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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.]
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.
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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