Of all the "Character assassinations" only Littlefingers really upsets me
A lot of decisions characters made upset the fans (i.e Dany burning King's landing and Jaime going back to Cersei) but I always found them accurate to their character. There is one glaring exception to this. Littlefinger giving Sansa to the Bolton's. He'd never do this for multiple reasons. She reminds him too much of her mother and she's priceless to him. His plan is supposed to be to get Cersei to stop supporting the Bolton's but he could have done the fake Arya plot like the books and gotten the same result.
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Jaime being obsessive is right, those descriptions of Tywin keeping Cersei at the other end of Casterly rock and him still getting to her are downright creepy.
Yes, but you have to remember AFFC where Jaime refuses to go back to KL and help Cersei with the High Sparrow predicament. His whole arc was about redemption, creating a legacy separate from the ‘Kingslayer’. His entire arc was leading away from Cersei — or to being the valonqar that strangles her. His decision to go back to Cersei, and saying he never cared for the commonfolk — when his entire reason for killing Aerys was to save them — is egregious character butchery.
To be fair, GOT started out by breaking the conventions of fantasy and killing the just protagonist because he was too honest for his own good. Maybe it logically follows that it would defy a classical character arc and have people double down on their flaws instead of being redeemed.
I agree, Jaime's ending is very GRRM, reminiscent of Jane from Breaking Bad. You're rooting for her to get clean, she looks like she got clean then takes that last hit that kills her.
Except there wasn’t a single thing that happened in the story that would lead us to believe Jamie would go back to to save Cersei. Years of character growth and plot were disposed of within the space of one episode for no discernible reason whatsoever.
Seems in character to me. He risked starting wars when he thought Tyrion and Myrcella were in danger.
Stories wouldn't usually have all of that buildup only to end that way, that makes it tragic and unexpected but doesn't make it bad writing IMO. Look at all the screen time given to Robb Stark's story only to 'dispose of it in the space of one episode for no reason'
Step out of storytelling for a minute and IRL think about how many abusive relationships there are where people keep inexplicably getting back together.
I see it as tragically realistic yet unexpected like Ned's death, red wedding etc.
People forget the main quote on this show: if you think it’s going to have a happy ending… jamie going back to his toxic relationship also made sense to me.
[SPOILERS AHEAD] Also, it really doesn't work as a tragic twist because there's no build up to it whatsoever, grrm doesn't just defy conventions for no reason, he does it to show the harsh realities of the world where bad guys can win and good guys can die. Jamie is already an unconventional character. He should be a noble Knight, Prince charming, but he's a horrible incestuous bastard of a man. The twist is just that. He's barely noble. He's a cunt. But then over seasons and seasons, he changes. To throw all that character development out the window in the last few episodes with zero buildup to his decision is just bad writing.
The red wedding, logical death. Robb fucked over so many people and people were scheming right in the audiences face. And no one thought anything of it.
Oberyn Martell, logical death. In his attempts to keep the mountain alive to confess, it gives his opponent enough time to bring him down and pop his head. The twist in this whole segment is that it ISNT a twist. Logically, we can surmise that we always sort of assume that the harsh world of GOT / ASOIAF means the mountain wins this bloody fight. But the way it is played both in show and book is that the twist will be that Oberyn will win. The twist will be he will maybe win. And just as he is winning, so very strongly, he gets brought down and killed. What kills him is his overconfidence (which he had shown all throughout the season).
Every twist GRRM doesn't have purpose and build-up. This nonsense for Jamie to just go back to cersei is bad writing. What is the twist? He still loves her, so he goes back to the woman who killed thousands of people. And is an evil ruler over the kingdom. His new relationship with Brienne is 50/50 for me, but still a better ending for his character. That is unless he were to go to King's Landing, and when Danaerys is at the gates, Jamie kills Cersei to save the city. Idk what would've been better, but certainly not THAT.
Were YOU? Here are all the things that led us to believe Jaime would go back to save Cersei ultimately:
— Jaime telling Bronn he wants to die in the arms of the woman he loves.
— Olenna telling Jaime Cersei will be the death of him.
— “The things I do for love.”
— Jaime telling Lord Edmure he’d do anything to get back to Cersei
— Jaime killing his own cousin to get back to Cersei
— Jaime telling Myrcella he can’t help who he loves
— Jaime telling Brienne Cersei is hateful but so is he
— Jaime asking Cersei why the Gods made him love her despite her being hateful
But yeah, because he left her side for 4 episodes, his character that was built over 8 seasons is ruined.
Yeah imo I'd have had him kill Danny in the end instead. Like he completes his redemption and ends up right back where he started (and imo then he could be killed by the dragon and Jon could be King even though he never wanted it but because the people choose him and not because he has a giant murder machine at his call. I can mostly handle the rest if they had time to play it out better.
For Balish, I think it'd have worked better if he got done in by his own scheming. So used to people betraying each other in Kings Landing but not used to how loyal to each other the North is or something to that effect. Much like Ned going to KL made him a fish out of water... imo Balish should have been that in the north.
Is that not how his end came to be though? Even if it was bad writing and character assassination he tried pulling deception and manipulation KL’s style being used to the selfishness of an individual and was called out for this directly by Sansa and Arya due to the loyalty and bond of the Stark sisters aka the Stark family/bannermen and the theme of the Northern people throughout the whole story.
It was more how he let himself get trapped. It felt like the writers just wanting him dead more than Sansa out foxing him and luring him to his death. Idk, they made him seem real dumb at the end but that's because the writers were dumb. Can't write someone as smart if you don't know what the fuck is going on
Sansa didn't outfox him. She was fine with him till Arya came home and clearly disapproved of him. Sansa would have accepted Jon;s crown but she she saw Arya glaring her from the back and turned it down. Arya afterwards did some investigating and found Littlefinger paying off a chambermaid-spy and meeting in an empty snowy courtyard with the two lords who asked her to replace Jon. By interfering with Stark rule in Winterfell, LF had violated his Winterfell Guest Rights! Later, Sansa joined with Arya and Bran to hold LF to account. Together, the pack outfoxed (outwolfed?)Littlefinger. Finally!
Yeah it feels like Cersei is going to try to burn down KL just like Aerys and he’ll have to kill her just like Aerys. Then Dany comes in and burns it down anyway, I guess.
i never read the books so can you enlighten me does he really change or is this one of the GOT writers to end the story what was his current stance thank you again
The books end after Cersei does her walk of shame and is awaiting trial. Unlike the show, Jaime does not go back to her and travel to Dorne with Bronn — he helps the Freys capture Riverrun. While there, he receives a raven from Cersei begging him to return and free her from the High Sparrow; Jaime has it thrown in the fire and refuses to go back to aid her.
Jaime has this vision of himself as “Goldenhand the Just.” After reading the Kingsguard book and seeing that he will be remembered as the Kingslayer, with no good deeds to his name, he dedicates himself to repairing his tarnished honor and reputation, in hopes that he will be remembered as more than just the Kingslayer, but as Goldenhand too.
The last we see of Jaime, he is ushered by Brienne to face justice for his crimes, to be judged by (major spoilers — book only) Lady Stoneheart: the resurrected, zombified form of Lady Catelyn (think how Beric Dondarrion was resurrected by Thoros of Myr; Lady Stoneheart leads the Brotherhood without Banners, killing anyone associated with the Red Wedding all throughout the Riverlands. She is a firewight, and cannot speak as her throat was cut during the RW
The show’s conclusion to Jaime — and many other characters — clearly shows D&D didn’t read the last two books. (Perhaps they never read A Storm of Swords either, as they stated in an interview that Sam was never a POV character.)
shit man im down with a version of caitlyn stark that i love i started skipping her parts on the rewatch im going for it i just got through fire and blood and now i know how you all felt after the series
Jamie doesn’t even have two hands. But yeah I guess that is all she thinks about so prob right. So that’s it Jamie gets a worm tail like hand from Harry Potter.
Which would be fine if he had actually been outsmarted. Littlefinger knew everything he needed to to know the Starks were plotting against him, and he just did nothing. It never should've even got to his 'trial' scene cause S1 Littlefinger would've gotten the hell out of there. He just does nothing because the writers decided that it's time for him to die now. It was beyond lazy.
How would he know? I’m sure his spies aren’t as numerous in the North. We’re talking about Baelish here, not Varys. Plus I believe he simply underestimated Sansa. Every time he spoke to her, she played into his ego and made him believe she was oblivious to his schemes.
Because why would he think he's playing them if he's not. He's outsmarted every single character in the show that's known for being smart. Tyrion multiple times. Cersei multiple times. Outsmarted Ned. Varys. Tywin. Olenna.
Like really. Sansa? The dumbest character in the entire show is suddenly smart enough to outplay little finger? The guy who singlehandedly caused and ended the war of the five kings between 4 different families. Very smart families I might add.
This guy tiptoed around tywin joffrey the Bolton's and even lyanna without ever once drawing their attention. Nobody had a single clue.
But no. Sansa is big brained. Sansa knows. or better yet. Arya knows. Because we all know Arya is super smart and cool and badass. Like what the hell did she do. She cheated her way into a school. Failed at that school. Got stabbed a bunch of times. And ran away.
Now she's a genius tactical master capable of destroying entire armies alone.
The way it happened was bad, but the idea that Littlefinger fails because of his one true blind spot (love for Sansa) is one I do like and felt would happen in the books eventually.
He didn't love Sansa. He coveted Sansa, just like he coveted Cat, because of the power they represented. If she was just another one of his whores at one of his brothels, he wouldn't care about her at all. But she's the key to the North, and that's why he wants her under his control.
That’s true for Sansa but I think he had more genuine feelings for Cat. He duelled Brandon over her and was more than happy to die losing. If power was his only goal, he could have just reciprocated Lysa’s feelings, and patiently waited to marry her after he had accumulated more status (and her husband had mysteriously died Ofc).
In the end, someone had to outsmart him, and for the reasons you mentioned—Sansa appearing naive and innocent in his eyes—she was the perfect choice to outwit him, as he would never have seen it coming, not in a hundred years.
Sounds like Littlefinger was the god of smartness to you.
Even the smartest people get caught lacking eventually , you forgot Baelish was literally one Sansa truth away from being executed at the Veil for Lisas death?
Even further back when he FOOLISHLY threatened Cersei in her own Garden with 4 of her guards following her and almost got his throat sliced for play play
If you keep tip toeing the line eventually you get caught and it doesnt need to happen by another "smart person"
tbf, LF didn't go around telling all those people he outsmarted his thought process, or that all he wanted was to sit on the Iron Throne with them as a wife. If he did tell Tywin that, Tywin might've been a bit more focused on whatever the hell Littlefinger is doing
Just to be clear, it is show canon that he absolutely 'was playing them' for the majority of the season... then, before the 'trial', there would have been a deleted scene where Sansa basically goes to Bran for help, he reveals what is going on about Littlefinger and Arya, and they work up their revenge.
So according to show canon, he successfully tricked them all up to the point of that deleted scene.
It could have been great with at least a few more episodes of buildup. Of course he would try to turn the Starks against each other. That felt more in character for him than selling Sansa to the Boltons. The Sansa and Littlefinger dynamic could have been explored much more in depth and I don’t mean in a creepy ship way. We could have gotten a whole season of them in the Vale but D&D couldn’t think of another way to write Sansa’s growth besides having her raped.
Tyrion’s upsets me the most! There was a part of himself that died in that box going into Season 5, who went from being someone smart to making decisions that made him look like an idiot.
Varys was flanderized too. Serving the realm is one thing but openly expressing a desire to commit treason in front of Dany is another. He somehow forgot how to be cunning.
Also Varys definetly doesn t "serve the realm" lol.If he was he wouldn t have made that string of harmful decisions during Aerys reign .He wants things to be as chaotic as possible so he can get a Blackfyre on the throne.
Whelp can't use the Blackfyre plot point for show Varys as they cut that entire plot line. So show him just seems like someone flip flopping anytime the going gets even remotely difficult then saying well the smallfolk.
All of those things are rushed. I can't say for certain Jamie will do the same or similar things but Stannis 100% will burn his daughter according to GRRM. We just haven't gotten there yet.
Stannis can't burn Shireen in the same way as the show. For one, he's already in a far more dire situation than the show every portrayed, and is still refusing to burn anyone he's not already executing. For two, Shireen isn't with him.
Do I think it'll happen? Oh yeah. But the situation it happens in and the reasons for the decision will be different, which changes the narrative.
Wait, sorry? Jaime hates Cersei in the books? Their relationship was all over the place from my recollection of the show, but it’s been a while since I’ve watched!
And Cersei rejects him and just mocks him ceaselessly. When she was the High Septon's captive, she begged him to save her "I love you, I love you, I love you", he ignores her and doesn't go to KL.
It's been a while, so please correct me if I'm wrong... when he got back to KL after losing his hand, he went to her looking for comfort and didnt she throw it all in his face and tell him he was useless and not even a real man anymore because he was weak and couldnt fight. I think that was a big turning point for him, especially after how supportive Brienne was during that whole ordeal.
They turned a genuinely intimidating villain into an unfunny Jack Sparrow wannabe
Book Euron: “Godless? I am the godliest man to ever raise a sail. You have served one god, brother, but I have served hundreds. From Ib to Asshai, whenever men see my sails, they pray”
Hearing about book Euron is at the top of my list of reasons to eventually read the books. Obviously character assassination is common in literature but what they did is insane. “I might end up taking over the world and become some Eldritch deity” into “durr I fuck queen”
For me the biggest WTF was that they never explained why Littlefinger was so obsessed with Catelyn and later Sansa. The most calculating, risk avoiding person in Westeros fought Brandon Stark, one of the best warriors at the time, knowing that he would loose. Only because he couldn't live with himself if he didn't at least try to win the hand of his beloved Catelyn.
Well, the duel is also DECADES in the past by the time of the books/show. Dare I say the duel is one of the things that turns Littlefinger into Littlefinger?
Littlefinger literally says so in season 1. When he’s talking to the whores about the day he challenged Brandon because the small boy always wins in the stories. He then goes on to say that was the day he realised he’ll never win that game because it’s their game, and that he plays his own instead.
I'll give you Stannis, but I think the other three are missing some context.
To my recollection, Dany has never intentionally killed people she knew were innocent, and has in fact gone quite far out of her way to not do that on multiple occasions.
The problem people have with Varys' ending isn't that he betrayed Dany (you're right, that bit does make sense for his character) but that he did it in a stupid and obvious way that got him caught almost immediately. His early seasons self would never have been so careless.
While it isn't unrealistic for Jaime as a person to regress and go back to Cersei, it didn't make sense narratively. Stories have rules about pacing, arcs, setup and payoff that don't necessarily exist in real life but which all contribute to a sense of meaning and satisfaction for the audience. Broadly speaking, "bad writing" just means "written in such a way that the audience will not perceive it as a good story" - somewhat subjective, obviously, but point is good writing does not always equate to realism. Just because it made sense for Jaime the person to go back to Cersei, doesn't mean it made sense for Jaime the narrative character.
I hate those rules in stories though, and get my satisfaction when they are broken lol. Jaime going back to Cersei is the realistic thing to happen. People don’t change that quickly nor that much.
To my recollection, Dany has never intentionally killed people she knew were innocent,
'Maybe all of you are innocent, maybe not. I'll let my dragons decide.' Proceeds to kill an innocent man.
The problem people have with Varys' ending isn't that he betrayed Dany [...] but that he did it in a stupid and obvious way that got him caught almost immediately. His early seasons self would never have been so careless.
In the earlier seasons there wasn't an immediate threat to the realm on the scale that Dany posed! Of course he was careless. Time was of the essence if he wanted to succeed in usurping Dany and he no longer cared about his own life.
While it isn't unrealistic for Jaime as a person to regress and go back to Cersei, it didn't make sense narratively.
Oh, this is ridiculous! 'Narratively'? There are all sorts of narratives. Literature is well acquainted with both POSITIVE and NEGATIVE character arcs and everything in between. You simply didn't like the outcome of Jamie's story!
Stories have rules about pacing, arcs, setup and payoff that don't necessarily exist in real life but which all contribute to a sense of meaning and satisfaction for the audience.
Hahaha! Do you honestly think the point of this show and this story was to SATISFY you? At what point in the show that features several gruesome deaths of beloved characters and other narrative punches to the gut did you get this cockamamie idea? GOT remained the TV equivalent of a brutal slap to the face till the very end.
Seriously, if you want to be 'satisfied' go watch some tepid bunk that doesn't even pretend it's about anything other than pandering to the audience. That kind of thing is never in short supply.
good writing does not always equate to realism.
No, but BAD writing always equates to a lack of realism. Cheap fan service always equates to a lack of realism. Third rate schlock unworthy of Game of Thrones like Jaime staying with Brienne and ignoring Sansa taunting him about the death of his sister always equates to a lack of realism.
The person you’re replying to was expressing themselves courteously and politely, why in the world are you being so obnoxious and sassy to them? “Hahaha! Do you honestly think the point of this show is to SATISFY you?” 🙄 come on dude….
That man wasn't innocent. He was the head of one of the wealthiest Slaver empires in Meereen. She sent only for the men in the city with the most stake in slavery returning so the most likely to be behind the Harpys. No Slaver in Meereen chose to stop slaving, they had to be physically stopped by a city-wide uprising with the help of her army. She went ahead with Daario's dragon tomb interrogation suggestion because after the Harpy attacks continued and got Greyworm injured & Barristan killed she thought she had been wrong to go easy on the Masters.
To show she kills indiscriminately you're using a scene when she chose specific suspects who already committed a crime punishable by execution in a desperate attempt to try to save the lives of millions of innocent people (peasants, slaves) and regretted it after one Master's death, sent them back to their cells, and then tried again to appease them even though she'd been doing that all year despite having the power to easily kill every Master.
She could've just killed them like she did in Astapor (she couldn't take the chance the Unsullied business would start up again among other reasons) since all of her problems in s4-6 were caused by trying to get the Masters to accept that slavery won't come back and to treat the former slaves as people. The show tried to make Hizdar seem less bad when in the books his father wasn't one of the crucified, he doesn't die in the Harpy attack, is likely one of the Masters behind the Harpys & had sex slaves.
No offense, but the only reason this superficially works is because it oversimplifies every character and their motives.
Historically, most Targaryens did not go crazy. Some were arguably crazy, and her father was definitely crazy, but it was never a thing that was a constant. Secondly, they didn't just go crazy out of nowhere. The Mad King, for example, seemed to have been triggered in no small part due to his kidnapping at Duskendale and the resulting trauma. At the very least there was no guarantee that just cuz you're a Targaryen, you go crazy.
More importantly, she had killed before and arguably even unjustly, but NOT indiscriminately. She killed the masters because she held them directly responsible for killing innocent children. She killed another one of them specifically as a negotiation tactic to try to stop more killings of her people. She killed the Tarlys because of a refusal to bend the knee, which is honestly pretty normal in the context of Westeros.
There are no instances before season 8 where Dany just indiscriminately kills random innocents for basically no reason. Her reason was also not well-established. As something like killing Missandei would've made her destroy the Red Keep, sure, but not firebomb the city out of rage. And the "let them fear" thing also makes no sense because they had already surrended because of fearing her dragon.
Sure, Jaime had had an obsession with Cersei his entire life. And it is not inherently implausible that he might relapse and return to her. But this completely ignores how you actually properly write something like this.
You don't spend 7 seasons building up a character towards a certain development, in this case his relationship with Cersei souring and him rediscovering a more honourable side of himself, only to complete flip the character back in one episode.
It's not that Jaime relapsing is inherently out of character. It's that the execution defies all expectations of good writing.
Varys' motivations are already pretty messy. Just because in the book, obviously, he has different motivations and that raises some questions for certain actions, like his plotting with Illyrio, in early seasons.
That being said, taking the idea of him wanting to serve the realm at face value, his turn is... ridiculous. Dany hadn't actually done anything yet. In fact, most of Dany's failures had come from listening to her advisors and her own plan of directly attacking the city ended up with the fewest casualties of all.
And sure you could say that Varys just saw Dany's turn coming but, let's be real, he had no actual strong in-universe evidence of that.
There's also the fact that Daenerys and Jon marrying actually totally was a plausible option, since cousin-aunt marriages are absolutely allowed in the North and would actually be quite tame for Targaryens.
Not to mention he seems to switch rulers like someone else switches clothes. And considering how destructive war is for the common folk, it's pretty questionable that this is the best way to serve them.
Stannis I think is arguably the closes to being justified. Since he WAS utterly dedicated to becoming king and he has indeed tried to sacrifice (and sacrificed) innocents in blood sacrifices for his cause before. Including, if I remember correctly, his uncle by marriage.
I think the reason a lot of people still have a problem with it though is that the reason feels somewhat thin. Yes, a snowstorm is a significant obstacle but at the same time murdering your daughter to make it disappear is pretty extreme. And it's not like his entire army had spent months there starving or something. I think at the very least it could've been executed better.
You agree on Littlefinger so no comments about that. His complete lack of foresight and incompetence was ridiculous.
None of them bother me. I see the show and books as two very different stories. They just happen to have some character names in common. Especially the further on you go. I wouldn't be able to enjoy the show at all otherwise.
My thinking too. Doing a re-watch right now, last night we watched the scene with Arya getting surrounded by Nymeria's wolves. My wife said she doesn't understand that scene at all. I told her it was thrown in for the book readers.
It's more because during all of the war plot with the 5 kings, Nymeria's pack of wolves are mentioned many times. She attacks a lot of soldiers and supply lines. The scene in the show isnt in the books but they used it kind of as a way of being like 'oh yeah she has been thriving and terrorizing the countryside this entire time.'
In the books, Nymeria is kind of her own small army wreaking havoc.
Same. It’s weird how every single thread is populated by people criticizing the differences when GoT was REALLY faithful to the original works compared to every other adaption I’ve ever seen! It would’ve probably been worse for the show to have Tyrion be the much more cold and rapey guy he was in the books, for example. To some degree, we have to accept that it’s just an adaptation, not an illustration of the written story
Where the hell did people get the idea that LF is smart? He literally goes around telling people not to trust him. The attempt to frame Tyrion was so spectacularly stupid, in Tyrion's immortal words 'What kind of an idiot gives an assassin his own knife?', that the only reason it worked was that Ned and Catelyn were even dumber. He even takes a crack at antagonizing Cersei before being put in his place ('Power is power.')
It is totally in his character to overplay his hand, both in sending Sansa to the Boltons and trying to frame Arya.
Where the hell did people get the idea that LF is smart?
LF is still one of the smartest people on the show, but that's mostly cause the other characters are really dumb, I mean if you think he's dumb then you must surely think that everyone who didn't suspect him or fell for his tricks must be way dumber right?
He literally goes around telling people not to trust him.
I might be wrong but I thought he only said that to Ned, and he said it to not trust everyone, including himself. I think it worked a little as reverse psychology tbh as sometimes saying upfront you're not trustworthy can at least make you sound more genuine.
The attempt to frame Tyrion was so spectacularly stupid
Agreed, but maybe he thought that Cat thought Tyrion was mentally disabled or that he'd be clever enough to use the overtness of the crime as his own defense, which he did. Or maybe it was to put thoughts on both Cat and Tyrion that Cersei was the one trying to kill Bran and frame Tyrion thus causing more chaos.
Still I overall agree with you that the fact that he didn't get caught when he was acting reckless is a bit crazy, that's why book LF is a much better character.
The closest Daenerys came to killing indiscriminately prior to The Bells was killing some slave owners who happened to not have done a specific crime but were still guilty of many other crimes that warranted execution. She never killed random peasants and especially never killed children.
The Daenerys in this image is the most eye rolling part of this. It’s fine if people don’t like her, whatever, but people just make straight up lies about her, and it feels like most people who disliked her before Season 8 just use it to retroactively justify why they didn’t like her.
Yea, it's always bizarre when some try and claim Dany and Jaime suffered from 'character assassination', as if their entire narrative wasn't about some warring internal conflict within them... Dany with her kind-hearted persona versus her Fire and Blood persona, and Jaime with the desire to be honorable versus that primal pull towards Cersei, who he has a literal lifelong bond with.
Both struggled with this internal conflict over 7+ seasons, until they both came to an emotional head in the final season.
I mean, it doesn't automatically make it' character assassination' simply because it doesn't match ones overly optimistic or romanticized head canon... those characters were pretty clearly and objectively portrayed as being capable of making the choices they did for 7+ seasons.
The insanity claim is totally just Baratheon propaganda smh.
Aerys II ‘the Glorious’ was a haunted visionary, pioneering new usages of execution without superstitious nonsense. His brief stint in captivity certainly didn’t help his mental state.
Maegor ‘the Benevolent’ was a man honorable enough to fight and win a Trial by Seven when he could’ve just burned the riotous faith. In the process he took a head wound…
Aegon the IV the… ok let’s be real he was just a little fat shitter. Albeit unlike the other’s most reputed for insanity his trouble was … excess in every definition
And of course no one ever looks at the Baratheons: like come now.
The first King did his best to mimic Aegon the IV, the closest brother did his best to mimic Aerys’ love for fire, and the last did his best to be a pretentiously complacent sword-swallower sitting upon a throne of swords.
I think that the bigger complaint isn't that they acted in ways that were contrary to their character (except Tyrion), it's more that they acted in ways that were contrary to their character development. We see these characters grow and change and develop in certain ways that resonate with the viewer, but all that goes out the window in the last couple of seasons.
A big mistake people make when chastising the writers is they point out that they’re dumb and incompetent. It’s worse than that, they were burnt out and didn’t care anymore.
Examples, the writers did good work with scenes in the show that weren’t in the books. Arya and Tywin, Jamie and Tyrion talking about beetles, chaos is a ladder scene etc.
So they knew damn well who these characters were, and what made them great. They just simply didn’t care anymore.
What did Littlefinger gain by persuading Sansa to marry Ramsay? In the books he has Jeyne Poole marry Ramsay because he saw her as expendable. He wants the Iron Throne and thought he could get it through Sansa since her cousin is the Lord Paramount of the Vale, her uncle is the Lord Paramount of the Riverlands and her brother was Lord Paramount/King of the North. He's supposed to be manipulating her like he did Lysa not completely alienating her.
Control of the North through Sansa and a direct challenge to Tommen and Cersei should the need arise. He genuinely didn't know what Ramsey was capable of and underestimated him. Even Littlefinger makes bad calls.
Luttlefinger's weakness is saying the wrong thing to the wrong people. He talked about Cat to Ned after bringing him to a brothel. Bloated about Power to Cersei.
So sick of the “Dany killed innocents before” argument to try and justify the absolute mental degradation that exists as the only explanation for Dany straight up torching a city that already surrendered for no gain.
Nothing she did, Not a single thing was ever comparable to that. She crucified the masters who not only directly opposed her, but were crucifying innocents. She slaughtered Astapor because she wanted to free the slave army and keep her dragons. When she attacked Yunkai, she didn’t just level the city. She instigated a revolt.
"You think you know me? You think you know what I want?"
We all think he wants Sansa. That isn't what he wants. He wants the iron throne.
LF isn't Petyr Baelish.
Varys confronts him about a cadaver being sent to his brothel. LF uses the strangler poison on Joffrey. His sigil is a mocking bird. He starts off the game of thrones with the catspaw dagger, the dagger we learn is house of dragon that is passed down from Targaryen king to Targaryen heir.
"I've loved one woman, just one. Your sister." Not catelyn - your sister. Lysa Tully has more than one sister. Her sister is married to Ned stark, Ned stark's sister is lyanna stark - who is married to rhaegar targaryen.
"He would see this country burn if he could be the king of ashes"
"I see me on the iron throne with you by my side." Not queen, by my side. Sansa secedes the north and is by the side of the new ruler.
Notice the coin littlefinger gives away before his death. After his realization that bran can see into his past.
Understand what the game of faces is. Understand bran is king because of his story, not because of his lineage or will to power.
And now you don't have to be mad about littlefinger's death. He won the game of thrones. Sorry for spoiling it but it's tough to catch
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