Only one more episode to go! If you haven’t seen the latest episode and are trying to avoid spoilers, don’t read below the fold because there are massive spoilers in the original post, and there undoubtedly will be in comments too. Feel free to discuss other topics as well — open thread!
So, from my cursory visit to the Twitters and elsewhere, I get the overwhelming impression that people are angry as hell about this episode. Glen Weldon at NPR has a decent recap and commentary here.
I disagree with one of his speculations — that Euron Greyjoy will end up being not-dead. He got a sword twisted into his guts and was clearly bleeding out! (Good riddance, BTW).
Weldon assumes Cersei and Jaime are dead, and certainly having tons of masonry rain down on the couple implies that they were crushed. But why foreclose the possibility of one or both of that incestuous pair’s surprise resurrection if you think Euron can bounce back from an evisceration? I think all three are well and truly dead.
Anyhoo, I’m not thrilled with the Mad Queen angle the series finale is taking, but I’m not as outraged as most folks seem to be. There was plenty of criticism for Arya’s sudden decision to listen to the Hound and abandon her quest for revenge, but I enjoyed this scene so much:
Sandor! She gave him his name at long last. RIP, Sandor.
The cinematography was pretty amazing, particularly when Arya was stumbling around in the smoke and ashes as the dragon strafed the city.
Many of the hot takes I saw said this episode ruined the whole series. That’s nuts, IMO. Plot holes? Yes, there were gaping plot holes. Etc. But we’ve seen this before with the series, and it still manages to be first-rate TV, IMO.
My only qualms involve the fact that we’ve only got 80 or so minutes to wrap it up, so I do wonder if the writers can stick the landing in that timeframe. We shall see. What did you think?
Shalimar
Game of Thrones generic recap: Lots of people died
K Ashford
Agree. I didn’t think any character did anything that went against their narrative, as many are now claiming. We knew Dany, despite being an altruistic breaker-of-chains, had a vengeful streak. It wasn’t shocking that it took hold of her.
As I see it, the real problem is this: for all these narratives and character arcs to reach their logical conclusion, the showrunners need another season. I’ve sometimes lamented the show’s slow pace — well, NOW, it’s steamrolling to the end. We don’t have much time to reflect on one character’s demise (or change of heart) before something else comes along! It feels like we’re going down a checklist.
Walker
What is weird is the number of book readers surprised by this turn. The book Dany is WAY less sympathetic and has clearly been set up for this end all along.
There is no way this story was going to have a satisfying ending. That is the problem with grimdark.
BC in Illinois
@Walker:
So no prospect for a happy ending and an outbreak of peace in the final musical number?
japa21
I have not seen any of GoT and will not. I read the books, which really got bad at the end, which is why I hope he doesn’t write any more in the series.
westyny
Medieval Deadwood with more seasons. Tired of the downbeat.
VeniceRiley
@Walker: They should not have let TV Dany be so rootable for 8 seasons then.
I hated it. Bleh. Bring on the Handmaid’s Tale! And tonight: more Gentleman Jack.
@BC in Illinois: Musical number. That mad me smile a genuine smile!
kindness
That Targasian gene sure does seem to run to crazy a bunch. John Snow seems to be the only sane one left in the family tree. Guess that means he gets killed off next week.
Served
People are doing waaaaay too much over the quality this season. It’s been in a rut for a few seasons, and they’ve taken some shortcuts this season that aren’t ideal, but acceptable for the sake of expedience. The dramatic irony on the major deaths was a bit anvil-heavy this week, but at this point, the brakes are off and we are far off the rails, which feels appropriate for how the overarching plot has unfolded
Emma
I don’t watch the show but I get lots of people updating me gratuitously, so I have developed a few opinions.
1. Nobody is going to like the ending. Everyone is writing their own fanfiction as to how it should end, and it’s not going to be pretty.
2. The story is about a “real” dynastic battle. Dragons, wights, etc. are really sort of added to make it fantasy (after all, the Night King, the great fantasy threat, got offed early). Real dynastic battles never end cleanly. Best solution would be some sort of dynastic marriage that united the thrones and that is always a compromise.
3. Nobody but nobody is going to like the ending.They will find it logical or acceptable but will never like it.
4. People will whine forever.
PsiFighter37
My main issue is that D&D are simply putting bullet points that they got from GRRM on the screen. For all the ‘we only need 13 episodes to finish’ that we heard from them, they really needed 3 full seasons to finish. More character-building/evolving, less spectacle. I don’t mind the ultimate outcome, but it is noticeably rushed – especially compared to earlier seasons.
mattH
@VeniceRiley: That really seems to be the underlying issue; made her seem like she was all about overthrowing the existing order for something better, then she heel-turns. Short twitter thread from Brent Sirota expounding on it.
tobie
About the only safe topic I can think of when talking to Republicans these days is Game of Thrones. If the stock market tumbles to 24,000 today, I may say that Trump is like Danrys: he’s digging into a policy that will leave us all burned…okay, now back to GoT without American political references. Why is Jon Snow such a weak commander? He can’t even stop the Northern troops from engaging in carnage.
Genine
I’m just tired of the “ambitious women must be crazy and/or evil” trope. It’s everywhere and, unfortunately, such a notion doesn’t stay on the screen (i.e. the 2016 election). If they wanted to make her a villain there were many ways they could have done it. For example, Cersei could have refused to surrender (which would have been close to character) then Dany decides “fuck it” and burn everything down. It would have still been bad, and those that need ambitious women to be evil would’ve gotten their fix, but it would have played better.
Hawes
If you’re rooting for a character to “win the game of thrones,” you’re watching the wrong show.
Still, my hope of King Hotpie lives on, though I’m seeing King Gendry Baratheon standing in the way.
delk
The Commander on the wall probably should have yelled ‘shoot’ and not ‘fire’.
patrick II
Arya is going to kill Dany. Arya is a selective killer, not a mass killer and saw the horrors of war, for which she will blame Dany.
Doug R
Three seasons more? I guess we’d need the extra time to deal with evil twins with beards, amnesia subplots, and don’t forget the prehistory of the dinosaurs who were wiped out except the dragons because magic.
tobie
@patrick II: That’s where I think we’re headed.
oldgold
Dany’s capacity for turning into a monster was adequately foreshadowed throughout the 8 seasons.
Most recently, Dany’s reaction upon learning of Jon’s claim to the throne made it clear she was not about returning the throne to its rightful heir or bringing justice to Westeros. She was all about Dany.
My son, who is a Star Wars fan, likened Dany’s burning of King’s Landing to Anakin Skywalker’s muderous rampage before becoming Darth Vader. Last night he was calling her Darth Dany.
There is a new word being pushed on Twitter: Westeroasting
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Genine: There are a lot of not-crazy not-evil strong women on this show. Cersei has always been evil, and Dany has always been a little unhinged. They aren’t representative of the gender, though.
Heidi Mom
Watching GoT has confirmed for me that I’m a fan, not a critic — I’m always thinking “Wow, look what they did!” rather than “They should have done this and this and this . . .” And from that perspective, I was mightily impressed by this episode. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have a vision of how the show should end: Tormund, other free folk, and Ghost are sitting around a fire somewhere north of what used to be The Wall. Ghost’s ears perk up. Everyone wonders what’s up with him. Comprehension dawns on Tormund as Jon stumbles wearily into camp. Hugs, and woofs, all around.
different-church-lady
I’ve never watched it. Are there any characters left at this point?
VeniceRiley
@Genine:
You’ll be sad to see Chris MF Cillizza has a cnn link he just tweeted on 2020 Dems as GOT characters. I’m not clicking, but, knowing his garbage hot takes, your comment is likely very on point.
Irony Abounds
I gave up watching the show mid-Season 2 when the fantasy part of it overtook the human interaction. In any event, I realize the Cersei character was bad, but Leana Headey is hot and apparently she got crushed last night. Sad!
Keith P.
@westyny: Deadwood had comedy
different-church-lady
@Heidi Mom: If you’re watching modern TV and not thinking, “Wait, in retrospect, a lot of that didn’t make any sense” then you truly are a fan.
Eural Joiner
@PsiFighter37:
Yes, absolutely – I don’t have a problem with any of the plot points I have a problem with the very rushed execution that eliminates the (very!) long drawn out character arcs in the service of “wrapping things up” because DandD had better things to do :(
Betty Cracker
@Heidi Mom: I think your scenario has a shot of coming true. Remember Tormund and Jon’s last conversation at Winterfell? Tormund kept emphasizing how Jon belongs in the North, just like Ghost, and Jon said he wished he were going with Tormund. They spent too much time on that for it to be insignificant, I’m thinking. So Jon becomes the new Mance Rayder. Maybe Gendry gets the throne after all? My husband predicted that ages ago.
different-church-lady
I’ve never watched it. So what I want to know is, how do they move the thrones around the game board? Thrones are usually pretty heavy. Are they on wheels or something?
Bobby Thomson
I hated Arya from the start and am rolling my eyes at her stans. That “breaking the wheel” bullshit was always self delusion.
From this point, it makes the most sense for Arya to kill Dany and Jon to ride Drogon off into the North after destroying the Iron Throne. I’d be ok with that.
Doug R
@Bobby Thomson:
That does sound good.
Served
@Betty Cracker: After Dany, is there anyone left who has been pursuing the throne? The Greyjoys seem more than happy to stay on the Iron Islands at this point, Sansa is focused on the North, Gendry hasn’t been throwing his claim around, Jon is Jon, Tyrion hasn’t shown interest in ruling. The most uncharacteristic thing for the show at this point would be to have a clean ending. My brain is off and I’m along for the ride.
Beth
@Walker: Totally agree re GrimDark. When I saw this was gonna be GrimDark with an Anarchy twist, I just bailed. The whole point was to suck you in, make you care, and twist the fracking knife in your guts until the bitter end.
It’s pretty, I love the opening credits. But nah.
I’m also getting to the point that I want to know a series (book, manga, TV) has a satisfying ending before I will commit. I’m a plot person, and just being there for the journey isn’t enough when they screw up the logic, or just wander off. Been really disappointed or left hanging too many times, but that’s just me.
trollhattan
@BC in Illinois:
“You’ll be surprised you’re doing
The French Mistake!”
trollhattan
@Served:
You’re perhaps underestimating Sansa’s ambitions. I think she played coy when everybody headed south to take on Cersei, “Don’t mind me, I’ll just be up here, tidying up all those heaps of zombie dust.”
Betty Cracker
@Served:
A wise approach! I do think Tyrion is interested and would not be surprised if he ends up on the Iron Throne, if it still exists at the end of the show.
TheOtherHank
@patrick II: Or, Arya tries to kill Dany and fails and we’re back where we started with a crazy/evil Targareyon (sp?) in charge.
Or, she succeeds and Jon dies too and Gendry steps up and we’re back where we started with an unprepared Baratheon in charge.
Starfish
Last night’s episode sucked but not because Dany was evil. It sucked because “CGI WARS! CGI WARS” Instead of spending money on the script, we spent it on “CGI WARS!” It was boring to spend most of an hour watching a dragon burn down King’s Landing. Though Dany wanted the throne, there was no motivation for her to burn down the oppressed and the downtrodden to get it. Up until that moment, she had been going to war but to free the oppressed and downtrodden and trying to make things right. With the number of times she has led cities and wound up with people hating her, it should have been crystal clear to her that she was not going to get support for her claim to the throne by using her dragon to burn everything down.
chopper
@VeniceRiley:
ah, the GOP’s new slogan.
henrythefifth
@K Ashford: Yeah, Dany has a vengeful streak, not a genocidal streak. Would’ve made a lot more sense for her to have just burned the unarmed Lannister army and then torch the Red Keep itself. The civilian destruction, and the show all of a sudden trying to show us how deeply it felt about innocent commonfolk (something they mostly avoided for 8 years), was just silly.
And Euron just popping up on the beach just as Jaime was entering the tunnel was too much.
Mary G
Way too many special effects. The number of people who can get roasted in fire or killed by falling buildings before it gets numbing is a lot lower for me.
Plot too rushed. I don’t think either the writing or Emilia Clarke’s acting sold the turn to bad Dany.
Hated Jaime’s entire arc turning all the way back to where he started. The Jaime in the basement dying with Cersei was the same guy who pushed Bran out of the window of the tower.
Loved Arya, Tyrion, and Sandor. Jon Snow still knows nothing.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Emma:
Did someone say Henry VII? I know they did. The real war of the Roses ended with Richard III, the shows bad asses of bad asses, getting offed in battle he should have won because his horse lost a shoe and Henry marring the previous king’s wife and settling down to a life time of bean counting.
Anya
I’ve said this on Tumblr but i’ve always saw Daenery as a villain. I never bought her ”breaker of chains” propaganda or that she was a benevolent conqueror. Her white savior persona has always annoyed and offended me. To me, she was always depicted as an imperialist Queen. My only quibble with S8 is they cramped so much into few episodes. The Dany arc should have been a full season. I also hated the fact that Jon rejected her is one of the factors that drove her to be a homicidal maniac.
trollhattan
Jon, the typical dude: “Hey, it’s not you it’s me.” Would it have been so hard to French kiss your queen and promise an occasional royal in-and-out while totally still respecting the throne? Now look what you’ve gone and done.
Had but one thought during the whole extended city roast: Dresden. Wartime revenge pron. Seems like she could have roasted the keep and made the same point. Instead, she took Missandei’s final word very much to heart.
trollhattan
@patrick II:
Yeah, when she broke off her Cersei quest I thought: switching one queen for another.
different-church-lady
I’ve never watched it. Do the dragons have funny voices or is all just Benedict Cumberbatch?
trollhattan
@Hawes:
What about King Pod and his Royal Unit taking the throne? Could be a people’s choice.
Beth
Another thing that drove me crazy about this show: Dany has THREE DRAGONS! The only dragons in existence! Brought back to the world at great personal cost, and beyond any expectation! It’s totally magical and awe inspiring! WOW!
So let’s put them in peril and never think of a gd breeding program to keep the most important military advantage in the world, and the one that will secure a Targaryan (sp?) dynasty, amirite?
I mean, was this addressed? Shouldn’t there be an effort to make more dragons? Did this happen and I missed it bc I’m not watching? Are they all the same sex? So now, apparently there’s only 1 dragon left, and they are going to die out again. Whee! So stupid. They are not just pets and toys. They are the equivalent of bomber planes and so much more in a medieval setting, irreplaceable and priceless.
Served
@trollhattan: True. I would not be surprised to see her pulling some extra strings in as much as her goal is to ensure no one rules the North other than a Stark, and if that means taking the throne, she would do it. A Sansa/Tyrion marriage would resolve a lot of any residual claims and conflicts, if/when Dany is out o fthe picture.
different-church-lady
@Beth: You’re obviously not a real fan.
BCHS Class of 1980
@PsiFighter37: So much this! Always thought that there was a decent shot of the Mad Queen emerging; what irks me is that the leaping from bullet point to bullet point that has characterized the previous two seasons has been turned up to 11 now. D&D were using a rusty chainsaw for pare storylines; with this ep, they upgraded to a rusty bulldozer.
NotMax
Final scene will be the camera pulling back, back, back to reveal a young dragon staring intently into a snow globe. Roll credits.
:)
Mary G
My fan fiction that will make me forgive all my disappointments is that Sansa releases Brienne from her vow to go North to have hot sex with Tormund and live happily ever after raising giant baby warriors.
SFAW
Dany and Jonny both die because of the quasi-incest angle — what, you think Cersei/Jaime was the only morality thing they’re going to pull? — among other things. And Jon is so fucking earnest, so there’s that.
Sansa becomes Queen, with Tyrion at her side — except that Tyrion get knifed/poisoned/roasted for something horrible he did in Season 6 (or 5 or 4 or …). Maybe by Bronn? Who knows?
Arya? Not sure, would hate to see her gone, even if she has been a bit nuts at times.
Is Brienne still alive? If so, I’d sorta like to see her get something good.
Disclaimer: I don’t watch the show. At all.
Major Major Major Major
Most of the criticism I saw on Writer Twitter was that this is a great example of How To Rush A Character Arc.
Lavocat
@patrick II: Agreed. It makes the most sense. But if this whole damned thing turns out to be someone’s reverie whilst staring into the hypnotic foam of a Mocha Grande at Starbucks, then so fucking help me!
AliceBlue
Since this is an open thread … RIP Doris Day and Peggy Lipton. (For the youngsters here, Peggy is Rashida Jones’ mother).
Major Major Major Major
@different-church-lady: @different-church-lady: @different-church-lady: @different-church-lady: @different-church-lady: surely you must have something better to do with your time.
moonbat
All the people whining on the interwebs about Dany’s dark turn forget her plan to burn the slave cities to the ground when they went back to the slavers. Tyrion was able to talk her off that cliff, but that that was her first reaction to being lied to and thwarted tells you something about her character. And now Tyrion’s influence with her is waning big time. Did anyone doubt she was going to burn it all down when Cearsi lied about helping with the Night King’s invasion, denied her right to rule, and then killed her best friend? If that surprised you, you weren’t paying attention. Sure she’s little and cute and can ride a dragon, but she’s a stone cold killer when she’s denied what she thinks is rightfully hers.
What interests me are the people who think that Cearsi isn’t dead ENOUGH! They wanted a particularly twisted end for her apparently and being crushed by a building just doesn’t cut it.
Major Major Major Major
@moonbat:
I’m old enough to remember watching her beau sink into the water bleeding to death in full plate armor and then survive, so…
different-church-lady
@Major Major Major Major: Yeesh… what a grouch.
James E Powell
The writing is clunky and the characters’ changes are sometimes ridiculous in direction and speed. I feel let down, but I can’t see being outraged at a show or a movie. I don’t think it’s fair to characterize people who are not happy with the show as whining.
My biggest disappointment was that Cersei’s death was meh. Compare the deaths of others – most of them less evil than Cersei – Vyseris,Joffrey, Tywin, Littlefinger, Ramsey, the Dothraki guys who were going to rape Daenerys. Even the Night King had a more dramatic death. Of all the villains in the TV story, no one was more evil or more central to the plot than Cersei.
Served
@moonbat: Crushed by the castle and throne that she did horrible horrible things to gain! A perfect, what-she-deserves death. It’s unsatisfying visually but narratively it’s clean.
James E Powell
@Served:
Maybe if she was below the throne room and the ceiling collapsed and she was impaled by the Iron Throne as it fell.
rikyrah
Can we get an Afternoon Open Thread?
Pretty Please?
Kristine
@Major Major Major Major: There was a really good Twitter thread about that. In short, the books were written by the ultimate pantser, and the series followed that pattern until it couldn’t anymore. Then two plotters were charged with tying up All The Storylines, and characterization was sacrificed for resolutions. Sounds like maybe you read it: https://twitter.com/DSilvermint/status/1125856091261136896
I also read that HBO wanted the show to go for several more seasons, but D&D pushed to wrap it up. That was a mistake wrt the show, but maybe folks wanted to get on with their careers?
moonbat
@Served: Agreed. Particularly after her “The Red Keep has never fallen” mantra proved so much less than effective.
Nicole
The writing has been really sloppy this season, and I’m really annoyed about having to sit through several scenes of the male characters expressing concerns about Danerys’ mental state, without actually getting much in the way of scenes with Danerys herself. I would have bought the turn to the vengey vengey vengefulness more if I’d ever felt like the writers had justified it by doing the hard work and writing Danerys scenes. But they preferred endless exposition with the male characters lamenting How Do You Solve a Problem Like Danerys? Because those are easy for a bunch of male writers to do. Bitches be crazy and too emotional to be in charge!
And gads, Cersei got what, 20 lines the entire season? How long is a normal pregnancy in Westeros? Judging by Cesei’s still trim figure, I’m guessing something like 500 months. And so much for the whole “Let Euron think it’s his kid” which didn’t matter for shit.
And that’s some SERIOUS plot armor Arya had in last night’s episode. They might as well have gone full out and made it a fucking unicorn that showed up for her at the end.
Scorpions! Super dangerous until they’re not! Bells! No mention of bells signaling surrender for 8 seasons and then they’re the biggest plot point in the episode! Also, who gave the order to ring them? Sure wasn’t Cersei. I swear, I thought Tyrion was making them up.
Cleganebowl was fan service- Sandor didn’t seem all that obsessed with revenge until Season 7.
And while I liked Brienne and Jaime’s stuff in ep 4, it ended up not leading ANYWHERE so now I strongly dislike it and feel that time could have been used to oh, do the hard work and write a scene with Danerys, instead of her just glowering at the party because bitches be crazy and too emotional.
Jaime ended up with 0 character growth over 8 seasons.
The best part of the episode was my 8-year-old asking for a recap this morning: “Did Drogon die? Did Bad Panic at the Disco Pirate die?”
That marvelous sketch of a horse over the 8 seasons of Game of Thrones is my current favorite thing on the internet.
Woodrow/Asim
As an open thread — I am surprised and delighted at the recently-released season 4 of Lucifer (now of Netflix, formerly on Fox).
It’s still CBS-procedural style fluff, but this season was compelling, on many levels, from jump and barrelled to a tight ending that felt 100% earned. Notably, the new character introduces an interesting take on the usual love triangles that was fun and compelling. Indeed, nearly every character on the show had not just presence this season, but an arc that calls back to the main themes of the season — and not all of their arcs had much to do with Lucifer, which has oftentimes been the case, and a drag on my enjoyment of the show.
It’s certainly a show that is well-suited to a smaller set of episodes, and thus I’d recommend watching the recap Netflix provides and jumping right into Season 4.
TPO
Like Chekhov’s gun, the dragon’s had to be used
Mike in NC
The preview hinted that Sansa will prevail. Jon and Dany will split and he’ll go north to hang with the Wildings.
Kathleen
@VeniceRiley: Dear God. He just needs to stop it. All of it.
Bill
I stopped watching GOT after the third season. I realized I just wasn’t enjoying it. The pacing was unbelievably slow. (Whole episodes of people walking from one place to another, or climbing a wall for instance) By the end of the third season that he larger plot had not advanced at all. Winter was still coming, war was still on the horizon etc… And when things did happen they were often terrible to watch. (Multiple episodes dedicated to rape, torture etc…) I’ve been following the ending from afar, mostly through social media. I do think it’s kind of funny that the biggest complaint about it is that Dany turned out to be power hungry and sadistic. My strongest memory of that character was her standing by while her brother was killed with molten gold, and quipping that he “wasn’t a dragon.” Nobody thought that character might have a mean streak?
Hopefully the ending will be better for fans than the Sopranos.
Genine
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
I am talking about ambitious, not strong. Yes, there are a number of strong female characters, but Dany and Cersei are the ambitious ones. Arya wants to survive and kill people. Sansa just wants control of her home and region.
They could have played it differently. If they really needed their “ambitious women are evil” fix they could have had Cersei refuse to surrender then Dany burning everything down, especially after all the loss she has suffered. But, nope, Dany just had to pop off for no reason. And, if Dany is so much worse in the books, why have her save people? Why have her free slaves, make allies, try diplomacy, and save the North? Why have her save everyone when she’s the type to burn everyone? Why didn’t she just do that in Season 7 and be done with it? She would’ve had King’s Landing and stopped the White Walkers.
Don
@NotMax: almost as good as the one from last week in which Tyrion is the last one standing, and can’t manage to get up on the throne.
Bobby Thomson
@Anya: this, this, this.
PaulWartenberg
thing is about Dany’s face-heel turn: there had been signs all along that she would turn into an unforgiving force of chaos. Like when she burned the slavers in Essos while claiming the Unsullied army for herself. Granted, when she committed these acts making herself Queen in Essos, she was going up against villains who kept betraying her trust… but she also made conscious efforts to avoid killing the civilians and children. This time it was different. This time she burnt it all, blaming the common folk of King’s Landing for the evils of Cersei and her council.
This final season has the feel of being rushed, like the producers were forced into a deadline and had to cram too much in to get things done on schedule. Otherwise, they could have paced the last few episodes better, given the characters chances to redefine themselves or justify their faulty decisions.
I hate to think that the show ends on Jon defeating Daenerys, rather than finding some other ending that won’t end in heartbreak but at least release/freedom of our heroes from the past ties that bound them to the follies of their present.
Nicole
@Don:
Someone pointed out that Tyrion is now the tallest Lannister.
Redshift
@Kristine:
Who wanted to get on with their careers? I can’t imagine it was the actors or crew; a steady job on the biggest show in HBO is pretty much their dream. If the showrunners wanted to move on, changing writers and showrunners is a thing that shows do; it doesn’t really seem like rushing your show because you want it to be over would be a good thing for your career.
Walker
@Nicole:
It is always fun to read the historians react to the show. Tor.com had a military historian point out that the scorpions that took down Rhaegar needed to fire bolts at super sonic speeds to do what they did.
Aleta
@Major Major Major Major: That’s funny, but not as funny as d.c.lady’s jokes.
trollhattan
@PaulWartenberg:
Agreed, it’s a side of Dany that she and her advisors have been tamping for many seasons. Love this take from NY Mag’s Hillary Kelly.
Roger Moore
@Kristine:
I think the underlying problem is that a pantsers shouldn’t try writing this kind of sprawling epic. Sprawling epics are inherently hard to write at all, much less write well, and trying to write one without a detailed plan is asking for trouble. Even with a detailed plan they tend to sprawl out of control and be difficult to wrap up, and writing one by the seat of your pants is just about impossible.
Bobby Thomson
@Nicole: re: the scorpions “suddenly not working”
1) Rhaegal was badly injured and shouldn’t have been there in the first place. That was to show that Dany’s Obsession was going to have bad consequences. She killed him.
2) Even that was lazy. Martin has said a dragon in the air is impossible to kill. But that’s a problem with last week, not this week.
3). Another problem with last week – lines of sight. If Euron can see Rhaegal, Rhaegal can see Euron. Just an idiot plot last week. People did dumb things this week too but they were more in character.
Major Major Major Major
@Kristine: i seem to recall a recent interview with GRRM where he said that it turns out he killed off a character who would turn out to be key to the resolution he wanted.
Nicole
I feel like now it’s revealed that Pyat Pree is the true tragic hero of Game of Thrones, as he tried to store Danerys and her dragons safely away in a locked gun cabinet way back in Season 2.
Fair Economist
I haven’t watched this season yet because GoT got dropped from Sling, and reading the spoilers makes me not want to. The season seems very rushed, with complex long-term plots ending abruptly in single episodes, and while having Dany do a heel turn could be good drama, how they did it seems totally arbitrary. I guess the idea is that after years of striving to be a good ruler she just decides to murder tens of thousands because of one word from a advisor (who also seems to have had a low opinion of unnecessary butchery). They could have, for example, had the dragon attacks on the military target light King’s Landing and produce a firestorm, and Dany not care; that would have been a sufficient heel turn for the Dany vs. Jon fight we’ll get next week, without me going “what, why is she crisping innocents when her actual enemy is trying to escape?”.
Also from the spoilers, it’s very dissatisfying to see previously near-invincible Cersei so suddenly feckless. Also, too, after the Battle of Winterfell how are Dany’s forces so overwhelming? I would have rather seen Cersei’s now-superior forces defeated by popular support for the woman who can now add Slayer of the Dead and Savior of the Living to her titles. You get a lot of support for defeating a millennia-old existential enemy.
Redshift
The major reason I’m meh about this season and somewhat the previous one is that, similar to what others have said, it feels like they have decided what things need to happen (or they were in George’s plot outline), so those things happen, without much story for why they should happen connecting them. We need all of these characters to be here for a big battle, so they all go there at the same time, some independently, and taking no noticeable time to get there, etc.
trollhattan
@Walker:
Not to mention some fvcking good targeting computation to anticipate where an irregularly flying target will be when the bolt arrives, and not where it was at the time they take the shot.
IMHO they telegraphed a dragon’s demise in this season’s new animated titles sequence, where we are led past a scorpion aimed towards a dragon before we arrive at the iron throne. Chekhov will not be denied!
Redshift
@Fair Economist:
You might, if anyone who wasn’t there knew any of it had happened…
moonbat
Hearts and flowers was never where this series was going. Anyone who’s committed to the story for this long cannot escape that conclusion. GRRM doesn’t plot good triumphs over evil story lines. And that’s his right. He doesn’t have to write to please me and you don’t have to consume his stuff if it isn’t to your taste. Since the Red Wedding and more gratuitous rape scenes than I care to remember, I’ve pretty much resigned myself that the series is not going to end as I would prefer, but I am a narrative junkie who has to know how it ends, so I limit my expectations to hoping a few favored characters live to see the final dawn after all the ash has settled. If Brienne, Tyrion and Arya make it out alive, I’m good. The final season has been a bit rushed, but I don’t think they have messed up character arch-wise except with Jamie Lannister. His actions this season make zero sense for him to end up where he did. YMMV
Nicole
@Bobby Thomson: But you have to establish those rules, otherwise the only reason the rules change is because the plot demands it. It ends up being inconsistent. The sheer fact that Dany didn’t see Euron’s fleet from the air is just… Oh, Euron and his magic fleet. I thought Ramsay Bolton’s superpowers were getting preposterous by the end of his run; I had no idea how super-villain the writers were willing to go.
And Euron’s conveniently showing up on shore just in time to engage Jaime Lannister in a lengthy battle to the death rather than also attempt to get his fiancée out of the Red Keep (because… reasons?) was right up there with Jaime’s managing to swim back to shore in full armor in Season 7.
Nicole
Oh! And can we talk about the terrible green screen? There was a green glow behind Grey Worm as he stabbed that Golden Company guy. And some of the scenes of the soldiers burning were just embarrassing. Bad enough they decided to opt for CGI over scripts, but it wasn’t even well-done CGI.
Fair Economist
@PaulWartenberg:
That’s what I find out of character about Dani’s heel turn. She’s been willing to commit atrocities, but only in the service of good aims. Burning down King’s Landing *after* she’s pretty much won doesn’t fit.
J R in WV
@Betty Cracker:
If there’s a dragon left by the last episode, and it sounds like there is… The Iron Throne is a melted morass of slag at some point in the episode. If the Mother of Dragons is dead, that means the dragon is really pissed!
The best way for a dragon to get back at all of Westeros is to melt that sicker down and fly away to an island where no one will fuck with him/her anymore.
I hate that throne, all those wasted swords, so ugly, you know it’s really uncomfortable too. Maybe that’s the point, you have to be psycho to spend more than a couple of minutes on the thing!
I haven’t seen any of the shows since the second of third season. They put a lot of effort into making it look right. The episode(s) with the dark lord nesting in a mountain craig were interesting. The cell with a view, and a floor sloping out towards a thousand meter sheer drop was pretty terrifying, also.
I thot my fear of heights had been burned out by working in high spots, but maybe not, remembering that episode. Sleeping on a sloping slick floor tipped to that empty wall and sheer drop, whoa…
Irony Abounds
My prediction for the last scene: Celia Lancaster wakes up in the master bedroom in her sumptuous Bel-Air mansion, hears water running in the master bath, walks in to see her husband, Bobby Lancaster, the Hedge Fund King of Bel-Air, showering. She tells him “Honey, I just had the wildest fucking dream, I’ll have to tell you about it later. Oh, and by the way, my brother James will be spending a few nights with me while you go on your hunting trip with Dick Cheney.”
Fair Economist
@Redshift:
The army of the dead broke through the wall, rampaged through a nontrivial part of the North, and is now gone. From the background, probably everybody in Westeros knows somebody who knows somebody who was on the wall. That news would get out pronto.
TenguPhule
@tobie:
Trump prefers tyrants that don’t get killed.
Brachiator
Not angry with the episode, but somewhat disappointed.
Plotwise, winning the battle seemed too easy. However, I really enjoyed the moment when Dany realized that she had won, but still chose fury. A co-worker reminded me that Missandei’s final words were “Dracarys,” asking that Dany burn it all down. And so she did, and the show became a tragedy.
The same co-worker says that Dany could successfully rule by fear, but we only got one episode and her days are probably done. I don’t know how they will wrap this up. I feel a little down now that Dany has essentially become as bad as Cersei, but I don’t think that this development came out of nowhere. I just wish they they would have handled it better.
Cersei has been criminally under-used, and I thought her scenes were flat. And I just don’t buy that wounded Jaime would have found his way to her. These scenes, as well as the fight between Jaime and Euron, played too small, too flat, and just did not satisfy.
I really did not need the final battle between the Mountain and the Hound. And it went on too long.
I understand that the show’s creators wanted Arya to give us the “on the ground” perspective of the attack on the city, but she had no logical reason for being there, running around and being generally useless.
Jon Snow still knows nothing. But I did appreciate his reaction to the descent into carnage.
mad citizen
@Bill: I liked the Sopranos ending and thought it was appropriate: Tony got whacked.
Hated the hack Journey song, though.
Fair Economist
Following up, one of my pet peeves with fiction is when writers have this super consequential stuff happen because Drama and afterwards nobody cares. Defeating the Dead is way, way more important than what monarch rules Westeros for the next few decades and every character would know that. But in the show it’s “plot point resolved, moving on to the next”
TenguPhule
Speaking of people whose days are numbered…..
My only qualm is that his replacement will somehow be worse.
hitchhiker
I’m happily indifferent to plot holes, plot armor, CGI vs Character. I only started watching this thing when the Mueller report was given to Barr — because I knew from the jump that paying the smallest attention to the shitfest that would follow would serve no purpose except to make me feel crazy and helpless.
And there was GoT, ignored by me for all these years until now, when I really, really needed a distraction. SO, I got all caught up in time for the end.
It’s been entertaining, gory, and best of all, distracting. I think Arya is going to have to kill Dany, and after that I don’t know what. Mr Hitchhiker is a resolute TV hater, so I’m all alone with my shows. He says that he’s unable to hear the name of the show without imagining a bunch of people playing musical chairs with toilets, but then he’s always been a bathroom humor kinda guy.
Sab
After this last episode how will anyone even find the Iron Throne again, much less find a survivor who wants to sit on it?
trollhattan
@TenguPhule:
How could it not be Cramer?
MazeDancer
At least, after last night, not going to miss GoT when it’s gone.
trollhattan
@Sab:
“OUCH! GodDAMNIT this thing is fucking hot!”
Hops off throne, exits. Run credits.
Sab
@hitchhiker:Lol with the bathroom humor. My guy refused to watch it because “you lost me at dragons” He doesn’t care that they used to be cute.
ruemara
@Woodrow/Asim: I am loving Lucifer’s season 4. The move really gave writers the ability to play up his decadence. I rather detest Eve, but it seems to be fucking voice, not the character. And I’m not done with the full season yet, so I CANNOT WAIT. Ugh why can’t Lucifer be one of the shows for the writing fellowships. I never watch a Shonda Rimes show and most of the lists are things I barely know are still on the air.
Betty Cracker
@moonbat:
Agreed, but I’d add Sansa to the list of preferred survivors. As for Jaime, I guess sometimes people do try to change and end up reverting to form, but yeah, that seemed too abrupt.
I didn’t mind Cersei becoming a mewling weakling once she was stripped of the trappings of power. She was always a spoiled brat who needed the protection of others to act out her spite. I do mind that the show didn’t use Headey’s talent more this season. She is awesome.
J R in WV
Well, at least I can count on you Jackals to let me know who all gets killed off, who lives, who wins and rules of the survivors, etc. That means I don’t have to spend hours and hours watching grim dark death TV. All good!
Betty Cracker
@Redshift:
You’d think so, but remember how Downton Abbey kept having to whack main characters because the actors thought the popularity of that show was their springboard to the big time?
Spanky
Since this is technically an open thread:
Same as it ever was.
Major Major Major Major
@moonbat:
Which was exciting and refreshing for the world of fantasy! In 1996. It’s no surprise there’s tension with more modern audiences.
Hoodie
Yeah, the resolution seemed rushed, but it wasn’t inconsistent, and some times horrible things escalate very quickly. The dragon’s attack showed adapted tactics. The other two dragons were killed because they had either never seen that type of attack (Wight Walkers) or were ambushed (Euron Greyjoy). The dragon attacked Greyjoy using a dive bomb maneuver, coming out of the sun at an angle he wasn’t anticipating and didn’t have sufficient time to react to. Cersei said that all they needed was one shot, but those shots are really low probability considering the clunkiness of the weapon and the adaptability of the dragons. The dragon blew the main gate out from behind, and attacked the scorpions on the walls in the resulting chaos from an angle that required too much reaction time for the crews. Once the dragon had air superiority, the route was on. That’s actually pretty realistic (think Highway of Death in first Gulf War), once you concede the existence of a war between dragons and men with medieval weapons. The reality is that the woman with the dragons gets to make the rules.
Dany had many times shown a ruthless streak that is consistent with her tactics at King’s Landing. She attacked when the bells tolled precisely because Tyrion had told her that would signify surrender. He’s been consistently wrong and did have a conflict of interest in this case, so she did the opposite of what he advised. She also had ample reason to suspect that this was simply a trick by Cersei, and there was some evidence to support that. There were indications that Cersei had stored Wildfire around King’s Landing and there may have been a plan to use it against Danys’ forces.
This episode could be viewed as exploring the idea that there really cannot be something like “limited war.” There were possible (but problematic) reasons for continuing the attack. Dany’s tactics were not all that different than those of Henry at Agincourt, who was worried the French would regroup and attack using all the weapons lying around. I think the portrayal of Dany here is not all that disappointing. She acted like a lot of “great” martial leaders. The civilians were collateral damage.
hueyplong
I don’t follow GoT as closely as do you all and I only watch at all because of spouse and daughter, but the scene that sticks with me is the one in which Sansa and Tyrion got sentimental about each other and briefly held hands (or something like that) while talking about their aborted pairing way back when.
So S&T as a William & Mary kind of compromise dynastic rule is my rooting interest over psycho Dragonmother and/or Dumbassoverearnest Jon Snow.
I was mad about the Daenarys (sp?) decision until I realized the real problem was making the carnage scene interminable.
Kind of glad it will all be over in a week. Wish I could say the same about the current administration
ruemara
@Betty Cracker: Carusoed.
@Spanky: Fuck the techno feudal lords. This, combined with the knowledge that Amazon sales are fueling 8chan means we have to do something effective to them as a corporation.
L85NJGT
@Major Major Major Major:
The show runners took Martin’s broad outline for the end, and crammed it all into the last six episodes. As a result, the plotting and character motivation is a hot mess. The directors and actors are doing what they can, and the production is top notch, but the writing has failed them. The show runners, Martin and the HBO suits all have a different tale as to why the last two seasons laid out like they did. The truth is usually some combination of money, power and ego.
Did Arya die? The white horse sequence would make sense if she did (like the Elysian Fields in Gladiator).
patroclus
Well, I have to agree with the massive disappointment reaction. To me, GOT was the greatest TV show ever – and this was accurate up through Season 5 or so. Now, it’s just a good show with a very poorly done ending, with way too much CGI and nowhere near enough character development and coherent plotlines. It’s not so much that it didn’t turn out like I wanted or expected; it just seems that D&D fell victim to the same kind of things that GRRM fell victim to. Oh well – I’ll watch the finale, but I’m not expecting much anymore.
Betty Cracker
@Hoodie: I agree that the dragon adapted and caught the Scorpion pilots off guard. I had a long road trip Saturday and listened to a GoT podcast, and one guy with encyclopedic knowledge of the books and series predicted the dragon would dive-bomb the Scorpions from the sun because a Targaryan ancestor had used a similar tactic to defeat an enemy in another battle. That guy is going to be insufferable on the next pod! :)
I also noticed in the city burning scenes that several times, the flames erupted in green, indicating that they’d hit a wildfire stash, so your theory on that makes sense too. I get why folks are antsy about the accelerated timeline, but to me, the show is still riveting and loads of fun. It took me several years to start watching it, but I caught up before the final season, and I will miss it when it ends.
Feathers
I am always struck by the difference between people who see a film as a story about people and those who experience it as a constructed work. The first time I really noticed was with Blair Witch Project. Those who saw it as a movie about weird things happening to a bunch of people walking in the woods (including me) thought it was the best. People who watched it as a horror movie hated it. I can go either way, but if I’m sucked into something I totally see it as a story about people, and I’ve been sucked into GOT from the beginning (1998). So, thoughts (influenced by my own mental health journey):
* Tyrion’s biggest mistake was Dany leaving Daario behind in Meereen. Commentary seems to be leaving out how isolated she had become. She is unstable, but when supported in doing good and receiving positive feedback for it, she is capable of positive leadership. As we got closer to King’s Landing, no one seems to think that they need to support Dany, or that she has any needs beyond being watched and managed. No one sees how dangerous leaving her alone in her head is.
* Tyrion and Varys getting stupid? Once he becomes Hand, Tyrion looses the contact with ordinary people that gave him situational knowledge that he used to have. The argument can be made that this occurred when he stopped drinking with soldiers and hanging out in brothels. Varys? With the shrinking number of “principals,” he had fewer options for who to manipulate against each other. Also, once the war got going, he had to take a side, which limited his effectiveness.
* Arya: I liked the Hound’s offer to go kill Cersei alone, while she went on to live her life. Yes, she is an assassin, but she has also reconnected with her family and has a better hold on life. Or did before having to make that escape from King’s Landing.
*Jaime and Cersei: I liked their ending. They are completely fucked up and dysfunctional. Dying in the dragon crypt as the Red Keep fell down on them, in secret, felt right.
* Euron: Ugh. He kept kicking me out to structural issues. Book Euron was a Lovecraftian horror wizard monster. Not adding him fully to the mix of characters in play was a weakness.
** The wait for the beginning of the battle. The time between the end of the battle and the ringing of the bells. These were terrifically tense, and while Dany was sitting on Drogon with the bells were not ringing made me sadder and sadder. There clearly had been a plan for her to burn King’s Landing down, even if it was only hers. She had agreed to give it up if the city surrendered. She had then been through the battle, doing everything perfectly, which no one had expected. But she now had an unbearable amount of adrenalin running through her and a high from seeing all that fire and destruction. We’ve watched Dany’s fascination with fire and destruction from the beginning. She is the Unburnt. She is left alone on the wall of the city with her dragon and her own mind for too long. My reading: at some point she started steeling herself to burn the city when the bells did not ring and when they did, she wasn’t able to change her mind. A large proportion of people who commit suicide only decide to do so within 15 minutes of the attempt. It’s a very bad decision made at the end of a very bad day. She hadn’t slept or eaten for days and felt alone and betrayed by all those around her.
When the Secret Service studied school shooters, they found that they fit the suicidal profile, not murder. When looking at the opiate and suicide epidemics, I find myself blaming Oprah. It turns out that “if someone is not bringing positive energy into your life, cut them out of it” may be a good argument on a personal level, but it is a horrific one on a societal level. An unfortunate side effect of mental health education is people knowing what good mental health is and presuming that others have it, or should be “taking care of themselves” to preserve it. In young people, and Dany is 24, the risk of suicide after the death of a loved one skyrockets in the next six months.
After writing this, I’m thinking about tragedy and how it is a mixture of person and situation. I’ve been through DBT. What I find fascinating is that it is a multistep program, but most people only need the first step, which is focused only on getting yourself healthy, recognizing if you are safe, and setting appropriate boundaries (both your own behavior and distance from others).
Wrapping up: My favorite crack ship is this, from Andy Daly in Vulture. Arya stole the face of the ceiling of the Dragon Crypt and killed Jaime and Cersei by falling on them. This gives me strength. And the rest of the write up is funny too. Link
TenguPhule
@Hoodie:
Rout.
patrick II
@Nicole:
I believe the green you saw was green fire that had been stored in various places throughout king’s landing. Not faulty graphics.
JR
I thought that episode was lazy as fuck.
Visually spectacular, however.
Major Major Major Major
@L85NJGT: I read that it was the hound’s horse. And an ambiguous offscreen death for such an important character seems a bit of an odd choice.
hueyplong
About this green fire stuff. When Cercei’s advisor kept telling her the game was up but she kept bringing up salvation scenarios (scorpions, etc.), did she mention stores of ambushing fire sources?
If not, why not?
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
Evidently the wildfire was stashed beneath the city by Dany’s mad king father, in case he wanted a David Koresh-like exit.
L85NJGT
Results are consistent with the creator & primary source writer wandering off, and corporate suits wanting to rasta-fy the show by ten percent or so.
Hoodie
@Betty Cracker: I think that the people disappointed with Dany’s behavior fall into the trap that she is supposed to act like the nurturing mother type. She’s a mother to motherfucking dragons, for Chrissakes! She’s not crazy, she’s a Dothraki warrior! Elizabeth I was pretty freaking ruthless, too.
L85NJGT
@Major Major Major Major:
They needed to set that up – his horse having an identifying mark, a bit of back story, etc.
Anyway, file under third act problems.
Betty Cracker
@Major Major Major Major: Arya definitely didn’t die. If you see the final episode preview, she’s in it, looking daggers at Dany.
Cheryl from Maryland
I’ve read and owned the books since they first came out in the 1990s. I loved them — I’ve been reading fantasy since the 1960s, and Martin’s books were fresh and exciting. The last years of the TV shows have been deeply disappointing after the first two amazing seasons. Martin was telling a human story set in a fantasy world. The title itself conveys his intentions — it’s the “Game of Thrones,” not Westeros and the White Walkers. How Martin would reconcile his human story with the magic existential crisis elements we may never know — the TV show built these elements up, but then those elements are dropped quickly as the plot commands. Bran?? Bran?? Again, with Martin involved and with books written, the human story was retained early on when the TV show managed to pay homage to Martin’s POV framework along with having the fantasy element misguide you (so prophecies suck. We know they do). The TV show began with what I consider to be Martin’s main points — life is not a trope no matter how hard one tries, religion is unreliable, most people in the world just want a nice life and not to be fucked over, get over destiny, being just and fair is HARD, war sucks (with the adage that war is a bad way to get power). But it fell apart in the later seasons– too much violence porn, too much battle spectacle, thinking of each episode as a series of tableaus rather than each being interconnected, too much fan service (Jorah should have lived to see Dany at the end — the guy always had crap judgment in women), playing with the magical and religious elements and mostly just dropping them (Stannis sacrificing his daughter for victory was the path he had started with the shadow baby was one of the few things that made sense). And the battles — remember, in the early seasons, power games were personal — poison, marriage alliances, secret murders, basically mirroring the power struggles in Martin’s models — the War of the Roses and the late Capetians in France. Hell, even in LOTR, the end game is PERSONAL with Frodo and Sam. Late GOT had too many battles. Last night may have seemed personal despite being ANOTHER BATTLE, but it was pure adrenalin with no guiding inner structure. And so it has been for the last seasons (my main breaking point was Cersi’s explosion of the Sept). Under Benioff and Weiss, every cliché Martin has tried to undermine has been reinforced. I’ll watch the last episode as I have no faith in Martin finishing the series, but I won’t be happy.
Hoodie
@Feathers:
Can’t agree, too much psychologizing. You’re dealing with Cersei here. The bells ringing is ambiguous, it wasn’t like Cersei was out waving a white flag. Even so, you would have to be an idiot to trust Cersei based on her past dealings. She had already lied about helping in the war against the Night King. Dany may have known there was Wildfire stashed around the city, and she also would have known that Cersei used it before in blowing up the Sept.
LuciaMia
Forget evil. Just the cliche that theyre unstable and/or unreliable.
*********
Understand Dany wanting revenge and some serious rough justice. But why not just go after the Red Keep after the surrendor bells? From her expression she knew thats where Cersei would be lurking.
Hoodie
@LuciaMia: She didn’t want revenge – she wanted to win and leave no question as to her authority. There was no way for Dany to know where Cersei was. She could have been hiding in an underground bunker for all Dany knew. Dany also knew that Jaime was likely to be with her and would put her out of harm’s way. The one thing you could count on would be that Cersei would never fight fair. Cersei knew that Dany had her number when she started torching the whole city, because that’s exactly what she would have done.
Aleta
@Cheryl from Maryland: good points
@Feathers: these too
Eric K
@Walker: exactly, the problem is simply that the show writers are over their ski’s with only GRRM outline of where it goes and don’t have his writing chops to get there plus they have condensed like a seasons worth of plot and character development into 2 episodes
Major Major Major Major
@Eric K: GRRM doesn’t have “GRRM’s writing chops” to get there either since he’s out over his skis too. It’s why the books are taking so long.
Bobby Thomson
@Betty Cracker: the Hound did, though, presumably.
Bobby Thomson
@L85NJGT: when Dany isn’t onscreen, someone should be asking, “Where’s Dany?”
Nicole
@patrick II: I’m not talking about the wildfire; I’m talking about the use of green screen. It’s quite apparent in at least one scene. Brought to my Gen-X mind 1970s The Muppet Show, which I imagine was not their intent.
Omnes Omnibus
@hueyplong: Why do you presume she knew it was there?
Also, Dany in some ways had been a bit of a blank slate onto which a couple of cynical men from Westeros projected their secret, romantic (not that kind of romantic, you pervs) desires for IT to mean something. Jorah and Tyrion are the ones who really believed that she was just and merciful. As people above have noted, she has been willing to ruthless and cruel for very little reason. She complained that she only inspired fear not love in Westeros; She burned the Tarlys for not bending the knee immediately following the battle. Had she acknowledged their loyalty as honorable and looked for a way to persuade them to her side, they would have been great assets in winning over the other nobles.
I think she is who Varys thought she was not the paragon that Jorah and Tyrion wanted her to be.
Betty Cracker
@Bobby Thomson: Definitely, since he and the Mountain fell a great distance into the fiery rubble. (RIP, Sandor “The Hound” Clegane, who had the best one-liners in Westeros.) But it’s definitely possible the Mountain survived! The Hound stabbed him right in the heart and stuck a knife deep into his head, and he shrugged that off like a couple of mosquito bites. Let’s just hope he’s the type of zombie who dies in fires.
Irony Abounds
@Hoodie: Gee, maybe it was just her time of the month. We all know how twitchy women can be during their periods.
Signed,
Clueless Bastard
moonbat
@Omnes Omnibus: Ironically it was Varys who recruited Tyrion to be her Hand. Should have checked that temper out first. Tyrion was seriously breaking my heart last night. His farewell to Jamie and his horrified walk through the ashes was of a man stripped of illusions. Hope Dany doesn’t fry him as a little coda on her “decision” to go full dracarys.
Viva BrisVegas
Power corrupts, dragon power corrupts dragonly.
Since we are going with the fanfic here:
Arya tries to kill Daenarys (Queen of the diphthong)
Jon Snow stops Arya
Daenarys orders Jon to execute Arya
Jon refuses
Daenerys lines up Drogon on both of them
Tyrion stabs Danaerys in the back
Drogon files off in a huff
Jon Snow heads North
Westeros becomes the Seven Kingdoms again
Peasants get back to peasanting
That’s about a 15 minute episode.
PJ
@Genine: @Genine: @Genine: If you think Sansa isn’t ambitious, you haven’t been watching her. But the larger point Martin and Benioff & Weiss are making is that, in a monarchy, anyone who wants to rule is most definitely egotistical, probably ruthless, and, likely as not, bad at ruling. Of the people we have seen who did rule Westeros, Aerys was mad and evil; Robert was, at best indifferent, since he had no interest in ruling; Joffrey was a monster; Tommen maybe would have been a good king if he had enough guidance and grown a spine; and Cersei is spiteful, hateful, and with little foresight.
Of the people we have seen who want or wanted to rule Westeros, Littlefinger was a manipulative shit; Tywin was cold-blooded, but likely a decent manager; Euron is insane and bloodthirsty; and Dany thinks of herself as a merciful, good-hearted person, but anyone who crosses her is in line to die – she will be obeyed, or else. She argues that it is her right, even though she’s never spent any time in Westeros before Season 7, because of her bloodline, but when someone with a better “right” shows up (Jon), she isn’t about to step aside for him. She has little interest in ruling, and less skill at it, as we saw in Meereen, Astapor, and Yunkai, and there’s no reason to believe she will be any better at it in Westeros. She has always been a tyrant.
Sansa, on the other hand . . .
PJ
@Fair Economist: “Good aims” – the audience likes it when she burns people who supported or condoned slavery because they opposed her, and doesn’t like it when she burns “common people” because they opposed her.
PJ
@mad citizen: Tony didn’t get whacked, you got whacked.
tam1MI
@Irony Abounds: My prediction for the last scene: Celia Lancaster wakes up in the master bedroom in her sumptuous Bel-Air mansion, hears water running in the master bath, walks in to see her husband, Bobby Lancaster, the Hedge Fund King of Bel-Air, showering. She tells him “Honey, I just had the wildest fucking dream, I’ll have to tell you about it later. Oh, and by the way, my brother James will be spending a few nights with me while you go on your hunting trip with Dick Cheney.”
Jon Snow wakes up in bed next to Suzanne Pleshette.
Spanish Moss
@Feathers: I agree with your theory about Dany’s inability to change her mind in the heat of battle, though I think she may have felt sure from the beginning that they wouldn’t surrender. I think she assumes that all of Tyrion’s advice about King’s Landing is clouded by sentiment.
I agree that things are too rushed this season, but I love the shows anyway. I think that the farewell scene between Jaime and Tyrion was well done, and I boo-hooed. I like the way music has been used in some of the last few episodes, for example when Arya was wandering through the ruined city.
I liked the Jaime and Cersei ending. You can recognize that somebody isn’t a good person and still love them. Even though I think his love for Brienne was real, I think it would have taken him more time to get over Cersei — she occupied a fundamental place in his life. I also like that there was no “killer” for her. This is war and not every death can be about revenge. All in all, it was fitting.
The only thing I really hated was the Hound’s fight with his brother. Nothing about it was satisfying, meaningful, or even plausible. The Mountain was so unkillable, it was moving into parody territory.
dp
@patrick II: This is entirely possible.
dp
@Bobby Thomson: Dragons don’t accept new riders, so Jon’s (Aegon’s) dragon-riding days were over when Rhaegar bit the water.
hofeizai
There was a lot to quibble with, and I am not loving the crazy Dany story (though I started with the books, and found show Dany much nicer than the book one). To me, the Hound was the big problem. He was a violent guy who hated his brother and didn’t seem to care that much about his life. We have seen him grow, with some backsliding. He has helped people, and tried to become a different person. he has made friends, and tried to leae the violence behind for a time. That he would then decide to march down to kill his brother seems really odd. It seemed like the show forgot about a lot of his story.
Arya, on the other hand, only cared about revenge for a long time. They ride down together, spending…days? weeks? time is flexible in this show. Anyway, they spend a lot of time together, then when she is near her goal and all is falling apart, he points out not getting revenge is an option, and she decides to just give it up? Seems odd.
They forgot who is obsessed and who is growing
Genine Tyson
@PJ:
I do think Sansa is ambitious but she didn’t start out that way. That was the point I was trying to make. Dany started ambitious and will stay that way until she (likely next episode) dies.
Again, I think this making ambitious women the villain thing makes certain people feel better. Fine. I think they could have set it up better or just have her do this the beginning of Season 7 like Olenna Tyrell suggested. Her saving millions of people one episode then killing those save people the next is bullshit.
Tim in SF
Varris tried poison Daenerys. That’s why she burned him to the ground.
Irony Abounds
@tam1MI: Well done, well done.
The Mary Tyler Moore Show and the second Newhart show really knew how to end their series. The Dallas dream episode was a joke, however.
Jack the Cold Warrior
@Bobby Thomson: Drogan hates the cold, so nonstarter.