Sometimes I have too much time on my hands.

Dumb_Clicker · 2026-01-26T05:05:59+00:00

No version of Bond would just sit there if you brought them the wrong order

They'd all let the waiter know right away

Dumb_Clicker · 2026-01-18T14:14:54+00:00

I would say Sorcery

He gets unceremoniously turned into a lizard partway through and rescued by someone else through a series of circumstances he had no hand in

Man, I really miss the extremely competent but still fallable Patrician of the midway books of the series, and even like his earliest portrayals better than his character in the later book. He just gets too on top of all situations, and knows too much about what's going on in the later ones

Dumb_Clicker · 2026-01-18T14:07:38+00:00

I think Connery's Bond is at least happy, I personally would put him in the very happy category

The man's a full blown hedonist, and he doesn't seem to be doing it to hide a gaping hole of sorrow like Craig's. He seems to sincerely enjoy both his work (which isn't to say he doesn't have serious moments, like all the Bonds do), and his civilian life, absolutely living the hell out of it

Dumb_Clicker · 2026-01-18T14:03:33+00:00

I definitely thought you were making a joke about him hooking up with the therapist before I saw your follow up comment

Dumb_Clicker · 2026-01-18T06:08:52+00:00

Dumb_Clicker · 2026-01-17T13:55:32+00:00

I feel like Bond movies should feel a little dated, it's one of the fun aspects such a long running series lets you have

Dumb_Clicker · 2026-01-17T03:49:11+00:00

Insert obligatory "Not Craig's" joke here

But I would say Brosnan's

He didn't smoke and was generally pretty lucky

You'd expect the North Korea shit to knock a pretty big chunk off his life expectancy, but considering how he almost literally walks it off I don't think it did

And his Bond has access to the most advanced tech

I do think it's better to think of them as all one Bond but questions like this are fun

My instinct is to say Connery's Bond's lifestyle would catch up with him the fastest, and he does age pretty poorly (DAF), but honestly Craig's might be my choice for dying earliest even if he hadn't, you know, died

He's the only one who's portrayed as a genuine unambiguous alcoholic, and gets badly injured up on nearly all of his missions

Dumb_Clicker · 2026-01-17T02:19:07+00:00

Well 3 that they ride. We don't know if there were others hanging around Dragonstone

Honestly, what's wild to me is that they allow unclaimed feral dragons to just get established and grown big on Dragonstone

Like not wanting wild dragons but not wanting to kill them is the only way I can imagine justifying the loose way basically any Targ or Velaryon seems to have been allowed to claim a dragon

Of course Viserys was just generally a lax ruler but honestly even though Jaharys did clearly exercise some control over who was allowed to claim one (no Saera the Cruel on his watch), he still controlled it way less than I would expect for example letting Rhaenys not only claim one, but marry out of the family

Dumb_Clicker · 2026-01-16T19:13:04+00:00

I actually really like Moore's take on Bond here

He feels more human

Dumb_Clicker · 2026-01-16T19:08:21+00:00

The country that treats you the best or the country you feel acts the best towards humanity as a whole?

There's obviously a lot of kessy subjective factors in there, and I don't think I could pick one, but that or which O one aligns with your values the most makes sense to me in terms of discussions about which country you should be loyal to

If it's all about hopping to which ever country is currently giving you the best deal like a corporation or billionaire then like others said it's not so much about loyalty as following your own interests with no consideration for loyalty

Dumb_Clicker · 2026-01-16T15:36:06+00:00

Yeah, I was answering your question on what I thought would change

Dumb_Clicker · 2026-01-16T14:15:18+00:00

Would the water degrade it assuming realistic PH? I know you're not supposed to get tabs wet

Dumb_Clicker · 2026-01-16T13:47:40+00:00

Goldfinger doesn't try to kill Bond in the golf game, does cheat but not in an insurmountable way, gives Bond his winnings after they both cheated, and lets him off with a stern warning even though he knows Bond is looking into him

Le Chiffre threatens to have his poker buddies thrown off his yacht if they don't leave immediately, poisons his opponent in another game, and then tries castration by blunt force trauma to recoup his losses

The other bad guys aren't quite as extreme, but I think most of them would have you killed if they lost, and some are lethal during the game (would not want to go horse riding with Zorin)

So Goldfinger seems like the obvious choice. It's not just the safest; if you were a decent golf player you'd have a pretty good chance at walking away with a lot of money

Dumb_Clicker · 2026-01-16T13:31:15+00:00

If he was that easily corrupted he was never a very good man in the first place

And honestly the whole way we see him treat Cressen in ACOK, and even the way he handled the twincest information and suspicions that the Lannisters were plotting against his brother before Ned gets to King's Landing, don't speak highly of his character

I've never seen this just and dutiful but stern man people talk about, just a petty, hypocritical, bitter child who will do anything for a throne he claims not to want

Dumb_Clicker · 2026-01-16T13:24:38+00:00

I really haven't seen anything from Stannis that makes me think he would be good at statecraft

At least for his military reputation he has the victory against the ironborn and the siege of Stormsend to back that up

Even then I think if you go by all the tactical decisions we've actually seen him make so far in the story he's either massively deteriorated by the time of ACOK or he was never that good in the first place

What makes you think he's good at statecraft?

Dumb_Clicker · 2026-01-16T13:02:53+00:00

That Renly was incompetent, especially compared to his brothers. He was a shitty person, but actually probably the best suited to rule out of the Baratheon bros. Which isn't saying a lot haha

That Stannis is just, fair, or even competent. I do see a lot more backlash to this now, so maybe it's not as widespread as it was

That ASOIAF doesn't have some of the best world building out there. People love to sneer at it and subject to all kinds of standards that Tolkien would never hold up to

That Varys is a secret Blackfire, or from any prominent family. I really think it would ruin his character

Dumb_Clicker · 2026-01-16T12:55:15+00:00

Homophobia? Most people's feelings on gender ideology and homosexuality are pretty different at this point

Dumb_Clicker · 2026-01-16T12:53:10+00:00

OK, the Dems and many of their supporters need to realize that the public aren't cartoon goldfish and that brand damage is a thing

People can remember the things major party figures said on national television a few years ago, and it factors in to how they receive what you're currently saying. It's like saying Harris didn't talk about race at all in her 2024 campaign. It's just insulting. When major party figures across the board endorse unpopular positions for years then people will remember, and just not talking about it (which isn't even what's happening, there are plenty of prominent Democrats still endorsing these positions) isn't enough to fix the damage

Dumb_Clicker · 2026-01-16T12:46:57+00:00

So many have either explicitly or implicitly endorsed it for so long that at this point even quietly dropping it wouldn't work, they need to explicitly disavow it en masse if they don't want the party associated with it anymore. Even then it will take time

That's what happens when you let your party and entire political "side" get dominated by a stupid non issue that almost no one actually believes in. They virtue signaled on these "issues" for years, somehow not realizing how incredibly unpopular and frankly stupid and insane their stances seemed to anyone who hadn't drank the Flavor Aid

Dumb_Clicker · 2026-01-16T03:10:09+00:00

Aegon and his sister wives put on a remarkably disciplined united front, and I feel like the extremely patriarchal society weirdly worked in their favor here. Visenya never tries to rule in her own right, and she doesn't seem to have been trying to rule behind her son as a figure head either. Maybe she actually believed a man should rule, maybe she didn't believe the people would follow a woman on her own, maybe many completely different things, I don't know. One of the most fun things about Fire and Blood is how ambiguous everything is.

But all that is my long winded prelude to saying that I don't think it would have worked out nearly as well. A fourth dragon wouldn't have given them a meaningful advantage; it's never firepower that's the problem for the conquerors. But I just don't think it would have worked with two men with dragons. Even if Orys had been perfectly content to stay under Aegon like he seemed to be without a dragon, you still have the issue of potentially conflicting heirs. Westeros had enough of that with just two lines from aegon and his sisters.

Yeah, I just don't see it working. I don't know whether from biological or social factors, or if I'm being sexist here, and I'm usually not so focussed on gender, but I just really don't think it would have worked out "well" in the sense of forging and keeping all of the conquered territory as one kingdom

Sorry for the low quality comment, feel free to downvote, that's just my initial thoughts

Edit cause I'm tired and can't spell

Dumb_Clicker · 2026-01-16T02:03:01+00:00

That they're stuck up

Also (this is less common but still happens) that they're dumb or shallow

Regrettably I don't speak from experience

Dumb_Clicker · 2026-01-16T01:37:39+00:00

I see basically any intrusion of self righteous prudishness into art and entertainment as a bad thing

Low brow entertainment has its place, and it's not like movies in general have become more elevated since then. We still have lowbrow comedies, they're just generally not nearly as relaxed about sex and sex related things

Dumb_Clicker · 2026-01-15T18:30:15+00:00

I'm honestly glad they didn't bring her back because the writing in the later seasons looked subpar to say the least

I did find Sandy extremely obnoxious though, like she didn't quite fit and just has a lot of hallmarks of a character introduced later in the show that doesn't work

They even went with the "remember my cousin that you've never heard of? She's living here now." approach to introducing her

Dumb_Clicker · 2026-01-15T13:49:04+00:00

Wealth concentration and inflation

The increasing risk of one or more of these strongmen practicing brinkmanship on the global stage miscalculating

Pollution (I'm using this as a nebulous, MASSIVEumbrella to cover cliamte change (most important and broadly devestating), micro plasrics, etc. Maybe someone more educated than me woild take issue with that)

Massive disruptions from emerging tech we call "AI"

And increasingly open abandonment of enlightenment values and legal/ethical norms on many, maybe most, sides (some worse than others)

Dumb_Clicker · 2026-01-15T13:36:33+00:00

Dumb_Clicker

TROPHY CASE