Post by whitewolfstark on Jan 11, 2017 15:47:40 GMT
And so I fulfilled my muse. This turned out to be a little more of a fluffy-depressive sentiment than I had originally imagined it, but I think this not only sets up the troubles facing Meereen in Season 6 rather well IMO, it introduces us to a recognizable set of faces from Volantis, gives us a broader sense of its culture and divisions, and also gives us a chance to see Varys in action, manipulating and making deals right and left in order to achieve what he wants.
It also fleshes out Volantis so we get a better sense of it than just the unwashed slaves and destitute that we see in Episode 3, but additionally have the wealthy to contrast the earlier scenes with, albeit in a simplified manner.
Also I think it's a nice call back and tribute to Talisa and the effect her existence and death has had on the wider universe.
I understand why the show made Talisa Volantene in the first place so I understand why she wasn't brought back up when we visited Volantis in Season 5. In Seasons 2 & 3 making Talisa Volantene helped to establish the problem of slavery in Essos, which was becoming a bigger issue in Dany's plot, and it helped to knit together the Westeros and Essos plot just as they were seeming to be going off in different directions from one another. A figure like Talisa helps keep the two distinct halves of your story seem like they have something to do with one another. It's why we have characters like Thoros of Myr, Illyrio, Melisandre, and the Bloody Mummers in the first three books in Westeros; and why characters such as Ser Willem Darry and Jorah Mormont are in Essos, as they all help keep that sense that YES these two stories do impact one another and belong together.
Additionally making her Volantene and with no family to surround her in Westeros made her history far easier to be "done with" when her character was killed off. There were no loose ends to tie up in Westeros like with Jeyne Westerling--no brothers or sister or parents to have to deal with. Instead her family was half-way across the world and since Talisa cut all ties to them herself (with the exception of the letter she sends to her mother), if they hear of her demise becomes far less likely, and thus more likely a plot thread that can be justifiably dropped. Thus they don't need to hire more actors beyond Talisa (economically friendly when you're adding a whole bunch of new characters in Season 2 & 3), and her story is done when her life is.
That said, that justification lasts about as long as we DON'T visit Volantis IMO. If we're going to spend time in Volantis in a later season, having a callback to a character from an earlier season who distinctly said she came from Volantis is at the very least needed IMO to help continue to knit together the two halves of the story, but also provide a sense of scope and influence that the world has, making it seem like we've not only come "halfway across the world" but that we're crossing a "threshold point" between the two halves of the story.