YMMV / Let the Galaxy Burn

• Alternate Character Interpretation: It can be genuinely hard to tell if Joffrey is shaping out to be just like his canon self and was only being restrained due to how long he's been denied any real power, or if he's actually a decent guy in this version who happens to see red when it comes to Aegon. His sister Shierra seems to think the former but so far most of Joffreys scenes display some respect, insight and possibly even empathy on occasions.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The story paints Aerys (and possibly Rheager, although he may have been bad to begin with) as having gone mad due to visions of the White Walker invasion. The pilot of House of the Dragon says that Aegon the Conqueror himself had such a vision and passed the knowledge down to his descendants.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Robin Arryn betrays his father to the Targaryens, promising to burn him alive in a wildfire pyre and have his sister Alysanne gang raped (by 1,000 men) before having her killed.
  • Gregor Clegane's actions during the Greyjoy Rebellion, while brutal, can at least attributed to killing enemy combatants. Once he and Armory Lorch are given custody of Great Wyk however, they start a genocide of the entire planet. Rapes, tortures, and Cruel And Unusual Deaths become the norm. Over the course of 10 years, they kill over 600 million people. That's approximately 172,000 people per day. In-Universe even, upon learning of it Ayric Sarring and his men decide they have to kill Clegane for it.
  • Ser Arthur Dayne is not only an accomplice to the rape and murder of Lyanna Stark, he also murdered his own sister to secure her child and use her as leverage against Eddard Stark. (This is also is an In-Universe case, the entire sectors of Dorne and the North want him dead for it).
• Nightmare Fuel: During the Battle of Fawnton, multiple shadow demons emerge and attack the loyalist Stormlords, murdering Jon Connnington and his family. Renly and Loras barely escape with their lives.
  • Lord Saltcliffe hears about the return of Victarion Greyjoy, and announces to Ser Lyn Corbray that his occupation is at an end. Corbray's response is to activate every nuclear device implanted under each Saltcliffe settlement.
    • Not to be outdone, Victarion raises the dead on Saltcliffe, and sends them to besiege the loyalists at Fort Forlorn. The resulting battle leads to the complete destruction of the Saltcliffe system.
  • And now Krakens have begun to invade the Iron Sector. For reference, they're capable of surviving in the void like dragons and are large enough to swallow a scout cruiser in one bite. They can also destroy planets.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Bryce Caron is portrayed as the Only Sane Man of Renly and Loras's entourage but a follower of theirs nonetheless, while his half-brother Rolland Storm is portrayed as a largely unwilling follower of Jon Connington, while being given recognition and responsibility by Bryce despite his bastard status, but the two never appear together. Rolland Storm chooses to die for his honor, fighting for a cause he doesn't believe in rather than surrender to the Dornish while Bryce's reaction to the death of his brother and the loss of his home system, which many reviewers had displayed anticipation for, is never even shown before he's listed as a casualty at Fawnton.
  • Arys Oakheart gets portrayed as one of the better members of Aerys Kingsguard, as well as one who recognizes the stupidity of conducting a Last Stand like Barristan wants, with certain characters even speculating he might end up siding with Viserys as a member of his kingsugard. Nope, he gets blown up along with Barristan, and unlike Barristan, he doesn't get resurrected.
  • Benjen Stark's role as a member of House Stark and a leader of the Watch (and one who was respected in both roles in the book and the show) could have him serve as a nice bridge between his brother and the Watch. Instead, his role has so far been limited to arguing with Ned about using the Night's Watch soldiers as canon fodder, with Ned's POV doing its best to make him sound as overexcited and unreasonable as possible.
  • The Ironborn lords of Great Wyk, Meldred Merlyn (who has the distinction of being a rare Ironborn commander to win a battle during this version of the Greyjoy Rebellion), the Sparr and Gorold Goodbrother are portrayed in the books as being among the less war-like and more reasonable Iron Lords, while also leaving the rebellion on Rodrik Harlaw's heels rather than keep fighting a lost war, making them potential contemporaries of Rodrik in the changing Iron Islands landscape. Once they get Gregor Clegane as a military governor, it's mentioned most of Great Wyk's nobility has been killed and the survivors don't even get to appear in person among the masses resisting Gregor before presumably dying under the krakens' tentacles along with nearly the entire population of their planet.
  • Tybalto Virys, a weapons master sent to the Night's Watch for preemptive strikes on Braavos's enemies, who provides a boon to the defense of the fortress of Crow's Peak, is nonetheless apparently Killed Offscreen in his first chapter, as it's heavily implied that Euron was the fortress' Sole Survivor.
  • Merrett Frey is given the potential to be a somewhat larger player in the dynamics of the house after his wife's family, the Darrys, receive the paramountcy of the Riverlands, and various Inheritance Murder's by Emmon would make it plausible for him to leave The Twins. However he never so much as appears in person before his ship is destroyed by Davos's assault on the Twins during the War of the Ten Warlords and he's listed as dying with it.
  • Andrew Baratheon is the heir to Storm's End, but despite ample opportunities for him to shine during the War of the Ten Warlords, practically the only proof that he even exists in the story is his introductory scene, where he and Shireen discuss their father's plan to ally with and betray various Targaryens, while using a picture of King Rhaegar as a Dartboard of Hate.
  • Aside from Theon and Asha, the various Ironborn hostages taking after the Greyjoy Rebellion receive little to no mention despite some opportunities for this. Maron Volmark in particular could have been someone who, as Asha's only fellow Ironborn at Higharden, could have been used as a friend of hers and/or gotten some use out of returning to Harlaw with her and Sam.
  • Barristan Selmy is a character who is denied chance after chance to be a complex character, or even much of a character at all. His My Master, Right or Wrong tendencies are exaggerated here, with no indication that he's ever been introspective. He does seem to have a brief epiphany as he's being brutally killed by Sansa, but after being ressurected he stands by and aids a king even worse than the last two he served in completely devastating King's Landing, and then fails to save him from being badly injured by enemy soldiers. A little exposition about whether this is causing Barristan more moral conflict or he Took a Level in Jerkass would be nice, but for more than ten chapters there has been no indication about how he feels about serving Aegon, or his reaction to this king being horribly injured on his watch right on the verge of victory, negating any benefit of all of the horrific casualties they've taken and inflicted. Even his feelings about being resurrected by the Red Priests have not yet been touched upon. The fact that according to the prologue, Barristan is supposed to be a major figure in the War for The Dawn, does not help this.
  • Renly Baratheon, Tyrell lackey that he is, suffers from a Heel Realization at Fawnton, followed by him escaping the fire demons of R'hllor and retreating to the Tyrell's as a witness to those events, and with a drastically changed position now that the Stormlands are in Rebellion and his lover Loras is a couple chapters away from becoming a prisoner of war. His presence during some of the court and war council scenes at Highgarden that follow could have been interesting, but the character has barely even been referenced since, over 8 chapters, and almost two years of writing by the author (and counting).
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Due to his desire to keep everyone focused on rebelling against his archenemy Rhaegar, Ned has yet to even try to tell any of the other sectors about the threat of the White Walkers. Ned's silence has put trillions in jeopardy from both the White Walkers and the Mêlée à Trois engulfing the Seven Sectors. This can come across as a short-sighted example of Revenge Before Reason.
  • Stannis and Shireen serenely plan to ban all the technology of Griffin's Nest and keep the residents trapped their in slave labor-esque circumstances after sending everyone whose actually given the Baratheons the remotest cause to be angry at them (the planet's Nobles, down to the youngest child, and anyone who's ever served in their Armed Forces or sworn an oath to Jon Connington) to the Wall. Granted, they do have genuine and somewhat necessary goals for using that infrastructure on struggling planets elsewhere and aren't taking it purely out of spite, but they're still coming down incredibly hard on an entire planet just because their worst enemy happened to live there. To some fans, the phrase "Disproportionate Retribution" applies, and the situation has evoked comparison to the behavior of The Empire from Star Wars.
  • The North and their allies despise the Freys and want to see them wiped out just as much as in canon, despite the lack of anything like the Red Wedding here. Yes, the Freys did betray the Rebellion for the Targaryens and helped turn the tide of the war, but that was apparently after Robert was slain and the battle was lost, and plenty of less-reviled Noble houses are guilty of the same thing. This causes Ned and his generals' obsessive hatred of practically every member of the House (the only known ones they explicitly don't target are Perwyn Frey and his siblings, who are raised away from the Twins) and their happiness at the idea of wiping out Emmon Frey's line (keeping in mind that his grandsons are ten and thirteen respectively and that one of his sons is only five) a little more difficult to cheer on.
  • For a one-time, more minor example, Daenerys is fairly rude and dismissive of Joffrey when he visits her with Rhaegar's request that she return to King's Landing. While the request itself is absurd, and she had every reason to hate Rhaegar himself, Joffrey is being unusually courteous, respectful and sincere, and had no idea that Rhaegar was violating a treaty by trying to make his sister leave Braavos (something that is plain to everyone) and doesn't come across as quite deserving of the condescension he receives just for delivering a message.