Game of Thrones

[Madam-Shogun-Assassin]

So, among those people trashing this episode, how many are going to be right back here this time next week? Show of hands? Myself, I recognize the storytelling problems, but I wonder if anyone could have done any better? I still consider it one of my top 5 TV shows of all time. But maybe from now on TV adaptations should be confined to stories that have already been written.

Look I like GoT, but I'm not going to lie to myself and say I liked it all the way through. Cause I didn't, if I'm honest with myself the only thing I like about it after season 4 was the bigger budget battles. The story? Well not so much. That was a bitter pill for me to swallow. Same with The Walking Dead. I love TWD, but Gimple ran out of steam even WITH source material to pull from. I'm just too old to be a blind fangirl. So I decided after episode 3 of season 8 I was finished. And after reading those leaks I'm glad I did. I did it before with Dexter too. I just hope The Expanse doesn't crash and burn.

[Arsenal]

I'm honestly not sure what Sansa's endgame here is anymore. Why would you start doing this **** now in the middle of a war that your side might not even win?

[Jabare]

Man this episode. Why couldn’t Martin finish the books.

They killed my girl. The one character I wanted to make it out alive the one character. Ugh!

Feel like we went heavy soap opera this episode too.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Um, yeah that cat's out of the bag lol. But how you figure Tyrion was responsible for Tommen and his sister tho??

Tyrion sent Myrcella to Dorne. Tyrion killed Tywin, who was the real strength of House Lannister. Once Tywin died the Dornish people felt embolded to threaten Myrcella and the Ellaria and the Sandsnakes struck. Meanwhile, without Tywin the Sparrows were allowed to gain control of King's Landing (Tywin would have crushed them) and the Tyrell's were able to manipulate Tommen. Cersei had to take drastic action to put out that fire. The stress of that is what did Tommen in.

If Tywin was alive the Dornish would have had literal hell to pay for threatening Myrcella and Tommen would have been strictly under Tywin's control.

Tyrion knows this. Cersei knows this. Tyrion said last season he felt terrible for his part in that.

[Ramsay Snow]

Frankly, I'm OK with that at this point.

Jesus, Sansa. Has any Stark in history ever broken their word that fast and with that little prompting?

But at least my prediction of King Gendry came one step closer to reality.

Cleganebowl also came one step closer, as the Hound heads south to deal with "unfinished business." And Arya has some too. She's not going to kill Cersei, but she's going to kill somebody big, using her face-stealing trick. Maybe Qyburn. Maybe Euron. Maybe Jamie, if he's serious about going back to Cersei. Which is a baffling decision, if true. He's grown more as a character than that.

I don't think Jon is going to make it through this alive now, either.

So, among those people trashing this episode, how many are going to be right back here this time next week? Show of hands? Myself, I recognize the storytelling problems, but I wonder if anyone could have done any better? I still consider it one of my top 5 TV shows of all time. But maybe from now on TV adaptations should be confined to stories that have already been written.

Arya's probably going to kill Ilyn Payne (Podrick's good-natured cousin). It'll come out of nowhere similar to what she did to Meryn Trant.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

I'm honestly not sure what Sansa's endgame here is anymore. Why would you start doing this **** now in the middle of a war that your side might not even win?

This is the perfect time to do it. Dany doesn't have the Iron Throne or the power yet. There's plenty of time for this war to play out in a way where Jon gets the throne. If Dany gets the throne, she isn't going to concede it without a war. If she has the throne, and then the secret comes out, Jon is a threat. Right now she can't afford to lose Jon's Northern support.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

I'm on west coast time, but I'm not watching it, so apparently this episode confirms most of the rumors. My sister is literally screaming at me on the phone over what happened and I'm like,...well lolz. I'm just glad I bowed out when I did. But cheer up, we got 3 awesome spin offs coming to cleanse our mouths of D&D's BS.

Oh and I guarantee D&D's Confederate won't get made now.

Three awesome spinoffs that won't be based on books, which is the only reason this show was any good at any point anyways. Also D&D will get any show they want made. This season is breaking records for HBO

[Emperor-of-Dragons]

This is the perfect time to do it. Dany doesn't have the Iron Throne or the power yet. There's plenty of time for this war to play out in a way where Jon gets the throne. If Dany gets the throne, she isn't going to concede it without a war. If she has the throne, and then the secret comes out, Jon is a threat. Right now she can't afford to lose Jon's Northern support.

John can't afford to lose Dani's support

[Emperor-of-Dragons]

Three awesome spinoffs that won't be based on books, which is the only reason this show was any good at any point anyways. Also D&D will get any show they want made. This season is breaking records for HBO

There's a lot of lore to pull from though. In terms of Confederate it's the controversy surrounding it that's the problem. Not GoT persé

[TriggerWarning]

Three awesome spinoffs that won't be based on books, which is the only reason this show was any good at any point anyways. Also D&D will get any show they want made. This season is breaking records for HBO

Yep. Anyone that doesn't think D&D will be able to write their own tickets for a while to do anything they want is ridiculous. Game of Thrones is the cultural TV show of the century thus far and nothing else even comes close It is to TV what Star Wars was to movies back in 1977.

[Arsenal]

This is the perfect time to do it. Dany doesn't have the Iron Throne or the power yet. There's plenty of time for this war to play out in a way where Jon gets the throne. If Dany gets the throne, she isn't going to concede it without a war. If she has the throne, and then the secret comes out, Jon is a threat. Right now she can't afford to lose Jon's Northern support.

No, Dani and her brother are about to embark on a battle that they can very easily lose if something goes wrong. Everybody needs to be on the same page for them to win and Sansa is intentionally preventing that from happening. Planting seeds of doubt within the inner circle and needlessly provoking Dani is a great way to ensure the best shot they have at beating Cersei ends up missing.

[AndrewCrossett]

I still think she's going to become Cersei and end up ruling as Queen of the Seven Kingdoms as way to stop more wars as both Jon and Dany will have been eliminated in some fashion leaving only Cersei. Jamie will get the kill with Arya looking on and she'll then take her face.

Probably only a few people close to Cersei know what a monster she really is. Arya couldn't fool any of them, but if they're all eliminated the mass of people would probably just assume Cersei had only been a tyrant because she was fighting a war, and if she becomes a just ruler afterward everything is good. But... I don't think Arya has one single rulership skill or one single iota of desire to be a ruler. She's a lone wolf, she wouldn't be able to tolerate politics or the bureaucratic drudgery that is 95% of rulership. I see her as becoming more of a Dark Knight type figure... a loner with maybe a handful of people in her inner circle who dedicates herself to doing what needs to be done, and sometimes doing nasty things to accomplish that.

Dany will incinerate King's Landing next episode, causing Varys to turn against her, and he will end up being killed as a traitor by Grey Worm. Tyrion? As always, I have no idea what will happen to him. I think Bronn will save him one more time, saying that it's to preserve his claim to Highgarden.

At this point I'm not sure very many of the main characters are getting out of this alive. Maybe Tyrion. Probably Arya, Sam, the Hound, Gendry, Bran, Brienne, maybe Davos. Tormund seems to be safely off the field of play.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

John can't afford to lose Dani's support

Yes he can. This isn't his fight. He can go North. Cersei can't take the North. She's down to Euron's fleet and the Golden Company. It's the winter. That's not going to take the North in the Winter. So Jon can literally sit back for years in the biggest region of the Seven Kingdoms and recover the full might of it. And he'll likely have the full support of the Vale and Yara will have to make a choice. Meanwhile Cersei will spend years trying to reclaim the Iron Islands, Dorne (which is a hellhole that she won't be able to win) and keep the absolute mess that is the Reach and and Riverlands under control.

And she'd still have to do that in Winter. Jon has far and away the biggest advantage. Right now his dumbest play is doing anything at all. So is Dany's to be honest. Cersei was never going to travel North. She could have waited and rebuilt her army. Went back to Mereen and got reinforcements.

There's a lot of lore to pull from though. In terms of Confederate it's the controversy surrounding it that's the problem. Not GoT persé

That doesn't really matter to me. There is lore, but GRRM literally sat down and detailed how the books end to D&D. They have access to him whenever they want. It's not like they are pulling from nothing. And these other shows have less lore because they are just side stories and ideas from him. Atleast GRRM knew how he would end this for quite awhile.

And maybe the Confederate will not happen, but it won't have anything to do with this season

[Emperor-of-Dragons]

Yes he can. This isn't his fight. He can go North. Cersei can't take the North. She's down to Euron's fleet and the Golden Company. It's the winter. That's not going to take the North in the Winter. So Jon can literally sit back for years in the biggest region of the Seven Kingdoms and recover the full might of it. And he'll likely have the full support of the Vale and Yara will have to make a choice. Meanwhile Cersei will spend years trying to reclaim the Iron Islands, Dorne (which is a hellhole that she won't be able to win) and keep the absolute mess that is the Reach and and Riverlands under control.

And she'd still have to do that in Winter. Jon has far and away the biggest advantage. Right now his dumbest play is doing anything at all. So is Dany's to be honest. Cersei was never going to travel North. She could have waited and rebuilt her army. Went back to Mereen and got reinforcements.



That doesn't really matter to me. There is lore, but GRRM literally sat down and detailed how the books end to D&D. They have access to him whenever they want. It's not like they are pulling from nothing. And these other shows have less lore because they are just side stories and ideas from him. Atleast GRRM knew how he would end this for quite awhile.

And maybe the Confederate will not happen, but it won't have anything to do with this season

But again, most bad decisions made by usually smart characters are just contrived writing at this point.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

No, Dani and her brother are about to embark on a battle that they can very easily lose if something goes wrong. Everybody needs to be on the same page for them to win and Sansa is intentionally preventing that from happening. Planting seeds of doubt within the inner circle and needlessly provoking Dani is a great way to ensure the best shot they have at beating Cersei ends up missing.

*nephew.

And Jon doesn't have to fight this war right now. Cersei has a fractured kingdom. Sansa only cares about the North. Jon only really cares about the North. The only time someone ever took the North was because they had Dragons. Aside from that it has been a near impossible task to take the North. Cersei's only winning this war because she controls the Iron Throne and Dany is hellbent on that particular seat and the fact that she thinks it means something. It's actually stupid that Dany is even bothering going to King's Landing.

Dany can literally consolidate power with Dorne. Retake the Riverlands for Edmure Tully and that base of power up. Use Gendry to control Stormsend and make the Stormlands another base for her. Support Yara on the Iron Islands and mount a stronhold there that Euron can't take back (and the North could also help defend that). She can literally consolidate control of the entire Seven Kingdoms and name herself Queen and all Cersei will have is King's Landing, which is symbolic but in reality is just a rundown shithole of a city anyways. And it's worse for Cersei if she has to split the Golden Company fighting 7 wars.

However, Dany just made it so that all she has to do is win one small siege war.