Arsenic Lullaby Blog- Game of Thrones flaw explained with how the Grinch stole Xmas

not a perfect analogy, but none the less...

I'm not really a fan of Game Of Thrones, I've watched bits and parts, it's a well done show... just not my thing. I have been watching the final season, and I think my lack of emotional connection to the characters gives me a good perspective on what was or was not well written. In the most recent episode ( season 8 ep.5 ) there seems to be a sticking point for a lot of fans, an event people found to be a flaw or out of character.

I disagree. I have said before that there are people who have at some point put every once of their being into trying to accomplish something and people who haven't...and neither can truly understand the other. I think the disagreement on the GOT episode is an example of this.

I'm going to try to explain how that episode wasn't just not guilty of bad character development, but showed a fine understanding of a driven person.

Let me take you back to a classic cartoon- How the Grinch Stole Christmas- and we are going to put ourselves in the Grinch's shoes. He hates the holiday, and begrudges the Whos in Whoville for their celebration of it. "No one quite knows the reason" but let's say he has a justifiable reason, or at least one he can justify to himself. The point is the Grinch has a goal he is working towards and puts together a plan.

It's not a simple plan. It's complex, time consuming, challenging...requiring much skill and effort. He has to make himself a Santa suit.

Disguise his dog as a reindeer.

He sneaks into all the houses and steals all the gifts.

the candy.

the trees.

he takes everything related to the holiday

from every single house...in the dead of night...in one night...without waking everyone up.

It is a giant undertaking. It is time consuming. It required thought, drive, energy. and all of that was for a purpose. a climax. In his case it was to, from high above, hear cries, or at least silence the next morning...to have affected some dramatic change from what had been before.

But instead after a brief bit of shock or second of heartbreak...all the Whos carried on with their lives more or less unaffected.

Can you imagine the crushing anticlimactic disappointment this would be?

all that time and effort only to have little to no effect?

to get no visceral gratification?

You would have technically accomplished what you set out to do, by the letter of the law...if you wrote down the specific goals you would have checked off all of the boxes...yet you received no emotional gratification equal to your effort. No ying to the yang, if you will. No emotional release.

That is the pivotal moment we are talking about here.

The Grinch, as we know, had a change of heart and went down to celebrate with the whos.

...but again, consider ALL that went into trying to extract an outcome only to have it not amount to any satisfactory dramatic reaction equal to your efforts, your sacrifice, exhaustion, frustration. Most of us would not go the way of the Grinch...most of us, even most of the best of us would have gone this way.

It would be human nature, to not just walk away in peace after all of that which you put into reaching a climactic moment. To sit and accept the sum total of your efforts ending in not a bang but a whimper, is beyond the restraint most mortals have.

NOW, let's say...the reason the Grinch hated the holiday is that it reminded him of his family being murdered. Let's say the Whos promised to help him fight some monsters and never showed up..and those monsters murdered his friends right in front of him. Let's say the Whos shot his other two dogs with giant crossbows and the Who mayor chopped his best friends head off.

let's say that is what was going through his mind looking down on the Whos in Whoville who were about to continue on with their lives, more or less unmolested

so yeah...it is completely within her character and human nature itself for her to have laid waste to that city.