Game of Thrones

[Lord Falcon]

Some criticisms of loose threads not being addressed, characters not focused on, writers not doing research on this or that, I get. This season has been rife with such problems. But so many people are just saying bow bad it is without saying what they didn't like about it. The show established motivations and then had the characters play those motivations out validly. How the series got to this ending is a rushed mess, but the ending itself makes sense and gives closure to most of the major characters. The final episode was both cinematically and narratively close to perfect.

[Cyke]

Problem is that Bran is probably GRRM's choice for King in his outline. Bran is far more important in the books, getting much more page time, than the TV show and literally the first POV character in the books is Bran.

Yeah, the problem isn't Bran, it's how it got to be Bran in the show.

I'm sure if things weren't rushed that Bran becoming king would feel more earned. As it is, his response when Tyrion asked if he would become king being, "Why do you think I came all this way?" rings even colder and more sadistic from what's supposed to be an above-it-all cleric like Bran since that means the deaths of millions he foresaw across Winterfell and King's Landing were just stepping stones (I guess) on the path to the throne.

[Star_Jammer]

Some criticisms of loose threads not being addressed, characters not focused on, writers not doing research on this or that, I get. This season has been rife with such problems. But so many people are just saying bow bad it is without saying what they didn't like about it. The show established motivations and then had the characters play those motivations out validly. How the series got to this ending is a rushed mess, but the ending itself makes sense and gives closure to most of the major characters. The final episode was both cinematically and narratively close to perfect.

Everything after episode 3 (this season) just didn't make me feel anything. Maaaaaaybe Dany blowing up KL had me go "what the ****" for a minute, but basically everything after the "**** Yeah, Arya!" moment was met with a deadpan stare from me. Like...I literally have no opinion to form, good or bad. Which is, most times, worse than having a bad opinion, I think.

Oh, except Dany's "Dragon wings" scene when she was walking up the steps in the finale; that was pretty badass imagery.

[The_Greatest_Username]

Everything after episode 3 (this season) just didn't make me feel anything. Maaaaaaybe Dany blowing up KL had me go "what the ****" for a minute, but basically everything after the "**** Yeah, Arya!" moment was met with a deadpan stare from me. Like...I literally have no opinion to form, good or bad. Which is, most times, worse than having a bad opinion, I think.

Oh, except Dany's "Dragon wings" scene when she was walking up the steps in the finale; that was pretty badass imagery.

This is basically my take on this season too. It’s a very underwhelming last season for one of the best TV shows in history.

[XPac]

Yeah, the problem isn't Bran, it's how it got to be Bran in the show.

I'm sure if things weren't rushed that Bran becoming king would feel more earned. As it is, his response when Tyrion asked if he would become king being, "Why do you think I came all this way?" rings even colder and more sadistic from what's supposed to be an above-it-all cleric like Bran since that means the deaths of millions he foresaw across Winterfell and King's Landing were just stepping stones (I guess) on the path to the throne.

Cold, yes. Sadistic? Not really. What happened isn't something he necessariy caused, wanted, or could prevent. So him stating that he simply knew it would have is a relatively neutral statement of fact.

[SiegePerilous02]

Jon having to kill the woman he loves after she goes full Dragon Sith Hitler would be wonderfully operatic if they hadn't squeezed her full blown descent into villainy into like 2 episodes. Up until those goddamn bells, she was believably and understandably enraged but still lucid enough that I don't buy her being completely unphased with burning children. She needed a whole full season for this arc, not a shortened one that had to be shared with the White Walker stuff. I also don't believe that Jon would be so stupid as to need convincing from Tyrion to do the deed after the last episode, he should be willing to do it as soon as he's able to confront her (no matter how much it pains him), but then Jon has been a useless stupid sad sack for this entire season, so I guess I was hoping too much. Really hope the books we will never see execute this whole arc better or avoid it entirely.

That council scene was unbelievably terrible. "Who has a better story than Bran Stark?", the answer is "f***ing everyone else, Tyrion."
"F*** democracy, lol!"
Sansa grabbing Northern independence and everyone else there, especially Yara, just being cool with it was hilariously stupid. The flawed system was back in place and another war will probably break out next week, lol maybe Dany was right.
Grey Worm and Drogon sparing Jon for no reason was dumb and contradicts their behavior in this very episode.
The Dothraki all died at Winterfell but oh wait, no they didn't, and then they just left and everything's fine.
"I know a killer when I see one."- thanks Arya, what other stunningly obvious observation do you have for us? Although this IS season 8 Jon she's talking to, so...

I also love how HBO had all the ads for their other shows, as if they were begging us not to cancel our subscriptions.

Oh, except Dany's "Dragon wings" scene when she was walking up the steps in the finale; that was pretty badass imagery.

That imagery was pretty neat, and wasted in this otherwise bad episode.

[ZeroBG82]

They tried to do with Dany in like 2-3 episodes what Breaking Bad did with Walter White over FIVE SEASONS, and wow did it NOT work. It's interesting to see even fans and critics who used to defend this show to the death finally turn on it in this last season.

I'm trying to think if this is the worst decline in quality for a once great show in TV history or if there's another? Because it's certainly up there.

Everybody has a right to be disappointed if that's how they feel. But this is a mischaracterization of what happened with Dany. "They," that is the writers, didn't change anything about Dany or her behavior. They simply recontextualized it to make everyone realize that this is what she has been ALL ALONG.

We can debate how effective their attempt was. But the idea is for the audience to be in the same position as Jon. We love Dany. We've seen her triumph over evil men, and resist terrible fates and fight for what was hers. And we cheered, even as she engaged in savage, sometimes indiscriminate violence against her enemies. Because she could and she believed it was right to do so.

When she was targeting the evil we wrote it off. Justified it. But it was still brutality. And brutality is NEVER the answer to a better world. But now we see that she is not limited to the evil. She will punish the innocent as well, simply for not fighting hard enough to reject evil.

We're supposed to feel conflicted. Unsure if it is our eyes or our hearts that are deceiving us. What Jon does, probably save the world from tyranny, isn't meant to feel clean or righteous. Even if it almost certainly is.

I feel like the writers didn't quite stick the landing. But they got closer than I would have expected given the time constraint of six episodes. Rushed? Yes, absolutely. Not what we expected? Almost certainly. But thematically and visually strong, if narratively weaker.

I would also posit that there is NO ending that could have satisfied most viewers. The hype was too much, the buildup too long. Almost anything was going to feel like an anticlimax, and imaginations, and thus expectations fair or foul, had been working overtime for years. This was never going to end in a way that satisfied any of that, I feel.

[Madam-Shogun-Assassin]

The problem I have is all the casuals complaining about the show. All the people that came in after season 5. You don't get to complain, we were here from the beginning and have a better claim to complaining you newbies lol.

[Madam-Shogun-Assassin]

Everybody has a right to be disappointed if that's how they feel. But this is a mischaracterization of what happened with Dany. "They," that is the writers, didn't change anything about Dany or her behavior. They simply recontextualized it to make everyone realize that this is what she has been ALL ALONG.

We can debate how effective their attempt was. But the idea is for the audience to be in the same position as Jon. We love Dany. We've seen her triumph over evil men, and resist terrible fates and fight for what was hers. And we cheered, even as she engaged in savage, sometimes indiscriminate violence against her enemies. Because she could and she believed it was right to do so.

When she was targeting the evil we wrote it off. Justified it. But it was still brutality. And brutality is NEVER the answer to a better world. But now we see that she is not limited to the evil. She will punish the innocent as well, simply for not fighting hard enough to reject evil.

We're supposed to feel conflicted. Unsure if it is our eyes or our hearts that are deceiving us. What Jon does, probably save the world from tyranny, isn't meant to feel clean or righteous. Even if it almost certainly is.

I feel like the writers didn't quite stick the landing. But they got closer than I would have expected given the time constraint of six episodes. Rushed? Yes, absolutely. Not what we expected? Almost certainly. But thematically and visually strong, if narratively weaker.

I would also posit that there is NO ending that could have satisfied most viewers. The hype was too much, the buildup too long. Almost anything was going to feel like an anticlimax, and imaginations, and thus expectations fair or foul, had been working overtime for years. This was never going to end in a way that satisfied any of that, I feel.

They didn't stick the Landing at all in my opinion. I just saw a check point that needed to be reached. And they rushed to get there, but hey it LOOKED good.

[XPac]

Jon having to kill the woman he loves after she goes full Dragon Sith Hitler would be wonderfully operatic if they hadn't squeezed her full blown descent into villainy into like 2 episodes. Up until those goddamn bells, she was believably and understandably enraged but still lucid enough that I don't buy her being completely unphased with burning children. She needed a whole full season for this arc, not a shortened one that had to be shared with the White Walker stuff. I also don't believe that Jon would be so stupid as to need convincing from Tyrion to do the deed after the last episode, he should be willing to do it as soon as he's able to confront her (no matter how much it pains him), but then Jon has been a useless stupid sad sack for this entire season, so I guess I was hoping too much. Really hope the books we will never see execute this whole arc better or avoid it entirely.

That council scene was unbelievably terrible. "Who has a better story than Bran Stark?", the answer is "f***ing everyone else, Tyrion."
"F*** democracy, lol!"
Sansa grabbing Northern independence and everyone else there, especially Yara, just being cool with it was hilariously stupid. The flawed system was back in place and another war will probably break out next week, lol maybe Dany was right.
Grey Worm and Drogon sparing Jon for no reason was dumb and contradicts their behavior in this very episode.
The Dothraki all died at Winterfell but oh wait, no they didn't, and then they just left and everything's fine.
"I know a killer when I see one."- thanks Arya, what other stunningly obvious observation do you have for us? Although this IS season 8 Jon she's talking to, so...

I also love how HBO had all the ads for their other shows, as if they were begging us not to cancel our subscriptions.



That imagery was pretty neat, and wasted in this otherwise bad episode.

It's easy to be unphased buring children when you're in the air riding a dragon. A child is a dot on the ground, not a whole lot differnet than a soldier. To Dany at the time it's like playing a video game. PERHAPS her reaction would be different if she were on the ground looking at their faces and listening to their screams. But she got to be above it all.

As far as Jon needing convincing... he's essentially being told he needs to murder the woman he loves. I don't care what she did, that's going to be hard. I think the show would have done the character more a disservice if he decided killing her was easy.

[ZeroBG82]

Yeah, the problem isn't Bran, it's how it got to be Bran in the show.

I'm sure if things weren't rushed that Bran becoming king would feel more earned. As it is, his response when Tyrion asked if he would become king being, "Why do you think I came all this way?" rings even colder and more sadistic from what's supposed to be an above-it-all cleric like Bran since that means the deaths of millions he foresaw across Winterfell and King's Landing were just stepping stones (I guess) on the path to the throne.

This is an interesting take, and one I've seen in several places now. I'm not sure I agree with you about Bran being cold in that scene. I would use the word resigned, but we'll come back to that.

Yours is a more interesting take than the one that Bran was playing the Game and is kind of a secret Palpatine. I've seen that pop up a number of times today.

It's a misread of the scene. Bran's line about it being why he came all this way isn't because he foresaw the outcome and wants to be king. It's because he foresaw the outcome and knows he needs to be king. Like Jon, Bran reluctantly accepts a mantle he doesn't want because he can keep the peace and try to do right.

Bran's line is one of resignation. Tyrion doesn't need to convince Bran because Bran has already accepted his duty, like it or not. It's the most Stark moment Bran has had in a long time.

[Arsenal]

Bran playing Palatine this whole time is (mostly) just a joke. You include a scene of him standing up and stretching though, well that would change things.

[SiegePerilous02]

It's easy to be unphased buring children when you're in the air riding a dragon. A child is a dot on the ground, not a whole lot differnet than a soldier. To Dany at the time it's like playing a video game. PERHAPS her reaction would be different if she were on the ground looking at their faces and listening to their screams. But she got to be above it all.

As far as Jon needing convincing... he's essentially being told he needs to murder the woman he loves. I don't care what she did, that's going to be hard. I think the show would have done the character more a disservice if he decided killing her was easy.

Again, this is a woman who freaked out when Drogon accidentally killed ONE child. Saying she just went power mad because she's flying in the air or something is pretty lazy writing. They had some beats they needed to hit and didn't care how fast they had to rush to get there because they wanted to bang this out and go do Star Wars. She has been lucid up until the last episode, just angry, but they tried to convince us via Varys's stupid "coin toss" speech that her vague mental illness has switched on all the sudden. Even her paranoia isn't really a sign of madness, because she ends up being 100% right (Jon betrayed her and Varys tried to poison her). They had the perfect set up for her to just go ballistic on the Red Keep even after the bells (because she's always been ruthless when dispensing justice against enemies) and to get carried away, but they turned her into a super villain who took her sweet time sadistically attacking civilians instead of directly attacking Cersei. They're foreshadowing was not as effective as they want us to think, and if they have to explain the story beats in their post-episode interviews because the episodes themselves are not doing it effectively, something is wrong in the execution. Critics and audiences are largely on the same page on this one, and the actors (especially Clarke) can barely conceal their disappointment.

I don't ask this to be easy for Jon. It should be hard and he shouldn't want to do it, but he shouldn't need to be convinced that it needs to be done and continue saying "she's the queen" when she's become Darth Dany.

[Zero Hunter]

I don't see it that way. Dani has always been burn first/ask questions latter type. The only thing holding her back these last 4 seasons is she had calmer heads around her to calm her down. This was always coming, but it just came a little sloppier than it should have. Dani was always going to go far in her quest for power. The bad thing is Dani has never been shown to even know how to rule in peace. She was a war time conqueror not a peace time ruler. Even if she had took Kings Landing without destroying everything a few months of actually trying to rule the Kingdom and I'm sure something would have set her off and given her an excuse to go on a rampage.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

50-100k Dothraki blood riders, only in westoros because of dany

dany dies

they all just... chill, waiting for someone to tell them what to do for 3 weeks

oh and no one alive there speaks the language

oh lawd

Dothraki just jet out when their khal/khalessi dies. Same happened with Drogo