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Would he? I mean, given his virtual omniscience about everything that happens in Westeros, or at least everything that happened in the past (which presumably includes the recent past, like half an hour ago) and his ability to warg out and take over animals (and maybe humans, unless that worked only on Hodor), he should make a fine Master of Whispers, except for the fact he's been sod-all use to the House of Stark and its allies as an intelligence resource.Yeah, Bran doesn't make sense. He'd certainly be a very valuable member of the small council if Jon sits on the throne however.
For example, how about a bit of a warning like "Don't go all Charge of the Light Brigade with the Dothraki and the Army of the Dead"? or "The Golden Company have some astonishing high velocity Scorpion catapults that can probably take out dragons, and they've mounted some on Euron's fleet, so keep a look out for them"?
(Not that I know anything at all about the maths behind it, but I've seen some convincing calculations about how fast the first bolt that hit Dany's spare dragon last week must have been travelling, given the distance from which it was fired, that projectiles travel in a parabola and it can't have dropped much more than a couple of metres over what must have been about a kilometer, and that chap must have been going really fast. )
I’m just a lowly medievalist here, folks, but I’m calculating that Euron’s bolt, if it hadn’t hit the dragon, would have reached a maximum elevation of around 14 miles above sea level before it nosed back down to earth. That’s, um, around twice the cruising altitude of most commercial airliners.
And sure, there’s some wiggle room to my calculations. Atmospheric conditions are one of those major variables, after all, and while the weather was great when Euron pulled the trigger, if his bolt hadn’t hit the dragon a lot could’ve happened to it during the—checks notes—more than two minutes it would’ve been airborne after he released it, during which time—checks notes again—it would’ve traveled about 163 miles. A missed shot would’ve passed through weather systems.
Probably this is all academic. It doesn’t matter how many damn torsion arms you put on one, no medieval or quasi-medieval ballistics engine can manage to launch a projectile at hypersonic speeds. Alas.
The problem, to my mind, with this series and the last, starting with Dany's arrival in Westeros, is that the pace has changed completely. What used to be very much character-driven drama, with events unfolding according to the logic of the individual characters and their motivations and reactions, turned into plot-led drama, with events driven by the necessity of completing the various plot arcs in time.[...snip...]
Can you believe HBO actually offered D&D more episodes or an extra season and they turned HBO down??!! Absolute madness....
If they think we're going to give a standing ovation as the credits roll after Sunday they're completely deluded.
While it can easily be argued that the Dany's progress from breaker of chains and liberator of slaves to war criminal and butcher of King's Landing was wholly logical -- the signs of the sinister side of her character, and the effect on her of the abuse that she'd suffered as a child and young adult (effectively being sold off as a sex slave to Khal Drogo in return his possible support for her brother's claim to the Iron Throne) were there from very early on, and her rule in Mereen was not without its problems -- the extraordinary pace of this final season in particular has pretty much reduced characters to cyphers.
Why does so-and-so behave that way? Because the plot requires it if all the story arcs are to be completed in six extended episodes. So episode 1 was pretty much catching up and a scene-setter. Episodes 2 and 3 disposed of the Night King, the Army of the Dead and the threat from beyond the wall. Episodes 4 and 5 wrapped up the results of the Night King's defeat and disposed of Cersei, Jaime, Euron and King's Landing, leaving one episode to wrap up the fall-out from that.
Presented over two or three seasons, I can see how season 8's plotline could have worked pretty well if they'd played out over two or three seasons, giving time for characters' motivations and reactions to become clear. Cramming them all into one very eventful season, though, has speeded things up to an impossible rate, so people's motivations get lost and things just seem silly.
As an example, how many weeks pregnant was Cersei supposed to be at the end? Remember how long people took to travel around Westeros by foot or on horseback in earlier seasons, and then consider how far both the Army of the Dead and then, after defeating them at Winterfell, Jon Snow and the Stark bannermen travelled to Kings Landing, both in the middle of winter. Compare and contrast Arya and the Hound's travels, or Brienne and Jaime's, in earlier seasons with how soon they arrived at King's Landing from Winterfell this time.
Maybe the reason Cersei still didn't look pregnant in her final episode is that she'd already had the child and no one mentioned it in all the rush, a bit like the way Varys' attempt to poison Daenerys (if that's what it was) was pretty easy to miss in the mad scramble.
As I say, spread over two or three seasons, the events of Season 8 could have worked very well. As it is, we're left with some great scenes and events but a somewhat dissatisfying narrative.
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