The Dance of Dragons



If I said to you, I can wave a magic wand and make you the Prime Minister of the UK for two terms or, instead, I could hand you a cheque for £250m…

Which would you go for?

For most people, myself included, it’s a no brainer – you’d take the money.

The appeal of a life of unrestricted luxury, numerous holidays, no work, a massive house or two - it’d be too much to turn down for most people.

Would you shun such comfort and wealth to become Prime Minister and have to face the endless media scrutiny; the lack of sleep; the intrusion; the debilitating stress involved in making life or death decisions and the ingratitude of the electorate?

The pursuit of power has always confused me. Far better, I say, to pursue happiness, in whichever form it resembles for the individual in question.

Let’s change the premise…

If I said to you, you could be Prime Minister for two terms….but you’d have to burn alive your only child. Would you do it? Could you do it?

Well, Stannis did.

Of course the absolute power wielded by a King is greater than the limited power involved in the position of Prime Minister.

And of course some of you will argue that this isn’t solely about becoming King, Stannis wants to use the Lord of Light to save the realm from the White Walkers and therefore the sacrifice of his daughter is an altruistic move ‘for the good of the realm’.

What I’d say to those people [and I say this as a Stannis fan] is that firstly the only evidence he has that he’s needed in the war with the White Walkers [and that there’s going to be a war at all] is based on the ramblings of a mad woman, a witch, who essentially harbours a hidden agenda to use Stannis to install a radical new religion and is someone who already admitted to Stannis’ wife from the bathtub that most of her magic is ‘smoke and mirrors’ – so right away we’re on dodgy ground believing anything she says.

And secondly, Stannis wasn’t so fixated with what’s good for the realm when he used the smoke baby to kill his little brother Renly – another dead family member in Stannis’ seemingly unscrupulous rise to power.

Let’s be blunt, Stannis had the lottery winner option available to him. He could have allied with Renly, realised that his younger brother had the support of the liege lords, was popular with the people and once they brought down the Lannisters, Stannis might have taken his young family to a picturesque part of the country and spent the rest of his days watching Shireen grow up in the serene grounds of his wealthy estate.

But Stannis the Mannis told the banker ‘no deal’ and he picked the Shireen-burning option.

Better in his mind to be powerful, to be the top dog, than to live out his days in comfort.

Although…perhaps we’re being too harsh in judging the power-chasers in the Game of Thrones by our modern 21^st century standards. There’s an argument that in the undemocratic nation of Westeros, where military strength seems to be the dominating factor…holding some sort of power could be the difference between a comfortable life and a painful death.

If you’re a former dinner lady from Basingstoke and you win £50m on the lottery, you probably don’t need to worry about a bunch of Stone Crows rampaging through your gardens, stealing your livestock and burning your mansion to the ground. You wouldn’t really need political power.

If Stannis allies himself with Renly; goes off to a wealthy estate to retire with his family…and then in 10 years Renly is deposed by Daenerys and a dragon lands on the roof of Stannis’ holding, he might be regretting not picking the Shireen-burning option as he watches the demise of his estate.

Even if the decision to burn his daughter turns out to be wise, it’s something we, as human beings, have a hard time respecting. Surely it’s better to die protecting your family, upholding your honour and dignity than to progress up the ladder of power by sacrificing your loved ones and engaging in barbarism? Perhaps that’s a Ned Stark way of looking at things, but if we are not our families, our children, then who are we? What do we stand for? When does the pursuit of power become ‘not worth it actually’?

Looking at Twitter, Stannis appears to have lost a lot of his support after the daughter burning incident, although, bizarrely and almost worryingly, the internet reaction is nowhere near as strong as the furore surrounding the Sansa rape scene.

It seems that a father, marching his nervous daughter up to the stake against her will, having her tied up and then watching the poor girl burn alive in a slow and excruciating manner as bloodcurdling screams pierce the air and a mother desperately attempts to save her baby isn’t as bad as a newly married wife participating in some sinister wedding sex.

Charlotte Runcie of the Telegraph hilariously encapsulated the unfathomable position of these people in her review of the episode:

“The moment that her mother dropped to the ground and emitted a low moan of despair, far too late to save her, was almost as bleak as Sansa’s rape earlier in the season.”

Yes…almost

 

 

The penultimate episode of season five ended with our lovely Khaleesi observing a gladiatorial contest involving fighters chopping and slicing each other to the death for the pleasure of their Queen. All went fairly well until a bunch of the Sons of the Harpies snuck in and caused a ruckus, killing many of the spectators before marching towards Khaleesi.

The few Unsullied [STILL using spears in close combat. FFS lads, didn’t Rome: Total War teach you anything, you never send the hoplites into a city, get some bloody daggers] limply tried to restore order, but the Harpies, the pastoral pansies, seemed to give them another shoeing.

The old dog Jorah jumped in front of his former Queen and put on the heroics. A turquoise thug dropped dead here, a lime delinquent fell there. Jorah grabbed Daenerys’ hand [has he given her the stone aids!?] and took Khaleesi into the fighting pit, but alas, more Harpies came sauntering in. All appeared lost…until Drogon flew into the arena and started slaughtering the attackers.

I was a bit disappointed when the dragon arrived. I’ve never been a big fan of using animals to just appear at opportune moments to save the day. Every time the hobbits are about to bite the dust in JRR Tolkien’s world the pissing eagles swoop in. Seems like a bit of a get out card to me.

Daenerys went into ‘laterz guys’ mode, jumped on the back of Drogon, left everybody else to their fate and f**ked off out of the stadium.

Again, I’ve seen a mixture of responses to this bit of CGI.

It did look very ‘Never Ending Story’-ish. I was half expecting the dragon-riding Khaleesi to end the episode by chasing some 14 year olds, decked out in 80’s clobber, down a New York street into the trash cans.

It did look slightly cheesey in places.

My own view is that if TV struggles to match the movies for CGI quality, I would try to keep it minimal. I think watching Daenerys climb onto Drogon from afar, from Tyrion’s point of view, before seeing a blurred silhouette fly off into the sunset would have been more effective, but hey ho, some people liked it.

The curtain closed with Tyrion and co still trapped in the centre of the stadium surrounded by the Meereenese Norwich City supporters club. How will they escape? We’ll see next week, when we’re told there’s an event so shocking it will make the Red Wedding look like a silent fart.
 

You would wager the show has to deal with Sparrow State’s taking over of King’s Landing and Cersei’s imprisonment, and of course, Stannis’ assault on Winterfell where we’ll get some idea as to whether throwing sweet Shireen on the barbie has been in any way ‘effective’.

Or it may just transpire that a daughter, and her father, have indeed fallen victim to the latest ‘smoke and mirrors’ stunt from the Lord of Light and his sexy red-headed saleswoman.