Game of Thrones

[Emperor-of-Dragons]

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[Midvillian1322]

*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.

Also we running out of episodes so they need to get to the point.

Didnt like Braun hitting Tyrion. I know Braun has always been out for self and making him a hero all of a sudden. Would be pure fan Service but I still didnt like him busting Tyrion nose and I believed he woulda killed them

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

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

Sure, but was it contrived writing when Ned was absolutely stupid in season 1 and told Cersei and gave her time to plan? Or when Sansa told Cersei that Ned was planning on leaving because she was so in love with Joffrey? Or that Joffrey attempted to have Bran killed because he heard the king say Bran would be better off dead, which is what started the Lannister vs Stark war? Or in the next couple of seasons where Robb ruined his best alliance and lost the support of Freys and some Northerners because he married some Volantis/Westerling (depends on the book or show) girl that had no utility to him, while his mother freed Jamie because she wanted her daughters back?

Alot of this show has boiled down to people making dumb decisions.

[AndrewCrossett]

And it's worse for Cersei if she has to split the Golden Company fighting 7 wars.

She doesn't have the resources to pay the Golden Company to fight several wars for her. They only care what happens to her as long as her checks keep clearing.

On the other hand... they can't get home without Euron's fleet, and nobody would ever hire them again if they switched sides, so they probably have a vested interest in seeing that Cersei wins.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

p4uk91behgw21.jpgctfu.......

The Office is a sitcom so it's dumb to compare them. Also the Office wasn't as good without Michael Scott anways and was clearly inferior. Breaking Bad only had 5 seasons. So really it just ended at the right time.

Even Dexter's not a great comparison. Dexter started sucking halfway through. Really only seasons 1,2 and 4 were great.

Typically this is what you see with shows... the first season is a nice POC that gets the stage set and shows that it has some good ideas. Then it hits it's peak in seasons 2 and 3. Then maybe it squeezes out one more good season. Then it's time to wrap it up and narratively it's just kind of heading towards an endgame that starts driving the narrative.

[Emperor-of-Dragons]

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.

I can respect that, but FWIW TWD is actually REALLY good this season. Angela Kang really saved the series. I never watched Dexter tho.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

She doesn't have the resources to pay the Golden Company to fight several wars for her. They only care what happens to her as long as her checks keep clearing.

On the other hand... they can't get home without Euron's fleet, and nobody would ever hire them again if they switched sides, so they probably have a vested interest in seeing that Cersei wins.

If the Golden Company has to win back Dorne, the Stormlands, the Vale, the North, and the Iron Islands in the middle of winter, WHILE having to maintain the Reach, Riverlands, and Westerlands.... they will all just die. Cersei loses this war if she has to take her forces outside of King's Landing. She can win a siege right now. She cannot win Westeros. She can however hold a city.

[Emperor-of-Dragons]

Sure, but was it contrived writing when Ned was absolutely stupid in season 1 and told Cersei and gave her time to plan? Or when Sansa told Cersei that Ned was planning on leaving because she was so in love with Joffrey? Or that Joffrey attempted to have Bran killed because he heard the king say Bran would be better off dead, which is what started the Lannister vs Stark war? Or in the next couple of seasons where Robb ruined his best alliance and lost the support of Freys and some Northerners because he married some Volantis/Westerling (depends on the book or show) girl that had no utility to him, while his mother freed Jamie because she wanted her daughters back?

Alot of this show has boiled down to people making dumb decisions.

I said, AT. THIS. POINT

characters made bad decisions sure, but it was better executed.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Anyways.... Jon's going to die. He's leaving behind his direwolf, his family, and his last friend in the Night's Watch to ride South just like his adopted father who did the same many years ago and fell in the North.

[Arsenal]

*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.

Cersei is at her most dangerous when she has time to think, plan and breathe. If you bring the war to her doorstep tonight you take every advantage away from her and leave her on the defensive instead of giving her a chance to figure out her next move. Right now Cersei's entire army is stuck at the capital with nowhere to go and no reinforcements available to help. Instead of waiting years to fight another big war (which may never happen if Sansa has her way), she can end it in a few months with an easy siege. The capital lasts a month or 2 before it collapses, maybe 3 at the most. So why wouldn't she go to King's Landing and end it once for all after one small siege war? Dani's in a much better position than Cersei is at the moment and it would be foolish to lose it.

What you are suggesting involves a long, drawn out conflict and Dani's remaining army simply isn't big enough anymore to win that kind.

She doesn't have the resources to pay the Golden Company to fight several wars for her. They only care what happens to her as long as her checks keep clearing.

Dany doesn't have the resources to wage several wars either. Most of her army is gone so she has to depend on the Northern army which is reluctantly being given to her. If she waits, there's a very good chance they never march south ever again which ends her campaign.

Those checks stop clearing a lot quicker if King's Landing is under siege than they do if Cersei can move freely in a cold war with the North.

[Madam-Shogun-Assassin]

But remember when Cersei was supposed to be stupid (or at least not as smart as she thinks), but somehow survived better villains? Pepperidge farms remember

[Lightning Rider]

I don't want to bandwagon on hating the writing but...the death of Rheagal was so fucking anticlimactic and I can't see how anyone would disagree. It was this epic inhuman feat when the Night King did it, but it's so fucking easy to catch them unawares and poke them full of holes. Especially since they're unarmored, despite the fact that Dany had suffered two experiences in which she saw they were vulnerable to missile fire in the air.

In the episode breakdown one of the writers literally says Dany "kinda forgot" about Euron and his navy. She kinda forgot. She forgot that Cersei's most powerful ally exists and might be waiting for them to come back South and fight over the throne. That's shocking.

I also don't think they've developed Arya and Sansa's reasons for distrusting Daenerys enough. Sansa's word not counting for anything is pretty bad, she immediately fucking dropped that to Tyrion. Jon is now being a parody of Ned by refusing to keep a secret that honestly, has no fucking consequence for his family. There's nothing compelling him to spill the secret.

At least one thing I like about Dany's mad queen arc is that she's not being totally unreasonable. I didn't just want her to go unhinged at random and with the death of her dragon and Missandei's death, it's not madness but human fury. Is she actually being crazy enough for Varys to distrust though? Yeah Jon is a better alternative in Westeros, but she hasn't really done or suggested anything that crazy since she burned the Tarlys. I mean Cersei is giving her an impossible choice by holing everyone up in the Red Keep. I think his readiness to commit treason is a bit unfounded.

Jaime going back to Cersei is okay with me. Yeah he had his redemption arc but he did everything for her, the two are so connected, I can see him not having enough faith in himself to be a good man and feeling the need to stand by her.

One thing I'm also disappointed with is Cersei losing all her humanity. She's the villain, she's power hungry, she's paranoid and merciless and egotistical, but she had redeeming qualities, namely her children. She barely mourned Tommen and turned Jaime away, but we don't see any kind of regret, any kind of emotional struggle. She's bad, but good bad characters have depth, and they robbed her of actual character.

It's also so blunt the way they call back to earlier seasons. I called her saying "stick them with the pointy end" before she said it, and it was even easier this time around. "I'm not a lady. I'll never be a lady." Wait for it...wait for it..."That's not me." Which she said to Ned when he told her she'll one day be a lady of a castle, and echoed when she talked to Nymeria. We fucking et it, you don't have to use such straightforward language. Show don't tell. Same with Jaime and Brienne. "She's hateful. And so am I." Hateful? I get he's trying to repel her from letting him go South, but hateful? What?

Missandei's death was alright. Didn't feel much because she's underdeveloped, though it added good tension. I thought Tyrion might have been gone there. But her saying Dracarys is a bit out of place the more I think about it. If they had tortured her or something I could see it. But she's from a peaceful people and always loved Daenerys because of her good side. Is she that vengeful that she basically asks Dany to "burn them all" because she was executed? Too out of character even in the face of death IMO.

[Lightning Rider]

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.

Yeah, it seems petty and not at all strategic.

[Arsenal]

We can all agree that Jamie gets killed by either cersei or Brianne , right? Like, it’s gotta be one of those 2 who puts him down.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Cersei is at her most dangerous when she has time to think, plan and breathe. If you bring the war to her doorstep tonight you take every advantage away from her and leave her on the defensive instead of giving her a chance to figure out her next move. Right now Cersei's entire army is stuck at the capital with nowhere to go and no reinforcements available to help. Instead of waiting years to fight another big war (which may never happen if Sansa has her way), she can end it in a few months with an easy siege. The capital lasts a month or 2 before it collapses, maybe 3 at the most. So why wouldn't she go to King's Landing and end it once for all after one small siege war? Dani's in a much better position than Cersei is at the moment and it would be foolish to lose it.

What you are suggesting involves a long, drawn out conflict and Dani's remaining army simply isn't big enough anymore to win that kind.

It's honestly a terrible strategy. Dany is at risk of losing this entire war simply because she has a weakened force and is marching on the capital where she has to either siege it or destroy it and one bolt to Drogon could effectively cost her the entire thing outright.

Cersie's army isn't big either. She has half the Iron Islands fleet and the Golden Company who are effectively sellswords. I don't care how good at planning Cersei is. She cannot win a long form war like this. Dorne will never support her and Aegon WITH dragons couldn't take Dorne. Cersei is too weak to ever take Dorne. Cersei also cannot take the North in the middle of winter. That only happened once in history because Torrhen Stark didn't want to face dragons. So you have the Soutern most and Norther most regions as just completely untakeable and Cersei can never win them back for years and they both declared for Dany.

Cersei can't take the North, but she can beat their army in a siege right here. That's a huge disadvantage not using the Siberia of the the fantasy world to your benefit. A long war works to Dany's benefit because most of the country is against Cersei and she is not capable of taking the realm back by force anymore. She can't split her army anymore.

This is her best move. Make a weakned Jon/Dany alliance come to her and try to break into her city with all her forces concentrated there