Open Bar: Drinks are on the Supreme Court

[Juana]

I stopped talking to my relatives like that like a decade ago. 🤷

[Bruno]

All my relatives are either like that, or apolitical and clueless. Though, there might be a chance for some of the newer members to pull their heads out of our collective ass.

I remain hopeful, but disturbed.

The entire culture of my hometown is Donald trumps wet dream, which he is currently living.

I was told growing up that I would understand when I was older; that the wisdom of the previous generations would become clear as I aged. To my dismay, I have, over the years come to realize that I, in my youthful ignorance, had vastly underestimated the stupidity with which I had been surrounded by and infused with despite my best, yet still feeble efforts to protect myself from it. It my attempts to filter out the overwhelming ambient noise of my native environment, I tuned out all external stimuli, leaving me with nothing but my own internally generated delusions for some semblance of a reality.

Given a choice from birth between stupidity or insanity, I chose the latter. I regret nothing.

[altered]

All my relatives are either like that, or apolitical and clueless. Though, there might be a chance for some of the newer members to pull their heads out of our collective ass.

I remain hopeful, but disturbed.

The entire culture of my hometown is Donald trumps wet dream, which he is currently living.

I was told growing up that I would understand when I was older; that the wisdom of the previous generations would become clear as I aged. To my dismay, I have, over the years come to realize that I, in my youthful ignorance, had vastly underestimated the stupidity with which I had been surrounded by and infused with despite my best, yet still feeble efforts to protect myself from it. It my attempts to filter out the overwhelming ambient noise of my native environment, I tuned out all external stimuli, leaving me with nothing but my own internally generated delusions for some semblance of a reality.

Given a choice from birth between stupidity or insanity, I chose the latter. I regret nothing.

I love this post.

[Bruno]

All my relatives are either like that, or apolitical and clueless. Though, there might be a chance for some of the newer members to pull their heads out of our collective ass.

I remain hopeful, but disturbed.

The entire culture of my hometown is Donald trumps wet dream, which he is currently living.

I was told growing up that I would understand when I was older; that the wisdom of the previous generations would become clear as I aged. To my dismay, I have, over the years come to realize that I, in my youthful ignorance, had vastly underestimated the stupidity with which I had been surrounded by and infused with despite my best, yet still feeble efforts to protect myself from it. It my attempts to filter out the overwhelming ambient noise of my native environment, I tuned out all external stimuli, leaving me with nothing but my own internally generated delusions for some semblance of a reality.

Given a choice from birth between stupidity or insanity, I chose the latter. I regret nothing.

I love this post.

Thanks.

[Cain]

Apparently the wisdom of elder generations is believing that Hillary Clinton kills babies for Satan because some rando on 8chan says he's a secret agent with a top level clearance.

[Telarus]

 

[IntentionallyLeftBlank]

But I've really wanted to do a sort of "post mortem" on BIP 2013. My deep involvement on the latter end of the project was something that had quite an effect on me, and maybe I could share some behind the scenes shit... We'll see I guess.

same, I've been thinking about how it might be useful to do a short-run of small 1-paragraph descriptions of prison cells & bars

my own thinking about the BIP has come so far since the original pamphlet, it's still a huge part of my psychology... and I feel like I should boil it down into something useful.

Same. Though, for what I have in mind for the near future is more like a breakdown of everything that went into making it, the amount of work it took and how it effected my life. I was hit pretty hard psychologically from working on that project, which is sorta the reason I left PD. Just couldn't handle it anymore. But, yeah, my immediate focus is more of an analysis as opposed to new works, though I'm not against the idea.

[Faust]

Spoiler feelings for game of thrones - not really gone on the last episode.

The story beats make sense from an overall perspective (which makes sense as the overall outline was given to the show writers), but how they arrive at those points tends to be in really stupid ways.
A slow decent into madness and what should feel like a tragic moment or a tipping point instead comes across as almost petulant. We never get a feel that she is trapped into her decisions, instead it's more the first bump in the road that is met after season after season of resounding success in every venture triggers the irredeemable nuclear option. Gradually escalating feelings of being trapped and desperation leading to the ol Targarian madness would have made sense for the character. Instead we get the arc accelerated to the point that it is the portrayal of a sore winner jealous of her partner and driven by avarice. With all the talk about gender role models in the media this is a really bad execution, not because of the outcome but because of her reasons for getting there, a Queen Lear would be sympathetic and the strength of her decisions in the past wouldnt be undermined, instead we got Veruca Salt. "Well it's MY party and you are all going to treat me like a queen and if you don't I am going to tear this house down"

[LMNO]

Agreed.

How much truth is there to the rumor that GRRM told the show runners how this would end way back in Season 1?  Because they could have spent the entire series setting up hints and twists that could have made all three of the Idiot Ball moments (I'm including Jamie and Arya (and if we're throwing in the previous episode, Brienne)) more of an "aha... I wasn't expecting it, but it makes perfect sense" moment.

[Cain]

He did, they just executed it badly.

The hints were there, but with this mad rush to the finishing line (are HBO running out of money?), characterization is going out of the window.  As I pointed out, I'm not so surprised at this outcome as all the elements for it had been set up and hinted at a long time ago (just look at how Dany is a mirror to Cersei - hilariously inept ruler, indulgent towards her murderous child, fashion sense, incest), but the way in which it happened, and in particular the lack of reaction from other characters is telling.

Both Varys and Tyrion in particular are not stupid, and have served multiple mad rulers in Varys' case.  They would have seen the warning signs early on.  I'm not entirely willing to sell Varys out yet, as we don't know the full content of the letters he was writing in the last episode, but it's not a good look that they thought everything was fine, right up until the point she abruptly descended into insanity.

I was hoping that Varys might hire Bronn to take out everyone with a claim to the throne and institute a people's republic of Westeros, but, alas, that seems rather unlikely now. Varys and Tyrion are no Ammanas and Cotillion, more's the pity. Shaking up the entire political order is not their style.

[LMNO]

Prediction: Arya, seeing the catastrophe of King's Landing First hand, (and you know, riding out on a Pale Horse), amends her kill list, and does in Dany (but not until Tyrion gets whacked by Bronn).  Jon gets the Ceaser treatment (again), Sansa remains in the north, and Gendry ascends the throne.

[Cain]

I'm thinking murder-suicide by Jon. The Targaryens seriously need to fuck off, as do dragons.

But it's probably a race between him, Arya, Davos Seaworth, whatever assassins Varys dispatched with his final missive (Bronn) and whatever assassins Sansa has dredged up from her days following Littlefinger around. I don't think Tyrion has to worry about Bronn any longer, since he's not getting paid.

[LMNO]

Good point about Bronn.

[Faust]

I can see it playing it out in one of two ways, Dany is confronted by john, dragon fires him which wont harm him, and the remaining people around depose her, possibly killing her, john is named as king but refuses and goes north of the wall to live in exile.
Or John tries to talk Dany down, someone kills him, and she goes off the rails and is also killed.

In either case neither end up with the crown. That doesn't leave a whole lot of options: Yora... unlikely. Sansa, maybe. Bronn, would be funny and probably a good cyclical loop back to pig ignorant Robert, not sure how to be king but good at what he does, would also complete the running joke about him getting a castle: He gets kings landing but it is a fixer upper.

I'm not sure if it was foreshadowing or not but the dragon fire blowing up green from the buildings to me implies Cersie expected Danys worst imulses, and has rigged the whole city to blow and potentially kill the final dragon.

[The Johnny]

The hints were there, but with this mad rush to the finishing line (are HBO running out of money?), characterization is going out of the window.  [...]

I watched up to Season 6 and stopped not for any particular reason except that its too much of a time investment for me but what Ive heard/thought:

*They are running out of source material, apparently the books are still in the events of the city of Meereen, the creation of Reek, the walk of shame of Cersei, etc

*And isnt GOT like HBOs one trick pony? Why would they rush to get rid off it since it is its suscriber cashcow?

https://www.quora.com/How-much-profit-would-each-season-of-Game-of-Thrones-be-making

The only logic i see in the abruptness and twitchiness of the events unfolding is that the script writers have zero talent, and once the source material ran out, which was their guiding rails they just crashed and burned like a train without tracks.

Or perhaps theres a limited license that has an expiration date?

Or maybe the actor's contracts are expiring too and they dont want to renew?

These signs i could scavenge for all point to anything except economic reasons.