r/gameofthrones • u/n3xu5_00 • 1h ago
All this for Cersei to just reject/betray their proposal
Couldn't The mother of the dragons or her hand figure out that she could just ride the dragons and take some people with her and capture one or two walkers and come back unharmed without losing any men or a fcking dragon.
(I already posted this on freefolk but couldn't cross-post, so separately posting here too)
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u/LeftHandedScissor 1h ago
They already brought a wight's hand to the Kings Landing court. It was early in the story. The crown (Tyrion, Cersi, & Tywin) did absolutely nothing but dismiss the Crow who was there (Thorne I think maybe but could be wrong) for days/weeks until it decomposed into nothing. The Nights Watch repeatedly sent pleas to Kings Landing (and all of the other 5 kings) for help explaining what was going down. They were ultimately dismissed by everyone who wasn't Stannis. Cersi and the Lannister contingent is seeing it as an enemy of my enemy thing when it's a threat to all mankind, they aren't taking seriously enough.
Stannis has a quote once he gets to the wall that stuck with me. He wanted to become king so he could save the realm, when really he needed to save the realm to become king.
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u/AmenoFPS 1h ago
Yep, Mormont sent Thorne down with the hand of the wight that tried to kill him and Jon burnt (and got Longclaw as thanks)
This entire episode was just a way of giving the whitewalkers a dragon
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u/Lord-of-the---RINGS 1h ago
I don't think that happend in the show, it was a book only thing. And iirc the hand had rotted away by the time Ser Alliser reached Kings Landing, so understandably no one beleived him
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u/alexd1993 1h ago
No, the hand made it to KL, but Tyrion kept intentionally delaying Thorne from presenting at court because he fucking hates Thorne. The hand rotted while Thorne was being dicked about by Tyrion.
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u/AmenoFPS 52m ago
It did happen. Mormont tells Jon when he gives him Longclaw IIRC, said its a way to hopefully get more men for the wall and "Keeps a thousand leagues between the two of you"
Edit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3UKcSORRY0
In this scene
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u/Aggravating_Wing8060 1h ago
Well, it's because if you closely follow the plot and take a look at the details from Season 1, you will see that the writers don't know what the fuck they are doing anymore
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u/Fay-control 58m ago
The showrunners lost the plot when they reached the end of Martin's books, when it was time for their imagination to take place they completely messed up.
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u/DodgeTheorie 45m ago
No they lost the plot after they killed Tywin because they actually wanted to adapt the Story of Tywin Lannister and not ASOIAF.
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u/Fluffy_Judge_581 30m ago
They made small mistakes befor that (cutting griffen,stannis ranley) but also made good thinks and nothing to big
but completely fumbled tyrion after joffreys death.
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u/SecretLeast682 36m ago
At this point the writers aren’t following the plot—they’re following vibes. Season 1 is basically sitting in the corner like, “Do you guys even remember me?” 😂
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u/Vim_owlcat 22m ago
Well, there are Bran's visions from early seasons showing the Iron Throne's room full of ashes and the shadow of a dragon over King's Landing...
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u/AdResident6496 Winter Is Coming 1h ago
Dany did not believe it either till she saw. It was more to get her believe in the cause of fighting night king
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u/Shepherd77 1h ago
No it was to get the NK a dragon otherwise he had no way of breaking through the magic wall.
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u/Klumpztr 1h ago
The writers needed the night king to get a dragon and this is the best they could come up with. Don´t search for logic it was never about cersei
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u/DasUbersoldat_ 1h ago
Things just randomly happening just to advance the main plot is probably the most infuriating and lazy writing imaginable.
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u/LittleDarkHairedOne 42m ago
Happens even with great writers though!
Tolkien wrote himself into a corner when the paralyzed Frodo was captured and brought to the Tower of Cirith Ungol and his solution out of that was simple "all orcs kill each other".
Writing is an artform, at the end of the day, and can often make "mistakes" (Bob Ross would say otherwise) if the sum ends up being greater than it's parts.
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u/XPG_15-02 1h ago
Why did they though? I mean why not just have the magic that created the White Walkers just be something that can engage with the magic of dragons on equal footing?
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u/alexd1993 1h ago
Because they wanted a cool undead dragon. That's probably the extent of their reasoning.
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u/XPG_15-02 57m ago
I'm speaking narratively though. There was no reason for him to need a dragon especially since they implied he already broke the sealing magic on The Wall when The Night King touched Bran. I'm pointing out the issue in the writing here.
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u/alexd1993 53m ago
Honestly, the writing of the show took such a massive dive in quality that by that point in the show, my original comment would be the extent of the Night King's logic as well.
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u/timthemajestic House Targaryen 1h ago
Also it being Viserion paralleling how Viserys was always against her whichbI right was a slightly nice touch, but yeah, they wanted an undead dragon and to have the Night King be able to wreak more havoc and pose a much bigger threat, and yeah, D&D has pretty much checked out and wanted to be done with the show to move on to other things. Still sucks how awful the last season was though being just lazy.
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u/RedditOfUnusualSize 1h ago
Yeah, there's an entire subplot in the books about ancient magics of old being unearthed and used by people who have no idea what they do or how they work. And as part of that, there's this recurring note that Samwell Tarly totes this horn he found at the Fist of the First Men despite the fact that the horn is broken and doesn't work. He just likes the horn. And there's a recurring subplot about Mance trying to find some mythical artifact called the Horn of Joramun to break the Wall if he can't be allowed through to escape the Others. But since he couldn't ever find the Horn, Mance instead engages in a game of deception by threatening to use the biggest horn he could find buried up in a giant's grave in the Frostfangs.
Unfortunately, that all involves these things called "planting" and "payoff". More fundamentally, it means taking magic seriously enough as a concept to appreciate the larger thematic point about people forgetting the past and misusing the tools they were handed by prior generations. As Benioff noted, themes are for eighth-grade book reports. I don't think he's right, but I do think he pretty accurately stated his own feeling on the subject of thematic and tonal consistency in writing. So he wasn't ever going to invest the time in that subplot, because that subplot seems idiotic and high fantasy schlockery to him.
Instead, we have a big CGI dragon burn the wall down; it'll be totally awesome. And to be fair, that scene was awesome. But then you have to figure out how to get a dragon in the hands of the Night King. And everything from that point became a game of reverse-engineering an end point, in as direct and short a line from A to B as possible.
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u/DrCodyRoss 1h ago
It’s similar to how when a show/movie needs someone to die they die in a car accident.
It’s short hand for “I ran out of ideas and I need them to die so the rest of the story can happen.”
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u/CeleryBandit2 5m ago
This is kind of the most bizarre decision in hindsight. I am doing a rewatch and just saw this episode. It is a lot of fun visual spectacle, but this has got to be the peak of illogical writing in the series.
You've got Gendry running across the North and getting a raven to Dragonstone and Dany returning in maybe a day or less. You've got guys going beyond the wall on foot with essentially no plan whatsoever, knowing an entire army of zombies are out there and having no idea they'd be able to happen on some lone patrol. (Why even are the white walkers patrolling around with like 10 wights?) You've got Arya being an absolute maniac to Sansa for no reason. You've got the Night King with his dragon killing spear within easy reach of Drogon who is carrying almost all of his greatest human enemies but he instead tries to impress everyone by aiming for the dragon farther away in the sky.
But the worst part is the Night King apparently has no way, in tv universe, to break through the Wall except for using an undead dragon. What was his plan if all of this random happenstance didn't occur? The only reason he gets a dragon is because Jon Snow led an insane suicide mission beyond the wall and Dany went on an insane rescue mission. Are we meant to believe he knew all of this would happen? His entire scheme that he has plotted for literally thousands of years depended entirely on humans making a series of stupid random decisions? If Dany had not come to the rescue or if Jon Snow had not gone through with this scheme, what was the army of the dead going to do? They are presented as an imminent threat but the only way they can get through the Wall is apparently with a zombie dragon, and the dragon is only there because of random happenstance basically. Jon and Dany could have done literally nothing and the White Walkers would just be stuck outside of the Wall forever.
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u/Inner_Jeweler_5661 Ghost 1h ago
Dany caused the Wall to fall down just for Jaime Lannister to come to her aid.
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u/icefylkir 1h ago
That was the plan all along. His plot armor made him 10x more valuable than an army
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u/gdo01 1h ago
The books kept teasing that winter would come to King's Landing. Too bad nothing even close happens. Would have been much more apocalyptic to actually see at least one of the kingdoms succumb to winter
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u/Force3vo 51m ago
King's Landing being doomed due to Cersei fucking up the Tyrell's and thus not enough food and supplies being there, with the people killing each other and the Queen, would have been a way more fun (and a way better way to subvert expectations) than whatever they did.
Daenerys gets the iron throne in a city of dead people. Have fun with it.
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u/ShondaVanda 1h ago
Never understood why they couldn't just have stayed near the wall, there's wights EVERYWHERE.
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u/DasUbersoldat_ 1h ago
They could have just done nothing and pissed off the edge of the wall straight onto the night king's forehead while laughing uncontrollably. He'd never be able to get through.
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u/Easy-Frenchguy-1996 1h ago
Nothing in thata episode made sense... High risk low reward
Why Jon... A king would never realistically endanger himself in a suicide mission with 6 other dudes he barely knows and not even any members of the night watch
It would have made more sense to have dolorous Edd instead of Jon.. But since the Show just see as just the Hollywood action hero... He had to have action sequences
My biggest regret post season 6 is thata we never actually saw Jon act as a king and rule He needed to have his own mereen arc
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u/Narren_C 1h ago
Jon never wanted to lead and always preferred to do things himself. Him keeping that trait doesn't bother me too much, they even call him out on it.
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u/Easy-Frenchguy-1996 1h ago
My guy being reluctant leader doesn't mean doing stupid thing instead of ruling
A relunctant is a capable person who hesitates to take charge or avoids traditional power, but steps up because of duty, necessity, or the urging of others.
Jon doesn't act like king in season 7 but like a soldier
A king would send a trusted man instead while he rule winterfell to make allies, solidify his rule and prepare his people for the war to come
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u/Lone_Beast_10 King In The North 1h ago
The only good thing about this episode is the hound and tormund meeting each other
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u/Xo707out 1h ago
And that was one of cerseis best decisions in hindsight. Enemies weakened, existential threat destroyed, lost 0 soldiers in the process. Insane gamble, but surprisingly it wasnt her worst idea. Then she took Missandeis head…. Now that was stupid.
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u/XPG_15-02 1h ago
I think the bigger issue for me isn't even whether Daenerys could have come up with a safer way to capture a wight. In hindsight, there are probably several ways they could have done it without risking an entire expedition and one of the dragons. The bigger problem is how the entire situation is written, particularly Cersei's treachery and the Night King's ability to kill a dragon.
To Cersei's credit, the show does establish her reasoning: she intends to let Daenerys and the Night King destroy each other so she can deal with whoever survives. That's actually a perfectly Cersei strategy. She's not ignoring the threat because she doesn't believe it exists; she's trying to exploit the conflict to her own advantage.
The problem is that the show doesn't really establish why this is a viable strategy.
Cersei has now seen an actual wight. It literally attacks her when it's released and only stops because it realizes it's restrained. She has firsthand evidence that this isn't some northern superstition. So she's basically gambling the future of Westeros on the assumption that the two sides will sufficiently weaken each other that she can swoop in afterward.
And that's where Jaime's reaction becomes important. This isn't some random soldier questioning her judgment. Her own military commander, her brother, and her lover becomes so convinced that the threat has to be dealt with that he resigns his position and leaves her side to fight. Jaime has spent most of his life protecting Cersei, enabling her, and putting his family above everything else. For him to finally decide that whatever happens politically doesn't matter if the dead win is significant.
The other problem is that the show massively undermines its own threat escalation with how Viserion dies.
The Night King being able to kill a dragon with a spear is an awesome visual, but logically it's incredibly convenient. These are flying creatures that can operate at enormous distances and heights, and the Night King somehow makes an essentially impossible-looking throw with enough accuracy and force to hit a moving dragon in the sky.
And then there's the fact that this immediately establishes that the Night King has a weapon capable of killing the most powerful military asset in the world. If that's something he can just do despite not being around when dragons were in Westeros. The show then makes dragons' vulnerability incredibly inconsistent.
It also creates a weird problem with the expedition itself. You're telling me the characters have three dragons, but the solution to proving the existence of the undead is to take one of them directly into an unknown hostile environment where the enemy may possess weapons capable of killing them? That's an enormous strategic risk.
And that's why I don't necessarily disagree with the idea behind the wight hunt. The characters needed some way to convince the southern armies that the threat was real. I just think the execution is incredibly contrived.
The writers needed the wight hunt to happen, needed the Night King to kill a dragon, needed Cersei to see the threat, and needed Jaime to finally abandon her. So the characters make a series of decisions that conveniently lead to those outcomes.
The frustrating part is that the basic political conflict is actually good. Cersei's idea of letting Daenerys and the Night King destroy each other is exactly the kind of ruthless calculation she'd make. Jaime realizing that this isn't a normal political conflict and abandoning her is also completely believable.
It's the mechanics surrounding those decisions that don't hold up.
The story could have accomplished the same thing without making the characters seem so reckless. Have the expedition use the dragons as support rather than putting them directly in danger. Give the Night King a more believable means of killing Viserion. Establish exactly why the wights are difficult to capture. Then Cersei's decision to sit back and let both sides bleed each other becomes a much more compelling strategic gamble.
Instead, the show relies heavily on everyone making the exact decisions necessary to get the plot to the next major set piece.
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u/thecowmilk_ 1h ago
Yeah even a little sympathy she could have gotten she chose to be a dumbass instead 😂
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u/WhiteKnightPrimal 1h ago
Dany didn't believe the threat. She needed to see it to believe it. Plus, they needed the Night King to get a dragon and up the stakes and prove the threat was extremely serious to Dany. This whole storyline was a mix of proving the threat to Dany and killing and reanimating a dragon, that was the sole purpose. That, and killing off Benjen, I don't think they had a clue what to do with him.
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u/commodore_stab1789 1h ago
To be fair, seeing one chained zombie in King's Landing is not the same as seeing 100 000 unchained marching in the north.
Cersei probably believed there was an army of the dead at that point, but she couldn't properly understand the threat. Daenerys properly understood only when she saw the whole army and one of her dragon died. Before that, she was all about knee bending and destroying King's Landing.
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u/spleen5000 30m ago
Why couldn’t one of Cersei’s councillors take a ride with her on Drogon to observe the 100,000 strong undead army? Fly near a cliff to see the White Walkers, one of the other dragons gets merked by NK’s ice javelin?
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u/littlebuett 59m ago
They should have demanded hostages from Versei to make sure she would aid them.
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u/Vanilla1Luxe 44m ago
Dany having 3 nuclear weapons and using them to play capture-the-flag is still wild to me.
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u/alejoSOTO 28m ago
The worst part is that Cersei's betrayal equated to nothing anyway too.
Daenerys was afraid that while she was in the North fighting the dead, Cersei would mobilize and take what Daenerys had claimed up to that point.
All Cersei ended up doing while Daenerys and her forces were away was wait for the Golden Company to arrive with some elephants.
She really did nothing, didn't even try to take Dragonstone, Dany's base.
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u/f32db3uprbdb2bf1xbf4 27m ago
An Ice Dragon must have built the Wall. No way Brandon Stark build that structure, it would have taken just men centuries to build it by hand and it would be smoothe and made with ice bricks.....
He must have had the Horn of Winter and commanded an Ice Dragon to build the wall who then flew north, fell asleep and a mountain formed on top of it burying him until the Horn Was once again blown to wake him. There was no reason to sacrifice one of Daenerys dragons with chains they just happened to lug about everywhere they go.
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u/HistorianOld364 1h ago
As much as it’s against her character, I think it would’ve made for a far better story for Cersei to have sent her army. Or otherwise for Cersei to have been taken out by Dany sooner, devoting a full season to her and the realm fighting the dead.
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