Game of Thrones!

[highlander]

I didn't expect that episode. Kind of a downer. She was doing so well up to this point. It's like she went batshit crazy for no reason.

 

[Totenkindly]

Well she had more than sufficient reason, logically.... but it wasnt actually translated smoothly on screen, so it feels abrupt. It doesn't help that she mopes around a few days. And then in the episode she clearly decides to do it... it's not like she was out of control. They tried to set it up but bungled

Like, I just went back to watch jaime abandon brienne. Same deal. It's clear that ultimately jaime's top commitment was to his twin but that scene was not written correctly so it really felt like a slap in the face.

 

[ceecee]

Yes, but did you like it or not like it? It wasn't perfect, but I'm happy with it overall. It's like the rest of this season. Some really dumb moments, but lots of good stuff. Oh, and regarding something else I've been complaining about...

Tyrion didn't bother me much here. In this case, it seemed less about counting on the good will and reasonably of his crazy sister, and more about hoping that he can find some way to minimize bloodshed, and also about wanting to repay his brother. Tyrion's the guy who is hoping that he's not stuck been two equally shitty choices, but wants to believe that there's a better way. I'm ok with that; it was something season 2 delved into a bit with him. I suppose that could have been what he was about last season, but it could have been written better.

Lena Headey was pretty amazing in this... conveyed quite a bit just through her eyes, without saying a word.

I also saw interesting bits of symbolism (which were perhaps obvious). The burned people made me think of the hound; they'll probably go on to be like the hound, obsessed with vengeance, even if they die in the process. And the cycle continues.

And then there's the wildfire. Ceresei's act, obviously, but also Danerys's father. Like father, like daughter.

I liked it, it was impressive from a filming standpoint.

 

[Totenkindly]

So as far as wild fire goes:

It looks like there was wildfire stashed at various places around the city, but the dragon fire was simply setting it off, right? And it didn't really seem to have much rhyme or reason, it was just stashed secretly for... some plan or other.

I wish it would have been leveraged better, it felt kind of like they just threw it in as an after thought. Because it really wasn't a ton in terms of covering the whole city. Like, strategically place it to stop an invading army? Prepare long-range missiles with it to bombard a dragon -- although I'm not sure a dragon is affected by it, if it's fire? But it's alchemical fire... Maybe that's different?

As far as Sandor:

The fight itself was fine. I like how Cersei just kind of scurried away -- she's the Queen of this debacle, but she's not Sandor's interest here, so it's amusing. Anyone else would kill Cersei, Sandor's just here for himself and his bro.

The main issue I had in this fight is the lack of follow-through on the fire thing. Falling 200 feet to your death into flames doesn't count because he's dead by the time he would even see or experience the flames... and it's not like he was purposefully confronting the flames, his dilemma was to ram through the wall or not and thus fall.

Throughout the series, the show has made a HUGE deal of Sandor's fear of flame. Even three episodes ago, I think, he had an issue during the Winterfell battle. Typically his fear of flame -- arising from what Gregor did to him as a child -- has incapacitated him. So what this fight should have done was had a moment in it where there was heavy fire, and instead of curling into a little ball like the other times or detaching from the situation, Sandor would have to push through and continue to fight.

This should have been easy to do in context of the environment during this fight.

It didn't happen, they didn't even bother to try.

Sandor really wasn't there out of "revenge," he was there to reclaim his life and push through is fear of fire, and killing his brother by defeating his fear would have gotten him that part of his life back. They simply didn't follow through on it.

As far as Arya:

I was fine with this. it's one of the few things I felt like they explicated decently on screen, and then they dealt with the followup -- her experience on the streets on King's Landing trying to escape was just so freaking harrowing. I like how she said Sandor's name -- as soon as she said it, I realized no one ever really says his name.

Pretty much everyone now accepts she's gonna make a go at Dany, in the finale. We saw what she saw on the streets. All those innocent people dying. It was pretty traumatic to watch Drogon slowly wheel in and approach on a strafing run -- it was tracked really well, they gave it a good 15 seconds -- forcing Arya to leave behind that mom and daughter to die in each other's arms on the street so that she could duck around the corner. And I do not think it is out of "revenge" even if Dany deserves it, it's "this woman is a threat to everything, to life itself including the Starks". Esp if Dany starts talking about killing Jon for being a threat to her power and/or killing Sansa for forcing her hand.

As far as Jaime:

Mentioned above. I don't think it was AWFUL for Jaime to go back to Cersei IF it felt like part of the established narrative emotionally. IOW, it would have to feel like some character revelation that meshed with his ongoing growth. I felt like his conversation with Brienne was terrible, it could have nailed it all down and made it clear why he was going back, and instead it just felt like a horrible backslide.

If he had said to Brienne that he does love her and he valued how she always believed in him... but regardless, he has loved his sister for a long time, and he's finding he can't rest, can't sleep, can't sit well without her even when he knows she has done terrible things, and he's all she has and he has to be there with her no matter what.... I think that would have been part of "acceptance" of feelings you can't shake.

As it is, he KINDA half-says part of that, but when you're watching him leave Winterfell, it just feels wrong and confusing and makes no sense in light of all the other changes we've seen in him. Anyway, it needed to feel like a continuation of his journey, not a backslide.

it wasn't really his fault he took two shortswords / long daggers to the abdomen, yet somehow climbed all those steps without bleeding out and then back down again.

As far as Sansa:

Is Dany correct, or will this be another provocative narrative thread the showrunners will toss out there, then do nothing with? I think it's interesting that Sansa is one of the "good" people, but her life training has come through corrupt people. So her actions, maybe while pure in motive, run a risk of also being corrupted, rationally.

So did she set this chain of events into motion accidentally or on purpose? She doesn't need to be a mustache-twiddling villain in order to have done something manipulative, even for "good" reasons. I find it kind of intriguing, but I fear they just won't follow through on it in a nuanced way.

Regardless, Dany will blame her. Sansa is a threat to her reign. And since Dany burned Varys, Sansa will know and prepare. She's smart, she will protect herself. She's the local girl, Dany is the untrusted outsider who just murdered an entire city. Sansa's got the populace of the north on her side.

As far as Jon:

One of the big disappointments with Jon is that he was brought back like a hero, but he seems to have become even more ambivalent and useless as time passes. Why was he even brought back, well, aside from taking out Ramsay?

There was something intriguing about Jon's resurrection, in that he said "there was nothing" out there. He experienced nothing. It was a void. He has asked to not be brought back any more if he dies again. He seems to also be a bit "Bran-like" in that he's a bit detached from human concerns -- as others of us have noted, he acts as if living on "borrowed time".

I wish the show had leaned into this more. It dabbles with it. Like, when Dany is looking for an emotional response from him repeatedly, and he has nothing for her. I think mainly they are thinking it was in response to his own ambivalence after watching her fry Varys, even while his lips pledge his fealty to her... but he's kinda like walking dead, even as Benjen was a bit. He's a resurrected ghost meant to do a job and then that is it. Is his job done? I wish they leaned a lot harder into this sense that he's "not all quite there" and this is why he's so detached and ambivalent... give him some lines of dialogue that accentuate this reality.

See, a big problem is focusing so much energy and time on this huge relevant of Jon's heritage -- and then having it serve no point. And if he gets stuck as King -- well, he doesn't want it, he'd suck at it, and he's not quite "all there" anymore. So someone else would be running the kingdom in his name anyway.

As far as Cersei:

Her behavior was within the boundaries of her known personality albeit at one extreme; however, she has shown herself to be far more cunning in the past. Again, they really didn't show a progression into this behavior on her part. She was kind of shoved to the side the last two seasons (the last good bit of her arc was really when she took out the Sept of Balor and damned the septa to torment by Gregor). Since then she's just been a villain without much air time. Cersei is self-centered, calloused, mean-spirited... so many things... but not as dumb as this last season made her out to be.

Again, you have to show the progression emotionally on screen. She ended up being used more as a plot device than as a real person. I'm okay with her weeping over her unborn child and dying in the catacombs, but they didn't track her properly to get her there emotionally. Tywin would be rolling over in the grave.

As far as Varys:

I'm okay with that death in concept -- it was foretold for seasons and pretty much a clear bet for this episode -- his goodbye with Tyrion was touching, and his face as he was about to die was well-acted. Drogon is both beautiful and terrifying, leaning out of the darkness like the Alien queen mother. However, like everything else, it all felt so rushed and on the nose. Varys simply isn't that dumb, there was no tension, it was just a foregone conclusion and they approached it as yet one more plot point to check off. I really wished I cared more about his passing. Both Littlefinger and Varys were supposed to be the smartest guys in Westeros -- aside from the Imp -- and they both kinda just faltered and took it in the face.

Side note: It seems like he was trying to poison Dany via food, but she wasn't eating. I wonder if that will show up in the finale.

As far as Tyrion:

While we have the finale yet where crazy-ass Dany might just execute Tyrion after spewing her blood and fire and drinking it too, in general Tyrion has fucked up so much in the last two seasons or more that it's a wonder he hasn't been murdered yet. Note that (since I rewatched the entire series recently), he was also a bit more distant and not nearly as sentimental when we first meet him in Season 1, he would basically be a bit more coarse and disdainful on the surface while doing really nice things for people under the gruffer exterior. Now he's just become a mopey, broody, sentimental philanthropist.

Tyrion releasing Jaime makes sense (although I don't know how Jaime got away, after he couldn't even pass the lines in the first place without getting caught -- maybe he hid his hand this time). I'm also not sure why Tyrion is SO anti-bloodshed; he's a good guy, but he's also a rationalist and knows that there's some good people in the city but also some bad ones. His whole goal shouldn't have been trying to completely quell a sack, it should have been trying to direct Dany's ire straight at Cersei. he was smart enough to know this, and there was a point when he was happy to see the entire city burn because of how they treated him at his trial -- he wanted to poison 'each and every one of them' so he could watch them DIE.

Instead, they made Tyrion into a sentimentalist, rather than a philanthropic realist. They leaned into tropes a bit.

I think the scene with Jaime was so sad because both brothers knew that whatever happened, they would never see each other again. If Jaime died, he died; if Jaime lived, he'd be in exile... and chances are that Tyrion would be dead for releasing him. So... genuinely sad. Maybe Jaime and Cersei were always a thing as a romantic couple, but Jaime and Tyrion ALSO were a thing in terms of brotherly love -- they were each other's last defender. If he lives, I guess he will figure out Jaime is dead because the castle collapsed and the skiff remained... unless Euron somehow took it.

Anyway, congrats -- both of GRRM's faves (Tyrion and Arya) made it to the final episode, even if it's kind of incredible.

As far as Grey Worm:

He is normally so subdued, plays fair, is a master of self-restraint.

At the same time, Cersei needlessly took his future by callously murdering the one person who loved him. She took everything from him.

And the city took two of his queen's dragons, and many of his people, and everyone constantly disrespects her / kicks her around when she's there to be their Queen and save them. The quiet restrained moralist warrior pushed to the very edge by people dishonoring the causes and people he follows wholeheartedly? And he was trained to kill / fight from an early age, he is a weapon who has even survived the walkers?

He didn't bother to initiate an attack until Dany (his Queen) started burning the city. She in essence said, "it's okay to rain fire on these people." So.... I could buy this, he just finally broke. If something was going to break him, this was it.

As far as Dany:

Dany is the daughter of the mad king and there have been hints of her "descent into madness" -- I think having her appear sans makeup and rather coarse in this episode helped too -- but she isn't mad or insane. She's not hearing voices. Let's be honest -- she didn't go "insane" like her father, she simply has been denied too long, two of her children were murdered, Missandei was murdered, she is here to 'save Westeros" and they just keep kicking her to the curb even after she risked everything to fight the NK, they will never love her like they love Jon. The dream of her entire life is shattered. This was what she wanted and expected, but it won't happen.

Dany isn't "crazy" when she burns the city. She's just hurt and mad, and she realizes that surrender isn't something she's willing to accept. It's like one final indignity, after everything all these nasty people have done to her -- to surrender like they expect her mercy, when they will never give her their love. She's sane. She's spiteful and murderous.

This is actually the Dany we know, though. She always burned people to death when they crossed her -- the witch, the slavers, etc. She locked folks up forever in the vault on Qarth. She crucified a bunch of masters for being masters. She spent the last two seasons trying to be restrained to honor the "mores" of Westeros, and look where it got her -- almost losing her war, losing two of her kids, losing everything. She's back on mission now. Dany is not naturally merciful. She is vengeful.

The show played around with her being a "hero" and "liberator" and having the people love her, but she's not really a hero. However, it confused matters here because what she does is just pretty vile. If she were a "good person" she would have simply burned Cersei down, possibly the red keep around her; but instead she levels all of King's Landing and kills all the people she promised to save and even wanted to rule. She gutted her own kingdom-to-be.

The show really wanted its cake here and yet to eat it. They did telegraph for a long time that "this is Dany" but they tried to soften her up too much without all the proper emotional transition work. They wanted us to care about her but were not willing to really let her be edgy enough. Everyone was far too glowy about her, about how wonderful she was, where they should have been more pragmatic and guarded in their following her. She should have been more of an anti-hero rather than a hero, per se...

I think Daario would be gentle with her but extremely disappointed in her, as far as this goes.

As far as Dany + Jon:

Still not sure what they "love" about each other. They don't have much chemistry, really. And they became connected very quickly... unless it's an incestuous pheromonal thing. I felt like they each had more chemistry with their respective "last lover" -- which would be Ygritte and Daario.

As far as Harry Strickland:

Hope you enjoyed your 90 seconds in the sun, I bet your back is killing you.

more thoughts later...

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I liked it, it was impressive from a filming standpoint.

I liked that it showed the audience what the thing everyone was wanting for years would actually look like, and it's not pretty.

I guess the one ambiguity is whether or not she would be like her father, but even if she wasn't, a lot of people still would have died like that. Just not so many. I mean, even Mirri Maz Dur, which many people just accept or kind of look past, was not fully justified. Drogo would have been ruthless and would have killed, murdered and raped a lot of people (he said so!) and he conquered and destroyed her village.

 

[ceecee]

I liked that it showed the audience what the thing everyone was wanting for years would actually look like, and it's not pretty.

I guess the one ambiguity is whether or not she would be like her father, but even if she wasn't, a lot of people still would have died like that. Just not so many. I mean, even Mirri Maz Dur, which many people just accept or kind of look past, was not fully justified. Drogo would have been ruthless and would have killed, murdered and raped a lot of people (he said so!) and he conquered and destroyed her village.

I agree.

Maybe it's just me and I don't have much taste for gratuitous violence in film any longer, overall. It's much easier to view things on big or small screen when it isn't actually happening to you or you are (voluntarily or not) unaware of it happening at all anywhere. It was incredible to watch, the way it was edited and directed but I'm just not up for the slaughter and suffering. One takeaway from the series is: when you say - I choose violence - you'll get it.

 

[tinker683]

Jenn really said a lot of what I was thinking myself so I don't have much to add. I did just want to say the following:

1) It's a wild ride but overall, this season has a poor job wrapping up many of the story-lines for me. Cleganebowl was great, I enjoyed that. The various other character deaths didn't really bother me that much, save for two:

The Night King, and Rhaegal.

The Night Kings death was incredibly anticlimactic for me. They've propped this guy, and the White Walkers, as being this overwhelming threat...and then it just wasn't, very suddenly. Like, I genuinely expected the show to end with a last stand at Kings Landing with virtually everywhere else overrun and destroyed by the Night King. I thought the moral lesson of the entire show would be, "All of the power struggles and all of the material things you desires are ultimately meaningless in the face of death" and that the Night King would die in a Tolkien-esque Battle of the Last Alliance type fight with Cate Blanchett (obviously not her but you what I mean, stay with me here) narrating, "When all hope had faded, it was then that Arya seized her fathers sword..." and kill him.

But no...we get Arya, with a Sneak of 100, move past ALL OF THESE WIGHTS for the one-shot and then, "Poof!" they're all dead.

It was a big let down for me.

The other death that bothered me was Rhaegal. Like, I think it's a commentary all by itself when I'm more invested in the well-being of one of the dragons than I am any of the characters. I think he death was so stupid, especially in light of just how effortlessly Drogon just annihilated Kings Landing and all of its defenses in the next episode. I'm supposed to believe Euron-fuckstick was able to Robin Hood a flying dragon with a glorified ballista from a bobbing boat and that said Flying Dragon just stayed there and let itself get hit and then in the following episode watch it's larger older brother nimbly dance around Same-Euron-Fucksticks and EVERY OTHER SCORPIONS bolts effortlessly?

Fuck ALL the way off with that nonsense. Emilia Clarke should have procured a large plastic Rhaegal toy and beaten the showrunners for that pile of horseshit.

2) I'm actually OK with Dany's rather abrupt heel-turn. I mean, it was poorly written and two dimensional and it took a double shit all over any and every perception that she would have been a 'just' Queen, but there was a logic to her actions as telegraphed earlier in the episode. It's overwhelmingly brutal, cold, self-defeating logic...but there is still a thinking there.

It was pointed out that Cersei would use Dany's mercy against her, and she was well aware that the other Lords of Westeros would seek to exploit her as well. By turning all of Kings Landing into glass, she 1) Completely took any and all power away from Cersei and 2) Sent an unambigious message to the rest of Westeros: This is what happens when you cross me.

Now...it's insane, and it's brutal, and it's self-defeating in that it will turn everyone against her. But I get it.

Also...

Can't play the Game of Thrones if you melt the Throne!

View attachment 21377

3) I'm really hoping we get a twist at the end, and Jon doesn't take the Throne. It would just be so lazy and predictable and unearned...but I suspect that's whats going to happen.

 

[Totenkindly]

I'm wondering if there is even a need for "Westeros" per se anymore.

I mean, pretty much all the areas have been trampled.

- The old rulership of EVERY place (some large, some small) is literally gone.

- The capital (King's Landing) where power was consolidated is gone.

- What remains would be happy to rule itself -- Winterfell, etc. Maybe Bronn was promised Highgarden, but what exists there currently? The show really doesn't address how all these places continue to function -- if they do -- when the ruling authority is removed. Without the potential for punishment, there's always a percentage of people who will steal, abuse, rape, pillage, etc., for their own gain. Dorne also has new leadership. And so on.

- The threat of the Night King is gone. The wilding threat is gone. The wall is broken.

- so we have a loss of collective infrastructure and resource shuttling. There will likely be chaos in many places, so the local lords will take over to stabilize their regions.

- I guess the meisters are still around, at least. They have always been onto themselves.

Anyway, unless there's a military presence with enough strength to go out and literally beat each area back into submission OR there is some external threat that arises to force everyone together to repel it (and we see how well that worked last time), Westeros is pretty much gone. And if you beat areas back into submission, you then have to rebuild all of that to get it functional again.

Destroying the wheel is an awesome idea, but afterwards you have a bunch of broken wheels and a cart that goes nowhere.

Anyway, we might see what happened I guess like what happened with the USSR when it fell apart... all these small countries taking charge of themselves and fighting for resources individually, with varying degrees of success. Eventually consolidation will occur when it becomes both possible and productive. The cycle will restart.

Red Keep:

The wiki is also saying that the main parts of the Red Keep survived intact. If so, that's kind of ridiculous after what we saw most recently, where even the foundations were collapsing. I mean, it shouldn't even be usable. All the outer towers are destroyed, Parts of the main building looked destroyed, the foundations collapsed. How on earth would the keep be usable?

Symbolically, the Red Keep was the seat of authority in Westeros. It was built by the Targaryans 300 years before. For Dany to destroy it the way she did is also suggesting she is burning Targaryan rule to the ground. She destroyed the legacy of her ancestors and the thing she was supposedly returning to claim as her heritage. It'll be rather lame to turn around and somehow recover from that.

Game of Thrones Season 8, Episode 5: Three reviewers discuss - The Atlantic
'Game of Thrones' Series Finale Predictions: Who Will Win the Iron Throne? | Hollywood Reporter
Critic's Notebook: In the End, 'Game of Thrones' Finds a Way to Make Its Woman Problem Worse | Hollywood Reporter

 

[Deprecator]

Yet even more clues...?

"Littlefinger was a mask he had to wear...it was hard to tell where the man ended and the mask began" - Sansa Stark.

 

[Red Memories]

So as far as wild fire goes:

It looks like there was wildfire stashed at various places around the city, but the dragon fire was simply setting it off, right? And it didn't really seem to have much rhyme or reason, it was just stashed secretly for... some plan or other.

I wish it would have been leveraged better, it felt kind of like they just threw it in as an after thought. Because it really wasn't a ton in terms of covering the whole city. Like, strategically place it to stop an invading army? Prepare long-range missiles with it to bombard a dragon -- although I'm not sure a dragon is affected by it, if it's fire? But it's alchemical fire... Maybe that's different?

As far as Sandor:

The fight itself was fine. I like how Cersei just kind of scurried away -- she's the Queen of this debacle, but she's not Sandor's interest here, so it's amusing. Anyone else would kill Cersei, Sandor's just here for himself and his bro.

The main issue I had in this fight is the lack of follow-through on the fire thing. Falling 200 feet to your death into flames doesn't count because he's dead by the time he would even see or experience the flames... and it's not like he was purposefully confronting the flames, his dilemma was to ram through the wall or not and thus fall.

Throughout the series, the show has made a HUGE deal of Sandor's fear of flame. Even three episodes ago, I think, he had an issue during the Winterfell battle. Typically his fear of flame -- arising from what Gregor did to him as a child -- has incapacitated him. So what this fight should have done was had a moment in it where there was heavy fire, and instead of curling into a little ball like the other times or detaching from the situation, Sandor would have to push through and continue to fight.

This should have been easy to do in context of the environment during this fight.

It didn't happen, they didn't even bother to try.

Sandor really wasn't there out of "revenge," he was there to reclaim his life and push through is fear of fire, and killing his brother by defeating his fear would have gotten him that part of his life back. They simply didn't follow through on it.

As far as Arya:

I was fine with this. it's one of the few things I felt like they explicated decently on screen, and then they dealt with the followup -- her experience on the streets on King's Landing trying to escape was just so freaking harrowing. I like how she said Sandor's name -- as soon as she said it, I realized no one ever really says his name.

Pretty much everyone now accepts she's gonna make a go at Dany, in the finale. We saw what she saw on the streets. All those innocent people dying. It was pretty traumatic to watch Drogon slowly wheel in and approach on a strafing run -- it was tracked really well, they gave it a good 15 seconds -- forcing Arya to leave behind that mom and daughter to die in each other's arms on the street so that she could duck around the corner. And I do not think it is out of "revenge" even if Dany deserves it, it's "this woman is a threat to everything, to life itself including the Starks". Esp if Dany starts talking about killing Jon for being a threat to her power and/or killing Sansa for forcing her hand.

As far as Jaime:

Mentioned above. I don't think it was AWFUL for Jaime to go back to Cersei IF it felt like part of the established narrative emotionally. IOW, it would have to feel like some character revelation that meshed with his ongoing growth. I felt like his conversation with Brienne was terrible, it could have nailed it all down and made it clear why he was going back, and instead it just felt like a horrible backslide.

If he had said to Brienne that he does love her and he valued how she always believed in him... but regardless, he has loved his sister for a long time, and he's finding he can't rest, can't sleep, can't sit well without her even when he knows she has done terrible things, and he's all she has and he has to be there with her no matter what.... I think that would have been part of "acceptance" of feelings you can't shake.

As it is, he KINDA half-says part of that, but when you're watching him leave Winterfell, it just feels wrong and confusing and makes no sense in light of all the other changes we've seen in him. Anyway, it needed to feel like a continuation of his journey, not a backslide.

it wasn't really his fault he took two shortswords / long daggers to the abdomen, yet somehow climbed all those steps without bleeding out and then back down again.

As far as Sansa:

Is Dany correct, or will this be another provocative narrative thread the showrunners will toss out there, then do nothing with? I think it's interesting that Sansa is one of the "good" people, but her life training has come through corrupt people. So her actions, maybe while pure in motive, run a risk of also being corrupted, rationally.

So did she set this chain of events into motion accidentally or on purpose? She doesn't need to be a mustache-twiddling villain in order to have done something manipulative, even for "good" reasons. I find it kind of intriguing, but I fear they just won't follow through on it in a nuanced way.

Regardless, Dany will blame her. Sansa is a threat to her reign. And since Dany burned Varys, Sansa will know and prepare. She's smart, she will protect herself. She's the local girl, Dany is the untrusted outsider who just murdered an entire city. Sansa's got the populace of the north on her side.

As far as Jon:

One of the big disappointments with Jon is that he was brought back like a hero, but he seems to have become even more ambivalent and useless as time passes. Why was he even brought back, well, aside from taking out Ramsay?

There was something intriguing about Jon's resurrection, in that he said "there was nothing" out there. He experienced nothing. It was a void. He has asked to not be brought back any more if he dies again. He seems to also be a bit "Bran-like" in that he's a bit detached from human concerns -- as others of us have noted, he acts as if living on "borrowed time".

I wish the show had leaned into this more. It dabbles with it. Like, when Dany is looking for an emotional response from him repeatedly, and he has nothing for her. I think mainly they are thinking it was in response to his own ambivalence after watching her fry Varys, even while his lips pledge his fealty to her... but he's kinda like walking dead, even as Benjen was a bit. He's a resurrected ghost meant to do a job and then that is it. Is his job done? I wish they leaned a lot harder into this sense that he's "not all quite there" and this is why he's so detached and ambivalent... give him some lines of dialogue that accentuate this reality.

See, a big problem is focusing so much energy and time on this huge relevant of Jon's heritage -- and then having it serve no point. And if he gets stuck as King -- well, he doesn't want it, he'd suck at it, and he's not quite "all there" anymore. So someone else would be running the kingdom in his name anyway.

As far as Cersei:

Her behavior was within the boundaries of her known personality albeit at one extreme; however, she has shown herself to be far more cunning in the past. Again, they really didn't show a progression into this behavior on her part. She was kind of shoved to the side the last two seasons (the last good bit of her arc was really when she took out the Sept of Balor and damned the septa to torment by Gregor). Since then she's just been a villain without much air time. Cersei is self-centered, calloused, mean-spirited... so many things... but not as dumb as this last season made her out to be.

Again, you have to show the progression emotionally on screen. She ended up being used more as a plot device than as a real person. I'm okay with her weeping over her unborn child and dying in the catacombs, but they didn't track her properly to get her there emotionally. Tywin would be rolling over in the grave.

As far as Varys:

I'm okay with that death in concept -- it was foretold for seasons and pretty much a clear bet for this episode -- his goodbye with Tyrion was touching, and his face as he was about to die was well-acted. Drogon is both beautiful and terrifying, leaning out of the darkness like the Alien queen mother. However, like everything else, it all felt so rushed and on the nose. Varys simply isn't that dumb, there was no tension, it was just a foregone conclusion and they approached it as yet one more plot point to check off. I really wished I cared more about his passing. Both Littlefinger and Varys were supposed to be the smartest guys in Westeros -- aside from the Imp -- and they both kinda just faltered and took it in the face.

Side note: It seems like he was trying to poison Dany via food, but she wasn't eating. I wonder if that will show up in the finale.

As far as Tyrion:

While we have the finale yet where crazy-ass Dany might just execute Tyrion after spewing her blood and fire and drinking it too, in general Tyrion has fucked up so much in the last two seasons or more that it's a wonder he hasn't been murdered yet. Note that (since I rewatched the entire series recently), he was also a bit more distant and not nearly as sentimental when we first meet him in Season 1, he would basically be a bit more coarse and disdainful on the surface while doing really nice things for people under the gruffer exterior. Now he's just become a mopey, broody, sentimental philanthropist.

Tyrion releasing Jaime makes sense (although I don't know how Jaime got away, after he couldn't even pass the lines in the first place without getting caught -- maybe he hid his hand this time). I'm also not sure why Tyrion is SO anti-bloodshed; he's a good guy, but he's also a rationalist and knows that there's some good people in the city but also some bad ones. His whole goal shouldn't have been trying to completely quell a sack, it should have been trying to direct Dany's ire straight at Cersei. he was smart enough to know this, and there was a point when he was happy to see the entire city burn because of how they treated him at his trial -- he wanted to poison 'each and every one of them' so he could watch them DIE.

Instead, they made Tyrion into a sentimentalist, rather than a philanthropic realist. They leaned into tropes a bit.

I think the scene with Jaime was so sad because both brothers knew that whatever happened, they would never see each other again. If Jaime died, he died; if Jaime lived, he'd be in exile... and chances are that Tyrion would be dead for releasing him. So... genuinely sad. Maybe Jaime and Cersei were always a thing as a romantic couple, but Jaime and Tyrion ALSO were a thing in terms of brotherly love -- they were each other's last defender. If he lives, I guess he will figure out Jaime is dead because the castle collapsed and the skiff remained... unless Euron somehow took it.

Anyway, congrats -- both of GRRM's faves (Tyrion and Arya) made it to the final episode, even if it's kind of incredible.

As far as Grey Worm:

He is normally so subdued, plays fair, is a master of self-restraint.

At the same time, Cersei needlessly took his future by callously murdering the one person who loved him. She took everything from him.

And the city took two of his queen's dragons, and many of his people, and everyone constantly disrespects her / kicks her around when she's there to be their Queen and save them. The quiet restrained moralist warrior pushed to the very edge by people dishonoring the causes and people he follows wholeheartedly? And he was trained to kill / fight from an early age, he is a weapon who has even survived the walkers?

He didn't bother to initiate an attack until Dany (his Queen) started burning the city. She in essence said, "it's okay to rain fire on these people." So.... I could buy this, he just finally broke. If something was going to break him, this was it.

As far as Dany:

Dany is the daughter of the mad king and there have been hints of her "descent into madness" -- I think having her appear sans makeup and rather coarse in this episode helped too -- but she isn't mad or insane. She's not hearing voices. Let's be honest -- she didn't go "insane" like her father, she simply has been denied too long, two of her children were murdered, Missandei was murdered, she is here to 'save Westeros" and they just keep kicking her to the curb even after she risked everything to fight the NK, they will never love her like they love Jon. The dream of her entire life is shattered. This was what she wanted and expected, but it won't happen.

Dany isn't "crazy" when she burns the city. She's just hurt and mad, and she realizes that surrender isn't something she's willing to accept. It's like one final indignity, after everything all these nasty people have done to her -- to surrender like they expect her mercy, when they will never give her their love. She's sane. She's spiteful and murderous.

This is actually the Dany we know, though. She always burned people to death when they crossed her -- the witch, the slavers, etc. She locked folks up forever in the vault on Qarth. She crucified a bunch of masters for being masters. She spent the last two seasons trying to be restrained to honor the "mores" of Westeros, and look where it got her -- almost losing her war, losing two of her kids, losing everything. She's back on mission now. Dany is not naturally merciful. She is vengeful.

The show played around with her being a "hero" and "liberator" and having the people love her, but she's not really a hero. However, it confused matters here because what she does is just pretty vile. If she were a "good person" she would have simply burned Cersei down, possibly the red keep around her; but instead she levels all of King's Landing and kills all the people she promised to save and even wanted to rule. She gutted her own kingdom-to-be.

The show really wanted its cake here and yet to eat it. They did telegraph for a long time that "this is Dany" but they tried to soften her up too much without all the proper emotional transition work. They wanted us to care about her but were not willing to really let her be edgy enough. Everyone was far too glowy about her, about how wonderful she was, where they should have been more pragmatic and guarded in their following her. She should have been more of an anti-hero rather than a hero, per se...

I think Daario would be gentle with her but extremely disappointed in her, as far as this goes.

As far as Dany + Jon:

Still not sure what they "love" about each other. They don't have much chemistry, really. And they became connected very quickly... unless it's an incestuous pheromonal thing. I felt like they each had more chemistry with their respective "last lover" -- which would be Ygritte and Daario.

As far as Harry Strickland:

Hope you enjoyed your 90 seconds in the sun, I bet your back is killing you.

more thoughts later...

I agree with the sentiment about Dany here. I do feel she is more of an anti-hero in a sense. I don't think at that point her focus even was the throne anymore but revenge - for everything, even the very past where they killed off her family. I do not think that makes someone mad, but it makes them very human.

I think I was unsatisfied with Cersei's death in any stretch, at the same time I've always felt this sort of ounce of restraint to Cersei. She was in a horrible marriage, afraid of being discovered for loving her brother, her son was more ruthless than her and ended up dead, etc. In a sense she had a bad hand given to her, and from there she became the villain she was. In a sense, I would have liked Jaime to kill her because I feel it would be full redemption for his character. He was on this path of being better than what he was. That very much disappointed me. I felt the death was weak and they made an attempt to romanticize the two, after everything, and it didn't really fly with me. They were both ruthless, unempathic, and uncaring in the past. I have a hard time believing Cersei loved anyone at that point, it just seemed she loved her power and control. It would have been more fitting for Cersei to die in her arrogance than die fleeing, in the arms of someone she loved when no one else she ruthlessly murdered got the honors of that. She did not deserve the death she received. She deserved something worse. I did appreciate they had the mountain disobey her though, I think perhaps that showed her too. In other news of that, what the fuck is that thing she created? XD

 

[Hellena Handbasket]

 

[Totenkindly]

Everything's better with Benny.

 

[Totenkindly]

I agree with the sentiment about Dany here. I do feel she is more of an anti-hero in a sense. I don't think at that point her focus even was the throne anymore but revenge - for everything, even the very past where they killed off her family. I do not think that makes someone mad, but it makes them very human.

I've seen some comment about how rationally sometimes this happens during a takeover, as a rational decision, to basically dissuade further rebellion.... but the showrunners said they viewed her as making this decision spontaneously. It wasn't part of a larger plan. It was a clearly a choice made from a non-insane mind, because she was upset, from what they said.

I just think they didn't really set it up well enough. I would have been fine with her gunning for the Red Keep because that was her enemy she was mad at. Typically she punishes people who specifically have done wrong (like the Masters).

I think I was unsatisfied with Cersei's death in any stretch, at the same time I've always felt this sort of ounce of restraint to Cersei. She was in a horrible marriage, afraid of being discovered for loving her brother, her son was more ruthless than her and ended up dead, etc. In a sense she had a bad hand given to her, and from there she became the villain she was. In a sense, I would have liked Jaime to kill her because I feel it would be full redemption for his character. He was on this path of being better than what he was. That very much disappointed me. I felt the death was weak and they made an attempt to romanticize the two, after everything, and it didn't really fly with me. They were both ruthless, unempathic, and uncaring in the past. I have a hard time believing Cersei loved anyone at that point, it just seemed she loved her power and control. It would have been more fitting for Cersei to die in her arrogance than die fleeing, in the arms of someone she loved when no one else she ruthlessly murdered got the honors of that. She did not deserve the death she received. She deserved something worse. I did appreciate they had the mountain disobey her though, I think perhaps that showed her too. In other news of that, what the fuck is that thing she created? XD

All in all, I just see it all as pacing issues. I don't have an issue with the plot points and maybe they will even mirror the eventual books -- but I'm really sure GRRM will have paced the story well enough that we will understand better how the characters get from Point A to Point B. The show did not take enough time to justify the sometimes shocking and incomprehensible decisions, after taking a long time to establish them in other directions.

My feelings towards Cersei have always been mixed. She was the character I hated most when I first watch the first few seasons -- she is everything I am not as a person, and I found her petty, spiteful, vindictive, unfair, and someone who does not value objective truth. But I had more compassion for her on later viewings + in seasons 5-6, I found things I could empathize with.

But then she suddenly become much less "rich" as a character in the final two seasons, so I just don't much care anymore about her. No criticism of Lena Headey, she did a wonderful job of playing her; it was again the writing.

Poor Qyburn. Oh well, at least while he was alive he got a pretty awesome R&D budget, and that's all a mad scientist can really hope for.

 

[Totenkindly]

Okay, Memorium Hall. Saying goodbye to two of my favorite characters on the show:

Oberyn Martell

Olenna Tyrell


The world felt less rich without them in it.

 

[Totenkindly]

Also....
Game of Thrones Fans Demand a Season 8 Remake "With Competent Writers" - GoT Change.org Petition

Good luck with that.
Still waiting for TLJ to be remade, har har har.

 

[anticlimatic]

I always knew she was terrible, but why the excess? She could have just nuked the Red Keep, not slowly worked her way there burning out everything else first.

 

[Totenkindly]

That petition is up to about 390,000 signers now.

 

[Deprecator]

"Nissa Nissa ​was the wife of the legendary hero Azor Ahai. In order to unleash the powers of the sword Lightbringer so that he could defeat the darkness of the Great Other, he had to sacrifice her. Nissa Nissa's cry of anguish and ecstasy left a crack across the face of the moon."

 

[Totenkindly]

Petition over 900k.

I actually find the petition creator pretty cogent, here us something he added to explain the petition.

As this petition approaches a million signatures, I figured I should give a real update and explanation.

I made this petition some few days after Episode 4, “The Last of the Starks”, aired. I was just so disappointed and angry. It was simply me venting a bit. I posted it to r/freefolk on Reddit, it got nowhere, and I shrugged and went about my day. I had forgotten all about it. A week later, a coworker caught me before I was leaving for the day and asked, “Hey, is this you?” The petition had almost reached 500,000 signatures. I was blown away. I hadn’t checked the thing for a week! And look at how far it has come!

I haven’t heard from anyone HBO-related. I don’t think people can reasonably expect HBO to completely remake the season, or any part of this particular series (keep in mind the prequel spinoffs). It costs a fortune to shoot one episode, and I think most signers understand that. Will HBO lose gobs of money over this? Eh probably not. As Heath Ledger’s Joker once said, “It’s not about the money, it’s about sending a message.” And I think this message is one of frustration and disappointment at its core.

There is so much awful crap going on in the world, people like me need to escape into things like Star Wars and Game of Thrones. We fans invested a wealth of passion and time into this series. I’ve been watching religiously since Season 2, myself. I’ve read all the books and eagerly await the next two. I love this story, and I, like most of you, was crushed to see how the last season (and Season 7, let’s be real) has been handled.

Is Dany going to succumb to madness in the books? Probably. Is Arya going to kill the Night King? Well he doesn’t exist in the books as of yet so…maybe? Is Jaime going to sacrifice his entire character arc to go embrace Cersei? I’d doubt it, but that’s GRRM’s decision. The issue I have is not necessarily with what we got, it’s HOW we got there -- A rushed, laughably inconsistent mess of a season fraught with cringe-inducing, arc-slaying dialogue and “everybody is stupid” syndrome. We can expect that the books will describe a more sensical path toward the ultimate conclusions that we will see on Sunday. No pressure, Mr. Martin.

D&D adapted those books in the beginning and it became one of the greatest TV shows of all time. No one can doubt their talents there. But they seemingly became tired of the series and rushed to the end, thereby doing the show and its fans a great disservice.

I feel for the actors and actresses too. I am sure some of them are happy with their arcs or perhaps are just happy to be done with the series so they can move on, but I am also sure that many are disappointed with the writing of their characters and the plot here in the end. They put their souls into these characters, and they could be every bit as disappointed as we are.

And no one can question the talents of the casting department, and cinematography, and music, and costuming, and the CGI team, and all those technical fields that went into keeping the show such a beautiful spectacle through to the end. They deserve all the accolades they can get and this petition is not a comment on their contributions to the show.

In closing, I didn’t make this petition to be an entitled, whiny fan. I made it because I was immensely disappointed and needed to vent. Do I have a solution? I’ve got plenty of ideas, but no, I’m not a Hollywood writer. But you don’t need to be a mechanic to know your car is broken.

Thank you to everyone for signing this silly thing. I will post another update if something tangible happens.

Valar Morghulis

 

[Deprecator]

IMO the final episode can still redeem the rest of the season, and more than make up for a few subpar fillers.

Vegas odds on who will rule Westeros:
Jon Snow: +225
Bran Stark: +275
Sansa Stark: +500
Daenerys Targaryen: +550
Gendry: +650
Petyr Baelish: +1,250
Tyrion Lannister: +1,500
Arya Stark: +2,000
Samwell Tarly: +2,000
Cersei Lannister: +2,500
Jon and Daenerys’ baby: +2,500
Jaime Lannister: +4,000
Varys: +7,000

I am very much forced to agree with Lord Varys, both in his sincere effort to serve the realm and in his assessment of Baelish. "A man with great ambition and no morals -- I wouldn't bet against you."