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Yes, it would still be better than a catastrophic civil war that killed thousands of innocent people. That's also completely beside the point, their personal happiness is not correlated with the moral value of feudal engagement contracts or the moral cost of breaking them. No, this is not me arguing that she would be perfectly happy with Rhaegar if only it wasn't for the war. Robert-Lyanna and Rhaegar-Lyanna do not exist in a mutually exclusive binary of happiness. Both of these relationships can suck and end in misery for all parties involved in their own different way.

The subject at hand is the personal relationship potential of a normal marriage between Robert and Lyanna. Waaaaay too many people seem to have swallowed Robert's manic pixie dream girl delusions regarding Lyanna and in what I can only describe as anti Targ fervor, contrarianismed themselves into the position of saying "ackchyually they would happy if only Lyanna just gave Robert a chance, Ned is wrong".

Yeah. Nah. Allow me to explain why.

Let's start from the biggest basis for this "happy with Robert" fantasy that comes up in every discussion. AFFC chapters of Cersei mentioning how Robert invited her to hunts and various outings during their early marriage which she hated and eventually snapped back at him, causing a fight and Robert giving up on inviting her anywhere.

The common interpretation of these are that Robert was trying to build a relationship with her but Cersei just didn't appreciate his efforts and Lyanna would love to be outdoors. Sounds about right. Except, of course, all these activities Robert kept pestering her to join were all things Robert enjoyed and would do on his own anyway. Robert can't be arsed to find out what Cersei wants. He can't be arsed to ask her neither. He just tries to drag her along to what he wants to do and what happens when Cersei eventually gets fed up? He beats her. And then never bothers to connect with her again.

This isn't a case of Robert showing attention to Cersei which is ungratefully fails to reciprocate. This is Robert half assedly pushing his wife around and then flipping his shit when she says enough. Robert does as he pleases and if people don't wanna accommodate him, he turns hostile and drops them like a hot potato.

And this behavior isn't unique to his interactions with Cersei. Robert does this to everyone. His brothers, his friends, his advisors. There is a reason he is surrounded almost exclusively by lickspittles, traitors and Lannister spies in AGOT, and it's not because he is oh so caring about other people's concerns and interests. People who don't care for his wellbeing have no problem indulging him and telling him what he wants to hear, and in turn are indulged by him. Meanwhile anyone trying to raise legitimate issues or push back on his hedonistic nonsense becomes persona non grata.

An entire council, almost all them knew he was being cuckholded, his own brother included and no one can dare tell him. Why? They know he won't listen.

People also extrapolate from these Cersei chapters and Robert's overall interest in hunting and hawking that Robert wanted an athletic, outdoors type girl, a "not like other girls" type instead of the more "traditionally feminine" Cersei and since Lyanna is supposed to be exactly that, they would work out.

Except, we do know the kind of women Robert likes to be with, and they are not anything like Lyanna. And no, I am not just talking about the fact that overwhelming majority of them are serving wenches or prostitutes who cannot say no to him even if they wanted to.

From serving girls at the Eyrie to coy widows of his vassals to virgin nobles to whores, they are all cheerful, eager to please and admiring of him. Precisely none of those traits are present in Lyanna.

Lyanna as we know her is wild, confrontational and willful. She rushes to fight the squires attacking Howland Reed, she pours a cup of wine over her own brother's head for a simple jest, she refuses to let go of the grudge against the squires and escalates to the point of joining the tourney as a mystery knight and then elopes with a married man with kids instead of marrying her bethrothal arranged for her. She is hotheaded, proud and stubborn.

Do you know who else is hotheaded, proud and stubborn? Someone confrontational and willful? Cersei.

There in lies the main confusion regarding Robert. Cersei is such an evil piece of shit, such a deranged psychopath, it colors people's perception of their marriage. Cersei is cuckholding him, cheating on him constantly, trying (and eventually succeeding) to kill him. But Robert doesn't know any of that. No, just because he doesn't know, doesn't mean he wasn't harmed by it. But the point isn't "harm". It's behavior.

And what he doesn't know, cannot inform it. Robert doesn't resent Cersei because of her bastards. He isn't beating her because she is cheating on him. He is doing it because she talks back at him, makes demands of him, gets in his face and pushes back. And for that, he beats her.

As far as Robert is concerned, Cersei is an exceptionally beautiful woman who bore him 3 healthy children including 2 sons. Her father is bankrolling his hedonistic spendthrift lifestyle. And he beats her and resents her because "She is nagging me Ned. She is so annoying Ned. She is so uppity Ned".

What happens when Lyanna talks back at him? When she confronts him about his drinking? When she doesn't wanna go to the Estermonts'?

Some apologists hide behind the excuse that Robert only became like that after the war, but as far as we know from AGOT, his vices have always been there. Robert was a serial philanderer and drunkard long before the rebellion. He was just in his teens, keeping him fit. He didn't "gain" new bad habits post war via PTSD. He just got older and his metabolism stopped bailing him out.

"Oh if Robert wasn't king he would be fit!" There was nothing stopping him from keeping a proper training regimen. He literally has zero authorities above him, he could just spar with his KG every morning and could choose to eat less. And as the Lord of Storm's End, he wasn't going to have any less autonomy in his personal life. The King doesn't bother pestering his vassals about their weight. Iron Throne doesn't have fitness tests for Lord Paramounts.

"Oh, but he would be able to join tourneys and that would keep him fit!" First of all, there aren't enough tourneys in not 10, let alone 1 westeros to spend all those calories. And tourneys aren't modern Olympics. There are no weight requirements. There are no rigorous health checkups he needs to make. He can be as fat and drunk as he wants and he wouldn't be denied entry as the Lord of Stormlands.

And neither hunting nor hawking are lazy hobbies. They require a lot of physical effort and yet, he was still severely obese.

Robert wasn't exactly "busy" running the realm. This isn't a guy locked behind a desk with mounting responsibilities which kept him from paying attention to his health, prevented him from exercising. He barely bothers holding court, attends small council meetings never. He was free to do as he pleased while all the real work fell onto his subordinates. And what did he choose to with his time? Whoring, drinking, eating, hunting, hawking. All hobbies he had long before there was any rebellion.

Robert's attitude in bed also deserves a mention, albeit a smaller one. He is a brute. He brutalizes Cersei from the very first. Lyanna might be super outdoorsy, but how willing would she be to ride around on horseback if she was mauled the night before with sores all over he body, maybe a tear in her vagina? How "receptive" will she be of Robert's attempts to "connect" with her when he keeps pinching her breasts to the point of near blood and blaming it all on alcohol when asked to "please stop hurting me?"

The argument always seems to be that "Robert wouldn't do that to Ned's sister." Yet Robert doesn't show no such care to Ned's children.

Robert believes in some magic from Lyanna that would fix all his troubles and a portion of the fandom also seems to think there is indeed some magic in Lyanna that's gonna give Robert a complete personality transplant.

Yet there doesn't seem to be any magic in this setting that can change a man's nature. Resurrections, dragons, undead armies, scrying, mental projections, mind control, prophesies and time travel galore, yet not one spell that can turn a man into a better one like a light switch.

The first 3 episodes of season 4 were extremely clunky. They changed too much, squeezed too many things together and the pacing was all over the place. But in a way, they kinda had to, to get the train going.

This new batch of episodes on the other hand, absolute bangers! 4, 5, 6 were all great, dare I say in ascending order. Episode 5 was just amazing but episode 6 had me at the edge of my seat the whole time. One single complaint: They wasted the Delilah reveal.

Too many things have been changed, and I fear this hostile retcon regarding characters' relationships with Gods will continue in order to make the shitty Campaign 3 plot fit in later in the animated universe; HOWEVER!!! What we got, is still great imo. Vex and Keyleth raging against the Raven Queen, THE DECK OF MANY THINGS!!! Taryon putting his shitty dad at his place.

Vecna arc is substantially changed and I wonder how they will handle the rest. Trailers made it look like we would get Scanlan's trial with the Ioun, so I hope they don't skip the trial of Gods. I need Pike to reconcile with Sarenrae damn it!!!! And that vulnerable heart to heart between Vax and Raven Queen.

The post credit scene completely fucking ruined Egg and Maekar's characters both, as well as the relationship among Egg, Maekar and Duncan. What an absolutely trashfire choice of writing.

The entire drama of season 1 started over Egg lying to Dunk. Ends with Egg lying to Dunk. He has learned nothing. ZERO character development, zero growth, he is still the same careless spoiled boy that he was in the first episode. Maekar deciding to let his little boy, his youngest son go become a squire for a hedge knight was a huge moment of character growth. All that princely pride, yet he still had seen the error of his ways and took a leap of faith in the hopes of a better future for his youngest. Completely erased. Egg is lying to Dunk, again. He is abusing his trust, again. The moment this deception comes out the relationship should be over.

And the people will defend this shit "oh it can be fixed later" no it cannot be fixed later. It is done. It doesn't matter if they later conjure up some contrived nonsense to "resolve" it, the damage is done. It completely sucked out all the hype for future seasons from me. This show will go to shit too, just like GoT and Hotd.

"Muh book purists", damn right I'm a book purist. When has an asoiaf adaptation not gone to shit due to straying from the books? When? We already had this shit twice and fuck me, we are here for the 3rd strike. And I absolutely refuse, REFUSE, to give Ira Parker and this show the benefit of the doubt. I had already refused it with Hotd S1, which had started with Got S5 tier writing, and lo and behold, I was fucking correct.

"Oh but GRRM is happy about this season-" he was fucking happy about Hotd S1 too. He was happy about early Got. We all know those have ended. He had a meltdown at Hotd twice, first he spasmed at his Not A Blog, then gave a scathing interview completely denouncing the show as "not my story anymore". He was passive aggressive about Got S5 onwards and spent the last 6-7 years telling everyone how his ending will be significantly different.

It's the same story all over again. Early changes that actually severely damage the story and the characters, get ignored/defended because "muh adaptation cannot be 1 on 1". Fast forward 1-2 season, oh look, it's complete bullshit now!

The show already had bizarre changes so far: The stupidest prophesy of all time, Raymund and Lyonel's completely show only anti Targ derangement, and of course, cucking the Green Apple Fossoways into being secret Dondarrion bastards born of a whore, why not! But the ending completely ruins it.

The problem is once again that the show's producer are not actually interested in adapting the real work, much rather push their own fanfic. 2D were in love with the game that the highlords played, and couldn't be arsed to actually develop the magic and the threat of Others. Ryan Condal just wants a retarded lesbian fanfic with dragons in the background. Ira Parker is clearly more interested in writing a Robert's Rebellion prequel straight out of every Targ haters' wet dream rather than the story of Dunk&Egg.

Mark my fucking words, we will repeat the same pattern with this show as well. In a few years GRRM will once again have a meltdown on Not A Blog and give denouncing interviews about how disappointed he is that Littlefinger's- I mean Ryan Condal's protegee betrayed him and his story! Just in time to promote yet another HBO adaptation, this time set to ruin Aegon the Conqueror and his story.

So, apparently GRRM talked to these two about Summerhall and the ending of the story for their characters and told them Dunk survives Summerhall tragedy!!!!!!

6 minutes 28 seconds is where Dex starts talking about it.

I can understand GRRM didn't wanna tell an 11 year old kid (back during shooting he was 10-9) that his character was gonna die in a horrific fire. However, part about Dunk seems straight up fact. Which is not at all what's the currently "canonical" info we have on Dunk.

So does this mean at least one of the reasons the people who were there, including surviving Targaryens, don't wanna talk about it is because they don't wanna give away that Dunk lives??????

With AKOT7K going strong for now, fandom arguments around knighthood and morality have been reignited. Especially as it pertains to other famous/infamous knights of the series, specifically those carrying kingsguard cloaks. "Fraud of the morning", "Barristan the Bitch", "ackchyually Jaime did nothing wrong" etc.

Well, I think fandom is once again missing the point. It's quite obvious that the moral courage of Dunk is miles about westerosi median, including it's much esteemed knights. However, the point of the story isn't "look how good and awesome Dunk is compared to these other knights." Because Dunk, as a lowborn hedgeknight, does not hold his own fate, in his own hands.

One thing GRRM does consistently in his series, which has questionable historical authenticity, is how powerless his lowborn/peasants are. Aside from a few city riots that fizzle out the moment real soldiers show up, there are no proper peasant revolts in westerosi history, post or pre Conquest. He made the choice to depict his masses as utterly powerless, in a way irl medieval European peasantry wasn't. I am not here to litigate this choice. He has been accused of being an evil classist, he defended himself by saying historically the commoners have been powerless and without any real opportunity to rise up in the world during such times. I think he is merely ignorant of the true status quo of medieval Europe, as he has been shown to have many popculture misconceptions about the period elsewhere in both the novels and his interviews.

Once we accept the reality that this is how GRRM depicts his setting, the actual purpose of those characters and moments become apparent. Dunk is a true knight at heart and a good man with courage. He would do as he did, under any king, at any time. But his fate would depend on who is charge.

Dunk is lucky, because he lived in the eras of Daeron II the Good, Baelor Breakspear, Aenys I, Maekar the Anvil and Aegon V. All good people with a decent sense of justice and honor, if not neccesarily good kings.

Now imagine him in the era of Aerys II the Mad King. Well, Dunk would still stand up for the innocent as he did. But instead of being victorious in a trial of seven, going on to become a legendary knight and a kingsguard, he would be yet another nameless charred corpse. Aerys II burned who knows how many people, even highlords weren't granted a proper trial by combat by him, let alone anything else. He has no chance.

But the Mad King is a low bar. The guy is competing with Maegor for the title of worst king ever in post conquest era and dare I say, he is winning more than he is losing. How about other kings? Would he fare any better under Robert? He is supposed to be miles better than the Mad King. His ascension to the throne is literally through deposing him.

Well, does anyone remember Mycah the butcher's boy? He didn't even do anything. Joffrey was drunk, Arya tried to protect her friend and in the end? The entire drama revolved around which direwolf would get punished while Mycah's death didn't even register with anyone but Arya. Robert just wanted to be done away with all the bickering, ordered a random innocent animal killed and the actual human boy got even less grace than the beast. Ser Dunk in Robert's era gets cut down in half where he stands by the Hound and the story moves on.

I can think maybe Jaehaerys I actually gives him a similar if not grander chance than Dunk's original era did. The entire clownfiesta around Saera had started over her clique "pranking" the court fool Tom Turnip which Jaehaerys I and Alysanne both found worthy of litigating and investigating.

Viserys I? Lol no. Daemon gets away with diddling Rhaenyra, Alicent gets away with abusing her for a decade, Aegon II molests serving girls in front of him, Rhaenyra gets away with executing Vaemond and Viserys I cuts Vaemond's cousins' tongues when they go complaining to him. Whichever princeling gets their hands on Dunk, gets to do as they please.

Maegor? Lel. Aegon IV? LOL. Aegon the Conqueror? Well, it doesn't look like he bothered disciplining Maegor, neither did Visenya. Jaeharys II? Eeeeh, we don't know enough about him and Aerys II wasn't really bad back when he was alive, but I am leaning no.

How about other lords? I mean Targaryens are all evil incest lizard tyrants! Surely the lords of westeros will fare better for him!

Well, Ned Stark surely would treat him fairly. Jon Arryn? Nope. Tywin? AYYYY LMAO. Even if it was Tyrion that Dunk fought with and not the golden boy, he has no chance. Do not let Doran's abject lack of spine regarding Elia distract you from the fact that Oberyn repeatedly gets away with shit that he shouldn't get away with. Stannis? If Davos' circumstances is any indication, Dunk gets his hand and foot chopped off and then gets hired. Better than most, but still worse than what he got.

Would Rickard Stark or Hoster Tully give a shit? Doesn't look like either of them had any interest in the excesses of their sons, and the only think we do know Hoster to deal with, is him covering up the "family shame" by giving moon tea to Lysa.

And that, is the actual over arching theme. The real underlying message if you will. Those in charge will decide the fate of those who aren't. And for anyone trying to do good in the world, they need power. The bigger the good you're trying to do, more the power you need. And greater the power you wield, heavier the cost you will exact at every action.

Dunk gets to be a hero, instead of joining the ranks of countless nameless dead who had just as much good and courage in them, because he lived in the times where most power was at the hands of good men who tried to be just, imperfect as they were.

And the fandom reactions are hilarious.

Two most important parts are:

1) Where he confirms, like Frank Herbert with Dune, he is sick and tired of writing the main series. He still enjoys, and in fact prefers writing side stories within the setting, but finishing the main series has become a chore he doesn't wanna do. We will never get an ending from him, because he just doesn't wanna and will keep playing with other projects until the end of his time.

2) He hates HOTD and thinks it's hot garbage. LMAO THE VINDICATION!!! Yeah it's a retarded rhaenicent fanfic that has fuck all to do with the actual source.

Once again, an asoiaf show goes to shit, because producers deviate from the source and stop listening to GRRM. This isn't surprising of course, but the fandom trying to bitch at GRRM or try to play defense for producers are just honestly funny.

"Well, if everywhere you go smells like shit..." If he was the problem, the shows would suck when he was involved and then improve once he left. The exact opposite is happening. He is the one who wrote the original stories that we all liked and wanna see an adaptation of in the first place, so clearly whatever is wrong with the adaptation them is not from him.

People also seem surprised how openly and harshly he tears into Condal, something he never did and still doesn't do to 2D. But I think it's fairly understandable. 2D signed on to adapt a book series. GRRM failed to finish in time, so they got saddled with writing the ending even GRRM himself couldn't. They had their own lives, their own careers they wanted to pursue and didn't wanna get bogged down by it like GRRM was. They have a leg to stand on. They have an excuse. GRRM probably feels guilty and blames himself more than them over the trash fire ending of GOT.

Condal ain't got no such excuse. Dance of the Dragons is a complete story. We have it. All he had to do is follow what we a have and flesh it out into a more tv show format from a history book with biases format. Which is literally what adaptation always is. Instead he shoved in bazillion retarded extra scenes and completely butchered basically the entire main cast, Alicent and Rhaenyra the chief among them. It's not an adaptation, it is a travesty and all of it is willful choice.

There is another angle by the way, regarding asoiaf and GOT, which people are ignoring. Story expanded massively through AFFC into ADWD. Everyone is operating with the assumption that since we have only "2 books left", that this is the final stretch and the most of the story is over. However, from a purely narrative standpoint, we have at least 3 if not 4 books worth of plot left to explore, even if they maybe shoved into "2 books" in publication. AFFC and ADWD were supposed to be one book until they were split. The fact that GRRM has written 1100 pages for TWOW and still sits at best, in his own words, at 75%, means that TWOW will be, at bare minimum, 50% bigger than ADWD and as big as AGOT and ACOK combined.

Assuming ADOS is then a normal sized book for the series (all except ADWD so far has 600 to 800 pages) means we actually get 3 books worth of content in the last two. If ADOS is a behemoth like TWOW, then that's 4 books in 2.

All of this means we are, narratively, at the MID FUCKING POINT, of the story. Imagine you were a guy who signed up for adapting 7 books, 4 of them already published and 5th soon, and then when you reach the point where you will start working on the 4th-5th, you learn that actually you have 9 books to adapt, maybe 10. And the books, aren't even written yet, doubtful they ever will be. Yeah, it's understandable why they wanted to cut loose and move on to other projects.

This also means that when evaluating how much development a certain plot needs to reach its intended destination, you cannot use "we only have 2 books left" to argue it's too late. If it looks like you need 4 more books for that plot, well, that's how much writing left anyway.

Aside from those, the way he talked about the ending of GOT vs asoiaf is interesting, for the first time ever. Back when the show was freshly over and everyone was fuming, people asked/pestered GRRM and he repeatedly said, I'm paraphrasing, "Somethings will be different, certain characters dead in show are alive in the books vice versa, but more or less, yes this is the ending." Now his position is "my ending will be significantly different" with the point about character deaths standing. I wonder how much of it is just him changing his mind (gardener getting strangled by his weeds), and how much of it is him looking at how fundamentally different the execution is and deciding it doesn't count.

Because we know "King Bran" ending came straight from GRRM, 2D have repeatedly confirmed this as well as Bran's actor. But "Bran does nothing, his story is meaningless and then he is randomly voted king" is so utterly different than "Immortal Tree God Emperor who rules over time" a la "Immortal Worm God Emperor who rules over time" of Dune, that I understand if after 7 years, GRRM looked at that and decided "you know what, that's actually not my ending and I don't have to defend it."

I also liked how casually he dropped "I was gonna kill Sansa, but maybe I won't now because I liked her on the show" lmao. Never mind the part where he says he will kill way more people but not the ones in the show (WTF DOES THAT MEAN GEORGE!!!?!?!?!?) and that Tyrion is getting a tragic ending and the show ending was way too happy. AHHAHAHAHAHHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!!

I see a good chunk of the fandom melting down over Sansa part, and the immediate denial where they try to cope with it and, let me pour some cold water on that:

The last ever Sansa pov we got was in AFFC, which came out in 2005. The show started in 2011. This means that everything we have published by GRRM about Sansa, was written with her death in mind. So if you have read her story so far expecting her to live, let alone any kween in the norf plot, you were reading it wrong. Furthermore, any cope of "but we spent so much time with her" is moot. Because remember, we are only at the mid point of the narrative. She only has one more book than Catelyn.

But perhaps more importantly, this prove once again, that this fandom cannot actually predict this story. We keep jerking ourselves raw over how "subversive" this series is, how it avoids cliches or how it deconstructs the genre blah blah blah, but when it comes to speculating about the future of the story or its ending, everyone defaults back down to cliches and standard expected narratives. We might enjoy the twists and turns, but our brains are hardwired by a lifetime of generic fiction to assume certain things as if they are the most natural and logical conclusion.

"I cannot imagine a satisfying death for Sansa this late in the game!" No shit you cannot, you are not GRRM. Why did any of us ever assume we were somehow able to see through the plot? Why? Because we had a few individuals who solved some mysteries in the story? Not only those are not collective achievements, but figuring out what already happened is so much easier than predicting what will happen, I can only describe our smug assumptions as "hubris".

Just imagine this scenario: We get spoiled, before ASOS is published, that Catelyn and Robb are dying and the entire northern rebellion is ending in a single bloody ambush. How many of us would accept that? None. The answer is zero.

People would be coping and feverishly arguing about how it makes no sense. How it's "needlessly cruel". How it's "grimderp". Catelyn didn't have a satisfying pay off to her character arc. This is so anticlimactic. Why did we spend so much time with these characters if it was all gonna be over in one ambush and Lannisters win anyway? Blah blah blah.

Yet it happened and when it did, it blew everyone's minds. Literally no one saw Red Wedding coming, and we all got not only shocked by it, but afterwards consider it to be a perfect set up. A total hindsight is 20/20. Same goes for Ned's death way back in AGOT.

And of course it ended in the exact same way we all knew would end circa episode 50, what a shocker! Congrats, you have consolidated your IP and got rid off that pesky copyrighted pantheon from Wotc/Paizo. You have also destroyed what narrative coherence or internal logic your setting had along with it, but oh well! Business comes first.

And of course, the cannibalization of C1 by the C3 is complete. After gross retcons during the campaign itself, it wasn't enough for C3 to have a trashfire ending in and on itself, it had to go out of its way to sully the ending of C1 too. The tragedy, the organic live play consequences, the roll of the dice, the real choices, and the beautiful bittersweet ending that had came from all those... Gone to the wind in the history's most ham-fisted ending to a campaign ever.

After years of being what many considered to be the pinnacle of D&D gameplay, Critical Role finally gave a disaster class in what not to do:

A railroaded shitshow with zero consequences and no logic.

A cast stuck in decision paralysis because they were scared shitless of deviating from the DM's preplanned ending. A DM scared shitless of delivering any negative consequences whatsoever to his players. 121 episodes of painful slog through to a predetermined ending which they have utterly failed to justify and validate, yet nonetheless cannot abandon.

This entire campaign could have been a simple announcement on their main website. If they really wanted a story, Matt could have sat down with their writer friends and come up with a short story/novella/novel to explain how they got where they needed to go. Making it a long campaign has been a catastrophe.

What made Critical Role great, what made it a success and a brand in the first place, was that it was real D&D live play. Roll of the dice, improvisation, cooperation and chaos. This prerecorded, edited, railroaded mess with zero stakes ain't it. This is just a scripted show, and not even a good one.

Gone are the days where Sarenrae cut Pike off because Ashley was playing needlessly cruel. Gone are the days where Matt forced an alignment change on Vex because Laura was playing her as an obscenely greedy kleptomaniac. Gone are the days where Sam had to make a real choice between using a 9th level spell slot to Counterspell Vecna or casting Wish for Vax. Gone are the days Molly perma died because that's how the dice rolled.

Zero stakes, zero consequences. Nothing organic about this entire campaign, not one bit. The only reason FCG died, is because Sam wanted it to happen due to irl health issues. What a disgrace.

What's peddled as a grand cosmic reordering of the whole setting, instead has zero, and I mean ZERO, impact on the actual setting and how literally anything works.

And all the consequences that should arrive, never will. Because it cannot due to meta reasons. Not because there is any coherent, cohesive explanation as to why. Simply because it cannot. Because this is not a real story emerging from organic D&D play. This is a pathetic attempt at eating your cake and having it too. This could have been used to fundamentally revamp how everything worked from magic to death. This could have been used to change the game system. Instead nothing changes, because they cannot dare. If there is one word to describe this entire campaign, it's cowardice.

I see people around talking about future consequences and plot hooks for C4, and I cannot help but have a bitter laugh. Nothing will happen. Nothing can happen. No one in this story, player or NPC can ever question, challenge or undo what has been done. There will never be a push back in universe. There will never be anything remotely negative about this new status quo, no matter how logical and obviously apparent some may be. Because this is not an organic, natural, roll of the dice + player choice direction for the setting. This is a business decision shoved down our throats. Now the entire universe will just accept this and defend it brainlessly, because that's what the meta demands. Matt and the players will forever defend this mess and keep rationalizing the validity of this absurdity with complete seriousness, because they must.

And then there are people who are trying to glorify this abysmal show, because of the "message". I'm sorry, but a story validating your ideology and a story having good quality are completely irrelevant to each other. Never mind the fact that ideology and morality on display are rage filled, repulsive nonsense too.

Anti-god arguments never made sense. At their best, they are ungrateful whining about mortals being a top priority on a list, instead of being the only priority. Complete absurdity, when you remember mortals do not care about even each other to such degree, let alone showing such devotion to gods. Tyranny wank was even funnier. Gods never demanded worship or obedience, the cosmic protection they granted to whole planet was for everyone regardless of faith. Yet some in the fandom, and apparently the cast, thinks that unless gods exclusively serve the absolute interest of mortals to the exclusion of rest everything else, then it's bad and wrong. Where does that entitlement come from? No idea. Don't you dare ask how such an arrangement was supposed to work with free will either.

And of course the champions are now tasked with finding their gods or something because...? Why? Who the fuck cares? Since no power comes from them, and nothing needs them to function, why the fuck would anyone ever care? Well, no answer to that neither, because the real answer is "I wanna keep my setting as is, just without bothersome copyright issues." Alternatively, because Matt and the rest of the cast, simply do not understand how religion and faith works.

Lol at the people claiming to care about refugees and open borders screaming about "muh colonialism" against gods. Lol at people going "no one should have that much power" while simping for level 20 chars. Lol at the so called pro-LGBTQ community cheering for a forced transformation/closeting as a "solution" and a "salvation" for existing while an obsessive and power man doesn't like you. Lol at all the greedy, entitled, envy fueled psychopaths who think no good deed counts unless they personally profit.

In 2025, I don't know what a fantasy story could have done to be a worse anti-Semitic meta narrative, other than outright being about hooked nose bankers. Congratulations, you have forcefully converted a refugee minority under the pain of death. Their main crime was having more than the natives. Brilliant!

Aka Akasaka waiting until after the series has ended to start Akane's yandere arc is so perfect for this series...

In an ironic way, this is the most coherent and in character thing to come out of the entire ending. But the rest everything else is so hand-wavy and retconny, now this part looks like it belongs to another series. And indeed it does, considering this is from a post-ending light novel.

Akane walks away from acting and instead starts investigating occult!

Akane figures out that the Tsukuyomi girl is magical and capable of bringing back the dead!!!

AKANE INTENDS TO BRING BACK AQUA!!!!!!

Or at least keep pushing her investigation until she fully understands everything and doesn't mind if her path leads to hell. (After being warned by a literal god.)

Necromancer Akane, the true ride or die girl, the one who doesn't move on, fully giving into her Yandere powers. You go girl.

Those of you who will read Aka's next manga, I'm making a call now:

Is Aka self-aware about botching the ending? Or does he somehow think Aqua not asking for help is supposed to be part of the "noble sacrifice?" Probably the second.