Before I’m absolutely obliterated and the dislike
button gets blown out of the water, let me first say that Game of Thrones even as early on as
season 5 has had some serious issues with the writing. I know it’s been a hard pill to swallow
that season 6 wasn’t all what it was cracked up to be, but the same even applies to season 5, albeit
to a smaller extent. So I wanted to go in depth and analyze all the devoid of logic aspects of the
season big and small. This will probably be a long video, but relax, grab a nice skull of wine, and
let’s dive into season 5 being Devoid of Logic. So right away for the opening flashback for
Cersei’s prophecy of only having three children, I find it funny how contradictory David and Dan’s
philosophy for writing is. Because in season 6 they say this, but I guess they forgot they used a
flashback to open this season. And to me, as long as flashbacks don’t have redundant information and
could otherwise be expressed through more nuanced writing or dialogue, then I think flashbacks are
fine. Also, I’m not sure if David and Dan forgot another thing in which Cersei has a dialogue scene
with Catelyn in season 1 where she tells her that her firstborn child with Robert dies from a
fever. Which this would inherently contradict the prophecy of having three kids and is a clear
mistake on the writing front. I’ve seen people defend this as Cersei lying, but there’s no clear
evidence of her lying in this scene and she gives a pretty detailed account of the event. From
here, Tyrion arrives at Illyrio’s palace. For this point, it feels kind of weird that David and
Dan choose to not bring back Illyrio given that he was a pretty prominent player in season 1.
He directly influenced the fates of Viserys and Daenerys Targaryen and even conspired with Varys
in Kingslanding. So by not including him, you’re essentially deflating the story by subtracting
characters from the narrative that would otherwise add more depth and interesting dynamics. This
isn’t a massive deal and the story is still able to function, but to me, it seems like a
fundamental downgrade and is an example of lazy writing in which David and Dan didn’t feel like
writing him back into the story when he should’ve been. Moving over to Brienne of Tarth, like most
of the plotlines in this season, her journey is pretty much original. As an example, she never
runs into Arya or Sansa in the books. So you may know where I’m going here in that it’s pretty
fucking lucky that Brienne runs into both Arya and Sansa within a few episodes. The fact that David
and Dan leave this completely up to chance I think is abysmal writing and forces the audience to
fundamentally accept a glaring contrivance within the narrative. Instead of you know, writing
a more logical plot in which Brienne conducts an investigation and interrogates different
witnesses for information. Her plan in the show instead consists of hoping she miraculously
and randomly runs into Arya or Sansa around the general vicinity of certain areas. Which
also makes this entire plotline sleep-inducing because she’s doing nothing but sitting around
and waiting for something to happen. And the crazy thing here is that at least for the opening
of season 5, she’s not even on the Kingsroad and Sansa happens to just ride right by her. God this
just drives me wild and writing the story in this manner makes the world feel tiny when it used to
be massive and expansive. In the broader context of the narrative, Brienne achieving her goal of
finding Arya and Sansa is practically impossible, but at the very least, David and Dan could have
written it in a manner that actually attempted to be based in logic. Tywin’s post-funeral gathering
is buzzing and look it’s our old pal Lancel Lannister. I briefly went into the upcoming issue
in the villain ranking video, but I’ll expand upon it here. So to say this first, I love how David
and Dan condemn using flashbacks as a bad form of writing, but yet, they have an entire offscreen
major development for this character in joining the faith. Now most people don’t care about Lancel
as a character, however, given that he had a recurring presence in the first two seasons, it’s
undeniably jarring when he flat-out disappears for two whole seasons and then suddenly comes back in
season 5 as a completely changed character. Again going back to the lazy writing point in David and
Dan choosing to not develop certain characters. The same thing also applies to Bran since David
and Dan decided to hit pause on his subplot and hit resume in season 6. Presumably for Lancel
though, he’s been in Kingslanding this whole time given that he’s with the faith now and it’s
really weird that we haven’t seen him. According to the show’s Wiki, his wound festered and he
had to battle that sickness for months, but I don’t remember him ever saying that. So I’m not
sure where they got that information and overall this is a jarring point in the writing and David
and Dan don’t alleviate this issue with giving us a tangible reason as to why he’s been MIA for so
long. Returning to the whole Brienne conundrum, she runs into Sansa and Littlefinger at an inn.
She decides to try to convince Sansa that she’s loyal to her, but she’s really bad at convincing
people. Like her saying that a shadow killed Renly instead of vaguely saying an assassin did and her
not defending herself in that her saving Catelyn was impossible. So she essentially just shoots her
shot here and it makes me wonder if there wasn’t a better way forward instead of blitzing into this
situation with fighting in mind. If she really wanted to do that then it probably would have made
more sense to ambush them at night or something. That and it doesn’t really make sense as to why
this devolves into an action scene. Littlefinger insists that Brienne stay for the night which
may be insinuating that he wants to kill her, but I don’t understand why he really cares and
doesn’t let her go. Along with Brienne just immediately running away in a hostile fashion.
Because of this, it comes across as David and Dan wanting to inject an artificial action scene that
doesn’t have a strong justification. And it’s not like it was even a good action scene to begin
with. One tiny nitpick here is Brienne having enough strength to break through a sword while
holding the blade with a single hand while in a sitting position. It is Valyrian steel, but
that would still probably require quite a bit of strength. Now we arrive at the infamous beginning
of the Dorne plotline. The whole devoid of logic aura that permeates from this subplot is the
fact that Jaime actually thinks he has the ability to save Myrcella. Like he deadass has to
infiltrate an entire nation, city, royal castle, and exfiltrate a high-value target through
hostile territory. All while covertly sneaking past hundreds of guards and hoping that no one
notices Myrcella’s absence because the entire city would go into lockdown. The probability of
something going wrong is so absurdly high that I’m surprised that he even sets out on this journey
to begin with. It essentially means his certain death along with the fact that he can’t fight so
any kind of combat would also most likely get him killed. Oh what’s that, one of his fight scenes
later on he survives because of literal luck, like phhhhh, this plotline is instantly cursed
to fail from the get go and anyone tasked with writing this is going to have a hard time. It’s
fundamentally a terrible direction to take the story. So naturally from this point, Jaime goes
to Bronn which does make some sense and I think is a logical pairing if Jaime was so hellbent
on wanting to go on this mission. Daario has wallhacks, Qyburn takes a head for his future
lunch, and Tyrion and Varys start their lovely bickering romance. Arya arrives to the house of
black and white and this episode's conflict for her where they don’t let her in is very confusing.
It would make sense if she had to overcome some kind of obstacle or pass a test, but Arya
literally just waits around for an entire day, kills a pigeon, and when she’s about to get jumped
Jaquen shows up to save her and lets her in. Nothing happens in the story and it feels like
this only wastes time. Like what was the point of all this? Why didn’t he let her in? What did
she do that changed his mind? I don’t know, this is just a very offputting start to the faceless
assassin arc and it doesn’t make sense as to why Jaquen didn’t force Arya to shed her personality
in this scene so that she could come in and be no one. Instead of doing that later and allowing
Arya Stark to remain as herself. Narratively that feels the best and the way it is currently is
puzzling in terms of its execution. Episode 3 here we come babyyyy. Tommen has some very engaging
dialogue with Margery after nutting, Arya realizes she’s in a boring cult, and oh yeahhh, this is
where Littlefinger’s character gets assassinated by David and Dan. Which since we are opening this
literal can of worms I may as well condense all of Littlefinger’s screentime within season 5
since it’s so hard to follow. Or it’s not like it really helps since it’s still hard to follow
watching them all at once anyways. So the reason why this whole plot point is painfully devoid of
logic is that Littlefinger loves Sansa and she’s essentially his prized possession. He would never
betray her because on top of his infatuation, she’s arguably the most important character in the
narrative given that she’s the key to the North, so alienating her by surprising her and throwing
her away to the Boltons is absolutely insane. Let alone going to the Boltons and not Stannis
Baratheon. Like literally everyone in the North hates the Boltons so going to them instead
of Stannis when they have a smaller army and a significantly worse reputation since they kind
of massacred the starks is wild. In this regard, it feels like David and Dan throw out all logic in
the narrative so that they can instill drama into this plotline by tossing Sansa into this Bolton
Theon Caeser salad. That and Littlefinger never acts on a plan without concrete information
and the fact that he doesn’t know Ramsay is a psychopath is another ridiculous aspect
for this plot point. Ramsay publicly flays members of houses alive if they don’t pay their
taxes as he reveals in this dialogue scene. He’s literally spreading fear throughout the
north and somehow Littlefinger has never heard of him. Like that’s a pretty major intellectual
downgrade for Littlefinger as a character. Let alone him deciding that this is a good idea. Later
on, Littlefinger reveals that he wants Sansa to be in Winterfell when Stannis inevitably wins. His
reasoning being Stannis would make her wardeness of the north and if that’s actually his goal then
I really don’t understand why he isn’t allying with Stannis. Like that would be a guaranteed
victory if Stannis actually had a strong, disciplined, and competent army that wasn’t
composed of sellswords. Also, It’s not like the Boltons are doing anything for Littlefinger. His
involvement with the boltons actually introduces more conflict in the Vale when Lord Royce figures
out what happened to Sansa. So none of this makes any sense and then David and Dan decide to
add a thick layer of dogshit icing onto this garbage logic of a cake in sending Littlefinger to
Kingslanding to talk to Cersei. During this scene, the convoluted nature essentially doubles
and makes his plan even more incoherent. He essentially offers to take the vale and
kill whoever the victor is after the battle of Winterfell and in return, Cersei will make him
warden of the north. However, she demands Sansa’s head so this just renders this entire scene as
a waste of time because we know none of this will happen. So why did Littlefinger bother to go
all the way down to Kingslanding? I don’t know, I guess David and Dan were desperate to pad
out the time in the season with nonsensical dialogue scenes that make your brain cells commit
seppuku. Sooooo yeahhhhh, that’s the Littlefinger debacle and I think this singular clip of Dan
Weiss talking about Littlefinger’s character explains everything. These bozos simply weren’t
smart enough to write his character while also using him as a conduit to channel their dogshit
story directions that in turn utterly compromised his character. This is by far the first point
in the story that is the most damaging to the overall quality of the show. I can probably go
into more detail about his scenes in season 5, but I don’t want to induce a state of you zoning
out from how convoluted and nonsensical his plan was in season 5. And the funny thing is, he
literally disappears after this because David and Dan failed so horribly with his character
and don’t decide to write anything else that’s interesting for him. I wish I was paid David
and Dan’s salary to flat-out not do my job. Then for the ending of the episode where Ser Jorah
kidnaps Tyrion, I initially thought this was a major coincidence, but it’s much more believable
for this to happen as opposed to Brienne running into both stark daughters while out in the
country. At least here it’s more plausible to run into people in actual cities. It is also
kind of silly how there’s conveniently this person docking a boat out in the middle of nowhere with
no witnesses, but this is immediately made up for by him yeeting Tyrion’s body. Oh, we're in episode
4, ok cool, “He murdered my father. If I ever see him again I’ll split him in two.” Suuuuurrreeee.
Cersei gets rid of Mace Tyrell which is an utter tragedy, Cersei weaponizes religious maniacs
without understanding why they were disarmed in the past in the first place, Tommen puts in
maximum effort in trying to get back Ser Loras, and Olly misses out on Melisandre seducing Jon
Snow. In this scene, Melisandre says this “You know nothing Jon Snow”. This essentially opens
up a lot of questions that are never answered for the whole magic side of the show and I guess
Melisandre low key has the ability to talk to the dead or something. I don’t know there’s just
a lot of mystical shit surrounding the lord of light that goes unexplained and it feels like
David and Dan only throw in this line to make her spookier and more mysterious. “You are the
princess Shireen of House Baratheon. And you are my daughter” *cut to Shireen getting burned* At
the end of episode four there’s the infamous death of Ser Barristen Selmy. Now logically this death
makes sense in that in any scenario where you’re greatly outnumbered and get rushed by multiple
people, it’s impossible to fight them all at once. Skill basically goes out the window because
you physically can’t stop being swarmed. I’ve seen people argue that it was dumb that Ser Barristan
couldn’t solo everyone in this room because he’s one of the best fighters, but that would’ve
been absurd if that was the case. However, the issue in the writing arises in the fact that
you’re killing off a big character for practically no reason other than for brief entertainment
value. All this death achieves is making the Sons of the Harpy a more impactful villain force,
but you can still achieve that without killing a major character. And the reason why this death is
a fundamental issue is that Ser Barristan dying later on in the narrative would have greatly
fueled Dany’s plunge into the mad queen arc. And thus give this character a more meaningful
death. That and this may be an unpopular opinion, but I think it’s pretty cheap that David and
Dan act all “ohh anyone can still die” but then Greyworm miraculously survives. Which I do want
to happen, however, David and Dan place Greyworm into a scenario where he should have also died.
Rewatching the scene there are a lot of moments that highlight how contrived this scene is. Like
Sons of the Harpy members immediately rushing and grabbing unsullied, but when it comes to our
heroes, they stagger around in the background when they can easily get in cheap shots from
behind. There are also two shots where Sons of the Harpy members ignore Greyworm and walk right past
him and he’s even able to impale one of them with the blunt end of his spear. Along with this scene
being riddled with continuity errors like in this shot we see Greyworm fighting two people, and then
in the next one, he’s suddenly fighting four. Like this scene is just ridiculous and I think David
and Dan panicked that the drama they’re writing was nowhere near as good as the earlier seasons,
so they wanted to jack up the ratings by throwing in a shocking action scene. When in reality, this
scene on retrospect is especially terrible. Oh boy we’re at the halfway mark, and episode 5 just
barely skates by with no major writing flaws and the one thing that stood out to me was Brienne’s
message to Sansa. In the message she relays, she tells Sansa that if she’s in trouble, light
a candle in the broken tower. But like, what is Brienne gonna do. Rush winterfell and solo all of
the Boltons or somehow scale over the walls? What is she going to realistically do in this scenario
to save Sansa from Winterfell. It’s just a minor point that never comes to fruition since Brienne
kind of becomes preoccupied later on, but the practicality of this situation doesn’t make sense
to me. Onto episode 6 and this is the real problem child of the season. Arya’s whole progression
with the faceless assassins is so inconsistent and random that it feels like David and Dan
are using a plot generator to determine where the story goes. Because in this episode, Arya
literally fails her test with Jaquen, and then in her next scene she lies to this random girl
and that’s apparently enough to grant her access to the hall of faces. This feels so unearned given
that Arya has practically accomplished nothing and has constantly been failing her assignments. But
one minor success allows her to move up a tier in this organization? That just doesn’t make sense
to me and this reveal seems as if David and Dan are jumping the gun. Which this isn’t to say
that I want this subplot to be even slower, but to instead have an actual plot progression
in which a character earns her position and place of power. We may as well of just skipped all of
these nonsense chores because this doesn’t test Arya. The reconnaissance and actual field work is
what tests her, and proves herself to the faceless assassins. From there, it would make sense to
earn her way into the hall of faces as she’s tasked with finally killing someone. But I don’t
know, I guess David and Dan think that watching Arya do chores for half the season makes for a
more riveting narrative. Tyrion and Ser Jorah get captured by slavers who teleport behind them and
it would have been nice if Tyrion’s witty nature like the earlier seasons was more intact
here. Instead, Bryan Cogman writes this scene where they’re oddly obsessed with Tyrion’s
magical dwarf cock which is quite the sentence; and apparently, cock merchants exist. So when
you’re writing dialogue in a fictitious show, the possibilities are endless. And when you
decide to write the scene in this manner, it just simply comes across as baffling when you
can come up with a much more witty solution to this problem. At least the ending is much better
where Tyrion pitches Ser Jorah as a great fighter. “You haven’t had to use that axe of yours in a
long time. I hope you remember how. I remember how” *cut to his unclimactic death* Ugghhhhhh
here we go time for more Dorne. So firstly, I think it’s absurdly stupid how Jaime has no plan
and admits that he’s just improvising. Which when the threat war rides on this mission’s failure,
you’d think that coming up with a tangible plan that doesn’t also get yourself killed would be
a pretty major priority. Like at the very least, if you’re trying to pull off a mission of this
nature then doing it a night under the cover of darkness would be an absolute given. But Jaime
and Bronn go during the middle of the day and assault prince Trystane out in the open in the
water gardens with Myrcella. Good thing there weren’t any witnesses around, how convenient. This
is just mindbogglingly insane in terms of their expectations of success and I’d never want Bryan
Cogman to be the mastermind of any kind of heist; period. Then this is also ignoring the fact that
the uniforms they stole have massive holes in them given that they were impaled by swords. And they
should also be drenched in blood and not just a tiny splash as shown on Bronn. Then there’s
also the issue of Jaime and Bronn not looking like proper dornish people and they’re not even
wearing their face masks to cover up that fact. Like are there any guards anywhere in the water
gardens? Can anyone simply just walk in and kill Trystane or Myrcella? What is happening? How did
this make it through production without anyone questioning this insanely dumb script? Then it
doesn’t even stop there because coincidentally Elia Martell sends the sand snakes to kill
Myrcella at the exact time Jaime arrives. This moment has the same energy as Euron Greyjoy
swimming ashore right as Jaime happens to walk by. The chances of this happening at the same time
are so inconceivably impossible that it’s making my brain bleed trying to process this script.
And you’d also ask the same question as to why Elia Martell is blatantly attacking Myrcella out
in the open midday while she’s with Trystane. Why not wait until she’s asleep and pacify the guards
or something I don’t know. It’s also revealed in episode 9 that Elia had Myrcella’s necklace stolen
from her room, so if she’s able to infiltrate it then why not also abduct or kill her? That seems
like the most logical approach, but heyyyy, we wouldn’t have this absolutely atrocious action
scene to jack up the ratings because our fans love action and not any semblance of logical
storytelling. Then the action in question is so terrible that almost every single beat in this
scene is plagued with contrivances. Like Tyenne utterly failing to kill Bronn while his sword is
sheathed, Nymeria whipping at Jaime and then once she leaves frame she disappears from the scene,
Obara twirling her spear around graciously giving Jaime enough time to unsheathe his sword, Nymeria
finally reappearing 10 seconds later who instead of whipping and grabbing someone’s leg, thus
incapacitating them, chooses to just poke at Bronn with her whip, and then just a bunch
of miscellaneous silly choreography beats. Then Nymeria opts to steal Myrcella which is
immediately confusing to me because I thought their whole objective was starting a war and
killing her would be the easiest and quickest way to do that. Taking her hostage would just force
Doran to solve the conflict himself. However, this doesn’t matter because hey look the
guards who have been missing this entire time have finally woken up from their writer-induced
naps that all coincided at the same time. Also, if Bryan Cogman makes it to where the water
gardens are barren of any witnesses then who even alerted the guards in the first place? God
this scene feels like a clown endlessly pulling handkerchiefs out of a hat, it’s just non-stop
egregious writing flaws. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if the scene devolved into Obara pulling
out an AK-47 and laying everyone out. Then luckily the tracking chip that Doran installed into Elia’s
skull activates and alerts the guards to her location. Obara also tries to incite a revolution
and the only reason I can think of as to why no one complies is that they don’t want to deal with
this absolute godlike chad of a warrior. Because once he’s dead everyone decides it’s revolting
time. Olenna arrives at Kinglsanding and delivers my favorite moment of the season and this may
not be a devoid of logic aspect for season 5, but I think it’s hilarious how David and Dan
drastically change the landscape surrounding Kingslanding. From here we have the inquiry of
Loras Tyrell and everything is mostly fine until the actual evidence comes out where his former
squire knows what the birthmark on his thigh looks like. This could be so easily countered by Loras
making up a story like I don’t know he took a shit in the woods and while his pants were down his
squire saw his birthmark. The fact that everyone treats this as irrefutable proof is pretty absurd
and Loras instantly lashing out essentially seals his fate. I guess his reaction is realistic since
it’s driven by emotion instead of logical thought, but literally, no one in the room tries to present
a counterargument to prove Loras’ innocence. Isn’t that kind of the point of this scene? Olenna is
supposed to be one of the smartest, quickest, and sharpest players in Westeros and she sits
in her chair as if she’s stunlocked. Then we finally have the wedding and the unfortunate rape
of Sansa. This is probably the most uncomfortable moment in the entire show and after thinking about
it some more I question whether we really needed to see this. Because at this point, the audience
is already terrified of Ramsay given his time with Theon and the following episodes establish
the relationship between Ramsay and Sansa as being pretty toxic, so going so far as to have
a rape scene with a minor feels like a bit much, even for Game of Thrones. Especially since as
I said, the scene doesn’t have much to offer narratively that doesn’t come off as redundant
and it’s purely just for shock value. I feel like a more suitable ending would be as Theon closes
the door the camera is on the other side of it and when it shuts it cuts to black. Insinuating that
a rape occurs and we don’t have to actually sit through it. At the very least though we get
a great performance from Alfie Allen. Jesus Christ episode 6 took up a massive chunk of this
video, hopefully, the following episodes are better. Episode 7 is directed by Miguel Sapochnik
and there’s a noticeable quality shift, at least for the directing. And to break conventions for
this video, I actually want to point out a clever moment in this episode. Which is Miguel fooling
the audience into thinking that Theon is going to light the candle in the broken tower. He does
this by playing triumphant music and Theon scaling a tower, but he actually stumbles into Ramsay’s
chambers to rat on Sansa. Genuinely a solid moment and now let’s get back to losing brain cells
because that’s obviously more fun. In relation to this plot point, the thing that puzzles me
is how they figured out the identity of the person who helped Sansa. All Theon knows is that
she’s getting help and doesn’t know from whom. So Ramsay instantly figuring out who it is with
seemingly no investigation is definitely a choice for the writing. Also, given that Ramsay now has
this information, I think it would make sense to either send troops to the location where Brienne
is waiting or bait her by lighting the candle and drawing out whatever her plan is. Instead, Ramsay
leaves this be and allows this potential escape opportunity to still exist. Realistically,
Brienne would probably get screwed over here, but heyyy those are actual consequences that David
and Dan don’t even conceive of. Then we have the start of the painfully annoying and tragic
downfall of Stannis Baratheon. On one hand, the situation the writers put Stannis in plays
out partially logically in that it makes sense he gets defeated, but on the other, writing it to
where a character is ultimately defeated by bad weather is a crazy writing decision. This entire
arc has been built up for multiple seasons and the job of the writers is crafting a logical and also
exciting story. Nothing about this story direction breathes any kind of aspect of entertainment and
it’s baffling to me that David and Dan think this is a satisfying arc. Imagine if Jon Snow succame
to the same fate. It would be absolute dogshit and the same applies to Stannis Baratheon. A Literal
POV character since season 2. Then there’s also the whole contrived angle of this subplot in
which Stannis for some reason wants to commit to a losing position. His reasoning here is that
he doesn’t want to become the “king who ran” but I mean like who the hell is going to judge him? He’s
bleeding troops, his supplies are completely cut off, and the weather has turned his position into
an unwinnable conundrum. I feel like the writers are forcing Stannis to argue on their behalf
for their own justifications because it feels inherently contradictory character-wise since
Stannis is supposed to be one of the smartest military minds. And I don’t know if anyone else
forgot, but Stannis literally has the backing of the motherfucking Iron Bank of Braavos. I’m sure
they’d understand his situation and keep funding him if they still believed in his cause. Hell,
Cersei is doing a terrible job in Kingslanding and there is no way she’s repaying any of her debts
at this point in the story. Especially since she’s alienating the Tyrells. Stannis despite being in
a temporary bad position is still the Iron Bank’s best shot at recouping their investments and
bringing stability to the realm. However, David and Dan treat their involvement in this plotline
as a non-factor and I guess they gave Stannis a one-time investment. It’s a real-time nerf and
overall making it to where Stannis is defeated in such a contrived manner while also purely
through an external fashion has to be one of the most anti-climactic moments in the show. I’ll go
into further detail when I inevitably get there, but yeah, this entire arc is complete garbage
in terms of writing. Sam the slayer has a nice scene of defending Gilly. Albeit it’s pretty
convenient he walks in write when they start harassing her. It would have been a little awkward
if it was like 10 minutes later and I guess Gilly hit her life alert button that notified Sam. Then
I find it even funnier that Ghost also shows up to save Sam. However, this moment is even more
confusing since Ghost is supposed to be locked in a cage in the courtyard. Let alone Ghost being
allowed to roam around the castle indoors. I know Jon Snow is now the Lord Commander so he doesn’t
have to lock Ghost away anymore, but A: He’s not around currently so Ser Alliser would probably
lock Ghost up and B: I guess Ghost has gotten much better at opening doors. And I definitely
need to clean my eyes out after rewatching Sam and Gilly’s sex scene. Tyrion beats up a random
guy to try to make himself more appealing to buy and I guess this pirate doesn’t care anymore about
the price of Tyrion’s magical Lannister cock. So he lets him go because the story fundamentally
wouldn’t work if this didn’t happen. Dario is horny, Tommen is horny, Myrcella is horny, Olenna
and the High Sparrow would also definitely be fucking if he didn’t casually arrest Ser Loras,
and unsurprisingly the Sand Snakes scene for this episode is very bad. I’ve always been confused
as to why Tyenne cares about saving Bronn’s life in this scene. Especially given the fact that
Bronn has insulted her on multiple occasions. But heyyyy, Bronn is a fan-favorite character and he
can’t die. David and Dan have great things planned for him. He has one of the best arcs in season 8
that plays a crucial role in the story. Killing him would be terrible for the story, unlike Ser
Barristan. Dany hates the sight of dead innocents, which is pretty rich considering what happens
later on, and Ser Jorah comes roaring back into the story. It is pretty convenient that Dany
happens to choose the one minor fighting pit with Ser Jorah in it, but I’ll allow it. Also,
I’m not sure why this random dude lets Tyrion go. At the end of episode 7 Cersei is betrayed by
the High Sparrow and while I may have the benefit of hindsight, I think Cersei is pretty daft for
not thinking this could end up poorly for her. And the reason why I think this is, at the beginning
of the season, Lancel flat-out threatens Cersei with the information that they had sex and it also
happens that Lancel is with the faith militant. So I feel like Cersei should at the very least be
hesitant that this could come back up again. Also, some of her dialogue scenes with the High Sparrow
indicate a darker undertone that she doesn’t pick up on. Like I find it weird how Cersei can see
right through Margery, but when it comes to the High Sparrow, she isn’t able to pick up on his
fake friendly facade. At the end of the day, this isn’t a major deal since Cersei is blinded
by her hatred for Margery, and I just find it overly reckless that she doesn’t at least expect
this as a potential outcome. It’s time for the biggest draw of Season 5, episode 8 Hardhome. This
episode opens with Tyrion convincing Dany to allow him to be her advisor and I always felt like
this was pretty rushed and rather frictionless. He does make a compelling case, but Tyrion doesn’t
actually prove himself to Dany to really justify a place within her inner circle. She immediately
trusts him which feels out of character for Dany given the amount of betrayals she’s gone through
and assassins that have tried to kill her. That and he’s directly one of her perceivable enemies.
For all she knows Tyrion can simply be lying and I find it really silly that she instantly accepts
his council. Then the rest of the scene Tyrion essentially makes an argument for why she should
re-accept Ser Jorah and then ultimately decides to send him away. Which felt a little weird and
I feel like the main reason why this happened was because David and Dan thought it would be better
to have a real character in the fighting pits next episode to make that scene more captivating.
Arya finally has something to do 8 episodes into this season, there are some surprisingly good
dialogue scenes, and the rest of the scenes leading up to hardhome are mostly ok *play clip
of Tyrion calling Dany terrible* and before I’m whipped through the streets for pointing out
flaws in Hardhome, I think this is a very good action setpiece that’s especially carried by its
surprising nature. However, this doesn’t mean it’s exempt from any writing flaws so let's go into
them. Initially, upon going into this rewatch, I thought it was very unrealistic how Jon was able
to save so many Freefolk in a short amount of time and with like a few row boats. But this wideshot
reveals that there are dozens of them and they are also docking at different places. So I don’t
think this is actually an issue and is believable since an unspecified amount of time passes after
the general meeting. The main issue in Hardhome though is Jon Snow’s blatant plot armor. And
that’s exemplified the most through his fight with the white walker. Before their fight, the Thenn
who engaged the white walker first was killed instantly so surely the white walker will give
Jon the same treatment. So in this fight scene, Jon should have died 3 times. First was when
the white walker could have simply stabbed him in the back, but instead opted to throw him away.
The second was Jon getting thrown against a wall and the white walker choosing to not follow up
with an attack and allowing Jon to run away. And the third was when Jon’s weapon gets shattered
and instead of bringing the weapon back to the left and impaling him, the white walker chooses
to knock him down again. This is one of my most hated tropes in action scenes where the antagonist
can easily kill the protagonist, but they instead just toss them around. It’s the pure embodiment of
plot armor and it’s very unfortunate that Miguel Sapochnik couldn’t give us a more compelling
scene with realistic fighting choreography. Because that’s definitely possible, even though
it is revealed that white walkers seem to have super strength of sorts. Although that doesn’t
really come back up again. This is the only major point in this scene that bothers me and there are
some small nitpicks here and there, but we don’t have to go into all of them. Episode 9 opens
with the writers raw dogging Stannis and this moment of Ser Alliser letting Jon back through
the gate kind of confounds me. Given that Jon has ships and I don’t know why they didn’t go to
Eastwatch. Like Jon knows that Ser Alliser hates him and he’s running the risk of allowing him the
opportunity to screw him over by not letting him through the wall. I’m sure Ser Alliser was also
confused by them showing up at the wall that he didn’t plan for this to occur, so he just let them
in. We’re also blessed to have more Dorne scenes in this episode and by far the craziest thing
that happens here is Doran not punishing Elia. He is a very soft guy who preaches mercy, but at
the very least given her continued blatant hatred and rebellious attitude, she should be exiled from
Dorne. She’s causing so much trouble for Doran and is basically saying she’s going to continue
doing so. She does submit to him later, but like she’s obviously lying. So her receiving zero
consequences for her actions is pretty baffling. The Sand Snakes have riveting development, Bronn
gets bonked, Mace Tyrell continues to be a chad, and Ayra cuckles and oysters around Braavos. While
doing this she spots Meryn Trant and follows him all day and they eventually end up in a brothel.
Which if you’re being followed by a lady selling Oysters all day then It’s probably safe to assume
that you’re being followed. That and it’s pretty ridiculous that she’s able to snoop around in this
brothel selling Oysters since people apparently really like Oysters when they’re horny. To me, the
opposite would be true, but I guess the people of Braavos are built differently. Oh look the Oyster
girl even followed us into our private room, that’s not suspicious at all. Maybe we should
question her, oh wait sorry, the horiness in the air is just giving me an unquenchable desire to
eat oysters to the point where I won’t question anything in my surroundings. After this, we have
the controversial burning of Shireen Baratheon. I think this is a very effective scene that
elicits strong and guttural performances from every actor that in turn makes you teary-eyed,
however, I think the execution here fundamentally compromises Stannis as a character. It’s kind
of up to debate about whether or not he can be pushed this far into killing his own daughter,
but we have to consider what Stannis has said before this event. His biggest point of reasoning
for not retreating is that he doesn’t want to be viewed as the king he who ran. But simultaneously,
he’s ok with being the king who kills his daughter in cold blood because he’s a religious maniac
and thinks that this will grant him some kind of advantage. Like I don’t know that just
doesn’t add up to me. That and David and Dan essentially hide the build-up to this decision
and instead opt for this to be a surprise for the audience. This in turn hurts the story even more
because it makes the twist for his character not make sense from our perspective. If David and
Dan really wanted this plot point to happen, then I think Stannis needs to have no part in
this. Either make it to where Melisandre goes rogue and does this without his consent or he’s
swept away by his crazy religious followers and they mutiny and take Shireen hostage and burn
her. Both of those directions seem a lot more plausible than Stannis being OK with killing his
only daughter. Along with those directions having more interesting avenues for conflict. We’re also
acting like there aren’t two scenes in which he wholeheartedly loves her in this season. This
essentially does the opposite for building up to a point where Stannis wants to kill her. Looking
back at those scenes now, it feels like David and Dan are trying to manipulate the audience into
loving this father-and-daughter dynamic so that it would be even more crushing when Stannis betrays
her. Then he has to be pretty obtuse to think that this wouldn’t further alienate even more men in
his army. Like they’re already leaving and now their leader has lost his mind so that gives them
even more reason to get the hell out of there. So yeah, I can see what David and Dan were trying to
achieve, but I think their execution was terrible and they ruin yet another fan-favorite character.
They’re two for two this season babyyy. The last scene for this episode is the dragon pit fiasco.
The action isn’t great and there are some bonkers moments like Ser Jorah rolling up to someone and
delivering a final blow as his opponent doesn’t simply back up and kill him, but the primary
issue with this scene is Dany having extremely light security when there’s a massive risk of an
attack from the Sons of the Harpy. Like earlier, we do have the benefit of hindsight, but Ser
Barristan just died a few episodes ago and her being OK with being surrounded by a bunch of
masters who are potentially Sons of the Harpy members is really dumb. I could buy this scene if
she had her own private booth and unfortunately, that’s not the case. So unsurprisingly, an attack
from the Sons of the Harpy ensues and Dany and friends get surrounded in the fighting pits. It
probably would have been smarter to go into one of these alleyways so that they could funnel the
attackers through a chokepoint, but they gamble this position by trying to find another way out
and end up getting surrounded. Thankfully Dany is able to telepathically communicate with Drogon
so he flies in to save the day. I initially meant that as a joke, but that’s technically true.
David and Dan are insinuating here that Drogon can telepathically sense when his mother is in
danger, which does have some potential merit despite it not really being explored. Dragons do
have connections with their riders, but I don’t know if it’s as literal as them having some kind
of neurological or telepathic connection. Which you can make that be the case and I would love it
if David and Dan would actually develop the more magical mechanics within the show. However, we all
know where David and Dan stand on magic so that’s obviously not the case. They pick and choose when
it’s used within the story at the convenience of when to bail out certain characters. Like if
that was the case then Drogon probably would have saved Dany from the Dothraki after taking
his nap. We’re finally at the end of season 5 and there’s a lot to unpack for this episode. Stannis
faces the consequences of his stupid actions, Jon’s happy that Sam the Slayer is now Sam
the pussy slayer, and it’s time for a very fun and climactic battle between Stannis and the
Boltons. Wait, what’s that? There’s not going to be a great resolution to this plotline and it’s
just going to peter out into a wet whimper of a fart. *long sigh* How are David and Dan being paid
millions to write this shit. At least Stannis has a great concluding scene with Brienne being the
person who kills him, but getting Stannis to this exact point is so extremely implausible that you
have to be actively ignoring any kind of logic to see this as being half-decent. Firstly, Stannis is
out in the open in a terrible position and they’re about to be railed; so him being able to fight
all the way to this forest is nothing short of a miracle. Along with him somehow being the last man
standing. Then there’s also the aspect of Brienne miraculously finding Stannis on the battlefield,
and this is also assuming that she doesn’t have to fight through a sea of Boltons to get to him.
Oh and how lucky is it that he’s still alive when she finds him or there being no Boltons around so
she can conveniently have a nice chat with him. Like there are just so many aspects about this
scene that are so absurdly dumb and you have to willfully ignore all of this shit to enjoy this
scene. Which it is enjoyable if you’re able to see past all of that rubbish. While this is all
going down, Theon kills Myranda and escapes with Sansa by jumping off a high wall and into the
snow. Now this is pretty plausible, however, the opening of the episode stated that most of
the snow has melted. Even Roose Bolton condemned attacking Stannis because there would be too much
snow to traverse, but because of that melting, they were able to swiftly attack his army. So
I feel like David and Dan hope the audience forgets about this fact and realistically Theon
and Sansa would probably break some bones if they were lucky. Which would make it pretty hard to run
away from a pack of hounds. But it’s the heroes and Brienne’s plan all along was putting a bunch
of pillow cushions down there to save them from their fall. Back at the House of Gucci, Jaquen
knows that Arya was defecting the whole time and I guess it was a part of his plan for her to follow
through with this and to punish her. The execution of said punishment is a little confusing given
that when Jaquen or no one I should say kills himself, Arya pulls off their faces and finds her
own. Which should be physically impossible and this just comes across as David and Dan injecting
more spooky magic bullshit into the story. Or maybe the faceless assassins injected Arya with
a drug to blind her and a side effect of that is her tripping balls. David and Dan are obviously
wanting to be mysterious and like always none of it is really ever explained, which is ok I guess.
Arya’s overall season 5 arc feels very sloppily written and it’s as if David and Dan are spinning
the plot wheels and are trying to buy themselves time until this ending. Because as we’ve explored
throughout this video, practically nothing happens until episode 8. More cringe permeates from
Dorne and oh it’s pretty convenient that Myrcella succumbs to poison while Jaime was talking to her.
It would be kind of awkward if that realistically happened when he wasn’t around and then walked in
on her corpse, but I’ll gladly allow this given that it makes for a great scene. Also, it’s really
confusing how the poison works since Bronn was poisoned and then an episode later it activated,
while for Myrcella it activates like 10 minutes later. Qyburn says in season 7 that it can take
hours or even days, but that doesn’t apply to Myrcella unfortunately. Daario crafts a plan in
Mereen and Varys is released from his time-out session in the plot corner that David and Dan
placed him in. Which thinking about Varys showing up here, this doesn’t make any sense at all. Why
did the unsullied let this random person in and even if Greyworm or Missendei granted him access
without Tyrion’s knowledge, they know that Dany has a fundamental dislike for Varys. Given that
he has sent assassins after her which she talks about in episode 8. So they’d have to know his
identity and importance to plausibly let him in, and surely they didn’t let in a random bald dude
off the streets for no reason. Especially given all the conflict of anyone being a Sons of
the Harpy member. That and if Varys was still wanting to go to Mereen, I’m really surprised
that Tyrion beat him there since his journey was pretty chaotic, to say the least. I don’t
think Varys had to deal with pirates and slavers and the fact that he wasn’t already in Mereen by
episode 8 essentially means that he’s been in plot limbo this whole time. But don’t think about all
that, it’s Tyrion and Varys everyone’s favorite duo that definitely doesn’t get ruined from this
point on. Drogon just wants to take a nap after hard carrying our heroes and Dany’s tummy starts
grumbling so she goes and looks for food. I’m not sure what she expects to find, maybe a big Mac
hidden under a rock or she’s going to somehow wrestle a goat with her bare hands, but while out
on this quest, she runs into some Dothraki. And like Drogon I guess the entire Dothraki horde
can communicate telepathically and operate as a hivemind. Because one person spots Dany and
then everyone comes in to swarm her. Which for this scene, it’s revealed during her confrontation
with Khal Morro that they don’t know who she is so it’s pretty stupid that they spend all of this
energy to capture one girl. It’s essentially the same scenario as this scene from Finding Nemo
*play clip*. Also, realistically, you’d think that at least one person within the Dothraki
would recognize Dany since there’s probably some carryover of people from Khal Drogo’s group
and this one. Somehow though, no one recognizes her and the only person who does is one of the
wives. So this scene just comes across to me as David and Dan having an excess of money to spend
for the budget so they flamboyantly spend it here by showing us a massive hoard of Dothraki. Even
though it breaks all logic. Cersei has her walk of shame and I don’t think there’s anything wrong
with it. It’s incredible and allows Lena Heady to give an outstanding performance. Then I wish the
same could be said about Jon Snow getting killed. You probably thought this scene would survive
without anything being wrong with it, but to me, the issue with this scene is Olly. I briefly
went into this problem in my villain ranking, and I think there are a couple of issues with
his character. The first one is that Olly clearly hates the wildlings and is extremely apparent
and vocal about this. He confronts both Jon and Samwell in this regard and even Jon is aware of
his inner conflict. So given this blatant hatred, it’s really confounding as to why Jon continues
to treat Olly as someone he’s close to and wants to foster. This is a very clear future conflict
and I know he probably doesn’t think it would end with Olly killing him, but you’d assume that you’d
want to keep your enemies at a distance. “I heard it was best to keep your enemies close. Whoever
said that didn’t have many enemies.” *cut to Jon getting rocked* So that’s definitely a perplexing
aspect of this whole Olly Jon dynamic, and there’s one more problem, and that’s David and Dan
treating Olly as a background character throughout season 5. He receives practically no character
development and this is essential for someone who is going to be the emotional crutch of the
climax of season 5 where the main character dies. Like that’s just absolutely baffling to me from a
writing perspective that David and Dan skimp out on developing his character. Which through
our journey in analyzing season 5’s devoid of logic aspects, we’ve noticed a trend in which
David and Dan’s writing methods have become very lazy in terms of writing characters or flat out
not including them. And the same thing applies to Olly here. In terms of the actual death,
it’s a very strong finale even though it kind of undercuts the legacy of the show’s weight of
having permanent deaths. *sigh of relief* We’re finally done and this is by far my longest video
so thank you for actually making it to the end of this feature-length Devoid of Logic. I’m sure
a Glidus will come along in the year of 2030 and do some pisstakes on season 5, but for the
time being, you’re stuck with me. If you like my silly little opinions I have more for different
movies on Letterboxd, I answer any questions you throw at me on Discord, and if you want to help
fund the channel then I have a patreon. Thanks to my good old pal Logan Farmer for being the
biggest and bestest patron in all the realms.
