior. It's a shorter season, so you might say it's denser, but I think more importantly, it's denser in that the people I care about are finally converging. There was just a scene with the Brotherhood, Jora, Jon, Gendry, the Hound, Davos, and Tormund all suddenly in the same place, recognizing each other in a web of positive and negative threads. The Starks kids are all reuniting. S7 is dense with collisions and clusters. At long last! I've been yearning for it for several seasons. That's largely why I like S7 & 8 against popular opinion: the things I care about and want to happen finally start happening.

So much for defending S7, as I disproportionately tarry there. Now to defend those who attack S7 & 8. I still don't fully understand the meaning of their attacks, but if we dumb some of it down to "the writing declines after S6", I can understand some germ of that. I didn't notice anything of the sort my first time around -- I was probably too elated with the collisions and clusters -- but now I cringe at for example the scene of Jon and Dany in the cave under Dragonstone. Jon guides Dany's betorched arm as she marvels at the cave art, in a typical romcom awe-sharing moment. Not only that, he seizes the tender moment to impress a lesson, trying to persuade her of the reality of the White Walkers. This is sappy and improbable, as this cave art is perfectly intact down to the bright-blue-painted eyes, and perfectly designed and perfectly placed for Jon to teach his lesson. Then there's the dialogue of the reunion moments throughout the season. Over and over, disparate folk reunite in S7 with a faux-serious quip that's broken by a smile and a hug. When Jon meets his brothers after resurrecting, when Arya meets Sansa, etc etc, it's the same formulaic conversation. I can see that the writing may have declined.

Now back to defending S7... Martin left the writers hanging. What should they have done? Stopped the series until Winds of Winter never comes out? I'm not saying I blame Martin, as it's his book series to do with as he wishes, but I'm also not ready to blame the show runners for deigning to continue in his absence. They had a tremendous thing going, so much hype, so much momentum, it would have been hard to halt indefinitely. Nor can you expect to pick up where Martin left off without some shift in style. The first 6 or so seasons are defined by Martin's pen. When that drops off (or, more accurately, picks up) you can't assume you'll satisfyingly replace him. I'm sure lots of writers think they can sub for Martin, but like being king, the tiny fraction most qualified to do it are the ones who know they can't do it satisfactorily and who probably don't want to try.

Lars and the Real Girl

It's a trip to watch a normal movie. What have I watched lately... 8 1/2, Harry Potter, a couple of old Shakespeares, GoT,... heavy on the fantasy, the artsy, and the classical. What I mean by "normal" is a movie that doesn't try to change the world. The irony is, in a way, Lars and the Real Girl changes the world just as much as those wider-distributed epics, because it turns a few hearts toward the humble and the good. Lars makes a big impact in his small town, bigger than the artificial stimulation GoT delivered to millions, bigger than Fellini creeping cinema forward in its academic artsiness. And Lars and the Real Girl relays that impact to the viewers; we're not quite the same person when we leave; we're all a little moved; not in a wide-minded way that'll serve us if the US ever devolves into medieval factions, not in a fine-minded way that'll serve us at the next cocktail party, but in an earthy, full-hearted way that'll serve us as we reap and sow care throughout our lives. Thus Lars touches a more critical organ than the rest.

And I bought in! Despite my rejection of modest and indie cinema lately, despite my impatience with anything that isn't cutting-edge, I got the full Lars experience, like I did in high school. I liked it a lot back then, back when I liked modest indie stuff. I didn't think it would age so well. I deliberately avoid movies like this, because I think movies should distinctly entertain or educate me. And I don't walk back that viewpoint, nor was this movie my selection for the night, nor will I resume my old habit of watching movies like this. But I can say they still hold that value I used to cherish. Lars still holds that value.

I overlooked back then how this probably takes place in Wisconsin, and how the community's reaction to Bianca is a major part of the message. I'd never lived in any other state back then (nice pluperfect). Now I have, and I'm pleased to live in a place that could react like the community in the movie. I wouldn't hate living in that snowy, homely town. Now, I must admit, I'm addicted to the wide-minded and the fine-minded, so I wouldn't elect to live in that town. But I wouldn't hate it either. In high school I was torn between these several perspectives. Now I've accepted I'm deeply, perhaps immutably, fascinated by the wider world and the finer things, but in high school, I was almost on the point of deliberately rejecting them and retreating into a Lars-like oblivion of niceness. In that very high school period I was also corrupting myself beyond repair by avant-garde film, nihilist readings, etc etc. Now I hardly think I could retract back to the simplicity I admired in movies like this. But I'm happy to say it's not foreign to me either; I do live around towns like that, I am surrounded by family, my life is at times wholesome, however unwholesome my soul.

Mozart's latter symphonies

I listened to the final six symphonies on vinyl, excluding bastard 37 (so it was 35-41, Haffner-Jupiter), at least twice apiece.

The first few got better and better, but the lot may have peaked at "Prague". This is extremely subjective though. My taste in classical music barely correlates with critical reception. For example, the only theme I recognized from pop culture across all six was the beginning of 40, a theme which I distinctly disliked. Bach is an even better example of my taste's volatility, as I might love one prelude of the WTC and scorn its neighbor fugue, or vice versa. The worst offender is this style of minor mode that I really don't like: the beginning of Mozart's 40 embodies it, while somehow Bach's "Den Tod niemand zwingen kunnt" evades it on the way to becoming one of my favorite classical themes. It's so finicky. Most angry minor music offends my taste, while I don't mind softly sad minor. "Den Tod niemand zwingen kunnt" has a ferocity, but it's ultimately a sacred sadness.

"Prague" stood out for its challenging chords that are ultimately rooted in the major, not the chipper major, but the serious major. "Haffner" was the chipper major, and thus that transition through the first three from chipper to serious. The next three weren't a coherent arc to me. Maybe I'd get more if I listened to them again, and listened more intently (I wasn't super attentive for any of these), but I feel like my instincts toward Mozart symphonies are pretty clear now, so I don't feel the need to develop them further.

I'd like to develop my general Mozart instincts further though: the Requiem, Don Giovanni, and all the many miscellany. However, I'm going to call out that Bach clearly surges well ahead of Mozart in my esteem, and Bach worked in almost every category, so there's a lifetime of Bach that may deserve my attention more than most of Mozart. I even wonder if Beethoven and others will pass Mozart, considering Mozart feels a little too sanitized. Too many big bright bounces between the I and the V (or the i and the V), too many cheesy sing-songy melodies, too many modulation cliches. Of course Bach contains an almost unlimited amount of these things, but he passes by them instantly, while Mozart hinges on them. Bach throws in a cheesy theme, but the next moment he's somewhere else entirely; Mozart makes it the whole motif. Bach is constantly, chaotically churning, like the sun; Mozart is incessantly bright, like the sunshine.

I don't mind these symphonies for some easy listening, some light class on a situation. But they don't get me going.

That was one of the least enjoyable Packer games I've ever had the pleasure of repressing. All penalties, turnovers and almost-turnovers, failed 3rd and 4th downs, offensive incontinence. Maybe someone somewhere found some sick defensive pleasure in the rubble, but all I saw was waste.

8 1/2

I can't. I gave it 55 minutes before turning it off and watching 3 episodes of GoT. It wasn't bad -- it was more interesting and delectable than most old movies, the kind of world classic I could say I like -- but it just didn't get my attention. I'm getting quite impatient with old movies, and getting prouder of that fact. You might say that in other words, I'm getting older, stuck in my ways, closed to new styles, irritable.

I'm not writing off 8 1/2. In fact, beyond its originality in its time, it seems to have the potential to engage modern viewers like myself. It seems like it could be an enjoyable movie. It's just that I've spent my old movie patience tokens, and winter is coming 👀

Game of Thrones

Ranking villains by who is ultimately the most offensive to me:

1. Ramsay - the only actual sadist of the main cast
2. Joffrey - insufferable and cruel, but in the service of feeling like a real man, and bred by his mother's influence (sorry Donda, but there's kind of a Kanye parallel there)
3. Roose Bolton, Walder Frey, Cersei - this is where Cersei belongs in the ranking, but I'd have to rewatch or reread some Bolton and Frey scenes to be sure of them. Frey, as someone states in the show, is as unpleasant as anyone, and he orchestrates one of the cruelest moments of all, but he also kinda minds his own business (which just unfortunately happens to be at a critical crossroads), and Robb DID totally betray him (and I assume Frey was rewarded by the Lannisters) -- so Frey in my memory is not an outright villain, he's just disgusting. Bolton is not so superficially unpleasant, but IIRC he's very cruel (head of the house of flayed men 🤷), he's aligned with the Lannisters (understandable, but nevertheless a bad look in the eyes of someone like me who so loves the Starks), and he bred two of the worst things of all: the Red Wedding and #1 on this list. As for Cersei, Tyrion states her love of her children is her one redeeming quality (besides her cheekbones), and he's right. Cersei is not a pure villain, she's not the witch from a Disney movie. She has tender moments, her heart breaks, she has love in there. She loved Robert (years ago), she'd die for her kids, she loves Jaime, she feels fear, she feels the pressure from her father...
4. Thorne - always unpleasant, but appears to genuinely try to serve the Watch
5. Baelish - can't be trusted, yet many good acts to offset the ill
6. Jaime - ultimately almost a hero, but let's not forget what a bag he was to Ned

Game of Thrones

About a year ago someone asked me what I rate GoT out of 10. I believe I said 6, to their shock. Later I was asked my favorite series before a group. I said The Office, to their shock. Yet GoT haunts me every fall and strikes me as obvious 10/10 TV in many places. The cause for this discrepancy should be tediously clear from my long series of GoT posts: the broad waste between Ned's fall and Jon's rise. But if I wrap it all up, how do I really evaluate GoT? What do I do with it now?

I'll start with how I'm feeling now. I watched the first few episodes a couple-few times years ago, then watched the entire series front-to-back with no spoilers a couple-few falls ago, then rewatched a bunch of key episodes somewhere around last year, and now have watched most of S1 again. I feel engrossed. I didn't have time to inject another something in my life; I have two months to read The Aeneid, Inferno, and a bunch of history, learn two languages, and watch a handful of movies; work and life feel like they're on full-court press; the last thing I need is bait that'll reel me into an ultramarathon of TV+books+extracurriculars that I can't stop thinking about. Now's the perfect time for that -- fall advances, I'm hot off S1, raring to go; a long winter lies ahead, and no glory to keep me warm save what I can scrounge in places like ASOIAF. I'd keep skipping about, through every season, watching key moments I know I love, and discovering new loves along the way. Then I'd crack open the first book, and who knows where that would lead. Probably down a path of many, many hours. Probably I'd read every book, and pretty thoroughly this time. That's how it goes; I often skim things first, then get interested (FOMO) in the things I missed, so I'll skim those; then that makes me want to go deeper. Each taste gives me a taste for more. I couldn't pick those books up now without reading them quite thoroughly. And I certainly want to. I don't want to read every chapter, but I want to dive deep into them.

So why don't I? Some folks lack the spirit to dive into any such thing, perhaps because they've already exhausted their tastes. If I have a spirit raring for such a pursuit, why would I chain it back up? Well, my spirit champs for many things. It bothers me I haven't seen another Fellini after La Strada so many years since, and why wouldn't I, with Italy on the horizon? But then there's the practical matter of knowing Italy's history so I can identify what I'm seeing and why. But wait, that's not practical, learning the contemporary nature of these cities is critical to comprehending my time there. So that's already three axes I'm compelled to attack just for Italy. Then there's all the other crap of life: exercise, music, loved ones, Packers, work, and things I won't mention. Yet I would enjoy this ASOIAF dive more than most of that, almost certainly more than anything Italy-related. It's absolutely mental I don't do such things as I enjoy.

The King in my brain urges my faculties to go check out book one from the library. The Hand says "this is an extravagance the realm cannot afford." The Hand's realm is a healthy one, but grim. The King, used to getting what he wants, will die early.

Thank goodness Ned died early, otherwise I might love this fantasy more than life itself.

What's crazy is I wouldn't really enjoy the books if I tried to read every word. People talk about books they can't put down, that cost them sleep; I only get that way when I'm skimming. I could even stay riveted to my Latin textbook for hours, if I'm skimming. But not even ASOIAF can keep me pinned without jump discontinuities / skimming. At least I don't think so -- I've never experienced that. But I bet I could skip around in ASOIAF for many hours, happily.

Game of Thrones

I remember being so shocked at Baelor, and so disoriented by the next episode. It's as if the sun vanished and the earth flew arbitrarily into interstellar space. There's a moment of "no way" followed by many moments of "what now".

The series lost its best character before its first season elapsed. Perhaps not its best literary character, but its best. Not until Jon rises, many seasons and long nights hence, does this hole begin to fill. How I wish I had more of Ned. Operating as Hand, going to war, keeping the lights on at Winterfell, raising the kids in flashbacks, whatever it may be. I just want more Ned. I don't want him to go.

Every scene of his is fascinating and precious to me now, knowing it's all I'll ever have of him. I savor and dissect each moment.

How ironic or fitting that the moment he loses his fatal flaw, his honor, is his fatal moment. In that sense his honor WAS his life; when he cut its head, his fell off.

It really upset me how quickly the series moved on from Baelor. I thought the next episode should just be gravitational waves from the sun's removal. But instead all marches on, hardly looking back until the welcome sentimentality of the final seasons.

Game of Thrones

I just watched the first three episodes for the fourth-ish time. This is it; this is peak TV. I haven't seen a lot of TV but this is what TV needs to be. It's so intriguing, so infuriating, so yearning.

What it has:

• intrigue like a murder mystery
• a sprawling, complex universe
• a rich set of rich characters

What it hasn't:

• the epic quality of the last few seasons
• the bleak brutality that comes too soon

These episodes are full of hope, a treasure that abandons the series for its entire drawn-out midsection. These episodes are an emotional roller coaster, a house of cards.

Virtues:

• all of the Stark content! and the interactions with the royal family

Vices:

• it feels a little like a soap opera. There's just that general light-hearted cheesiness, only in an epic fantasy setting with tremendous writing. Somehow the writing is superb yet the series feels cheesy like a soap opera. To a degree, that's just the nature of high fantasy
• Dany content. I skipped through most of it for this revisit. Her adventures overseas are a slog, basically the whole time. I find Dany interesting in general, but most of her pursuits are not interesting, they're just killing time until she comes into her own (Dragonstone)

Game of Thrones

Here's what you do. You rip every episode off Max. It's easy, their tech game isn't nearly as tight as Netflix's. You get out your scalpel software, maybe your AI agent, and you cut out nearly every storyline that wasn't there from the beginning. The Starks were there, the Lannisters were there, Dany was there, the White Walkers were there; Brienne was not, the Unsullied were not, Dorne was not, and so on. You retain enough of these side plots to make their intersections with the core plot comprehensible -- for instance, you introduce Brienne and maintain her key events, but only to the end that her role in the Long Night makes sense. She gets nothing of her own. Perhaps you lose entire quadrants of Martin's map, entire quarters of his books. Perhaps you never see the Eyrie or Pyke. Certainly your taste of Essos is limited. And you know what, maybe you never meet Brienne. I'd have to think through that one. At any rate, you're left with 2-3 seasons of television, not 8. If that doesn't feel long enough, consider how emotionally invested you get in a two hour movie. You're left with the Stark arc mirrored against the salvation of Westeros from the endless winter, and it's riveting. You watch it every fall, when winter is coming, when high fantasy hits its peak for the year, like red leaves, apples, and fantasy football. You watch three episodes on Saturday and the Packers on Sunday. You revisit every year because in this condensed form, without all that baggage swamping you, it's the best fiction has to offer, and fiction is the best fall has to offer.