#ttgot

If you play Mira as heroic and honorable, refusing to marry Morgryn is interesting and makes sense.

Now, if you want to play Mira as cunning and ruthless, accepting to marry Morgryn is a loss as well, and arguably a bigger loss than dying since you´re giving up your agency and freedom and even sort of betraying your House in giving its power and lands to Morgryn. You´re giving exactly what he wants and it is his biggest victory. Also, you sacrifice Tom. All for a extremely cheap price. Being a cunning backstabbing bastard should have had a bigger reward in King´s Landing.

Now, I wouldn´t have (much) problem with this ending if the writers posed this as a cliffhanger about Mira having the potential to out-smart him eventually and playing as her again, but since Mira doesn´t appear in the playable characters menu after the end of the final episode, it pretty much signals that´s a loss without hope for Mira, as well. And since we all know about how Telltale hands determinant characters, well....

It is especially a bummer since just about every important player says that Mira is cunning, smart, and dangerous. Cersei, Tyrion, Morgryn....

Margaery can even be oblivious to Mira playing her like a fiddle.

I guess it´s because I read somewhere that Mira was supposed to survive for >>three<< seasons, but other director wanted Mira to die, but want to give a choice about her surviving but at the cost of her agency and freedom. So yeah, Mira´s time as a player of the Game is severely undercut.

They shouldn´t have dropped Mira as a playable character so soon. Kings´s Landing is arguably the most important part since the wrong word or action can doom House Forrester than any battlefield could. But it can also save House Forrester. And who has the most personal stakes than Mira Forrester?

Imagina Mira experiencing events like Margaery´s arrest and Cersei becoming Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. The way I played Mira, she would absolutely betray Margaery and flee to Cersei´s side. It also helps that Cersei is the one who actually did something to help Mira in this game.

TDLR : Mira losing the Game was such a bummer to me, considering the political part of King´s Landing is arguably the most important part about saving or destroying House Forrester. Mira could have been the only hope for the surviving Forrester in a Season 2, but Mira surviving is arguably worse for the Forrester than her dead, so idk....one would think refusing Morgryn is actually the smarter choice, since it saves her House from another potential enemy and makes her "win" by ruining his plans...

thank you so much for this ask! unfortunately, i’m not the sort of person to debate the character endings in this way — i find pretty much every character’s ending ridiculous to varying degrees, and i know that this is largely due to outside factors in ttgot’s production. it’s not like the writers wanted to write the game this way, but executive meddling forced them to rush the plot, introduce new elements, and make characters die where they really didn’t need to. however, i do politely disagree with your claims here. i understand feeling frustrated that mira didn’t do more. i’m frustrated about that, too! but even in my rewrite of the game, i wouldn’t change this choice so much as i would change some of the circumstances around it. for mira to end up in this position is pretty inarguably stupid. morgryn, as a merchant lord with no lands, should not be able to hold influence over mira in the way that he does. there is no way that he would be able to just pardon her of her crimes and protect her from the lannisters. and mira refusing to marry him isn’t even really thwarting any plan of morgryn’s, because he wasn’t smart enough to court her in the first place. he wanted to kill her! she gave him the idea to marry her because he was so idiotic he couldn’t even rub two brain cells together to come up with the plan that probably any man or woman in king’s landing would consider the first course of action. not to mention that no matter how you play things, house forrester still has two surviving male heirs that would come before mira in the line of succession, and the whitehills are going to occupy ironrath anyway. morgryn would need to fight a war to win it back because of conqueror’s rights, and i mean … he can’t even buy a keep. where is he going to get an army like that? but the gripes presented here aren’t about the ludicrousness of the situation, but rather about the unfairness of mira’s ending. and as a ‘mira lives’ truther, i feel the need to defend it.

it’s important to me that the writers fought for this to be a determinant ending. execs wanted mira to just die, so to have a choice where she can escape execution is meaningful and adds a certain modicum of hope to her tale. by this point in production, everyone knew that ttgot wouldn’t be getting a season 2. and either way, no one on the executive team would let mira become a playable character, especially if she could die in the previous season. in my opinion, this ending is the writers’ way of saying, “we are giving you the reins to interpret mira’s fate as you wish, because we’re not allowed to do with her as we wish”. while yes, i agree that it would make a very interesting story for mira to survive for three seasons, i also wouldn’t change her marrying morgryn. though mira is cunning and smart and dangerous as you say, she does still have limited power in king’s landing due to her status as a northern woman, and with the political situation becoming more and more unstable, there’s no feasible way for mira to continue being in king’s landing, especially as margaery’s handmaiden, without creating continuity choices that would change got canon and subjecting mira to what i would consider basically torture. telltale has never been the sort of company that tries to rewrite canon. usually, they create ocs that they place within a canon world, with just enough canon interaction that it’s interesting but not so much that it would impact the narration of canon events.

i think its one exception would be tales from the borderlands, but even that is set post-canon, with mostly ocs, and with the explicit caveat that this is non-canon and kind of just for fun. it wasn’t telltale that made tales from the borderlands canon to the borderlands universe, it was the borderlands company that made that decision after seeing the massive success of the game. but with ttgot taking place in the middle of canon, there just isn’t a way for them to drastically change the events. mira’s inclusion in king’s landing has sort of always been doomed because of that — or, if not doomed, then destined to be cut short. i sincerely believe that mira was probably planned to have fled king’s landing, possibly with a marriage under her belt, at the end of season one. there just isn’t anything else for her to do there besides get hurt. even mira understands this; by the end of the season, she isn’t even trying to play “the game”, she’s just trying to escape king’s landing and go home relatively unscathed. i think she knows at this point that she doesn’t have many options left in king’s landing, with her only ally being a coal boy who’s being paid by someone to keep her safe and, at this point, is at his wit’s end trying to figure out how to do so with all the hot water she’s in.

and she can’t simply “flee to cersei’s side” because house forrester’s lands and assets are simply too valuable for the crown to pass up post-war. everyone would want forrester ironwood. everyone does want forrester ironwood. and cersei would not help mira truly, nor would she be able to do so. from this point on in the story, cersei becomes obsessed with margaery and becomes so sloppy about her plans that she gets herself arrested due to her paranoia about a prophesied young and beautiful queen. yes, i wanted mira to have more with cersei in game, but there’s no way that would be a long-term solution at all. one of margaery’s handmaidens tries this, and not only is she raped by cersei, she’s constantly aware that if she pisses cersei off or makes the wrong move, she will be sent to be tortured and experimented upon by qyburn in the black cells. it’s not exactly a great thing for mira to be cozied up to cersei, who is getting worse and worse, who struggles herself with gaining the power she wants, and is losing control of everything around her. not to mention, mira knows that everyone hates the lannisters and that cersei is, at the very least, rumoured to be in an incestuous relationship with her brother. why would mira think this is a good ally to be close to, especially at the risk of angering the tyrells and potentially even her own family?

but i can’t blame anyone for wanting mira to just be so very clever and cunning and to “win” at the broken system of king’s landing. after all, the game is based in show canon, and so much of mira’s arc suffers for it. i could rant for a long time about the show’s misogynistic writing, but for the sake of being concise, i’ll just say that female characters are much more complex and understandable in the books than in the show. there’s so much more of an emphasis on “girlbossing” in the show, or being cold and unfeeling and ruthless and sexy and whatever, and i think those sorts of traits contribute to boring, sexist writing. the books are feminist because they constantly explore the patriarchy of westeros and have women work within the constraints of their station to achieve their goals.

for this reason, i’d say that the game does the most justice by gwyn whitehill, who is the most interestingly written westerosi woman in ttgot and everyone can fight me about it. she is written to be a character rather than a woman, but the writers never strip her of her womanhood, either. it’s clear that gwyn still has some nostalgia, if not lingering romantic feelings, for asher, but that never defines her as a character. she is constantly disgraced by the forresters and branded a seductress, but there’s a certain understanding that this is ridiculous of them to do. of course gwyn and asher loved each other and were children who were victims of their family’s blood feud. gwyn’s motivations are her own as well — with her wanting peace not simply for asher’s sake, but for her fascination with the once-shared history between their families. she has influence with her father and is always angling for power in their dynamic, but she still is somewhat naive about what atrocities her father is capable of. like, she has reasonable flaws and she has reasonable successes. it would be stupid to say that gwyn “plays the game” and kills her father and gryff and just commands highpoint, because gwyn loves her family and doesn’t want that. and yet, when her family goes too far, gwyn allows asher to kill gryff right in front of her, and she’ll allow it because she’s finally understood what ugliness this feud has wrought, not only in the forresters, but in her own family. telltale did so well with gwyn because they understood what she could reasonably do within her station as the eldest and only daughter of lord whitehill, who is a character that canonically loves and respects his children very much. it’s not like gwyn just convinced ludd to pursue peace because she’s just so cool and smart. instead, she spends a long time arguing and convincing until he agrees to… sit down and have a talk. and then when she tells rodrik that it took a lot to convince ludd to do this, rodrik can literally just be like, “well, i do what i want lmfao”. there is nothing unbelievable about gwyn and what she does in game. what people don’t seem to understand is that feminist actions in westeros look completely different to feminist actions in our world.

in the books, it’s so clear where mira is supposed to land in these endeavours, being a woman in king’s landing. not to mention that mira’s fate is very normal for westerosi women. elaena, who is probably the most obviously “show-written” woman in the story, is the exception and not the rule. her ability to choose who she can marry is so deeply abnormal and unbelievable, as well as the idea that she’s marrying for love rather than political or economic benefit. that’s just not how westeros works. so many women and girls in westeros are married to strangers and used as breeding cows. i find girlboss interpretations of mira deeply boring, because the fact of the matter is that the systems of power in westeros are broken and there is no true “winning”. the political games of king’s landing have never been the point of the overarching story, and i think it’s obvious that all of westeros is going to be flipped on its head by the end of the series. i don’t even think there will be an iron throne to claim by the time the wights start walking, and everyone who’s still playing “the game of thrones” is missing the point.

but i digress.

writing mira as some sort of girlboss who don’t need no man deliberately undercuts what i believe is an extremely important aspect of her character. in my opinion, it is critical to understand that at any point, mira could have secured a marriage and solved most of her problems with that alliance. willas tyrell, for example, is absolutely an option available to her, and this would solidify a tyrell alliance and provide her with the gold to hire an army large enough to push back the whitehills, all for a wonderful dowry of a cut of ironwood profits. after all, remaining a maiden in king’s landing as the firstborn daughter of a rich yet dying house is like bleeding in a shark-infested ocean. it would be safer and smarter to seek power within her station, like sera does ( and i would argue that sera is extremely smart for what she does and that the only mistake that robs her of her goal is telling mira about her bastard origins ). but instead of doing so, mira insists on playing the role of man, heir, and lord. which, a) no one asked her to do, b) she isn’t technically allowed to do, and c) is exactly what gets her into trouble! mira’s meddling in a business meeting, a place for lords and merchants and men, is exactly what paints a target on her back and has morgryn sending damien after her to kill her. mira’s biggest mistake is seeing herself as politically neutral when she simply isn’t. too many eyes are on her for her to be able to flawlessly play the game. even margaery, who does this better than most, is only able to do so because she has been raised from birth to be the future queen. mira is instead thrust unexpectedly into this situation and has to find her guile as she goes. obviously, she will make mistakes. and honestly, i’d much prefer for her fate to be because of mistakes she actually made instead of feeling like this random unimportant merchant lord with no lands somehow outmaneuvered her. mira was always meant to “lose”, but i also think it’s important for her to “lose” via a marriage, or for her to deliberately choose to marry to save her life.

what makes mira’s ending horrifying is that it’s an irrefutable reminder of the station she has been trying so hard not to confront. she has made it clear that she’s wanted power by other means, and that this act is in and of itself a dishonouring of herself. this is her red wedding, her ramsay snow, her exile. it’s a reality for all women, yes, but it’s a slap in the face for mira. i think about ned’s fate a lot when it comes to mira. ned is a wonderful parallel to mira, and it’s touching and personal when ned chooses love over duty, when he lies and spits on his honour and plays into lannister hands because he thinks it will spare his daughters. any man would lie to save his life or the life of his family. that’s really not that special. but it’s unique for ned because of his values, and to see ned be unrewarded for that is devastating. this is the same setup for mira. she chooses to live, chooses dishonour and a lifelong fate she doesn’t truly want, and all because she loves her family and she wants to see them again and she knows, deep down, that they would prefer her alive and soiled over dead and desecrated any day. sure, her death is “noble” and all, but there’s beauty in choosing to live out of some desperation for things to get better, for there to be some way out of an impossible situation.

i like mira wanting to see her family and her home so badly that she would impulsively choose to live. it’s beautiful and makes me cry when i see her solemn nod while “i would do anything — anything — just to hold him again” still echoes in my ears. hot take, i think mira’s life matters even if she doesn’t end up helping her family? there’s never any debate of “rodrik/asher should just die at the end because it’s not like they helped their family win the war”, and it makes me miserable to see the codex lowkey imply that it would be better for mira to die. i think it’s crazy to say that mira deserved to be beheaded right after andros, with her body certainly not sent to the forresters for a proper funeral, in front of a crowd who doesn’t give a shit about her or could potentially be cheering for her death. that this is somehow more satisfying and fitting for her character than being a breeding cow and raped and being “damaged goods” but still holding out hope that she could one day see her home and family again. i find a lot of mira opinions really icky for this reason. there’s this weird implication that mira is just some object for her family, that everyone would prefer her to die than to live, and that she’s just kind of broken and useless if she’s raped. as a sexual assault survivor myself, it just feels dirty. is what i went through truly so unsurvivable that it would have been better for me to die? to never meet people that would understand? to never touch the lives of people who have gone through similar things? to never just achieve my goals and try to love myself instead of defining myself by the assault?

"You must survive. For the House, for all of us."

The huge windows on the wall facing the grove (godswood?) make the hall almost "more glass than wall." That rhyme was applied in real life to an English country house that was notoriously cold with its little insulation, even with considered planning (and grotesque wealth) on the part of the lady who designed it. The fact that her place was still overall comfortable (of course her family and guests got the south-facing rooms position to receive more sun/heat whereas the kitchens with toiling servants were coldest) is testament to how rich she was.

The Telltale game follows GOT show rather than ASOIAF book canon, and the books feature rudimentary greenhouse technology whereas the show does not. But... if the Forresters just have all this decorative glass available, I cannot fathom them not also having a greenhouse. They are clearly generating inside heat if they don't mind so much of it escaping.

And also. The fuckoff sized windows in Ironrath overlook the grove with its fuckoff sized trees of super rare and valuable wood on full display. Any sighted visitor would notice that glass wall and the grove outside it as soon as they enter the hall. You would notice it again if you sat down for a banquet at any time that the lord spoke, because whenever the lord/host speaks you HAVE to look at him, but his chair is positioned in such a way that you see the looming trees and glass behind every time.

This whole great hall is, in-universe, exquisitely designed ragebait.