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No.
And maybe there are people with the wit to realize that screwing up technical details can take people out of a story. And with just a tiny bit of extra effort, things like that can be fixed, so why not get it right?
Except that doesn't tally with what the characters say. In season one, I think it was Robert Baratheon who said the Dothraki would beat any army in the field, and Jaime said they'd beat any army he'd [i]ever[/i] seen -- not just armies that had been worn down by years of war.
And as I said, there's actually nothing about them, as we see them on the screen, that justifies that assessment. The show's technical advisors could have done a much better job here.
Even if she were into him, she'd set him aside same as she did Daario, and for the same reason. She has to make a marriage that will bring her advantage, and a disinherited, dishonored knight with no money, no army, no political influence, etc. brings her none.
I think Jorah knows, deep down, that his love for Dany will remain unrequited. She loves him as a loyal friend and counselor, but she's not attracted to him.
"As for what Gendry could bring - the Barathenon name, a symbolic recognising of the past and yes nice horseshoes because even if he had no fighting skills the Dothraki would probably respect a man who has the ability to arm warriors and ensure their steeds were fit for battle. Smiths are probably the only men outside warriors they do respect."
Sorry, but Otter is completely right. Gendry brings [i]nothing[/i] to a marriage, and by the time he might possibly someday bring something -- a really big if -- the war would be over and won, and then what does she need him for?
The whole point of a marriage will be that it brings her advantage. Gendry brings none. He doesn't have the Baratheon name, and even if he did, it's pretty much universally recognized that while Robert was a great warrior, he was a lousy king who hardly bothered to rule, and spent the crown deep into debt with the Iron Bank. In short, he is NOT a ruler of blessed memory whose legacy anyone would be keen to preserve.
Gendry is not a warrior, which will make a negative impression on the great lords of Westeros, who are a warrior aristocracy, remember. He has no education, no courtly manners, no money, no army, no respect, etc. Dany would be marrying a man who brings her nothing useful for the war, and whom the warrior aristocrats of Westeros would universally regard as a jumped up clodhopper with dung still on his boots.
No, sorry, this is a complete non-starter. Practically ANY wealthy noble in Westeros would be a more advantageous match.
And Jon is a better match than any of them. Dany is a Targaryen, so the incest angle is no deterrent, given her family history. Jon has a kingdom and an army. Marrying him may also be the ONLY way to bring the North back in, since they've rejected rule from the South.
They shouldn't even be able to win with [i]superior[/i] numbers. Their weapons aren't good enough, and the lack of armor would leave them way too vulnerable. I don't recall even seeing shields among the Dothraki. It is literally no exaggeration to say that a Westerosi knight in full armor could slaughter ten or more of them on the field, take a break, then go back for more, as long as he could get within reach. It reminds me of what I read about Spanish conquistadors in the new world, when they fought Aztec and Inca warriors. There were any number of engagements when the Spanish (and their native allies) fought battles, and individual Spanish conquistadors, wearing steel armor, and wielding steel swords, would charge into formations of enemy warriors, and just kill and kill and kill until they were exhausted. Their steel swords would pierce the quilted cotton armor the Aztec or Inca warriors wore, but the native weapons, obsidian-tipped spears, or obsidian-edged mācuahuitl were unable to penetrate the steel armor worn by the Spaniards. Consequently, each Spaniard was able to kill many, many opponents, while staying safe under the protection of his armor (as long as he could avoid getting surrounded and pulled down by sheer numbers).
Any clash between Westerosi and Dothraki would actually go something like that. Westerosi knights have equipment that is so much better, they should have a kill ratio of ten to one or better. And as I said, the Dothraki would be utterly unable to break well trained, pike-wielding infantry. They simply don't have the weapons they'd need to do it.
I think they liked it because it makes a Jon/Dany union look more likely (she seems to be growing to like him), and it also puts Jon, Jorah, and the Hound -- three of the show's best loved characters -- together for a dangerous mission. In short, it's the anticipation factor. People like the episode not so much for what it shows, but for what it's teasing us with.
The funny thing is that Shelly is talking to her daughter about getting out of a toxic relationship, as she is leaping into one. Red is a drug dealer (though in fairness, I'm thinking Shelly doesn't know it yet). Shelly is the poster child for women who pick bad men. When she was young, she fell for Leo Johnson, who was an out and out scumbag. When she woke up to what human garbage he was, she fell for Bobby, who back then was a pretty much a punk. Now that Bobby has seemingly straightened himself out and turned into a solid citizen, she's lost interest and is falling for yet another bad boy.
No wonder her daughter has fallen for another shitbag. The apple clearly doesn't fall far from the tree.
I agree. This is one of those movies I remember seeing [i]all the time[/i] on HBO in the '80s (a couple of others were "Looker" and the original "Clash of the Titans"). I think one of the reasons HBO ran those movies endlessly is because they really were genuinely entertaining and people liked them. They weren't movie magic, like "The Godfather" or "Dr. Strangelove" or "The Searchers" or "Singin' in the Rain," but they were just good, watchable films that people generally enjoyed (and were not as expensive to get the rights to as the masterpieces).
This is a film that I really do think only suffers because of comparison to a much beloved predecessor. I'm convinced that if there had never been the "The Sting," the Redford and Newman classic from 1973, and this exact same movie had been produced, it would not be so maligned today. It wouldn't go down among the greats, of course, but it would have been judged purely on its own merits, and would be remembered as a good, if unspectacular period film.
I thought Jon did pretty well himself when Dany came at him very haughtily with that "what does perpetuity mean?" business, demanding his loyalty. He basically came back with "oh, yes, let's talk about who's owed what shall we? For my part, I'd certainly argue that when your father burned my grandfather and uncle alive, he pretty much absolved our house of its loyalty to the Targaryens. Yes, I'd have to say that betrayal and murder [i]cancels[/i] loyalty." Dany backpedalled pretty hard when he brought that up.
How can you be talking about real life? Doc Holliday [i]didn't[/i] kill Ringo in real life. Court records Pueblo County, Colorado, show that Holliday was in Colorado at that time of Ringo's death. Buckskin Frank Leslie is a much better suspect if you suspect homicide, but Ringo's death was officially ruled a suicide, seeing as Ringo's boots were off (tied to the saddle, which people commonly did when making camp, to keep scorpions out), and he had a gunshot in the temple, and was found with his finger in the trigger guard of his own revolver, with one round expended.
The problem wasn't that they cancelled the show too late, the problem was the network essentially fired the Jonathan Steinberg, who'd developed the series in the first place and turned it over to Matt Miller, who then screwed it up (they kicked Steinberg upstairs to an executive producer position and put Miller in his place as showrunner). If they'd left it alone, and let the series grow on its own, with its original creative mind in charge, there's no reason season two couldn't have been as good or better than season one was.
You're forgetting that the political system of the show is heavily based on medieval European style monarchy. Marriages of alliances were the usual thing. And it makes eminently good sense from Dany's point of view. John Snow is King in the North. The North is declaring independence. She was going to command him to bend the knee, but with the loss of her fleet, she's suddenly in a much weaker position and may need him and the North as an ally now, and can't afford to offend him needlessly by being too imperious. Perhaps she could conquer the North, after dealing with Cersei, but that would involve war, bloodshed, and forever standing less than steadily on the necks of a Northern population that is ever resentful and filled with hatred for the foreign invaders.
Or she can join the North to her realm as a willing ally, by marrying its king. Think of Ferdinand and Isabella marrying and joining the separate kingdoms of Castille and Aragon to make what is now the united country of Spain.
Yeah, I had the same problem with that scene. Yara's fleets don't have lookouts? And Euron has a radar set, so he could unerringly find Yara's fleet in the dark?
I find it exceedingly strange that Dougie's wife, boss, coworkers, and everyone else he deals with don't seem all that unduly put out by the fact that they're dealing with rain man.
This wasn't the only movie to make that mistake. John Ford did it in "My Darling Clementine" when he made Holliday an M.D. (from [i]Boston[/i] no less!). But Randy Quaid was totally miscast in the role. He acted the part well enough, but physically, the slightly portly McQuaid was as wrong for the part of the skinny, tubercular Holliday as he could have been.
And it's a nice touch how D'Hubert, who was so reluctant to duel, and so visibly nervous, on their previous encounter, so readily accompanied Ferraud away to duel this time -- even though this was explicitly forbidden by their [i]code duello[/i] (their nation was at war, and they were actively on campaign, so it was not permissible to engage in their own private quarrel under the circumstances). Feraud was such a fanatic for revenge for his supposed wrong that he didn't care about such things, but I think the reason for D'Hubert agreeing so readily was that he was almost actively seeking death in that moment. The campaign in Russia was so awful, the conditions so appalling, with the bitter cold and lack of food so acute, and death so omnipresent, that D'Hubert was almost ready to welcome death as a blessed release from a suffering grown almost intolerable: whereas before he'd been afraid of it.
I don't think so. I think Doc was just better, and Ringo basically always knew, or at least feared it. You can discern this from three key scenes. First is when Ringo meets Doc for the first time and they taunt each other in Latin. Then Ringo starts twirling his pistol -- he's posturing, trying to impress everyone, including Doc. But Doc, signally unimpressed, mocks him by contemptuously mimicking his gun twirling with the tin cup he was holding.
The second time is the "play for blood" scene, right after the Gunfight at the OK Corral, when an extremely drunk and angry Ringo tries to pick a fight with Virgil, Wyatt, and Morgan, and Holliday steps up when they refuse to take the bait. Ringo's anger and intoxication are both great enough to brush aside his usual caution at provoking the only man around with a reputation as a gunfighter as great as his own. He has to be saved by Curly Bill and the other Cowboys, who realize that Ringo's about to commit suicide; even if he is as good as Doc, he couldn't possibly take him in this condition.
The last is when Ringo challenges Wyatt, and Doc shows up in his place. Wyatt felt honor bound to accept the challenge, but Ringo, Wyatt, and Doc had all been sure that Wyatt wasn't good enough to prevail. So Ringo expects easy prey when he sees who he thinks is Wyatt approaching, but the cocky grin is wiped right off his face when he realizes it's Doc instead. When Doc makes it clear Ringo has has him to deal with first ("we started a game we never got to finish"), the now sober Ringo [i]actually tries to back down[/i]. "I was just foolin' about" he says. "I wasn't" replies Doc, and that's it. Ringo's no coward. When he realizes Doc isn't going to let him back out, he steps right up, but the fact that he did want to back out tells me he wasn't sure he could take Doc. I think the badge just demonstrated Doc was determined to have it out, and no fear of legal repercussions was going to hold him back.
I agree. It hurts suspension of disbelief. I know exactly why they do this: they want lots of cool chase scenes and fight scenes, and they need lots of disposable villains for this. But it's too over the top, and as I said, it hurts suspension of disbelief. This movie is by no means the only offender in this regard. The Netflix Marvel TV series, while pretty good overall, have this exact same problem: NONE of the bad guys ever run. Not one. Ever.
Bullshit!
There's a scene in the Luke Cage series where the titular hero steamrolls through a gang hideout, while listening to Wu-Tang Clan on his Ipod (why do film makers think it makes a hero more badass to listen to a personal soundtrack while fighting? They did it with Jessica Biel in the third blade movie, and they had the hero do it in that cheesy '80s action movie "Iron Eagle"). In this scene, these thugs just watch Luke Cage, who is bulletproof and super strong, tear through their club house like the fucking Terminator, they can't so much as put a scratch on him. And they ALL keep coming?
Bullshit!
DOZENS of these idiots keep right on advancing, guns blazing. [I]Every one of them's[/i] got this "I'ma fuck you up!" expression on his face too. They've watched him literally tear through the structure of their building with bare hands; they've watched soak up bullets to NO effect, but not ONE of these assholes sees all this, realizes that little "nine" in his hand might as well be a squirt gun, and says "hey, I just remembered somewhere I gotta be!"
Yeah, I don't think so. It was the same with Daredevil, when he tore through a biker gang headquarters after the Punisher blew up some of their bikes. He's not bulletproof, but again, DOZENS of bad guys, they see him put one after another after another after another of their buddies down with injuries that will leave them in intensive care, and again, not ONE of them ever says "fuck this! I'm outta here!" It's too much.
Because even he wasn't immortal. His healing factor slowed his aging by a great deal, but didn't stop it. As he got older, the healing factor got weaker and less capable of regenerating damage. When he was younger, it was more or less capable of instantly regenerating damage from the poisoning caused by his adamantium skeleton. Once he got old enough, and the healing factor weakened enough, it couldn't fully keep up, and at some point, the damage from the poison began to build up affected his overall health to reduce his healing factor's capability still further -- a downward spiral of sorts.