The essay on medieval chivalry and book comparison is an optional labelnote similar to other recaps for the show. And it contains relevant comparisons and adaptation.
And it's not alternate character interpretation since there is no motives to suss out. Arthur Dayne fights Ned using two swords while Ned has one sword this after he's the only opponent in sight for Dayne. He then gets stabbed In the Back. One character's reaction and the showrunners own opinions state that this is meant to be seen a certain way, yet the staging sees one action as more dishonorable than the other which is what makes this a Broken Aesop.
Edited by JulianLapostat
It's completely absurd to make dual wielding into a some sort of dishonourable action in the first place, and I definitely don't see it being in the mind of the showrunners. The only thing that it says about Ser Arthur's character is that he is Bad Ass enough not to stumble onto his own weapons while using an unnecessarily complex tactic with minimal benefit — Dual Wielding a pair of longswords provides psychological advantage at best, most certainly not any kind of combat superiority. I'm sorry to say, but "Broken Aesop" in this context is one of the worst claims of the trope I've seen.
1) The scene plays Dual Wielding for Rule of Cool not as an authentic swordfighting discipline. 2) The scene is pure Hollywood Tactics because Ned and Howland Reed play Helmets Are Hardly Heroic straight, while the Targaryen Kingsguard wear helmets because they are bad guys. In other words, visually this is a Hollywood sword-fight. So saying that Dual Wielding is not an indicator of combat superiority doens't work at all. 3) The showrunners and Bran see Arthur's death via In the Back as dishonorable. Visually that doesn't compute because Arthur was fighting as a Combat Pragmatist and not as a Knight. The minute the scene judges Arthur's death as dishonorable and Howland Reed stabbing him in the back as shameful, well the entire scene loses weight. That's why Broken Aesop stays. The actions don't flow logically to the conclusion.
Edited by JulianLapostat
Wait, what?
No. Just... no. It's clear that the In the Back was shown as dishonorable. That much I agree with. But... Dual Wielding is not. Like, at all. Especially in the context, what with the fight being 6-on-2 at the beginning. The melee was never a duel, so chivalrous dueling code (from the books no less) is utterly irrelevant. And the claim that he "broke the code first" is hilariously false, what with the, you know, 6-on-2 thing. Not to mention that a large part of the reason it was pedestal breaking is because Bran had "heard the story a thousand times" and it turns out the story he heard was false. In other words it was a lie.
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The thing is even based on the show, the little that we see of duels for instance Beric versus the Hound suggests that opponents must have equal and matching gear to be considered fair. Everything else is Combat Pragmatist. The characters keep saying that using poison is considered dishonorable too you know. So obviously there are some standards.
For the show to see Dayne's death as dishonorable after he fights pragmatically is the Broken Aesop. Dual Wielding against Ned Stark who has a single sword is being a Combat Pragmatist and exercising advantage. It would have been different if during the fight he lost one of the swords and then Howland stabbed him.
We don't have enough information to conclude that Dual Wielding versus one sword is considered a dirty tactic on par with using poison in-universe. Your conclusion relies on an unverifiable premise.
^^^ Yes. There are. For duels. This is not a duel.
Now, if you do want to force Broken Aesop in here you can mention any of the myriad times that a Conveniently Timed Attack from Behind was presented as a good thing and not dishonorable at all (Karl FOOKIN' Tanner comes to mind). But keep in mind that the dishonorable thing is mostly the whole "lying about what happened" more than what happened itself. Ned had no control over what Reed did. He did, however, control the story that was told after. That's why Bran's so broken up about it.
So... it got readded under Internet Backdraft. Now, firstly it needs to be rewritten because the writeup for the example doesn't describe Internet Backdraft... at all. And secondly is this really an internet backdraft or just... one person's Single-Issue Wonk? Really pretty sure this should go under Alternative Character Interpretation.
Edited by Larkmarn Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
hmm... yes, this whole "broken aesop" thingy... couldn't we just put it under alternative character interpretation, or something else in the YMMV page, rather than turn half the page into an essay about medieval chivalry as depicted in Go T and the books comparison?
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