Game of Thrones [SPOILERS]

[Riggswolfe]

Gotta wonder if GRRM sized these guys up as total assclowns, got fed up and began to deliberately hold out on them with a plan to publish after the series wraps so he can get the final canon word in. Whether he actually can pull it off or not before he croaks is another story.

Please...GRRM isn't holding out on them. He just has no clue how to resolve all the shitty plot threads he started up in his books and so is writing as slowly as possible in hopes he figures it out over time.

The smart solution is nighttime dragon air raid under cover of fog or not-full-moon conditions to take out balistae (and Euron's boats too), but that would be smart tactics and if there's one thing that this show has shown us it's that no one left alive is a smart tactician.

I don't see how Dany and Jon win in a straight fight. If their forces are even then assaulting the city is suicide. Ironically, the best solution is just to wait for Arya and the Hound to make a guerilla raid and kill Cersei and the Mountain. The show runners may in fact go with something similar. I can see this type of discussion:

Tyrion: Hey Varys, remember when you sneaked me out of the city straight from the red keep through those tunnels?
Varys: Yeah? Ohh....yeah.

Jon, Tyrion, Arya, the Hound, Jaime and Grey Worm sneak in through the sewers.
Dany does strafing runs while the army attacks.

Arya and the Hound die taking out the Mountain. After Cersei dies at Jaime's hand, Dany is shanked by Varys. Jon executes him for treason then exiles himself to the far North. Tyrion and Sansa take the crown. Roll credits.

[Brolan]

The smart thing to do is wait until the show-runners say it's safe to do it, because nothing is working even remotely close to anything that would actually make sense and besides anybody doing it will be called mad if they're the wrong person doing it.

Very much this.  This plotting at the end of the series is just awful.  I was looking forward to this before the season started but now I'm just enduring it until it ends.

[Chimpy]

Welcome to the club!

(I have been in that boat since I think the gratuitous Bolton wedding night rape scene.)

[calapine]

The smart thing to do is wait until the show-runners say it's safe to do it, because nothing is working even remotely close to anything that would actually make sense and besides anybody doing it will be called mad if they're the wrong person doing it.

Very much this.  This plotting at the end of the series is just awful.  I was looking forward to this before the season started but now I'm just enduring it until it ends.

Yeah. Of course that was always sort of the case. But now it's so head-on-nose. Anything can happen, cause-and-effect just doesn't apply anymore.

Edit:

Episode 3: White walkers THE threat for 7 seasons, welp, deus-ex-dagger finnished them.

Episode 4:  Dragons, badass, put Taygariens on the throne, Harrenhall showed that stone melts, they are unstoppable, welp, now a ballistisa is a hard-counter

Episode 5: 25,000 mercenaries, the largest walls left in Westeros, impossible to siege, welp, doesn't matter because ...............

[Khaldun]

I don't see how Dany and Jon win in a straight fight. If their forces are even then assaulting the city is suicide. Ironically, the best solution is just to wait for Arya and the Hound to make a guerilla raid and kill Cersei and the Mountain. The show runners may in fact go with something similar. I can see this type of discussion:

Wait, I thought you were "the non-mad plan is to make a siege, of course, so the fact that Dany isn't doing that is what proves she's crazy and unbalanced and deserves to be overthrown."

I suppose in Star Wars, "Send Obi-Wan to kill General Grevious" is a battle plan. But up until they lost the detailed books as a guide, that was very much not the world-building that Martin was doing. If your leaders get decapitated, it's because they walked into it; and when they do, the battle isn't over (as in the Hundred Years War, War of the Roses and most other wars).

[Teleku]

Sansa swore an Oath in the godswood and broke it.  By the rules of world, she’s marked for death!   

Agree with what everybody is saying.  We’re reaching Xena levels of TV tropes here.

[Riggswolfe]

I don't see how Dany and Jon win in a straight fight. If their forces are even then assaulting the city is suicide. Ironically, the best solution is just to wait for Arya and the Hound to make a guerilla raid and kill Cersei and the Mountain. The show runners may in fact go with something similar. I can see this type of discussion:

Wait, I thought you were "the non-mad plan is to make a siege, of course, so the fact that Dany isn't doing that is what proves she's crazy and unbalanced and deserves to be overthrown."

I suppose in Star Wars, "Send Obi-Wan to kill General Grevious" is a battle plan. But up until they lost the detailed books as a guide, that was very much not the world-building that Martin was doing. If your leaders get decapitated, it's because they walked into it; and when they do, the battle isn't over (as in the Hundred Years War, War of the Roses and most other wars).

Here you go again...

Seriously, try to discuss things in good faith. It'd be a refreshing change.

[calapine]

*The more I watch the entire fleet-sneaks-upon-dragon sequence the more ridiculous it is.

*The Sansa-Dany rivalry just seems forced at this point.

*Dany's descend into madness: The problem is all the crazy burning she did was ages ago (like the locked dothraki) and was presented decidly positive.

Now, after she wasted her army fighting for the better good and personally charged in when she saw her Dothraki riders being slaughtered, she suddenly is portrayed as dangerous. It feels out of the blue and rushed.

*Does Cersei even know that Melisandre is important? I think Eurions line was literally: "We killed a dragon, sunk thr fleet and captured Melisandre". Cersei's answer should have been Melisandre who? Felt sort of breaking the 4th wall.

*What was the entire Bronn assassin subplot about? It's like the show runners don't know what to do with the character anymore.


Sorry for the rambly style, am on phone.
Thoughts? Am I making sense?

[Polysorbate80]

Missandei I think they just killed as I sorta predicted partly just to fuck with the Grey Wurm announcing retirement shtick, and also they’ve made her totally “RAR DRAGON QUEEN BEST!” the last couple episodes.  It’s more forced-plot BS to set up the Jon/Dany divide.  She’s all “light these fuckers up” while the rest are saying “No, think of the peeps.”  I think Khaldun is right that no ruler ever would give two fucks about burning a few commoners to finish the fight, but it does kinda go against how they’ve tried to categorize Danaerys.  Plot is just a mess right now.  I hope we at least get awesome cinematography (and Cleganebowl) next week to allow me to disengage the thinky parts of my brain.

Bronn? I kinda get him, he’s been promised castles and wives and such but it keeps not materializing due to the Lannisters not quite paying their debts.  He’s liable to start murdering people unless he gets what he feels he’s earnes.

[Teleku]

Yeah Calapine, those (plus many others) are the complaints everybody in the world is screaming right now.  Or in other words:

[Gimfain]

Before the show jumped between different location and now we get a straight story. It was no problem to fill the void during travel with sub-plots from other locations, there could have been lots of dialogue with cersei but she already wiped out all opposition so they don't have much to tell anymore. The fling between jaime and brienne would have lasted a season in the early parts of the show but now it felt like they jumped to bed and then Jaime left. This is why you get the feeling of instant traveling but just adding filler wouldn't make it better.

Daenerys the Conqueror has been long in the making, bend the knee or taste dragon fire. Before she landed at westeros she was a liberator and loved for it. Her advisors warned her about being viewed as another tyrant seeking the throne and she has failed gaining true support from other houses, they only join her out of necessity. She is jealous of Jon Snow because he is the person she wishes to be, loved among the westerosi.

I'm still annoyed because it feels like they could have done a lot better job, its rushed with with some parts feeling like they were written on a napkin, its how you get stupid things like stealth ships and Cersei the TV villain.

[Teleku]

[eldaec]

Episode was fine for what this show now is.

Travel time was not a problem because other scenes were not locking down just how quickly shit was happening. Who says Dany wasn't at sea for 3 months? It could easily have been made clearer but this is nothing like s7.

The broad arc of Dany is fine. This shit happens to every relevant Targaryen. Nutter and Clarke did good work challenging her sanity, and making her realise that she has no westerosi allies inside one episode - people have telling her this would happen for years. Yeah the writing is bad, who knew?

Books make a lot of effort to tell us that Aerys was not mad before Duskendale, Dany's frustration all seemed to play into that.

[IainC]

Tyrion figured out that Cersei was pregnant last season when he crept into the Red Keep for the secret meeting with her. Assuming that it's the same pregnancy now as back then, Cersei can't be more than 2-3 months gone because she's not showing yet. She was pregnant enough that she knew it when she met Tyrion - so at least a few weeks, maybe a month. That means there can't be more than a month or so between the last episode of S7 and now. This also means that Euron is a moron if he really believes that Cersei's child is his.

Edit: Cersei tells Jaime that she's pregnant in Episode 5. That's right after Daenerys lights up the Lannister army for the first time and just before Jon, Beric, Hound and co go north of the wall to capture a Wight. So 3-6 weeks in total for everything from the expedition north of the wall up to now.

[Teleku]

[MediumHigh]

If I could like I would. 

[Chimpy]

I always assumed she was lying about the pregnancy to manipulate the morons that worship her motherhood.

[IainC]

I always assumed she was lying about the pregnancy to manipulate the morons that worship her motherhood.

Tyrion guessed it before she told him.

[Setanta]

The only good part of this episode was the Hound and Sansa (plus Arya). It was good writing compared to the rest of the episode, they actually felt like human beings, unlike the rest of it including the Brienne/Jamie/Tormund rubbish.

[calapine]

The costumes of Margery Tyrell.

24 minutes but very interesting. The fashion is one of the strong points of the show. https://youtu.be/7XmRbDZUNDQ
========

I always assumed she was lying about the pregnancy to manipulate the morons that worship her motherhood.

Tyrion guessed it before she told him.

Guys.... 🙄 IF she is lying that's the way to do it. Not say "I am pregnant, believe me!" but make him thinks he figures it out himself. This flatters his vanity and is a more subtle way of lying.

[Polysorbate80]

Can we change your name to Calapine Lannister? 

Sadly there’s no gold with the promotion; they are broke now since the mines dried up.

[HaemishM]

Now, after she wasted her army fighting for the better good and personally charged in when she saw her Dothraki riders being slaughtered, she suddenly is portrayed as dangerous. It feels out of the blue and rushed.

That's because it IS rushed. The whole season (going back to last year) is rushed because they've decided that it has to end with X number of episodes when they really needed X + 4 or more. We had 2 episodes of preparation and building tension for the fight with the Night King, and now we literally have 1.5 episodes (this episode was over an hour) to do the same amount of moving pieces around the board to set up the big battle in episode 5. Some of this is a result of the curse of their own success. Everybody loved the great big battle scenes from previous years and so they felt they had to put that in there. The same goes for some of the plot armor on the characters. Guys like Tormund and Bronn probably don't really have a place in the story at this point but they were fan favorites so they had to be given something to do.

[Jeff Kelly]

It's basically "we have x million of budget per season and so we can only do 6 episodes". They blow 13 million on a single battle heavy episode. That's like 8 episodes worth of budget for a normal TV drama.
They basically screwed themselves out of a better build up. The production values cost a lot of money, this limits the number of episodes they can do and all of the contracts are up at the end of this season and would have to be re-negotiated.

[Threash]

It's basically "we have x million of budget per season and so we can only do 6 episodes". They blow 13 million on a single battle heavy episode. That's like 8 episodes worth of budget for a normal TV drama.
They basically screwed themselves out of a better build up. The production values cost a lot of money, this limits the number of episodes they can do and all of the contracts are up at the end of this season and would have to be re-negotiated.

Pretty much, its the reason dire wolves got basically written out and the big battle scene happened at night (i bet you the big battle next episode also happens at night). Its why the dothraki had to be wiped out in the first minute of the battle and basically off screen. Remember all the bitching in season one when the big battles happened off screen? welp, here we are.

[IainC]

From what I understand, it's not a budget issue - HBO will throw money at this shit all day long - but a lot of the core actors have other commitments now and they want to wrap this up and get on with things. I heard that basically two short seasons with a year gap between them was the only way to get everyone on board to finish the series.

[Teleku]

Yeah, from everything I'm reading, the budget has been increased almost every year, and is significantly higher than the first season.  Not only that, they've made all the episodes longer.

[MediumHigh]

Doomed to disappoint from the start. I have to say this was a nice run while it lasted. This is one of the situations where like "fans giving a shit" doesn't help much. Because on one hand demanding a quality show after 8 seasons is kinda ridiculous but on the other hand rewarding a show for being kinda "meh" feels wrong considering we are in a "golden age of TV". This will never be remembered the way the walking dead will be or other 3+ season shows that ran their course years ago. This was something special for the half of geekdom that wasn't too busy wanking it to anime to watch it. And also something tragically dumb once the source material wasn't giving the writers any easy outs. The shorcuts taken were relatively bad in most cases... but necessary in a "if your not going to pay writers to abridge the series properly might as well pay 2 fanfic writers to kick this shit along".

[Hoax]

time travel / pregnancy stuff: good point re: time elapsed known via baby bump. That said I'm perfectly good at not worrying that much about a detail.

the people who are saying this is the actors not the budget are correct. all the major ones seem ready to fuck off to other projects if they haven't been doing a lot of that already. it has been ten years.

I still can't believe anyone is bemoaning the lack of books, GRRM has zero hope of finishing the story. its setup with no hope of finishing correctly because he is much more constrained by winter is a super huge fucking deal and armies move slow westeros is big etc. he's also got an entire thing going on in Dorne that completely fucks up any hope of sorting shit out in any amount of time. he'd literally need at least one if not two big time skips.

the dragon "ambush" super ballistae in general... still the worst thing happening right now.

to defend the show against a nitpick. both Euron and Cersei would know slave translator from the show off the zombie meeting. so yeah they would know she has value. also if Cersei/Qyburn have maintained any type of spy network as Varys was able they would know her value doubly so.

re: dire wolves being written out, i blame the books, they wasted them badly and what i recall of them showing up it was mainly annoying worg dreams all the kids were having that never went anywhere and would have been a huge fuck off waste of time explaining/having in the show also cost also making them look cool.

lastly you guys are lapping up this "Dany is mad queen now" stuff way too readily. I think the critique of Varys turning on her way too easily in favor of Jon feels rushed as fuck at this point and you aren't wrong it could point to the idea that i'm wrong and we're all supposed to be on board that she is dangerous and unstable now. but I'd say the jury is still way out on that one.

I have had no problem with Sansa's skepticism and dislike for Dany I think its been written fine. the biggest problem with Sansa is just how quickly she broke her promise to Jon. that was fucked up.

here's a new nitpick: they really really really should have killed Bran or put him in a coma or something before they off'd the night king. its just sad that nobody consults with him ever when he's right there looking sad lonely and bored.

[Khaldun]

I repeat: the device of ONE YEAR LATER would solve everything except Euron Magic Pirate killing dragons with nuclear ballista boats. Everything that's emotionally implausible now would in a single powerpoint slide become poignant. Jamie leaves Brienne...one year later, at the end of winter. Arya and the Hound leave everyone else a few months before the end of winter...who knows where they went? Sansa finally spills the beans...after almost a year of winter. Dany is going kind of crazy and fretting and imagining revenge and burning cities...after a year of being stuck inside with Jon Snow who is being simultaneously awesome and glum as fuck. Varys starts plotting...after a year of watching Dany go slowly mad. Tyrion starts agreeing...after a year of watching Jon Snow be awesome. You name it...a ONE YEAR LATER slide after the initial Beat-the-Dead afterparty would add a ton to the last part. You beat the Dead, you won everything--only you didn't. The wheel turns, the people forget, the Lords of Westeros start to dream as they emerge from famine. Yara forgets her brother's sacrifice. The Lords of the Vale forget coming to the aid of the North. The Free Folk start to think that maybe a fallen Wall is an opportunity.

Only Cersei doesn't forget. And you could introduce a further mystery: did she have a baby or not? Tell us she went into a sequester in mid-winter and isn't showing anyone the li'l Lannister. Did she or didn't she?

It's all doable in the same time frame this episode squandered on lazy bullshit.

[MediumHigh]

lastly you guys are lapping up this "Dany is mad queen now" stuff way too readily. I think the critique of Varys turning on her way too easily in favor of Jon feels rushed as fuck at this point and you aren't wrong it could point to the idea that i'm wrong and we're all supposed to be on board that she is dangerous and unstable now. but I'd say the jury is still way out on that one.

Absolutely no one believes the mad queen nonsense. Not only has it never been hinted at in the show, the few times people do say it is so hamfisted it makes me laugh.

Tyrion "Oh no don't do that you'll be just like your dad"
Danny "I have a reasonable reason to kill everyone with my dragons instead of waiting for people that don't like to like me"
Tyrion "But...think of the children"

Like the show forgets why exactly the targs reigned for hundreds of years. At least in the books all the hints that she maybe losing it comes from her. She wonders if she isn't too different than her bother who literally went crazy after so many years of being "the begger king". If being a targ is a genuine curse and not just a divine right to rule. In the books she questions her self. In the show its been a rock ballad of girl power moments cap-stoned by marching a big ass army to dragonstone. Only for idiots like Tyrion to go "but oh noo your going crazy, your totally like the last guy who rapped his wife, burned friends and allies alive, and generally used everyone around him as accomplices to his many crimes and atrocities during a time when the realm was at peace." Yup your that guy.

Also 1 year later wouldn't solve anything. The show wants a conclusion and doesn't care how contrived it is to get it. The only thing time will do is to allow nerds on the internet to hand wave any new contrivance as "well you obviously didn't pay attention, clearly in an entire year Ayra could have mastered the art of flying by clapping her thighs together"

[Brolan]

There was Sam flipping out on Dany with Jon because she burned his father and brother to death.  That's also when I started to have doubts about her.  This may be the writers trying to make some preparation for a Crazy Dany storyline.

[Riggswolfe]

lastly you guys are lapping up this "Dany is mad queen now" stuff way too readily. I think the critique of Varys turning on her way too easily in favor of Jon feels rushed as fuck at this point and you aren't wrong it could point to the idea that i'm wrong and we're all supposed to be on board that she is dangerous and unstable now. but I'd say the jury is still way out on that one.

Absolutely no one believes the mad queen nonsense. Not only has it never been hinted at in the show, the few times people do say it is so hamfisted it makes me laugh.

It's been hinted at in the show. It's just been fairly subtle up until Season 7. Season 8 is making it very clear they're going Mad Queen Dany. They've removed the two main stabilizing influences in her life. (Jorah and Missandei.) 2 of her 3 dragons are dead. Missandei also more or less told her "nuke the city". She's also coming to realize that for all her good intentions the people in Westeros mostly see her as an outsider and her only claim to the throne is her name and her one remaining dragon. If we had a couple of more normal length seasons they could make it happen more subtly but we have 6 episodes so they're hammering it home pretty quickly.

Tyrion "Oh no don't do that you'll be just like your dad"
Danny "I have a reasonable reason to kill everyone with my dragons instead of waiting for people that don't like to like me"
Tyrion "But...think of the children"

You're downplaying this but there is a reason I referred to Missandei telling Dany to "nuke" the city. We know from the books that a dragon can burn a fortress to the ground and lay waste to it. We saw in the loot train attack that they more or less turn people to ash. Tyrion isn't being a whiny person when he says that. If she turns loose with her dragon it'll be exactly what her father tried to do that got him stabbed to death by Jaime. It really is one of the key tension points going into next episode. Does Dany maintain control or does she start raining fire on tens of thousands of innocent civilians and if she does, what will be done by the other characters to stop it?

On another note, last episode had one thing that truly irritated me. Tormund, Sam and Ghost essentially getting their good byes and being written out. As awesome as Tormund was in this episode if he served no further story purpose he probably should have died in the Night King's attack. Same with Sam and Ghost. Let Gilly live so the revelation that she is pregnant has weight. Instead it appears they lived only to ride off into the sunset which doesn't feel right to me personally.

[Threash]

Dany as mad queen is more believable than Sansa as a masterful game player because she acts like a bitch towards Dany.

[MediumHigh]

Here is the simple problem. None of that matters.

The show. Not even talking about the book. But the show. Never, ever, ever presented her making a irrational decision in universe. In fact nothing she has done so far has been "oh shit, only crazy people do that". In show she burns slavers to the ground to rapturous applause. She traps her hand maiden and the guy she betrayed in a closet and gets a go girl. If those moments don't define her as a monster nothing she literally done after that in season 8 is even close. Her ancestors burned half of westeros to gain the iron throne, we've had 8 seasons of actual goblins with human faces running rampant, what has Dany done or said in the show to even imply that she could go crazy? What actions are even subtle proof?

Literally where is the mad queen moment. Or implications. The only thing this show provided was a bunch of characters saying she is going mad when her plan of actions are as follows

Use dragon
?
Profit.

[Teleku]

Yeah, Tywin Lanister sacked Kings landing, having a shit ton of the women and children butchered and raping all the women.  Yet he was the great respected calculating leader.  Her burning the keep down and the defenses on the wall, even if it costs the lives of some civilians as collateral, is madness!   

I mean, even Olenna Tyrell, the equal to Tywin, told her to use the Dragons.  Are all the good rulers mad?

I'm not against them doing the mad Queen thing.  It's just that it feels like it comes out of nowhere and is really forced with how fast they are moving things.  TV series Dany is still basically the least vicious ruler after Jon Snow left in the story.  She is a puppy.

But that's what every characters plot development has suffered, to be fair.  Cersei goes from the drunk bumbling failed schemer she's been all series to suddenly just being put in charge of everything as the main super villain with zero actual effort on her part.  Sansa is supposed to have become some master of the Game of Thrones from her years of hard knocks, yet they haven't bothered showing her ever do anything like that.  Just whines a lot.  Bran went from kid learning his super powers to emotionless omnipotent lump in a chair in the space of an episode.  Ect.....