I usually watch each episode twice. I didn’t for most of this week, and I think that’s cos I hate the idea of the dragons, having taken 8 season to get to this point, dying off so easily. I don’t like seeing it.
I just watched it again, and I’m convinced Danearys has something up her sleeve. Tyrion is convinced the city will burn in spite of the solid defence. I think there’s going to be some sort of surprise. I won’t say what cos I’m sure I have to be right.
Cos otherwise Varys’s concerns are moot. If she can’t smash up Kings Landing then that whole plot is a dead end. And I don’t think it will be. I think they’ve been setting up the potential for Danaerys to go mad since day one and she needs the capability to.
They needed to make it harder for her to take Cersei down, they’ve done that. The conflict with Varys has been bubbling since last season too. It’s nicely balanced now.
Im really excited to see how they do this. I think the overarching arcs make sense as written.
I usually watch each episode twice. I didn’t for most of this week, and I think that’s cos I hate the idea of the dragons, having taken 8 season to get to this point, dying off so easily. I don’t like seeing it.
I just watched it again, and I’m convinced Danearys has something up her sleeve. Tyrion is convinced the city will burn in spite of the solid defence. I think there’s going to be some sort of surprise. I won’t say what cos I’m sure I have to be right.
Cos otherwise Varys’s concerns are moot. If she can’t smash up Kings Landing then that whole plot is a dead end. And I don’t think it will be. I think they’ve been setting up the potential for Danaerys to go mad since day one and she needs the capability to.
They needed to make it harder for her to take Cersei down, they’ve done that. The conflict with Varys has been bubbling since last season too. It’s nicely balanced now.
Im really excited to see how they do this. I think the overarching arcs make sense as written.
You're certainly right about the dragons, they've reduced them to vulnerable plot devices. The death of Rhaegal is one of the dumbest things GoT has ever done. It's so disappointing that a show that used be all about character driving the plot is now forcing characters in to stupid actions to meet required plot points and they can get to the end in a hurry.
The existential apocalyptic threat has been taken care of by Arya and her trampoline so now we're left with Cersei as the final boss to defeat and in reality she's just an alcoholic, ex-wife with anger issues. No threat at all compared to the Night King and no real threat to the combined armies of the 7 kingdoms, the Dothraki (somehow half of them survived!) and Unsullied. So for plot reasons they have to level the playing field, a tacit admission that the final villain is too weak to generate any drama or doubt about the outcome.
Dany's character has been butchered to accommodate all this plot necessity. She has had to face the undead Viserion. She's the mother of dragons and that is her child, murdered by the Night King and now turned against her. She has to fight her own dead child. Imagine having to kill your own zombies kids with a hammer. Who could even do it? Who could go through that without being a total emotional wreck? But it barely seems to make any sort of mark on her. You have to chop off her PA's head if you even want to make her look a bit cross.
I was reminded of the Walking Dead where Carol's daughter Sophia gets lost and they spend a whole series searching for her. The scene where Carol finally confronts her own dead zombie daughter is one of the most horrendous, gut wrenching things I've ever seen in a TV drama. We don't get anything like that with Dany, just a big CGI punch up in the dark. She's more upset about Jorah, who already betrayed her once. Her dead dragon is lying in the castle courtyard but that whole funeral thing passed it by. Too bad Viserion, go sit in the corner with Ghost.
The death of Rhaegal was all sorts of horrible writing. Dany is given a severe case of "plot induced stupidity" to FORGET about the Iron fleet. Then there's the "Surprise! Bet you weren't expecting that!" of the rapid fire, heat seeking, armour piercing, supersonic ballista bolts attack. The same lethal weapons that are rendered hopelessly inaccurate by Drogon and Dany's plot armour seconds later.
Good job I only get an hour for lunch. No time to start ranting at what they're about to do to Jaime's character arc.
I usually watch each episode twice. I didn’t for most of this week, and I think that’s cos I hate the idea of the dragons, having taken 8 season to get to this point, dying off so easily. I don’t like seeing it.
I just watched it again, and I’m convinced Danearys has something up her sleeve. Tyrion is convinced the city will burn in spite of the solid defence. I think there’s going to be some sort of surprise. I won’t say what cos I’m sure I have to be right.
Cos otherwise Varys’s concerns are moot. If she can’t smash up Kings Landing then that whole plot is a dead end. And I don’t think it will be. I think they’ve been setting up the potential for Danaerys to go mad since day one and she needs the capability to.
They needed to make it harder for her to take Cersei down, they’ve done that. The conflict with Varys has been bubbling since last season too. It’s nicely balanced now.
Im really excited to see how they do this. I think the overarching arcs make sense as written.
You're certainly right about the dragons, they've reduced them to vulnerable plot devices. The death of Rhaegal is one of the dumbest things GoT has ever done. It's so disappointing that a show that used be all about character driving the plot is now forcing characters in to stupid actions to meet required plot points and they can get to the end in a hurry.
The existential apocalyptic threat has been taken care of by Arya and her trampoline so now we're left with Cersei as the final boss to defeat and in reality she's just an alcoholic, ex-wife with anger issues. No threat at all compared to the Night King and no real threat to the combined armies of the 7 kingdoms, the Dothraki (somehow half of them survived!) and Unsullied. So for plot reasons they have to level the playing field, a tacit omission that the final villain is too weak to generate any drama or doubt about the outcome.
Dany's character has been butchered to accommodate all this plot necessity. She has had to face the undead Viserion. She's the mother of dragons and that is her child, murdered by the Night King and now turned against her. She has to fight her own dead child. Imagine having to kill your own zombies kids with a hammer. Who could even do it? Who could go through that without being a total emotional wreck? But it barely seems to make any sort of mark on her. You have to chop off her PA's head if you even want to make her look a bit cross.
I was reminded of the Walking Dead where Carol's daughter Sophia gets lost and they spend a whole series searching for her. The scene where Carol finally confronts her own dead zombie daughter is one of the most horrendous, gut wrenching things I've ever seen in a TV drama. We don't get anything like that with Dany, just a big CGI punch up in the dark. She's more upset about Jorah, who already betrayed her once. Her dead dragon is lying in the castle courtyard but that whole funeral thing passed it by. Too bad Viserion, go sit in the corner with Ghost.
The death of Rhaegal was all sorts of horrible writing. Dany is given a severe case of "plot induced stupidity" to FORGET about the Iron fleet. Then there's the "Surprise! Bet you weren't expecting that!" of the rapid fire, heat seeking, armour piercing, supersonic ballista bolts attack. The same lethal weapons that are rendered hopelessly inaccurate by Drogon and Dany's plot armour seconds later.
Good job I only get an hour for lunch. No time to start ranting at what they're about to do to Jaime's character arc.
Fuck me, trust you to jump on anything negative!
Glad it was only an hour, read the first paragraph and didn't really want to continue
I usually watch each episode twice. I didn’t for most of this week, and I think that’s cos I hate the idea of the dragons, having taken 8 season to get to this point, dying off so easily. I don’t like seeing it.
I just watched it again, and I’m convinced Danearys has something up her sleeve. Tyrion is convinced the city will burn in spite of the solid defence. I think there’s going to be some sort of surprise. I won’t say what cos I’m sure I have to be right.
Cos otherwise Varys’s concerns are moot. If she can’t smash up Kings Landing then that whole plot is a dead end. And I don’t think it will be. I think they’ve been setting up the potential for Danaerys to go mad since day one and she needs the capability to.
They needed to make it harder for her to take Cersei down, they’ve done that. The conflict with Varys has been bubbling since last season too. It’s nicely balanced now.
Im really excited to see how they do this. I think the overarching arcs make sense as written.
You're certainly right about the dragons, they've reduced them to vulnerable plot devices. The death of Rhaegal is one of the dumbest things GoT has ever done. It's so disappointing that a show that used be all about character driving the plot is now forcing characters in to stupid actions to meet required plot points and they can get to the end in a hurry.
The existential apocalyptic threat has been taken care of by Arya and her trampoline so now we're left with Cersei as the final boss to defeat and in reality she's just an alcoholic, ex-wife with anger issues. No threat at all compared to the Night King and no real threat to the combined armies of the 7 kingdoms, the Dothraki (somehow half of them survived!) and Unsullied. So for plot reasons they have to level the playing field, a tacit omission that the final villain is too weak to generate any drama or doubt about the outcome.
Dany's character has been butchered to accommodate all this plot necessity. She has had to face the undead Viserion. She's the mother of dragons and that is her child, murdered by the Night King and now turned against her. She has to fight her own dead child. Imagine having to kill your own zombies kids with a hammer. Who could even do it? Who could go through that without being a total emotional wreck? But it barely seems to make any sort of mark on her. You have to chop off her PA's head if you even want to make her look a bit cross.
I was reminded of the Walking Dead where Carol's daughter Sophia gets lost and they spend a whole series searching for her. The scene where Carol finally confronts her own dead zombie daughter is one of the most horrendous, gut wrenching things I've ever seen in a TV drama. We don't get anything like that with Dany, just a big CGI punch up in the dark. She's more upset about Jorah, who already betrayed her once. Her dead dragon is lying in the castle courtyard but that whole funeral thing passed it by. Too bad Viserion, go sit in the corner with Ghost.
The death of Rhaegal was all sorts of horrible writing. Dany is given a severe case of "plot induced stupidity" to FORGET about the Iron fleet. Then there's the "Surprise! Bet you weren't expecting that!" of the rapid fire, heat seeking, armour piercing, supersonic ballista bolts attack. The same lethal weapons that are rendered hopelessly inaccurate by Drogon and Dany's plot armour seconds later.
Good job I only get an hour for lunch. No time to start ranting at what they're about to do to Jaime's character arc.
Fuck me, trust you to jump on anything negative!
Glad it was only an hour, read the first paragraph and didn't really want to continue
I'd normally nerd on about this for hours with my friends but we haven't been able to get together since the new series started. Charlton Life is getting it in the ear instead!!
It seems so obvious to me just looking at the Tyrion and Varys characters alone, that the current writers do not really know what to do since they ran out of source material. Those charcters use to "love the game" and were many steps ahead of everyone else. Now they are "boo-hoo" types who seem to have forgotten how to play the game.
Fire and Ice.... Dragons and Walkers... each of these are easily defeated now, one by a teenage girl with a knife and the other with giant arrows out of nowhere.
I have a feeling with so many characters left to kill in so little time, this is going to leave a bad taste in our mouths, and many of us wondering why we followed it for many years just to have it all end so disappointingly.
I usually watch each episode twice. I didn’t for most of this week, and I think that’s cos I hate the idea of the dragons, having taken 8 season to get to this point, dying off so easily. I don’t like seeing it.
I just watched it again, and I’m convinced Danearys has something up her sleeve. Tyrion is convinced the city will burn in spite of the solid defence. I think there’s going to be some sort of surprise. I won’t say what cos I’m sure I have to be right.
Cos otherwise Varys’s concerns are moot. If she can’t smash up Kings Landing then that whole plot is a dead end. And I don’t think it will be. I think they’ve been setting up the potential for Danaerys to go mad since day one and she needs the capability to.
They needed to make it harder for her to take Cersei down, they’ve done that. The conflict with Varys has been bubbling since last season too. It’s nicely balanced now.
Im really excited to see how they do this. I think the overarching arcs make sense as written.
You're certainly right about the dragons, they've reduced them to vulnerable plot devices. The death of Rhaegal is one of the dumbest things GoT has ever done. It's so disappointing that a show that used be all about character driving the plot is now forcing characters in to stupid actions to meet required plot points and they can get to the end in a hurry.
The existential apocalyptic threat has been taken care of by Arya and her trampoline so now we're left with Cersei as the final boss to defeat and in reality she's just an alcoholic, ex-wife with anger issues. No threat at all compared to the Night King and no real threat to the combined armies of the 7 kingdoms, the Dothraki (somehow half of them survived!) and Unsullied. So for plot reasons they have to level the playing field, a tacit omission that the final villain is too weak to generate any drama or doubt about the outcome.
Dany's character has been butchered to accommodate all this plot necessity. She has had to face the undead Viserion. She's the mother of dragons and that is her child, murdered by the Night King and now turned against her. She has to fight her own dead child. Imagine having to kill your own zombies kids with a hammer. Who could even do it? Who could go through that without being a total emotional wreck? But it barely seems to make any sort of mark on her. You have to chop off her PA's head if you even want to make her look a bit cross.
I was reminded of the Walking Dead where Carol's daughter Sophia gets lost and they spend a whole series searching for her. The scene where Carol finally confronts her own dead zombie daughter is one of the most horrendous, gut wrenching things I've ever seen in a TV drama. We don't get anything like that with Dany, just a big CGI punch up in the dark. She's more upset about Jorah, who already betrayed her once. Her dead dragon is lying in the castle courtyard but that whole funeral thing passed it by. Too bad Viserion, go sit in the corner with Ghost.
The death of Rhaegal was all sorts of horrible writing. Dany is given a severe case of "plot induced stupidity" to FORGET about the Iron fleet. Then there's the "Surprise! Bet you weren't expecting that!" of the rapid fire, heat seeking, armour piercing, supersonic ballista bolts attack. The same lethal weapons that are rendered hopelessly inaccurate by Drogon and Dany's plot armour seconds later.
Good job I only get an hour for lunch. No time to start ranting at what they're about to do to Jaime's character arc.
I think you're making a lot of assumptions, both about future plot developments and about what they're doing with Cersei's character. I couldn't disagree with you more about the final villain. I've heard so many people say '8 seasons of development and the Night King didn't get past Winterfell'. That's nonsense though; he didn't even appear until Season 4, and in that time he has received zero development. He's not a character, he's a placeholder for a concept which has now been explored. The threat looming over Westeros was entertaining, but ultimately it was never going to live up to people's expectations because emotionally there's no depth to the zombie army, which has always been the show's strength. Anyone who thought the threat of the zombie horde was going to be ended in some single combat duel between Jon Snow and the Night King has got confused about which show they're watching.
Cersei on the other hand actually has had 8 seasons of development. We've seen her, from episode one, go from catty queen, to protective queen mother, to murderer, to psychotic terroristic autocrat. We've seen that she has always been motivated by her love for her children, how she was affected by her mother's death, her messed up love/control relationship with her brother, her shame and anger at being passed around and sold off to powerful men, her regret at being born a woman in a world that will never respect her capabilities, and with it her frustration that her twin receives the respect and opportunities she doesn't. We've seen her falter in her hatred of Tyrion and then actively choose to be the way she is, and we've seen her psyche fracture more and more every time with each child she loses. At the beginning she knew what Joffrey was and tried to curb his worst excesses, then after his death he tried to push through her own brother's execution, then after her daughter's death she blew up an entire section of the city to kill those who had wronged her. That directly resulted in her losing her final child when he killed himself rather than be linked to her anymore, which drove her into her final stage of madness, where she now wants to tear down the world around her and leave it with only her, her next child, and Jaime standing. Anyone who gets in the way of her plan will be killed. The development in her character from sad and cruel but sometimes relatable mother to psychotic, murderous tyrant has been incredible, and she's a far more interesting villain than a zombie that doesn't speak or emote in the roughly 40 minutes of time he's on screen in the series. When characters are killed by Cersei now it's done out of spite, to hurt the heroes of the story and it's far more emotionally effective than people being butchered by walking corpses that don't even know what they're doing. The show has always bee building to a confrontation with Cersei from the very start, it's just people didn't see it that way. Her arc is the very definition of character driving the plot.
GoT is at its best when both sides of the fight have depth to their characters. In my opinion, the best battle in the show is the Blackwater, because there's heroes and villains on both sides of the fight, and you genuinely couldn't say who the good side is. Stannis is the rightful king (sort of) but he's a religious extremist who will burn people in the streets when he gets into power. He's trying to take King's Landing from the Lannisters, who have no rightful claim to the throne, and also suck, but also on that side are Tyrion, Pod, the Hound and Varys who we don't want to see killed. As far as they're concerned they're just trying to defend their home from invaders. Cersei's there being a cow, but she's not wrong when she points at that when the army coming to oust the Lannisters in the name of the 'true king' breaks in they will rape her, Sansa and every woman in the castle before butchering the people. Davos supports his king, but has reservations about Stannis's links with Melisandre that he's trying to push him away from. Both sides have depth, and the episode is infinitely better for it.
The killing of Rhaegal was also just basic story-telling, even if the way it was done wasn't ideal. They had to kill off a dragon to add tension to the final stages of the show. Now there's one dragon left, and we know it's vulnerable to being killed, so instead of just watching it fly over and burn everything in its path we'll be sitting there tense hoping it isn't shot down like that last one was. The main issue is with how rushed things have been, but that's unfortunately inevitable with how few episodes they have left in this run. I feel like in the two years between the last series and this one people have had the time to plan their own perfect endings in their heads, and now no matter what gets served up it'll be disappointing. It'll never be perfect, and there are definitely pacing issues, but it's still the best thing on tv by a distance.
Fair play to them. They’ve worked hard on running the show, under a massive amount of pressure and tbh they’ll be glad to see the back of it.
People dont ever go out of their way to make something bad.
But it can also be interpreted as 'fkn hell, if the audience are giving us pelters about the first few episodes I don't want to be around when they see the last one'
Sorry last one, I follow a lot of GoT fans so always see stuff I don't go looking for it.
The one thing that is sad for me, is as people have said is I think people are going into the episodes ahead looking for flaws now. I have not read the leaks and have somehow avoided them so far but GoT is on it's way to becoming Dexter/Lost finale levels by the looks of things apparently
Yeah Breaking Bad is widely regarded as the best way to end a show. Although there is a movie in the works now!
I thought the the end of Sopranos was genius too.
The end of Lost was half-disappointing (the island stuff was fine). But I didn’t think it was badly executed, it was more the direction they went in with the flash sideways that was disappointing.
The last season of Dexter is stunning in how bad it is.
Yeah Breaking Bad is widely regarded as the best way to end a show. Although there is a movie in the works now!
I thought the the end of Sopranos was genius too.
The end of Lost was half-disappointing (the island stuff was fine). But I didn’t think it was badly executed, it was more the direction they went in with the flash sideways that was disappointing.
The last season of Dexter is stunning in how bad it is.
Last season of Dexter ruined it for me.
I loved it, felt real sadness when that character was killed by John Lithgow.
Latest episode was extremely daft in places but I still enjoyed it immensely. The termination of a few character arcs that we were led to believe would probably come at Winterfell ended up happening in King’s Landing, further showing the Night King shenanigans were just a sideshow and that the true story of all this was always destined to reach its climax down south. In amongst the madness (literally and metaphorically) there was still poignant moments, and it seems, even at this late stage, we were thrown a big GoT trademark curve ball a couple of weeks back. I’ll accept the descent into madness has been a bit rushed but as I’ve argued before, there have been signs for a while. She’s had strong wrong ‘un potential for several series and surely part of what we like about GoT is the way characters have ebbed and flowed between being good guys and bad guys like real complex people. Dany’s swing takes it to a new extreme but, again, they’ve been telling us for 8 seasons how it runs in her family sobit’s not just some half baked plot device to get the show over and done with, and this ending is George R R’s, even if he hasn’t figured out exactly how to get there yet.
I don’t think this is the best season of the 8, last seasons often aren’t, but I’m firmly in the “they’re not fucking this up camp.”
Lot of character arcs got thrown to shit. Vary's suddenly becomes a traitor? Tyrion wrong...again? Jamie after a great arc just goes back to die? Euron just happens to wash up on shore when he shows up? Dany goes crazy for no real reason? Jon Snow still does not see the light about Dany? He is pretty dense. Cersei is not killed by anyone at all. Oy. The only character who seemed to improve her standing this episode was Arya.
Lot of character arcs got thrown to shit. Vary's suddenly becomes a traitor? Tyrion wrong...again? Jamie after a great arc just goes back to die? Euron just happens to wash up on shore when he shows up? Dany goes crazy for no real reason? Jon Snow still does not see the light about Dany? He is pretty dense. Cersei is not killed by anyone at all. Oy. The only character who seemed to improve her standing this episode was Arya.
Varys didn’t suddenly become a traitor. This was set up last season when Dany said she’d burn him if he didn’t come to her first (he knew the futility of that and didn’t bother). The callbacks this week and last week referred to his previous statement that he’s loyal to the realm, not the throne. And what followed his death fully justified his attitude. His arc made absolute sense and fits with who we’ve known for the last ten years.
Euron was heading back in the side door. The same side door that Jaime knew existed. They were both forced there by the exact same event. It’s not a huge stretch to think they’d meet along the line.
Dany goes crazy for no real reason?
Throughout the entire show we’ve been watching her teeter between good queen and mad Targaryen. She’s had multiple situations where she’s made the more sinister call (executing the Tarlys or that guy in season four). The destruction of the Lannister army was a precursor to this.
The coin toss line was from years ago and we’ve been waiting to see which way it lands. She tried to do everything in her power to be good by helping the north. But feels unloved, betrayed, she’s lost the person who meant most to her and then realised Jon Snow’s crowd are going to oust her. She’s teetered over the edge.
In my opinion, her arc makes total sense. As did Jaime’s decision to die at his sister’s side. That Cersei didn’t die in the way you had expected/ hoped/ speculated is not the show’s problem
I thought that was a brilliant episode of TV. Some of the visuals were stunning (particularly the epic Clegabebowl and Arya’s escape). To moan about that episode.... it sounds so spoilt to me.
I really enjoyed that episode, as long as you accept the major character arc that is occurring everything makes sense.
Loved Tyrion and Jamie's goodbye and the battle scene was immense. Trouble brewing between Greyworm and Jon, plus I predict Arya has a new name on her list.
Comments
I just watched it again, and I’m convinced Danearys has something up her sleeve. Tyrion is convinced the city will burn in spite of the solid defence. I think there’s going to be some sort of surprise. I won’t say what cos I’m sure I have to be right.
Cos otherwise Varys’s concerns are moot. If she can’t smash up Kings Landing then that whole plot is a dead end. And I don’t think it will be. I think they’ve been setting up the potential for Danaerys to go mad since day one and she needs the capability to.
They needed to make it harder for her to take Cersei down, they’ve done that. The conflict with Varys has been bubbling since last season too. It’s nicely balanced now.
Im really excited to see how they do this. I think the overarching arcs make sense as written.
You're certainly right about the dragons, they've reduced them to vulnerable plot devices. The death of Rhaegal is one of the dumbest things GoT has ever done. It's so disappointing that a show that used be all about character driving the plot is now forcing characters in to stupid actions to meet required plot points and they can get to the end in a hurry.
The existential apocalyptic threat has been taken care of by Arya and her trampoline so now we're left with Cersei as the final boss to defeat and in reality she's just an alcoholic, ex-wife with anger issues. No threat at all compared to the Night King and no real threat to the combined armies of the 7 kingdoms, the Dothraki (somehow half of them survived!) and Unsullied. So for plot reasons they have to level the playing field, a tacit admission that the final villain is too weak to generate any drama or doubt about the outcome.
Dany's character has been butchered to accommodate all this plot necessity. She has had to face the undead Viserion. She's the mother of dragons and that is her child, murdered by the Night King and now turned against her. She has to fight her own dead child. Imagine having to kill your own zombies kids with a hammer. Who could even do it? Who could go through that without being a total emotional wreck? But it barely seems to make any sort of mark on her. You have to chop off her PA's head if you even want to make her look a bit cross.
I was reminded of the Walking Dead where Carol's daughter Sophia gets lost and they spend a whole series searching for her. The scene where Carol finally confronts her own dead zombie daughter is one of the most horrendous, gut wrenching things I've ever seen in a TV drama. We don't get anything like that with Dany, just a big CGI punch up in the dark. She's more upset about Jorah, who already betrayed her once. Her dead dragon is lying in the castle courtyard but that whole funeral thing passed it by. Too bad Viserion, go sit in the corner with Ghost.
The death of Rhaegal was all sorts of horrible writing. Dany is given a severe case of "plot induced stupidity" to FORGET about the Iron fleet. Then there's the "Surprise! Bet you weren't expecting that!" of the rapid fire, heat seeking, armour piercing, supersonic ballista bolts attack. The same lethal weapons that are rendered hopelessly inaccurate by Drogon and Dany's plot armour seconds later.
Good job I only get an hour for lunch. No time to start ranting at what they're about to do to Jaime's character arc.
Glad it was only an hour, read the first paragraph and didn't really want to continue
I'd normally nerd on about this for hours with my friends but we haven't been able to get together since the new series started. Charlton Life is getting it in the ear instead!!
Oh dear
People dont ever go out of their way to make something bad.
Cersei on the other hand actually has had 8 seasons of development. We've seen her, from episode one, go from catty queen, to protective queen mother, to murderer, to psychotic terroristic autocrat. We've seen that she has always been motivated by her love for her children, how she was affected by her mother's death, her messed up love/control relationship with her brother, her shame and anger at being passed around and sold off to powerful men, her regret at being born a woman in a world that will never respect her capabilities, and with it her frustration that her twin receives the respect and opportunities she doesn't. We've seen her falter in her hatred of Tyrion and then actively choose to be the way she is, and we've seen her psyche fracture more and more every time with each child she loses. At the beginning she knew what Joffrey was and tried to curb his worst excesses, then after his death he tried to push through her own brother's execution, then after her daughter's death she blew up an entire section of the city to kill those who had wronged her. That directly resulted in her losing her final child when he killed himself rather than be linked to her anymore, which drove her into her final stage of madness, where she now wants to tear down the world around her and leave it with only her, her next child, and Jaime standing. Anyone who gets in the way of her plan will be killed. The development in her character from sad and cruel but sometimes relatable mother to psychotic, murderous tyrant has been incredible, and she's a far more interesting villain than a zombie that doesn't speak or emote in the roughly 40 minutes of time he's on screen in the series. When characters are killed by Cersei now it's done out of spite, to hurt the heroes of the story and it's far more emotionally effective than people being butchered by walking corpses that don't even know what they're doing. The show has always bee building to a confrontation with Cersei from the very start, it's just people didn't see it that way. Her arc is the very definition of character driving the plot.
GoT is at its best when both sides of the fight have depth to their characters. In my opinion, the best battle in the show is the Blackwater, because there's heroes and villains on both sides of the fight, and you genuinely couldn't say who the good side is. Stannis is the rightful king (sort of) but he's a religious extremist who will burn people in the streets when he gets into power. He's trying to take King's Landing from the Lannisters, who have no rightful claim to the throne, and also suck, but also on that side are Tyrion, Pod, the Hound and Varys who we don't want to see killed. As far as they're concerned they're just trying to defend their home from invaders. Cersei's there being a cow, but she's not wrong when she points at that when the army coming to oust the Lannisters in the name of the 'true king' breaks in they will rape her, Sansa and every woman in the castle before butchering the people. Davos supports his king, but has reservations about Stannis's links with Melisandre that he's trying to push him away from. Both sides have depth, and the episode is infinitely better for it.
The killing of Rhaegal was also just basic story-telling, even if the way it was done wasn't ideal. They had to kill off a dragon to add tension to the final stages of the show. Now there's one dragon left, and we know it's vulnerable to being killed, so instead of just watching it fly over and burn everything in its path we'll be sitting there tense hoping it isn't shot down like that last one was. The main issue is with how rushed things have been, but that's unfortunately inevitable with how few episodes they have left in this run. I feel like in the two years between the last series and this one people have had the time to plan their own perfect endings in their heads, and now no matter what gets served up it'll be disappointing. It'll never be perfect, and there are definitely pacing issues, but it's still the best thing on tv by a distance.
Sorry last one, I follow a lot of GoT fans so always see stuff I don't go looking for it.
The one thing that is sad for me, is as people have said is I think people are going into the episodes ahead looking for flaws now. I have not read the leaks and have somehow avoided them so far but GoT is on it's way to becoming Dexter/Lost finale levels by the looks of things apparently
I thought the the end of Sopranos was genius too.
The end of Lost was half-disappointing (the island stuff was fine). But I didn’t think it was badly executed, it was more the direction they went in with the flash sideways that was disappointing.
The last season of Dexter is stunning in how bad it is.
I loved it, felt real sadness when that character was killed by John Lithgow.
Amazing, amazing stuff.
Deb was annoying as fudge though.
sobit’s not just some half baked plot device to get the show over and done with, and this ending is George R R’s, even if he hasn’t figured out exactly how to get there yet.
I don’t think this is the best season of the 8, last seasons often aren’t, but I’m
firmly in the “they’re not fucking this up camp.”
If you take it at as a spectacle alone then it was good. If you care about any logic or consistency in writing it was laughable.
Varys didn’t suddenly become a traitor. This was set up last season when Dany said she’d burn him if he didn’t come to her first (he knew the futility of that and didn’t bother). The callbacks this week and last week referred to his previous statement that he’s loyal to the realm, not the throne. And what followed his death fully justified his attitude. His arc made absolute sense and fits with who we’ve known for the last ten years.
Euron was heading back in the side door. The same side door that Jaime knew existed. They were both forced there by the exact same event. It’s not a huge stretch to think they’d meet along the line.
Dany goes crazy for no real reason?
Throughout the entire show we’ve been watching her teeter between good queen and mad Targaryen. She’s had multiple situations where she’s made the more sinister call (executing the Tarlys or that guy in season four). The destruction of the Lannister army was a precursor to this.
The coin toss line was from years ago and we’ve been waiting to see which way it lands. She tried to do everything in her power to be good by helping the north. But feels unloved, betrayed, she’s lost the person who meant most to her and then realised Jon Snow’s crowd are going to oust her. She’s teetered over the edge.
In my opinion, her arc makes total sense. As did Jaime’s decision to die at his sister’s side. That Cersei didn’t die in the way you had expected/ hoped/ speculated is not the show’s problem
I thought that was a brilliant episode of TV. Some of the visuals were stunning (particularly the epic Clegabebowl and Arya’s escape). To moan about that episode.... it sounds so spoilt to me.
Loved Tyrion and Jamie's goodbye and the battle scene was immense. Trouble brewing between Greyworm and Jon, plus I predict Arya has a new name on her list.