Wednesday, May 15, 2019

GOT Season 8 Episode 1 Review: Wolf vs the Dragon


Lady Wolf vs the Dragon: Sansa vs Dany

At this point we have already discussed the general apathy of the show writers towards character development being the major cause of approbation amongst its millions of loyal fans. 

Sansa's mistrust in Daenerys was the start of the premeditated Mad-Queen narrative which is everything against what Dany truly stood for in the past 7 seasons. We will broach this in great detail in this article of  Wolf vs Dragon, as to how the writer's have miserably failed in portraying Sansa and Dany as someone they are both not, just to suit their overall narrative aimed at ending the series soon.



Northern Courtesy:

Going back to Rob and Ned at season 1, Rob comments about Ned being fat and Ned, despite being a great friend to Rob, despite their general affection towards each other, only hints at Rob being fat as well instead of openly spelling it out due to the respect he shows the King. 



Here we have the noble Lady Sansa Stark (at least that's what the show writers want to project), acting like the Queen of the North, openly bitching her displeasure "Winterfell is yours my grace" with Zero Courtesy. Even if we are to understand the anger she bores is from the assumption that Dany could have tricked Jon into bending his knee, for a clever southerner (growing up in King's landing all her life) wouldn't she be better off hiding her intent from the get-go. So much for "The cleverest person I have ever known" - Sorry Arya you are wrong about this one. 


No Food for Dany's Army:



I am really not able to understand the animosity she shows towards Dany and her army at this point. Its so uncalled for and plain stupid. Even if we are to assume Sansa is yet to understand the extent of mortal danger waiting for them in the form of the Night King, a simple thought as to why Daenerys brought her entire army north would suffice to understand Dany's true intent. But No, she still has to bitch about feeding the army, the same army that came all the way north about to risk their lives for no reason other than to save Northerners from literal doomsday. Plain dumb if you ask me. Even if she feels Dany did it all to rule the north so what? There has to be a north in the first place who better to rule it than a Queen who is willing to travel across the 7 kingdoms and throw everything she has just to protect it. Dumb from Sansa again. 

Conversation with the Dragon:

Why does Sansa want an independent North makes absolutely no sense to me. 

This is not the real world where the colonial west looting the entire world and then claiming themselves superior to the rest of them. The Northern people hardly had any gripe with the Kings from the south. North is more likely to face aggression and war by being independent. "Every Peaceful Reign in the seven kingdoms was achieved when a Targaryen King allied with the Northern Lord" - Tyrion. 



More importantly why is Sansa insistent on an independent North? If she is afraid of what will happen to the Starks under another tyrant rule shouldn't she be more focused on judging Dany's character as a Queen (which she is not even ready to acknowledge) and to realize the relation between Dany and Jon clearly favors the Starks and the North more than anyone else (any half intelligent person would plan on getting them together for the benefit of both her family and the north). Instead she rambles on and on about claiming an independent North and is hell bent on opposing Dany for no reason.  

From Dany's perspective, she has been very clear from the start she would throw everything and help the north if Jon bent his knee and if North is ready to be a part of her kingdom. What makes Dany more noble is the fact she was willing to help North even before Jon pledged it to her, after realizing the true nature of the Night King's threat (something Sansa has never realized). Here she is far away from what she truly desires, bringing all her army North knowing full well death was waiting her (even after the traumatic loss of one of her dragons). 


Yet when Sansa confronts her showing absolutely zero gratefulness towards her but is more interested in claiming Northern independence, the show manages to show Sansa as being more noble and Dany the power-hungry bitch for absolutely no logical reason. 


With the Imp in the Crypt

It was pretty much doomsday, yet all they focus before, during and after the long night is how Sansa and the Northeners don’t trust Dany. Not knowing the threat is one thing, but underplaying it after knowing full well all the horror happening during the long night, Its plain stupid. For the things that Dany has done, The Northern lords should bend over and kiss her ass. And so must Sansa. Yet sitting in the crypt waiting for the doom, all she talks about is her lack of trust in Dany? (For what we still don't know). There is not one good reason for Sansa to mistrust Dany at this point.


Lord Gendry Baratheon:

Sansa learnt most of her skills from Little finger and Cersei, two of the worst characters in all of thrones. She has an inherent lack of trust and is most ill-suited to judge Dany. For example, the disgust she shows towards Dany when she makes Gendry Lord Baratheon is extremely over-hyped (including the subsequent guilt acknowledgement of Tyrion is so badly written). 

There is absolutely nothing wrong in what Dany did here. They won the war, Dany is focused on winning back her throne and her home, which is more important to her than her very life.


It was ok when Sansa got her happy revenge on the Boltons winning back her home, these politics didn't matter at that time, including the sly ways of getting help from Little Finger and the Vale without Jon's knowledge. 

But Dany making Gendry, a well deserved hero of the war, the rightful heir, Lord of Stormlands is portrayed as more evil makes absolutely no sense.  If Sansa feels it too soon to play the game and they are still in mourning (which she herself did prior to the battle of bastards, even after knowing Jon just returned from death, egged him to fight Ramsay), she has to realize that the game is not over and Cersei is getting stronger by the second and Dany has to act fast (Rhagael's death proves that she was already behind in the game) If Dany was to eventually lose to Cersei all of this would be for naught for both Dany and the entire North.


What if there is someone better?

Jon having a better claim than Dany is shite. In any planet of the Universe, Jon will be a horrible King, just as his surrogate dad Ned. Both are noble fools incapable of seeing deceit blinded by honor (He died once and wont be long before he dies again if he sits the throne). Jon is very likely to fall into the trap of false mercy and is never likely to take ugly decisions. Dany is perfect (as perfect as it gets to ruling the 7 kingdoms. Any which way possible Dany will be the better King (Queen) over Jon. Yet the show focuses more on Dany wanting the Iron throne more instead of the fact that Dany deserves it more than Jon/Sansa/Cersei or any other. She is the last best hope for the 7 kingdoms. 


Also after all the things she has done for the North, the show projecting Jon Snow being hailed by the Northern lords is a joke to be honest. Everybody could see that they defeated the Night King only because of Dany. After witnessing such a blatant show of heroics on the face of death, if the North still mistrusts Dany, there is no hope for North really. 

If the Free Folk accept Jon as their leader for the things he did though he was not one of them, the North not accepting an outsider when it comes to Dany is a failed rhetoric. Even from the days of the Good Queen Alyssane under Jhaerys Targaeryn the Concilliator, the Northerners have accepted every righteous individual over time. 


Sansa breaks her oath to Jon and schemes at overthrowing Dany by using Tyrion. What is more cunning and so non-northern than that. Yet she is hailed as more noble than Dany, who has worked all her life thinking she is the rightful heir and is suddenly asked to step down, not because she is not fit for the role, not because she is evil or mad, but because Jon is told he has a better claim when he is least deserving of it (Hero yes! King absolute NO). But somehow Dany opposing this is projected as more power hungry than the scheming wolf bitch. (Cue Renly claiming the throne over Stannis had zero repercussions, but Dany claiming it over Jon is power hungry. LOL) This show and its logic is an absolute waste of time.



Mad Queen:

Dany always had rage issues but she backed it up with just cause. Burning King's landing  was an impulsive mistake and is understandable under the circumstances. Imagine Jon throwing the whole northern army to death for Rickon’s sake - mad fucking King in the North - No! but who cares as it doesn't suit the narrative. 



But Dany does it for her baby (Rhagael’s death is so underplayed) and for Missandei (her sister-companion) is considered Mad. Just poor portrayal overall. Sansa throws a man to dogs for fucking her in the ass. She could have executed him publicly or hanged him but instead chose to vent her madness by letting the dogs shred him to pieces while smiling. If this is not Madness what is? 



But again somehow Dany Burning King's landing was so botched up with the Bell clearly an attempt to override her character logic with premeditated character goal of portraying her as the Mad-Queen.


(Bell ringing has it ever meant surrender prior to this episode? It always meant danger. But guess what, they can say anything out of their ass you just have to believe them). Daenerys never was a Mad-Queen and even if she becomes one, it should be more impulsive (due to shock loss or hurt) over a genetic madness and power hunger as claimed by the narrative. 

And Dumb Scheming Sansa is the last person fit enough to point fingers at Daenerys. Such is the poor quality of the plot they could make you believe Cersei is the sorry one of the three (oh Wait they did that as well!!)


GOT Season 8 Episode 1 Review: Wolf and the Stag

The Wolf and the Stag: Arya and Gendry Arc

Game of Thrones Season 8 has been a colossal failure not due to lack of time or investment, not due to the show runners obnoxious penchant for visual spectacle and battle aesthetics over plot development - but the biggest reason why Season 8 has failed miserably is due to the serious lack of character understanding from the writers of the show. Character consistency and its gradual evolution has been the back bone of what made GOT so interesting as a fantasy drama and what made it so appealing to its millions of fans. 


But they have visibly moved away from that and decided to butcher character's true nature to fit an overall narrative aimed at ending the season faster. This is what makes the show so stupid starting from the very first episode of Season 8. 

Arya Stark


Episode starts with Arya standing in a crowd and witnessing the parade like a dumb idiot. Why exactly is she doing it? Because Arya loves to be a misfit and do the unlikely? It's so silly from the writers to portray Arya exhibiting the same childish characters she exhibited in Season 1- 1st episode.


Even if they wanted to show her as being non-conforming and free spirited, they could have showed her manning a wall and watching the parade or do something entirely different like practicing her shooting skills not minding the parade at all (it would have been more bad-ass in line with her character to ignore something as important as the arrival of the Dragon Queen). 




Something more sensible than just standing in the crowd like an idiot and lame-watching Jon/Danerys arrival would have been so much better. And what is worse is her ogling at Gendry like some cheap fan girl. It is so out of character. And the subsequent visits to the Foundry/Forgery to keep hitting on him is literally flawed at so many levels. The show runners felt necessary to build up the sexual tension as they failed to establish any connection between the two in their previous episodes that they decided to throw these random coyish traits from Arya which is absolutely cringe-worthy (Trained assassin of the famed Faceless Men - giggling like a little girl. Yucks!).

Instead, all they had to do was keep the narrative true to her character. Arya is the most non-girlish character for any girl in the show (Brienne, despite everything, wants to be a normal girl at heart. But Arya completely despises being a normal girl). 



They could have just let Arya focus on the weapon, the mission and the general past with Gendry. The sex would have happened eventually in a typical Arya fashion, instinctively, without any girly drama as they have shown in the episode. This suits her narrative better than the stupidly uncharacteristic looks she gives him in the weapon forgery/foundry.

Gendry Baratheon


They did a great disservice to Gendry by letting him ask for Arya's hand in marriage after being declared Lord of the Stormlands. Gendry is the most unassuming simple character who loves a good fight (and a good fuck! may be). He is not for titles and never one for gloating (hardly talks about being Robert's Bastard). For him to immediately approach Arya for marriage after becoming Lord Baratheon is plain stupid. If at all he wanted to approach Arya for marriage he would have done it as Gendry Rivers, (and he would still have been rejected by Arya because its not in her to settle down as a married lady).


Instead the show repeatedly makes him say "Always knew you were a lady" like its some impediment for him to approach her (remember he went to Jon, didn't care Jon was king in the North and told him he wanted to help). The very same character is now suddenly calling Arya "rich lady" and then approaching her after becoming a Lord. Stupid writing.. 



It would have been better if the narrative went this way!

Arya meets Gendry - Talks about their past (Hot pie/Harrenhal/Red Woman etc.) - Talks about weapon - The impending war - Then hesitates for a sec and then kisses him out of the blue when alone - He hesitates for a few seconds - She retreats - but he re-engages her for sex - They are done with it - Talk about it next day - Arya clearly says not interested in being a wife - He agrees without any drama - An atypical chemistry between the two - Move on! 


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Tuesday, May 14, 2019

GOT Season 8 Episode 5 Review: Better Script

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The worst thing about Season 8 is the show-runners have decided to complete the show for completing sake focusing mostly on battle aesthetics over character integrity and plot development. This blog is my take on how this episode would have been with a better script.

Episode 4:


Death of Rhaegal:

Danerys shocked by Rhaegal’s death to the surprise scorpion attack, swoops down in mad rage to burn down the rest of Euron’s ship. Just when the Iron Fleet is about to be decimated, they manage to injure/disarm Drogon temporarily forcing Danerys to retreat buying enough time for the Iron Fleet to flee. (In the ensuing mess, they kidnap Missandei) and we never get to learn about it in Episode 4 (as we assume most of the people on the ships die including Missandei.





Note: [This keeps the strength of the scorpion realistic. That they managed to kill Rhaegal purely by surprise and despite faint optimism, they realize it would be difficult to bring down Drogon. This will explain Drogon's rampage in season 5 better, instead of the highly unlikely rambo mode displayed in the show]


Danerys Reaction:

Loss of Rhaegal and the missing Missandei forces Danerys to go berserk about destroying King’s Landing in blinding rage. Tyrion with great difficulty convinces a ranting Danerys that they should force Cersei to surrender one last time which she accepts grudgingly. Listening to her rant about Rhaegal's death and her promise to burn down King’s landing if Cersei doesn’t surrender, Varys contemplates if Dany is the right person for the throne or the prospect of Jon being better than Dany (after learning about his past).




Note: [Never understood why Varys would betray Dany so soon, when he hasn’t seen enough of her madness to chuck her out yet in comparison to so many other Kings he served in the past (King's who have been far worse than Dany including Aerys and Joffrey). It feels rushed]

Pre-war Parlay (Battle of Bastards style):

Both set of troops assembled in front of King's Landing, (No Missandei Drama). Dany, Jon, Tyrion, Davos, Varys meet Cersei, Qyburn, Euron, Strickland, Gregor. Tyrion parlays with Cersei in vain, warns her about destroying herself and King's landing if she doesnt surrender, but she ignores it smugly. Cersei proclaims herself Queen and goads Danerys to war, typically enraging Dany by mocking Rhaegal’s death. Danerys promises to bring hell on King’s Landing and death to Cersei as they part ways in rage.





Note: [This builds up both Cersei's and Dany's characters well. Cersei being hateful and inhuman and Dany getting enraged very easily. It highlights the concerns that Tyrion has for the safety of king's landing and Varys suspicion of Dany's madness]

Battle at King’s Landing:

Tyrion and Jon convince Danerys and the semi-injured Drogon to stay back as their troop retake King’s landing. Golden Company battles the remaining North men and the negligible amount of Dothraki/Unsullied outside King’s Landing. Euron's Iron fleet is engaged by Yara's Iron Fleet (recaptured).Just when both of Danerys troops (land and sea) are about to lose, Dany and Drogon tilt the battle in their favor. Euron loses the sea and the North men overpower the golden company after a glorious battle. The remaining golden company soldiers retreat with Lannister army and close the gates.




Note: [Does some justice to the golden company instead of the 5 sec Drogon wipe out and to Jon’s character instead of the side role he plays. His strength as a warrior/hero needs to be highlighted time and again if we are to take him a serious threat to Dany's claim]


Cersei’s Truce Offer:

With the battle almost won, Danerys and Greyworm are for breaking into King’s Landing and going for the kill, while Tyrion and Varys are for asking them to surrender or starving them out. Jon/Davos remain neutral. A messenger from Cersei appears on the name of truce. Tyrion happily welcomes him expecting a surrender. They bring a letter with a box. "Surrender or lose your head”.. Kinda threatening message from Cersei with the box containing Missandei’s head. Danerys loses all her sense in rage. Starts by burning the messenger and rushes blindly on Drogon to burn kings landing down without listening to anybody's warning. "I will burn them all down"



Note: [Typical Cersei character to be ruthless/cruel out of bitterness of the defeat and to provoke Dany into a trap]



Episode 5:


Mad Queen:

Cersei waits with a well laid trap of scorpions on the red Keep. Somehow Danerys manages to escape the risky situation heroically and eventually win. The Northmen and Unsullied break into kings landing, defeat the lannister army to surrender. When danerys finally reaches the red keep, she sees Cersei successfully escape amongst the Kings Landing populace. In her hate for Cersei, she goes DRACARYS burning everything down and then Grey worm, hurt by the Missandei incident, gets in the act of sacking King’s Landing much to the dismay of Jon, Varys and Tyrion.




Note: [This makes more sense, over Danerys suddenly going berserk by merely witnessing the Red keep from distance as displayed in the show. The sight of the dead Missandei’s head and the possible escape of Cersei by hiding among the masses is enough to tilt her over the edge into momentary madness. Cersei wants to abuse her mercy as a weakness by using innocent people as a shield and hoping Dany wont go to the extent of harming them to get rid of her. Dany is determined to go to any extent to destroy Cersei foregoing mercy and embracing madness and rage.]  



Arya and the Hound:

Arya and Hound are about to enter the Red Keep as Dragon Flame creates chaos in the street. Hound has second thoughts to retreat as he witnesses the red keep in flame and warns Arya revenge may not end well for both of them. She doesn’t listen.  Arya spots Cersei escape from the red keep and charges into it to face Gregor and the queen's guard and gets seriously injured. Hound battles them on her behalf giving his life for Arya and convinces her that revenge will eventually consume them all and is not for a girl like her. He beseeches her to give up on pursuing Cersei and go help innocent people, as he drags Gregor and himself into death.




[The lame oral convincing in the show and the subsequent thank you makes zero sense. If Arya gets convinced by something as shallow as that to give up her darkness, its really lame. Instead Hound losing his life protecting her (2nd person to do so after Beric) and witnessing the subsequent carnage of people in King's Landing (be it Lannister men or North men doesn’t matter) impacts Arya significantly changing her ways.

Also from Hound's point of view, the moment he saw the fire and all the people dying, he realized he is a changed man, revenge is not his motto anymore survival is. Still he is forced to throw his life to kill his brother after all, only this time for the sake of Arya (love/care), something he never thought he would be capable of, shows how much he has evolved as a character after meeting Septor Ray and his band of villagers, and the dead farmer/daughter sally incident.]

Euron and Jamie:

Euron convinced Cersei's baby is his and the possibility of ruling the 7 kingdoms once his baby is born, rushes to rescue Cersei but comes upon Jamie. Mocking him for his unrequited love and claiming Cersei is his own/ “Fucked the Queen” etc., goads Jamie into a fight. Jamie not interested in his verbal barbs rushes to the Keep to save Cersei. Euron then wisens up on why Jamie is after rescuing Cersei even after she rejected him. And realizes that he had doubts from the beginning Cersei might have been pregnant even before their union, with Jamies Child. Jamie confirms this condescendingly mocking all Greyjoys to be naive and stupid in believing tell-tales. Enraged by that Euron engages Jamie in a death match and dies mortally injuring Jamie in the process.



Note: [Considering Euron’s history with Victarion and his wife, and the rage of being fooled in a similar manner by Cersei into believing the child is his looks more fitting. His uncharacteristic attempts at saving someone other than himself only to be betrayed justifies his rage in killing Jamie. This is more realistic over - “The man who killed Ser Jamie Lannister” Crap. Euron is a legendary captain and killing Ser Jamie Lannister is not a great achievement for a man who has set his heart in becoming a God leave alone a king. The show butchered Euron in the worst possible way]

Jamie and Cersei:

Injured Jamie drags himself to Cersei just when she is about to be overrun by the enemy soldiers and mob. Whisks her through the escape route made by Ser Davos and Tyrion. FInally bringing her to the end of the tunnel where they could see the skiff waiting but dies in her arms informing Tyrion’s role in all of this and professing his love for her. He dies happily believing that he saved Cersei and his unborn child. Cersei cries a lot and just as she is about to escape the tunnel the entrance shuts down in rubble leaving her without an escape route. Entrapped in a caved in tunnel with a dead Jamie on the ground, she goes completely nuts with regret until the rubble closes her down killing her.




Note: [Losing her brother, the only person who loved her no matter what kind of monster she was, and the impending death of her child and all the hopelessness due to her own stupid actions. Realizing the unlikely role of Tyrion in arranging the escape and the end of the road for her and her child, regret not heeding Tyrion’s warning in the Parlay of Truce, the fact she was going to die lonely was too much to take losing her sanity due to hopelessness, guilt and remorse. This makes more sense than Jamie hugging her and dying alongside her in the rubble. More importantly its kinder on Jamie to die believing he has done his best for the woman he loved and the only child for whom he was able to do something significant as a father - save its life]




Desertion:

Jon, Tyrion, Varys, Davos and Arya are appalled by the sacking and Varys is hell bent on scheming and overthrowing her for Jon (gets killed at the start of next episode) having completely lost faith in her.



[There is enough reason for Varys to be convinced Dany might actually be mad in burning down King's Landing. Confused with an internal conflict of the rights and wrongs of her King's landing action, and seeing all her closest aides hate/doubt her, feeling completely lonely without Jon's affection, Dany feels cornered and finally abandons reason to justify her acts of cruelty as an unavoidable necessity and is thus driven into madness. And it starts with the execution of the two-timing Varys (who was chiefly responsible for keeping her and her brother alive all those years) and going after Jon and Sansa next.Thus begins the reign of the Mad Queen in Season 6.]




Overall Review of Episode 5 (The BELLS):




Burning the City was an impulsive mistake from Dany borne out of hatred for Cersei and everything evil she stands for. The fact is Cersei manipulated Dany to burn the city by forcing the civilians into the city and using them as meat shield. By doing so, Cersei lays a moral trap in front Dany to choose Mercy and allow evil to flourish or to Choose Justice and destroy all evil at a moral cost.


You can think of it as a terrorist group holding civilians hostage and making destructive demands against a country. Now the Leaders have to choose to oblige terrorism to protect the civilian hostages or to sacrifice the civilians to deter terrorism and greater good.This is the Kind of CHoice Dany makes. But the show portrayed it wrongly by introducing the bell of surrender and Dany raging after the bell rings just to fit her Mad-Queen narrative. This part of the story fails at multiple level:



1. Cersei won’t surrender until she sacrifices every living person of King's Landing as she doesnt care about any of their lives, as long as she wins nothing else matters. ("The Lannister army will defend their queen much better than any sell sword till the last man dies" she meant all of it). So it is unlikely that she allows the Bell to Ring at any cost (wont be a surprise if she stationed Ser Gregor to prevent the bell ringing). But in the show she whimpers and accepts defeat without complain when the bells are ringing.





2. Dany attacking after the bell rings is also horribly wrong. Just to suit the idea of Mad-Queen, they decided to go with this narrative when its completely opposite to everything Dany stands for since season 1. The only way she would've gone on to burn the entire City is by being impulsively mad due to a sever shock/hurt (both of which was visibly lacking in the narrative. Burning King's landing in shock after witnessing Missandei head is one thing, but to brood over her death overnight and then charge into King's landing and burning it all down the next day without extreme provocation is illogical). Also, Burning of the City doesn’t mean burning Cersei (atleast not according to the show's narrative) and with all the hate she bears for her, the fastest way to quell it would have been to rush straight to red keep and burn it down. Then why the Fuck did she burn King’s Landing and waste her time allowing Cersei to escape? Because it suits the Mad-Queen Narrative. Its so pathetic.




Hope You Guys Enjoyed it. Everything remains the same, same deaths, same result, same end product, its just an emphasis on different paths by staying true to the character's nature, the show looks really more wholesome. Continue Watching Episode 6 with this content you will not find it odd


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Thank You So Much Each and Everyone Who Took their EFFORT to SUPPORT this Blog! 

UN-FREAKING-BELIEVABLE RESPONSE


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THE DRAMA of the BLOG:

I just vented my frustration in Quora after episode 5 as to how could it have been different. Having a Quora account for months, I always used it for seeking useful information with not much writing contribution. But this was different, as soon as I wrote this "EPISODE 5 BETTER SCRIPT" version in Quora I had over 1500 views in less than 30 mins. 

The Quora admins who never bothered with my account for months before, suddenly started asking me all  sorts of personal questions and started banning the thread for plagiarism/copyright content/lack of personal information/incomplete non-original name/ lack of credential etc. etc (got banned 4 times and appealed back 4 times.  Without any explanation they just shut me down due to the extraordinary surge in views for this article. One of the readers in Quora suggested I should just leave Quora and put it in my own Blog. I felt encouraged and did just that. As a Doctorate Student in Mechanical Engineering, very rarely am I enthused about anything other than science. But being summer break, for the first time I felt the urge to test how far can it go. 

The Day 1 Response was fabulous. I was genuinely excited by the overwhelming response. For a die-hard Liverpool fan sticking to mostly sports writing, this was extraordinarily intriguing completely out of the blue exhilarating experience. Its a pity the show is ending, If I knew I would be getting this kind of response, I would have started writing a long time ago. 

But by Day 2 things started drying out (All my ex-Quora viewers had completed their share of peeping into the blog). I started out self promotion in an extremely naive and difficult way. 

After all the effort, nearly 24 hours later the response has been just as overwhelming as day one. Simply incredible. I can't thank you guys enough. This was completely experimental, but it truly gives me hope to write more in future. Thank you again, especially the members of the following website:

1. Quora - Members were fantastic. The Admins shocked me more than anything with their sudden interest in me (having not bothered to verify any of my content or details as they were all pedantic with very little views in the past, decided to jump in with a gun-in-face approach to either revisit all my details or shut down).It was spooky. 
2. Twitter - Best website to promote your stuff. Throw in a few links here and there, and if people genuinely like it they re-tweet (spread it themselves). Never used Twitter before, learnt to hash tag it and saw it fly. Slow start in the beginning, but once it picked it up it was really fast. Still not figured it out completely. The views could take off if only I knew how to use twitter full well.
3. Red and White Kop - My beloved Liverpool FC Site (Most disappointing of the entire lot). Poor admin attitude drove me away from a site I have adored and contributed hours during my busy PhD program (worth the current Liverpool Campaign). My site, My people, My beloved reds, but utter shite! complete let down and had to quit over power hungry admin arrogance (deleted posts without informing me with spur of a moment cliched explanations with a ridiculous threat ban). But still garnered over 500 views (and counting) from RAWK thread alone and for this I would like to thank the incredible red men.
4. Youtube - Got the Most Views from Youtube. Could find number of similarly frustrated fans who were dying to hear an alternate script of season 4 and 5. This was the most difficult way to copy-paste blog link on individual response of hungry viewers. Still had extremely good results. 
5. ASOIAF (Best fansite for Thrones): Got the 2nd most highest views. The discussions were extremely healthy. Genuine GOT Fans. Encouraged me well. I could see the stats, they kept foraging the blog keeping the traffic active. Incredibly grateful
6. Reddit: Didn't realize Reddit was powerful. Came to it last (a little late) but lessons learnt. Best free site of the lot to promote your thoughts/blogs and writing. Wish I had started there (not sure its late though). It's reddit readers pouring in now. 

7. Other sources: Whatsapp/Friends/Family/3rd party fan sites..

Once again Thank you all of you. Incredibly grateful. Keep it coming. 

(GENUINELY WISH THERE WAS A SINGLE COMMENT IN THERE)

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