Game of Thrones

[Madam-Shogun-Assassin]

Plenty of people knew it was a possibility. The execution is what failed here.

It's strange how this has to keep getting reiterated.

[Sacred Knight]

It was only rushed. The course of events that led to it though wasn't a failure in my book. It was all just fit in an unfortunate tight window. I have more an issue with Jaime and Cersei's end than I do with Dany's arc.

[Jabare]

The abruptness of this season really did a disservice to a large number of characters. Felt like people just got snuffed out instead of getting organic ending based on the flow of the story.


Sometimes it blows my mind how differently the show has handled things from the books. I don't have an opinion one way or another because I don't know how the books end, but between Catelyn Stark still being around, the added rapes, Jaime and Tyrion actually hating each other, The Night King.

If Martin ever finishes his works it will be very interesting to compare.

[BishopsJuice91]

Didn’t think she would do all that but she did, wow. I think the be heading of her friend sent her over the edge, there have been allot of things happening to Danny and I don’t feel as though this outcome was rushed or not deserving at all. She has lost plenty on this journey esp lately and she has also been dealing with feelings of isolation and being betrayed. Add Jon having a claim to the thrown she’s worked for for so long, she had to let everyone know this is not a game anymore, no prisoners! She showed them what a dragon can do gosh...

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Jon’s been acting naively since episode 3.

Tyrion’s just utterly failed as hand to the Queen countless times. I still think he gives good advice and counsel, but whether it’s the Masters or Circe or Varys or even his Queen things haven’t gone well.

This ending is so rushed. This show really needed another two seasons to set up this Danny’s heel turn.

I love how people are taking 3 separate thro away lines as proof Danny was going to do this. She was flexing to protect her people when they were in dire straits.

Dany threatened to burn down Qarth along with all the cities of her enemies.

Dany threatened to burn down Mereen when she was trying to take it.

Dany WANTED to lay waste to slavers bay when the Harpies took over and Tyrion had to walk her back from that.

The last two seasons were about Dany wanting to roll over King's Landing and Tyrion doing every other option to avoid it (often to his detriment).

That's at least 5 seasons of her having instances of her wanting to burn cities. And at that it's EVERY city she's been associated with in the show. It's not just throw away lines.

Then we can go into the messiah complex she built around herself Essos, or her inclination to burn every enemy even when it is unneccessary, or the constant talk of fire and blood to win back what is hers, or her obsession with a land that she never had been to and didn't need or want her, or that at least two members of her family were similarly inclined to this behavior.

Then add in all the loss she's dealt with recently. Her closest confidant, half her army, her assistant, now her lover, now she see's that the place she wanted won't embrace her, her children/dragons.

Listen when people were predicting this from the context of the books (that didn't go as far as the show did) years before the show, you can't claim it's just throwaway lines coming out of nowhere.

It's the Song of Ice and Fire. They just dealt with the Ice and now we have the Fire.

[Doctor Know]

Emilia posted this on her Instagram. Our Khalessi is still hot stuff.

[Theleviathan]

Danny's fine just let her rule. Give it a few weeks the people of Westeros won't care. I wanted Jon to be king last season but not like this. Just let the badass with Dragons rule damn it.

To all the writers of the world write as if David Benioff and DB Weiss will get to finish your story if you don’t. Now you know why it takes Martin 10 years to write 1 book. What we are seeing is what Game of Thrones is when you write it in 2 months.

It takes Martin 10 years to write his books because he effed up his own narrative. He is so far off in the weeds he is struggling to tie the narrative back together. It's the opposite problem the show has created really. The show, in an effort to hit the notes GRRM gave them to end the series, are tying things together too quickly. Martin, on the other hand, has had the narrative spin so far out of control he's just trying to keep it from being a total lost cause. The show is jumping to points, he has no freaking clue how to even get there.

Also (directed more at Punisher007 and others) if you don't think this is a true end to Jaime's arch....what show have you been watching? Time and time again Jaime attempts to be a true knight and a better person but every time his black hole of a sister sucks him back down again. In the end, no matter how hard he tried to be a good man, he could never escape her and died for her. It is his arch - there is no happy ending, sorry you don't like that but what you want is fan-fiction. What you saw on screen is absolutely the direction Martin would take the character. Try as he might to be a good man, his love for his psycho sister was always his undoing.

This episode could have been beautiful and powerful. But just two episodes ago Dany was the well-meaning savior of Winterfell, so there simply hasn't been enough time to turn her full psycopath. Yes, the signs have been there. This was inevitable. But it would've been far more powerful with time to savor it.

[sammy_hansen]

The aspect of this show I find most interesting is that I don't care anymore. I honestly don't care who lives and who dies and who gets the Iron Throne. I've been reading all the responses to the last episode and I don't care about any particular individual. This is new. At the end of (I think) Season 4 when the Viper fights the Mountain to save Tyrion, I was so shocked at the outcome I went on to Wikipedia to spoil the story (from the books) to know if Tyrion would live or not. I'm someone who avoids spoilers but this was too distressing and I had to know. Not anymore.

But also, this is perhaps the only episode this season that I want to watch again. I think this season will be better viewed over the entire season (just) rather than on an episode by episode basis, which, back in the day, seemed to be mesmerising in its quality.

[Punisher007]

It takes Martin 10 years to write his books because he effed up his own narrative. He is so far off in the weeds he is struggling to tie the narrative back together. It's the opposite problem the show has created really. The show, in an effort to hit the notes GRRM gave them to end the series, are tying things together too quickly. Martin, on the other hand, has had the narrative spin so far out of control he's just trying to keep it from being a total lost cause. The show is jumping to points, he has no freaking clue how to even get there.

Also (directed more at Punisher007 and others) if you don't think this is a true end to Jaime's arch....what show have you been watching? Time and time again Jaime attempts to be a true knight and a better person but every time his black hole of a sister sucks him back down again. In the end, no matter how hard he tried to be a good man, he could never escape her and died for her. It is his arch - there is no happy ending, sorry you don't like that but what you want is fan-fiction. What you saw on screen is absolutely the direction Martin would take the character. Try as he might to be a good man, his love for his psycho sister was always his undoing.

This episode could have been beautiful and powerful. But just two episodes ago Dany was the well-meaning savior of Winterfell, so there simply hasn't been enough time to turn her full psycopath. Yes, the signs have been there. This was inevitable. But it would've been far more powerful with time to savor it.

I don't agree with you about Jaimie at all, and it seems like MANY people feel that this was a betrayal of his arc so it's hardly just me. You're not going to change my mind, sorry to say.

[Theleviathan]

I don't agree with you about Jaimie at all, and it seems like MANY people feel that this was a betrayal of his arc so it's hardly just me. You're not going to change my mind, sorry to say.

What lots of people think is really quite irrelevant. In a series bent on taking expectations and subverting them.....that's exactly what should be expected. It's probably your finest sign that the arch is going as intended.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

The aspect of this show I find most interesting is that I don't care anymore. I honestly don't care who lives and who dies and who gets the Iron Throne. I've been reading all the responses to the last episode and I don't care about any particular individual. This is new. At the end of (I think) Season 4 when the Viper fights the Mountain to save Tyrion, I was so shocked at the outcome I went on to Wikipedia to spoil the story (from the books) to know if Tyrion would live or not. I'm someone who avoids spoilers but this was too distressing and I had to know. Not anymore.

But also, this is perhaps the only episode this season that I want to watch again. I think this season will be better viewed over the entire season (just) rather than on an episode by episode basis, which, back in the day, seemed to be mesmerising in its quality.

I kinda feel the same way. Under another author Jon and Dany would have teamed up to defeat the White Walkers and then been labled the heroes of their era and then went on to start a new prosperous reign for the realm. But that's not the story. The story is that these people are humans and went on to go after their petty exploits and the pursuit of power proved once again to be folly.

Now the Game of Thrones just goes on and it's every bit as cruel and twisted as it's ever been.

[stillanerd]

BTW, for anyone who still thinks that what happened to Dany amounts to "character assassination," this review from the Los Angeles Review of Books offers a very insightful and compelling counterargument...while also making the case that D&D were wrong in their reasoning for why Dany goes "mad."

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/...es-the-bells/#!

[PwrdOn]

BTW, for anyone who still thinks that what happened to Dany amounts to "character assassination," this review from the Los Angeles Review of Books offers a very insightful and compelling counterargument...while also making the case that D&D were wrong in their reasoning for why Dany goes "mad."

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/...es-the-bells/#!

The thing is, the show has sort of reached a point where in-depth character analysis of this kind isn't really warranted anymore. The writing this season has been so bad that it basically takes you completely out of the story and the only thing worth speculating about is what the writers were thinking, not how to make sense of everything within the context of the story. People have been speculating for years now that Dany would somehow turn evil and theorized about different ways in which it might happen, it's not like it's any kind of surprise twist to any except the most hardcore of Dany stans, and pretty much every random fan theory out there would have made more sense than just "Dany burninates **** because reasons."

[Punisher007]

Yeah I know longer look for "deep" character writing because, well there isn't any. Legends of Tomorrow has deeper and more compelling character writing than GOT Season 8 has at this point, and that's just pathetic.

[MindofShadow]

I kinda feel the same way. Under another author Jon and Dany would have teamed up to defeat the White Walkers and then been labled the heroes of their era and then went on to start a new prosperous reign for the realm. But that's not the story. The story is that these people are humans and went on to go after their petty exploits and the pursuit of power proved once again to be folly.

Now the Game of Thrones just goes on and it's every bit as cruel and twisted as it's ever been.

A lot of people invested in the characters wanted fairy tail endings for certain characters.

But at the same time, didn't want GOT to be like "every other fantasy show" where that happens.

Some of this backlash is inevitable. Especially when combined with lazy writing and crazy pacing by DnD