editorialized torpedo

Wills do in fact exist in the world of Westeros. And more specifically they’ve been plot points in regards to chosen heirs. Robb Stark has an entire debate with Catelyn about choosing his heir. Sansa is ostensibly his heir with Bran and Rickon considered deceased. And yet Robb and Catelyn believe they can skip over Sansa by naming another heir. Why would they believe this possible if there isn’t precedent for a King choosing his heirs ?

“Young, and a king,” he said. “A king must have an heir. If I should die in my next battle, the kingdom must not die with me. By law Sansa is next in line of succession, so Winterfell and the north would pass to her.” His mouth tightened. “To her, and her lord husband. Tyrion Lannister. I cannot allow that. I will not allow that. That dwarf must never have the north.” 

“No,” Catelyn agreed. “You must name another heir, until such time as Jeyne gives you a son.” She considered a moment. “Your father’s father had no siblings, but his father had a sister who married a younger son of Lord Raymar Royce, of the junior branch. They had three daughters, all of whom wed Vale lordlings. A Waynwood and a Corbray, for certain. The youngest... it might have been a Templeton, but...”

“Arya’s gone, the same as Bran and Rickon, and they’ll kill Sansa too once the dwarf gets a child from her. Jon is the only brother that remains to me. Should I die without issue, I want him to succeed me as King in the North. I had hoped you would support my choice.”

We also know that even lords can also seemingly choose their heirs and even have stipulations for those heirs. Why ? Because it’s actually a plot point in The Sworn Sword. Rohanne Webber (Tywin Lannister’s paternal grandmother) is her father’s named heir but there’s a stipulation, she has to be married or she will lose her rights to inheritance and it will instead go to her cousin Wendell Webber:

“Her lord father’s will demands it. Lord Wyman wanted grandsons to carry on his line. When he sickened he tried to wed her to the Longinch, so he might die knowing that she had a strong man to protect her, but Rohanne refused to have him. His lordship took his vengeance in his will. If she remains unwed on the second anniversary of her father’s passing, Coldmoat and its lands pass to his cousin Wendell.”

How is that a possible stipulation that Rohanne takes extremely seriously if not for the fact that inheritance is not clear cut and can be overridden by a will ? And this evidences further that a Lord or King can choose their own heirs.

Maegor disinherited Jaehaerys and made Rhaena’s daughter, Aerea, his heir.

Jaehaerys went against Andal inheritance tradition to pick Baelon over Rhaenys.

The lords at the Great Council doubled down on that decision by picking Viserys over Laenor which Jaehaerys upheld.

Aegon III’s regents pick Rhaena as his heir over Baela, despite the fact that Baela is the elder twin, because she’s too willful and wild and won’t accept a marriage pact they made for her.

Jeyne Arryn picks a distant cousin to be her heir instead of a closer relative with more traditional claim, the King’s regents back her decision.

Aerys II picked Viserys to be his heir when Rhaegar’s son Aegon was the traditional choice.

Doran Martell planned to make his son Quentyn his heir because he wanted his daughter Arianna to be queen conosrt of the Seven Kingdoms, she doesn’t know this and just assumes he’s pick Quentyn over her.

Walder Frey talks about picking his unborn son as his heir over his dozen or so adult sons.

Rodrick Harlaw offers to make Asha his heir to stop her from participating in the Kingsmoot.

Stannis offered to make Renly his heir instead of Shireen.

I stopped thinking about B&C = red wedding because it seems like a ...Misinterpretation? because I don't think that would have ever happened on the show. What made RW so terrible how was it?

Emotional component: Helaena's pain and desperation, the brutality of the election and that the children have to present that.That component is gained with a. Screen time and/or. b. memorable scenes

hotD has already mostly failed in that aspect unlike Robb and Cat who we knew for three seasons and followed their story that already had a good emotional baggage . It's also not the first time they've failed in that regard, despite having enough "character-establishing" scenes I personally didn't feel invested enough in Luke to care about Luke's death. Helaena's children had even less than that and it took away some of the trauma that happens around

-scenography: HotD has a SERIOUS pacing problem since the first season and even when I think the music choices are well made to build tension it gets lost because the rest of the scene is not up to scratch. They take things from point a to point b without time for it to build and have weight for the viewer and the characters.We don't get to "live" the feelings of the scene, it's flat.

All good, but those are problems due to the script and direction, does that mean that being better written would be what the fans wanted?

I don't think either

If you see TG's posts, the comparison comes from that moment of great horror and pain, they were preparing to recreate how horrible the death of an innocent person was, the beginning of the war and that they were attacked in an environment that is considered safe. That level of horror is surely comparable to TRW?!

except that... No

This horror that comes from the loss of customs and traditions that should have kept the characters safe and that leads to a massacre... It is the death of Lucerys. It is Lucerys who was protected by his role as envoy just as Robb and his men were protected by guest rights.

There is also a deletion of the aspects that canon!book attributed to the death of Luke/visenya to give them to the death of Jaehaerys :

The war begins with the death of Luke, not Jaehaerys, no matter what the new trailer/Aegon wants to try to say.The first child victim of the war was Lucerys/Visenya, not Jaehaerys (and it must have been more obvious because Elliott was actually old enough to look like a child).The first mother to feel the pain and loss is Rhaenyra, not Helaena and Alicent. Luke's death doesn't justify B&C, but Jaehaerys' death justifies Rhaenys' death (just as Maelor's death apparently justifies a massacre). Somehow they (TG) end up writing in a way that makes me just hear Book!Alicent saying that bastard blood doesn't matter, because instead of judging both events as the tragedies they were (because neither was good) they want the justification to be victims and have the moral ground to attack and massacre (the same way TRW's brutality justified the whole "the north remembers" plot or Lady Stoneheart/Arya's massacre).

Everything that turned TRW into the horror that it was, fails in HotD both because of the script and accumulated flaws and because of a misunderstanding of what made the scene so horrible.I'm not saying that B&C wasn't horrible, but in the case of the fan analysis I'm looking askance because, once again, I see an erasure of the pain and history of the black to give it to the greens.

DNA doesn’t matter. If the father accepts the children as his, they’re legally his and have all the rights of inheritance. Period, full stop.

As far as the law of the land was concerned, Stannis, Renly, Balon Greyjoy, and Robb Stark were all illegal rebels. Ned literally had to falsify Robert’s deathbed proclamation to try and take the throne from Joffrey. In terms of the law of the land, he was trying to usurp the throne from the rightful heir.

Without a DNA test, the father’s word on whether or not his “children” are actually his children under the law is the final word. And Robert died before knowing the truth. Renly is dead. Stannis will never sit on the Iron Throne and die after murdering his only child. So who, in all of Westeros, has the legal authority to officially declare that Cersei’s children are not Baratheon ?

Also, let’s not pretend that Joffrey’s parentage had any impact whatsoever on Renly’s decision to try and seize the throne. He indicated that he didn’t even believe Stannis’s proclamation about Joffrey’s parentage, in their meeting at Storm’s End.

Arianne Martell went out of her way to crown Myrcella, never thinking or caring about the rumors of bastardy, and the only argument Arys Oakheart make to oppose her is ‘a son comes before a daughter’, not ‘she isn’t Robert’s daughter, she can’t inherit’.

Declaring someone a bastard is a classical way to usurp the throne. You can just make rumors about a person being a bastard, but as long as they’re born under their father’s name, it’s absolutely impossible to prove. Meaning it really is about how big your army and how competent your soldiers are.

In the words of Littlefinger in AGOT, it’s treason ‘only if we lose’.