Answering Your Game of Thrones Questions That Obviously Aren't Questions

We are a few months out from the series finale of Game of Thrones, and "The Iron Throne" still inspires rage on the internet whenever it's mentioned. The script for the episode was recently released, and people were furious to discover... that it contained a handful of jokes that would only have been seen by the people reading the script.

Stubborn in my fandom, I continue to insist that "The Iron Throne" (and, indeed, the entire final season of Game of Thrones) was quite good. It's an unpopular opinion - I write this while huddled in a fortified bunker with the three or four other people on Earth who feel the same way.

But I like to be helpful! And I recognize that many of the show's critics have some questions about the way Game of Thrones ended. They have some mistakes or plot holes or logical failings that they believe they have identified and they would like those concerns to be addressed.

Totally fair. So here are answers to a few of the questions I've seen bandied about since "The Iron Throne" aired in May.

Why is there still a Night's Watch?

There are many, many, many reasons there is still a Night's Watch for Jon to be exiled to at the end of the show.

First: tradition. Or call it inertia, if you prefer. The Night's Watch is more than 8,000 years old, which is functionally indistinguishable from "been around literally forever." So far as anyone in Westeros can tell, there has always been a Night's Watch. An 8,000-year-old institution has staying power above and beyond its actual usefulness. The Senate filibuster has been around for a little more than 200 years, came about in a completely accidental fashion, has been altered repeatedly over the years and there are still people who believe that eliminating it is the legislative equivalent of desecrating Thomas Jefferson's grave. Institutions endure, is the point.

Second, there's the practical argument Tyrion makes to Jon: the Night's Watch is where the lords of Westeros send their "cripples, bastards and broken things." The Watch is an exceptionally useful escape hatch for leaders who want to dispose of inconvenient people but who, for whatever reason, can't kill them - how many times in the books and in the show did we see characters forced to "take the black?" The Wall is the only safe place in the world to send the criminals, lunatics, dissenters, extraneous children and political prisoners who populate any kingdom. The Night's Watch is, in essence, the Australia of Westeros, and that makes it indispensable as a governing tool.

Third...there's no more Wall, guys. That 700-foot-tall wall of ice did a lot of the heavy lifting when it came to protecting the realms of man, and now it's gone. Westeros is more vulnerable than ever to an invasion from the north. There might not be any more White Walkers, but eventually the wildlings are going to build their numbers back up. Are they on friendly terms with Jon Snow when the show ends? Sure, but Jon Snow isn't going to live forever, and neither is Tormund Giantsbane. It won't be long before you have an entirely new generation of wildlings who weren't around for that whole "Jon saved us and helped save the entire world" thing. And there will be no Wall to hold them back. Which means...you need the Night's Watch.

Finally, no one in Westeros actually knows that the White Walkers are gone for good. Sure, Arya killed the Night King and all the other Walkers disintegrated as a result, so folks probably feel pretty good about the situation, but that's different than simply assuming the threat is permanently eliminated. Bran is one of the few people in that world who knows the origin story of the Walkers, and we know he's inclined to a silence both mysterious and dickish in equal measure. For all the people of Westeros know, the Walkers could come back at any time - it's hard to rule anything out when you're talking about a race of ice vampires who can raise an army of zombies at will. So it's probably a good idea to keep the Night's Watch around, especially considering the whole "no more Wall" situation.

Why wasn't anyone trying to find Drogon? Just decided not to worry about the massive dragon with no master and a taste for human flesh flying around?

It's unfathomably rude to answer a question with another question, but still: who would have given this order? Who was arranging a dragon hunt?

Westeros doesn't have a ruler after Daenerys' death. It's probably safe to guess that some council or ad-hoc committee was running things - Davos was likely making a lot of the calls. But it was a tenuous, chaotic situation. The only people with the intellectual (Tyrion) or military (Jon) credibility to organize a dragon hunt were sitting in jail.

More importantly, whoever was running things in the interregnum between Daenerys' death and Bran's ascension had some pretty serious issues on their plate. King's Landing is a smoking ruin, which means the political, military and economic capital of the realm is a smoking ruin. The royal fleet is, say it with me now, a smoking ruin, and it's hard to cross oceans in pursuit of a dragon without ships. And the entire country is recovering from years of brutal, scorched earth civil war. Everyone is exhausted and there are no resources to spare on a dragon hunt.

Also: King's Landing is a powder keg. The Unsullied are one harsh word away from killing everyone in the wake of Daenerys' murder, and the Dothraki are hanging around King's Landing being very Dothraki-like. Yes, the flying, 747-sized fire-breathing reptile with a surprisingly firm grasp of metaphor is a concern, but "making sure the nation doesn't destroy itself again" is a more immediate one.

Which is why the issue comes up just as soon as Westeros has a king, things have settled down and a small council has been seated.

So Jon's Targaryen heritage was completely meaningless, huh?

People keep saying this and it's utterly baffling. Jon's royal blood plays a huge role in the story's endgame.

The revelation that Jon Snow is actually Aegon Targaryen, the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, drives a wedge between Jon and Daenerys. If Jon was actually just "Jon Snow," bastard son of Eddard Stark, then there would be no conflict between Jon and Daenerys - he wouldn't be a threat to her, he wouldn't have a terrible secret he'd feel compelled to share with his sisters and there wouldn't be that whole "incest" thing to keep tripping him up when the beautiful queen with the dragons tried to sleep with him.

If Jon isn't a Targaryen and the rightful heir to the Iron Throne, Sansa (probably) stays loyal to Daenerys and (definitely) doesn't have any damaging information to feed to Tyrion. Tyrion, in turn, doesn't have information to share with Varys. And Varys is less inclined to betray Daenerys, as there's no obvious heir to turn to in her stead.

The alienation between Jon and Daenerys plays a significant role in her decision to bathe King's Landing in dragon fire instead of accepting the garrison's surrender. In the run-up to "The Bells," Game of Thrones goes to great lengths to showcase Daenerys' isolation. She left Daario back in Mereen. Jorah is dead. Missandei is dead, killed in front of Daenerys' eyes. Varys is a traitor. Tyrion is either a traitor or, in Daenerys' eyes, so profoundly incompetent that she can't trust him.

Daenerys is utterly alone - Grey Worm is still alive, but he's a soldier, not a diplomat or a deep thinker, and he's so angry and distraught about the loss of Missandei that he's no help. He's certainly not a moderating influence. And when Daenerys, in the depths of her grief, reaches out to Jon for love and support, he rejects her, a decision he doesn't make if he's not her nephew.

Daenerys' isolation and paranoia are exacerbated by the revelation of Jon's real parentage. And without that revelation, the sack of King's Landing never happens.

Bran should be king because he has "the best story?" What the hell does that even mean? Arya and Sansa don't have compelling stories?

Man, this pissed people off.

Here's the thing: a lot of folks apparently read Tyrion's support for Bran in the finale as a substantive case for the youngest surviving Stark child - as though Tyrion was arguing that Bran objectively had the best story and therefore deserved to be king. But that's a mistake - Tyrion isn't saying Bran will make the best king because he has the best story. He's saying that the realm will find Bran's story the most compelling and unite behind him. Tyrion is basically making an electability argument.

Look at the realistic options* for the role. The guy with the best case, Jon, is in prison, and while it's hardly unprecedented in Westerosi history for someone to go from regicide to king, it might be a bit of a tough sell. More importantly, Grey Worm makes clear that Jon is utterly unacceptable to the Unsullied, and he might have murdered the entire grand council on the spot if they had chosen Jon. So Jon's out.

That leaves us with three choices: Arya, Sansa and Bran.

*Let's grant that, for dramatic reasons, the choices are limited to an extent they wouldn't be in real life. Even after the civil war there are probably a handful of non-royal nobles hanging around who would merit consideration. But you can't very well elevate the lord of Wolf's Raven or wherever in your series finale.

Arya has a great story, the show's critics point out. She saved the goddamn world! She killed the Night King! What more do you want? You can't sell that?

Here's the thing: Arya would be a crummy queen. We all love the character, she's awesome, Maisie Williams is great. People name their daughters "Arya." She's cool as hell.

But can you really see Arya presiding over feasts or tourneys? Can you really see her politely treating with foreign diplomats issuing veiled threats? Can you really see her balancing a budget or haggling over loan rates with the Iron Bank or figuring out how to fund a new sewer system? Can you really see her getting married for the good of the realm?

Of course not. Arya has a very specific set of skills, most of which boil down to stabbing things. And while those are very useful when you're trying to kill the Night King, they're of limited value when ruling a massive kingdom. The entire point of Robert Baratheon's story was to show what happens when you make a soldier a king and he runs into problems that can't be solved by stabbing them.

Tyrion doesn't say these things aloud, of course, but he has had front row seats to rule by monarchs whose first instinct is to murder their problems away. He's not setting Arya aside because he doesn't think her story is impressive - he's setting her aside because he doesn't think she'd do the job very well, and she's not the type to be a puppet queen.

What about Sansa? Unlike her sister, she has a compelling argument on the merits - we've seen how she navigates complicated diplomatic and logistical problems. She's smart, she understands politics, she was taught by a gifted (if profoundly creepy) mentor. Sansa would, almost certainly, be a good queen.

So why isn't she Tyrion's choice? Again, it comes back to the public perception. We know, as viewers, that Sansa has a great story - we've seen all of it. But it's not an easy narrative to sell to a larger public that hasn't been watching an HBO series over the course of a decade or reading a series of books for more than 20 years. Sansa doesn't have a famous military record (like Jon), she didn't kill the Night King (like Arya) and she doesn't have superpowers (like Bran).

Her skills are more subtle, her accomplishments hidden. Everyone knows Jon won the Battle of the Bastards because he was the guy on the battlefield - who knows that Sansa brought the Knights of the Vale and saved the day? Everyone knows Arya killed the Night King - who knows that Sansa played a huge role in organizing the defense of Winterfell? Sansa is just a harder sell.

And it's impossible to ignore the fundamentally misogynist nature of Westerosi society. The people of Westeros have, in their lifetimes, had experience with two queens: Cersei and Daenerys. The first turned out to be a murderous sociopath. The second burned King's Landing to the ground in the Westerosi equivalent of a nuclear attack.

Is that actually a good reason to disqualify Sansa? Of course not. But Tyrion is dealing with perception, and he's living in a society that likely views its most recent experience with queens as an affirmation of its pre-existing opinions of women in general. And if that seems ridiculous, keep in mind that Hillary Clinton lost an election three years ago and now Democrats are running headlong into the arms of Joe Biden because they're terrified that a woman might not be electable.

Which brings us to Bran. Tyrion's right about him, by the way - he does have a hell of a story. A victim of the loathsome incest between the much-hated Cersei and the Kingslayer. A kid who went north of the Wall and gained literal superpowers. A kid who looked the Night King in the eye and never blinked.

Maybe you find that less compelling than Sansa's story - fair enough. But again, Tyrion isn't actually issuing a verdict on the quality of their respective stories. He's talking about perception. And he has plenty of reasons - some substantive, some selfish - to elevate Bran.

Tyrion comes to the great council deeply skeptical of untrammeled kingship. He's not willing to support Sam's argument for a democracy, but he's seen what happens when kings and queens rule unchallenged. He explicitly advocates for an end to the hereditary monarchy. Is he calling for a 21st century UK-style constitutional monarchy? Not in so many words, but it's clear he doesn't want a dictator.

And that's why Bran is Tyrion's choice. He knows Bran has no interest in the day-to-day tasks of ruling a kingdom - he says as much, and so does Bran when he stops in at the small council meeting toward the end of the episode. From Tyrion's perspective, Bran is the perfect king - utterly selfless, without wants or demands, popular with the common people and willing to leave the hard work to Tyrion and his other advisers. King Bran won't be a puppet, necessarily, but he's clearly comfortable giving autonomy to the people Tyrion thinks are most equipped to run a kingdom. And yes, that includes Tyrion himself.

There's another point worth acknowledging here: Bran has literal superpowers. He can see through space and time - into the distant past and into the far future. This...this is kind of a useful skill for a king to possess. If it came out that John Hickenlooper could see the future it would be a pretty compelling argument for his candidacy. And it's a pretty compelling argument for Bran's.

Imagine a king who could see the future - who could see all of the threats facing his kingdom and see them decades before they arose. Now imagine that king has no earthly desires - not for wealth or power or glory or sex.

Choosing that guy...well, that's a pretty reasonable ending to his story.

Fire and Blood is an Enjoyable - But Unnecessary - Game of Thrones Side Story

Book: Fire and Blood
Author: George R.R. Martin
Grade: B-

Falling in love with a fictional society is pretty easy - lots of people have done it. But it takes a very specific kind of personality to become truly fascinated by the history and backstory of that society. These are the kinds of people who don't just care about Kings X, Y and Z who show up on screen or on the page - no, they want to know all about Kings A-W, their wives, their wars, their evil ministers and even the non-royal lords and ladies who populated their courts.

Which is to say there's undeniably an audience for Fire and Blood, George R.R. Martin's history of the Targaryen dynasty, which ruled Westeros for about 300 years before the events of A Song of Ice and Fire, Martin's justly popular series of fantasy novels that spawned the HBO mega-hit Game of Thrones. For those readers or viewers who just enjoy Daenerys and her dragons or Jaime's redemption arc or Tyrion's wit, however, Fire and Blood might have limited appeal.

Martin always took a somewhat patchwork approach to sketching in the backstory of his universe - he would occasionally joke that he'd likely lose a trivia contest to particularly devoted fans. Westeros had lore, but it always felt more instrumental than comprehensive - it existed to provide context for the story being told. The Targaryens had a history so Daenerys could have a history. There was a story behind Robert's Rebellion so that the relationship between Ned Stark and Robert Baratheon could have weight and texture. And so on and so on. There was no sense that Martin's universe had a carefully written history dating back thousands of years, and that was fine - the story he was telling was compelling enough as it was.

Fire and Blood isn't Martin's first attempt to fill in the details of his universe - The World of Ice and Fire, written in collaboration with super fans Elio Garcia Jr. and Linda Antonsson, takes a more comprehensive approach to the whole of Martin's world, while Fire and Blood is a more detailed narrative focused specifically on the reign of the Targaryens. Fire and Blood begins with Aegon Targaryen and his two sister-wives bringing their dragons to the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros and conquering the land with...well, you know the title of the book.

There's a framing device here: Fire and Blood purports to be the first volume in a chronicle written by one Archmaeter Gyldayn, with Martin a mere transcriber (in typical Martin fashion, the book got a bit out of hand, and what was supposed to be one volume became two, with the second yet to be written and presumably years away from release). It's a bit of an affectation, but it gives Martin a chance to have a little fun - the "author's" commentary makes him a bit of a character (albeit a prissy, judgmental one), and there are some genuinely interesting passages where Gyldayn wrestles with the necessity of synthesizing multiple unreliable narratives into a single, comprehensible account. This is the kind of thing - bringing realistic questions of history and governance to a fantasy narrative - that Martin has always excelled at, though the conceit of the Maester's chronicle does render some of the long passages of dialogue a little out of character.

Anyone who has read through histories of European dynastic struggles can tell you just how tangled and confused they quickly become, and Martin's fictional history of the Targaryen dynasty is no exception. Things become muddled almost immediately after Aegon the Conqueror dies. There are surely readers who can easily differentiate in their minds between Queens Alicent and Alysanne and between Rhaenyra Targaryen and Rhaenys Targaryen. And there are surely readers who can remember the hopelessly intertwined family relationships that run through the narrative. The rest of us, however, have to flip back and forth from the family tree in the back of the book, and even that is only so helpful.

The fact that Fire and Blood has loads of characters with complicated relationships to each other isn't necessarily fatal. "Loads of Characters With Complicated Relationships to Each Other" is basically the subtitle to Game of Thrones.

But Fire and Blood lacks the key ingredient that made A Song of Ice and Fire so compelling: a sense of character.

A Song of Ice and Fire is, essentially, an attempt to complicate the basic narrative of both history and fantasy. The easy story is, "And so Robert the Brave overthrew the Mad King Aerys Targaryen with the aid of his loyal and honorable friend Eddard Stark and all in Westeros lived happily ever after under the new king's just rule." But what if Robert the Brave is a good soldier and a crummy king? What if Ned Stark is so loyal and so honorable that it ends up getting him killed?

Martin's novels succeed because he writes characters, not just names in a family tree. They're complicated and they're compelling, and so they're easy to remember even when the sheer number of them can get a little overwhelming.

Fire and Blood, by contrast, throws a staggering number of names at the reader without ever really bothering to build characters around them. Kings and queens, princes and princesses, old men and children who die in their cradle - they're introduced, their basic personalities are conveyed in a sentence or two and then they just become another set of names that occasionally show up every few pages.

As a result, there's no real drama in the book's story, and not just because the outcome of the Targaryen squabbles is foreordained. It's hard to care who wins The Dance of Dragons - the cutesy name given to the brutal civil war between rival Targaryen claimants, over Archmaester Gyldayn's amusingly fussy objections - when the two principal characters, Aegon II and his half-sister Rhaenyra, are so flatly drawn and unmemorable.

And this dynamic is even more noticeable when the book turns away from the royal family and starts naming other lords and ladies. It's essentially impossible to keep track of which house is on which side of the Dance, for example, and scenes set at the royal court lack any real personalities. Tywin Lannister is one of A Song of Ice and Fire's best characters, a brilliant, ruthless, relentlessly competent individual who is the best kind of villain - the kind who could make for a compelling protagonist in a point of view-flipped version of the story. There's no one like him in Fire and Blood, no endlessly fascinating character to keep the audience's attention when the focus turns away from the Iron Throne.

Much of Fire and Blood, then, reads like an (admittedly erudite) college student's term paper on The Wars of the Roses - a chronological record written with no real passion or verve that manages to successfully name all of the participants without making a case for why the reader should care.

None of this is helped by the competent - but uninspired - illustrations from Doug Wheatley, who mainly serves up a series of generic blond Targaryens and indistinguishable dragons.

There are, to be sure, some exceptions. Mushroom the Fool, one of the sources from whom Archmaester Gyldayn draws his information, comes off well, eventually earning the Archmaester's grudging respect. And Corlys Velaryon, lord of a house that's essentially a side branch of the Targaryen family tree, is drawn well enough that the reader comes to respect his dignity and honor, though this is perhaps a reflection of the character's age and the fact that he hangs around for five monarchs and a few hundred pages.

And Martin has not lost his eye for grand tragedy. The most compelling material in Fire and Blood is a long, detailed account of a massive, days-long riot that consumed King's Landing, culminating in a mob storming the Targaryens' beloved Dragonpit and, in a fit of religious frenzy, killing all five of the dragons housed there. It's a beautiful piece of writing, one that manages to capture both the epic scale of the rioting and the intensity of the dragons' final moments.

Still, though it checks in at 736 pages, Fire and Blood ultimately feels like a profoundly lightweight experience, a curiosity of interest to only the most devoted Song of Ice and Fire completionists. There are real charms here - Martin is too good to write a book without a few. But in removing the human element from this story, and turning it into a mostly dry chronicle of names and events, Martin has drained much of the fire and blood from Fire and Blood.

Jason Mendoza belongs in The Bad Place. And that's a problem for The Good Place.

The Good Place wrapped up its extraordinary second season a couple weeks ago, and the show deserves all of the hosannas that have been thrown its way since. The Good Place is really nothing less than the best sitcom on TV - Michael Schur, his writing team and the remarkable acting ensemble assembled for the show have created something truly delightful.

But The Good Place has always been interested in doing more than just telling jokes, even if it's pretty damn great at that. A sitcom can't be said to succeed unless it's consistently funny, and if a sitcom is consistently funny it can't be said to fail. But that doesn't mean it's humorless or unfair to raise questions about other things a show offers.

And that's particularly true for The Good Place, which from day one has - with great skill - grappled with the big problems of moral philosophy and asked difficult questions about the nature of human betterment and how the motives of self-improvement affect its morality.

And the show has a very clear answer to those questions. You can pretty fairly sum up the show's philosophy with Michael's impassioned speech in the season finale:

"Because of my accidental experiment, these four humans got better. After they died. That's not supposed to be possible. Over and over again I watched as they became thoughtful and generous and caring...."

It's a good speech, and Ted Danson sells the hell out of it. It's a wonderful sentiment, beautifully expressed, and it serves as a succinct mission statement for a wonderful show.

It's also kind of bullshit.

Oh, it's not all bullshit. In fact, it's mostly true. It's true of three of the four humans Michael is talking about. Hell, it's even true of eternal Siri analogue Janet, whose character arc has been one of the show's great successes.

But it's bullshit when it comes to Jason Mendoza, the lovable dolt played with such skill by Manny Jacinto. Because to put it bluntly, Jason isn't better. He hasn't improved himself. In fact, Jason's pretty awful.

None of that is a reflection on Jacinto, who has been a revelation in the role. But there's an extent to which Jacinto's performance, which has brought a real depth of emotion to what could have been a one-note dirtbag role, has hidden his character's lack of development, and how that static characterization undermines - at least in some measure - the show's driving ethos.

To use the clickbait-y title I rejected but am not too proud to break out here, The Good Place has a Jason Mendoza problem.

Every other member of our charming foursome has, indeed, shown the improvement Michael raved about. Eleanor has taken huge strides to make herself a better person. Chidi has embraced a measure of decisiveness. Tahani has found self-awareness and (a little bit of) humility.

So it's weird that, in his big speech to the immortal Judge, Michael highlights Jason's supposed improvement, saying "And now he's so much better." It's weird because Jason isn't better.

Jason's the same guy he's been since his true nature was revealed in the first season. And that's a guy who - in his pre-rigor mortis days - would:

• Chuck empty spray paint cans at flamingos
• Sell fake drugs to college students
• Exhibit entirely too much passion for Molotov cocktails 
• Get himself killed trying to commit robbery

Of course, you could put together a similar list for Eleanor, who made her living telemarketing fake pharmaceuticals to senior citizens. The difference is that we've seen Eleanor evolve over the course of two seasons - above all else, we've seen her grow to regret her life and her decisions and to recognize her moral failings. We've seen her try to become a better person. 

Can we say that about Jason? I don't see how. He's positively proud of the flamingo assault ("When I was six, I hit one right on the butt!"). In "Rhonda, Diana, Jake and Trent," which saw the group briefly invade the actual Bad Place, Jason doesn't just get along with the demons he and Chidi have to interact with - he gleefully bonds with them, connecting in a way that's too earnest for the largely guileless Jason to fake. 

Jason is not a more thoughtful character than he was when we first met him. He's not a kinder person than he was when we first met him. He is fundamentally unchanged from the person he was when the series starts.

What we've heard about Jason's life, and what we've seen of him in the afterlife, doesn't paint the picture of evil or even maliciousness. But there's no great normative benefit to hurting people through thoughtlessness. 

This isn't just complaining about a fictional character's personality flaws - these flaws speak directly to the theme of the show. It doesn't necessarily undermine the idea at the heart of The Good Place to say that Jason has never improved as a person - three out of four ain't bad, after all. But when your North Star is the concept of betterment, of self-improvement and the power of human connection to spur positive changes in our lives, you need to at least grapple with the reality that a quarter of your data set doesn't fit the narrative.

Or, at the very least, your characters shouldn't act as though Jason's improvement is a self-evident thing. There's simply a huge dissonance between The Good Place's conception of Jason and the reality of the character as shown on-screen. 

This particular failure isn't fatal - even great shows have flaws, and The Good Place is undeniably a great show. But Jason's static characterization stands out - not just because every other element of The Good Place is so well done, but because character development is an intrinsic part of the show's DNA. It's arguably what the show is about, in a fundamental sense. 

The Good Place has earned the trust of its viewers - it has surmounted every hurdle that its premise and narrative would seem to suggest. If, two seasons in, the worst thing we can say about it is that one character is more a well-acted amusement than a dynamic human being, that speaks volumes about the show's quality. 

Still, as we look forward to a much-deserved third season, the big outstanding question for The Good Place isn't narrative in nature - we know Schur and company will handle that part fine. Instead, the big question is how - and if - the show will be able to reconcile its perception of Jason with the reality of the character.