nooneeverlookedforagirl:

moonlitgleek:

Hold the fuck up. She just opens the door without a care. How the fuck is this woman still queen? That would confirm Stannis accusations, prove that she did usurp the throne, and get her convicted of incest. But the rules have suddenly ceased to apply to Cersei. Who cares about the story making sense?

What does it matter? Cersei has no claim to the throne anyway, she never did. The Lannister men seat her there with swords, not by right of birth. Who’s left to prosecute her? She blew those people up with wildfire. If no one cares about murder by wildfire why would they care about this?

The Targaryens took Westeros by Conquest, so did the Baratheon, and so did the Lannisters.

Dorne and the Reach are gone or her supporters. The Stormlands have no men left. The Vale and North are busy in the North, She’s fighting them anyway. All that’s left to her are her Westerlands and the held-by-force Riverlands. Those she still has cannot betray. Tarly and Euron knew what this was. The Riverlands and Crownlands are camped by Lannister men.

She risks very little because she has very little.

You know, I’m gonna rant about this because the show just keeps piling up complete nonsense on top of compete nonsense, and it’s driving me up the wall. This is not directed at you though; you just opened the floodgates of my frustration. Warning for a long irritated rant under the cut.

Yes, Cersei has no claim to the throne, but the Lannisters did not take the throne by conquest, they took it because D&D decided they would, and despite all the reasons they shouldn’t. The fact that Cersei managed to get within two feet of this throne is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen on this show, and I’ve seen a lot of stupid things on this show. This isn’t in any way comparable to the Targaryen conquest or the Baratheon acclamation – those made sense, Cersei’s coronation did not.

Let’s take it from the top: Cersei blew up the Sept of Baelor along with the High Sparrow, the Queen, the Hand, a shit ton of nobles including a Lord Paramount and his heir, a number of septons and septas, a good amount of Tyrell and Lannister soldiers (Kevan was in the sept, there were Lannister soldiers there) and however big a number of smallfolk was around. By every measure and every piece of info we’ve ever been told about wildfire, there was no way that it didn’t spread to surrounding buildings because it’s the most volatile substance in Westeros and only gets more volatile with time. Those caches had been sitting there for, what?, over 20 years by the show’s count? The destruction left behind should have been monumental.

What this event should have done is make Cersei public enemy # 1 in Westeros. It’s a complete and utter political suicide that should have gotten her
ostracized

and executedkilled. She demonstrated that she had no qualms about murdering thousands of people, took out the highest religious and political power in the land, killed the leader of a movement much beloved by the smallfolk and a queen also beloved by the population of King’s Landing, became a kinslayer, and showed the nobility that there is literally no crime she’d shy from committing or any person, high ranking or not, she would not obliterate. That’s a long list of politically-damning crimes that logically should have turned everyone against her. She showed that she can not be trusted, that no oath would be kept, that feudal obligations have no importance to her, that the crown has no credibility and the law does not apply to it. So why would anyone accept her as queen? She proved that she was a menace and that she had no respect for, well, anything – not laws, not sacred places, not bonds of kinship, not religious authority, not ancient rights and protections afforded to the nobility. Aerys Targaryen himself did not get away with half what the show had Cersei get away with. She made an enemy of the Faith, the nobility and the smallfolk, or should have if the show had any semblance of consistent storytelling and any respect to its own world.

The idea that anybody would support Cersei after the sept explosion is laughable. The show would have us believe that ~fear~ is why she got away with what she’d done but like, previous monarchs have historically lost their thrones when they angered one of the factions Cersei alienated: the Faith Militants took up arms against Maegor for his polygamous practices and continued fighting even as he obliterated thousands; the nobles rose up against Aerys after the murder of the Starks and their entourage; the smallfolk rioted against Cersei and Joffrey at the beginning of the War of the Five Kings, and before it, they revolted against the Targaryens when they had actual living dragons: they stormed the Dragon pit and died by the hundreds if not thousands because they were fed up with the grief and destruction Rhaenyra and Aegon caused them. But I’m supposed to buy that Cersei gave all three more than sufficient reason to tear her to pieces, and somehow got a crown out of it. As if that’s a logical sequence of events.

Westeros is a feudal society. The crown is quite literally dependent on the nobles to supply funds and food and men, so why would the nobles give Cersei anything when she is killing them for no season? If Cersei can murder a Lord Paramount with no consequences,
what kind of protection could any lesser noble hope for under her
queenship?

The Faith is also an important cornerstone of the legitimacy of the monarchy, but it miraculously ceased to be a factor just because the sept of Baelor exploded, as if that wiped out every single sparrowsepton or was enough to make the Faith a non-influence in Westeros. Trust me, Maegor the Cruel tried, didn’t work out so well for him, and he had Balerion the Black Dread to force his point. And what about the people?

The show’s fluctuation between making the smallfolk a relevant power and making them insignificant (even stupidly and mindlessly aggressive towards Asha, Ellaria and Tyene for reasons only god knows) is tiring. It’s the power of the people that made the sparrows rise to power, the sparrows supported them and lent relief at a time the Lannisters were busy squabbling over the throne. Hell, most of the sparrows are smallfolk and the entire movement emerged out of the devastating war the Lannisters sent the realm into. Cersei’s actions should rightly lead to open riots in the streets, and do not tell me that the people are afraid; she is already killing them so what do they stand to lose anyway? She is bringing another war on their heads after she blew up their chosen representatives and used their homes and shops and very bodies as food to her fire. This is the same population that almost pulled Cersei and Joffrey from their horses and killed them in the streets, but the show’s selective amnesia makes it that the smallfolk have became a mindlessly cheering crowd that is blowing kisses to Euron Greyjoy of all people.

You have no idea how much I wanna throw A Feast For Crows at D&D right now. The writers are just truly making a mockery of the material they are supposedly “adapting”, and have shown fundamental misunderstanding of the very point the books are trying to make.

It only got worse from there. Here’s Cersei’s military situation right after the sept explosion:

1. The city, by all rights, was teeming with Tyrell soldiers. Mace had an army inside the city not too long before, and while they disbanded, it’s unthinkable that he did not keep a large force of them inside the city. Mace Tyrell wasn’t the kind of man to leave his family defenseless in the face of that many sparrows, regardless of how Margaery was trying to work witharound the High Sparrow.

2. The large majority of whatever numbers the Lannisters still had after the casualties of the War of the Five Kings was tied up with Jaime in the Riverlands, forcing Riverrun’s surrender to the Freys.

3. In all the probability, it’s the Tyrells who were keeping the peace inside King’s Landing, both because of the shortage of Lannister soldiers, and because Kevan was working with the Tyrells so Tyrell soldiers and bannermen were surely strewn all over the city and holding main offices.

I’d be pushing my suspension of belief to max if I swallow a scenario where the Tyrell men just fell into disarray after the Tyrell family was taken out, and just peaced out of King’s Landing but I’ll go with it for the sake of argument. At the very least, this should have led to complete and utter chaos in the street. Imagine the situation: the king, his Hand, a couple of small council members (at least), and the queen are dead; there is a section of the city burning and the fire is either spreading or at least threatening to. You have dead bodies everywhere, collapsed buildings and fire hazards and a volatile substance that could have taken the entire fucking city out. The people who were keeping the peace are at best confused and disorganized, and at worst absent and there is no one to help or lend relief efforts or even take charge because there is no substantial man power inside King’s Landing that does not belong to the Tyrells. Jaime should have returned to absolute pandemonium with open riots in the streets and Cersei’s head decorating the wall of the Red Keep, not a coronation where the nobles stood politely ignoring what just happened and the smallfolk just did not care. But what’s a few hundred dead or a devastating hit to their homes and their livelihoods or an impending war brought by a selfish woman chasing her pleasure and power, amiright? Cersei had no allies, no man power to support her coronation, no claim to
the throne, no political power (did they all collectively forget the
Walk of Shame?), and certainly not the love of the people. So how did she become queen again?

The show then doubled down on the implausibility of its narrative this season through a series of illogical triumphs, miraculous competence on the part of the Lannister twins and a sudden cluelessness from Tyrion and Varys. Oh and a side of ignoring its own canon, but what’s a few plot holes between friends?

The Lannister twins are facing odds that should have brought them down, even with Euron’s help. Dorne and the Reach are in open rebellion, the North has seceded with the support of the Vale (I never can understand the Vale’s position in relation to the North now. The Vale lords seem to have acclaimed Jon alongside the Northmen but neither Robert Arryn or Littlefinger as his regent did. So what’s the situation here? Is Jon King in the North and Parts of the Vale? Did Runestone leave the Vale? LOL), Dany is on Dragonstone with dragons, the Riverlands is in chaos, the Stormlands…. I literally have no idea what’s happening with the Stormlands on the show. The writers probably forgot it exists when they killed Stannis off. These aren’t odds that should encourage anyone sane (Euron is not sane so he does not count) to support the Lannisters, especially not with their dark history of turning on their allies. That half-assed conversation with Randyll Tarly offered no compelling reason for him to side with the Lannisters, and the mere idea that the Iron Bank would invest in Cersei because they lost money in the slave trade due to Dany’s action is preposterous. The Iron Bank of Braavos investing in the slave trade? Oh give me a break.

The military triumphs of Euron and Jaime defy logic as well. Euron somehow managed to sneak up on Dany’s fleet…..in open water….. in broad day light. How? Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak? As for Jaime and the HighgardenCasterly Rock situation, did the show forget that the War of the Five Kings happened? The Lannisters do not have the men. They were dependent on the Tyrells because Tywin kept losing men to Robb Stark, the garrison at King’s Landing was decimated when Stannis attacked in the Battle of the Blackwater and soldiers died in the sept explosion.
The Westerlands can not muster 10.000 men on its own after all that. Wasn’t the military shortage the whole point of Jaime and Cersei going to Mace last season to muster men against the High Sparrow anyway? We also can not ignore the fact that they should be spread thin right now: a garrison at King’s Landing, the numbers they left at Casterly Rock, the numbers they must have in the Stormlands to prop whichever clown they put in charge (did we ever get told which clown is currently in charge?) and the numbers they have to have in the Riverlands to prevent the Riverlords from revolting (though honestly, the lack of address of that is crazy. By all rights, the Riverlands should be in open revolt right now as whatever remaining Freys descend into fighting each other over the lordship, and the prisoners they took at the Red Wedding supposedly get freed. Or did Arya kill 95% of the male Freys and peace out afterwards without freeing them because fuck these people, she was only there to kill? Honestly, why are the Riverlanders not pouncing on the remaining Freys and Lannisters?)

But even if the Lannisters do have the men, didn’t we establish that losing one’s castle is a devastating hit to one’s authority and crown? Ghost Robb must be smouldering in the afterlife at Jaime’s careless “oh Casterly Rock is worth nothing. We took all funds from it”. IT’S NOT ABOUT THE MONEY JAIME LANNISTER. If Jaime and Cersei left the Westerlands to Dany’s people and deemed its protection unimportant, why are the Lannister soldier still fighting for them when they deliberately left said soldiers’ families without protection? On another note, how did Jaime get that army out of the Westerlands and into the Reach without anyone noticing the thousands of soldiers marching through? Not Olenna, not Varys, not any Tyrell loyalist. On a third note, where are the armies of the Reach? Randyll Tarly is not the be all, end all of Reacher military leadership, neither does he even have the largest army of the Reacher houses. I suppose the implication is that other houses joined him but again I ask, why? Because that speech Cersei gave about foreign invaders and the Mad King’s daughter is cool, but Dany isn’t the one who blew the sept and presumably killed nobles from the same families that are implied to support her now. I don’t even buy Randyll’s own defection and he had the added incentive of the Paramountcy of the Reach.
Olenna is also a Redwyne by birth so that’s an army that she definitely
had, she also definitely has the Hightowers who just happen to be
Margaery and Loras’ maternal family. The Reach boasts the largest army in the realm ffs, where did they all go? The Tyrell army should have been ready for war, since Olenna was already mobilizing the Reacher forces in accordance with her plans with Dany. Where were they? Where was the largest army in Westeros, the one that was virtually untouched in the show’s canon? How did Highgarden fall?

But the show explained all these plot holes by “they are roses”. All is well.

The worst thing is that they keep piling things up and deliberately making the story harder to accept. It wasn’t enough to gloss over the sept explosion, no let’s make Cersei parade her incest as if it’s the most natural thing in the world and prove to everyone that she was the instigator of all the war and destruction that befell the realm since Robert’s death. Never mind that incest is reviled by every major religion in Westeros, so was kinslaying but apparently nobody cares. The show is even driving the parallel to Aerys hard from the wildfire to the murdered Lord Paramountheir to arousal-by-torture to “I’ll do as I please” but it refuses to give us any sensible pay-off to it, just like it did with Ramsay last season (and no, having them eventually killed in not a proper pay-off).

The problem with these stories is not that there is no one left to stop the antagonists or to hold them accountable, it’s that the show decided that all the people who should be doing their damn best to bring them down aren’t doing it simply because the writers said so. The plot isn’t driven by character motivation or natural story development, it’s driven by the the writers’ desire to up the stakes for our heroes so their triumph can be a spectacle worthy of an Emmy. The irony is that they even fail to make that triumph have any meaning grounded in the moment and the wider story themes. Last season’s Battle of the Bastards was visually beautiful but it was also a logistical mess that defied laws of physics, basic human logic, politics 101, previous worldbuilding and story setup. The writers stripped it from much of its meaning and impact by focusing on gimmicks, and brushing off the beating heart of the Northern storyline: Ned Stark’s legacy. Ramsay’s defeat at the end felt hollow because it did not erase the sting of the Northern houses abandoning the Starks to their fate, which took away from any feelings of triumph that the Starks won their home back and had justice for Robb, Catelyn, Rickon and even Theon. Likewise, the story with Cersei is definitely leading to her downfall eventually, but it’s gonna be meaningless. They contradicted their own canon and threw their worldbuilding out of the window to the point where this ceased to be a coherent story and only became a group of actors emoting at each other and spouting some witty dialogue.