fuckle85

3 hours ago, Man of Culture said:

Where, in your mind, does offense, insensitivity and uncreative design end and quality, well done and thoughtful design begin?

 

 

If an enemy has a twitching animation, you risk offending people with tourette's.

 

If an enemy speaks to "people" that clearly don't exist, you risk offending people with schizophrenia.

 

If an enemy has an exposed spine, you risk offending people who suffered through spinal bifida.

 

There is no winning for developers when it comes to this game of perpetual offense for otherwise innocuous design decisions that make no actual attempt to denigrate people who might actually suffer from any potential malady that a designer sees fit to attribute to their enemy designs. Context and intent do matter here.

There's plenty of creative decisions that can be made to prevent any of that stuff coming off as weird/uncomfortable.  In this case, have some characters who aren't intende to be deranged, cretinous mutantmonsters have cleft lips as well.  Don't use creature design in a way that contextualizes the appearance of a cleft lip itself as something that should be a source of horror.  Tons of ways to tackle it more empathetically without effecting the gameplay at all.

3 minutes ago, Man of Culture said:

 

You resemble all the negative remarks made about this topic.

ok bud

Polygon has some hot takes, but I'm not so sure this is one of them.  Some of the creature designs straight-up look like caricatures of someone born with a cleft lip (The part where he said the mutants look exactly like his baby pictures was hopefully exaggerated though, yikes). 

There's literally hundreds of ways to portray an enemy mutated creature without basing their creepiness off an existing medical condition that causes someone grief. It's insensitive and uncreative.

Since SFLUFAN might be on the verge of going peak depressive nihilist again, it is time to inject some humor ITT which will also hopefully quell his rage

Regardless of how anyone feels about how well the point the writers were trying to make in the recent episode was conveyed within the constrains of a TV show, ultimately the attempt of commentary on the evil that potentially resides in all humans, no matter how seemingly good, that is brought to the surface when given power is still fairly intact and can make for compelling storytelling and conversation.

There's a complicated discussion to be had about how Dany's methods mirror both past and contemporary human actions and also how strategic they were in reaction to the politics of Westeros.  How successfully did/can you achieve your goal of being a peaceful ruler when many of the soldiers in your armies during the siege are drunk on power and literally raping and pillaging the citizens?  To what extent would that come back on you? How secure is your position of power when the citizens of Westeros are all alive to tell the tale, possibly distort the truth as it spreads?  How necessary is it to nuke the city when you've already won the war in one evening in a gross display of power?  To be concerned about the citizens not fearing you enough when you literally have the most dangerous weapon in the world perched on your castle as you sit on the throne? What would the domino effects of any siege of King's Landing be over time? etc

1 hour ago, SFLUFAN said:

Are they livid about the execution of the events or the events themselves?

Just checked in and it looks like things have calmed down since a day or two ago.  Was trying to get some screenshots of the posts that were cheering her on as she nuked the city and the ones still defending her as a character or saying there was no indication she could be a villain, but that side of the argument has pretty much given up the ghost now at least

BTW, the remaining books might not be coming, but if anyone does want something GoT-related that's entertaining to read, check out the official GoT thread on Resetera where tons of users, many with Dany avatars, are absolutely livid about the events of last week's episode. Yowza!

Daenerys nuking King's Landing isn't out of character for her but I think the way it went down in the show might've been.  She's a ruthless conqueror, but one who was almost always interested in conquering the conquerors. But her thirst for the throne still motivates her.  So I think the fix is that you show those events a bit differently, first by having her begin to lose the battle.  Her troops are being slaughtered, Cersei is looking even more smug than usual, and so on. 

At first she only targets Cersei's troops and naval fleet, as she started doing in the last episode. Then she perches on a vantage point and looks around as her own troops are being slaughtered and gets angrier and angrier because as we know how much she's wanted the throne, to rule, and that might not happen now. She would hate to lose for a multitude of reasons both understandable and not, and that's a legit character flaw established as early as season 1 and THAT triggers her mad queen instinct and she goes too far with it just like in last sunday's episode.  

It would be more internally consistent with her character to depict the tragedy of her snapping and killing everyone that way and would get the same point across.  I wonder to what extent how it went down in the TV series is because of creative liberties the show for whatever reasons might've taken with the book story, like how Daenerys is portrayed as a white savior on the show and not in the books, how gay characters are given less development on the show, Everything in Dorne, Tyrion being less smart, etc.

Alright, this thread has me thinking a lot about the final two episodes now.  So, from Daenerys perspective and her goals and based on what we know about the political climate of King's Landing, what was most likely to have happened if, after the siege, she immediately captured Cersei, aired out her crimes (Bran could be consulted to find living witnesses) and publicly executes her under those charges before taking the throne?  Then she assigns Jon to rule with her, since he is the rightful heir to the throne?  Maybe he would be the face of the kingdom, and not required to do much, and she would be the actual ruler.  Assuming all of this went according to plan, what is most likely be the reaction from the kingdom?

27 minutes ago, TheGreatGamble said:

You can’t understand why the woman who has said “I’ll take what’s mine through fire and blood” multiple times finally took what she wanted through fire and blood? Her madness has been foreshadowed. And she’s lost almost everything since coming across the sea.

Yea, I already mentioned how the possibility of that happening at some point made sense despite the iffy nature of how her descent into complete tyranny was portrayed in the show.

30 minutes ago, SFLUFAN said:

In regard to writing, this Twitter thread actually made me ever-so-slightly more sympathetic to D&D - it's definitely worth your time:

 

 

I can't remember if it was mentioned ITT yet or not, but one of the things that makes GRRM's world so hard to bring to the screen when two of his books are unfinished is the fact that, unlike Tolkien, he writes so much of the story, including figuring out all the lore and backstory of Westeros, as he goes along.  That tweet was an insightful look at how the writers were trying to tackle that with the show.

The overall takeaway of the inherent systemic corruption of the politics of the seven kingdoms and how, much like monarchies in human history (fighting and killing harder means you are the "better" ruler, history being written by the "winners", the way the perception of what justice is how it can be warped, and the way politics exist the perceptions of the civilians and how it also shapes world events, etc)  domino effects into similar events shown in the ending of the show is still pretty much there.  I just think the show could've still made those points and not dumbed down the writing of their characters and lots of other stuff that was simplified and condensed in these last two seasons. All well, there's still the remaining books to look forward to being released soon after all this time  lmao

12 minutes ago, GeneticBlueprint said:

 

She was not greeted as a beloved savior like every time she had previously conquered. But as a feared tyrant. The people were still on Cersei's side. As she said, "Fear it is, then."

She wasn't a complete tyrant though, or at least tried not to be.  Welp, so much for that!  

12 minutes ago, SFLUFAN said:

SFLUFAN Hotter Take:  there is practically no difference whatsover between what Daenerys did and the dropping of the atomic bombs on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki as in both instances the war had effectively been won.  In light of that, was Harry Truman the "Mad President" for doing so?

I feel like the writers might've fumbled an opportunity to make an interesting parallel with that by having Dany nuke everything after she won her throne instead of nuking everything thinking she will lose or something. 

Yes, which is why the most positive ending of the show would be destroying the throne, doing away with the monarchy and replacing it with a large council or something.  But Dany going that level insane for no reason was just confusing, power hungry though she may be.  Imo it would've made more sense for her to be pushed into madness, burning it all down as a result of fear of losing her throne, rather than doing it after she already won everything.  Either that or write her character in season 1-7 to be a bit more ruthless and unstable than she was.

Watching it again, it's kind of frustrating how I can't figure out why Dany would go mad queen to the extent she did.  I get that the throne is what's corrupting her and motivates her a lot, but she also clearly does believe in justice, ruthless as she is sometimes.  Murdering an entire city of innocent civilians is a MASSIVE escalation and, from what I remember, much worse than anything implied in the show about the dark side of her character.  

Ultimately I think the mad queen twist could definitely work.The possibility was always in the air, even in season 1.  And it won't surprise me if it makes it into the books, but the show dropped the ball on portraying her descent into madness leading up to that in a convincing enough way for me. Those four or five scenes that were intended to show her downward spiral felt more to me like she was mourning her losses of her advisors/friends rather than descending into psychosis.  There should have been several more episodes where the drama hinged on whether or not she would go crazy. 

So I went from being like "damn, I feel so bad for Dany, she's very beside herself" to "WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK ARE YOU DOING! WHY?"  It was confusing. 

Also, SHE WON THE FUCKING WAR. SHE HAD IT IN THE BAG. IT WAS OVER. What possible reason at that point did she have for going full mad queen!!!????  Killing the rest of the soldiers and Cersei?  Sure, but she's killing literally EVERYONE BUT CERSEI.  Say what you will about Dany but the most corrupt were always first on her list.  I guess the implication was that she didn't want to damage her swordchair by blowing up the castle or whatever, but man that just seems like it requires a lot of suspension of disbelief of what is known about that character.  I feel like it could have played out much better and been far more dramatic if it happened as she started losing the battle. Something to push her in that direction of burning it all down.  That would have still been an escalation but a more understandable one and less jarring.
 

Not gonna lie, that scene did not strike much fear in me and felt unintentionally funny at times.  I liked the first movie a lot though.  It was a massive improvement on the TV miniseries in every way except Tim Curry's performance so I'm looking forward to seeing this.

32 minutes ago, Brick said:

Also, Drogon coming out of the darkness before torching Varys was one hell of a scary visual. Daenerys did warn him that if he ever went behind her back she'd do that. Wish she would sat him down and asked him to win this war without killing innocents because she too cares for the realm, but she has indeed become the Mad Queen. I was hoping she wouldn't. 

 

My predictions now is that Jon will kill her, but not take the Throne, and instead he will be the one to introduce democracy to Westeros, just like how The Night's Watch picked their Lord Commanders. 

The throne got to Dany's ass and is pretty much the source of all the evil in Westeros.  I read on this board a prediction like what you're saying that the iron throne gets destroyed and a more democratic form of rule will be instated. That'll probably happen and also I think Dany and Jon will die next episode and Tyrion along with possibly Sansa, Bran and Samwell will start up a new counsil to replace the old one.  

3 hours ago, TheGreatGamble said:

I mean, I hardly feel bad about the rape of Cersei Lanister. She lived her whold life taking everything she could from others. It was a bit of justice when that agency was taken away from her. In real life, I would never condone rape. But in a weird fantasy worlds where the woman raped has caused countless horrors and crimes against innocents, I have zero pity for her. The only thing I truly think badly of Jamie for is Bran. Incest was obviously somewhat excepted in Westeros. He saved his brother. He saved Brienne. He just chose to die with Cersei. 

 

As for Olenna, I loved her, but Jamie killing her doesn't really make him that bad. Olenna was no saint. 

Oh I never shed any tears for that icebitch either, but I still think rape is still fucking shocking and wrong.

Olenna was fun and smart and probably would have been a decent queen.  And she killed Joffrey, which makes her one of the heroes of the entire story. Call me crazy, but I think it might say something about Jamie's character that he had his moments of honor up to that point but still decided to kill her.

49 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

 

Jamie was tried to do good things some times but Cersei was ALWAYS his weakness. Olean Tyrell TOLD him she would be the ruin of him. Tyrion pointed out that he always followed her despite knowing who and what she was. Did he have some honor? Yes... he was a Knight after all and admired Ser Barristan and Arthur Dayne who were both VERY honorable. But he was also raised to believe that he was better than everyone else and he was FUCKING HIS SISTER. He also pushed a 10 year old boy out of a window to hide the fact that he was FUCKING HIS SISTER. Yeah he has some honor but going back to Cersei when he knew she was doomed? Yeah that definitely tracks and is consistent with his character. 

lmao, exactly.  However my point is that his being a sisterfucker (when he wasn't raping her), being sympathetic to his evil family and complicit in their war crimes, crippling a young boy (attempted murder, really), and other counts of murder/killing make him an gross and unheroic person, but his commitment to being with Cersei had absolutely nothing to do with some of his honorable moments like risking his like to save Brienne's  and defending Winterfell.  So now we are back to my original point about him ultimately  being a unsympathetic character, despite some sympathetic actions throughout his character arc.  Jamie in a nutshell. 

18 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

 

He didn't kill the mad king to "save innocents"... he killed the Mad King to save his father because the mad king he JUST told him to bring him his father's head. Jaimie has CONSISTENTLY stated he didn't give a fuck about innocent people. His only concerns were his family really and Cersei was number one in that.

I agree that's a primary motivation of his, but his actions have shown him doing noble things despite it as well.  Risking his life to save Brienne from the bear when he was missing a hand and couldn't fight well, some of the lives he spared, and fighting for Winterfell are genuinely honorable things to credit him with.  I didn't know that was why he killed the mad king. But he showed some complex feelings about it while in the spa with Brienne, not to mention the look of horror on his face after realizing what Cersei did with the wildfire in season 6.  He had his moments of selflessness, remorse and compassion for other human beings, even though I don't doubt he cared about Cersei more than anything.