More Game of Thrones! (This Time The Board Game)

A Game of Thrones

So, little known fact these days, but the game that really kicked off me and Dani’s board game collection was the Game of Thrones Board Game. I bought it for her as an 18^th birthday present, alongside a set of the A Song of Fire and Ice books. We played it that night, and it quickly became one of our favorite activities. That summer we invited our friends over to play it constantly, additionally carting it to Mizewell a few times to try and find new people to play it with. We even went so far as to try and get a friend to make an expansion we found online that added the Tullys, Arryns, and the  Targaryens. That did not work out, but we did end up adding and playing with an Arryn expansion of our own design – courtesy of Dani’s crafting skills.

Eventually, however, we more or less phased out this game from our rotation. If you are considering getting it, it’s a fantastically designed game. However, getting a consistently good play group for it is tricky and we quickly discovered a number of issues.

The first is that it is an exceptionally complex game, even by my standards. There are lots of interactions that confuse people, especially around harbors. Second, much like Axis and Allies, the game has a high additional knowledge requirement. It’s not enough to know how to play, to play well you also need to know the general openings for each faction and how to play around them. All it takes is one weak player to destroy a game and hand a win to someone simply by virtue of being next to them. If the Baratheon player is inexperienced and does not contest the Starks for the Vale, the Starks just win. If the Lannister player doesn’t know how to defend themselves against the depredations of the Greyjoys, it is really hard for anyone to save them and stop a Greyjoy win.

Finally, a lot of our friends are also just too nice for the Game of Thrones. They play safe farmy games and never make the cutthroat plays and backstabs needed to win. Worse, they leave the game with their feelings hurt by friends who brought about their downfall.

So, a Game of Thrones needs people who:

 -  Understand the game.

 -  Understand the basic strategies and how to react to them.

 - Don’t take things personally and play cutthroat games.

There is a fourth occasional factor that often prevents us from having good games, and that is “feeding.” I define this as a losing player giving up their home castles/strongholds to one of their neighbors. The line here between intentionally throwing and inexperience can be really fine, so it’s hard to call this one out. But when players do this it completely ruins the game. If you are losing, you are free to kingmake and support the player who screwed you over the least/you want to win. But your Kingmaking should stop short of giving up castles for free.

Because of these four factors, Game of Thrones remained largely unplayed on our shelf for a number of years. However, recently, I was able to introduce it to a couple new people at my bachelor party, and following our wedding, Dani and I bought the Mother of Dragons expansion which adds what we’ve always wanted: the Arryns and Targaryens. While we’re currently on Honeymoon, we managed to sneak in a 8-player game of this right before leaving Arkansas. With any luck, we’ll get in another one or two before leaving Conway. Suffice it to say we really like this expansion and think it adds a lot to the base game. I will briefly talk about the actual first game we played with the expansion last Saturday and some of the individual elements of the expansion. However, most of this piece will dwell on how I think the expansion has changed how each House is played and what a solid opening strategy for each looks like now. I intend for this to be a general resource for my friends whenever they try out a new House. However, this should all be taken with a grain of salt, given that its derived from one game played and lots of theory crafting with Dani rather than a wealth of experience. I expect my thoughts on a number of Houses and how you should open with them will evolve  in the years to come, but I hope what I write here will remain a good foundation to build on.

Without further ado, let’s get into each house.

House Stark

The Starks probably suffer the most from the expansion. They lose an essentially guaranteed castle in the Eeyrie (Baratheon players in our games have historically been very bad at contesting it). The traditional win for Starks generally took them to the Eeyrie, Cracklaw Point, and two of Dragonstone/Storm’s End/King’s Landing/Flint’s Finger/Seagard. On the plus side for them, they now have two potential castles to take in the Vale now. They also have good options in Essos with Bravos and potentially Pentos. On the downside, I think the Arryns are a bigger threat to them than the Greyjoys ever were. It did not come to pass this game, but a determined Arryn push into the Bite all but guarantees they take White Harbor and Moat Caitlin.

This is to say that Starks now need to care a lot more about diplomacy, both of their neighbors pose large threats to them and they need to avoid being 2v1’d. The general Stark play remains more or less the same though. You farm through the early game - collect all the outstanding barrels in the North, and set up taxing centers in Karhold and Castle Black. I feel like the fact that the Starks are a naval power is often lost on Stark players (exacerbated by the fact that we often give the Starks to new players). However, it’s even more important to remember in MoD. Getting boats in the Bite and holding it is absolutely critical, and having ships in your western and eastern seas only marginally less important. This is both to protect yourself from easy invasion, give offensive options on multiple fronts, and to support from the seas into Winterfell and Moat Cailin.

Essos provides really interesting options for the Starks, and if they can maintain good relations with the Arryns, they can potentially benefit a lot from pushing into Targ territory. Megan belated tried to do this in this game, but I would be very curious to see a Stark player attempt this pre-turn 6 in a future game. Above all else though, avoid being 2v1’d, bide your time to build up power, and don’t lose control of your seas.

Greyjoys 

The Greyjoys actually don’t change a lot in this expansion. You need to pick the Starks or Lannisters, be friends with one, and seek to destroy the other. You pick based on how much you think you can trust the player, and how the meta diplomacy breaks down. Traditionally we’ve said Greyjoys should attack the Lannisters and go for the full elimination. But increasingly our play group has favored Greyjoys fighting the Starks because there is room to fight and acquire territory without threatening a complete elimination (and thus forestalling other players ganging up on your). Putting a player completely out of the game too early without the ability to completely eliminate them (as happens often with Greyjoys fighting the Lannisters) also can be dangerous as it incentivizes them to aspire for nothing but to try and bring you down. Greyjoys can reliably take Riverrun, but taking Lannisport often takes a lot more effort.

Greyjoys continue to benefit from what we generally think to be the best deck in the game. Balon and Victarion in particular just wreck basically every other 2 and 3 strength card in the game and are usually auto-wins when you play them. The presence of the Arryns in the game changes things a little bit for the Greyjoys: posing an additional threat to Seagard but also giving them a ready made ally to bisect the North. However, a Greyjoy win is always going to consist of basically the same castles as before: Pyke, Seagard, Flint’s Finger, Riverrun, Harrenhal, Moat Calin, Winterfell/Lannisport.

Check and mate.

Lannisters

Oh boy, I still have yet to figure out how Lannisters win short of a neighbor being an idiot. Lannisters just feel really weak, and even our general QoL buff (giving them a knight in Stoney Sept instead of a footman), doesn’t seem to help them much. It may be worthwhile to consider giving them another/investigating what people online have done. The unfortunate reality though is that small QoL buffs probably will never be enough because their problem is quite simply the map. They start next to a militaristic faction with strong cards who can basically take Riverrun from them whenever they want. Just compare this to the Tyrells, who instead have a very safe second Stronghold in the form of Oldtown.

Starting with the Raven is amazing and the one reason they are competitive. They can easily swap to taxing or raiding early on if the Greyjoys don’t make them support out of Stoney Sept. I also think Lannisters (along with the Starks), are one of the factions that might always want to muster turn 1, if for no other reason than to shore up the Golden Sound. But at the end of the day, they are still right next to the Greyjoys and one territory away from Highgarden (the Tyrells also having one of the other stronger decks).

Lannister cards by comparison just kinda suck. An experienced player can use them well to counter the Greyjoys. Tyrion forces the Greyjoy player to return Balon to their hand…but then they likely just win anyway. Kevan can beat someone like Balon or Victarion on attack if you build your armies around him. The Mountain is in theory pretty good, but in practice is just hard to pull off. Tywin has the onerous distinction of being (imho), the worst 4 strength card in the game, and having a weak 4 strength card is just awful. It would be excessive to descry the Lannister cards as trash, but they are just weak compared to the ones the Tyrells and Greyjoys are throwing out.

And now you have the Arryns to potentially contest Harrenhal…WOOOOOO.

So, what seven castles do you go for? You obviously need to completely eliminate the Tyrells or Greyjoys to win. How do you pick? Well…. if you completely eliminate the Greyjoys, you get the ultra-safe Pyke and you secure Riverrun. The problem then becomes that you are left with Segard and Flint’s Finger as your 5^th and 6^th castles, both of which are contestable by a remotely competent Stark player. If instead you lay waste to the Tyrells, you get the very safe Oldtown and Highgarden, and the moderately safe Reach as your 6^th. However, you still have the Riverrun/Ironborn problem. So…take your pick.

I’m kidding, you should always go for the Tyrells.

This is why I always describe Lannisters as a diplomatic/kill faction. You need to completely eliminate a neighbor, and you need a pretty specific diplomacy break-down to realize your full potential. Specifically, you desperately want the Greyjoys to go North and commit to it in such a way that they’re unlikely to suddenly switch gears. So, with that in mind, you want the Arryns and Greyjoys to team up against and fight over the corpse of the Starks. In the south, you want the Martells to work with you to take down the Tyrells, and you come out ahead. Finally, you want the Baratheons to solo-fight the Targs and create room for your victory.

If this sounds insanely specific, that’s because it is. Lannisters are just hard, and if someone else figures out how to make them work more consistently, I’d love to hear it.

Tyrells

One of my favorite Houses in the game, and I think even stronger in Mother of Dragons. The Martells and Baratheons now have other expansion prospects and as a result you have more freedom to pick your enemies/attack one of them when they are distracted with Targaryens. More importantly, Tyrells now start with a star, rectifying the weakness that was their inability to muster independently in the base game.

Tyrells want to start out pretty farmy, critically grabbing the Arbor, and whatever other satellite territories Dorne is not interested in. In MoD, you have the opportunity to get in good with the Baratheons early on by moving into the Reach Turn 1 and supporting (or charging them power to support), their otherwise difficult attack on King’s Landing. I generally think Tyrells are best farming power and waiting until after the first Clash of Kings to make their move. With good taxing territories in the Arbor and Dornish Marshes, you and the Starks will probably be the ones to clean up on the first round of bidding.

To your North you have the Lannisters, who would really like to destroy you but have a lot of difficulty doing so do to the layout of the territory. In order for an attack on Highgarden to be successful, the Lannisters basically have to push into Searood Marches, Blackwater, and then the Reach before attacking Highgarden. You will probably never face a naval threat from them due to the layout of the western sea zones, and the general inadvisability of leaving the Golden Sound undefended if you are the Lannisters. You don’t need the supply as badly as the Baratheons or Lannisters, but if you can move into the Blackwater, you can consistently undermine the Lannisters by playing raids and supporting yourself into Stoney Sept/Lannisport.

On the whole though, I don’t recommend outright trying to eliminate the Lannisters, because the Greyjoys are just much better positioned to scoop up all the prizes from that war, and unless you can defeat the Greyjoy navy your going will be hard. But a weakened Lannister player who can’t march on the Reach and Highgarden is definitely to your advantage.

The Tyrells are not a naval power, but you do want to always possess your two home sea zones, and possessing them sets up your best first aggressive move: boating Starfall. Starfall is a pretty natural conquest, although you need to be careful to invest it with enough to hold it. You can boat it from your home area and easily bring a siege tower, but you need to be careful since it won’t contribute to the defense of Starfall once you take it. Martells also have annoying cards in the form of Ariane and Doran so if you can attack it after these are gone that is generally preferable.

Once you take Starfall, where you go is really a question of who is weakest of Lannisters/Baratheons/Martells. I would generally recommend trying for the three Dornish castles and picking up Storms End as your 7^th, but King’s Landing, Harrenhal, and Cracklaw Point are all viable options as well.

The Tyrells have one of the better decks in the game although it takes a little finesse to use. Mace is straight up the best 4 strength card since he’s effectively always a 5 strength card when used properly (Stannis is more situational by comparison). Where the Tyrell deck really shines though is with Loras, who promises the possibility of blitzing to an undefended enemy capital or completely eliminating an army you have routed. Great care must be taken however, as it’s easy to outrun sufficient support to win the battles you are picking. Finally, a quick shout out to Olenna, her ability to potentially take out an opponent’s support provides some really strong situational options and  a way to better set up Loras.

The Tyrell core territories are some of the safest and best in the game, you just need to watch your diplomacy and be careful not to get 2v1’d by Martells and Lannisters coming at you at full steam.

Martells

Probably the faction that benefits most from Essos. Martells in the base game are a very safe power, but one that is easily trapped in a corner without clear paths to victory. Previously, they needed to basically completely overpower the Baratheons with Salador Sahn and Patchface to win, a tall order indeed. Tyrells provided the option for the long campaign, but it was often hard to support armies across such a long distance into Tyrell territory, with Tyrell seas hard to penetrate with perennial supports being played out of the Redwyne straits.

But now you have Volantis! A city basically made for the Martells to capture. The expansion fixes their biggest problem by giving them an extra expansion route.

The big thing Martel players need to be cognizant now of, even more so than before, is their relationship with the Baratheons. Before it was fairly easy, you either planned to win by eating them and tried to set that up as your long-term play, or you reached an accommodation with them and focused your efforts westward. Now, it’s a lot more nuanced, because Baratheon play is more nuanced.  Did the Arryns take Cracklaw Point? Then you need to consider ceding Storm’s End to the Baratheons in order to keep them relevant and able to fight the Targaryens. Do you participate in the eastern alliance against the Targs? It depends if the Baratheons are on board and what your Tyrell neighbors are up to.

This last game we saw the Targ player really wail on the Martells with dragons, but I actually don’t think that will be the norm. I think dragon bombs are more likely to get dropped in the far north or Pyke/Dragonstone, with a primary invasion landing in the Vale or in the Crownlands. If that proves to be the case going forward, Martells only get stronger from MoD, and I think once the Martel player works out their general meta strategy, going for Volantis is a very strong option. It nets you 4-5 castles early (depending on who claims Storm’s End), and grabbing two castles in the late game is fairly straightforward. Pushing up for KL/The Reach, going west to Oldtown/Highgarden, or taking some combination of Cracklaw Point, Pentos, and Dragonstone are all solid options. I think the Martells are particularly strong in this expansion because they can set themselves up at five castles without having had to kill someone or put them out of the running to do so. There are very few Houses that can claim that. 

Finally good Martell play will probably continue to emphasize using the threat of Doran more than putting him into play. Martells continue to suffer from a general lack of good taxing territories, so make sure you consolidate power regularly and try to set yourself up taxing centers in the Boneway or Prince’s Pass.

In sum, the Martells have good opening options but just need to be smart about playing the diplomatic game. In particular, the question they need answered is how the war in the narrow sea is going to shape up.

Baratheon

This expansion massively changes how the Baratheons are played, and I think generally nerfs them (mostly…its complicated).

Let’s look at the downsides of this expansion for the Baratheons:

 - Cracklaw Point is no longer a freebie.

 - Without a star to start with, taking KL on turn 2 is very hard and its more likely not to happen until turns 3 or 4.

 - You now have a powerful naval rival to your east.

Now for the upsides:

 - Your first in turn order position is perfect to take advantage of a quality turn 1/turn 2 Iron Bank loan.

 - You get first choice of vassals (if they are in the game).

 - Players have strong incentive to leave you alone because nobody else is in as good of a position to mess with the Targs.

Before, the Baratheons were a pretty militaristic faction that usually sought to win by scooping up Dragonstone/KL/Cracklaw Point/Storm’s End and then moving north to take the Eeyrie, Moat Cailin and White Harbor for the win. They could alternatively go south to take down the Martells, but doing so would usually entail more of a land campaign that the sea-based Baratheons are ill-equipped to handle.

The biggest asset of the Baratheon player is fear of the Targaryens. You need to play it up with the implicit idea that threatening or hurting you too much gives the game to the Targs. You lead the anti-Targ crusade and need to lean into it.

I’ll get more into this in my Targ section, but generally I would hold that if the Targs make it to Turn 6 without losing a dragon or getting bodied too hard in Essos, they just win. They did not in our game, but I think this is a good general rule. To body them in Essos - taking Pentos and sending them running into the hinterland - you probably need at least three of the players on the east coast. Maybe enlist the Martels and Arryns/Starks with the idea that you three will each get one of the castles in Essos.

Now obviously maintaining this alliance and preventing players on the western side of Westeros from messing with your plans will be difficult. And indeed, you probably don’t want the Targs completely destroyed. If you do you want it in such a way that you can scoop up their holdings.

If you get the feelings that the Baratheon’s now require a delicate balancing act I think that’s accurate. Very different than the base game where you just killed motherfuckers. The expansion also makes their supply problem even worse, so try your best to get some of those barrels in Essos or alternatively convince the Lannisters you should control the Blackwater.

Be smart, curry favor with players using the Iron Throne, and you just might come out ahead. And of course, don’t neglect your navy. No player can truly afford to neglect their navy (something frequently overlooked by new players), but the Baratheons, Greyjoys, Starks, and Targs in particular cannot afford to do so.

Arryn

Alright, done with all the base houses. Time to talk about how I feel the new houses should be played. This will be very tentative, as I only have seen one game with them currently and consequently there is a lot of room for innovation.

On that note, I want to note that the Arryns start with three knights right off the bat (as opposed to a knight and two footmen), and speculate that there may be a lot of room here to explore early rushes. I’ll leave that to someone else though.

Arryns at first seems to be a shrimp among whales, wedged between Targs, Baratheons, and Starks. But upon further reflection I think that the Arryns are the whale. In particular, I think the Arryns benefit from setting themselves up diplomatically to go ham against the Starks or the Targs.

I mentioned in my Stark section that the Arryns probably post a larger threat to them than the Greyjoys and I stand by that. If the Arryns ever are able to invest The Bite, I think it’s basically GG for the Starks. At the very least I don’t know how they hold Moat Cailin and White Harbor reliably. Alternatively, the Arryns are the best or second best positioned to push on Pentos.

If worst comes to worst, the combination of the Eeyrie garrson with Lysa Arryn makes it difficult for the Arryns to be eliminated. I’ve remarked to Dani often that the addition of two new players with only four new castles essentially guarantees that at least one player will be eliminated or gutted by the conclusion of the game. The Arryns are in the middle of it all, but they do have tools to ensure they stick around for quite some time.

I will also stand by my initial impression that the Arryns should always open by taking Cracklaw Point. The Baratheons simply can’t meaningfully oppose them if they want it, and it seems like a good play to prepare for a turn 2 muster. The only reason I would not do this is for diplomacy. From Cracklaw Point you can further threaten Harrenhal and move into central Westeros, but again, I generally think your best options are north and south.

The Arryns don’t need a navy to survive like the Starks do, but they need a navy to win, and with that in mind don’t neglect yours.

Targaryens

Finally, we arrive at the giant on the playground, the Targaryens.

If the Targaryens want you dead after turn 6 and have all three dragons on hand, it will likely come to pass.

The Targaryens first and foremost benefit from being the ticking time bomb. Nobody really wants to deal with them, but if nobody does they simply win the game. They benefit from the possibility of a tragedy of the commons at play, as each house tries to invest the minimum it needs to stop them.

Because of this though, a 2-4 player dogpile on you is very likely in the first few turns. The solid move seems to be claiming Bravos and Volantis off the bat to prepare for a muster, then hunkering down and preparing to defend Essos. In particular, it is probably wiser more often than not to keep your dragons inland. The very earliest you should be fighting with them is turn 4.

The Targs need to do their best to sow dissent among the attacking alliance, and use their power to gain allies on the western end of Westeros. They are also potentially one of the better positioned players to take a helpful loan from the Iron Bank - one of the unit granting ones in particular could go a long way towards strengthening their position early. 

I think it goes without saying that if you have the power, you should pretty much spawn every loyalist that you can. The ones that allows you to place supporters in the Arbor, Castle Black, Dragonstrone, and Pyke in particular seem very strong. Late game, you start the Dragon World Tour, and fly your death ball around to collect supporters. These isolated territories are excellent, because you need to avoid at all costs locations where two or more players can collapse on you and kill you dragons. To that end, Dragonstone and Pyke seem like very fruitful locations for conquest, isolated and only supportable by one sea zone, and completely within the sphere of their respective players.

Dorne seems like an iffy player to attack because Ariane can set you back a turn. Additionally, as we saw this last game, attacking KL with dragons alone seems doomed to failure, as tempting as it might be.

As Targaryens, you ultimately want to play conservatively, husband your resources until the moment is right, and attempt to break the alliance/dogpile on you by sowing dissent and tactically giving away power. When the moment is right, you strike.

Other Expansion Elements

I love the Iron Bank, in particular because it gives a way to acquire units without a phase one muster or a Starred Consolidate Power. The Pyromancer card also seems extremely powerful, a fact I didn’t truly process at first. It probably stopped my win in this previous game.

I believe this expansion generally reduces the power of the Raven Track (with the addition of vassals providing more incentive to seek the Iron Throne and the addition of more order tokens for boats reducing the demand on your starred ones), and made both of the other tracks slightly better by comparison. Being first on the Iron Throne now gives you right of first refusal on IB loans, and consequently the possibility to muster without a star.

That interest does add up fast though.

The ability to trade power was not as impactful on this game as I thought it would be, but I also expect we’re just getting started in terms of seeing its impact on the game. The Targaryen ability to distribute it during bidding though does cause the already tedious Clash of Kings to stretch even longer.

We had no vassals this last game, but I love their addition and we may look to implement a forced vassalization for players who are reduced to one castle in the future to spare them from playing out a multi-hour game where they have already been removed from contention.

The Game Itself

This record will be centered on my point of view, and as a result there will be things that occurred that I leave out, simply because I missed them when they happened (lots of moving parts in an eight player game).

The players were as follows:

Stark – Megan

Greyjoy – Sam Fish

Lannister – Ben Fish

Tyrell – Dave

Martel – Daniel

Baratheon – Michael

Targaryen – Fish

Arryn – Danielle

Our three new players were Ben, Sam and Megan, and with the benefit of hindsight I may have made an error letting the three of them spawn right next to each other.

It ended up being a pretty peaceful early game, with a Turn 2 Muster. Greyjoys notably did not go early aggro on anyone, nor did Arryns. The Baratheons took KL on turn 2 with my help from the Reach (for the low low price of 1 power). Megan did not understand that she could assault Essos from Westeros, and Dani only had vague interest in helping (supporting Michael out of the Narrow Sea), so the anti-Targ alliance consisted of Michael with some support from Daniel.

For my part I was quite content to curry favor with Fish and bide my time taxing away. Michael’s initial naval campaign went well, and he did take Pentos. But Fish easily took it back later that turn. At this point he had given me a lot of power during Clash of Kings, I had come out on top of 2 tracks, and attacked Starfall – and took it from Daniel. Daniel however, had reserved Doran and dropped me to the bottom of the Raven track much to my own chagrin. It was then that the critical play of the game happened, on on t5 Fish dropped his dragon ball on Sunspear. 

It was an incredibly critical and close battle, and we initially thought Daniel had won and slain two dragons by winning a tie. But, upon a recount, Fish managed to win by one power, taking the Dornish capital right before his dragon ball reached strength 9. The combination of losing Sunspear and Starfall on back to back turns effectively put Daniel out of the game, although he managed to retake Starfall by the end of it all and was never completely eliminated.

About the same time, I raided the Lannister support in Stoney Sept from Blackwater and allowed the Greyjoys to take Riverrun. This kicked off a general feeding frenzy on the Lannisters for the rest of the game, with the Arryns later attacking Harrenhal. This was of course helped by the fact that Ben left Lannisport unguarded for the Greyjoys and kept sending his armies south to futily attack Highgarden.

While Fish started collecting supports in Dorne (Daniel critically delaying him a turn with clever use of Ariane), I lined everything up for my win, aiming for Highgarden/Oldtown/Starfall/The Reach/Yronwood/Sunspear/KL. It’s an open question of if I could have pulled it off, I was set for taking Sunspear and KL on turn 7, but I made a critical mistake and allowed Michael to take the Pyromancer, which he immediately used to burn down Starfall.

RIP.

In the Game of Thrones you win or you die.

Meanwhile, with my chance to win more or less passed, the long game of Chess between me and Fish seemed to be coming to a rapid conclusion as he flew his dragons around Westeros, with seemingly nobody capable of stopping them. Megan belatedly invaded Bravos aiming for Petnos, but the only thing that would truly stop Fish would be the elimination of his dragons.

After a pretty immaculately played early game, Fish made one critical mistake, and took KL from the Baratheons to eliminate Michael’s muster their (aimed at taking Pentos the next turn), and collect a supporter. Danielle, Michael and I formed an alliance of desperation, and our armies converged on KL. Supporting Michael out of the Reach, he piled in a 20+ strength attack on KL and with nowhere to retreat, claimed the title “dragonslayer” and took down all three. It was the end of Fish’s chance to win.

However, in the West, Sam had been quietly accumulating territories off her distracted neighbors. Ben was effectively out of the game at this point, and Megan was focused on Essos. On turn 9, Sam managed to take the final castle needed, winning with Pyke, Seagard, Riverrun, Flint’s Finger, Moat Cailin, Lannisport, and White Harbor.

The Greyjoy play was a lot slower developing than we have typically seen it played, but I can’t deny its efficacy.

At any rate, ending on turn 9 was good because our game had already run very long and we had a crawfish boil to get to!

GG to all, and I look forward to sneaking in a couple more games with the MoD expansion before Dani and I leave the state.

"The Iron Throne"

Hello my chickadees.

Season 8 is over, and its time to examine where nearly a decade of this show has left us. There is much more to say than I can do justice to in one post, so I'm going to focus on just the things I want to talk about. In the following weeks there internet will be awash in think pieces about Game of Thrones that cover the things I don't address. So, without any further ado, let's dive in:

The Mad Queen...

Welp, time to riot. I'm sure much smarter people than me are going to break down every single Dany scene in the lead up to season 8 to show how this turn to evil was not at all foreshadowed. For my part, I'm just going to talk about it briefly, because the majority of you don't need me to explain why this was stupid.

Instead, I'm going to talk about the elephant in the room: that this turn is likely planned by GRRM for ASOIAF.

As I said above, I'm pretty okay with that. This would be a compelling intrapersonal struggle to center a season of this show around. The problem is that book Dany is unmoored from show Dany. Dany in the show is portrayed as a heroic liberator. Occasionally petulant and unyielding, but someone who on the whole is genuinely concerned with the plight of common people. Remember a couple seasons ago when she locked up her dragons after they killed one child? People who claim this was all set up by Dany executing people are literally incapable of noticing the framing of a scene and just take the text at face value. Good characters routinely execute people in Game of Thrones, and its not portrayed as inherently evil. Additionally, if I had a nickle for every time an episode ended with a triumphant shot of a dragon roaring...

Book Dany is much more morally gray. She shows signs of being unhinged: hearing voices, literally thinking of her dragons as her children, etc. The Dany of the book is much easier to see slipping into "madness" than the Dany of the show. But the show instead takes the whitewashed heroic Dany, then gives her the book plot twist in literally two episodes - undermining 7 1/2 seasons of character development. What's worse is that Dany dies and we abruptly shift to tying up loose ends. Dany is arguably the main character of GOT and her death is treated as if it doesn't even matter.

If you wanted to go this route with the character, you needed to decide on that a long time ago. One of the reasons Alan Rickman's performance as Snape in the otherwise lackluster HP moves is so good is that JK Rowling told him the twist years in advance. It allowed him to give layers to his performance of Snape, and make him a nuanced character rather than the one-dimensional villains the directors wanted him to be. Emilia Clarke had a mere 4 1/2 episodes to foreshadow this, and it simply was not enough time or such a radical departure in how Daenerys has been characterized up to now.

This is another moment where you really feel the effects of a plot change from the books: the exclusion of Young Griff/"Aegon." In the books, Dany will likely arrive to a Westeros where Cersei has been deposed and KL, Highgarden, and Dorne are united under Aegon. The people will love him for having deposed Cersei, and see Daenerys as a foreign invader. Moreover, Dany will likely know Jon is the real Aegon. Seeing her throne on the brink of slipping away, she will have strong motivation to do something drastic and go too far in her quest for power. Instead, the show excludes Aegon and contorts itself to keep Cersei relevant and make her the final villain.

This is where I admit I have never really liked Dany, although that might largely be a factor of her lacking interesting characters surrounding her to interact with for much of the early seasons. That being said, what I do love about her is that she has had one of the more consistent characterizations throughout. While the overall quality of the show took a dip in season 5, she had some of her strongest scenes. One of the more interesting Daenery's plotlines was her figuring out how to govern Mereen. Watching her navigate dealing with the Sons of the Harpy and learning how to govern was compelling and forced her character to grow and compromise. Emilia Clarke was singled out for being one of the weaker actresses in the first couple seasons of the show. However, to her credit, in the years since she has grown into the role and even amidst of this garbage fire of a season brings her A game.

This is all to say, I think its really shitty how they yanked Emilia's career-defining character out from under her in the final season, and I feel really bad for her. Daenerys is a character who is important beyond just the show. She is a strong and well-written female character in a media landscape with precious few. People feel empowered by her story and see her as representing the best of us. I don't normally advocate for the "real world" influencing the writing of a character, but given the importance of this character, I find her ham-fisted turn to evil even more appalling. D&D just straight up take the female heroic icon of a generation and turn her "crazy" over the course of two episodes for no other reason than to have a dramatic finish. Appalling.

Press F for everyone who named their daughter Daenerys or Khaleesi over the last decade.

The Problem of Arya

God, I know I sound like a neckbeard when I say that I really hate Arya post season 4. I also am aware that this is the third female character I have complained about in a row. In my defense, were I to keep going, I would write similar sections about Jon and Bran, but I intend to be basically done with GOT after this. Suffice it to say that examining Sansa and Cersei in such fashion was because the missteps they have taken with both characters have been on full display this season and they were relevant to the episodes I wanted to examine. Additionally, Sansa and Cersei were both two of my characters in the early seasons, and seeing the shell of a character Cersei in particular has become hurts me. I'm going to address Arya here today for my last post because I think she embodies everything that is wrong with the show as it comes to a close.

My pet theory is that people only love Arya because Maisie Williams is awesome IRL. But as for her character after season 4... Well, let's go ahead and get into it. Arya has some of my all-time favorite scenes in Game of Thrones. Her scenes with Tywin are some of the best in the entire show, and watching her and the Hound in Season 4 never fails to bring joy to my heart. The dialogue really crackles, the characters are really strong, and through her we get to explore a lot of Westeros.

Then we go to Bravos....

So, Arya goes to Bravos and tries to become a faceless man. The waif hates her for some reason. Her conflict here seems to be whether she will shed her Stark identity and truly become a faceless man or not. Anyway, she eventually decides to leave the faceless men, and then we get the infamous sequence where she is just walking around Bravos like an oblivious idiot who doesn't have a cult of assassins trying to kill her. She gets stabbed multiple times in the stomach, jumps into a dirty ditch, and yet somehow survives. Anyway, she then kills the waif, and declares she is Arya Stark of Winterfell. Congratulations, we just spent two seasons only for this character to end right back where she started. She also somehow keeps the faceless man powers despite not being "no one."

Fast forward to season 7 ending with the refrain that "The lone wolf dies but the pack survives." Then at the end of Season 8, she leaves the explore the Western Sea.

What.

What was the whole point of her re-asserting her identity as a Stark and that stupid bit about staying in the pack if she was just going to reject it in the end and go off on her own at the end of the show?

Arya is also patient zero for the shows increasing glorification of violence and being a badass. Arya just fucking slaughters people in these later seasons. Early on in the show, every time she killed it was treated as a dehumanizing moment. The viewer was left to ponder the woman she's become, to mourn the loss of humanity she has suffered in her quest for safety. Then the showwriters decided violence and revenge were cool and empowering, and Arya becomes a video game character in terms of her kill count and imperviousness. They also clearly didn't know how to handle a character as strong as Arya. Arya could have ended this whole war just by going down to KL and killing Cersei before Dany burned it down, but D&D decide that would apparently have been too simple.

The worst part is that Arya ends Season 8 having never used her faceless man powers except to kill a bunch of Freys. Whoop-de-doo. What was the point of her being a faceless man again?

If you take out Arya killing the Night King, her character has literally no impact on the overarching story, and that felt unearned and arbitrary. But its not the only arbitrary thing that happened this season...

Bran and the Worst Scene in Game of Thrones History

I could not have made this scene any stupider if I tried. And I'm going to break it down in painstaking detail.

First off, Bran. God what a disappointment. What a waste of a bunch of cool ideas. Neither Bran's ability to warg into animals or change the past had any impact on the final story. His only plot relevance, his payoff for seasons and seasons of traipsing around north of the wall with poor Meera dragging him around, was to be arbitrary bait for the NK and then be appointed King through no agency of his own. D&D could just never decide what the Three-Eyed Raven actually is and what his powers are besides being the "memory of the world" that the NK wanted to destroy. When I read the leaks about this episode, that Bran was voted king by the council, I assumed it would come on the heels of him wowing them with his seer powers, maybe even blackmailing them. But no....his powers are officially worthless.

So, after the most important character in the show dies we fade cut to Tyrion being taken to a council meeting (Shout out to Robin for the unexpected glow up). Grey Worm was supposed to bring Jon, but didn't. This tells us two things. First, instead of lying and saying the dragon killed Daenerys or carried her off after wounding her, Jon admitted to killing her. Second, the Unsullied decided not to kill Jon on the spot and keep him prisoner for some reason. Yara thinks he should be punished too, I guess because she and Dany flirted once.

Anyway, we decide we need a new king. Edmure puts himself forward and Sansa shuts him down. This is one of the few moments I enjoyed this episode, purely because I always wanted Sansa to become a powerful and confident player of the game of thrones. And while I don't like how we got here, I like where her character ends this episode.

And then the scene comes.

The type of scene that writers love and I hate.

Sam suggests that Westeros switch to a Democratic form of government.

GET IT, BECAUSE WE LIVE IN A DEMOCRACY AND WE KNOW ITS OBVIOUSLY THE BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT! LOOK AT THESE FOOLS LAUGHING AT HIM.

I hate scenes like this for two reasons. First off, they exist purely to make the audience feel smart. There is a similar scene in Titanic, where Rose McGowan is collecting paintings by Picasso only for her asshole fiance to loudly proclaim that he will never amount to a thing.

GET IT AUDIENCE?!?! HOW STUPID IS HE FOR NOT KNOWING HOW IMPORTANT PICASSO WOULD BECOME XD XD XD YOU KNOW BETTER THOUGH.

These scenes are stupid and pandering.

Second - this is a critique from my academic training -scenes like this rely on the implicit Fukuyama-esque notion that democratic governments are the end of history and are the most natural form of government. Without getting too deep into this strain of thought, I think this reasoning is presumptuous and complacent.

Anyway, back to the scene. Tyrion asks "What is more powerful than a good story?" and I nearly puke. This is such a saccharine notion from a show grounded in realpolitik. Remember the scene in Season 1 where Littlefinger coyly teases Cersei with the notion that knowledge is power, then she orders her guards to kill him, stops them, and retorts "power is power?" Yeah, apparently D&D don't.

Anyway Tyrion says that Bran is the best candidate because.....I don't know. IT SUBVERTS OUR EXPECTATIONS. He apparently also gets a vote and says aye. Everyone follows suit, and then Sansa is like: "JK, the North is going to be independent."

I hate this for a multitude of reasons. Let's list them:

1. This plot development is pandering to an audience of Americans who have positive associations with the word "independence." In the world of the show, the North has little going for it but its size and is often dependent on the South for imports of food. This is roughly the equivalent of Montana deciding to go its own way.
2. I love Yara's facial expression at this proclamation by Sansa. "Wait, this was an option?" The showrunners also forgot that Dany promised independence to the Iron Islands.
3. Man, it sure is easy to declare independence after you put someone from your family on the Throne of the Six Kingdoms. The Baratheons really missed the boat on that one.
4. Why would you declare independence when you have a Stark on the Iron Throne? You have more to gain by staying in the compact.
5. What's to stop other Kingdoms from now declaring independence? What makes the North special? You're just weakening Bran's position if you establish precedent that the Seven Kingdoms will no longer remain united.

Anyway, the North is independent in a massive plot development that literally has no reason to happen outside fan service. Instead of raping and pillaging the Six Kingdoms, the Dothraki politely leave along with the Unsullied to go liberate Naath. I guess they forgot about the butterflies. The Night Watch still exists for some reason as a place for "bastards and broken things." Instead of just waiting for Grey Worm and his indeterminate number of Unsullied to leave, Jon goes back to the Wall. What's preventing him from coming back from exile? What about all the people Varys told he was the rightful heir?

The show was weirdly focused on the Starks at the end of the day, making a big production of showing what happens to the three besides Bran. I realize that people like the Starks, because they are the main point of view family for book one. However, the books and show quickly move beyond that to focus on lots of other interesting characters. But at the end of the show, we're apparently focused on the Starks again? I guess they won the Game of Thrones. Bran rules the Six Kingdoms. Sansa is Queen of da Norf, Jon is King Beyond the Wall (I guess?), and Arya is off to find some Native Americans to genocide. Wooo....?


Well, Here We Are

I haven't even talked about the waste that was the Golden Company, the underwhelming Clegane Bowl, completely assassinating Jaime's character, dragons being invincible again... The list goes on, but I'm going to end here. I'm done at this point.

This season was awful and ruined Game of Thrones. I can't even go back and watch the early seasons and fully enjoy them. All that foreshadowing with Jon led nowhere. Bran's plot led nowhere. Jaime's seven seasons of character growth was thrown out at last minute. You can't watch it now without all that knowledge in the back of your head.

People will pile on this season as being where Game of Thrones went wrong, but the problems began years ago. In a sentence, the core problem is that events in the show ceased deriving from the actions and motivations of characters. It took this long for criticism to catch up with the show for two reasons:

1. By season 5 GOT had become a cultural force to be reckoned with and few were willing to critique it.
2. While there was still show left, the pile up of problems was camouflaged. There was still time left to fix the remaining issues, and people gave D&D the benefit of the doubt with the hope that they would find a way to satisfyingly tie it all up.

This season feels rushed and half-baked, and many will be tempted to say that if D&D had written the ten episode season HBO had offered them it would have been good. While I do think it would have fixed some of the problems, the core issues would remain. Its a cliche at this point to single out the writing in Game of Thrones as being poor. But truly, in a show where the acting, scoring, cinematography, effects, and editing have consistently been good, the writing has been the one thing dragging it down. D&D never understood the themes of their own show, and grew increasingly willing to alter or ignore previous characterization if they could get an epic fight or pointless surprise death out of it.

I'll close in saying I hate the fanbases on r/gameofthrones. I have read so many posts to the effect of "I LOVED THIS EPISODE AND IF YOU DIDN'T SEE THE FORESHADOWING FOR THIS YOU'RE DUMB." If you have to argue that the writing is good, it probably isn't very good. And if you feel the need to go online after watching a piece of media, and your identity is so tied up in liking it that you need to bludgeon others into liking it, then you have a juvenile sense of identity that ties your sense of self to the media you consume. I loved Shazam, I'm sure there were plenty of people who didn't. You know what I didn't do after watching it? Go to r/dc and make posts to the effect of: "UNPOPULAR OPINION, I LIKED SHAZAM." I enjoyed it and moved on with my life, and that's what I'm doing now.

Game of Thrones started off as an amazing show, full of complex and nuanced characters who blurred the line between "good" and "bad." It raised the bar for a fantasy series, with excellent dialogue  and an expansive and fleshed out world that we're unlikely to see equaled anytime soon. It's a show that I've been a fan of for nearly a decade, and I wish I could end this without a bitter taste in my mouth. Alas, in the words of countless internet edgelords:

"If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention"

Peace.

Charterstone Chronicle, Game 11

On a non-Game of Thrones note, we played the 11th game of our Charterstone campaign!

I have simultaneously much and little to say about this game. At this point, I basically know where I stand on Charterstone and this game did little to change my opinion. I'm saving a lot of my thoughts for the post-campaign write up. In sum, I loved the first 1-6 games of this campaign, but since then it has gotten significantly worse. As the campaign has worn on, it becomes increasingly clear some elements of the game are unbalanced or were simply not play-tested enough.

To illustrate, I give you exhibit A:

This, my friends, is an infinite loop. We got to the late game with fewer than five cards in the advancement deck. Of the five, three were amulets, which were being constantly used by this point in the game. Daniel and I speculated that it might be possible to create an infinite loop of points out of chaining these with your minions, and lo, Daniel realized he had the right combination of gold, point, and resource production buildings in his charter plus the two robots needed to pull it off. What you see above is game over. Daniel could have churned infinite points using this combo.

So on the one hand we broke the game and that's a little hilarious. On the other, this feels like something that should have been noticed by someone in play-testing. Advancement cards, and especially treasures, are simply too strong compared to other game elements.

Also, this game dragged on for three and a half hours.

We aren't even a particularly slow playing group, but with all the charterstone boxes opened and buildings built, there are just not many ways to move up the counter. And so this game lingered on and on and on. I think it's safe to say that most play groups won't encounter this. They will build their buildings slower and not reach interminable final games of the campaign as we have. But Jesus Christ, it feels like this possibility is something that should have been caught in play-testing.

The goal of this game was to have the most advancement cards, which Dani won. This game was notable with the temporary rule that you couldn't put your meeples in your own charter. Some people, like Amanda, realized the implications of this and held on to their high-powered buildings. Megan did not, and without the Resort on the board, her Perfumery was by far the best building in a gold glutted game. I don't think she ever got to put a minion down on it, maybe once or twice. This wasn't accidental - I was taking this as an opportunity to close the gap between us and prevent her from using it. Despite suffering much in the early game, Megan managed to finish out strong. However, Daniel did not get reined in as early or consistently by other players blocking him from using his Arena. Combined with his ridiculous combination of assistants and friends, he finished with what I think was the highest score to date. In fairness though, with the infinite loop cracked, I don't think there is any doubt anymore who is winning this campaign.

Anyway, we had all but agreed to call this the last game. But then, we had our twist. The Forever King is.....EVIL.

Yeah, whatever. Our score was high enough or something so we defeated him through the power of friendship. Four of us rebelled, two stayed loyal. All of the new personas just seem alternately trolly or weak. Now we get to elect a new mayor of our village. Wooo.

Can you tell I'm not super excited for another 3 1/2 hour game of this? I could play a round of the Game of Thrones board game in that time! (which I finally got to play again this last weekend at my Bachelor Party)

Anyway, we're going to play one more, mostly just to use the new personas and put our campaign to rest. We may abbreviate it and have the turn tracker start closer to the finish. At that point, I'll talk about Charterstone as a whole. Preview TL;DR: great concept for a game, and I salute it for the quality of its components and fantastic art style. However, the game suffers from a lot of classic Legacy game issues of poorly implemented rubber-banding and feature creep, combined with a lack of play-testing the late game that heavily weighs down its overall quality for me. It's not a terrible game, it just pales in comparison to some of the other Legacy games I've played in terms of overall experience.

That being said, I have loved our play group. And the six of us getting together to enjoy/suffer through Charterstone has been one of the more enjoyable aspects of the last year. So, before I go into the last game, I want to give a shout out to Danielle, Megan, Daniel, Caralee and Amanda for all making this the memorable experience it has been :)

Oh, and all hail our new overlord Daniel! The Infinity King!

Edit: Oh, one last thing. I had bubbled in the 'extra' track before this game under the mistaken belief it gave me an additional of one of the bonus categories above this. Daniel postulated it was just for extra glory after filling out everything. I cannot find anything online that states otherwise, so I'm pretty sure I am mistaken and he is right. C'est la vie.

Anyway, it's going to be hilarious next game when Daniel has more glory than empty stars on his box XD

"The Last of the Starks"

Ohhh boy, I did not think I would be doing another one of these.

I made this post back in April of 2017 and I feel like a lot of the general ideas I articulated in it were paid off tonight in another head-scratcher of an episode. And what is the internet for if not loudly airing uninformed criticism.

So without further ado, I'm going to once again spend awhile talking about characters and themes before actually getting to the episode itself.

Violence in Game of Thrones

The show has a wildly different take on violence than the books and the early show.

Violence is actually surprisingly rare in the early seasons of Game of Thrones. The first season passes without a big battle episode, and we don't get real wholesale violence until The Battle of Blackwater at the conclusion of Season 2. True to the books, the battle of the Whispering Wood takes place off screen. The most notable incidents are Jaime vs. Ned, the betrayal of Ned by the Gold Cloaks, and the beheading of Ned. None of these are actions portrayed as badass or cool. In fact, main characters showing their combat prowess is unusual (If you sense that I think this show is at its best when people are sitting down and talking, you're right).

Anyway, this progressively changes as the show goes on. Violence and being a badass is increasingly shown as heroic and honorable. The most notable example here is Arya. The conclusion of Season 6 shows her slaughtering the Freys wholesale, and we're supposed to think it's laudatory? Earlier Thrones would have portrayed this as a somber scene, a moment to reflect on the detached killer Arya has become. In another similar moment, Sansa kills Ramsey Bolton by turning his dogs loose on him. A fitting end for Ramsey, yes. Something a "good" character does....I'm not sure.

Human on human violence is inherently a waste and tragic, because the game of thrones is irrelevant and you're going to need every person you can get in upcoming war versus the dead (remember when the Others were the main villains of the show?). To this end, the battles and intrigue are all pointless distractions and inherently sad because of it.

There is a notable early exception to this, and where the show starts changing how it portrays violence.

Yeah, I'm not going to lie, I love this whole scene.

But its a relevant plot moment when we get to season 7 and season 8. The show can't decide if using the dragons to burn up people is fine and badass or a war crime. The answer honestly seems to change based on the needs of the plot at the moment, and it's really frustrating to watch. In Season 7 Dany is urged to not just win the war and use her dragons by her advisors. Olenna says they're wrong and she should "be a dragon." Sure enough, Tyrion's "overly timid" approach gets them defeated at multiple turns by the teleporting Euron, putting Dany on the backfoot. She then follows her instincts and burns up a Lannister army. Cool, so using dragons is good, right? Well sorta, she goes a little far and burns up the Tarlys, which the show has confirmed to us was bad with Sam's reaction this season to it.

Last season I thought they were contriving her keeping her dragons in reserve so we could have a season and she wouldn't just win outright. And we're now back to the same plot tension, should she burn up King's Landing or not? Seems like a bad inhumane idea, but the show did want her to "be a dragon" last season so I don't know. We'll come back to this in a moment.

The Problem of Sansa

Sansa has been the single most frustrating character for me these last few seasons. Its especially galling because she was one of my three favorite characters in the first four seasons. I believe the moment they kicked off her season 5 plot (combined with the Dorne sidequest) was the moment the show started getting bad.

Sansa's plot in the first few seasons was essentially the death of innocence and her becoming a player in the game of thrones. It's a classic case of be careful what you wish for: wanting nothing more than to marry a prince and leave Winterfell, and suffering throughout the first few seasons for it. But she not only survives but thrives, learning from some of the best manipulators and politicians in the show and going from a sweet and naive girl to a smooth and calculating player in the game of thrones. The scene the screenshot above is from is one of my favorite moments of the entire show. After Baelish's murder of her aunt, Sophie Turner has a wonderfully acted out scene where she is playing Sansa acting like her younger self and convincing all the Vale lords her aunt committed suicide This is her official entrance into the game, symbolized by the framing of this shot and her costume change. She struts with newfound confidence, having thrived in KL and the Eeyrie, and ready to fuck shit up with Baelish. 

I thought, naturally, that Season 5 would showcase her using her intelligence and wit, combined with the skills she learned from Cersei, Olenna, and Petyr to begin accumulating power. Instead it goes in a completely different direction. 

It's hard to articulate just how much I hated this character. And no, not because the show writers wanted us to and were desperately trying to rekindle that Joffrey magic. This character was gratuitously cruel, immune to his own bad decision making, and got way too much screen time for his impact on the story. So, Season 5 starts with Petyr essentially selling Sansa off to him to be wed. Why Petyr would do this with the woman he loves is beyond me. While Sansa and Petyr do later have a scene about this in season 6, it's pretty unsatisfying and I don't buy his explanation or her forgiving him. But because we didn't write Jeyne Poole into the TV show and torturing Theon was getting old, we apparently needed someone else for Ramsey to abuse.

HE'S EVIL, DO YOU GET IT AUDIENCE? HERE'S SOME GRATUITOUS RAPE JUST IN CASE YOU DIDN'T.

Anyway, so after becoming a player in the game of thrones, Sansa is thrown into a situation where all her skills are worthless, and she just gets brutalized by Ramsey until her and Theon run away in the finale of the season. Four seasons of character growth are wasted as Sansa is once again a helpless bystander being acted upon like she was in season 1.

Let's rewrite this to preserve her character growth, shall we?

Maybe instead of a chaotic evil bad egg who is clearly supposed to be on the spectrum, Ramsey is just a bad dude. He wants power, is not particularly bothered by what methods he uses to get it, and likes torturing his enemies. Cool. He's also the bastard son of a relatively minor northern house and is probably something of an uncultured country bumpkin. Let's play with that. Sansa is a very beautiful and sophisticated daughter of privilege. Maybe Ramsey is smitten with her. Maybe she draws from Cersei's playbook and uses her femininity and sex to influence and control Ramsay. She becomes the true power in Winterfell through cunning and manipulation. This also sets up a fun conflict after Ramsey defeats Stannis and wants to kill Jon to remove any remaining rival claimants to Winterfell. Does she work against him and help install a brother she never liked? Or does she turn a blind eye to his cruelty but continue to hold sway? 

But no, Sansa gets emotionally, physically, and sexually abused and ceases being an actor in her own story. This is where the problems begin, but it goes downhill from there.

In Season 6, she complains that people aren't asking her about what Ramsey is capable of in the lead up to the Battle of the Bastards and then when asked has nothing useful to say other than: "expect the unexpected." She sits on her Vale trump card and uses it at last minute after most of the Northmen and Wildlings have died because our show writers apparently watched the Battle of Helm's Deep once. She essentially doesn't do anything this season.

In Season 7, we have a contrived conflict between her and Arya that is purely for the benefit of the audience. The reveal in the final episode is that they never were at odds, and Petyr has been outflanked by their sisterhood. Cool. Almost fitting, at least Sansa got to finally use her political acumen to defeat an opponent. The shame is that the audience doesn't get to see it in action for the purpose of raising the tension.

In season 8 things haven't improved. Sansa has no grand character arc at this point. She is spiteful and petty and essentially here just to sow tension in the allied camp. I thought after seeing literally thousands of people (including most of Dany's army) die to protect Winterfell, she would have a little perspective and feel a little bit grateful to Dany for showing up to save their asses. But no, her last scene in this episode is her smirking about the possibility of Cersei winning. This is shortsightedness on par with Cersei's. What does she think will happen if Dany loses?

Aftermath

I unabashedly love the first third or so of this episode.

The funeral scene is actually pretty touching, especially Dany's Lost in Translation moment with Jorah. There's a weight in the air. Opening the feast without music was a good move from this episode's director, and it allows for a natural transition from the quiet and awkward beginning to the celebration of life that caps it off. This scene has lots of great character interactions and I love it.

Dany asks the question I've been wondering since Season 3: "Who is Lord in Storm's End?" and appoints Gendry as the new storm lord. The Hound is gruff and sets up Pod to score a threesome. Tormund finally has his heard broken by Brienne. Sansa and the Hound reunite. Gendry proposes to Arya, she refuses - sad but appropriate for her character. Brienne and Jamie pay off all their tension and fuck. I would have been fine with a romantic or platonic direction for their relationship, but honestly really liked it.

My only critique would be that this is probably the last time we're going to get sex on screen in Game of Thrones, and it was all really restrained. This would have been a good moment for the show to make up for its earlier constant objectification of women and show us an erect dick on screen. But whatever.

The trouble begins when Dany and Jon meet up

Dany wants Jon to not tell anybody the secret of his parentage, correctly assuming that people will pressure him to be king. Jon, either willfully naive or lawful stupid insists he needs to tell his sisters. Dany has a "mad queen" moment and orders him not to share it.

I don't get the pressure to tell his sisters. Jon claims it's because they're his family, but he has never showed inclination to share really crucial information with them to date. Notably, Jon still hasn't spelled out to his sisters: "Oh yeah, I died, then I came back - btw there is no afterlife." Jon's death continues to be a really unsatisfying plot point because of the lack of impact it has had on the character. But yeah, he's insisting on telling his sisters because we need tension and something for Dany to be mad at him about in an episode or two.

Anyway, we then get to the war planning scene, one of my least favorite scenes in GOT to date. Sansa says the men need to rest before marching south. Dany, after hearing Varys say the Cersei loses allies by the day, contradicts him and says "my enemies grow stronger by the day," and Jon tries to get in good with his aunt by insisting they will march immediately. This scene also suffers from the "Sansa is upset but doesn't have an alternative suggestion" problem. How long do the men need to recover? Fucked if she knows.

Also, shout out to the writers for remembering that Dorne exists.

Anyway, here is how real characters would have behaved in this scene:

Dany: We need to march immediately

Sansa: We just barely fought off the dead and many of the men are wounded. If you march right now, only half of the Northmen will be able to make the long journey south. 

Dany: How long do your forces need to recover?

Sansa: Hard to say, two weeks? 

Dany: You get a week. 

Boom, instead of an uncomfortable scene where the audience doesn't know who has the better point (having not seen the state of the Northern armies or been appraised of Cersei's support), we have a simple normal human moment between these characters that allows them to compromise.

But no, we needed a reason for Arya to take Jon out to the Godswood for a Stark Council. A leading comment is made and Jon takes the moment to spill the beans about his parentage. We don't even get to see their reaction shot. Upon swearing she won't share the information, Sansa immediately decides to stir the pot and tell Tyrion, who tells Varys. I swear its like a middle school cafeteria.

More Stuff I Liked

I want to call out a few more good things I liked before I bring this home. 

I loved Jon's scenes with Tormund and Sam, especially his scene with Sam. I was surprised by how emotional it made me. For all intents and purposes, this was the goodbye for both of these characters and the scene with Sam was very touching.

I also loved all the Varys and Tyrion scenes this episode. It was a callback to early Game of Thrones. I wondered why Varys lived through last episode, and now I see why. I do find his sudden lack of confidence in Dany a little contrived, but its more or less in line with his character, and it gave us some good scenes if nothing else. I expect Dany will cap his ass next episode.

Bronn's scene was mostly pointless, but I liked seeing him interact with Tyrion and Jaime again.

Jaime's arc with Brienne ended more quickly than I would have liked, but their final scene together was heart-wrenching and it showcased just how broken of a man Jaime is. I expect he's off to KL to kill his sister now and will fast travel down there in time for next episode.

I love that Arya is leaving on a road trip with the Hound, and I can all but hear the airhorns of CleganeBowl on the horizon. I do feel like a scene was cut where Arya had a final scene with Sansa though, saying she didn't like everyone treating her like a hero and wanted to just be left alone. She says she has unfinished business in the south, is she going to kill Cersei? She did say she would not return to Winterfell which makes me really sad we didn't give her one more scene with Bran and Sansa.

It's pretty obvious they were tired of trying to come up with something for Ghost to do, so he's been exiled north. Jon doesn't even give the good earless boy a pet for his bravery against the Others.

Jon deserves death for this of course.

The Mad Queens

I don't dislike a "mad queen" arc for Dany. It would have been a really compelling "person vs. self" struggle to frame season 7 around (see my last post on GOT). But at this point, it's a straight up ass pull. It was barely set up in one scene last season and a comment by Sam this season. Yes Dani has had violent moments in past seasons as an unforgiving arbiter of justice, but based on how her use of violence has been portrayed in the past its weird to suddenly use it to inform a "mad queen" arc.  You can't dump this idea on us last minute with three episodes to go. I swear to god if they have Dany die unredeemed from this bout with madness I'm going to riot.

I've previously noted that Dany's whole "break the wheel" bit always feels a little hollow to me. She's not doing anything radically different from her predecessors. She has been cruel and intransigent before, notably in crucifying the Masters in Mereen. However, the whole point of her arc in season 5 (or so I thought) was her moving away from that and learning to compromise and govern. Time and time again: in her liberation of slaves, in her going north to save the realms of men, she has shown herself to be a humane and selfless ruler. Not perfect, but clearly not her father. But here, with 2 1/2 episodes of the show to go, our writers have decided her final arc is going to be "IS SHE A MAD QUEEN?" That shit should have been more or less wrapped up by this point if they wanted to go in that direction, or at least better set up last season.

So, Euron shows up to once again to pull of his favorite move: being exactly where he needs to be at a given time to even the odds for Cersei and fuck up Dany's day. Somehow, ships, as in things on the water, get the drop on dragons, you know, things in the sky that should have seen the things in the water from miles away.

DIDN'T SEEING THAT DRAGON SHOT OUT OF THE SKY SURPRISE YOU AND SUBVERT YOUR EXPECTATIONS!?!?!?!!

Anyway, Euron Sureshot lands three ballista shots on a distant dragon, killing it. It has been pointed out to me that this one was the wounded one. It makes it slightly better, but still doesn't explain how they got the drop on Rhaegal. Nor does it explain the aimbot worthy accuracy of these shots. We see them fire off subsequent volleys at Dany and hilariously miss.

Anyway, then Euron revolutionizes naval warfare in Westeros and uses the ballistas to destroy Dany's plucky little fleet as the five foot bolts disintegrate the ships they hit instead of puching nice little holes in the sides like giant arrows actually would. Anyway, most of her remaining Unsullied presumably drown here b based on the number that join her outside King's Landing. He captures Missandei and nobody else because we needed a named character to die this episode.

How did Euron even know they had won their war vs. the Others? Did Winterfell send an "all's clear" raven? Did they just sit there for weeks on end waiting for Dany to pass by the exact spot? How did they know Dany would sail to Dragonstone and not march down from the North with Jon? Was there a similar ambush waiting at the Trident?

Congratulations show, Euron Grayjoy has now killed as many dragons as did the NK.

So, going into this episode I was like: "Well, Dany's army is depleted, but she still has two dragons so she should just be able to win this thing whenever she wants. The original Targaryen's took this entire continent with only 5000 men and three dragons."

The writers apparently realized this too, and so brought Euron back to even the odds more for Cersei.

It irritates me so much that the writers have made Cersei artificially smart. She makes the boneheaded move of not helping in the war versus the undead, and actually turns out to have made the correct choice. Let that sink in for a minute. She makes the selfish, shortsighted decision that should have bitten her in the ass, and it turns out to have been the correct call. If Tyrion has been artificially dumb recently, Cersei has become artificially brilliant, and I hate it.

I'm So Done

So Dany shows up to pointlessly parley with Cersei.

Immediately you notice that outside the walls of the most populous city in the Seven Kingdoms is apparently a desert wasteland. But whatever, we have two episodes to go and I can't be bothered to care about little details like this anymore

Cersei has a comical number of ballistas atop the walls. And immediately the viewer is like: "Wait, is it even an option for Dany to burn this city anymore?" It seems like these guys will just nail that dragon the moment Dany tries anything. Apparently it is? The dragons have officially become as invincible or vulnerable as the narrative needs them to be at a given moment.

Cersei is so villainous she will do anything except apparently order her archers and ballistas to open up on her hated brother and enemy queen when they are in clear firing range. Drogon clearly landed in range of all these ballistas. You're telling me Cersei didn't tell them to open fire and kill the opponent's last dragon when they had a chance? Maybe they're not as good of marksmen as Euron.

This whole scene is frustrating because Missandei dies for no reason, just offed as a human stake raiser. There is no reason she had to be captured, and no reason for Cersei to kill her. The entire point of having a hostage is to dissuade your opponent from attacking. Cersei realized this with Sansa back in season 3 but apparently not now. Likewise, Rhaegal doesn't die because Dany made a mistake; took him on an overzealous scouting mission or moved south before he had healed enough to fly. There was no scene with Dany tending to her dragon and noting: "he still has a gimp wing." The characters, human and dragon, are just dying randomly at this point unmoored from any of their choices.

Anyway, I guess we're going to get a battle next episode, or something. I'm 81 episodes invested in this show so I am here for the end at this point. But man, my low expectations for this episode were somehow not low enough. If last episode missed on the theming and showed a profound inability to understand the core conflict of Game of Thrones, this episode displays a shocking degree of disregard for its characters.

It's notable that this episode is essentially an overstuffed turkey, with ingredients for three episodes in it. As a result, the pacing feels really off yet again, with a really long opening sequence followed by large jumps in time as the show writers try to get everyone in place for yet another huge battle. And yet, on the brink of the finale to Game of Thrones it couldn't feel smaller or less epic. Cersei is the Queen of a city, one kingdom, and some mercenaries (WHERE ARE MY ELEPHANTS), and Dany has two depleted kingdom's armies at her back alongside the scrappy remnants of her own armies (seriously show, you expect me to believe half of the Dothraki lived through that last episode?) and one dragon. Whereas the stakes for the last one were the FATE OF HUMAN LIFE, now it's which flavor or mad queen do you want on the throne.

Woooooo.

See you next week.

5/3/19 - Root Postgame Report

After a pretty long hiatus and lots of wedding planning, Danielle and I had a moment to sit down and play Root with some friends last night. Thankfully, we had not forgotten all the rule interactions in the interim.

The Players

Megan - The Riverfolk Company
Dave - The Eeyrie
Daniel - The Marquise de Cat
Hubert - The Vagabond (Arbiter)
Danielle - The Lizard Cult

I pulled the position left of Megan, which was super advantageous to my early game as I got first pick of the cards she drew. Danielle, meanwhile, struggled without any bird cards and no way to acquire acolytes.

This was probably the best early game the Eeyrie has ever had, getting out to 5 Roosts by Turn 4. The Lizards starting in the lower right hand corner. While in practice this doesn't lead to any less interaction between the Eeyrie and the Cult, it felt more advantageous to the Birds than them starting in the top left. Megan also had an explosive start on the Otters, and had most of her trade posts out by this point.

My life flashed before my eyes as Favor of the Foxes appeared in her hand, which could have honestly wiped me off the board. Thankfully, Megan did not make a play with it, and I was able to buy it and wipe out some of her Otters with it and bring her more under control. Whereas last game I was able to run away with Otters partially because people never stopped buying my services and funded my late game, I felt like Daniel and I (Megan's primary customers) had a pretty good grasp on when to stop purchasing from her, and Megan hit a wall hard as far as point gains in the late game.

With Favor of the Foxes under my belt, three fox clearings under my control, and a Fox domination card in my hand, I made my play on turn 5 to try for the early win. Despite having two ambush cards good to go, Daniel was able to muster enough forces to push me off the northwest clearing and essentially end my bid for victory. I made a critical decision to recruit into my home clearing instead of adding two to that clearing, meaning I was only defending with 3 and came up short in the battle that followed. You make a mistake, you pay the price.

Domination cards just seem to be a trap, almost always. I was probably as well positioned as I could have been to do this (maybe one more turn of build up would have been worthwhile), and still came up short. If I'd waited another turn though, I would have been at 19 points, which doesn't feel super worth it when you can just coast into the win. As it stands I flipped it at 15 points. Domination cards often feel like if you are in a strong enough position to get the win, you are better off just coasting to the win instead off your normal point gain. The Fox domination card definitely feels like the one you go for with the birds though, for future Eeyrie players who might try the same thing. At any rate, Daniel's invasion more or less put an end to my aspirations, (although playing birds when you don't constantly need to get roosts out is actually kinda liberating I must say). On top of this, Danielle began sanctifying all my shit, which was annoying to say the least.

Hubert played a very farmy game to great effect, I don't think I've seen anyone get as many quests as he did this game. His status as the Arbiter alongside picking up an additional sword early meant that nobody wanted to mess with him, or fight in a clearing with him in it. This allowed Hubert to coast to a relatively easy win off of aiding and the quests. He also managed to screw over Daniel by not exploring the ruins in his clearing and seriously gating the Cats's ability to get the last 10 points they needed to win. On the second to last turn, Danielle made a valiant effort to attack Hubert, more perfunctory than anything else. It was a bloodbath. At the end of the day, Hubert's Arbiter had 6 broken items in his sack, but was surrounded by the bodies of 6 dead lizards. Hubert won the next turn.

The Cats still seem to struggle. This felt like an easier game than most for them because of the absence of the WA, and Daniel still ran out of building slots fast. I love the play pattern of the Cats, but it unfortunately often feels like you are playing to limit other players rather than seek your victory condition. You are supposed to be an obstacle for them to overcome. The biggest problem for cats continues to be retaining control of clearings to build in them, with mercenary use basically mandatory at certain points just to be able to construct things.

The Lizard cult continues to struggle mightily, although granted Dani had a rough hand this game. I do think you need to take advantage of the "recruit" anywhere functionality though and pop into clearings all over the board, provoking people to attack you and give you acolytes because you will control the clearing otherwise. Also, the more I think about it, the more I think Domination Cards are basically tailor made for the Lizard Cult. Your ability to pop across the map with ease and control clearings with Gardens makes achieving them so much easier.

We'll have to wait and see if anyone manages to pull that off next game!