gotgifsandmusings:

Hey there! Hi. You’re probably in a really good mood right now. Woah, Dany flying off on Drogon, that’s cool! Or did you think it looked shitty? Idk, but I mean, hey, dragons! This is what we’ve wanted from Dany’s storyline since the Season 1 finale! And can you believe what happened with Jorah in the pit? Or Tyrion’s quips as he watched from his place of high honor?

I actually have zero ideas of what Jorah did, or if this scene landed or not in general. I expect it did, in the way the Battle Spectacular! of Hardhome managed to. If it was done well, then it was quite the “omg” moment, and probably pretty cool-looking to boot. I was not able to watch this episode live, however. So what am I even doing here? Why am I insisting on shitting all over such a fine moment?

For a while now, Game of Thrones has made it perfectly clear that it is doing whatever it damn-well pleases. Calling itself an “adaptation” of ASOIAF is getting less and less appropriate, given the complete divergence in plots (or the stripping down of all nuances in the ones it left the “same”), a casual dismissal of all themes, and the utter disregard to characterizations or internal logic. In fact, Hardhome, the episode praised by many, was the final nail in the coffin for anyone thinking these two mediums even remotely resemble each other.

So then why am I not content to “let the show be the show and the books be the books”? Because here’s the problem: at the end of the day, GoT comes back to rely on the work that Martin’s done to get them through. Whether it’s to cower behind the books and say “well there’s nudity and violence against women in there,” or to use Martin’s world building to deliver a super duper fight scene (however out of place it may be), showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss (D&D) continually profit off of another’s work, yet it’s within their own divergent and incredibly problematic narrative. My good friend theculturalvacuum said it best: “it’s not an adaptation, it’s identity theft.”

And that brings us nicely to Daznak’s Pit (did the show even call it that?). Yes, Dany finally hopping on Drogon’s back and taking off was indeed an amazing moment to read about, and I have no doubt something that was really cool to watch as well. But like most of Mr. Martin’s best ideas, D&D only chose to adapt the bare bones of the plot, without actually providing any context. To them, Dany’s arc was “girl tries to rule Meereen. It’s hard. She makes some good decisions, some bad. Then she gets engaged, opens fighting pits, and flies off on dragon.”

Keep reading