I disagree. If Dany needed to physically birth the dragons, I don’t think she would have hesitated.
Shakester, I don’t agree with that definition of evil. If killing innocents is evil, then anyone who leads an army is evil. I see evil as killing for amusement, like Joffrey, or killing for personal gain. Killing to serve your god, as it is in this context, isn’t evil. It’s cruel and misguided, but not evil.
Specially if your god you know, actually does shit for you.
Agreed.
This is why I love George R R Martin’s world. Everyone has a different point of view. Tyrion and Robb could both be considered “good guys” yet they are on opposite sides of the war fighting each other.
War is an unfortunate occasional necessity. Killing people just because they are of a different religion to yourself is never necessary. I think you’ll find that most of the actual real-world’s governments make that distinction, too. Don’t make me start quoting the UN’s declaration of universal human rights.
If you want to say that Westeros is a pseudo-medieval society and that killing people of other religions was more acceptable back in the olden days, OK, but it’s a fictional society, created in contemporary times for a contemporary audience, who (mostly) are going to see murdering people because they believe in different religions to oneself as evil. And, in my opinion, rightly so. No good comes from religious fanatics, in the real world or in fictional pseudo-medieval fantasy worlds.
Well Stannis fought in the rebellion that overthrew Dany’s father and put Stannis’s older brother on the throne, so… probably not.
Renly was too young to fight in the rebellion. Ned says something about Stannis’s prowess as a military commander in season one, and Renly says something about his brothers looking down on him because he’s never been in a battle.
Hey, yeah! How’d that happen? He should live by his own rules: put himself death for treason while simultaneously crowning himself king.
It’s the Robert E. Lee dilemma - loyalty to the country as a whole, or loyalty to hearth and home? He had to betray something either way.
I have a thought on Dany’s refusal to show the dragons.
First of all, she is Daenerys Stormborne, the Khaleesi. Fully equal to the 13 (from her perspective) and does not have to do anything to earn entrance into their city. Will it probably end up in her death? Sure but that is a risk she is willing to take and I can’t think she honestly believes the will refuse entrance. Maybe bluff a bit but ultimately she believes they will let her in. Why not just show the dragons then? IIRC, they never said show us the dragons and we’ll let you in. It was “we don’t believe you are the Mother of Dragons. prove yourself to us” and I don’t think Dany thinks she needs to prove herself to anybody. Also there was a pride issue. Why make the dragon specticle public? Why not have the “Merchant” go up to Dany and say “I’d love to see the dragons?” Because it had nothing to do with dragons just like it had nothing to do with fear of being overrun by a horde of savage warriors. Dany recognizes this and is willing to stand on her pride.
This would make a great sig line.
At the very least, Melisandre considers herself to be 100% good. (Not that it’s necessarily true.) Remember the dialog when Davos was ferrying her to land:
*(BTW: Did anyone catch what that mumbled word was?)
*
Also, I liked the unspoken acknowledgement of how Stannis had an off-screen change of heart regarding his confidence in Mel’s Lord of Light assisting him in his war.
Two episodes ago, Stannis was expressing doubt about defeating Renly and didn’t seem at all confident that the Lord of Light would be any help in this regard. Then, he has some hot sex atop a battle map of Westeros. Now, in this episode, after apparently having seen how quickly Mel’s pregnancy developed, he had the utmost confidence that simply bringing her to shore to deliver her “child” would win him the war.
Well that must be very nice for you.
This.
One of the best things about the books (no spoiler coming, I promise) is that the characters, for the most part, seem human, with understandable, if perhaps not sympathetic, motivations. To push his character even further into the sneering evil end of the pool weakens, rather than strengthens it.
Thanks. That does seem right, and I considered “nice”, but for some reason I kept hearing two syllables there.
I can’t wait to see how Davos’ attitude towards Melisandre changes.
I don’t like the way it’s been going with Littlefinger lately. In the first season, he seemed to be relatively cautious and in tune with the pulse of the political goings on, and this season it’s blunder after blunder. Threatning Cercei, antagonizing Margaery after coming to Renly under the pretense of being friendly, picking the most tone-deaf retarded approach with Caitlin. Last season gave the impression that he was in the same league as Varys. This season he’s bumbling.
Forgot to ask - the knight who lead the group to capture Arya from Syrio - was that Sir Meryn? I remember thinking at the time how badass and knightly he seemed, but not as much this season. Then again, beating up helpless girls is not terribly badass.
I just checked; I believe he does say “nice” but he slurs it so it sounds more like “nurse”.
Yes.
Well the knights in GoT seem modeled more on the historical reality of knights than the fictional presentation. Basically, knights were just armored thugs for rich nobles. The whole chivalry thing was an attempt to convince them to be less thugly, and to whitewash them. I remember reading in Barbara Tuchman’s “A Distant Mirror” that one way competing lords would war with one another was to send their knights to cut off the hands and feet of the other lords’ peasants, so they’d be economic liabilities rather than assets.
That’s the sort of knights you see in GoT.
I think he looked more badass because he had his helm on during that scene. The Kingsguard armor does look pretty cool, but Sir Meryn has a fat jowly face.
I just have to say, Renly’s antler/branch crown is the prettiest damn crown I’ve ever seen. It looks great on him, too. I want him to be king just so he can wear that crown.