Game of Thrones [SPOILERS]

[Threash]

I don't think there's very much to wrap up to be honest.

[HaemishM]

Talking about this on Facebook, I mentioned that Dany had been telegraphed to go mad queen since season 7. To my surprise, one of the replies I got said "No, she's been telegraphed to go Mad Queen for years. Her first instinct is burn and slaughter but Jorah or Missandei talk her down everytime. They're gone now, that's why she finally let loose."

I was thinking on this last night. Dany's story arc has NEVER been good. In the books and in the TV show, her arc is just fucking bad. Every time she showed up on the other side of the world from the Westeros stuff, the story would drag and the only reason Khal Drogo's part of it was interesting was because Mamoa played the character. Otherwise, Dany's just a terrible character. Her entire motivation is "they tooks my thronez!!!!" and I feel like the whole "Breaker of Chains" thing was just some shit Martin made up to make the character sympathetic, a long con fake out so that you didn't immediately know "this bitch be crazy."

[Jeff Kelly]

After all Daenerys went through including being basically sold off by her own brother "all of those fuckers need to burn" should and would have been a believable motivation. It's hard to turn this into a sympathetic character but it would work.

[Threash]

It would have gone better if she started off burning everything from the beginning of the battle and then mentally struggled to stop when the bells started ringing. Having her go mad when she had clearly already achieved total victory with nothing to trigger her at that moment didn't work as well.

[schild]

They have 79 minutes left to wrap things up, chances are there'll be a lot of open threads left because nothing except a giant meteor striking Westeros will help at this point.

did you not see the last episode?

the giant meteor was shaped like a dragon

[Jeff Kelly]

still too many loose threads

[MediumHigh]

Game of Loose Ends.

[Phildo]

What loose threads?  The show only cares about Danaerys, Jon, Sansa and Arya at this point.

[MediumHigh]

Snipping loose ends without 80% of your audience calling you out for bullshit is the game.

[Rendakor]

What loose ends are really left, aside from who (if anyone) ends up on the Iron Throne? The Hound's dead, Cersei and her baby are dead with nary a Valonqar in sight, Euron's dead, Melisandre's dead, Varys is dead, there is no Young Griff, no Lady Stoneheart, and so on. The last two seasons burned every interesting plot thread to the ground, because the showrunners can't write well when they aren't adapting the books. We have the Jon x Dany conflict still in play and that's honestly about it.

I'm asking honestly: Are there any unanswered questions still out there that haven't been invalidated by the last few episodes?

[Rendakor]

In Fantasy GoT news, I think it's safe to say Phildo has a lock on the win since he has Daenerys on his team and a 300 point lead. Dany almost certainly has 200 points coming next episode for taking the Iron Throne (since I'm assuming she'll get it even if she doesn't hold it); even if someone else takes the throne (200p), kills Dany (25p) and Drogon (150p), and survives as King (30 or maybe 50, I'm not sure if Survive and survive as King/Queen are cumulative) that is unlikely to close the gap unless things really get crazy. Particularly because Jon's the most likely one to pull it off, and he's on Strazos's team who is in dead last. Soln has Arya but no one else alive and a 450p deficit to overcome...

[MediumHigh]

What loose ends are really left, aside from who (if anyone) ends up on the Iron Throne? The Hound's dead, Cersei and her baby are dead with nary a Valonqar in sight, Euron's dead, Melisandre's dead, Varys is dead, there is no Young Griff, no Lady Stoneheart, and so on. The last two seasons burned every interesting plot thread to the ground, because the showrunners can't write well when they aren't adapting the books. We have the Jon x Dany conflict still in play and that's honestly about it.

I'm asking honestly: Are there any unanswered questions still out there that haven't been invalidated by the last few episodes?

The entirety of season 7 and 8 has been snipping loose ends.

[Bunk]

A few cool scenes and some great cinematography, lost in the morass of severely rushed story line.

It did produce my new wallpaper though:

[calapine]

I watched Cersei's and Jamie's death and bah that was emotional. Kinda sad now.

[calapine]

Probably not the popular choice, but this my favourite Cersei outfit:



The rigidity of both the dress and hairstyle, with the heavy cloak adding extra layer just says power and status.

Fuck being an hyper-feminin harlot trying to entice men, like Margery. Cersei never was content with just being a woman, she wanted to be a second Tywin. (Also closest how the ideal-me would be.) Power is power and fuck the peons.

[Threash]

Her dark queen shoulderpad dresses were so much cooler than that. This one, on a toy but its the best picture i found. That one looks like a dog blanket over a potato sack to be honest.

[calapine]

That one looks like a dog blanket over a potato sack to be honest.

You know nothing.

The black outfit does look very cool, but I hesitate to call it a dress. More a stylized armor. Suitable to review the troops and when blowing up sept but a bit over the top other times.

That's why miss her fancy season 1 and 2 hairdo: it's almost forms a crown on it's own. Royal without screaming comic book villain:

[eldaec]

I was expecting a Dornish level shit show after reading this thread. But you know what, it was fine.

Yes, gratituitous overlong and overblown. But the show has been far worse things in the second half of its run. This wasn't 'dudes go ranging to capture a fucking zombie'.

Clegane bowl. Hey-Jon-you-are-the-hound-killing-a-raper. Cersei and Jamie. Mad Dany. Tyrion's desparation. Aryas PoV. I was fine with all of it.

One thing I did like is that it delivered on the number of times the books say that a city getting sacked fucking sucks. And makes me think GRRMs notes are in there somewhere.

The thing that sucks most is that where Westeros goes from here should be interesting, but isn't and can't be because lol GoT writers.

[01101010]

So what are the chances the final scene cuts to GRRM sitting at his desk in front of a bunch of miniatures, picking one up and placing it on the tiny iron throne... then turning to eyeball the camera and winking?

 

[schild]

Cersei sucks ass and I'm glad she was crushed as an afterthought even though it was terrible television.

[Brolan]

Shamelessly stolen:

Season 1, Arya: "I'm going to kill Cersie"
Season 2, Arya: "I'm going to kill Cersie"
Season 3, Arya: "I'm going to kill Cersie"
Season 4, Arya: "I'm going to kill Cersie"
Season 5, Arya: "I'm going to kill Cersie"
Season 6, Arya: "I'm going to kill Cersie"
Season 7, Arya: "I'm going to kill Cersie"
Season 8 Arya: "I'm going to kill Cersie"
Season 8 Sandor: "Yeah she's going to kill Cersie!"
5 mins later Sandor: "Wait, maybe don't kill Cersie!"
Arya: "M'kay, thanks bye!"

[Polysorbate80]

The rigidity of both the dress and hairstyle, with the heavy cloak adding extra layer just says power and status.

That facial expression of "Someone execute that irritating little cunt" sells it for me.

I still hold hopes that "rocks fall, everyone dies" is not the actual end of Cersei and there's a real finale next week, but I'm guessing I'll be disapointed.

[Threash]

Shamelessly stolen:

Season 1, Arya: "I'm going to kill Cersie"
Season 2, Arya: "I'm going to kill Cersie"
Season 3, Arya: "I'm going to kill Cersie"
Season 4, Arya: "I'm going to kill Cersie"
Season 5, Arya: "I'm going to kill Cersie"
Season 6, Arya: "I'm going to kill Cersie"
Season 7, Arya: "I'm going to kill Cersie"
Season 8 Arya: "I'm going to kill Cersie"
Season 8 Sandor: "Yeah she's going to kill Cersie!"
5 mins later Sandor: "Wait, maybe don't kill Cersie!"
Arya: "M'kay, thanks bye!"

That's not really fair, Cersei was utterly beaten and almost assuredly dead already the only question was if Arya was willing to die just to make sure she got to do it herself. And even then it wasn't a sure thing.

[Khaldun]

YES, of course she's been telegraphed to go Mad Queen, but *they didn't write her character development that way*. Because they were working from plot outlines and notes and because they're hacks. So it didn't work--because the showrunners have been sold on the idea that the best plot twists in GOT are "twists". This one shouldn't be a twist, it should be the fulfillment of something we knew was coming in a steady, character-driven way. Season 7 on should have hit this drum beat regularly, without fail.

I suspect that book Varys ends up with Dany after his *other* heir fails him, and is wary of her from the outset.

You can just feel the waves of "I'm so tired and bored of this thing, let me out of here" coming off the showrunners. The cast, bless them, are professional enough to keep at it.

[Hoax]

Shame. They could have done the heel turn even within the episode without it being such a mess. All you needed was one civilian throwing a rock at Drogon or yelling something or dropping one on a Dothraki or Unsullied. Just anything besides. Welp this is over and fuck it going to do it anyways. I'm not looking to be displeased like so many of you often seem to be but yeah I just sat there feeling uncomfortable through the second half.

Also magical scorpions were made even worse by this ep making them into the realistically not so great anti-dragon weapons they should have always been.

Also imagine. The other dragon is alive (the ambush scared them but didn't kill it). Jon is riding it. They blow up the iron fleet by coming out of the sun together. They take out the city defenses. They think they got them all. Bells are ringing. Full surrender in the streets. But one scorpion and one hardass is left and they get that super lucky throat shot from the water ambush. The dragon and Jon go plummeting down. Everyone is really extra surrendered. She burns them anyways. Just pure malice and spite and madness. Burns the whole fucking place.

Of course Jon is alive but hurt and can only watch and we watch him watch.

Anyone could have come up with something a bit better given some time. FeelsBadMan Like you all can say any mad queen thing is shit. But I think its actually quite GoT and good tv. Its uncomfortable. We want her to be a hero because heroes should win etc. but if you are going to subvert that feelgood stuff you better dot your i's and do a good job. Which they didn't so people are extra mad.

[Jeff Kelly]

The problem is that they way the showrunners set it up is just another bad tv trope. The mad woman is mad because bitches be crazy.

[Rendakor]

Literally any reason other than "Fuck it, kill 'em all" would have sold it better. I'm not upset that they went the Mad Queen route, I'm upset that they didn't justify the transition. Even if she had just been angry all episode, told Tyrion and his surrender plan to fuck off and just committed to no quarter it would have been better: Missandei's death is a believable trigger, particularly after Jorah's death and factoring in Varys's betrayal.

[Phildo]

The mad woman is mad because bitches be crazy.

Except they did manage to take a whole minute to have pretty much everyone she cares about either die or betray her in some capacity, while every Westerosi aside from Jon has been giving her the sink eye since she landed.  Sloppily executed, but at least there's more to it than "bitches be crazy" or even "Targaryens be crazy".  The latter is at least a factor, but not the whole story.

[Threash]

Definite improvement

[Teleku]

When the hound reached down and grabbed the dagger to stab the Mountain, I was deeply disappointed to see it wasn't dragon glass.   

Agree with most of the complaints about this, so won't repeat them.  It was a beautifully shot episode, I will give them that.  As I mentioned in Discord, its so painfully obvious when Miguel Sapochnik directs because the scene setups, editing, cinematography.... everything is just so starkly better than other episodes.  At the very least hope we get to see him doing more stuff after this is all done.

[Teleku]

And hey, my prediction Kings Landing would get destroyed came true!  It was just done by the Red Gods avatar of fiery destruction instead of the Dark Gods avatar of icy destruction.   

[Phildo]

So I'm going to take this moment to lighten the mood and remind everyone that this was a thing a few years ago.

[Teleku]

[Tale]

Still a happy customer amid the whining. My predictions:

• Drogon kills Dany when Jon (senior Targaryen present) says "dracarys". If she's immune to fire he will behead her, Ned Stark style. Consistently unwilling to rule, he will then fly off into the distance.
• Sansa and husband Tyrion rule Westeros together and make a dynasty of Stark-Lannister babies.
• Gendry and Arya will also wed at Storm's End, before she rides her burned horse to adventure in Essos.
• Epilogue: Bronn arrives at Highgarden to find it empty and overgrown, and gets drunk. Pan to horizon, accelerate north to the new village of Tormund and Brienne. End.

[Riggswolfe]

YES, of course she's been telegraphed to go Mad Queen, but *they didn't write her character development that way*. Because they were working from plot outlines and notes and because they're hacks. So it didn't work--because the showrunners have been sold on the idea that the best plot twists in GOT are "twists". This one shouldn't be a twist, it should be the fulfillment of something we knew was coming in a steady, character-driven way. Season 7 on should have hit this drum beat regularly, without fail.

Dany going mad queen wasn't a twist. Arya killing the Night King was a twist. Dany has been foreshadowed for a long time. They just got super blatant in the back half of season 7 and all of season 8 because they ran out of time.