u/MeterologistOupost31

That's it. That's the whole post.

A lot of the series has become "problematic" over time, but what's aged really well?

I think the depiction of Tyrion as an actual developed character with dwarfism is honestly still ahead of its time even today, I feel that people with dwarfism were usually depicted as jokes or inherently sinister villains (and to a lesser extent they still are)

So Euron is obviously last, but where would you put the other three?

Obviously the majority of dialogue was worse, but what was actually better?

"It was the dragons we bowed to" is better than "It was the dragons we married", considerably so IMO. "Bowed" is much more evocative imagery, and means "dragons" works both metaphorically and literally, both as actual dragons and as Targaryens. "Married" is not only a pretty silly image but doesn't actually make sense. Nobody from the North ever married into House Targaryen, and implies a relationship between equals rather than subjugation.

"The Lannisters send their regards" is a lot snappier than "Jaime Lannister sends his regards". I know this line is set up earlier with Jaime's conversation with Roose but it doesn't really make sense for Roose to specify Jaime here when he's not actually involved with it. (Also if it turns out this is a plot point and LSH is only hunting Jaime because of this specific line...well, that would just be catastrophically bad writing)

Which characters have gone up or down in the eyes of the fandom over the years?

I feel the exact same as I did on no medication at all. I'm worried nothing's going to work at this point.

I think having them basically turn evil off-screen because Revenge Bad is just one of the least interesting things he could have done.

"Here are a group of radicals who will leave no moral boundry uncrossed if it means liberating the Riverlands" is an interesting conceit for the BWB going forward. We all loved Luthen Rael from Andor, didn't we? Now granted "revolutionaries who go too far" is hardly breaking new ground but I still think there's a lot of potential there.

But then GRRM doesn't even really bother developing this at all. The Brotherhood hangs a bunch of unambiguous legitimate targets and then at the end with zero build up decides to hang a teenage boy just so we know they're the baddies.

(I actually think there's an argument along the lines of "Podrick was a combatant and ergo fair game, child soldiers are normalized in Westeros" you could make. However Martin doesn't really engage with this viewpoint at all; narratively and thematically, Podrick is a very sympathetic character and we're essentially supposed to view his hanging as beyond the pale)

This is boring because Martin has pissed away actually engaging with the question of the legitimacy of revolutionary violence in favour of telling us actually it's bad before the storyline's even really begun. There is no acceptable amount of revolutionary violence because even hanging the people directly responsible will lead to you Going Too Far.

I think what particularly annoys me is that Martin depoliticalizes political violence. Brienne points out that Podrick is worth a lot more as a hostage and Lem responds he doesn't give a shit and he's gonna hang anyway out of revenge. Not out of any real coherent strategy or pragmatism, because then we'd have to at least consider their point. If it's just out of revenge then it's essentially definitionally wrong because revenge definitionally doesn't achieve anything except catharsis for the hangman.

Like the obvious parallel here is the Tsar's children, right? But that wasn't revenge. Atrocity or not, it was done to deny the White Army a figurehead.

"We're going to engage in brutal, unrestrained violence to free the Riverlands at any cost" is an interesting viewpoint to debate. "We're going to engage in brutal, unrestrained violence to feel a vague sense of emotional catharsis" isn't. Martin not only answers the question prematurely without really developing this new Brotherhood, he strawmans the question.

Donald Trump's first VP molested a kid named Rick when he was feeling poorly. What's goin' on there? (SPNTR)

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