First, having the most vicious woman dying in the arms of her lover brother (who should have died by the time he started climbing those steps) by a falling ceiling was NOT justice. The wrong people were burned to death!
No longer Team Danny. Jon Snow for King!
That said, the way the producers allowed Danny, the only strong, fair, compassionate female leader to fall into madness and a murderous rage reeks of sexism!
And to have her kill innocent children on Mother’s Day! Great timing!
Don’t bring up her dragons who were also her greatest weapons! They were not innocent puppies! And people who are loved are lost in war!
Worst written episode ever on so many levels!
220
@Linda
Almost as sexist as casting a 7 year old girl to lead the northern army and then somehow kill a giant.
68
@Linda I think to call Dany strong, fair and compassionate is to gloss over much of who her character has revealed herself to be over several seasons. Dany is power hungry and has a soft-spot for the downtrodden but most times here rooting for them has been in service of ruling over them. I don't think that Dany fell into madness as much as the desire to rule blinded her as it always has and in that way she is not that different than Cersei.
120
@Linda "Dany, the only strong, fair, compassionate female leader." Fair? Compassionate? She's burned surrendered soldiers because they wouldn't bow to her. She's only cared about sitting on a throne that she didn't earn but inherited. Not exactly a woman of the people, a fan of democracy, or a forgiving compassionate leader.
124
Jon Snow couldn't lead a pack of starving wolves to fresh meat.
Time and again, his followers argue, ignore or plot against him, right back to his disastrous stint at the wall. It takes real managerial incompetence to get your colleagues to the stage where they murder you with knives.
With a defeated army in front of him, his army loses control and begins a killing spree and he looks on in blank faced impotence. Is there anyone less suited to lead?
Cersei, the villain of the piece rules over a prosperous and peaceful city of a million people. The Starks, lords over surly and impoverished northern peasants have bought 8 seasons of warfare and killing to Westeros. Khaleesi is a crazed pyromaniac. Who are the real villains here?
43
Another suspended belief!avis appeared at the forefront of all the major battles: Blackwater, Winterfell, king's Landing. How did he survive all of them with no combat skills?
1
I’m a fan, sure. But maybe not quite as “invested”? I agree with others who feel that Dany’s pitch into madness seemed a bit rushed - even with the foreshadowing provided in preceding episodes. And I agree with the Times writer who wondered what happened to the crossbow marksmanship that brought down the second dragon earlier in this final season. Or did Euron just get lucky the first time? Speaking of whom, really? The worst Greyjoy just happens to wade ashore when and where Jaime is sneaking into the castle? That’s massively convenient even in a fantasy world (and kind of lazy writing, I think.) But I’m not upset or traumatized by my favorite character going crazy or writers working a bit too hard to snip off loose ends. I just hope the final episode doesn’t feel as random as this past Sunday’s, whatever the eventual outcomes. I’ve enjoyed G.O.T. and do not want its conclusion to feel like the writers just wanted get it over with by checking off a lot of unresolved plot boxes.
39
Daenerys first took revenge on the enemy fleet that had murdered her second child, kidnapped her best friend and delivered her to her public beheading. Is anyone weeping for them?
13
"The problem is we’ve seen far more evidence that she has deep sympathy for the downtrodden, seemingly born of she herself being treated like chattel in the early phases of this story. It was the main driver of the viewer sympathy that just got upended on Sunday."
Kind of like NYC residents ranting against the racists in fly over country, while enabling and maintaining racial segregation in NYC public schools.
18
Perhaps it will be time that no one leads and the seven kingdoms learn the value of a common union...HA! Love her or hate her, this was her "destiny" and the circle turns. Maybe they will only come into light by facing the shadow? Can't wait to see how it all plays out.
3
A scorched Great Hall of the Red Keep was foreshadowed way back in Season 2 when Dany entered The House of the Undying to rescue her baby dragons. She went on that vision quest and the first stop was the charred throne room, ash floating like snow and completely vacant. Maybe next week we will see a similar scene!
24
I've seen a lot of speculation on social media that the held disdain for Dany harbored by some fans is based on an inherent bias against women as rulers. It's a hyperbolic, overblown assumption, obviously. Most arguments I've seen for why people have opposed Dany are based on objectively valid reasons that aren't rooted in gender bias.
However, there are some who've questioned whether Dany's power was deserved simply because she had dragons. If it were a man who had power thanks to dragons, would we even raise the question of whether he deserved his power? There are some who've been eager to pounce on and point to Dany's flaws as reasons for why she's a terrible person, while overlooking flaws of a similar magnitude in male characters. Some have attributed her flaws and transgressions to her gender, rather than to other factors. Finally, problems in the writing, such as plot armor, character inconsistency, bad dialogue, etc, have often been blamed on the show pandering to some kind of "feminist agenda", when in reality, the problems could simply be due to weak and lazy writing.
But as I said, most folks who've opposed Dany have been able to objectively recognize her weaknesses as a ruler, while also acknowledging that she's a woman who's accomplished quite a lot in a man's world.
Too bad that also had to include going cray cray and systematically murdering the population of an entire city.
17
No one except Dany wants the Iron Throne. So, she gets bumped off by Arya and the 7 kingdoms devolve into separate fiefdoms again. Tyrion as Lannister King, Jon as Stark King (unless Greyworm does him in, in which case Queen Sansa), Yara as Iron Islands Queen, Gendry and Bronn get awarded Highgarden and Riverrun.
15
Game of ThroneS, the "s" being the operative letter here...
11
I'm a little late to this picnic, but in my scanning a fraction of the ~1500 posts, I didn't see anyone post about this.
A lot of people are saying that Dany's transformation, from someone who had a mean streak but also some compassion for the downtrodden, to a genocidal "mad queen" is unrealistic.
To me, there are parallels with Bashar Assad, who seemed to be a cultured London-educated ophthalmologist. not at all like his "mad king" father, but once he was in power, to hold onto it he turned out to be as bad as the rest. In other circumstances he might not have been so bad, and maybe Dany wouldn't have been either, but we all make decisions
89
Yet another suspended belief. Ser Davos has been at the forefront of the major battles: Blackwater, Winterfell, Kings Landing. How did he survive with no combat skills?
14
At what point do you prioritize fan service and “satisfying deaths” over full-circle plot writing? This episode delivered unpredictable twists that (if you really pay attention) were being foreshadowed all along. THAT is the catalyst for a good twist.
Cersei tells Ned, her and Jamie “came into this world together” and “belong together”, and that’s how they perished... crushed by the world, legacy, and house they built. As the world literally crumbled around them, Jamie’s echoed words “you and me, that’s all that matters” comforted Cersei’s crushing fear of death, the true driving force for all her viciousness. Lady Tyrell’s wise words therein came true for Jamie. We begin to love Jamie because he has the capacity for compassion, empathy, and honoring his word, but his love for Cersei is and always has been his downfall. So how is comforting his beloved sister in her final moments anything short of a beautiful, fitting ending to their narrative arc?
You say Jamie turned out to not be the “good guy” we all wanted. Since when was the world actually so black and white? He is equally capable of compassion, guilt, being true to his word, as well as being vengeful and ruthless for the betterment of his loved ones. Have you forgotten he looked a 7 year old boy in the face and pushed him from a window? He is complicated, as we all are, and a brilliantly-written reminder of our own humanity.
Similar thoughts on Dany’s thrilling turn, and how the writers have set it up for years.
41
Arya didn’t just stop feeling vengeful all of the sudden because she had a heart-to-heart with Sandor; she’s pregnant and now has more on her mind than revenge.
Remember, in Season 1, Robert Baratheon wanted Sansa Stark and what he thought was his son, Joffrey Baratheon to marry and unite the families and proposed as much to Ned Stark.
Well, here we are; perhaps the prince who is promised is Arya Stark and Gendry Baratheon’s child and that there is real and magical peace and power in uniting those particular families?
It’s a full circle-y explanation, at least. Too nice for this series, perhaps. One can still hope, however dim the prospect given the story’s trajectory, for a hopeful future.
17
The show is definitely due for some births. AKA Hope.
10
I don’t think people are complaining about how dark the battle scenes were in this episode. We saw everything!
13
Thanks for this deep analysis, but this final season is just poor writing. The Daenerys we know from 7 previous seasons would never kill the innocents in Kings Lansing or anywhere else. It’s as if she channeled Cersei. Sorry guys, but you have destroyed a great series.
21
Loved the episode for all of it's spectacle and surprises. It was horrible, yes, but spoke of absolute power corrupting. I would like to see the surviving Stark Kids (and Jon) rule together at the end. Jon may technically be the king but he needs the strength and wisdom of the sisters. Tyrion, with noble heart, can be the Hand - which everyone listens to with a grain of sand.
8
It is disappointing that GoT is going out in a blaze of inglory. It was never the battle scenes that delighted, it was the clever dialogue, Tyrion's wit, Cersei's scheming, the cunning of Littlefinger, Varys espionage – in short the games in the Game of Thrones. The showrunners have succumbed not the lure of bigger budgets, piling on the spectacle, but failing attention to character detail, and failing to pay off innumerable smaller stories. There has been a failure of imagination in favor of blowing things up. Strangely, the other huge saga-ending show, Avengers Endgame showed, by example, the right way to wrap things up: with respect to the arcs created along the way, bringing resolution to all the little hanging shreds of story – and in so doing showing respect to the fans and doing honor to the stories leading up to the end.
37
this episode reminded me of Baghdad a day before USA bombing and one day after. watch farenheit 911.
8
@samnj - The laying waste of King's Landing brought back images of the bombings of Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo in WWII...all the way back in time to the bombardment of Brussels by the Spanish, or countless other catastrophes in recorded history. Sacking, pillaging, annihilating R Us.
8
Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and those dragons were absolute power. Has Dany ever conquered a city that didn't contain people who cheered her? King's Landing seems as bad for Targaryens as it does for Starks.
12
What was up with Drogon? He had a seemingly unending supply of fire power, and it was turbocharged. The scene where he managed to blow down KL's sturdy walls beggared even suspended belief.
19
Yes. And this after being remarkably impotent last week as his brother was so easily dispatched. Inconsistencies like that (and so many others) have ruined the past two seasons and, ultimately, the series.
19
I’m not sure why everyone keeps saying Dany went mad. I think she was very much in her right mind when she made the decision she did. It’s not insanity. This series has always shown that she is ambitious and can be ruthless and impetuous. She made a choice, a bad one, influenced by grief, anger, and powerlust. That’s not mental illness. It’s what happens when power corrupts.
52
My money's on Arya!
12
This episode (as well as the previous) are so unbelievably poorly written. Character arcs of 8 seasons tossed away nonchalantly, unbelievable strategic blunders, sheer idiocy that wouldn't occur, plot points so far out of character it's almost laughable. All these episodes feel rushed, deaths dispensed with, there's no connecting tissue, and plot armor abounds. In their rush to deliver a spectacle they forgot that they still had to tell a decent story and stay true to the characters. It's like all the writers were ready to hit the bar and just wanted to get it over with. I'm not against any of the deaths or even most of the broad outlines - but how they got us there is so beyond lazy it ruins the whole thing.
44
I heartily agree. So very disappointing.
7
I think there is a difference between striking out in anger and methodically flying all over Kings landing to make sure she burnt everything. (Oops missed a spot. Lemme fly back... ah here we go!) it would have been interesting to see the expression on her face as it happened.
I too believed when the bells tolled that she would fly straight to Cersei and burn down the tower. I was concerned too that Cersei might be ready for that and y’know, maybe filled the tower with wildfire so she would take dany down with her. I even thought Dany might burn a straight line across the city on the way to Cersei just to make people fear her.
But this.. methodical mass murder just seems rather hard to swallow based on the person we’ve known for the last 7 seasons.
Oh, and why do people think Jon can lead? If we have learnt one thing about him, it’s that he absolutely cannot lead.
30
Why can't he lead?
4
I don’t really mind how the last season’s stories have evolved, except that I wish that they had broken it up into two seasons so that they could include the type of dialogue that made us fall in love with Game of Thrones in the first place. I always will remember Tyrion’s speech about his cousin smashing beetles and pondering the meaning of life over the most recent blockbuster battle scenes.
21
I have zero feelings for the characters or the townsfolk. I'm here to see brutal chess. It makes no sense that the most cunning of all, Cersei, had no game plan. Completely illogical. Long shots of the "horrors of war" were just hollow, like the whole show. I watch for the back stabbing, there was very little. The battle had zero dramatic tension.
19
Lots to complain about in this episode, but I was also struck by the sheer horror of it all. Couldn't stop thinking about Dresden especially, but there were also clear evocations of 9/11--the falling towers, but also that shot where the dragon passes low and loud and terrifying, just overhead. Really striking.
(The plot was pretty cheap, though)
13
I wouldn't be surprised if Arya's prophecy has been broken. If it weren't for the Hound's word of advice, she would have gone on to killed Cersei. By opting out of revenge, she has transcended her own destiny.
If anything, I think we'll see Sansa's dagger come back into play, just like we saw Arya use the dagger Bran gave to her.
7
I think they didn't show us Cersei and Jaime actually dying because one of them is going to reappear -- as a face worn by Arya. We'll briefly be surprised and think that Cersei (or Jaime) made it out of the demolished Red Keep alive. The question is who will Arya trick and with whose face?
I know she already had her big moment killing the Night King but she can't just ride off into the sunset on that horse...
10
George RR Martin must be having the time of his life reading comments by fans of the show and his books. Like every good storyteller, he probably just wanted to tell a good story and at a certain point he let the characters and plot develop the way the universe developed, following the laws of physics, evolution and biology. Small changes in initial conditions can have great unpredictable consequences—the heart of chaos theory. The lives of the characters are not predestined but small choices they make along the way have profound consequences in seemingly chaotic feature events.
11
Great writing, and great theorizing. I wish the show's were as good.
3
Totally out of character and absolutely no reason whatsoever to lay waste to the entire Kings Landing citizenry
Yes, it looked great, exciting to watch, etc. But when Dany started to torch the town, I literally was sitting there shaking my head.
Very disappointing.
19
One ending might be to have Arya face swap her way into Dany's chambers as the dead Missandei, and both terrify and tantalize Dany before Arya kills her. Question is who kills the dragon?
6
I am Team Daenerys 100%
She's not mad, she's right. Without her, the Night King would have marched across a damaged Westros and ended them all. And what did King's Landing do? Nothing - then they killed one of her dragons, then they destroyed her fleet, and then they killed her emissary during a parley. Very bad protocol, Cersei, very bad.
And Winterfell, if she had not changed John's plan, and begun wiping out the dead, there would be no Winterfell. She lost Jorah, lost Dothraki, lost Unsullied, and what did Winterfell do? They celebrated John and left their most powerful ally sitting there, alone in a room, watching old alliances reaffirm themselves. Nice exit Sansa, apparently, she forgot Little Finger's charm lessons. No wonder Daenerys wanted to get out of there.
With all of her losses, rather than rally around her, they began to conspire against her. Lame. If Varys cared so much about the people, why wasn't he writing evacuation notices for little birds to spread. "Dragon coming, walls mean nothing, run for the countryside." He knows, he's seen it. Burn, traitor Varys.
Daenerys on the wall, bells beginning to ring, was beautifully discordant. She knew there was no going back, this was it, destroy the wheel or it would find a way to erase her. It was already trying. Not mad.
Don't blame writers, don't blame poisoners, if you are angry about Daenerys being mad, blame yourself. You bought it. I am with the Mother of Dragons. Flameo Hotman!
47
I agree. She had no one to trust but greyworm. Tyrion crossed her yet again. Jon yet again showed inept tactical skill. If I’m Dany I would half suspect that the bells were a trap. So burn first, ask questions later.
Now what? Land dragon among cheering Dothraki and unsullied, torch Tyrion, assign Jon task of rebuilding KL, etc. get Yara to ship her troops back to mereen and the guy she had real chemistry with, and live happily ever after with the occasional frightening flyover to keep everyone in line.
Last episode should include one of those 25 years later looks into the future. Worked great for Veep.
21
Arya will make it back to Winterfell; somehow, Sansa will end up on the Throne. She’ll either murder Dany (Arya will do the actual deed) or marginalize her somehow — kill seems the default option here; Jon will remain the same well-meaning shlump he is and the 3 (sort of) siblings will keep his secret. The Starks return this story to its beginnings. No idea what happens to the dragon.
6
Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat and friend,
Do it in the name of heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgment day,
On the bloody morning after
One tin soldier rides away.
25
GoT, it turns out, doesn't glorify war or great leaders. No one gets it right and I love that Daenerys lost control, as a warning to anyone who thinks there's a good or great ruler out there who will save us. The Cleganes nosedive into fire. Arya rides off on a steed. The Iron Throne buried in rubble with Cersi and Jamie. Kings Landing a pile of rocks to rule. Jon gets the title of King but gives it to Sam, then goes to the Real North. Daenerys may go live back to her Isle with her dragon, if she lives. It's a flatter, played out world, but a better one for everyone in the end.
104
@Vic Blue That dragon laid waste to an entire city. If no one kills her, which seems inevitable, why would Dany just retreat -- she can keep up the killing till she's on the throne. I think the flatness was in the penultimate episode. The finale will be Shakespearean, like Cersei crawling out of the rubble and killing Dany only to be killed by Arya, who steals Jaime's face. That leaves Jon but he doesn't want to rule, so Tyrion and Sansa take the throne, with Brienne as the Hand. The episode ends with Sam recording it all in a book in the Citadel, or Drogon laying 3 eggs. Or both.
45
@Vic Blue
Arya will kill Daenerys. TYRION will sit on the Iron Throne, if they can dig it out of the rubble.
15
@LMac
Works for me!
4
The woman leader who becomes emotionally unhinged and mad during times of stress is an old chauvinistic trope. Disappointing to see on a show that often has progressive portrayals of strong women.
34
I'd compare this to the rage of Achilles in the Iliad.
17
@Margery Weinstein - And what of the male leaders - any and all of them throughout history - who have become emotionally (or is it mentally, or both) unhinged? Should they have been portrayed differently?
4
I cannot believe this show is (probably) going to end with a man prevailing over a woman who is unfit to lead due to her inability to control her emotions. I also cannot believe I have spent so much time invested in the fantasies of three white men.
666
@Two Thumbs Down I'm not sure why this is surprising. They've spent the whole series hinting that Dany was more of her fathers' daughter than just being a Targaryen. Season one she uses blood magic to try to bring back Khal Drogo. She walks into a fire. She has masters crucified. She wants to butcher the masters in Meereen after the sons of the harpy attack and is talked out of it by her advisers. She always has been prone to violence. It's no coincidence that she has the Tarlys burned by dragon file in season 7 and her father had the Starks' burned to death which ignited Robert's rebelion. Then there's all the references to "When a Targaryen is born the God's toss a coin..."
They've been building to this the whole series. If you haven't seen the hints then you haven't been paying attention. I could just as easily see someone like Sansa ending up on the Iron throne or more likely that the Iron Throne will be empty and Westeros in ruins. That in some ways would be a fitting end to the series.
218
@Matt OH God no...not Sansa. She is no better. She did not even give Dany a chance, as well as Missandei, whom she had no real quarrel with. Her character did not redeem herself/itself that much.
34
@Raffinee
Everyone was enamored with Dany. Sansa and the North saw Dany for who she really was...untrustworthy, power hungry, and dangerous. Dany believed herself to be right, above reproach, and demanded that everyone see her as such. That's why not getting their approval was so devastating to Dany. She wasn't that special or that pure or that righteous. She did the right thing as long as it maintained and fostered the vision of herself as being the people's savior, the rightful heir, and the rightful ruler. When this got threatened, her true colors came out. The North not eating out her hand was highly destabilizing. How dare they not submit and choose her? How dare Jon didn't do what she wanted? There are plenty of alternatives between submit or die. She also had a the opportunity to support Jon as being the rightful heir, despite him not wanting it, if she cared about doing the right thing and for the people as she espoused. That would have shown true honor and integrity. She wanted what she wanted and consequently became just another tyrant.
203
Sansa for the throne. She saved Jon from defeat by her diplomacy. She rightly was very practical about supplying food to soldiers and citizens of the north. She has reflected upon what she has seen and experienced and of what human nature is capable of. And, I consider her to have grown to be the wisest most discerning potential leader left. She is no saint. But neither are we.
12
@Vianney
By this time Sansa was already a big time player and she kept vital information away from Jon and all the other advisors regarding Littlefinger and the army of the Vale. Yes, without her calling in Littlefinger into the battle it was total lost but things may have been different if she had trusted Jon with this crucial info.
If I recall correctly Sansa did not answer the pledge to sworn secrecy with I Swear, as did Arya, but only with the world Swear. This was a huge foreshadow of what she would do with the information Jon gave them.
2
“In the Game of Thrones, you win or you die.” There have been many many losers over the past eight seasons, and beyond the great character development, the whole arc of the show has been larger and more lethal bloodbaths, and a general decline in humanity. I hope the show stays true to itself and culminates in total destruction except for whoever “wins.” Very satisfying indeed.
9
The show stopped being true to itself last season and turned many viewers and fans into losers.
Hey, folks, it’s a movie, show business, not real.
Enjoy the entertainment but get real, it’s make believe.
Too many on this post are apparently reacting as if this was real life.
It’s entertainment, a break from our daily concerns. There are lots bigger issues to deal with in real life.
Enjoy, but keep it in perspective!
15
@JTOR You are incorrect in one important way: there are real people behind and in front of this “movie.” Real people make real political decisions about the plot. Real people find real inspiration in the characters.
Danaerys Targaryen is only a symbol and a metaphor, but we, as human beings, attach symbols and metaphors to our real lives as a matter of nature. Art, literature, film, these things can either challenge our way of seeing the world or reinforce it; it’s sad that the creators are reinforcing inaccurate tropes about women in leadership and doing so poorly at that.
7
The writers of the plot have one overriding goal, to make the movie as entertaining as possible so as to capture the widest audience. They did a great job with the GoT script.
They are not trying to teach life lessons, any that ensue from the plot are primarily from the imaginations and emotions of the viewers (Beauty is in the eye of the beholder).
Trying to draw metaphors and instruction from the plot is fine, so long as you accept it as unique to yourself and not a message for the entire audience. As I said above, it’s not real life, don’t take it as such!
6
Good: lot of bad guys died
Bad: who left is really “good” or competent ( Anoxic Brain, Mr. Snow?)
I could care less who gets the throne now, so I have to hope for some real amazing and imaginative writing to suddenly appear
5
Hey Showrunners: Good luck with that sexism thing in your future ventures. You built up Dany for the better part of right years - only to take her down in one episode, ignoring her entire history as a do-gooder. I won't be watching your next series. God forbid you gave the throne to Dany - it was the men all along for you.
5
She crucified hundreds of people, burned Sam's family alive. Dany was never a good guy.
21
Dany's "insanity" was too fast and furious to seem real. Is there some real hatred behind the eyes that showed a longing for Jon? If the show is going to remain true to its Jon Snow character will there be a "falling out?" Questions, questions. We're being set up.
If you thought “Game of Thrones” was going to have a happy ending, you haven’t been paying attention.
Dany’s going mad was not only predictable but easily understandable. Consider: Two of her three dragon children were killed in the sky before her eyes. One of her two best friends was killed in battle before her eyes while protecting her. Her other best friend was beheaded before her eyes the moment after shouting a cry for vengeance. The one man she ever loved went cold on her after being revealed to have a better claim than her on the throne she covets. Her advisers betrayed her. The masses of people she saved at enormous cost and risk to herself gave her the cold shoulder. People who consider themselves messiahs can’t cope when people to whom they consider themselves messiahs ignore their messiah status.
Here’s how I would like it to end: Arya assassinates Dany. Jon kills Grey Worm in a duel. The now leaderless Unsullied and Dothraki become brigands terrorizing the countryside until they are defeated by the combined forces of Westeros. Jon refuses the Iron Throne. He prevails upon Sam to take it. Sam’s first decree is that the Iron Throne be melted down into something else, anything else. Sansa becomes Hand of the King, Jon becomes Warden of the North, Brienne becomes commander of the royal guard, Bran becomes primary advisor to the king, and Arya and Gendry retire to a cottage. Sam’s great achievement as king is to establish a parliament representing the people.
8
Then brexit
22
I wondered a lot about the physics of fire-breathing dragons with an endless belly of flame juice. Aside from that, for fun I like to image a message is there, via the Art residing in the collective imagination.
What if I read the story as tea leaves about our life. Putin and Trump. Danny and Cersei. Or, Cersei and Danny. Anyway ... Two cold powers, in self-love with iron personal dominance. My way or the highway.
Of course, we do not have magic fire breathing dragons, ... oh? Nuclear Weapons anyone.
As to the white walkers, the dead, and the night-king, I sort of favor folks in finance, the DOW having gone down over 600 points today.
We are just serfs and battle fodder. So, Game of Thrones is not much different from real news, in a world actually more crazy than this TV show.
12
Me too. I was wondering, "Isn't this Dragon going to run out of fire soon?" But I let it go, because there is no expert on Dragon physiology I can fact-check.
13
@Benjo I thought the dragons had not been eating good lately either. Must have got some dragon Wheaties that morning from somewhere I guess.
3
To me, the dragon carpet-bombing of the surrendered city made absolutely no sense, particularly considering the additional carbon emissions,🙁
For Dany to destroy what she need not, foresees her demise next week. I will miss this series, more than I care to admit.
6
What a cultural moment for this show. Burn it to save it. My generation heard this about Vietnam, my father's about Japan. Those always good intentioned war crimes. That on the ground footage of civilian casualties was monumental. The writers were brave to turn Dany that way although those who make these kinds of decisions are rarely women. Only mediated in this way can we take it in....?
14
First of all, Dany represents the ruthless ambitious queens of history (of which there have been numerous). She is the type of woman behind the saying that "well behaved women rarely make history." It is not "stupid women" or "weak women", it is "well-behaved women." As an audience, we have preferred Boudicca, Eleanor of Aquitaine and Margaret of Anjou above women filled with the "milk of human kindness"- at least since the 1970s. In fact, if ASOIAF is based on the War of the Roses, Dany could very well be based on Margaret of Anjou - a ruthless, intelligent, and very powerful woman who went into battle herself (alas not atop a dragon). As for me, I would rather be loved than feared, but if you show a women who is too compassionate, then she decried as "weak" (Wonder Women excepted). Dany is the daughter of the Mad King and has wanted nothing more than to sit on the Iron Throne since she became Khalessi. She is raw ambition, and in all fairness to her- there have been men like that.
Oh, and before you say that she has also loved and wanted Jon- not enough to step aside for him when she found out he was the true heir. Ambition above love for our Khaleesi.
20
Without reading any of these comments (yet), to me it seems obvious what will happen next week: Jon Snow (possibly with Arya's assistance) kills Danaerys (and Drogon, somehow), and becomes the beloved leader of the seven kingdoms. Tyrion survives (of course) and becomes the King's Hand. To bring the series full circle, there will be a Jon Snow-Tyrion Lannister scene parallel to something in episode 1 with Ned Stark & Robert Baratheon. I haven't seen Season 1 in a while so I don't know what, exactly. I do believe Brienne and Arya will serve in the kitchen cabinet and there will be a tear-jerking reunion between Samwell Tarly and Jon Snow. Sam will play a major role in the new administration too. The good guys win. Does this sound plausible or is it all in my overactive imagination?
3
Am I the only one to notice how much Unsullied Grey Worm looks like Barack Obama? Surely not intended, no?
1
@carol
Grey Worm is one of the most tragic characters - the honorable pure warrior that was transformed from pure warrior to human warrior. Now we see how his love for Missandei and Danaerys has turned him into a victim of hatred and vengeance. Since Missandei's death he and Dany have become even closer from their shared grief and that grief has tragic consequences for them and thousands of other people.
1
Full disclosure - read the books, binge watched all seasons before premiers of 4-8, and am a writer and fiction nerd. David & DB are not storytellers - they don't grasp the dialog, the intimations, the subtlety of character development and instead think like movie folk - flash, fast, and done. I can't blame 'em - Lost did the same thing in the end - but what would I do differently?
Yes, Jaime had to go back - but where was the debate, the internal struggle, the fight with Cersei - the I love you, I hate you, I love you? Tyrion has lost his mojo except when he's with Sansa, when he is humbled by her strength. We have the Sack of Kings Landing, and our wildfire Trojan-horse warrior is walking aimlessly, realizing he had his bestie Varys killed pointlessly. Even Varys's "For The Realm" was less of a struggle than when he helped Tyrion escape to Pentos.
Jon has always looked like he's both constipated/brooding - but why can't we see his struggle we know he is fighting? His lover, his aunt - his father, his uncle - his name, his identity - and the ruler and partner he chose is neither a ruler nor a partner.
Dany - this decision was too easy, and she was too good for that. Contrast her broken scenes this ep with when she lost V - her struggle to hold it in, to care for Jon, to be independent, to be understood.... That's GRRM, not D & DB. There's no time - so focus on D & J then. The actors, and fans, deserve that. Fanfic will have to do what Dave & DB couldn't, I suppose.
10
It occurred to me that Dany saw Cersei standing in the window, and wanted her to personally cede the city; burning innocents was perhaps Dany's way of letting the populace know that unless and until Cersei surrendered, that the hounds (dragon) of hell would be unleashed.
2
I was waiting for it to end so I could get on to Veep.
2
This episode and the last one just sucked. The writing was not up to par (and honestly, neither was this review). It's not about Dany's story line, it's about how badly it was written. For those of us who have put 10 years into this show, the ridiculous plot holes, bad character moves, and assorted other ho hum has been a huge letdown this season. Sorry, Esquire has done a much better job of analyzing the hack mailing-it-in state of Benioff and Weiss's showrunning and writing. I suppose if you love scenes of endless bloodletting and baffling war strategy, this will work for you. It's been saved only by the excellent actors and cinematography.
12
I feel exactly as I did after reading the five books: “that could have been so good...”
5
Dany lost two of her dragons, her best friend and adviser, Missandei, her loyal strategist, Jorah, her lover Jon, her adviser, Varys, tried to have her poisoned - she's basically lost everyone around her that she trusts. Alone in her thoughts and hungry for power, she waged a bloody war. No one wins in war. Innocent people die. Cersei herself did unspeakable horrible killing of her own and had no feelings about death (other than her children). Is it possible that Dany as the Queen for the people, is feeling despair in killing so many innoncent women and children? This is very unlike her character in GOT. I don't buy the mad queen theory.
This season just absolutely feels rushed and not right.
Jon, Arya and Tyrion witness Dany's atrocities firsthand. Hmm, Jon and Tyrion, having second thoughts about supporting your Queen now? This must fuel Arya's thirst to kill, and Dany may very well be her next victim.
Arya and the Hound shared a glorious deep connection. Almost paternal. I loved their parting scene.
Poor Arya was on the ground with the mother and little girl for much of the bloodbath, from the opening gate sequence to their deaths. So telling to see the their burned bodies entwined with the little girls white toy horse burned and then the lone white horse suddenly appears for Arya. Reminds me of how Arya lost her mother (and father) at such a young age.
A lot of things didn't make sense to me.
4
It didn't make any sense that Dany decided to attack during the day, and YES where did those crack Scorpion marksmen go?!
1
I think that maybe this showed that when you dethrone a tyrant you become a tyrant. Yeah Arya has her number, but who kills the dragon?
4
Everyone seems annoyed and I can see why: The character who formed the moral center of the enterprise (by pursuing a just world), just spent eight years building up a complicated arc and then snapped and murdered a thousand people for no reason other than genetic madness. That’s dumb. Super dumb storytelling. But it also isn’t!
I pick apart stories all day and I’m not sure why that’s the case. But I know that I get tired of stories all the time. I get tired of the rigid map laid by foundations that, no matter what, must always reflect the mores and realities of the culture that rests above. When stories are “wrong” they just don’t work. That’s why storytelling is a hard science and a serious academic discipline. There’s a reason why “mad” motivations are boring and why god-machines are no good and why bad people can’t really win.
But as I watched our davos, greyworm and crew walking through the burning streets of a story that methodically does the opposite of everything it’s supposed to do, I thought of the geometry of sheepherding and how we must so often go left in order to move right, and I saw this whole series as a messed-up geometric herding exercise, and I loved it. I checked the feeling, and the feeling was good. I said aloud to my husband, “This show is just…so…weird.” And I was happy and I felt young again. The world felt new. I was confused and angry and happy! Thank you, dumb TV show. Thank you for your lack of accountability. It is beautiful.
16
How disappointing; Cersei meets the same end as the fleeing peasants of Kings Landing, anonymously under a pile of falling debris. The Hound convinces The Faceless Woman to go, lets Cersei pass, and Arryia doesn’t get the reward of doing her in? Books 3-5 may have been disappointing, but I expected more out of talented writers. This was the type of payoff Trump makes to his contractors: after years of pulling teeth, nothing.
3
Samwell Tarly hasn’t quite gotten over the death of his father and brother and will seek revenge especially if it puts John on the throne. Sounds really far fetched I know but what the heck.
3
The notion that Dany's arc is a middle finger to strong women is baffling. My support for any given ruler sitting on the iron throne isn't predicated on being a man or woman. My support is entirely derivative of their behavior. As a thought experiment, which other characters could you picture destroying the city and countless lives? And which characters would do this, despite the fact that doing so was so clearly against their interests? I'd argue that Cersei, Joffrey and Ramsey are the only others. What does it say about Dany's fitness to rule that only those 3 could plausibly have done the same? Of course Dany doesn't share their sadism, but she now shares their lack of executive function. It's an inability to rationally understand the consequences of your actions. It's a moral blindness about the justness of your cause that causes you to view life as mere collateral damage. So ultimately it doesn't matter to me whether a king or queen wins the game. What matters is that they are moral, and able to regulate their behavior so that they don't cause truly needless suffering.
7
I'm calling this "Dany's Song" now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIffz-72B8Y
Three Dog Night......Easy To Be Hard
1
“You know who I’m guessing really didn’t like this episode? All those parents who named their daughters Khaleesi.”
Thank you for making my day.
5
So why wouldn't Tyrian Lannister, the last Lannister and brother to the now squished Cersi, be in line to take the throne? just askin
2
@RMartini
The throne to House Lannister actually goes through the Baratheon parental line - the sons of the king are heirs.
3
Unlike a lot of commentators, I loved The Battle for Winterfell in spite of its flaws (the darkness added to the atmosphere) and obvious tactical errors (why send in the cavalry first?).
However, the sheer number of strategic blunders and inconsistencies left a bad taste in my mouth. This taste would linger for the rest of the episode. To summarise:
- Why have the iron fleet, at anchor, tightly packed in the pay when we know they can fire on the move and understand how to use the terrain as cover.
- How does the decimated coalition army have the strength to suddenly attempt a siege?
- The Golden Company were stated to have 20k men, but in the episode its clearly far less and they are mostly slaughtered by a single strafing run.
But at least there were some spot-on tender moments between characters and I agree with commentaotrs on the framing of the city's destruction from the ground. It harkens back to a previous season where someone recounts in detail what it is like when a city is sacked.
4
It seemed to my that Varys' betrayal was he was trying to poison Dany by way of one of his Sparrows, and got caught. Otherwise what was his betrayal other than his knowledge?
2
@Allan
Tyrion saw Varys converse with Jon Snow as Jon arrived by boat. He no doubt surmised the discussion and that is how he was "found out."
1
I imagine that the Dragon Queen was thinking, "if I can't have the city, no one will..." So if Jon Snow wants to go full Targaryen and claim the Iron Throne as the true heir, it will not be a throne worth having. Talk about bad break-ups.
I can see Mr. Snow heading back north, to live quietly where things make more sense, and leaving the south to put itself back together. I see Westeros becoming less a kingdom than a loose confederation of republics, with strong leadership from the Lady of Winterfell and the Princess of Dorne. Who else is left?
3
2 weeks ago i predicted the cersei and james would die together in each other's arms. This week, i predicted that Reagal, Jon's dragon is not dead, and he will come back. Things won't end on a happy note, so be prepared.
Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki - all were a show of force designed to mark a victory as complete and undeniable, both to current combatants and possible future ones. It took both Hiroshima and Nagasaki to get the Japanese to surrender, but Dresden, for all the speculation about showing the Russians the will of the other Allies, was an act of revenge.
11
Absolutely. I couldn’t get past the Dresden firebombing references. Intentional, I think. Many years since I read Slaughterhouse 5; that may be an appropriate reference.
5
Realistic to see war from the ground up, nightmarish and cruel. Now will John either ride or kill the Dragon next week? Just can't see him moving to his auntie's place and shacking up, with Drogon keeping watch. Why are Notherners such prudes! Life is nasty!! Is it too much to expect a "kumbaya" ending?
4
The throne belongs to the only character who learned something about power and killing:
Arya
3
@DMS
I have a feeling that Arya's eyes have been opened about the real cost of war and revenge. I have a feeling she'll end up going to be with Gendry in the end.
6
I'm rooting for Tyrion to ascend, albeit reluctantly, to the Iron Throne.
Jon is much too ambivalent to rule effectively, and his time is probably up, anyway. It's not in Arya's nature to rule, and besides, she'll likely be the one to kill Dany. And Sansa? Not enough of a fighter, too often a victim of circumstance, and not smart enough to NOT hide in the Crypt during the Battle of Winterfell, when clearly all those dead people buried there would be reanimated once the Dead King was around.
So my vote goes to Tyrion to win the Iron Throne. May he live long and prosper.
1
Dany's eyes are technically purple, not green :)
1
They're blue eyes. Nobody's eyes are purple.
1
If Dany did not burn it all down, Cersie and Jaime would have escaped to the other island, had more children, who would grow up to challenge her rule once again. dany was not benevolent, but that's how these things go.
5
It feels like the worst kind of pedantry to complain about the lack of "realism" (!) in a show centred on dragons, armies of the undead, etc....but what annoyed me in this (tremendously shot) episode was the casual abjuration of the "laws" of this particular story-world as established over multiple hours of previous TV. In just the last episode, the deadly (and ballistically highly implausible) accuracy of Euron's scorpions killed one of Dany's dragons and forced her to call off her airborne assault on the Iron Fleet; two days later (in story time), Dany torches said fleet, the entire battery of King's Landing scorpions, and the rest of the city for good measure, all without so much as a scale out of place. If it were that easy, why did she bother waiting to amass an army at all? (And while we're at it, since when did dragonfire acquire the potency of TNT as well as napalm, to the point of blowing impregnable ancient stone ramparts to smithereens?)
This is in fact of a piece with the general consensus on Dany's undermotivated heel-turn: plot ends have determined narrative and character means, rather than the inevitably messier and trickier but ultimately more satisfying other way round. I don't question the immense difficulty of managing, let alone bringing to a close, a narrative canvas of this scale, and Benoit/Weiss have done a hugely impressive job. But as we barrel to what even after 66 hours still feels a rushed conclusion, the strain, and the joins, are showing.
12
@Barry. LOL you remind me of my husband, who said, “you can’t have dragons and disobey the laws of physics in the same show.”
5
is Cersei really dead? will she rise from the ashes?
5
@Marlene At this point, who cares?
4
With the Fire and Ice meme:
Arya killed the Ice King.
She now has a moral basis to kill the Fire Queen.
This would put Jonboy on the throne, the highest traditional claimant.
Odd that Cersei and Jamie would suffer an anonymous demise.
Euron was blown out of the frame and showed up again......
Speaking of Euron's medical skills,
One of the stab wounds to Jaime was a dagger to the left upper chest, in the neighborhood of the heart.
He assumed massive bleeding, a punctured lung, and the onset of shock would kill Jaime.
The script doctors disagreed. This just jumped the Kraken.
Finally,
a suggested name for this episode:
Burning Man Festival.
7
So has the iron throne melted?
3
Jon should have slept with Dany. She can't conceive. Therefore, their incest won't be problematic, aside from the moral component. I think Jon's coldness was unrealistic. It's not as if she betrayed him. They discovered an unfortunate, uncomfortable fact.
Is she supposed to be much older than he is?
It was horrible to watch people burn. As I get older, I have less stomach for violence in movies and shows. But Dany is highly intelligent and mostly very controlled emotionally. I would have fired Tyrion, after my dragon was shot down. Her reasoning might not always be correct, but she's not impulsive.
Tyrion is a terrible hand.
6
@Anti-Marx
Yes, Tyrion was much smarter (and happier) when he was drinking more.
3
Daenerys kills John, Arya kills Daenerys.
She is riding a pale horse.
9
Dany displayed some very Hitler-like behavior. Realizing that her throne dreams likely were toast, she went on a roasting spree of her own. Hitler, near the end of the war and realizing that his dream of a thousand-year Reich was done, ordered the destruction of Germany’s infrastructure. When Albert Speer argued that doing so essentially would sentence the German people to death, Hitler’s response was that in losing the war and foiling his ambitions the German people didn’t deserve to live. So it is with Dany. She has been let down by those closest to her and rejected by those who she hoped would accept her. She now has the scorched earth mentality.
7
Cant wait for Catelyn Stark to re-appear in the final episode and set everyone straight, maybe make amends with Jon, and put an end to the Mad Queen before positioning Sansa as the Lady of the Seven Realms.
1
There was a show on HBO Sunday night which had a great emotional punch, but it was Veep. I felt more in a 2 sentence speech than I did in all deaths tonight in GOT
Curses on HBO for Scheduling their final episodes of its superb 7 seasons at the same time all conversation world be about GOT. I mean a 6 show season and a 7 show, couldn’t you spread them out?
2
A few thoughts (like the world needs any more thoughts on GoT, but anyway...):
1. I thought Dany was tortured by her decision to destroy Westeros. She was not wild-eyed and full of blood-lust; she looked truly torn and she was fighting her own impulses - hence the tears. Dany is truly alone now and her pain seemed that of someone doing terrible things to express that pain rather than because they're a terrible (or mentally ill) person.
2. One of my favorite parts of the episode was Sandor laughing - twice! - at the fact that his brother wouldn't die. I will miss him!
3. Cersei begged Jaime to save her from death - "I don't want to die!" - which, given how strong, stony and brutal she was throughout the entire series, hit me like a primal scream. Death was finally coming for her and she was terrified. I am glad they died together. What incredible characters and an incredible love story they had!
4. Did anyone else notice that Euron was staring straight at the camera when he said, "I killed Jamie Lannister?" It was a weird moment and felt grafted onto the story.
4. My prediction? The Starks and Tyrion are going to be joined by Yara Greyjoy, who received one of Varys' messages, and to try to take out Dany. Sansa and Arya will be pushing for this. In the end, it will be either Jon Snow or Arya who kills Dany - probably Jon Snow, since she will be the second woman he's loved and lost (remember Ygritte?). Oh, and he'll end up on the Iron Throne he doesn't even want.
6
Thanks for the interesting insights, especially about Dany.
2
@Bottleblonde
I also thought of Yara, but then it occurred to me that Bronn is also supposed to be on his way back to King's Landing as well.
1
In spite of the massive number of comments, I gotta do it: here's how I would have written this episode.
Cersei surrenders, and Danerys hold off on the final assault. However, Cersei doesn't intend to surrender. While some of her army is taken captive, she uses the moment to build a human shield of innocents in the Red Keep. She displays them all on the walls, windows, etc. She knows she can't win this way, but she figures she can use the time to escape with Jaime.
Danerys is infuriated. Tyrion and Jon remind her that she has clearly won, and that retaking the red keep will be assured, and can be accomplished without killing the innocents inside. Danerys is unwilling to allow Cersei to use this human shield tactic, so she and her dragon torch the entire keep, killing a huge number of innocents. Not satisfied, in this moment of wrath, she also kills all the soldiers who have surrendered.
I think this would establish that Danerys is willing to kill vast numbers of innocents, including children, in a wrathful way in order to inspire fear. It would move the arc of Danerys's character toward that sinister side of power, convincingly, without going overboard into (to me) character transitions that strain credibility.
As it was written, Danerys doesn't even go for Cersei right away, she changes expression (is that a character transition now?) and flies her dragon back and forth over kign's landing as if mowing the lawn with a suddenly unlimited tank of gas.
8
please, no sansa. that's all i ask now.
12
What a fantastic episode!
It was everything that I hoped for and then some. Somebody has to give the director of photography an Academy Award, seriously. This episode was beautifully shot!
15
Queen Sansa
2
@vtcynce
Agreed. The episode seemed to hint that Arya might take out the Dragon Queen (after DQ takes out Jon?), but I'm not crazy about that idea.
I thought about Episode 5 all day. I now think I know what they are doing. They want everyone to think she went mad but I don't think she did. The last time we see her in this episode is looking up at the castle filled with rage towards Cersei. I think her plan was to fly directly there to destroy the queen. It was the DRAGON that had another idea. It was here that his ancestors were imprisoned and destroyed. I believe the dragon took revenge on the people. Now you can think the dragon knew nothing of this past history but this is a magical creature and I think he does know and decided it was time he sought his own revenge (in keeping with the main theme of GOT). We don't see her at all on the dragon's back once the destruction of the city begins so he may have knocked her off before he took flight and she's up there unconscious on the roof. I would rather that happen then see Khaleesi reduced to a male stereotype of what should happen to a woman who dared to claim the iron throne.
13
@Patricia nah that ain't what happened
8
@Patricia Very interesting and quite plausible to me. I also noticed that the typical shots of Dani as dragon pilot were suspiciously absent once the civilian carnage began.
Jon Snow said, "You will always be my Queen." As you watch him watch her destroying the city, you can see him thinking, "Can I have a redo on that?"
Where is your spine, Jon? Eight aching seasons of who am I, who is my mother and I'm a bastard, only to find out that you are the rightful heir to the Targareon Iron Throne and suddenly you're shy?
I would have gone right for Cersei in the Red Keep. Why would she want to destroy the city where the Iron Throne is? What a waste of Dragonfire.
Where is Brann? I've lost track of him, Mr. No Affect.
At this point, I've seen enough blood, guts, and decapitations for a lifetime.
I'm not sure that I care who sits on the Iron Throne assuming it hasn't been melted by Dragonfire.
8
Seriously! No Affect and no effect on the story overall! Unless Bran will be king....but then there’s no capital....aaarrrghhh!
The post-episode commentary was especially galling. Bran gets pushed out a window etc and “it’s all good” because “all of it” led to his destiny as the Three Eyed Raven. Sansa and Theon suffer unspeakable torture and trauma, but it’s all good because they are better and more noble, stronger people for it. Then Dany “loses all her good friends” and goes mad? I almost threw my drink at the tv. Haven’t we spent countless hours rooting for her? Shouldn’t her “suffering” somehow sanctify and elevate her to even greater heights and nobility, as with the other characters who have borne so much? Not even following their own messed up theory of character building. Senseless, tragic, hurried writing. I’d hoped for six more episodes than we are getting. As it stands, ending it next week will be an unwelcome mercy.
21
what a crazy eppy. It was too much, but we knew it was headed this way. Bells ringing, swords dropping, then bam, fire breathing dragon. OMG too much and I always cared for her character, but after last night. Oh the climb to power turns even the best of them.
Why did Arya tell that woman to move keep moving, seemed she killed her bringing her out in open.
Tryron you betrayed Dany one too many times, she will have you kill, run!
Grey Worm was just as crazy. I thought they had no feelings.
The whole town, castle everything is gone, gone, so where will Dany try to rule from?
Too much, how can it be over next week. Will we have any happiness.
Oh Cersi and Jamie reunion, even tho I hate her was sweet and made me sad.
5
Jon, it seems, is going to react badly to Daenerys breaking faith and killing so many of the innocents she claimed to be working for. Likely, it seems that the Targaryens are both doomed by their heritage, as they now clearly have been from the beginning.
So what’s the point? Is tyranny to be crushed, and if so by whom? The Stark girls maybe, but if so, in what form? Was the “Game of Thrones” truly a game, merely a misbegotten and cruel entertainment for bored and/or crazy tyrants? Are Arya or Sansa simply similar heirs to this mad lust for power, or are one or both them different? If so, has this all been an elaborate morality play about the virtues of representative governance? This seems unlikely as we’ve seen nothing that shows the people of the seven kingdoms as capable of participative democracy.
Now that all is nearly said and done, I’m not convinced that high ideals has ever been this show’s raison de e’tre.
3
All I could think about during the slaughter were Nazis, Stalin, and Pol Pot. They killed innocents indiscriminately it just took them more time. I also realized that there is no, "happily ever after" for Jon and the, ""Killer of Innocents Queen".
I'm really hoping for some kind of redeeming finish, but based on what we've experienced so far, I'm thinking rain for 40 days and 40 nights of rain, and a guy with an ark starting over.
6
@Skip
I was upset by the slaughter too, but one could argue that the citizens of King's Landing were complicit, in that they never tried to overturn Lannister rule. They didn't take the battle as a opportunity to revolt and to help the invaders. Mostly, the just looked like helpless peons, which is probably not entirely accurate either. Chances are, some of the supported Cersei, in the way that almost 50% of Americans voted from Trump. I'm not trying to make a political jab here. I think it's possible that Daenerys saw the people as Lannister supporters who never challenged Cersei's rule.
5
@Anti-Marx
All valid points, but I doubt if any of the kids that were incinerated even knew who Cersei were, They were just worried about where their next meal was coming from, everyone of those "helpless peons" looked like they could use a good meal, while Cersei's legions looked like they could skip a meal or two.
3
@Skip
More like allied bombers over Germany and Japan....hey thought they could ruin morale by boming civilian centers, churches, schools, houses. War production even increased towards the end, so the whole bombing was pointless. An entire culture and identity was destroyed.
Of course Germany did discriminate bombing too. But this glorification of the allies must be corrected.
I have liked this season just fine! I’m always surprised by viewers who aren’t simply along for the creative ride. These people are only telling a story. I don’t remember thinking I had any business telling people how to write and end their tales before these epic series were a thing.
People get too personally invested. Just enjoy the dang distraction and appreciate the monumental and well-intended effort.
21
Missandei once said to Dany:
"I can only tell you what I have seen, Your Grace. I have seen you listen to your counselors. I have seen you lean on their experience when your own was lacking and weigh the choices they put before you. And I have seen you ignore your counselors. Because there was a better choice. One that only you could see".
It's interesting to compare Missandei's counsel from season 5 to her final "Dracarys!" this season. I had hoped that even when at her lowest, when nothing was going right for her, Dany would still go with a better choice that only she can see ... proving Varys (and us viewers) wrong in the process. I was hoping the "mad queen" narrative was just an intentional misdirect.
Instead, when pushed beyond a certain point, "Dracarys!" is the only choice that Dany can see. It says something about her resiliency ... or lack thereof.
I'm curious to see if there'll be any show of remorse on Dany's part next episode.
8
Way to throw Dani and all strong women under the same bus including Arya. Clearly women are meant to be scheming behind the throne like mini Balishes not sitting on it. An unbelievable turn from a character whose greatest vow was to break the wheel not create a larger one and a royal disappointment.
15
I stopped reading after third book. How many times does he have to write about feeding animals, favorite wine, banners, armors and maidens? GRRM is not a genius, it’s inspired by Tolkien. He mixed fantasy elements with Europe’s dark age politics.
My main problem is that he is repetitive. He has this formula of introducing new characters , kick them out of their homes, undress them , and then kill them in some brutal way. Then he introduces more characters and this goes on forever.
He is just too afraid to conclude any story, so he fills up pages with pointless and endless details. Unlike Middle Earth , Westeros is quite pointless , it’s neither fantastic nor real. I don’t know if GRRR is a hack or a genius; probably like the rest of us-somewhere in between.
12
Two words: “boiled leather.”
I’ve only read the first book, and I can’t wait to continue so I can read that expression 500 more times. :-)
"So did Varys actually get a letter out of Dragonstone, perhaps via his latest little bird? Or was he burning the only one he wrote right before he was taken? It wasn’t clear. "
He had numerous additional copies of that message all rolled and tied up, ready for ravens.
3
@Beth I think he did. Do you think there was any significance of him taking off his ring?
2
Hoping Ayra names her horse “Not Today”
17
In the end, a merciless Queen was destroyed by a Queen who showed no mercy. A perfect story arc.
10
I think the Hound's death hurt the most. I hope he gets an acting award nomination for his years long role on this show.
Arya again had an amazing episode. The shot of her looking like the 9-11 Dust Lady was brutal.
I was sad to see Varys go, but he's been minimized the past couple seasons, so it was less gutting. I hope we will one day learn what he saw in the flames.
14
"You know who I’m guessing really didn’t like this episode? All those parents who named their daughters Khaleesi."
Ouch!
11
Was the iron throne destroyed? I would think they would show it specifically, but it seemed like nothing was left standing in KL last night.
3
We are all so worked up about whether Daenerys' mass slaughter was properly explained. Since when are the mass slaughters committed by any of our leaders in real life well explained? Historians are still fighting over the details of what caused most of the massacres throughout history, even though they understand the broad strokes, e.g. dehumanizing the enemy. But the broad strokes do not satisfy, probably because they are too familiar.
For me "The Bells" brought war back from the life-against-death heroic battle against the Night King and the white walkers (cf. WWII), to the arc marked by the Blitz, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, and, more recently Beirut, Aleppo and Sana'a. Killing civilians is now what it's all about.
Since dragonfire is not only napalm but also high explosive, the exploding buildings and collapsing masonry seemed all too familiar, except that things happen faster in fiction, and the slaughter depicted last night in minutes takes months in the real world.
The result, however, is the same. And what do the motives of Queens, or presidents, matter to us, except when we pretend to be in the room where it happens, when really, we're in the streets? We can judge enough by the consequences.
9
@Tim Haight; I would have agreed, but the episode was really comical because the capture of King's Landing was that easy. The army and even Drogon hardly broke in sweat. One wonders what two seasons were all about, when the main task could have been accomplished by Daenarys as soon as she landed in Westeros. If the main task was that easy (at least as portrayed), all the manipulations, alliances, plotting, etc. were ridiculous to the extreme. This show should have ended a couple of seasons ago!
7
I agree that Drogon had as much ammunition as a drugstore cowboy’s six-shooter. How much flame can one dragon hold? Regardless, it’s magic and metaphor, at a teachable moment. Sweating the small stuff comes off as internet snark. Perhaps it would have been better if George RR Martin could have stayed ahead of HBO, but we’ll never know.
1
I predict that the Iron Bank will foreclose on unpaid and unpayable debts and take over the Iron Throne.
16
@Technic Ally
They'll have to get it from poor Tyrion, he's the last Lannister standing.
5
I only scanned a few posts before mine. Just can't go with focusing on individual characters - revenge, fear, love are not tied to gender/our own current culture wars. GoT has always been deeper and darker. We witnessed something like a milder version of an atomic bomb no doubt. We saw the Mountain as a more real Terminator - something fit as a monster for TODAY. Because today data brokering/algorithms are the living death - taking away our humanity more intimately than atomic bombs, and do so on a daily basis. The Mountain was more horrible than a white walker because he had been human. To the writer - no surprise about Sandor's drive to destroy the Mountain - that emerged when he came back to life. He brought Arya back to life and back to fear in some sense in this episode. As for Dany, I offer a wish for redemption. Some characters have found redemption. She could turn away from Westeros and go burn down the BANK. In the end the BANK is essential fuel for cycles of revenge. Perhaps that's too radical for this show - radical because it could reach deeper than politics. Still I do expect to see in the last episode a scene of white walkers still existing. In the end the deeper cycle is Ice and Fire.
9
This episode was made for tv magic. Regarding the female characters-, GoT has successfully kept gender neutral and thus eliminated a "female role" Any human being can fall prey to the vagaries of power and wealth. Cersei and Danerys as savage as the Night King- and Jon? Maybe the ruler filled with the milk of human kindness, maybe the failed warrior, maybe the first husband.
2
The episode would have been so much better if something had happened to make Daenerys snap after such a decisive victory. Instead she came across as a petulant child who would rather destroy a toy than share it with her nephew.
6
This episode, like the ones that preceded it this season, was spectacular for so many reasons, and horrified me in the same way that seeing "Saving Private Ryan" did years ago. It also had, like the ones before it, a kind of clunkiness which seems to be due to the PTB of GOT wanting to wind the show up in one season. I wish they had taken another season to wind things up in a less clunky fashion. I know they had to call it sometime, but still...
I almost cried with joy when Arya dispatched the Night(s) King. That made the whole series for me. I do wish that the lighting issues of this season had not been such a problem. We have been hunkering in front of the tv with all the lights out like people do when they are avoiding trick or treaters on Halloween - but it did help.
Much as I love this show, have watched every previous season numerous times, and read all the books three times, I am anxious to see what they come up with in the way of spin-offs.
4
We have clarity. And so do Tyrion, Jon, Davos and those who received Varys's missives. Once Sansa hears of the slaughter and incineration of King's Landing, she will tell all the houses of the north, and maybe beyond, the truth of Jon's pedigree. Daenerys unleashed her own destruction.
There's been a lot of misogyny in GT. Women are treated as lacking good minds, as broodmares, as sex objects, as prizes, and routinely called ugly names. "The Bells" (a Donne reference?) reduces the final conflict to a battle between two motherless girls who, broken by lack or loss of love, resort to inflicting fear and death in a power grab to make up for that absence of love.
Cersei has the longer arc with her mother's death, a loveless marriage to an abusive man, the public shaming and the loss of her children. Daenerys was always a two-dimensional queen propped up by the adoration she inspired in some men, the miracles of her dragons and ability to survive fire, and a driving ambition. When love ebbed away for the moment and adversities set in, she broke just like a little girl, in Dylan's phrase. It was a short arc that perhaps doesn't make much sense. In any event, both Cersei and Dany ended up dressed in deep red, reduced to being broken, delusional women.
On some level I resent that.
20
There were a lot of dumb things about this episode, but what pained me the most was the almost overnight metamorphosis of Dany into a rabid psychopath. Daenerys is now the most evil character in the ENTIRE series. Worse than Ramsay Bolton. Worse than Joffrey. Viewers deserved better. And so did Emilia.
35
And what about Bronn, the wisecracking Cutthroat’s Cutthroat, who’s last seen dictating terms to his two former masters, Tyrion and Jaime, before the North’s attack on King’s Landing? Jaime, whom Bronn was charged to kill by Qyburn, is dead (presumably), along with his sister Cersei (presumably), while Tyrion lives to fight on (presumably). Bronn will intercede significantly, I think, even if he has to get past Arya, Jon or Grey Worm, or maybe - Yes! - he’ll rescue/capture Tyrion, who’s homeless and without a protector, in the Landing’s ruins and cut a deal, of course, because Rogues Survive, as we (Tyrion, too) know from reel and real life. They’re mercenaries, so hook-up and search for the next Game On.
Look. The Iron Throne is vaporized (presumably) in the Landing’s holocaust, so the table’s set for an epic up-ender and start-over (why rebuild the smoldering Landing?) for the GoT tale. Here are the fall-backs (Jon’s portentous words): Dany to Dragonshead, Arya to Winterfell, Jon to the Wildlings and Ghost, Davos to the Sea. An edgy-dodgy-itchy calm results until, say, some yellow-gold-orange haired forked-tongue unexpectedly arises, somehow assumes power and commences with havoc, collusions, witch-hunts, rant rallies and various other deceptions, distractions, foments and fakeries. It’s a woeful scene, primed for an explosion or meltdown. You know the script. Stay tuned, To Be Continued. “Nothing Lasts Forever.”
3
Great episode, with one exception: after all the psychotic brutality that Cersei has shown throughout the series, she gets to die, sobbing, in the arms of the man she loves??? What a cop out.
16
I agree with everyone who is reminding us that this is a fantasy series...dragons and wights and magic. But I loved it when Dany was burning the city down. Why all of a sudden does everyone care about the innocent people caught in these wars? Especially in King's Landing. These are the same people who jeered during Cersei's shame walk...cheered when Ned Stark got his head cut off and serve whatever king or queen happens to be the tyrant of the moment. I'm sorry to say it (because in real life I abhor war and violence...so bear with me please) but Dany and her dragon, Grey Worm and the Dothraki were finally doing what they were supposed to do...conquering Westoros. Of course I'm glad that Winterfell and Highgarden (there you go Bronn!), Casterly Rock and all these other places didn't get destroyed and all my favorite Starks are alive and well. But Daenerys Targaryen was born to rule and rule she will. Jon Snow still knows nothing as far as I'm concerned.
21
Who could Varys have been writing to? Who of importance doesn't know the truth about Jon's parents?
14
@Laleicht In order of importance:
Yara
Bronn
Brienne
The Citadel?
Gendry
Houses of the North
Knight's Watch (Castle Black)
Wildings (including Tormund)
3
I think Dany may have just reacted and didn't think too much about the consequences. I don't think she will feel better after this blood letting and will just continue the carnage.
That's what thousands of years of inbreeding does.
2
Front page celebration of the most violent show on television. Does anyone wonder why we have so many school shootings?
6
@Umberto
Gosh, I always thought it was Rap music and Comic books that were the engine of all the carnage! Well I have to get back to my Teletubbies show!
5
@Ledoc254
Very true. It's not just a single TV show, but an entire culture of entertainment that has become devoted to portraying graphic violence, over and over, with buckets of blood. As a society we've become complacent, seeing it only as "entertainment," and not worrying about its effects, especially on the young. Yet those same fans of violent shows will scream foul when people post video taken on their cellphones of a mass shooting.
2
Interesting so many people did not like the episode, but this may be because it demonstrated, in vivid detail, how people rise to power and conquer territories.
This is what I found so sad about this episode, how accurate and truthful it was in depicting how power is gained - this total tabula rasa approach - it has happened so many times in history.
11
Some fans are very upset about the way Cersei and Jamie died.
I thought it was probably one of the most touching scenes in Game of Thrones. Cersei devolved back to her childhood innocence and fragility and Jamie was at once the comforter the protector, the tender lover of years past.
This was a redemption scene. It was full circle for Jamie and Cersei. We saw them as children, very vulnerable, a place where we have never seen them so authentic, so human. It was right that they should die together and it was right for Cersei to die with tears, rather than with violence as most expected. It was so in character for Jamie not to be able to break the chains that held him to her for so many years. I thought dramatization was brilliant. (In another post I commented on the resemblance to the last scene in Verdi’s Aida). The acting was so convincing. It was memorable.
17
* Power leads to pride. Pride leads to destruction. It isn't just Biblical. Cerci. Dany. Et. Al.
* What happened to Sansa?
* Funny how it was actually the King's Landing crowd that finally got the fruitlessness of it all, the stupidity of battle
* They still could have reshot scenes of John hugging Ghost. But noooooooooooo..
2
The most important message of this episode (like all of the other battle episodes) is that war is hell. That said here are some random thoughts:
When Dany decided to "burn them all" and Jon saw what was happening I thought I saw a flicker of realization come across his face that he may need to claim his rightful place on the Iron Throne or whatever is left of it. Dany can't be trusted to rule wisely.
Dany warned Varys that if he betrayed her she would burn him. I had little sympathy for him.
I am so glad that Arya took the Hound's advice to leave instead of carrying out her revenge. While she was in the city Death said to Arya - "Not today." It was also beautiful that somehow this wonderful horse managed to survive and she could ride out of the city. How she managed to survive all of that falling debris and a direct hit of dragon fire is an unanswered question - but then this IS fantasy.
Ok - while I don't like violence I did like the fight between the Hound and the Mountain. I was curious to see what the Mountain looked like under all of that armor. This was Qyburn's handiwork.
And of course Jamie and Cersei died together as I knew they would. The came in together and they will go out together.
My biggest complaint of the season is that it does all feel rushed. I wish they had more episodes so that certain scenes play out rather than rushing to the next scene.
8
Let me try to sum Dany’s arc in this season GOT.
She puts aside her own ambition of taking back the Iron Throne because Jon appeals to her better nature and good sense. He professes his love and his loyalty.
She then loses a lot of her army. Watches her best friend + another beloved dragon die at the hands of her enemies. Northerners don’t seem too terribly grateful. In fact they are hostile. Sansa (her lovers sister) is plotting again her. Oh, and Jon is behaving like a putz now that his war is over.
Goodbye loyal love. Loyal friend. Loyal dragon(s). Loyal adviser (s). Oh, and crazy is the new black. Literally for some lucky people. (Sorry Greyworm.)
Lesson learned: Trust no one, and the showrunners of GOT are feckless cowards, who didn’t manage to employ a single woman as a writer or director this season.
Viewer throws hands up in the air suddenly realizing that the plot of GOT is not about a ruler, a woman, learning a lot of hard lessons and then maybe even realizing she needs to walk away from power. No, the plot of GOT is that women scheme against other women always, they suck as rulers, and having a penis is the most important leaderly attribute.
My lesson learned: I am NOT watching a show about the Confederacy from these morons. Do you really think they can manage a wit of compassion or delicacy with another politically laden subject?
13
@Elizabeth Marsh I was with you in the first half of your analysis but then you lost me in your last two paragraphs. There haven't been any decent rulers of the seven kingdoms from what we've seen over the last eight seasons. Maybe that's the point the show runners are partially trying to make...that monarchies always fail regardless of whether they are male or female led.
8
Interesting to look forward to "the one who has been promised. " Two possible candidates: Danny and Brienne. Danny has said she can not have children....could it be that there is a Queen to be with royal child & it is actually Brienne??!! Note it is possible and would be a just ending- with royal blood, no less!
2
Maybe Dany did not go insane. Her soon to be beheaded bestie's last words were essentially "burn it to the ground". And so she did. Cruelty is not insanity. This is what war IS. Dany is just as awful and destructive as any man. Who would have thought?
5
Imagine the cries of sexism that would have been heard had Dany not been ruthless but had shown “female” frailty or weakness. It was a lose-lose whichever way she flew the dragon. I think going rogue was the right decision.
9
"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss".
I hope Dany sits on the iron throne, not as a fairy-tale queen, but as a power-lusting, power-corrupted egomaniac. All the conniving and killing, and we end up where we started with a divided kingdom. I hope the writers do not sell out for a happy ending.
5
as for GoT this season ... what do you call a wedding band on a wild pig?
BOAR RING.
1
"If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention." - Ramsay Bolton
13
Nobody is talking about one of the most shocking moments of the episode ... Jon Snow killing one of his OWN soldiers in order to stop them from harming a civilian. It wasn't just Dany who went mad, but the mob mentality took over, and everyone under her went nuts, too.
11
Jaime not being with Brienne or not killing Cersei hurt the most! But I guess their relationship did come full circle. Maybe he did die a hero instead of a jerk. I look at it this way- Tyrion wanted Jaime to save Cersei and get away and start over. Tyrion is a good guy, so if he wanted that for his family maybe it's okay to just be accepting of it. Also, Jaime left Brienne because he felt like he was too good for her, anyway. He did say he and his sister belonged together because they were both "horrible" people. I know Jaime didn't use Brienne, he cared about her but unfortunately he loved Cersei more. Ick. And let's blame Bran for his own fall. He shouldn't be scaling castle walls and peeping in on people (okay, I'm stretching it). I can't help but love Jaime! I'm doomed. LOL
I only hope Jon doesn't wind up with crazy Dany. He is such a mushy guy for someone who is meant to be this great warrior and future king.
Oh well, GOT, you drive me crazy!
1
@Nicky H Jaime was all about his family. His talk with Tyrion was moving. He was the only one who gave Tyrion a chance .. because he cares about his family more than anything. He said so at the end.
3
Who would want Jon Snow to be their king at this point?
He betrayed the Lords of the North by casting aside the responsibility to rule they had bestowed on him and giving it to Danaerys
He betrayed his family by choosing Danaerys over his own siblings, one of whom is ruler of the North as a result of his flaking out when that was supposed to be his job
He refused to accept the responsibility to rule the Seven Kingdoms placed on him by his parentage and the law
He refused to listen to the (correct) advice of everyone around him that Danaerys is bad news
He stood around and watched while his lover amassed a gigantic hoard of foreigners that she then (predictably, and as predicted by many people, to Jon) used to kill half of King's Landing
Dude is lame and a fool. Whoever ends up on the throne--Danaerys, Sansa, Tyrion, Arya--should give him the axe
11
Another reflection on Daenerys.
She grew up without real family, only in the company of an abusive older brother. So, she entered her relationship with Jon without any insight into family dynamics.
She thought she could enter a family system as an in-law and simply take over. (She actually expected Jon's sisters to be grateful for it!)
And she thought that she could control what Jon did and didn't share with his siblings. Nope.
It's normal for in-laws to be wary, and it's wise to recognize that your spouse's family doesn't operate by your family's rules. But Dany doesn't know that. She thinks it's a personal attack on her.
When her children (to whom she was a terrible mother, btw, locking them in the basement for their teen years and leaving them to raise themselves) and her sister-of-choice die, she has no support, no context, no extended family to rely on.
The mystery of family systems is, without a doubt, one of the powerful themes of the story. Notice: the Stark siblings keep choosing each other. So do the Lannisters.
17
From the moment Rob lost his head in the book we all knew this wouldn't be the typical "We know the Ring is going in the Mountain, lets just see how it get's there" kind of story.
The characters, for the most part, were multi-dimensional and driven by very well self interest in a society which had the moral equivalency of the Romans.
I really enjoyed that moment when Dany and her dragon were perched atop the conquered city. You could almost see the feeling that it wasn't enough, that the battle had ended too early and that her need for vengeance was not satisfied.
On the other hand, "Let it be fear." She knows that she will be forever alone, and like her ancestors (read Blood & Fire) it is better to make one powerful, horrifying example than to have to fight an endless series of wars just to hang on by a thread.
But now we have Dany, with a dragon capable of destroying a well defended city, and an army happy to help her out. Will it really end next week, or is this just Part I of what is clearly a much larger world.
2
For many episodes now, Greyworm and Misandei were ever with her. I think they became like the little angel and devil whispering in her ear - Greyworm her advisor in violence and Misandei her advisor in love and compassion. With the loss of Misandei, she (and Greyworm) lost their grip on compassion - all that remained was violence and fear.
8
The early twenties is when schizophrenia emerges, especially under extreme stress. The disease is also inherited.
Having said that, more clarity around the voices that drive Danny to burn innocent civilians was needed. There is a credible world where Danny lost her mind, but the authors did not show us enough of it.
8
@Morth really interesting angle you posit. I agree. If she had truly gone "mad" we should have seen more evidence of this ie. Dany talking to herself frantically, having hallucinations, etc. All we know is that she didn't eat for two days and her hair wasn't brushed which are signs of average garden variety grief, not psychosis.
5
As someone who has not watched this show more than twice, and not even from the beginning of those episodes, I find the strong interest in it very fascinating. What I could see of it did not in any way appeal to me -- too much blood and gore, machinations of people, CG, and sort-of-a-plot and a lot of the time nearly impossible to follow or understand. Why is the whole thing so dark, in every way?
That Americans like violence is a given. That they like "mythic" stories, especially since Harry Potter, is also a given. How far away is a dragon from an alien? That this story is a reflection of much deeper things in our culture is more interesting as a discussion.
I like non-fiction or fiction that is very close to "real life." Loved reading the comments. Wonderful to see what people made of the whole endeavor.
2
@Jeanie LoVetri ---:"As someone who has not watched this show more than twice and not even from the beginning
of those episodes" ..."and sort of a plot and a lot of the time nearly impossible to follow and understand.." What a surprise that you couldn't follow or understand an extremely complex show which has been going on for 8 seasons, just from a couple of quick glances!
4
Does anyone know if GRR Martin was a consultant to the show writers since the show overtook the books? I've been pretty unhappy with character arcs (Jaime struggled so valiantly only to cave in and show up to comfort Cersei in the end, Tyrion becoming soft in the head, Brienne being reduced to a one night stand) recently and wonder if the recent storylines had the approval of Martin.
3
The episode was horribly predictable.
1
I don't think she is mad. Her decision would have made Machiavelli happy. When Charles VIII of France invaded Italy using cannons at scale for the first time he made an example of some cities so the rest would surrender willing. Just one of many examples of cities being destroyed to send a message. I really liked this episode. Limited diologue, no grand speeches in front of the troups, just a ballet of action. The moment if the Bells is an all-time top-5 for the show as a whole. My prediction remains the same. All with a claim die and Tyrion and Sam set up republic city states.
5
Mad Queen: Once again, genes trump good intentions.
As for her utter destruction of King's Landing, it is not outside the bounds of human history, but rather a plausible reflection of our warring past.
Was it gratuitous slaughter of innocent civilians or deliberate and necessary show of overwhelming force? We still argue over whether Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the right decisions. On top of Tokyo firebombing (100,000+ blown up and/or burned alive, > 1 million displaced). Dresden, 135,000 civies incinerated. Aleppo? Any presidential candidates know what that word means? And on and on.
4
Great episode. The psychology of Dany's transformation was believable, and that was the most important element of this episode. She's increasingly isolated, many of her supporters have either died or have suspect loyalties, her lover has left her, she's increasingly paranoid, and revenge is all-consuming. Emilia Clarke is a good actress. You could see it on her face when the bell rang, she doesn't trust herself, but backing down after so much difficulty seems like weakness. Time for Bran to take her dragon from her.
4
Poor Dany. She just wanted to be loved--no parents, a cruel older brother, countless tin-pot rulers wanting to use/abuse her, her only true love killed by sorcerers, and then a whole continent of people who could care less about her. Mix that with "I am the greatest Targaryen ever to be born and will rule all someday" and dragons to back it up, and all that could happen was for her to be mad, as in angry, not nuts. Personally, I'd vote for Tyrion as next Iron Throne king. He at least has a sense of humor. And if not him, then Bron, who knows how the real world works ("how do you think your relatives got power"). Sansa--not her because she fits where she is and deserves to be there. Jon Snow-nope, a happy ending for him would be to go back to the Wild Folk and be friends with the Nights Watch. And then again, maybe Asha Greyjoy will sail in from the Iron Islands, surprise us all, and land the Iron Throne.
5
I just want to know: Do people read 1,000 plus comments? I used to love participating in these discussions; but not if I need to read that many.
4
Yes, I enjoy scrolling through the newer ones through out the day. I find The NY Times readers articulate and thoughtful, and often a comment will bring to light an angle of the piece I had not thought of. Plus, the comment boards have excellent moderators (something for which the Washington Post is desperate). So, bring on the comments by the thousands!
15
The moment when Dany decided to kill Varys just proving once more that shes not at all a wise ruler. I was hoping for more of a turning point for Dany if she spares Varys and uses him to be on her side. Any previous rulers in ancient history, and I meant the good ones of course, knows that we need to use your people as a tool to get the big picture.
Putting your own rage on the people and choose fear instead of mercy is just typical tyrant scenario.
Team Snow for King!
1
King's Landing looks better razed to the ground. I'm happy I got to see it happen.
2
Arya rode off on a Pale Horse. This cannot bode well for Dany.
3
If you think this has a happy ending, you haven’t been paying attention.
2
When a man behaves in this way, no one accuses him of being crazy. Just saying.
3
@Michigan Girl
I believe the "Mad King" was a man but nice try.
5
A brief thought: Perhaps Dany was not "mad" but simply made the same rational but horrific decision made by leaders throughout history, from ancient times to WWII to current day Syria, for some of the same reasons.
How can we pretend that the "kill them all and let God sort them out" mentality is only held by the insane or enraged, when our history books are full of it, and our own tax dollars have financed its implementation so many times?
11
Agreed. And since when has this show taken a for the people, by the people stance, caring about innocents lost in battle? The GoT universe has never been about that - it’s about how those in power out-maneuver their opponents. I wish they had stuck more closely to either The Night King threat or the check-mate thrills of this game, rather than a commentary about war, revenge, and politics.
1
Well, at least there was no gratuitous nudity in the Mother's Day episode.
3
I thought it was a fairly predictable episode and yes, that’s what disappoints the most. She goes mad; too foreshadowed. “I hope I’m wrong, truly I do”...except it’s pretty obvious that I’m not. Everyone surrenders and she still burns the city to the ground: check. Of course last week I also said, “she DOES remember that they made a dragon-killer, right..?” about 0.9 seconds before the dragon strike. The whole Cersei death was so meh but I called that too. I figured no one would actually kill her, because ask a hundred people WHO should’ve actually killed Cersei, and you’d get a hundred different answers. So let it be rocks then.
2
I think it was all the caffeine in Dany's Starbucks order that finally tipped her over the edge.
18
The Dragon Queen's actions are no mystery. "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." (Lord Acton). Those who aren't corrupted by power (Ned and Robb Stark, e.g.) are destroyed by those who are. Sounds like MacBeth to me. Nothing new here.
4
Dany: Poor Dany. Feeling so unloved she burns everyone in sight alive. Wonder if it made her feel better.
Arya: There's got to be a reason she galloped out of town on a white horse. Very symbolic of something or another.
Jon Snow: Just like Ned Stark. And Jamie. Loyal to the wrong person, beyond all reason. He could have stopped her, but he didn't. Jon the Clueless. Can't see him as king.
Tyrion: Will we see him get his brains back?
Grey Worm: Will die defending Dany.
Varys: Sad loss. Only one of the bunch with the common sense God gave a duck.
Drogon: Someone has to do something about that lizard.
Sansa: My candidate for the last royal standing.
The Seven Kingdoms: Need a new system of government, modeled on... let's see... the British Parliament. No. The US Senate ?Definitely not. Okay. Sansa it is.
6
Yes. How did Tyrion get so stupid. He should have known Cersei wouldn't defend Winterfell against the dead, he shouldn't have thrown Varys under the Dragon and he should have known that once Cersei killed Dany's only BFF that she would torch the town. What he should have done is convince Jon to swallow his bile and get incestuous with his aunt so they could rule together and save lives. I hope Tyrion doesn't try to show up in Dany's presence again but then he has to.
3
I love Game of Thrones-after reading all the books (even the new one) and watching every episode over and over, leaving it to three men to get a story about women right begs the saying "doing the same the over and over and expecting a different outcome will never happen". First we deal with Martin's blantent disrespect of women--once he stops writing at least the brutal male fantasy sex stops- but still a woman ruler is controlled by her emotions and thousands die. She gets jilted by her man, her best friend dies, she gets junk advice-so she has a temper tantrum and kills thousands. Her well thought choice of advisors and eight year growth to become a queen goes out the window. This is what men think. I was sickened by the simplicity of stereotypical thought-Many historical Queens were isolated and ruled long and successfully-needing love and support is the male take on female power-which is why D and D did women no favors last night. I was saddened and sickened.
7
Is anyone concerned that the show portrays women rulers as mass murderers (Ceresi, Khalesi); gossipy and best isolated in a crypt when inspirational leadership is most needed (Sansa) or prone to wild mood swings (Khalesi)?
Granted the non-Stark men are not much better, but does Madame Secretary have to stand alone or almost alone in case I missed a show, as showing a rational, effective woman political leader?
3
Excellent analysis.
1
I think Dany was mad, not Mad. That is to say, she was fed up and angry, not insane. Part of what she was fed up about was all the bad advice she had been getting, especially from Tyrion. She was fed up with being being betrayed by Tyrion and other's half hearted allegiance. She could have conquered Kings Landing and saved her dragons when she first came to Westeros if not for the bad advice she had gotten. I can see her seeing Kings Landing as a corrupt source of a culture of betrayal and double dealing, so that her choice to torch it wasn't entirely irrational. Of course, people will think that she's insane. But she has the dragon.
5
Final scene of GOT: the surviving dragon lays three eggs.
5
@J Sherrard yes!!!
I think Daenerys has lost her cache. She gave in to insane rage and destroyed many innocent people. This is not in keeping with her previous stance, to save and liberate innocent people not to kill them. She went too far.
Complete and utter disappointment from the much ballyhooed penultimate episode. The strong, promising, tragic, potentially redemptive, female character relegated to murdering madwoman. Cowardly writing in the extreme. That is not saying that I expected that male writers adapting a male-written book would hazard a worthy female ruler, I just held out a faint hope. Now, Arya will kill her and clear the path to the throne for her MALE cousin, who will still insist so nobly that he does not want it. Oh please. His betrayal was beyond what Dany could endure, but he did it anyway. This resurrected "hero" will emerge as the savior, the redeemer, having had no real idea what Dany had suffered to build herself and her army, only to lose it in his cause. Who knows what might have transpired if she had taken Kings Landing first, and then marched north with her army intact, TWO dragons, and some aid from Dorne. Yara could also have sailed to Essos and delivered the Second Sons. Dany loved, was persuaded, and lost everything. Now the writers have made sure that her murder will seem justified, and they will deliver the unsurprising male heir to Iron Throne. Unpredictable? Really?
9
Remember folks this is just a fictional TV show......I thought is was a good episode. The fictional character the Dany (The Dragon Queen) was experiencing a lot of grief and anger and she acted out in rage which we see in our everyday world. Some other reasons I liked it was it was unpredictable. There is just no way to end this series in a way that everyone is going to like. Game of Thrones had a good run and of course there will be spin offs.
1
One thing that struck me is the way Arya's slinking through the streets to avoid being killed paralleled the end of the first season, when she's doing the same thing after Ned loses his head. But now it's from a supposedly "good" ruler, perhaps suggesting that there really isn't any difference between the two monarchs/ruling families. As the game of thrones plays out, it's the people on the street who pay the price, regardless of who reigns. Maybe that's where this is going.
6
Any hope of a strong, fair, compassionate female leader for Westeros were blown away in the Sept along with Margaery Tyrell.
Dany has always had a self righteous streak a mile wide and a serious lack of empathy with those whose opinions would differ from her own.
3
No Trumpian ending (sorry had to bring it up) for this show.
In many ways the suffering 'little people' in 'dragon flyover country' come out as the heroes: Arya, Bran, Jon Snow, Sansa, the Wildlings, the dire wolves Ghost and Nymeria,
Of course there are all those people who got roasted by Drogon. I can't explain them...
Maybe this is a cosmic prophecy for 2020?
1
Sam Peckinpah used a metaphor at the start of "The Wild Bunch". Some angelic-looking children have stirred up a red ant hill, and then drop a couple of scorpions in it to watch the fun. When they get bored, they toss in straw and set fire to it. It lasted in total less than a minute of screen time.
When I realised that was the entire premise of GoT, season after season, I gave up on it.
5
I'm not so sure that Jaime and Cersei died - we saw rubble falling on them, but no definitive crushing. Wouldn't it be interesting if they'd survived? I've wondered for a while if Cersei would retain the throne (if it is still there), which would be fitting because any change of leadership would just be more of the same, as it always has been.
1
All I can say is I loved episode 5!
Really great television.
I can’t wait until next week to see who wins the Game of Thrones!
(Assuming they tell us.)
5
For many viewers, including myself, this episode felt like twisting that sword in Euron's guts. It was long time a-coming, makes so much sense but it is always taxing to see the moral downfall of one's champion.
Is redemption even possible, for a Targaryen? It is difficult to conceive the Starks following Daenerys after the carnage just as it is difficult to conceive of her giving Jon the pass. So here we have the budding of the next war for the wretched kingdoms. I hope the Children of the Forest will make it through this all.
2
Dany's look on her face, on the dragon, before burning the whole city, was the same look that Lawrence of Arabia (played by Peter O'Toole) had, on the camel, in the famous "No Prisoners" sequence.
5
I thoroughly enjoyed this episode. I didn't find any of Daenerys' behavioral changes to be unrealistic. Rather, her arc has reinforced for me that even those who start out with seemingly good intentions (e.g., to make the world a better place) can be corrupted by the power they are seeking. Power, or the aggressive pursuit of it, can change anyone. Suddenly, in the quest to be the "good guy" and take control of the world from the "bad guys," you end up using disturbing tactics and becoming just like them (and sometimes worse), or deep down you may have been just like them all along. This is a reality that I believe has played out all over the world, with figures casting themselves as saviors and later showing themselves to be (or evolving into) the opposite. Daenerys is no different, especially after experiencing a number of destabilizing emotional triggers. I am worried for Sansa and others, and can't wait until next Sunday.
5
I don't know about anybody else, but I am sick and tired of seeing "Game of Thrones" constantly in the news. One would think it was the only TV program in existence. It is obviously popular, but articles about it certainly take up a lot of space in the press.
4
Drogon could sense his mother's rage at the drink order snafu and torched all the Kings Landing Starbucks in revenge
5
Where did the wildfire come from? Was Dany avenging Missandei, or was she "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" by Jon Snow- an anti-feminist sentiment to be sure? And Jon Snow has been a sad sack this season, with his apologetic half smiles and little man bun. Was his mojo crushed by the accidental incest? Even Brienne allowed her spirit to be broken- was sex with Jaime that great?
It's all in Arya's and Sansa's hands now. And Ghost's.
7
This series finale has been a big disappointment. Way too much grotesque violence and baffling endings for the shows most enigmatic characters: Varys, the wily master spy roasted by a dragon for being part of a rumor mill? Cersei buried by a falling castle? These characters deserved better endings than those. Arya, so lethal two weeks ago, turned into a cupcake for this episode. And what has Dany been feeding Drogon? Last week it was your run of the mill fire breathing dragon but this week it was spewing exploding projectiles that took out whole castles. And the Scorpions were so deadly last week but this week were useless. I get the feeling that AT&T (HBO's new owners) are putting the screws to the writing team to hurry up and finish so they can move on to other projects.
5
My problem with last night’s episode is not that Dany went Mad Queen and destroyed King’s Landing, innocent casualties be damned. It was her intentional targeting of civilians. That robbed the show of any opportunity to explore grey areas and gives us yet another one-dimensional villain.
5
In season 5, Dany turns to Missandei for her counsel on how to deal with the problems in Meereen. Missandei responds with an observation:
"I can only tell you what I have seen, Your Grace. I have seen you listen to your counselors. I have seen you lean on their experience when your own was lacking and weigh the choices they put before you. And I have seen you ignore your counselors. Because there was a better choice. One that only you could see".
I was really hoping for a moment when Dany calls back to Missandei's counsel to rise above the "mad queen" narrative and do something completely unexpected. But I guess Missandei's final "Dracarys!" was truly the only choice that Dany could see at that point.
1
This last 6-episode season was set up so well and executed so poorly. We should all be amazed by a tightly written ending. Instead, we're here ridiculing it. No matter. It will over in a week for those of us not already burned alive, then on to the next thing!
4
You all missed some of the most profound interpretations of this series.
It must be viewed as a Song or e pic poem that gets retold and repeated.
It must also be view through the lens of myth not politics
Dany is more goddess than queen. She is like the Hindu goddess Kali the liberator and purifier of evil deeds.
The fire is a purification of tyranny itself. That is her goal. To rid the world of tyranny. Kings Landing was lost and mired in tyranny as were the Lannister’s and her own bloodlines. She burned it to the ground as an act of mercy...this she said as much herself...but also at the death cry or last command of Missendei. Recalled before her beheading she yelled Dracarys as her last words. That sealed the fate of Kings Landing.Grey Worm and Dany had planned it all along when she realized how she was betrayed and that the only people who truly loved her and felt loyalty where the Unsullied and the Dothraki. The scene where Grey Worm throws Missandei’s old leather bonds was the clue and symbol that evil bondage of humanity would never be negotiated by Cersei or any of the other rulers to come. She had to burn it to ground and start over. She had to be feared in order to implement her vision of liberation from all tyranny. The men were clueless and naive. This battle was all in the women’s hands because women know all too well how precarious our freedoms truly are.
Dany is more goddess than queen. Her actions will reverberate through Ions not decades.
12
Alas, “ Lay on Macduff,” For those disappointed viewers with the direction of the final season of GOT, there is hope beyond the final episode of HBO for the more literate viewers.
While many of the television viewers will end their viewing experience deeply unsatisfied, Mr. Martin will no doubt reward his faithful readers with a much more satisfying concluding narrative whenever he finishes his epic some time in the future.
@Stephen Encarnacao I hope you're right. I read an interview he recently did where he said that he didn't know when - or if - he was ever going to finish the series. He said his intention was to write a trilogy & it blew up from there. Could it be that he's given up on completing what he started?
1
@Court Clerk
Let's hope Mr. Martin will seize the opportunity and reward his loyal audience with a much more
satisfying ending that gives a fitting closure to all
to all of the rich character story lines he created.
Loved the episode, despite its Hollywood-ness. However, I do miss Martin's writing, despite its meandering. I think this storyline is where the books ultimately are heading (if they ever get written), since the HBO writers consulted him.
But it's often more about the journey than the destination, and this is where I miss the books. HBO is barreling through to the end, which probably satisfies best as the writing is not good anymore.
So, in my wishful fantasy of reading the future books, this is my take on what could have been in the story, written from each character's POV:
1. More internal struggles of Dany, Arya, Jaime. Their change in character direction seemed abrupt. Really missed being in their heads.
2. The wolf-Stark-warging storyline. Arya's wolf Nymaria and Ghost had roles to play..
3. Cersei - she would have had another last plan up her sleeve, or done something more significant before the end.
4. More explanation of Dany's dragon battle strategy. How she learned to fly better to avoid the scorpions the 2nd time around. The books had more of her learning how to fly
5. Better writing on Euron's death. His lines were terrible. Would have had more depth in the books
6. More explanation of Bran's masterminding the death of the NK, how he orchestrated and knew Arya would kill him
7. Missandei's relationship with Dany was much closer in the books, didn't see it much in the show. Hence less sympathy to Dany’s revenge
what else am i missing?
9
The last episodes were a bit crazy and did not really work from the "military" point of view, so they end up being unconvincing. In fact, the whole story is unconvincing. If the capital and Red Keep was so easy to take, why spend all the time in Dragonstone? In fact, Daenerys should have dispatched Cersei easily enough immediately after her arrival at Westeros. There was not even a Golden Company to take into account. This fact made the whole two last seasons appear ridiculous. In fact, Daenerys could have occupied the Golden Throne fast enough and easily enough and still have enough time to go North to face the Night King.
If the taking of King's Landing was an arduous proposition, and not the walk-in-the-park portrayed, then it would have lend some weight to the story. But as it was, one is left wondering what was the story all about. In, fact, the show should have ended one episode after Daenerys's departure from Essos. The fast capture of King's Landing would have ensued, and the Dragon Queen with three dragons would have had an easy time dispatching the Night King as well.
Thus, this has been totally ridiculous. As for Daenerys "transofrmation" into the mad Queen, the show has been consistent in showing her "murderous" side before, so this came not so much as a surprise (or a weird show plot). It was the ridiculous ease of the actual challenge, the capturing of King's Landing, that made the show not work at all.
3
@ADRz I totally agree! Why waste time trying to be nice, and then in frustrated agony lay waste to everything.
@Mvlang
Agreed. Laying waste to everything is not really beyond the historical experience. For example, Jenghis Khan destroyed cities in Khoresm (such as Buchara), even when they surrendered without much fight and killed most of their citizens. It was a calculated ploy to undermine resistance by instilling abject fear. It could have worked in the case of GOT. However, the show became ridiculous when it showed that the capture of King's Landing was really a "walk-in-the-Park". It was a minor event that should have been concluded a couple of seasons back and be done with. What was all the plotting about, if the main task was really that easy? Utterly ridiculous
1
I guess I shouldn't be surprised by how all the fans have turned on Daenerys. A few episodes ago, she turned aside from her quest for the Iron Throne to go North and save the world with Jon Snow. She did so at great cost to herself, losing one dragon and a trusted advisor in the process. Instead of earning the love of the Northerners who she saved, all she was rewarded with was suspicion and mistrust.
Now some are calling her "The Mad Queen", because of what she did in King's Landing. How did people think the story would end? When Daenerys long ago set her sights on taking back the Iron Throne with her dragons, there were only two ways the story was going to end. One was her death. The other was the destruction of King's Landing by dragon fire. This ending was foreshadowed long ago when Dany, Jorah Mormont and Barristan Selmy were walking the walls of Astapor, and Jorah asks Ser Barristan, "Can you remember any war in which innocents didn't die by the thousands?." (Season 3 Ep3 31:00). He goes on to say , "There is a beast in every man, and it stirs when you put a sword in his hand."
Nobody should be surprised that a grieving and betrayed Daenerys went full Targaryen at the end when she had King's Landing at her mercy. The Targaryens didn't rule for centuries because they were clever or noble or just. They ruled because they had dragons, and they could be very vicious in how they used them.
Daenerys' lust for power and revenge was always going to turn her into a butcher.
7
"'Game of Thrones' has been broadly about the futility of the cycles of revenge and violence, ultimately functioning as a critique of political structures based on raw power and entitlement."
It's been my long held thesis that even political structures that begin more fairly, or more collectively benevolent, eventually edge over to raw power and entitlement. Usually, some form of oligarchy, explicit or implicit. And it's because of human nature; or perhaps, rather, the nature of the universe, which is ultimately dominated by entropy.
The universe tends towards disorder. Thus, it takes extra effort to maintain order, and alas most beings either don't know that's what they need to exert (animals) or they get too lazy and/or greedy to do so (humans). Nature works it all out amongst animals, but humans can defy nature. To a certain extent...
In fact, the duality is there in this show: Daenerys fighting for order despite the disorder in her heart, vulnerable because the impulse to order is based on personal whim more than iron clad ideology; Jon fighting for order but unwilling to truly impose it by being the one king and thus allowing chaos to take hold, again based on personal whim more than ideology. For intelligent creatures, personal whim is the bane of ideological work towards the common good; it's the triumph of entropy.
Annnd, I'll end my sermon on antientropy there. Enjoyed the episode, certain flaws notwithstanding.
6
What struck me about this episode was how the writers and creators of the show brutally, with art and great craft, reminded us all of a central tenet of GoT, and by extension, the way things are: the decisions of a handful of powerful, wealthy, ambitious people have far reaching, and usually bad consequences for the "rest of us". Watching Dany and the Dragon execute their scorched earth policy on King' s Landing, from both their vantage point of death at distance , and the the perspective of the "rest of us" running like mad to escape the flames and falling bits of city, but ultimately having no place to go, is a Stark reminder of those power dynamics. Unsettled and emotionally damaged people with lots of power are bad news for everyone else. Sounds kinda like the times we live in now, doesn't it?
17
I thought this episode was magnificent. It made up for the last two episodes appearing rushed and shoddy writing. I’ll try to analyze from the start. Enuf sorrow for Varys. His manipulations of KL and admiration and respect for the evil Littlefinger gave us the evil empire that Ned Stark entered at his peril. While he always justified events as working for the people, he was not some savior,
2
To quickly put an end to WW2 with Japan, President Harry Truman agreed with certain Generals in his war cabinet to drop 2 atomic bombs on Japanese cities that supposedly still had some arms-making factories. The logic was that many thousands of American lives would have been lost in an all-out invasion of Japan. This reasoning led to the incineration and radiation deaths of approximately 225,000 people--many of them innocent civilians.
Unfortunately, there is no on-site video footage of these events to remind us of the horror of war brought down on these people. We humans forget the past and move on to better times.
Sometimes it takes art to remind us what we are sometimes capable of doing at the worst of times. Last night's episode brought the imagery of what war can do to the innocents, as does Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" and "Schindler's List"
do also. I feel "The Bells" transcended at times from entertainment in art. I went to bed with my heart pounding. And horrified.
7
@Akita
"To quickly put an end to WW2 with Japan..."
Yes and fortunately there is no footage of that US invasion force numbering in the millions having to invade Japan proper. Tarawa, Okinawa, Iwo Jima, Peleliu, etc etc give plenty of evidence how it would have gone.
2
Clearly, Daenerys must die. (The alternative, that a monster lives on and rules soullessly and mercilessly after our investment of eight years, is itself too horrible to contemplate. But that may be no more than my deep aversion to chilling endings with “good” oh perversely defeated, like the protagonist just going into a cryo-sleep learning too late of being impregnated with an Alien egg.) The woman who weeped for Jorah still has descended into madness (or sinned) too profoundly and must be called to account in defense of humanity (and/or justice). She has become the new opposite evil which is almost just as dangerous, light and fire instead of ice and dark.
The only question is who will send Dany on: Jon, Tyrion, or Arya? My vote, and preference, is Arya. Jon has been largely ineffectual in two major episodes now, unlike Arya, the new Frodo, who is additionally and clearly the perfected living weapon.
I wonder if we will find out if Jon, although not a blonde, is fireproof. Who else, by the way, can control and ride a dragon?
5
yes - Arya still has "green eyes to close" per Millessandre's prophecy. The red woman has never been wrong.
This is a story about the birth of a democracy. After Daenerys is dealt with, King Jon will abdicate and teach everyone how they elect leaders in the Night's Watch. In other words, Daenerys is fulfilling her destiny. She is breaking the wheel by destroying the kingdom's seat of power as well as her own chance to rule. This story is too smart to end with yet another monarch (and a succession problem).
5
People, we have our own mad despot to deal with, who wants the throne for himself, but, in the last chapter, our beautiful heroine, Democracy, will save the day. no second season...
15
This episode showed us Dany driven to madness and destroying her own humanity - plus all the humans on the ground- in pursuit of power. But I wonder what it means that in the process she also destroyed the city and palace that contained the throne, the structural underpinnings of the power she’s chasing. It’s another level of nihilism. She literally burned the board. As a GOT obsessed friend points out, Westeros is much bigger than King’s Landing. Still, I’m thinking that this scorched earth episode could mean that Danaerys and everyone will find that the game is over in the finale. SO curious to see how this all works out.
2
My initial reaction when Dany ignored the bells was, oh, come on, you're not going to do this. What is the point - both as a character and in terms of the story? And I'm still pretty disgusted with the choice. But after reading various (Varys) comments, I can sort of see how it represents a defensible development in Dany's character - she's always had two sides (as most of the main characters do), which, of course, makes her interesting. And the choosing fear when love failed makes some sense. But I can't get over the gratuitousness of this destruction, nor shake the sense that it was a bit of a cop-out (narratively - certainly not cinematically!) It was the easiest way to resolve the dilemmas they set up - have her go completely, megalomaniacally insane, and hence become unequivocally evil. Talk about your scorched-earth policy.
Fans of the show seem to be divided between those who prefer more talk and relational depth and less spectacle, and those who want the opposite. There's generally been a decent balance between the two, but I guess we know who wins!
It's folly to try to predict what will happen - it's to the writers' credit that it's been impossible to do so - but I'm most intrigued by Jon's dilemma, caught between Dany and his "family" - or I guess between two families. But the Starks have always been the moral center of the show, so it seems most likely that they will prevail - but I won't put any money on it.
6
@James Hanson I can't get over the gratuitousness of the destruction either. Dany could have gone after Cersei directly and even Jon Snow. I just don't buy that she would fly over mothers and children and burn them. People who cross her? Yes. Innocent civilians? No.
I also don't buy that Arya would turn heel so abruptly either. Her entire character arc has been about killing Cersei. One sentence from The Hound at the 25th hour and she's like, "Oh, yes, right of course, this is silly".
And Cersei did not get the death she should have by any means. She's also barely appeared this season.
1
I understand viewers being upset who wished a female in power would have been way less awful than Cersei and Dany. I felt the same way. However, I'm choosing to see this as an equal opportunity lesson in how absolute power corrupts. Whether Cersei or Dany had been men or women, they never struck me as leaders. Dany was raised with a sense of entitlement and revenge...the throne is ours because it's our birthright! Why wouldn't she then relinquish the title to Jon, who was MORE entitled to it? Why wouldn't she have thought it fair and just to have the rightful Targaryen heir on the throne if it was all about birthrights? Both Cersei and Dany never struck me as being concerned about leading so much as being in power and that's a bad quality in any ruler. In contrast, I believe genuinely cared about the North and its people. Strong but practical. The same could be said for Jon. What do they have in common? They were raised by Ned Stark who led by example. Dany and Cersei were raised by tyrants and/or tyrant-wanna-be's. Viserion would've made a horrible leader for the same reasons as his father. An example of a strong female leader? Brienne. Dany's use of her weapon of mass destruction to intimidate even her own people and her obsession with bending the knee showed me what she really was after...complete and absolute submission to her power without any thought of what it means to lead. Jon now knows Dany cannot sit on that throne...at least I hope he does.
6
@Suzy
Edit: Forgot Sansa's name in this sentence: In contrast, I believe Sansa....
We’re all forgetting: The whole series is built around who gets to sit on the Iron Throne in Westeros.
Now Westeros is blasted to smithereens and the Iron Throne likely buried under rubble.
Interesting.
2
@Chickpea
Westeros is a continent of 7 kingdoms - King's Landing, (what's left of it) is one city.
Plenty of places to prop up a throne, even a new one, which like the old can be forged by dragon fire.
I think Dany - if she was to have her choice long enough - would prefer Dragonstone anyway - ah - some nice isolation which she worked so hard for in the end!
2
I thought it was an excellent episode. Just as many great painters resort to shorthand, simplistic yet beautiful paintings in their later years, the GOT creators did the same thing as they knew their time was running out.
Here's my prediction for the ending. There are 1098 comments ahead of mine so I apologize if someone has already written this. The Iron Throne itself will have been symbolically destroyed in the Red Keep destruction. Dany will assume the role of Queen but will be hated and the populace will want Jon Snow as King. He will refuse. Arya will kill Dany. Jon Snow will assume King and just as quickly declare every man, woman and child a free person in the Seven Kingdoms with no overall King. The Seven Kingdoms will continue to be governed by their families. The very last scene will be Jon Snow riding Drogon off into the distance (perhaps to the North to continue his committed duties rebuilding the Wall and guarding the Realm).
5
@Brainfelt I like your predictions. I too considered that Arya might go after Dany but she apparently had an epiphany about revenge via The Hound convincing her not to kill Cersei and to "go home". So is she changed a woman or was that a temporary lapse for her?
2
@Brainfelt Sounds like a plan. (Except since the Night King is gone now, there's no reason for Jon Snow to rebuild the wall.)
1
@GJR It won't be revenge for Arya, it will be her Sansa's plan to save the Realm from Dany and install Jon as King.
This episode left me disturbed and frustrated.
My interpretation is that Dany's father the "Mad King" was mentally ill and that she too suffers from mental illness and therefore went all "Mad Queen" but I'm having trouble buying it. It's illogical that she would decimate the city, killing innocents by the hundreds (thousands?) but would not make no effort to go after Cersai - with whom she has both a personal and professional grudge.
Likewise, Greyworm's misdirected anger seems illogical - even in the face of enormous grief, wouldn't he still be a decent person?
Jon Snow seems almost completely impotent - I know he's tired, but come on.
Tyrion is trying, but nobody will work with the guy, except maybe Varys, for whom I wished he'd advocated rather than standing by as he was killed.
The biggest slap in the face to viewers - nevermind Sir Brienne - was Jaime's end. Allowing Euron to demean him was pathetic and pointless; why was Euron even in the show? His presence had no impact and I hate that he stole screen time from characters who deserved it more! And I can accept that Jaime and Cersai got together, but I could fan fiction end for them over lunch.
This episode beautifully presented in many ways, (the DP made up for the awful lighting in the Battle for Winterfell).
My favorite moments were all Arya - she conjured Marcy Borders and her goodbye to Sandor brought me to tears, and the last scene of this episode was the best 60 seconds of the season.
8
@KP I agree. this episode did a disservice to those fans who were encouraged to root for Dany. Some mention that there were signs all along but did she do anything different than male rulers would do or have done? This episode was a slap in the face to those of us who thought Dany and Jon would rule on equal ground.
As for Jamie, do you mean to tell me he was becoming a reformed character, found a potential new love in Brienner learned his sister sent someone to kill him and Tyrion during the last episode and then decided to go back to his sister to try to save her and die at her side?
2
The money seems to be on Dany's demise, but what about Drogon, he or she isn't going to stand idly by. Could Drogon be a she with dragon eggs in the future ?
5
@Robert Haberman I hope so! That's been my wish for a while now...that at least one of the three dragons is/was female and has layed eggs somewhere in the seven kingdoms.
1
Will Arya become "the Queenslayer" making way for Jon to take the Iron Throne?
4
In the last struggle, Jon will call the dragon and the dragon will come to him, Dany will go up in smoke and there'll be no doubt as to who will sit on the Iron Throne.
5
@Mr. Marty 'Fire cannot kill a dragon."
I don’t know much about dragon biology, but can they really fly around blowing out all that fire for that long? I mean, don’t they have to replenish their, um, fiery fuel resources every so often?
7
@Joan S
Apparently so. Smaug had a good go in Esgaroth too.
Where's Bard when we need him?
"The dragon destroyed the town with fire and brute force, killing a quarter of the population. Further loss was only prevented when Bard the Bowman slew the dragon."
Is it just me or The Mountain resembles Varys?
13
Not really, Varys looks like a small pile of ashes.
Say what you want about the decisions the writers made, as visually I don't think it could have been a better episode. Otherwise we would forever be asking, "Could you imagine how crazy it would have been if Danerys just went nuts and burned the whole city on dragon back?" If you're going to show us incredible CGI dragons, you better show us how terrible they can be.
9
Spot the Freshman Lit and pop culture lifts! Cersei and Jaime caught up in their "Fall of the House of Usher." The Mountain and the Hound duking it out like "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man."
Clearly, GRRM gobbled up and then regurgitated lots of what he read to produce this World of Fire and Ice on the printed page. (Leaving it undone to this point, arguably, put the showrunners in a predictably bad spot.) But the difference between him and David Benioff and David Weiss is the depth (or even the "obscurity" of the source material) and the execution of these tropes and ideas.
One wishes that those two resigned as showrunners (or, at least, as writers) after Season Six, because now, in retrospect, it is beyond evident that they became too tired to think straight. It is not uncommon, especially in serialized television (or fiction, even in comics)that the project becomes too cumbersome and the creator's eyes come off the ball, as it were, and one person (or even two) can no longer do justice to the creation as it has taken on a life of its own. One can read Dany's Dragonfire fury overkill at King's Landing as less of a metaphor for nuclear destruction in a big picture "meta" way and more as the Benioff/Weiss team's small-time "meta" losing their way.
The show is a pop culture phenomenon for sure, the kind of which a thousand graduate theses will be written about.
1
Spectacle over story. Like episode 3 (S8). Not interesting.
6
Fatuous coverage of 'Game of Thrones' by the NYTimes has reached the saturation point.
I just hope the trend does not continue. Those who wish to chat about a media production, in an appropriate venue, are free to do so. The NYTimes does not need to involve itself in such discussion.
3
@Uncoverage so, why not just turn the page & read something else? Nobody is forcing you to be here.
6
Dany has to do it....even as a viewer, after the bells rang, I kept waiting for another Cersi trick. Dany couldn't chance it. She had to establish her might....you know..as others have said.....like the U.S. did at the end if WWII....we had that war won....but we didn't chance it..and it was revenge for Pearl Harbor.....right?....and the Japanesse were not "Evil" like Cersi. And we did it to two cities..... So was Truman Mad?
7
I do not watch this series but am disturbed that both this newspaper and the WP constantly include these articles in with the real news of the day. There is enough blurring of the real and the fake news as it is, don't you think?
5
"The North", home of the Wildlings, was the only sort-of democracy in this whole saga. The North, where there is no king. I'd vote for Jon and Brienne to head out for the land beyond the Wall if they're not slaughtered in the last episode. Jon to join his Wildling brothers and Ghost; Brienne to join the man who really loved and respected her all along, Tormund Giantsbane. As for the Starks ... Sansa can be cold and a bit heartless but she seems like she'd be a fair ruler and dedicated to her people. Arya is a more difficult prediction to make but I'd have to agree with another post that she uses Greyworm's face to get to Dany. She used a double-ended pike in the Battle of Winterfell and Greyworm used a double-ended pike in the Battle of King's Landing, so their killing styles and weapons are the same and Dani wouldn't be suspicious. Just musing....
3
It's sexist that Dany is a human with power lust, flaws, etc etc?
Geeeeee get over it.
Let's see what happens with Arya, the true hero of this thing ..
2
I agree this season has been needlessly rushed, with clunky plot resolutions shoehorned in left and right. (Seems like if you have established a kazillion-dollar tv franchise, you don't need to skimp at the end - maybe another couple of episodes to let things unfold a little more elegantly? As it was the more contemplative moments felt forced or pro forma, especially the first two episodes...)
That said, I thought episodes 4 and 5 were pretty darn good. And yeah, is Arya going to go up against Dany? And will she win, or lose? Seems like someone more pivotal than Varys needs to sacrifice themselves in order to shock Team Dragon out of its march towards tyranny...
1
There is no more Iron Throne. It’s buried beneath a mountain of crazy dreams.
1
When you learn to write fiction, you learn quickly that writing the destination is often more difficult than the journey. That's why were are often soured on endings of fictional books and dramas, especially when they have thrilling plots and subplots. Donna Tartt's tortured ending for The Goldfinch is a good recent example.
So, it isn't surprising the neither Martin nor the show runners Benioff and Weiss couldn't come up with some plot twists that satisfied all fans in the final episodes, (although there is still next week) But the journey is still thrilling. Great acting, cinematography, music, CGI, etc.
3
Dany was not going to be fooled twice.
She gave Cersei a chance in episode 4 and what did she get in return? A dead dragon and a beheaded, beloved advisor.
Cersei made no provisions nor safe haven for her citizens; by contrast, Cersei used them for fodder.
When the bells rang, I think we saw dread and remorse on Dany’s face because she knew those bells were ringing to fool her; it was the last time we saw her face - as there were no close-ups of her enjoying this nor gnashing her teeth after that scene.
Dragons also become harder to control the older they get. How much of this was Drogon being Drogon? We don’t know.
Drogon has lost two brothers, too! He’s not playing!
Remember, King’s Landing people sat around while humanity was being threatened by the Night King. That’s not very nice, especially when they said they were going to help.
Yes, Dany made choices. Others did, too.
As an aside, I am looking forward to Elizabeth Warren walking back her recent, campaign-trail pro-Dany statements.
6
Personally I'd be happy if the show ended with last night's episode. The hamfisted development of Dany as a poor leader and now an insane one is complete, but at least we got to see a woman doing what men have done since time immemorial - ruthlessly punishing her enemies and giving no mercy. We all now know Jon will ascend the iron throne and the other only remaining question seems to be how will Dany bite it in the end. But for me, I'd like to remember it as it ended last night.
1
If you recall the scene ls with Arya running from the carnage and the Cleganebowl featured several cross cuts. I think you now see Arya "becoming" the Hound. She too, will be a mercenary or free agent, well aware that all rulers are "killers" and nothing more.
As for Melissandre's prophesy about "closing eyes" of all those colors, well, let's not forget that Melissandre us wrong, or incomplete, all the time.
4
Was there an expectation that any of these flawed characters would behave any differently? I guess so.
Sure, the series has had more than its share of startling plot twists resulting from the interactions of complex multi-dimensional characters. But even with the foreshadowing, Dany's transformation from flawed liberator to irredeemable mass-murderer isn't multi-dimensionality, it's a betrayal of her character by heavy-handed writers.
7
I thought it was a magnificent episode... but it was simultaneously rather dissatisfying. Dany's descent has been telegraphed, I know... but it somehow still feels too fast. I think I needed several more episodes to make it completely plausible for me. I found Jaime's reversion to form frustrating. I feel kinda cheated by Cersei's demise... but then again, I'm also sort of okay with how miserable, sniveling and ignominious it was. Maybe she doesn't deserve the chance to have a heroic death. (I half expect her hand to suddenly appear next week, reaching up through the rubble as she claws her way to freedom.) I am so very happy Drogon lived. I've reached the point where the CGI dragon plucks my heartstrings more than any of the characters.
12
If Dany's transformation into the Mad Queen follows naturally from her actions during the past 8 seasons, then it makes absolutely no sense that Tyrion, that Varys, that Jorah, that Missandei, that Jon, and so many others we respected, didn't see it coming until the 11th hour.
16
To whom was Varys writing the note? I was sad to see him go, and I was angry with Jon and Tyrion for standing by letting it happen. Weak Men - reminds me of the GOP.
12
@Lauren Cleaver Yes: I keep wondering, who is left out there?!
@Lauren Cleaver
something to do with the little girl
How do I think the series will end? Winter will be over.
4
@Robin
How do I think the series will end?
With the credit.
:-)
1
We met Dany and Arya as powerless girls whose fates seemed controlled by those around them. They rose to become strong independent women, fueled by their need for revenge: Arya on those who had harmed her family; Dany on those who wielded their power through using the powerless. They both demonstrated a capacity for ruthlessness that could take our breath away and yet we saw their goodness. And they both came to a moment of decision: how would they wield the power they had attained; in the critical moment would they choose the vengeance they had sought. Aya chose to let it go and to walk away. Dany chose vengeance and became the very thing she had risen against. Aya walked among the victims and tried to save them. Dany flew high above them their victimizer. Either could have chosen either way. Such is the difference between them in the choice each made.
17
I read the books: in the end Varys brings on Gendry who is the legitimate king: thus perpetuating the inevitability of birthright.
And that's the end.
Every one else presumably settles down like Voltaire to tend their own gardens.
George RR Martin was much better at starting a story than ending it. He just couldn't seem to actually bring anything to a conclusion. Thus the confusion in GOT the movie.
3
@memosyne There are 2 books left in the series so GRRM has not ended the story yet.
3
We can’t all be pleased by the directions of the script vis a vis characters etc.,. but it has been a fun ride nevertheless. A brilliant cinematic achievement.
I’m hoping Arya takes down Dany as she did the Night King. Only this time with perhaps a stunned and delirious look as Dany sees the face of Missandei only to discover (too late of course)that it is Arya. And John Snow the presumptive heir to the thrown rides into Winterfell and shocks us all by bending the knee and declaring Sansa the Queen of the 7 Kingdoms. After all he never wanted it.
13
I've seen a lot of people wondering about Varys removing his rings. I figured he did it because he didn't want them to melt to his fingers. Not entirely rational, but it seems like the kind of panicked thing someone who is about to be roasted might do.
6
@Thad
Rings you wear all the time are just so integral to the person you are and the person you present to the world. Taking them off, for the last time, is surrendering to mortality.
10
Agreed that Daenery’s scorching innocents is a major stretch for her character. It would have been much more believable that she channeled her anger on the Red Keep and left the rest of the city alone once the bells rang surrender. We’re supposed to buy that a few scenes of her alone in her chambers, lamenting Jon’s news and his growing popularity, would cause such a radical change in her? After everything else she’s endured? Hardly.
17
I haven't read through the nearly 1,000 comments and apologize if someone else has already mentioned this: In the shot (from Dany's POV) of the Red Keep just before she decides to lay waste to the entire city, we see birds flying past the towers. My guess is that these are ravens bearing Varys's message to points near and far that Jon is the true heir to the Iron Throne and that Dany somehow senses this. And this might well figure in her decision to play the death-and-destruction card. As she told Jon, she will use fear if that's the only way she can hold the throne.
21
That’s very insightful. Let’s hope so for the sake of this last episode being worth anything.
8
@G. Adair
Ooooooh…..that's a fascinating idea…….
…..I noticed the ravens too.
1
I want to find out that tormond was the father of cersi’s unborn child. He borrowed a dragon at winter fell and we’ll, flew to Westeros and wowed cersi into a romantic romp on a dragon. Little known story left out of the series
1
It was pathetic, grievously implausible, and a stunning disappointment.
After a stunning world building, and meticulous story arcs, the writers decided to close shop and move on. It wasn’t HBO’s idea. They wanted out so badly, they couldn’t even give viewers a full ten show season.
They sped up critical stories and plots, taking an episode or two to close out complex, world changing crisis points that have built since the beginning. Worse, they changed key characters entire personalities, ultimately destroying the credibility of the entire series.
Who would believe the story of “The Mother Of Dragons” now? Everything we ever thought we knew about her character and morality was wiped out in one show? Would Frodo have been as memorable and lovable if he had returned to the Shire and suddenly become a mad, rampaging axe murderer?
A lot of true leaked info on the final season has come out. It indicates that Bran will ultimately be King.
Seriously? A minor character who is unable to walk (a huge issue in medieval type societies) who had a completely different, minor plot line, and no experience as a leader, administrator, or any struggle for the throne will be planted there - and the curtain brought down unceremoniously? You gotta be kidding!
When the author of an epic can’t complete his works on time. It becomes the brain child of writers, who apparently also can’t be bothered to properly finish their work.
The whole thing is a sham. Fans deserved far better!
30
I seem to be the only person who watched last night's episode and thought that Dany didn't have any choice but to burn the city down. She didn't have a good enough army to take down Cerise's forces. She is down to one dragon and can't risk getting it killed. The bells of surrender don't mean anything. Dany doesn't know what all is in that city, armed guerrillas ready to take her down? I don't think just killing Cerise would have guaranteed her victory and the war just needed to be over. I also take umbrage with the comments about how blood thirsty and ruthless she is. Like almost all the characters on this show she is multifaceted. I appreciate her ambition and I think her character would be viewed very differently if she were a man. If she gets killed in the last episode instead of taking the iron throne I am going to spit.
15
@HeatherD prepare to expectorate. Dany is going to die. Just as it was her destiny to become like her father, The Mad King, it's her destiny to die.
2
GOT takes the saying "revenge is a dish best served cold" and turns it into "revenge is a dish best served burning hot".
3
I'm thinking--what exactly did Dany go through that is not only comparable to if not less than what Sansa went through? I see parallels with both characters. Sansa, though, seems to have her mental faculties about her. Are the Targaryens just prone to mental breakdowns?
10
Did Dany go mad or did she simply take her ball and go home? Torched everything she could, out of spite?:(
The populace of King's Landing -- those who managed to escape being burned or gravely injured? Let's say there are more than a few of them. Very likely they will riot or turn on each other -- there is nothing. No potable water, no maesters, nobody to keep law and order, no food. It's anarchy and everyone for himself.:(
2
Dany will be killed by Arya. Leaving Jon Snow the only one who can ride the dragon. He will fly north joining the wildling. The show hinted he does not want the throne multiple times and at the end, he is a Targareyan, the show just cannot end with a descendant of mad king in throne. He realized dragon is too much power that will ultimately bring disaster just like nuclear bomb.
Iron throne will be burnt to avoid mad king/queen in the future. They will create consortium of some sorts between all leading families, Sansa, Bran, Tyrion, Gendry can possibly lead.
6
@aong cangkol Not Gendry.
Dany killed the innocents because she was angry that they had not risen against Cersei. She was furious that they didn't love her. She's entitled to their love, they owe it her her, it's her birthright. So she punished them. It makes sense.
4
She is the messiah, after all
It did occur to me while watching Daenerys torch the city that it would have been convenient if she tragically and (of course) unintentionally took out a couple of Starks, especially her rival/nephew/erstwhile lover, Jon.
Still not sure if Daenerys is the queen Arya is meant to kill.
2
Gendry Baratheon will be the one to sit on the Iron Throne. Mark my words. Dany and Jon will kill each other. The last dragon will die and the entire table will effectively be reset to the place it all began before Ned Stark lost his head.
3
Am I the only one who thought some of the CGI looked really terrible?
1
I've thought that all season: while extravagant and exciting, much seems hurried, including the CGI. For example, I actually LOLed at the shots of Dany on dragonback in close-up surveying the Red Keep. It looked exactly like a scene from bad anime. GoT has "jumped the dragon."
A lot about this season screams "hurry up! only 6 episodes left to tie up a decade of mysteries." Which is too bad because seasons 1-6 (and maybe 7) were some of the best TV has to offer.
“Dracarys!” Missandei said with her final breaths, a stirring call to arms that, in the context, translates essentially into “Burn them all!” .....in her lonely paranoia, Danny honored Missandei's last wish.
The transformation of the Dragon Queen feels forced but I've loved the show nonetheless and look forward to Sansa as Queen(?)
4
I enjoyed the article and the comments. It's been a long time since I've read internet comments that weren't just a race to shouting and trolling.
The show has been a lot of fun to watch, and I credit the writers and cast with doing a great job to sustain such a massive creative effort. I haven't liked this season very much. I've been losing interest for a few seasons probably.
As the writers have pointed out, it's impossible to make everyone happy. The characters, their arcs, their decisions, etc. just haven't clicked with me for a while.
2
To anyone surprised that Dany finally became the Mad Queen the show has been hinting at for 7 years- wake up
4
Dany's madness... and all the needless death... so sad!
Just when I am starting to think that the show is losing some of its sophistication of plot, this darkness comes.
Poor Jon!
The Mystery: We saw Varys writing a letter, I'm sure of great importance and secrecy, two times in this episode. In the second scene he burns it a little bit and then puts it in a covered pot that would smother the fire and leave remnants of what was written. I'm guessing he meant that one to be found and looking as if it were never sent. But what about the 1st scene when he was writing? I am sure that message became his last whisper and will successfully arrive at its destination through a little bird (Crow). I'm pretty positive, whatever it was, will give him the last laugh, and play out in a crucial and very controversial grand finale.
As for Dany, I believe she will be confronted by Arya. Arya will get to wound the now mad queen but not fatally. In turn Dany will find a way to get Drogon to try and incinerate Arya. But before the fatal breath command is given, Jon Snow will intervene and put himself between Drogon (with Dany upon him) and Arya. Dany will pause but her madness has now become the wheel, and she will command the dragon to kill Arya and Jon. Either Drogon will defy her command (Jon being a true Targarian), or fire will be wrought onto them both. It kills Arya but Snow will be unscathed by the dragon fire, just as Daenerys survived the fire when her dragons were born. Then Jon, Shocked, yet full of rage because of Arya's death, along with knowing Dany wanted him dead too, takes his Valerian sword, and against his heart he beheads his love, The Mad Queen! #???
4
I recall a masked woman saying something about a pale horse being followed by death. Arya is riding a pale horse and I think she is going to kill Dany.
4
RIP the Hound
You put up a good fight
Dany is evil now
Sansa is coming
1
i did not understand why Dany did not take her dragon out at night and burn down greyjoy armada and the kings landing castle with Cersei in it as a night raid. it would have been safer for her dragon and saved her troops.
3
Male or female, everybody has a rough day once in a while.
Daenerys let her emotions get the better of her and she wiped out the population that supported Cersei along with Cersei herself.
Daenery's revenge. Does this behavior remind you anyone in contemporary American politics?
Such an heroic effort to save human civilization from the White Walkers, only to have the seat of this human civilization—Kings Landing—destroyed in this episode.
I agree that “The Bells” rung an anti-war theme in horrifying detail, that another theme struck by the series has been the futility of revenge, however, I see lurking in the background yet another sweeping theme, “What makes us human and what constitutes our civilization?” That is, which of the many types of societies proffered by GoT (the old gods, the new, the children of the forest, the 7, the outlying free and slave kingdoms) can be sustained?
2
I find the comments that somehow GoT slighted female characters quite disturbing.
The notion that Dany all of a sudden became evil or mad is ridiculous. First, being mad is in her genes. Second, more than once she’s shown lack of mercy. You are either with her or you are literally human toast.
As a woman, I have no issues with her character development. In light of me too and times up, especially!
Human weaknesses do not discriminate- thirst for power, evil and lack of morality are all traits that BOTH sexes can embody!
445
@K Hoffman:Most GoT women were driven by desire, desperation, murderous rage & hunger for power. Their 'maternal' instincts were either perverse or perverted by circumstance.
Why would Dany choose to incinerate civilians? Is the concept of rageful madness, vengence or dragon tantrum psychologically coherent?
It does seem Weiss&Beniof & Martin have a skewed sense of women. Only Sansa- a victim left cool & tight-has been granted a soulful reflective capacity, intelligence and calm.
20
@Sara Seriously? The male characters were all driven by the same motivations.
Plenty of males in this narrative were presented in a similar light, albeit sans dragons.
Looking through a narrow lens or only seeing what you want to see will result in a skewed sense of women.
I see the author and writers being equal opportunists in this regard.
32
@K Hoffman
Excellent comment.
But the narrative one simply MUST hew to is:
that the show, and particularly those nasty man producers, don't respect women, are misogynists, of little imagination, and just another example of the patriarchy.
Do keep up ...!)
6
Here's my final episode: Arya is heading back to Winterfell to recoup. She'll be going back to the now decimated Kings Landing, and will be the one to kill Dany, thus fulfilling Melisandre's prophesy & clearing the way for Aegon Targaryen to take his rightful place on the Iron Throne. Except, we all know that Jon doesn't want the throne. He's going to head back to Castle Black & be reunited with Ghost. Tyrion will head up to Winterfell & will either become the Queen of the North's Hand or her husband/King of the North. The Iron Throne? There will be a Baratheon-Stark alliance when Aegon (Jon) decrees that Gendry & Arya are the rules of the Seven Kingdoms.
Okay here goes my prediction. Tyrion gets torched for letting Jamie L go. Dany gets ready to go North and torch everyone up there too but before leaving John is about to get torched for retreating all his men out of the city and committing “treason” but either the dragon refuses to vaporize a true Targaryen or like Dany he survives the fire (wish I understood how the Night King survived dragon fire - I was positive there was a Targaryen link). While everyone is confused that John didn’t die in the fire, Arya appears out of nowhere wearing a faceless face and kills Grey Worm and then Dany with her valerian steel dagger. Jon gets to sit on the last remaining dragon and the throne (what is left of it) with his sister king of the north.
4
Dany must die, like her mad father. Arya is going to do it.
3
Count me among those who disliked not only the latest episode, but the last two seasons. One of many reasons I've watched and enjoyed Game of Thrones is for the characters and how they've developed. But when all characters revert back to their season 1 form or otherwise become totally unrecognizable, I lose interest. I didn't care who won the Clegane bowl of the battle of Cersei's lovers. Actually found the latter amusing in much the same way I find WWE matches amusing.
So what are we supposed to take away from this episode? War is hell? Hell, had I known that was the message, I would have instead rewatched all 10 episodes of HBO's miniseries "The Pacific."
7
Hell hath no fury like a women (with a dragon) scorned. Now a list of who dies and on to episode 6....meh
2
Well that was a weenie roast in a hell basket that didn’t have to happen after the Red Keep laid down their arms and surrender.
As a viewer, you could see Dany was slowly going mad in episode four with all the hardship and grief she was experiencing. She finally snapped after Jon had refused her romantic advances the night before, thus the famous line “Let it be fear”. It was brilliant strategy when she flew in with lightning speed on Drogon, using the blinding sunlight as cover to destroy the Scorpions and the Iron Fleet. Then when the opportunity of vengeance presented itself, She destroyed King’s Landing. Excellent visuals from the air and on the ground from Arya’s perspective.
I assume there will be hell to pay for Daenerys Targaryen in the series finale.
Did anyone noticed that when Drogon breached the wall, there was a quick shot of a white horse knocked unconscious. I believe this is the horse that appeared for a shaken Arya to befriend and ride to safety beyond all the ruins in the final scene.
The greatest scene in this episode among many, was the anticipated Clegane brawl with the Hound taking Greagor on a free fall to the basement minus the stairs into a fiery flame of glory. Lets face it, Big Bro just wouldn’t die. Even a dagger to the face couldn’t accomplish the dirty deed.
I’ll stand by my prediction that in the end, it will be the beautiful Sansa Stark who will emerge as Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.
What a ride “Game Of Thrones”.
Thank you!
2
What I found most distressing about the story arc in this episode is the implication that after all that the strong females in this show have endured and accomplished, it might end up with men ruling after all. I was hoping for more, and really disappointed that the Mother of Dragons resorted to such horror. Nevertheless, I'm still rooting for Sansa to come through somehow as the real queen of them all.
2
The Mother of Dragons was always destined for such horror. It took too long, I think, for her to make that final descent into madness. As for females ruling, my money is on Arya. She's coming back & will kill Dany, leaving the throne open for the "true heir", Aegon/Jon. A/J doesn't want it and will seat Arya.
@Katrink
Call me crazy, or overly romantic, but I think Arya is going to end up married to her lover, the illegitimate son of the last legitimate king, Robert Barentheon, and she's going to be the one who really rules things. I think that's why they put her through that hellish burning of the city. She's going to come out resolved, changed. We'll see...
5
Question: Who rang the bells? I thought Jaimie's instructions were to do this AFTER he connected with Cersei and convinced her to flee rather than fight--the bells would be a signal to Dani that there was no need for a war. I don't recall at what point the bells rang, but from the time Jaime found Cersei there was no time for him (or her) to do that.
Comment: I generally agree with folks saying that the show illustrated that revenge as a motivation (even "the first shall be last, the last shall be first") cannot lead to uprooting the sources of oppression, and violence to enforce that. But I think there was too much inconsistency in Dani's character development. Yes, there was the messianic aspect all the way through. But after leading the slaves to revolt, Dani did wrestle deeply with the responsibility of leadership--how do you lead a society after such a revolt, which requires finding a way to bring at least a section of the overthrown slaveowners into supporting, or at least going along with the new society, vs. just slaughtering them all or putting them in chains. I didn't particularly agree with how she handled that, but the point is, she was approaching the problem from the standpoint of the broader interests of the people and not just her own--or the former slaves--"gratification" through revenge. So from there it is an unexplained leap to trying to rule through sheer terror. It didn't fully make sense, even with all the trauma she had gone through.
8
For me the hardest loss (although, as you wrote, you could see
it coming) was that of the loss of Khaleesi's goodness and completely going to the "dark side"... It would have made more sense (like several scenarios in this series) for a night attack with the dragon - an area night bombing so to speak. 'Wouldn't have to worry about scorpions then. And Dany would have an excuse for doing "a little" too much damage. Visually I suppose it would have been too much like the Winterfell battle... I guess Jon "the good" is destined for the throne. Or will it be Sansa? Is Arya really convinced of the futility of revenge, or is she going to apply her skills to the new mad tyrant?
3
Finally, Arya has achieved self-actualization, becoming the character whose story arc had been openly advertised from around the time of the pilot episode. The first book is called ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’, after all.
There’s something fairly impressive about how quickly the writers were able to turn Khaleesi into the single most loathsome character in all Westeros, while simultaneously conjuring a very strange sympathy for “Sandol,” and burning other characters entirely, like they had been extras all along.
2
I have a real problem with the writing this season, as does everyone, but what I also take issue with is Dany's arc, and the way in which this has become a stereotypical "hysterical" woman with too much power. It reminds me of the classic tropes of women in opera - Carmen, Tosca. 'Game of Thrones' had a unique opportunity to re-write a trope, and has failed. I'm not sure what I was expecting from a male author and male screenwriters. Something more creative?
4
If you follow Dany's story from the beginning, her destiny has been written. She is descended from The Mad King. Madness runs in the Targaryen bloodline. Signs of her madness were there all along. She didn't "become" a stereotype. She's always been standing at the brink, with each loss in her life pushing her further the edge. Like other characters, her desire for revenge has been her driving force. Missandei's death & Jon/Aegon's spurning were the catalysts for her final descent into her destiny. Maybe if I were a feminist, I'd see it differently but, I'm not a feminist. I also don't parse storylines based upon gender.
3
They wasted all of their budget on two giant battles, when they could have simply written more episodes and given us a better narrative that would have allowed the audience to accept and understand the various character arcs. They could've spent more time on Dany breaking down, more time on the changing nature of the relationship between Jon and Dany, more time on strategizing, perhaps plotting a mission to rescue Missandei, and negotiations. Some of the best characters had nothing to do or say throughout the last few episodes. But the fact that they chose to depict what happens to ordinary people when the powers that be decide to go to war instead was interesting. Focusing close-up on the devastating effects of war on the people who have no power was certainly a strong way of stating that it doesn't matter in the long run who rules, because everyone who lusts for power ultimately winds up a murderer, no matter if they began their quest with good intentions. One of the reasons Jon doesn't want to rule is because he doesn't want to have to exercise that power over life and death. But the show didn't delve into this, or explore the issues and responsibilities of power after it parted ways with the books. What made GoT so fascinating originally was its examinations of the machinations of power and the motivations of those who want it. Now we just get the special effects, without the substance to make them meaningful.
13
While this season has not been the series' best, and the characters' behaviors/dialogue has not always risen to what we have come to expect from GOT, I found episode 5 to be riveting and emotional. I was so touched by Tyrion and Jaime's last scene, as well as Arya and the Hound's last exchange. Those were perfect.
9
Loved this episode! Arya on the white horse image at the end of the total destruction of the town is brilliant... "Yin" to Dany's "Yang." Evocative images of the Twin Towers falling and Vietnam bombings.. brilliant cinematography and score. Kudos to all!
9
Here's my prediction. Daenerys is killed with Tyrion being the most likely one to carry out the deed. Jon is recognized as the rightful king, but he doesn't want it and hands it over to Sansa. Sansa, after all, it clearly the most clear headed thinker and leader of the bunch. She makes Arya her hand and then all is right with the world and the Seven Kingdoms.
11
The crown turning for Jon probably comes when Dany torches him for some reason in public and Jon, a true Targaryen, survives. The Dothraki - who only fell for Dany after she survived fire - naturally will prefer to support a man. Veris probably got a note off to Dorne - he reported they were on board an episode or two ago - who will also team up with the Dothraki and Northern armies to support Jon against the Unsullied. Show ends w Dany escaping back to the less significant world where she is loved with the remaining Unsullied.
1
@ADP
Jon got his hand burnt by a lantern in season 1 - like his uncle, he may be half a Targeryen, but he's no dragon. He is also seen as a traitor, so...
All hail King Gendry - legitimized by clever Dany - and his queen Arya (re-deux). Sansa can be Wardness of the North.
3
@ADP Or it's the Northern Army and Dornish, etc., vs the Unsullied, Dragon and Dothraki. Then, good guys are losing until Jon gets torched and lives. The Dothraki change sides, and Dany flies away for good while crying her eyes out.
I'm pretty certain that we are getting the ending that George R.R. Martin intended. HBO had liberties with many of the characters, but as the author of the book series, the ending always belonged to him, even if he didn't finish the books.
4
I am messed up because I actually cried for Cersei and Jaime?
6
@MHB
no! mee too
1
That’s what makes this show so good
2
@MHB Yes (probably, or maybe not)
I guess for me, I'm not surprised Dany burned the city to the ground, citizens and all. She made a point earlier in the episode that the previous slaves she had freed rose up against their masters. No one in Kings Landing EVER rose up against those who overthrew her father. No one in Kings Landing was waiting for the return of the Targaryens. They all happily existed under the Baratheons and the Lannisters. Maybe that makes them complicit and undeserving of her mercy.
6
Great recap, Jeremy. And great teaser questions/thoughts at the end. Akin to what you said, I found the episode riveting, horrifying, unbelievable, astonishing, and maddening. I'm still trying to process it all. Overall, I came away exhausted, heart wrenched (the human carnage was a bit too much), and uncertain if I'm unsatisfied with how things unfolded or just having a hard time accepting in the choices for realism and stretched plausibility in what transpired. I have a feeling that the last episode won't relent. Dany would rather scorch Earth and be the mother of a restarted humanity than to be the mature diplomat to do what is right. Snow seems to have been written off... I wanted GoT to at least end on a hopeful note. But it feels like it's going to be a nasty, in-your-face treatise of humanity's worst impulses.
2
I'm hoping that the "happily ever after" will happen. Jon is a lost cause - he's too much like his uncle, Ned Stark. I'm hoping he's able to make it back to Castle Black & doesn't die. However, if he does die, I don't think it will be before Arya has a chance to kill Dany (fulfilling Melisandre's prophesy) and Aegon/Jon is able to seat Gendry & Arya on the Iron Throne. As the true king of the Seven Kingdoms, he has the right to do that. Gendry & Arya are that world's greatest hope for a bright future.
1
My biggest frustration is that HBO has rushed the end of this GREAT story and it is the characters that are getting shorted in all this.
Throneheads, (Did I just make up a new term?) have been super spoiled by HBO with the in-depth storytelling, not normally seen on TV. These last 2.5 seasons have seen the storytelling compacted and the characters, the reason we fell in love with this story, have suffered because of it.
I don't have a problem with the Dany destroying King's Landing, it fits with the overall theme of the novels to date, humanity is not any better than what lies on the other side of the wall. My gripe here is GRRM left the finality of his characters to TV writers who are great when they have the to re-tell the story, but when they have to make up the story based on some notes, they rushed this.
The winner here will be GRRM as he sells more books because Throneheads need to know more about these characters and why they did what they did.
Thanks GRRM for the story and to HBO for taking the time to tell it and honoring the characters, I just wish you would have taken more time in telling it.
11
All my theories for GOT ending were proven wrong last night, but the more I thought about it, the more I saw my theories were fantasies while the writers were using the characters' logic. Jamie was to be reborn through Brienne's love & would only return to Cersei to kill her with his own hands in my world. But he did love Cersei, in an incomprehensible way, his entire life & apparently felt incomplete without her. He wanted to end as he began & always was, with her. Araya, on her way to kill Cersei sees the Mountain & the Hound going at it & pulls out her Gendry made machine, kills the Mountain, & the Hound lives happily ever after in my world. No, logically, the Hound was driven by hate his entire life, he was out to get the Mountain no matter what happened to him;happily ever after for him would have been out of sync with the story, its pure logic. His ability to care for & actually love Araya was the one positive experience of his life & it was not going to get better than that.
Daenarys literally has been fighting her entire life for the throne,but then she's betrayed by Jon, Varys &she's lost all who dearly loved her, Ser Jorah, Missendei, but when she sees the Red Keep the "castle" that her family built &the Lannisters stole, she snaps & wants to erase the Lannisters in every way possible. When I took out my emotions, I saw the logical progression for these characters. Not pretty, not what we wanted, but consistent with the inconsistencies of human nature.
13
What Danny did is an eruption of the mistreatment she received lifetime. She is always the one who offered good gesture in the first place. But what she got in return has disappointed her over and over. The city she saved later rebelled her; she lost half of her army with two dragons, to save all living, only to exchange for betrayal and Sansa’s incomprehensible cold face (Danny is also going to help kill her biggest enemy Cersei who killed her father and mistreated her.).
Fundamentally these are caused by the corruption in the old culture. Imagine what would happen if she became ruler of the Westeros with all those political, self-interested minds around her? Endless scheming and back stabbing as we have seen enough from the very first season. Danny deserve better than these!
She thought these over for a few nights and made a conscious decision that destruction is perhaps the best solution. It is not just Cersei, it is the culture that she wants to replace with something better.
She is not mad, she is the smartest person, who is willing to learn from others, but made resolute decision by herself and executed by herself. What a Queen!
Can you think of any alternative solution?
5
My favorite moment in the entire series, when Khaleesi burns the slave masters in Season 3, is now seen in a totally different light.
4
While many character arcs did not end the way I had hoped (and from what I have been reading many other viewers were also dissatified). I think we have to remind ourselves of the title of the story on which this show is based, A Song of Fire and Ice. That alone tells us it was gonna come down to Dany and Jon. The Stark girls have already said they don't trust Dany and Dany has no love for them. Tyrion has seen enough to end his loyalty to her leaving her with no advisors other than Grey Worm who knows nothing of Westeros. I will not be surprised to see Dany turn her wrath towards the Starks and Winterfell in the last episode.
6
After all this -- Cersei had no Plan B? Our evil genius would just stand there without a single surprise up her sleeve for Danny? Just a little tension that Danny might walk into a trap with all her rage would have gone a long way. Even if a ploy by Cersei failed (especially if it failed), it would have made the episode a lot more exciting. Instead, we're supposed to just roll with the idea that Cersei was completely naive. Blech.
6
The best episode in season 8 so far.
Danny turned into what she exhibited since season 4, and as the Joker said “Madness is like gravity, all it takes is a tiny... PUSH”. Also she has a point. Letting a corrosive society live is likely not to be a good idea for her peace plan. Purging it might just be whats needed. Let’s she if she survives her own purge though.
Aya has been shown that a little faceless girl is helpless in the bigger picture, perhaps teaching her a bit humility.
Bad people have seen their end although not quite as spectacular as expected. But dead is dead...
1
I think Varys' "role" was to show Jon that people are willing to die for him/support him as king. Jon needs that to convince himself to believe he can do it.
I also thought Dany torching King's Landing WAS an attempt to kill Jon and everyone else her paranoid mind has lead her to mistrust.
5
Clearly, this episode now has Brits and Americans questioning the role of their air forces during WWII. Was the Greatest Generation mad when they burned innocents alive in cities like Dresden and Tokyo? If only villains do this sort of thing, then we need to rewrite our history books.
7
@Walter Um...I think you’re overlooking the small fact that King’s Landing had surrendered.
Dany didn't descend into madness. She does not suffer from what her father suffered from.
Rather, this was textbook self-destruction--the stuff of tragedy. Recall Oedipus. After discovering that he is married to his mother, and that he killed his father, he gouges his eyes out and renounces his throne.
Dany has spent her whole life thinking about the iron throne. Since Viserys died, she has thought of herself as the rightful heir to the iron throne. Everything is her life was leading up to taking the iron throne.
Recently, though, she learned that her lover is her nephew and that he has the better claim. Her whole self-conception as the rightful ruler of the seven-kingdoms is gone. Everything she thought she was was a lie.
Then, you also add on top of this the spate of recent deaths she has suffered...
Of course, none of this mentions her history with violence and killing innocents (watch the show again and you can see that killing is hardly out of character for her).
My point is, this was not madness. This was not about wanting to see people die for the sake of it. This was self-destruction, which is a different beast entirely.
15
I didn’t love the turn Dany took here, essentially “the mean girl killed my bff and my boyfriend no longer loves me ‘that way’ so (sniff) ima burn that town DOWN!” If she’d gone straight for Cersei, ok. But I don’t understand the thinking (as such) of demolishing the city and the people. The bloodwork was retro season 1 and muchy. Hound vs Mountain, seriously, why? Did I miss the ep where the Mountain’s superpowers were explained? Jaime’s rival appears on the beach, not a scorch on him? After the breathtaking war against the dead, this was filler mayhem that wasn’t true to the tone of the rest of the show. Disappointing.
3
@shannon Qyburn had experimented on the Mountain and created a new, mutant version. Remember, he says to Cersei something to the effect... he will not be the same when she asked him to save his life.
1. Guess all you people who don’t know how to adjust your TV picture settings were happy it was a daylight massacre.
2. Who ordered the bells to be rung? It wasn’t Mad Queen Cersei. Tyrion? Maybe I missed that part.
3. All those supersized crossbows — was it coffee break time or something?
4. Who knew stone was flammable. The breaching of the gate was quite fantastic, though.
5. Two fights just went on and on: The Kingslayer and Euron (which wasn’t even required) and Cleganebowl, although the final plunge was, uh, nice.
6. Is Cersei really dead? A CSI unit should be dispatched forthwith.
9
I liked Dany’s character arc this episode. It was an excellent deconstruction of the “white savior” trope, which Dany had embodied closely until now. Dany has enjoyed burning people alive and otherwise ruthlessly crushing her enemies since the first season, yet we still regarded her as a hero because her activities occurred in barbaric, non-white Essos. This episode just showed how our view of her changes when she brings those same tactics to Westeros.
5
@Aoy what about the fact that she torched them after they had already surrendered?
So now we know how it'll all end:
Deny gets killed by Jon Snow, maybe with help from Tyrion.
But because Jon doesn't want the throne, and Arya doesn't either, it'll be Sansa who ends up there.
5
@DD agree with you on all points except I think it will be Arya who kills Dany.
@NYC woman
You might be right. Jon Snow sometimes can't do what has to be done without a lot of Hamlet-like angst.
Arya is far more direct!
What feels most forced about this season is the amount of "there and back again"-ing characters are doing for a minimal payoff in character development. Jamie heads to Winterfell to fight alongside Brienne, unconvincingly break her heart, and ride back again, just to die in Cersei's arms. (And must I mention it takes weeks or months to ride the King's Road, yet somehow we are expected to believe Jamie impregnated Cersei, went to Winterfell sometime later, fought, and returned, and she's STILL not showing??) Arya rides all the way from Winterfell to King's Landing and into the Red Keep before the Hound sends her back, newly determined to live, just so that we can follow her out through the burning streets. I think that the producers know that we aren't going to get a narrative payoff that feels satisfying so instead they are going to great lengths to give us as many small-scale personal payoffs as they can jam into 6 episodes to try to eke out some level of satisfaction for we devoted viewers.
2
Human History 101:
You take away the love, and what have you got left?
How could anyone be surprised?
We never learn from the past. Never.
3
The senseless genocide of mowing down innocent people like they weren't people almost got monotonous, we got used to the backdrop of horror. War reveals the worst in us all. I didn't like the episode, but it's antiwar message could not have been clearer.
2
You’re absolutely right. GRRM was a conscientious objector to Vietnam War. He loathes war and wants to show us its meaning in a personal level. Hence the death of so many beloved characters.
1
All the plot laziness and rushed story line aside, I was struck by the historic parallel rendered as the city was burning and snowflakes of ash were falling. During WW2 the United States had mostly gained the upper hand against the Japanese Empire, but decided anyway to burn cities to the ground with nuclear weapons. They chose fear. And then became a world superpower. Who knows what this historical parallel means for Dany next week.
On a technical note, I keep wondering... how much fire can a dragon spew before it runs out of gas? Doesn't it have to take 5 in the break room and eat a few goats before going on another sweep across the city? Maybe that Starbucks cup was a double espresso for Drogon to keep him going through the incineration of Kings Landing.
8
@Stefanie I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a KC-135 tanker circling King’s Landing out of view.
I find it strange that so many viewers found Dany to be betrayed by this season and this episode in particular. The writers have been signalling her cruelty from season 1, when she first watched calmly as her brother was cruelly killed by Drogo and then later when she burned the witch who killed her baby. These events might have seemed justifiable at the time, because the victims were themselves really bad people, but in reality a fundamentally decent person (ie Jon or Ned?) would not have acted this way. Moving on to the following seasons, she progressively and consistently displayed no mercy and an absolute rigidity when it comes to HER idea of justice. I recall when she beheaded the killer of a Son of Harpy in Meereen, how the people who she had just freed hissed her. I personally found her increasingly creepy and disturbing the more she used her messianic, my-destiny-is-to-rule-and bring-order-to-the galaxy voice and demeanour. Isn't this exactly what so many dictators profess, that they will be the bringers of peace and justice, as long as its on their own exact terms? Her arc has neither surprised nor disappointed me, and I am glad that the creators chose this instead of some bland, Daenerys the saviour ending. They did an excellent job of showing how incredible evil can often start in subtle and creeping ways.
12
After the conflagration, does the iron throne even exist-- literally but perhaps metaphorically as well?
4
The last couple of episodes were basically a long, dark ,expensive version of the children song Ten Little Indians.
The only surprise left is who will be the last star to take the final curtain call.
Well, if I had a dragon and were so outrageously passed off , I probably would have done the same thing
5
Power makes anyone mad, even someone who fought so hard against it.
A Song of Ice and Fire - well now we know the Fire part of the song.
1
Dani breaking mad is a sign that reconstruction will not happen after emancipation. The European Dark Ages will take over with more misery, famine, slavery, and tyranny. The story ends in a whimper. No great ideas will emerge for a millennium. Like Brexit but without electricity. Who cares who wins the Iron Throne which symbolizes swords conquering all lands? None of them are better than whoever ruled before. A very sad saga where nothing seems to be better than it was when it started.
I may have missed something but this is what I don’t understand. Jamie is on land running around trying to get in to see Cersi but then all of a sudden he is on a beach near a boat. What was he doing there? How did he get there? Then Euron appears and they have that ridiculous sword fight.
4
@Lady Parasol He walked over the shore side of King's Landing ... you're right, it should probably have taken a lot longer.
I told my wife a few weeks ago that this would happen. Danny had a line a few episodes back that was something like "my destiny is to rid the world of tyrants". This was a shift from what had until then been her destiny: to sit on the iron throne.
She knew, at the moment that Jon was getting high-fives from his buds after the battle of winterfell, that she would never be able to effectively rule the way he would. She also knew deep down that she was a tyrant. She's given up. She knows she won't be the one sitting at the end. So, she did what she needed to do: burn everything as a tyrant would, and she will get dispatched in the final episode. She will let herself go (or get taken out by Arya) to finish ridding the world of tyrants.
Sure, Jon keeps saying he doesn't want it...blah blah blah. Tough luck. He'll be a reluctant king.
4
Will Dany and the Dope go the way of Cersei and Jamie? The point of this episode, apparently, is to kill off an many characters as possible to enable an easier finish to the story - or what is left of it.
The series has taken a strongly anti-feminist turn, with Dany going bonkers to compensate for Cersei's mass murder at the Septon/Sparrow and everyone else around the vicinity in a previous episode. All the leading women, Arya included, are killers at heart. All the men are ineffectual: Tyrion and Varys agree that Jon should be Lord and Master because Dany is too strong for him; somehow they don't say that Jon is TOO WEAK for her. Then they tale the strong character of Brienne and turn her into a simpering female trope.
At this point I no longer care who, if anyone, becomes king - or queen - of the hill. The ending will be as contrived as the rest of this season's plot and plotting.
1. Jon can't have children because he is a zombie. He dies with Dany.
2. Arya kills Dany because she said she is going to King's Landing to kill the Queen - surprise!
3. Sansa reigns by default, as all the others are "ruled out." She marries Gendry to tie the Stark-Barristan knot. Tyrion remains as Sansa's Hand because the last thing she wants is an advisor with a brain, and it would be fitting to have a Lannister serving a Stark. Jamie died as past sins are not forgiven, as does Dany. The Three-eyed raven flies off into the sunset.
As for the rest, who cares anymore? Do you - really?
9
Best episode of the series in my opinion. The complete and utter destruction was absolutely mesmerizing to watch. I liked Danaerys and favored her for the Iron Throne. but this was a great twist, just like the beheading of Ned Stark. In Game of Thrones, you win or you die.
1
OMG, this episode was terrible and the last season becoming ever more disappointing! In the promos for the season, they promised surprises, I didn't think how bad it would become, be one the only surprise they were talking about!
At the end of the last episode Danny looked very angry, and they start this one off with her being depressed, in her slippers, eating ice cream while watching Netflix?! Trying to turn her into "the Mad Queen" is SO unbelievable after 7 seasons building her up as the breaker of chains. She was also here before when she talked of burning the city down of the slave owners and didn't then. She has learnt and grown as a leader and politician which makes this all the more unbelievable. Why have the trouble of the 'non exinsistant' battle, if she just could have flown to the Red Keep and burned it down all along?!
After all this build up the Night King died so easily, but I thought ok, he wasn't really the big villain of the show Cersei was and so the pay off would be the next battle of "The Last War". But there was no show down, we were cheated of her spectacular death. Dying in the arms of her 'blover' is not justice, poetic or otherwise! When the audience can come up with better, more clever story lines and theories, the writers should take note. My favorite was that Arya would kill Jamie and take his face to get to Cersei, but no that whole skill/plot line has been ignored when in these battles, it would have come in pretty handy!
Such a let down.
7
May have been least favorite of the season 8 episodes thus far. I feel the writing became lackadaisical and relied too heavy on CGI; especially for the Clegane brothers showdown. Also echoing other commenters in the deaths of our favorite yet despicable incest couple. It felt cheesy and essentially swept 9 years of story lines under a rug.
2
The enemy is decimated, and has retreated to its home for a final stand. Rather than defeat its army, or await surrender by siege, the avenging forces unleash fire from above upon the civilians of the city.
Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, anyone? Are we Daenerys?
3
RIP Cersei. Lena Heady's performance was wonderful. She spoke volumes with a cut of the eyes or a curling of the lips. Sometimes she would snap her teeth and it reminded me of a piranha.
Maybe the facial structure has something to do with it. Along with Rufus Sewell and Cillian Murphy (who can do the same thing) I'm nominating her for the Peter Cushing Best Cheekbones Award. You could serve tea on his,
9
@Vickie Sometimes Heady even resembles David Bowie
Not too dissatisfied with Danaerys laying waste to Kings Landing, but it certainly had a lot of shock value. The author of the NYT article asked for what we think might happen next week - here goes:
Danaerys leaves Westeros and all of it's sniping, incompetent leaders and hateful people. Takes her dragon and her armies with her never to return. Whether she was the hero or the villain, she never would have found love or respect. Yarra and her fleet takes her across the seas. Tyrion claims the Iron Throne - really the most well intentioned of the lot and rules peacefully. Sansa is Queen of the north. Arya goes off to find new adventures. Jon Snow...I mean, who really cares. He is about as exciting and intriguing as a canned white button mushroom.
5
I'm sorry the whole shock of Daenerys' turn is overblown. She is a plot vehicle like all the characters to be used and thrown away to get us to the final plot and this was a long time coming.
She has claimed though out to care only that her family be restored to the Throne, but when she finds out Jon is the rightful heir her true feeling are shown we see she only wants it for herself. We were rooting for her as she laid waste to all before her under the guise that it was for the poor slaves when really it was to advance her own interests; for example she purchases the unsullied only to kill their masters and take back her dragon. When the slaves of Mereen are unhappy with their situation after being set free with no plan for them after that, she pretty much tells them too bad as she readies her unsullied and dothraki to take the ships across the sea.And she has only fleeting interest in staying in Mereen to govern protecting the newly freed slaves. It was easy to overlook these because we intrinsically like the idea of her saving people form bondage, but she was never fair in her dealings and dealt with defiance with brutality.
Throughout the series we have been given a character to care / root for and invest our selves in only to have them devolve or gruesomely destroyed. and lets not forget that this is a story largely centers on the stark family and its relation to the other families.
1
@Jonathan W An additional, thought:
As for the anti feminist interpretation, its completely off base. The strongest female characters is still at play (Sansa, Arya, Brienne). My take is that Jon really wants to be among the free folk (his lamentation about ghost being happier up there as would he) and Sansa will quite likely take the throne.
1
Jon Snow seems to be a fierce warrior, but on the other hand he's a meek individual with his honor and honesty thing. I hate that dichotomy about him; he just might be the downfall of the Stark sisters, who should win the Iron Throne.
4
Are we absolutely certain that the twins did not survive? Remains to be seen.
2
I closed my eyes a few times. I just love Brienne, the true chivalrous heart.
3
Dany may also have been making a calculated move, that making an example of Kings Landing would get the rest of Westerns to heel. It may cow Sansa into falling in line, for example, so Dany could spare the North. I don't think it was an entirely unhinged act.
4
@JT, perhaps, but making short work of the scorpions, laying waste to the Greyjoy fleet and the entire mercenary army, and blasting through the outer walls of King's Landing would more than suffice. Reducing King's Landing to charred ruin and letting the Unsullied and the Dothraki kill tjpse civilians who managed to escape Drogon's flame and fury merely reaffirmed all Cersei's propaganda and insured an active resistance to her rule. At best, she lives out her childless rein in sullen isolation, and at worst, she does not survive the last episode.
Two short comments after reading several insightful paragraphs of commentary here:
(1) The big chance for Love over Fear lasted just moments and then was gone forever. And that was the second time, or maybe third, that Jon Snow couldn't respond to Daenerys's appeal and kiss her like he means it. From such small beginnings come large things, like the apocalypse in King's Landing.
(2) The most poignant moment in Arya's escape was her spying the burned horse toy in the burned child's hand. We recall Shireen immediately, one of the worst moments in the series. And it echoes at the end of this episode when that magnificent white horse (re-)appears.
Man, I will miss this series!
10
I think it's a fitting end: humans survive an apocolypse only to create Dante's Inferno for themselves. It's about right.
4
“Breaking mad.” I’m not sure she really did. I know people will call this apples and oranges, but winning sides kill a lot of people. Rome’s destruction of Carthage comes to mind (60,000 dead, 50,000 enslaved out of a population of 112,000). The US fire bombed Dresden (80,000 dead) and Tokyo (100,000 dead), and how many died with the nucs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. All I’m saying is that the winning side definitely does some killing. And this is fiction....
3
from the first, Tyrian, the person with the most empathy for the masses, aand cleverest, should inherit the throne
4
@JoeBlaustein Tyron is just one of the people on that show who care about the masses--Davos, Jon Snow, Brienne, Jamie Lannister, and frankly even The Hound care about people. But if I were to pick just one, it would be Varys (may he RIP now).
1
Dany's killing of the Tarly's was a sign to me that it was all about power for her, and she would justify all kinds of horrors to get on that throne.
Jon continued as you said to state the obvious far too late in the game. Sansa has shown herself to be a better ruler than Jon. Talk of honor is useless if you don't figure it out until after the lunatic has scorched the innocents.
4
Sodom and Gomorrah is the prototype for this last episode. Did the Iron Throne survive the conflagration?
Drogon will decide who sits on the Iron Throne when he chooses Jon(Aegon) over Daenerys. The dragon will recognize the sane Tragaryen.
8
@Julian Fernandez
Interesting! That could very likely happen.
1
Very predictable. Jon will kill Dany and Bran will become king. You can tell an old white man wrote this story. Pretty lame ending. The fan theories were far better.
4
After all that destruction, is there even an Iron Throne left upon which to sit? I won't really believe that Cersei is dead until I see her squashed corpse. And I wouldn't at all be surprised if Tyrion gets the crown and Jon gets to go home to his beloved North, and the Direwolf he left behind.
2
@Regina
I too need evidence that Cersei is dead. She is probably crawling around down there, with the Mountain.
Is it just me or was this article about the episode more enjoyable then the episode?
9
I like the show in general but the frequent "movie moments" give me acid reflux. Just a few examples: Cleganebowl happened just as everyone wanted, and the result was kind of funny, but the rendezvous was contrived. The showdown between Jaime and Euron (rhymes with Urine? Worst character on GoT) was equally predictable and even more contrived. The Hound could have given his fatherly advice to Arya long before they wound up in the middle of dragonfire and collapsing towers. I have to say the worst was in last week's episode: flaming scimitars twinkling out in the distance made for a scary visual, but the cavalry charge into darkness was the dumbest military move ever, especially given that the zombie army had a dragon back there somewhere (though they didn't need to bother).
3
ashes, ashes, they all fall down
1
During WWII, the US launched countless numbers of indiscriminate bombing campaigns that killed women and children and burned hospitals and orphanages to the ground. There were also numerous instances of US troops killing German and Japanese soldiers after they had surrendered. Yet, they're remembered as the Greatest Generation, not madmen. Maybe we should cut Dany some slack? Sure, she was peeved. But she seems more FDR than Hitler to me.
4
1) No way Jon can still support Dany - she has her last chance to rule - fear, which is her only excuse for burning - well everyone who didn't deserve it. He takes the North/True North and Riverrun, etc with him.
2) Jon was burnt by a dinky lantern all those seasons ago when confronting a blue-eyed dead dude at the Wall - he may be a Targaryen but (like his uncle) he is not a true dragon....he can fry...if need be.
3) Tyrion FINALLY got 1 thing right - for some reason he was VERY confident that Dany would take King's Landing - and surprisingly it was extremely easy after all....but then Dany was always good when personally riding a dragon and avoiding a spear or 2 thrown/shot her way; by using the sun and coming in low, she is still a batting a 1000!
4) Just whose support was Varys trying to garner with his notes? Without convincing Jon (up to that point), who the heck is/would be left to confront the Dragon Queen and her armies? Dorne? Iron islands? Hmmm...
5) Varys' plan with the little girl has potential - more then just simple spying - as mentioned here- a bit o' poison maybe? Makes sense he has a more lasting more substantial impact.
3) So Dany has the the one thing she truly wanted all along as she has shown more and more - she can be the queen (for now): she has the fear, her 2 merciless armies, her dragon, and...nothing else nor no one else. Seems she's good with it.
We shall see...
2
@JG
Oh - and "clever" Dany legitimized Gendry as an heir to the throne, and Arya has now gone through a major change... so when all the Targaryens are dispatched - the traitor, the mad queen, the unborn baby (Jon told Dany not to believe the word of some witch who hated her), Gendry and Arya re-deux can rule in peace, with Sansa as Wardeness in the North.
Tyrion? meh...he should have been killed numerous times for
another way of looking at it is the civilized west being destroyed by invading savage hordes from the east. an allegory for our own times.
2
The scorching of Kings Landing brings to mind the fiery bombing of Baghdad that kicked off the needless war against Iraq in 2003.
4
Did you notice the explosions of green wildfire amid the yellow dragon flames? Were these ignitions of the wildfire caches planted by the Mad King? Is Daenerys fulfilling her father’s fatal order “kill them all!”?
4
If Game of Thrones, S8, E5 is an anti-war statement, then, watching the Ultimate Fighting Championship is a protest against violence. The build-up to total annihilation readies the mind for mayhem and not to deliver would have been a major disappointment to the viewers. So, no post-orgy analysis can philosophically prettify what just took place - and what was so devastatingly delicious. As for the dragons, aka the nuclear option, one cannot ignore the fact that it was a woman who ordered its use far from the fighting right from the start and that it was the men who were depicted as the butchers on the ground. Somehow, the latter makes perfect sense while the former glides on ice past the obvious truth that #metoo might just mean that war is not only a manly way of settling a score. On this 50th anniversary of Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five," a true cry against war, it is important to remember that the Allied Forces's "conventional" bombing of Dresden at the end of the war, a city that contained no military value, only citizens and Allied POWs, killed one and a half times as many people as "Little Boy" in Hiroshima. When "Game of Thrones" is over, viewers will be scrolling their streaming devices for the next greatly satisfying anti-war series.
3
I wish there were more episodes in Season 8 only because I think there are still too many issues left to be cleared up. It seems to me that they've wasted our time during the first few seasons with gruesome optics such as rapes, disembowelment, and beheadings, and now, they’re rushing things through in just six episodes. For example, how realistic is it that a few minutes of admonishment from The Hound would be enough to change the mind of a trained assassin hell-bent on revenge like Arya, and cause her to have an epiphany? What has become of Sam, Giantsbane, and Ghost, are their respective stories completely told? Will the showrunners pack up resolutions to the Dany v. Stark siblings affair and the Dany-Jon rivalry and everything else into that one last episode, or do they not intend to resolve them all?
Hopefully, we’ll get a chance to see my girl Arya change face, like she did in House Frey, one last time and get close to Dany to kill the heck out of her (Dany).
4
One word reviews:
Boo...
Did the show runners get lobotomies after season 7? After looking forward to season 8 for so long, now I legitimately don’t even care how this dross finishes...
3
Could be maybe he dragon queen will take her dragon ball and go back home from where she came from? Maybe she'll realize ruling a country you've mostly destroyed isn't really what it's cracked up to be? Just like Trump, who has destroyed the office of presidency, the country moves on. She, like Trump, have made themselves irrelevant. She, like him, choose fear as their final governing philosophy. Well hoe's that going/going for you now?
1
Here's what I'm hoping for next week: mad, dragon-riding Dany torches Jon Snow...only to leave him standing in the ashes, butt naked and unburnt, thereby demonstrating his Targaryen lineage for all the world.
4
I'm still figuring Gendry is going to wind up on the throne, an unforseen ending that we could all live with. Dany just has to die next episode, and probably Jon Snow does too because he's such a tragic figure.
Overall, it's kind of nice that the show is getting progressively less sensible, because it makes it easier to let go of it. One more episode and we're done, and I think I'm going to wait awhile on re-watching the whole thing. The unfortunate thing about them flailing around senselessly like this is that it makes a decent prologue or sequel very unlikely.
2
again, we appear to have an episode that if it, only if, had been part of a 2 season finale instead of this rushed 6 parter (when will the producers tell us why they turned down the HBO offer of a season 9?) would have been tremendous. its a shame that the only logical course remaining for jon now is a romeo & juliet death duet..... & nobody to sit on the iron throne, its melted.
2
Kill them now or you will have to fight them again? Destroy Carthage, and sow salt so nothing grows again? Is that madness, or strategy?
3
I do not have a problem with how things have turned out. I do have a BIG problem with the journey, however. The directors have taken everything I love about this show and compressed it into spectactular cineamtography and little else.
- There should have been two seasons: The Battle of Winterfell and the Battle for Westeros.
- Just as we've watched Dany give in to her baser instincts, we've also seen Sansa grow into one of the series' most compelling characters. Remember being so frustrated with her back in Season 1? Now she's the most clever person in Westeros. I feel cheated that we never got to explore these two story arcs in more detail.
- My favorite moments have been watching Arya and Sansa grow to respect and understand each other, but wights getting their heads chopped off got more screen time than Sansa.
- Likewise, limiting Cersei's screentime was a rather large mistake.
- Jamie's abandoment of Brienne and return to Cersai could've been sussed out over the two seasons.
- Varys' doubts and treason could've played out over the remainder of the series (instead of over 10 minutes where he looks like a bumbling idiot).
- Killing Rhaegal deserved more screen time.
- We did not even have time to worry about Missandai before she was dead.
- Jamie and Euron's convenient meeting could have been rewritten into something believable.
Then (and only then) would have I appreciated The Bells... as is, it was a great commentary on the horrors of war and that's about it.
3
The writers have betrayed Dany. She was just used as a tool to defeat Cersei and then will be cast down and killed so they can put a dunderhead (man) on the throne. Raped again.
@Anne C You assume that there is a throne left to sit upon!
Danny is just a tool of the God of Light, used to help defeat the Night King. That is why she ended up in Westoros with 3 dragons and the greatest army ever assembled. Not to retake the Iron Throne.
“Kill thousands and they make you a king” as her ancestors did is not a valid basis for a claim to rule.
1
Sorry to veer off topic to an editorial note, but... "born of she herself being treated like chattel"? Maybe that works in High Valyrian, but in English it's pretty clear to I we don't say 'born of she'. (And if you don't like the sound of 'her herself', rephrase it.) Even the Game of Thrones column needs an editor!
I couldn't help but view last night's episode as one big modern day metaphor for never ever giving a raging, wounded person nuclear power.
2
@Colleen Gillard
Rather, I think the lesson is never ever isolate or ostracize a person with nuclear power, instead stay in communication and negotiations - even if they don't end up in the result we want, just keeping that person engaged would be a prudent and right thing to do in its own right.
1
Ham-handed story-telling here, sadly. I love the overarching story line about Dany - how well-intentioned people gain power and become the worst sorts of tyrants. But the story-telling has become cartoonish. This is not the same Dany we cheered for years. Suspension of disbelief has gotten too difficult because of the glaring inconsistency in her character.
I hope GRR Martin finishes his work and wraps this up more masterfully than the show producers have here.
5
I did find it odd that during the burning attack there were no close ups of Dany. Her rage was evident when she went berserk not accepting surrender, so one must presume the carnage was not the result of a rogue dragon. Still, the absence if any close ups during or after the battle is interesting.
1
Wow! To me the complete destruction of King's Landing and the accompanying slaughter of innocents perfectly reflects the ethos of nuclear apocalypse. All of the richest, most powerful nations have poured treasure into creating the means of their inevitable self-destruction. We live out our petty dramas oblivious to the death traps we create in the process. Will Sansa's duplicity, genius for avoiding commitment & her apparent cowardice prove to be the winning hand in the Game of Thrones? Or will Daenerys' brutal ambition destroy her love for Jon and Jon himself? Will Tyrion survive his betrayals? Does Arya's love affair with death ultimately end with her choosing to accept Gendry's proposal? So many questions, so many metaphors.
3
Sansa will be sitting on the Iron Throne when the smoke clears.
4
Dany's madness is the obvious issue to point to with this episode. Just as disappointing in my mind is how we experienced Cersei's death. If the audience deserved to see any character suffer a revenge fueled death, it was Cersei. Instead we see her weep for herself as she realizes how badly she misplayed her hand and then she gets to go out in Jamie's embrace. Much too good for the most vile character in the show and one who I've been looking forward to "getting hers" since the very first episode.
6
Yes, the satisfying & grisly deaths of Walder Frey, Joffrey, Ramsey and Littlefinger led me to believe that Cersei's death would also be epic. I would have much rather seen Cersei gingerly stepping past the Hound and making it down to the crypts alone. As she stands there, deciding which exit would best lead her to safety, she spots Jaime leaning against an archway, bleeding. They lock eyes, relief shines in hers, then the archway collapses on him. Her relief turns to shock, pain and then blinding fury mixed with fear, standing alone as the entire structure collapses on her. THAT would have satisfied me. OR Arya wearing Jaime's face and killing Cersei, but that would have been repetitive.
5
Late to the GOT series but have enjoyed each and every plot twist and turn. Keeps me riveted and waiting for the next episode. Fantastic actors and production make this show one for the ages.
3
What I find fascinating in these comments is how many people want to believe in a single great, benevolent leader. So many comments show that people are looking for a happy ending where the bad get theirs and the good prevail. Some are unconvinced by Dany's turn and think she should have become that great leader. Others think Jon will now somehow prevail, bringing about a "just" ending. Power corrupts and those who want more of it will use the power they have. Those expecting for true justice from a single leader will eventually be trampled. Picking sides and standing behind a single person just means you are playing the game of authoritarians.
12
Dany's scorching of King's Landing was brutal. The flick-of-the-switch moment she decided to bring the city down was perfectly captured as we watched her head tilt and eyes twitch while listening to the church bells chiming for surrender.
While I'm definitely not keen on Dany in maniacal-mode, I do think this action/reaction remains true to her character's arc as it does for all characters portrayed in this bloody episode.
The message coming across loud and clear in these final weeks (more obvious than in earlier episodes, for me) is the remaining figure-heads are nothing if not still very young and headstrong.
The imagery depicted of the city falling was so realistically captured by creators it triggered memories of 9/11 as I watched the ash-covered Arya running frantically through the city streets.
Not sure how anyone apart from Dany's remaining army can stand behind her now... but if I was wearing heavy furs I'd be thinking of heading North for some home cooking.
6
@Robyn
Dany has to go after the north. She has to kill john and sansa and everyone at winterfell. They are a threat to her. Her next move is to clean house and march to destroy winterfell/
2
@Leslie
I think Dany has done quite enough senseless killing and needs to be stopped. Once captured imprisonment would be in keeping with Jon's forgive and let live style but it's more likely Arya will take her down. Dany has become unhinged and shown herself to be too ruthless and blood-thirsty to be the leader of the seven kingdoms. Jon is a more measured leader and warrior and will step up to take his rightful place on the throne.
Reality reeks at least half of the time, as it does so poignantly in GOT. We all wish for a "fairytale" ending-not gonna happen unless we pull it out of the burning flames of madness, revenge, and injustice.
Revenge is still one of the cards to be played in the last episode. The Mother of Dragons will not survive the last episode. Arya will play that card.
Think of which character you would like to see on the throne and cross him or her off the list. It's the unexpected that will rise to the top in the end.
9
I am so glad that I don't read any of the prognostications about where the plot is headed. I was gleefully shocked when Danny exploded through that wall behind the Golden Company. This was a terrific take on the corrupting influence of power and the futility of war. I'd be fine with ending the plot here, as a happy ending is not needed in this story.
7
The episode, like every other episode this season, was incredibly polarizing. Some people hate it, some people love it. Viewers seem to forget that this is a TV show trying to appeal to a wide audience of both serious book readers and casual TV show watchers. Not everything can follow what everyone wants to happen. You won't ever please everyone and that's okay to me.
I loved it. It was tense, it was exhilarating, it was everything I expected it to be. I was sad, happy, dumbfounded, and horrified all in the same episode.
The scene with Tyrion and Jaime was one of my favorite recent moments. It was both sad and jovial at the same time.
Dany's descend into madness finally hit its peak. I loved the slow buildup leading to her finally losing her mind. Losing everything leading up to Jon rejecting her love finally broke her. I will admit that it was a little rushed to me in the sense that just a few weeks ago she was all about saving the living in the Battle of Winterfell. I would have liked to see her losing everything starting last season leading into finally reaching its climax this episode. It did feel a little odd that she just lost everything in seemingly just a few episodes. But I digress.
The episode was great. I can't wait until next week to enjoy the final chapter in a TV show that I have spent 10 years enjoying and devoting my time to watching.
5
Missandei's Revenge would have been a good title for this episode. It was the driving force behind Dany's and Grey Worm's devastating actions. I enjoyed the tender moments between Jamie and Tyrion as well as Arya and Sandor! And even between Tyrion and Varys. When we strip away all the trappings of life, it is our heart that matters. Jon has heart. Sansa lost hers along the way. Reuniting with Theon seemed to bring her in touch with her heart, only to lose him in battle.
What happened to Tyrion? Will he have anything to do with the mad Queen? Where is Arya and what will be her goal now? How will Jon handle his devotion to his Queen? Will Gendry be dredged up for the throne? Please, don't let it be Sansa. Tyrion, perhaps?
And kudos to Varys for doing what he felt was right for humanity.
Great episode.
5
Many disappointed, angry, and furious about how this story played out. You can at most blame the show runners for not taking a bit more time to set things up, but you can't fault them for the vision, which is pure George R.R. Martin; revoltingly violent, misanthropic and misogynistic.
It’s nearly impossible to believe that the show runners, who consulted Martin about the broad strokes of his unfinished story when they ran out of source material, did anything other than what Martin intended. Daenerys exists in a dark authoritarian world of vengeance, with no room for a true savior, only someone with a messianic complex who rides and controls the deadliest weapon in the world
Martin's world is often positioned as on in which fantasy is deconstructed. While true, it’s secondary. There are plenty of other ways to show a group of people (and primarily women) taking on a despot (The Good Fight), without a host of beheadings, chopped people to bits or burning then to cinders, or graphic images of rape.
This was always pulp fiction (for those of who have read a lot of pulp fiction as well as classical literature) merely very impressively dressed up to look like high fantasy.
Almost every potentially heroic individual in this story brutally dies, or are tormented until they become cynical or villains. Those who survive become increasingly ruthless. Varys talks about how he's spent his life serving tyrants, so he knows one when he sees one, and so should anyone watching this.
10
For some reason I am glad this show is ending after 8+ long years. When the book material ended and Hollywood cliches and silly plot devices took over, GoT started to become too conventional.
4
The most visually poetic image in this episode: Dany's dragonfire setting off her mad father's green wildfire (installed as part of a ploy to destroy the city of King's Landing in case his enemies prevailed).
8
The Red Wedding was inspired by two historical Scottish massacres 2 centuries apart. It's clear that this episode was inspired by the nuking of 2 Japanese cities 3 days apart. Our heroine gave up the moral high ground in the same way we ourselves did.
11
I thought the same thing. She went on to destroy the city and the innocent even though custody was in hand.
3
@Jason Galbraith
I'm a physicist, and I thought the ash corpses were strongly reminiscent of the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Drogon is essentially a living, reusable nuclear bomb.
A very powerful message: no one should have such weapons.
1
"But guess who else has green eyes."
Um... who? The writer seems to be hinting at Daenerys, but she has purple eyes. Tyrion? He has one green eye, the other is supposed to be black (although the show never really mentioned that so it may not be a thing in the onscreen version of Westeros). But why would Arya want to kill Tyrion? None of it makes much sense.
The whole thing is very disappointing. Basically Dany's entire journey was for nothing. The show's writing declined precipitously in quality when they ran out of original book material and had to rely on bullet points from George R.R. Martin's notes. Hopefully the book series ends in a more satisfying manner.
Prediction: When the dust settles next episode Sansa will be Queen. The series is roughly based on the end of the Wars of the Roses and the Tudor dynasty's rise, an era that ended in real life with Queen Elizabeth I on the throne. The same Queen Elizabeth who bears a striking resemblance -- and has a similar backstory -- to Sansa.
11
I absolutely agree about the writing, I've been gradually losing interest since they passed the end of the books.
Dany's whole flip was horrible unconvincing. Could I see her burning the Red Keep? Sure. But wholesale murder of hundreds of thousands? Not so much.
I'm hoping the book does it better, but they usually do.
3
Dany's decision to rule through fear should not be that surprising. She has come to realize that she commands no loyalty in Westeros, save for that of the fighters that she brought with her (e.g., the Dothraki and the Unsullied). Now that the secret of Jon's parentage is out, she knows that, inevitably, he would be the leader of choice. All she really has going for her is one, lone dragon. If she loses Drogon, she has nothing.
I think in the end, some combination of Jon, Sansa, and Arya will pull Westeros together. Keep in mind that the Starks now have allies in most of the kingdoms. Sansa in the North, Gendry at Highgarden, Sam as head of the Tarleys, Catelyn's family at Riverrun, the Martels in Dorne, and possibly Tyrion at Casterly Rock. It could be that we end up with some more democratic form of governance rather than a single ruler.
5
I miss the integrity of the narrative from the GRR Martin seasons. What made GOT great and heavily followed was the narrative surprises (death of Ned, Red wedding, Joffrey's death) were all unexpected until you looked back and could see a very subtle tell that it was coming. In the last few seasons the tells have been way too obvious (mad Queen, Tyrion ALWAYS being wrong, etc) and the surprises have felt like short cuts or just contrived to feel like surprises (Euron's entire storyline, Jamie vs Euron, death of Jamie/Cersei). I really hope GRR Martin finishes this series of books to let us know what he envisioned.
5
This was an epic episode. I loved it. There was one thing, however, that didn't work for me and that was Tyrion's betrayal of Varys. There were other plausible ways Daenerys could have discovered that he was spreading the news of Jon's true identity. This just didn't fit Tyrion's character. I suspect it was used only for expediency.
1
@Melissa H.
Goes right back to Vary's words to Tyrion about making choices and which of them would make the right choice. I loved their parting scene - it was heartache to see Tyrion realize what a bad choice he made.
1
I will take a second to complain about last weeks episode...It seems to me like the producers can't wait for it to be over. They know they have millions on the hook and have decided to phone it in.
If they didn't want to create the sets or have people actually act(The Battle for Winterfell), they should have just stopped and let us read the book(s).
My actual complaint is the amount of time the screen was actually black, no sets that were poorly lighted, which can be annoying all by itself, but completely black with nothing on the screen and only some sound effects to convey the tale.
There are other ways to demonstrate that it is night time, or even very dark that don't just eliminate sets and actors.
My two cents... if I am thinking about the lighting or lack of it I have been taken out of the story, you lost me, and I'm certain there are many who agree with me.
3
Most everything seems to happen so fast since television took over from the books. Though I loved the episode, there were no surprises. No real revelations. Just death and more death. Dany had only a few episodes to turn into The Mad Queen, yet we knew she would. Unfortunately, it felt like the dictates of television (And only a few episodes left!) commanded the story and crammed what was once delicious about GOT, into just another spectacle. Yet, I enjoyed the episode, but I wasn't shocked or surprised by the carnage as much as I was when watching The Red Wedding unfold.
6
I REALLY miss the Night King/Wight/Children of the Forest plot lines and continue to be extremely frustrated that they were cut off so early and simply in this final season.
I find these other stories of infighting and "madness" much less compelling than 1. humankind being forced to put aside their differences to fight for a greater good 2. the Night king himself - his motivations etc. 3. Sam and his stolen books (could they save us somehow?). etc. 4. Will the Children of the Forest help in some way? 5. What happens to Bran/3EyedRaven, the Wall and the Night's Watch now? Most of these topics weren't addressed for lack of time, so we could have four episodes of human infighting, and it pales in interest to me.
Yes, the show is called "Game of Thrones", but the books are "A Song of Ice & Fire", and the show wrapped up the ice quickly with a little bow, and now we just have fire. Not as interesting with just one of the two.
I will of course watch next week, but I'm kind of over it.
But I did love Jaime and Cersei's reunion. No, of course, they don't "deserve" to get that "happy" ending, but I loved it nonetheless. Jaime is perhaps my favorite character, and I'm glad he got what he wanted, even if it's gross (and preposterous, as Jeremy points out). Brought tears to my eyes. Hats off to Lena and Nikolaj. Both so stunning is so many ways.
3
Agree on Jamie and Cersei.
Time to pull out my copy of Machiavelli's The Prince and the chapters in which he discusses whether or not it is better to be feared or loved. These last few episodes have Machiavelli written all over them-- especially in considering the need for trusted advisors and weighing of clemency vs. authority. Dany had so completely lost faith and trust in any of the people around her that sitting up there on the dragon, hearing the bells, she weighed whether or not to go and finally get the job of done, assure her victory, even if it meant losing the love of the people she wished to rule. Of course, she seemed to already feel she had lost the love, that she would never have it, therefore had nothing to lose. It was a heart-breaking episode.
12
Spectacular battle scenes for sure, and this is a very entertaining show, but has never been as clever as many seem to think. The plotting is clumsy and often implausible - how did a near-death Jaime suddenly recover from what appeared to be fatal wounds to reunite with Cersei? And while Dany's turn was certainly foreshadowed (in heavy-handed fashion), having her lead the slaughter of innocent civilians in a fashion worse than Bashir Assad (nobody was resisting anymore!) was a little much. I've enjoyed the run but many shows smarter than this one (watch Barry right after).
4
So what exactly is the point of the three-eyed-raven? I mean he urgently needed to protect humanity from the Night King (to the degree that Bran has any sense of urgency), but preserving the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent people in King's Landing doesn't merit a "Worth noting that the Mother of Dragons is off her rocker and y'all need to get on top of that situation?"
Doesn't that seem like something that may have come up during Tyrion and Bran's extended fireside chat in episode 3?
8
@nkb
My impression of the Three-eyed Raven is that he exists to maintain a record of human history. That's why Bran said he mostly lives in the past. There's no indication that his purpose is to try to intervene in or alter the trajectory of current events.
10
@Julie W.
I mean I am with you on this but Bran does seem to have some connection with the future, e.g. giving Arya the dagger that will eventually kill the Night King. Also he tells Sam he's waiting outside for a friend and it's reasonable to assume that he's sitting there waiting for Jaime to arrive. Plus we have that vision of a dragon's shadow over King's Landing (though that certainly could have been the past).
I don't think you're wrong, it's clear that Bran is the ultimate repository of human history, but he does seem to have access to the future or at least some permutation of it in the short-term.
I don't know, something seems deeply unresolved about his purpose in the whole show given his vast powers.
6
Agreed. Seems pretty useless. Tho, to be fair, he can’t tell the future. He just catalogs the past.
1
The story arc of both Jaime and Daenerys have parallels. As they have been presented, they have fallen, seek to escape a troubled family history and then are finding redemption through more noble, selfless acts. In the end, however, the truth of their character comes out and they are who they are.
12
I am guessing most of the commentators out there have been like me, reading everything leading up to the episodes. I've pondered every theory and even shared some of my own as I waited anxiously for the season and episodes. But like King's Landing, I'm done. I'll save myself a couple hours this week and just tune in next Sunday to see the end.
1
One of few redemptions for this awesome Warrior Woman Queen is that her ultimate goal was to Break the Wheel by showing that Corrupt Power Hungry Dictators and Power Questing People can no longer be tolerated. It's the idea of entitled to rule depicted in Cersei story and Dany story that was responsible for all this tragedy and the foundation of all that is wrong in Westeros.
Hope I am not wrong otherwise this episode will always be a big disappointment to me - The Mad Queen driven to the point of Butcher of People instead of Breaker of Chains means Cersei wins after all.
5
This whole season has been a bunch of plot points shoehorned in to fit a story the showrunners wanted to tell. The story isn't a problem for me - it's the forcing of it all. Characters are doing things not because they would but because "we need (this) to happen". And that's never good writing.
14
No one is coming off very good. The game in Game of Thrones is about the endless rapaciousness of the human heart of most people, male or female. I suspect Dany and Jon will both go down, perhaps Jon will kill Dany and the dragon will fry Jon.
If anyone inherits the "throne" it will be the seat of a diminished kingdom, of dark-age like rubble / squalor. (Even if Team Stark "wins" and Jon does live; Jon, Sansa more likely I think, will retreat to the North). And there will be intimations of the whole cycle starting again, as some cutthroat somewhere in one of reduced kingdoms with 100 kills becomes a lord, and the same cutthroat with 1,000 kills becomes a lesser king. And the whole process begins anew.
Wide panning shots across all the seven kingdoms, tight shot of the Three Eyed Crow at his Tree, passive as ever, taking in History. Fade to Black
World without End.
6
I completely agree about the narrative inconsistency of Dany laying waste to King's Landing. I would point out that it is also a very misleading edited sequence.
Her CU as she sits atop Drogon has her looking screen left We then get a POV of the tower (centered in frame) where we know Cersei is standing. I would have to view it again but I think, for emphasis, that POV is repeated. If she was thinking of laying waste to the city then the POV should have been down at the hundreds of people in the streets and then back to the anger in her CU before she and Drogon take flight. Then we would have expected what we got as Dragon begins his destruction. It almost looks like the sequence was shot for one meaning and then changed in the editing room. When Drogon lights up the first street and clearly is not heading straight for Cersei we have been mislead visually.
4
The root of the problem so many have with this and other GOT episodes in the past two seasons is the fact that the producers were forced to artificially "wrap it up" in a two season window when the beauty of the show for the first six seasons was its gritty realism, nuance and unhurried pace. Of course, there was no way around this but these past two season have almost felt completely detached from the first six seasons. I recall very few moments in the first six seasons where I said "that's ridiculous" in response to a scene; now I think it several times an episode. Dany's decision to torch the entire city street-by-street before turning her attention to Cersei defied belief and made no sense at all. Oh well, I will still watch next week and hope to see some sort of redemption for the show's ending storyline. If not, we'll always have the first six seasons.
25
The producers chose to wrap it up quickly. They were not forced to.
I think that what made Dany's decision not believable to me was that she'd worked for so very long to be in the position she was in, and then threw it away for reasons that just didn't feel good enough. She had worked for it forever, basically her whole life, making strong enough decisions against great odds and hardship, to get to the position she was in in that moment. She'd won, all she had to do was go sit the Iron Throne. Yes, she would have been feared, but she could have begun to be loved, simply by telling all the refugees in King's Landing to go home.
So why did she instead choose to become a worse tyrant than the one she'd deposed? Is it because, as the show tried to intimate, that after being destabilized by losing 2 dragons, 2 trusted advisors, and not gaining the trust of the North (read: Sansa), that John "betrayed" her, and that was the last straw? I can't buy that, because it makes her look as if her decision to become a mass murderer of civilians was due to being a woman scorned.
It just doesn't ring true. She's better than that. Not to mention that her behavior towards John in this episode was not convincing.
It does make me wonder if this is again the result of no female writers on the show for a number of seasons.
19
I liked the episode and I actually was surprised by it. I didn't think (or see the point) in killing everyone in Kings Landing. I was almost certain that her rage and impatience would fall right into Cersei's hands, who I was convinced had something else up her sleeve (as she always has).
The one thing that irked me though was that Dany seemed to have far more Unsullied and Dothraki than could have reasonably escaped the battle of winterfell. In the teaser for next week they are everywhere, which seems implausible (yea I know, in a show about dragons and ice kings).
13
As is almost always the case with much loved yet still cancelled television series the blame falls to the network for the rushed, forced character of the final season.
The complexities of the relationships and histories of GoT required much more time to resolve than HBO was willing to fund.
Martin hasn't finished his novels for very similar reasons.
Benioff and Weiss did what they were able to do in a sharply compressed production time frame.
Send complaints to HBO.
6
Nope. You can do better with 14 episodes. Longer than the three movies that covered the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy.
4
Have you actually researched the decision-making? The choice was D&D's.
1
@Dana
Pretty sure G RR Martin is listed as an Executive Producer in this final season - but here is a good article on his involvement with the final six episodes.
https://www.newsweek.com/winds-winter-release-date-george-rr-martin-game-thrones-season-8-grrm-1354189
Dany fought her own family legacy of madness throughout the GoT, saying she isn't her father. But to madness she did succomb.
As Arya was galloping away at the end, through the dust and flames, it struck me--Game of Thrones is the story of Arya, not all those would-be kings and queens. Now she's the one I'm rooting for and the one I want to survive. I don't give a fig who ends up on the Iron Throne.
25
@Kandace
I have always been Team Arya; I think she should sit on the Iron Throne!
2
@Kandace yeah how many times have we felt that way about Dany yet to have her character arc unravel that way. I bet next week Arya's amazing character arc will crash into a ditch as well. I'm not upset at Dany's arc overall but the abruptness of it. Her destruction of King's Landing was also drawn out. The story frame could have had a bit more dimension to it beyond ride dragon and burn everything. Confronting Cersie in
any which way would be nice for a start.
Hated it. I can accept Dany's descent into madness, if it was appropriately built into the arc. One day she is defending women and children from institutional rape, breaking with the plan in the Battle of Winterfell to try to save the Dorthraki and Unsullied, and next she's burning down the city with her soldiers in it. I realize the audience is supposed to believe that she is spiraling due to the loss of the dragons, Jon Snow, and Missandei, but she's survived rape, the death of her actual child, betrayal by Jorah, and the death of her husband without losing her mind. Also, she locked up her dragons when they killed one child and now she's just killing children left and right.
Cersei was one of THE VILLIANS of the show and more time was spent on the Hound and the Mountain's death than she and Jaime's cave-in. I expected a fitting death for such a villain. It was just poor writing all the way around.
15
It will be a miracle if the Iron Throne still exists.
4
Sansa should get the Iron Throne. Jon should be her chief adviser. Arya should fall in love and have a peaceful long life. And Westeros should be a land of peace for a long time.
Days of Our Lives meets Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Ugh. Bad writing and "plot development" can't be corrected with great visuals and non stop action. You'd think two years would give you enough time to come up with a solid script.
11
Dani knew that she would be betrayed over and over again now that Jon’s secret was becoming known. I think she listened to the bells but knew that she and Drogon would be vulnerable if she let down her guard and stopped the attack.
War is the only way to destroy the fabric of society and begin anew. Daenerys brought a war machine with her. The Unsullied, the Dothraki, and a Dragon. It was never going to end well. Tyrion was the only one who understood what she was capable of doing and tried to find a peaceful solution. He believed he could persuade her. Tyrion was no longer trusted though. His loyalties were divided.
Daenerys has never been a good at compromising when it comes to her end game. I should have seen it coming.
9
Why did they destroy the queen that Tyrion believed was ‘going to make the world a better place’? We have spent years watching the ‘good queen’ Daenerys strengthen her character in comparison to the bad queen, Cersei being stripped of her heart and soul. Now at the moment of good conquering evil I am supposed to believe that because she’s lonely, tired, hungry, sad and angry she goes mad. For reasons I can’t understand they decided to follow a centuries old belief that if you give a woman the same power as a man they will crack because they are not genetically built for it and so go mad. During the final episode I fully expect one of
the men to say in response to the question, ‘Why did she do it?...’It must have been her time of the month.’ It’s a sad day in the seven kingdoms
12
The worst episode in the entire series. The flamethrower/dragon that never seems to run out of gas and as a result a whole fleet and an entire city and the populace go up in flames. Combustible stone? Flame on stone buildings and they fall apart? I didn’t realize that stone and mortar disintegrated so easily.
Superman Jaime gets gored at least twice but still manages to live for an eternity till he finds his loving sister and then dies with her.
Then there is Supergirl Ayra who is still alive despite tons of debris and just missed dragon fire.
This episode easily replaced the night time battle of episode three for going totally over the top.
8
I left the show feeling dismayed in the destruction and killing of a great many residents of King’s Landing. When I woke this morning I thought of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the carpet bombing of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia and Dresden. That made me feel better about Dany and Drogon.
1
A historical precedent for Dany at King's Landing--Genghis Khan. If a city surrendered they were allowed to live. If not, they were put to the sword. Of course, reputation-wise, Genghis is not a great role model.
5
The big winner is...
The film industry of Northern Ireland!
4
How is it possible that no one raised their hands and said, “hey, maybe we should have the two most important female characters ever talk to each other just once?”
4
@E. Miller
They did talk to each other once, at the big pow wow in S7 when Team Dany brought along the captured wight to try to convince Cersei to join them to fight the Night King. Cersei double-crossed Dany, so why would Dany ever trust her again?
4
Has Game of Thrones "jumped the dragon"?
6
Cognitive dissonance: the idea that anyone (including Dany, her followers & the viewers "shocked" by her actions) could believe it was possible to simultaneously "break the wheel" & be a monarch (or tyrant or dictator, choose your own descriptor)--by self-actuated "divine right" no less.
3
Regarding marksmanship of the scorpian shooters: remember, the dragon taken down this way last week was riderless and taken by surprise. Last night, they faced a dragon with a skilled rider on it, who now knew of the weapon and went in planning to evade it. Makes sense to me that their bolts wouldn't help this time. (though perhaps they could've fired multiple scorpions at once?)
Dany gave Jon her dragons (2), her armies, the lives of all those who loved her, and her own self as well - only to betrayed by him, via a misguided, Ned-like sense of loyalty. That is why she turned. As she told him, fear was all she had left.
Excellent episode. You cant please everyone!
11
There seems to be a lot of hand-wringing over Dany's wholesale destruction of King's Landing. Anybody else remember when Lady Olenna told her, "You're a dragon. Be a dragon."
4
@Kirk Also, Missandei's last word to her was "Dracarys!"
1
I'm fascinated that you're so convinced that Jamie and Cersei are both dead in the rubble. We've seen so many other resurrections from the grave, why not theirs as well?
3
Am thinking...Jon ...just ....died...! Arya spotted a charred body with Longclaw. Unless it's a red herring. So Arya will closes Dany's green eyes, as predicted by Melissandre. And Sansa - the real strategist who has learned the most - rules. Tyrion is her hand. Arya goes back north. To some kind of freedom. Or not.
1
Jon and Davos are shown walking through the rubble in the previews.
4
@Liz Multiple posters have hypothesized that Melisandre's prophecy of Arya closing green eyes refers to Daenerys now that Cersei is already dead, but in the actual story (book), only the Lannisters have green eyes, and Dany has violet Targaryen eyes. It is just Emilia Clarke who has blue-green eyes; I guess the production team didn't want to burden her with tinted contact lenses in the desert sands for multiple seasons though.
2
All epic serials come to the same disappointing end. Ultimate showdowns, deaths of good and evil and the twisting of characters to fulfill the needs of the downhill acceleration of the plot.
The fall of Dany to the "dark side" is reminiscent of the turn of Anakin in Star Wars. Killing of innocent children seems to be the clearest sign of that a character has turned? Nothing short of it seems to declare that a character has crossed the line? The line is always crossed boldly, I guess.
Dying or killing for love or the lack thereof is trite, but the fantasy genre is trite Jaime is entombed for love and Dany burns the innocent for Jon's unwillingness to cross the incest line knowingly. Eddard's decency was imprinted on Jon at a young age and it had served him well until now. Thousands of dead or a little hanky panky with your gorgeous aunt? I think he should have taken the later; she has only been is aunt for a few episodes. Doesn't he consider himself more Stark than Targaryon anyhow?
Well, here we are one last battle between good and evil is on the plate for next week. Who wins? Only the plot and its need to conclude wins.
1
Where the heck is Bran and his crows?
Will the center of gravity for Westros move next week to Winterfell or stay in Kings Landing?
Sansa and Tyrion re-join to rule as John and Dany annihilate each other?
3
So you are frustrated that a character who is a warlord and spoke of destruction way back in season 1 and forever since and had strong emotional reasons for choosing her more violent tendencies over her more benevolent reformist ones (which were still phrased destructively: “break the wheel” “breaker of chains”) did so? That’s not bad writing. It’s good writing that the show ever tricked you into caring about her.
And as for Cleganebowl, same thing. Stop winging. You are the fans who demanded it. If you don’t want fans ruining things, stop fanboying and saying things like Cleganebowl.
I think you are confusing fan with nerd. And nerds are bad at narrative. Watch some YouTube. You’ll be amazed at how many predictions are just wrong.
But wait till next week. Ok? Maybe Littlefinger really is Bran is the Night King.
Facepalm!
4
Well put. As The Hound said “your lips are moving, and you’re complaining about something. That’s whinging.”
I just want it all to be over.
1
The word "mad" is being bandied about pretty easily in these comments. Mad woman. Mad queen. If she were Dan the Man instead of Dany, we wouldn't be talking "mad". We'd be talking "ruthless", "brutal". "mass murderer", but not "mad". This is one of these emotive and unhelpful words. Daenerys -- unlike Aerys the Mad King -- is not insane.
5
@Maggi I think burning innocent children makes her mad like her mad father who also had a penchant for fiery murder.
1
The Iron Throne is gone, and I suspect the kingdoms are all on their own. Great episode when you consider how much there is to wrap up. Glad Cercei and Jaime are gone- needed to happen. Jon is no leader, but is betrayed by the immorality of Daenerys. My prediction: She will try to kill Jon, Arya will kill her saving him (family, you know). He will retreat to the North (or die) and the Stark ladies go back to Winterfell to get on with it - leaving Tyrian to try to piece the word back together again and Sam to tell the tale.
5
Some un-PC thoughts
First, Dany (Emilia) is just not a very good actress. I have had trouble believing in her romance with Jon. She has also shown that she has no 'leadership chops' these past few episodes. She just has a dragon to back her up.
Second, one could look at Dany and the whole 'a woman scorned' thing. I this case she acted out her bitterness with her dragon.
Third, the stereotype "non-white people" (Unsullied, Dothraki) giving in to their passions and just destroying stuff and proceeding to loot.
1
If you accept that Jon Snow can be brought back from the dead, and if you can believe in a Night King and White Walker and an army of zombies, why question that a dragon can blow apart buildings in a city or sink ships? It's fantasy, and that's what makes it enjoyable. Allow your imagination to roam free....
5
Did anyone notice the two rings Varys dropped into a goblet when the guard came to get him? What was that all about? (Apologies for not reading all 597 comments.)
3
I would guess he knew he was going to be barbequed, and wanted to leave the rings for his little bird helper.
"As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods (GoT writers),
They kill us for their sport."- King Lear
Why did the author write "quote-unquote Hand" instead of "Hand"? Quote-unquote is a messy verbal attempt at encapsulating a term in quotation marks during speech but is seemingly out of place on the written page in which simple quotation marks around the term work.
1
Jon Snow, with the Draggin' Queen dispatched one way or another, turns the throne over to team Stark, as in, Queen Sansa, the one who had the good sense to stay away.
4
Dany made Arya's list when she killed the mother and daughter as the three were fleeing. The entire story is set in motion by unjust rulers on the Iron Throne, and any ending where Dany doesn't die will not bring the series to conclusion. We also know that Arya "agrees with Sansa" and will support Jon. It's the tidiest way to wrap everything up and set things right.
4
I may have disappointed by some of this episode, but not surprised.
The death of Jaimie and Cersei were the biggest disappointment to me, but so fitting somehow that Jaimie could not desert her.
I loved this episode, but it reminded me so much of the horrific September 11, 2001 when I had to run down West Broadway being chased by ash and fire. I have to admit, I had a bit of PTSD watching all the carnage.
6
This article tells us everything we need to know except the most important thing - did Aaron Rodgers get a cameo? (A: Yes, but in an non-speaking part.)
The show outpaced the books long ago. For several seasons, GoT (TV) seemed content to stall for time with Faceless Men and Ramsay Bolton torture games. If only George R. R. Martin could type as fast as men could travel from Winterfell to King's Landing!
This final season feels far too rushed. After many seasons of deep character development, episodes are suddenly being whittled down to the bare minimum. Just the facts.
We no longer understand why, only what.
There is no possible way they can wrap everything up in one final episode. That means so many great characters, developed over many hours and seasons, will be background wallpaper at best. It just feels like the creators were too exhausted to keep going, turned off the lights, and rushed everybody out the door. Meanwhile, the Iron Throne no longer even exists. All of society in Westeros has been permanently changed. But we won't see how. The whole world is burning, thanks for your time, Jon won. G'bye!
7
An assessment of Dany via The Who: Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. For now at least, the cycle of violence and retribution continues. The circle remains unbroken.
5
The writers and the Director have more than proven to us that they understand what they are doing. I trust that they will give us a proper ending that preserves the psychology of the myth of death.
If they do, I suspect that we will not see a happy ending. There is never peace in the myth of death. There is only death.
I am looking forward to find out if and how they get out of this one.
3
Yet another horribly written episode, like the rest of season 8, (n maybe 6 & 7). It’s funny how mainstream media tries to hide n sweep under the rug the fans’ outrage by D&D’s writing (which went downhill when they ran out of Martin’s source materials). Just need to sample/scan Twitter n YouTube. Season 8 could have been written soooo much better in so many ways. What a shame.
8
@Thomas Paine
Martin is an awful book writer, but he knows plot and his characters are complex, but his style is that of a screen writer (a good thing for the early seasons). Unfortunately, he could not keep up with the HBO's need to continue the story, but we will get two endings and that makes me happy!
4
Where the heck is Bronn? Is he outside of High Garden waiting to sign papers and get the keys to his new castle?
14
@JP
Let's hope he wasn't waiting at the Kings Landing Title Company with a stack of papers to sign.
I would have loved to see Cersi stand up to Dany and say,”Go ahead.,,command that filthy monster of yours you call your baby..” and get roasted (instead of crying and stumbling down the stairs cluelessly).
Come one Cersi...I expected more from you. ...you beautiful monster.
4
@Bogey yogi Cersei isn't as brave as she is cruel. Without forces to shelter her she is reduced to hiding and awaiting death ala The Battle of Blackwater. Arya, Dany, Brienne and perhaps even Sansa are all considerably more brave than she is. Cersei is a bully, a lot of puffery but no true bravery.
1
A snarky award to the author of this fine article, I'll have to binge read all the previous reviews. Who needs an actual show with reviews like this? Why not just write reviews of shows that were never made?
2
I think Jon will refuse to bend the knee (unbend the knee?) to Dany and she will order Drogon to light him up thereby proving to all that he has Targaryen blood when we get a good look at how hard he’s been working on those abs. True to form she will then strategically forget to have Drogon bite him in half.
I know Arya is a popular choice for queenslayer, but I’m rooting for the kingslayer’s little brother to do the job.
Maybe the the show will just leave us back where we started.
3
Sorry, still a Dany fan after the episode. Couldn't Jon have comforted her in her hour of need? At least recommend a good therapist on the UWS, dude! He was the proverbial straw. And why didn't the coffee cup make another appearance? Surely with so many escaping a fiery death, a few certainly would have headed to a Starbucks bathroom for a reprieve like the rest of us. All in all, an episode for the ages.
3
Whatever the Shakespearean tragic overtones of the Dany transformation were meant to be failed due to a serious lack of evolution. Shame, shame on lazy writing and time given to CGI versus character and motive development. This resulting in the final misogynistic message being: anyone with a vagina eventually has a cataclysmic PMS attack and goes mad.
6
@Judi. I was thinking of the whole 'woman scorned.' thinkg :-).
But then again they have to tie up the loose plot ends.
I would also say that the showrunners have succumbed to Hollywood cliches since they ran out of book material.
4
War is a terrible thing. The references to Vietnam are palpable. It may be that anyone would lose her mind after what she's been through. That part I found real. Dragons, on the other hand, are not real; therefore, they don't need to play by any sort of "isn't it time for a pit-stop?" real-world rules. I'm not complaining about Episode 5, but the whole thing kind of broke my heart. Very poignant.
4
I loved this episode. Not only for the visual effects and spectacles of the episode, but that even this close to end of the season it made me question once again who I was rooting for.
Yes I did have some issues with the inconsistencies of the scorpion teams from episode 4 to 5, but my issue was more with episode 4 and how easily the dragon went down. I expected Dany to roll through with the dragons, so I was excited to see the initial destruction.
I would have gone with a different tactical solution after taking down the defenses, going straight for the Red Keep and taking down Cersei quick and easy. But I do love the twist, and Dany's turn to full on Dracarys. Looks like Missandei's last words were prophetic. It did make me question who I was rooting for in the end, and brought up some emotions. Who knew I'd actually feel for Cersei and Jaime a little bit while they were trapped below.
Looking forward to the first meeting between Jon and Dany next episode. If only Jon had reciprocated a little, maybe things could have been different.
I enjoyed the realization that Arya's purpose in King's Landing may be different now, and could still add then cross off another name to her list after witnessing all the death and destruction.
I loved the episode, adding a few twists just before the end, and these are just my ramblings on it. I fully expect people's views to be different, and I love to see's everyone's different takes on the episode.
1
I have been as annoyed as anyone with the rushed last two seasons. I was also always bothered not so much by the signals from the early seasons that Dani would break bad, but by the critical over-anticipation that characterized every normal move she made within the setting of the story, like her perfectly understandable demand as an absolute monarch that others bend the knee, as some psychological dysfunction.
Still, I loved this episode and appreciated the acting even in moments I found flawed, the aforementioned heel turn, Vary's sudden conspiratorial carelessness, Euron Greyjoy's annoying presence etc. Jamie and Cersei's death happened in an unexpected and poetic manner that, like the best past moments in the series, appears justified in retrospect. And yes the younger brother(s) did kill her, trying to rescue her. So that prophesy was fulfilled. Though it is not certain by any means that she was pregnant. It seems more like she wanted to believe she was pregnant, perhaps an early sign of madness, after losing all her kids. Cersi was the least well-served character by this truncated final season. It's a testament to Lena Headey's acting skills that she kept her character alive as a three dimensional figure given the paucity of material she was offered. The war scenes were the best part of the episode: apocalyptic, haunting, and emblematic of how the average person bares the brunt of war and political violence.
4
This episode could have easily been named "Bells for Rhaegar". The strongest recurring theme in this book is about mothers protecting their children and revenge. I think Dany hearing the bells is what finally "flips the coin".
4
I think you did a great analysis of this episode. I agree with so many of your postings. Beautiful, gruesome moments and yet narratively disappointing overall. The story line with Jamie just did not ring true for me at all.
1
To be fair to Dany, they said she hadn't eaten. Maybe she was just hungry. Put a plate of those little lemon cakes Sansa used to love and maybe all would have been well.
11
I thought it was an episode worthy of GOT. The show has done well from all the plot twist and from the downtrodden battle against power. A predictable episode is worse than one that makes us satisfied. If Daenerys just went for the tower to kill Cersei with some dramatic showdown it would have been satisfying but ultimately boring. Now the stage is set for who will take the Iron Throne. The predictable answer is Jon Snow—let’s see if GOT has one more plot twist up its sleeve for us.
1
Game of Thrones is the most perfect cinematographic representation of the Ego’s Dream of Death and Fear ever done. Everyone involved needs be praised and recognized.
I sincerely hope that it is properly recognized as such and that it becomes the most analyzed film study of the human mythology of Death and Fear that culminates in Armageddon.
And, that is why we all loved it and sit-in-wait for the next episode. Secretly, we all believe in Death and Fear and pretend that we know anything about Love.
Game of Thrones is who we really are. It is a perfect representation of the human condition then and now.
5
Another brilliantly filmed episode. As good a war film as the opening sequence to Private Ryan.
I think Dany is done. She has become her father -- the Mad King who was going to "burn them all" until the King Slayer interceded. Now his daughter has burned them all. (Note the pockets of green flame in the midst of all the Drogon-generated red flame. Pockets of hidden wild fire left over from her father's reign. Symbolic and fitting -- the unity of father and daughter.)
Having burned them all, she cannot rule. Too much blood on her hands. Her reign has finished before it began. Jon will have to step in. Varys was right.
10
My prediction for the final episode: Arya kills Dany and the Iron Bank shows up to finally show everyone who is really in charge of Westeros, by forcing everyone left alive to play nice with each other so they can keep making those loan payments.
4
Ouch! Reading this review makes me so glad I reading, or rather listening, to the audiobooks. Even while I'm driving the deadly commuter lanes of California, listening to the original makes more sense than the episode you just described. Yeah, I ran into lots of spoilers here because I'm on book four, but does it matter? I have NO idea how closely the TV plot follows the books. Anyway, for those of you who still read fiction, try the five book series. Maybe it'll make more sense. ;)
3
@Glenn. I could not get through the books. Martin is no Tolkien. I found that he filled in too much space with needless details.
2
I believe the first 3 books were well written and well paced. As for too much detail, Tolkien himself falls into the same quagmire on occasion.
Book 4 really showed his penchant for indulgence of useless details. I remember a point in which an entire family tree was discussed and literally dozens of names of characters we would never meet were thrown out. I began skipping over the stuff that wasn’t directly related to character and plot line. While I squeaked thru Book 4, I never read Book 5. It seemed as if the author had lost control of his narrative.
1
@Brian Whistler
Wow, that's a disappointment, but having spent precious hours on the road listening to the first 3 1/2 books, I'm inclined to finish them. Roy Dotrice is the narrator, and I think he does a good job. Despite that, the seemingly endless preachings of Aeron Damphair almost put me off the series. Thanks for the warning. As MarathonMan says, he's no Tolkien.
When the writers don't even bother to take a second to explain why 1 dragon could do infinitely more than 2 dragons did, or have Cersei change expression as her world is reduced to ashes, you know it is time for a show to end.
This was the critic's best column of the year, hitting all the many gaping holes in what should have been the most carefully written episode to date of the 8 seasons.
Perhaps winning an Emmy last time for the worst season of all made them spoiled, entitled and lazy.
8
Every single thing done in this episode could have been done smarter with the same outcome. Game of Thrones has been one the cleverest shows in the history of television. It has upended norms around who is a hero. It has brought out the complexity of the human experience. And all of that went up in a storm of dragon fire and lazy writing last night.
5
Cersei dies saying (if I heard it right) "Not like this". I had expected her to die at the hand of Jamie or Arya, but somehow, thinking it over, her death is perfect punishment.
She, Jamie and their baby are simply more victims of the lust for power. And at the end, she's nobody special, just another corpse under a pile of stone.
16
@Dee I agree and I enjoyed how the show played with our emotions and made us feel badly for her. She’s a abhorrent character yet in the end I felt for her. Compliments to Lena headey’s acting
Excellent review of this frustrating episode which tried too hard to be epic, telegraphing the plot, and compromising on personal authenticity and allowing too much shifting historicity. On the grand side: it truly captured how the vulnerable takes the brunt of war, with a shattering first-person perspective, one-take shot of Arya stumbling through the apocalypse. Her attempt to lend a hand to a mother and daughter became a death sentence - a scene with so much pathos emblematic of the episode. Overall, technically gorgeous, with no real attempt to deal with story nuances. Arya, Don't kill Daenerys until she reveals to us how she gave Drogon infinite firepower, fuel, point-and-shoot accuracy, dodging skills, and wing-power to stay aloft forever!
10
Not sure that what I want to see next can be done in 80 minutes, but either Dany packs up and takes her dragon, the Dothraki and gray worm and his boys back to the free cities or ??? Someone dies.
@John
Yes. Especially if she wakes up to find Arya’s dagger next to her pillow, and it sobers her up from her rage/grief/whatever enough for her to feel guilty and goes back to Essos.
But I doubt it.
I think the writers got lost without the books to guide them. Everything appears as simple, premature resolutions. Tyrion, the smartest man in the books, is now an imbecile, sentimentalist incapable of predicting his enemies‘ moves. Danaerys, who had been raped, betrayed and despised before, now goes crazy because the people in Westeros doesn’t love her?! Duh?
All the plot of the Red Woman’s prophecy is abandoned without explanation. The battle plans are simplistic and misguided instead of the cunning strategies that were used in the early series (soldiers in front of the walls really?). Bran sits on his chair and does not use his powers to control animals anymore. This season looks like a a bad fake painting copied from a brilliant artist. Its goals are to finish the story with a bang and create some cheap surprises.
I can’t remember being so disappointed by a story resolution. Not because I wanted happy endings or edifying characters, but due to a lack of proper development and the use of lazy narrative schemes. Can‘t wait for the final book to go back to the real story. This season deserves 1/2 star out of 10.
16
Don't hold your breath waiting for the final book.
4
The greatest theme in GOT is how people change. This episode was about the final arc of several characters - Arya, in particular, was the most fulfilling. From blind revenge to love. The end belonged to her, with the white horse (bottom bloody, to pure white) showing her change and carrying her to a future.
9
@A Thinker, Not a Chanter.
While I loved, unlike many, the treatment for Arya this episode I kept thinking that Bran is responsible by warging into Strickland's horse and adding to her exit from hell. The Arya- Hound arc was also personally satisfying with the continued "I fought for you..." theme by telling her to give up on her revenge to kill Cersei and fight to stay alive instead. That humanization of both Arya and The Hound, some might think facile, but using Sandor was one of the only Life confirming moments in the entire episode.
4
@silva153 Thank you for your thoughts!
2
So who's left? Arya, Danny, Jon, Tyrion, Davos? And one dragon who must have a wicked sore throat today. Looking forward to next week's finale and who will sit on the Iron throne?
6
I agree with most of this but how are you gonna tell me that cersei and jaime is a more enduring romance than sam and gilly smh
3
Did anyone else feel like King's Landing pre-scorching looked like a delightful Disney World village?
2
@Clint
GoT is actually filmed in, and free-screen superimposed on, Dubrovnik, Croatia - now overrun by GoT tourists. Lots of images:
https://www.dubrovnik-travel.net/dubrovnik-old-town/
Has anyone considered that the Iron Throne was destroyed during the carnage and destruction of Kings Landing, and that by doing what she did, Dany's actions will prevent her from actually sitting on the throne, literally and figuratively.
6
@Eric Mandell
The Opener sequence showed a new throne - and only two swords left growing out of the dragon.
2
Was it really Dany’s fault that the citizens all got killed? If you look back at the episode where Cersi had all of them come into the walls to protect her and be her barrier. She also had the castle surrounded with dragon killing crossbows. While Dany could of stopped at the bells, we have to give 50% of her actions on Cersi.
2
I was hoping someone would provide insight to the mysterious comment Varys made to the little girl attempting to delivery food to Danny at the start of the episode.....
Anybody?
11
He was trying to poison Dany
1
@N
My interpretation was that Vary's was playing Big and Taking the Risk come what may even if it was his death. That is what he told Tyrion - whatever the personal cost he would try to see a good ruler be the ultimate leader.
@N--I had forgotten that moment 'til you mentioned it; perhaps Varys, now in "traitor" mode, was making a failed attempt to poison Dani.
Loving Jaime unconditionally and hoping his turn around for the good was real, set me up for heartache. I loved the fall, then redemption, of Theon. Thought it might hold true for Jaime. Even as he left the North, I thought it would be to fulfill the witch’s prophecy of the younger brother killing Cersai. Now, I’d like to know who is going to rid us of Dany and not reap the whirlwind of what’s left of The unsullied and Dothraki?
1
Well, we’ll always have Pentos.
Retribution or redemption was inevitable for so many characters. They were all so finely drawn and the actors got better every year at mining them for complexity and nuance. They didn’t deserve to have all of their stories end in one fell dragon swoop. It was a cheap trick. Hodor was granted far more dignity in his arc and demise.
It’s like GRRM got bored and just smashed all his toys and went home. I’ve always thought he was self-indulgent in not finishing this series, all the while publishing other books. It’s dismissive and disrespectful to his readers.
11
" I’ve always thought he was self-indulgent in not finishing this series, all the while publishing other books. It’s dismissive and disrespectful to his readers."
I believe you are exactly right. Now you can't so much blame a guy who has toiled in the depths of TV for years to not spend some time enjoying his late in life success.
But he ought to be a bit more honest with his legions of fans... who seem to still be holding great hopes that he will finish the books. It seems doubtful.
4
As for Dany’s actions, I felt she was forced to follow her instincts regarding the Lannister’s familial loyalty. I put the onus of the King’s Landing holocaust squarely on Cersei’s shoulders and I have no doubt Cersei viewed her citizens as expendable. Proving that leaders,
Not soldiers or innocents, are ultimately responsible for the carnage of war. Dany had limited choices and didn’t want to chance giving a peaceful surrender a chance.
2
I thought Cersi would have had a better plan when Daenerys charged her. Doesnt seem like her to have been dependent on anyone else for the final blow, and she definitely baited Daenerys to make that move. "one lucky shot" i was expecting.. but, crickets. And I'm still wondering WHY? WHY did Daenerys go all Mad Queen? I've heard all the cumulative reasons, but in the moment, they dont seem like enough relative to the seemingly magnitude of her compassion. So is it genetics? Some kind of synaptic relay occurs and she just goes blind w rage because mental illness is hereditary no mater how hard we try to break the chain? Or was she so evil the whole time that it was all a deception and in fact she was more calculating that cerci herself, and she fooled everyone? Well, one thing is for sure, we'll know next week if these questions are already answered or if there is more. Epic Episode!! Epic show.
3
@STiv ROma
I'm going with Good Intentions as was stated by several characters - the series creators and HBO simply did not give enough episodes for their final season to allow for more sufficient story element foundations to give us this transformation of their primary characters.
2
What if this was all a set up by Dany for Jon’s kingship. She knew he didn’t have this level of brutality in him. But she did and knew it was the only way to have a decisive victory (saving all future generations etc). This was essentially her sacrifice for his future.
2
This season the writers seem too eager to wrap things up. It's like checking boxes and they are not able to give us the nuanced dialogue we expect from GOT. I do not want to remember characters like this. Tyrion was my favorite but his lines are pathetic. If I wanted to listen to a banal bunch of characters running a government I'd turn on the news.
4
Nitpicking a grandiose soap opera is really a rather silly exercise in faux literary analysis. It's fantasy, and that gives it license to go in any direction it likes. For those of us who don't overthink all of this, I thought it was a good episode, and I'm eager to see how things conclude next week.
13
@Michael Kennedy--Agree with you completely.
jon was horrified by what Dani did and also what grey worm did, after the opposing army had surrendered! Arya's view of the carnage showed her the futility of war and revenge yet I think next week she will punish Dani for these violent acts and put Jon on the Throne, or maybe Sansa, who was sorely missed in last night's episode. had a wonderful time, and wasn't Cersei's death perfectly timed for Mother's Day??????????
2
@Lindsay Law
It was important to show what happened to Grey Worm after Cersei killed Missandei - without showing how much Cersei's cold blooded killing of his love Missandei's death would lose the powerful story element.
Several commenters lately have speculated that Arya would take on someone's face in order to kill another someone. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't she able to only use the faces of the dead? She has no access the faces in storage in Braavos and though she apparantly brought some faces with her in a bag (Sansa saw and asked about them) who knows where that bag is now. I'm pretty sure she cant just assume a living persons face.
Just my opinion, for those who feel Dany's turn is forced: She was a teenager, away from her homeland, inexperienced, resigned to her fate of being a tool for her already mad=power obsessed brother to get to the Throne himself, with his example as the closest example of "ruling", suddenly raised to the status of Queen (of the Dothraki, but Queen anyways), who after many mistreatments from her brother, chose to had him killed by her new in love husband. Viserys was not a good man, so we approved, but she was responsible for her brother's death. She achieved her first army by the means of deceiving and murdering the seller (bad guy again, we were happy to see him burn, still with tricks and violence). She won the Dothraki army by burning to ashes the leaders together on a tent and terrifying people by the fact that she did not burn as well (remember that Jorah and Daryo were there for the rescue, she chose to murder them to stand in front of one of the most ruthless army ever). She got to rule Mereen by failing to mingle and adapt to their culture, finally killed the leaders and exalting the former slaves. Daryo Naharis killed for her, even when she did not ask for this. She killed the Tarlys because they would not bend the knee, and that's just on a quick resume.
11
This was one of the most visually compelling cinematic episodes I have ever seen, rivalling The Long Night in its epic scale.
That makes up for much that was dissatisfying - some of the violence was gratuitous (one reason my wife hates GoT) - and Dany's turn to the dark side, while signalled, did not make a lot of sense in the circumstances. The bells ring, so she attacks? She immolates the city when it makes the most sense to head straight for the Red Keep?
The worst plot failure is with Tyrion (as usual). He knows there is a secret way out of the Red Keep - it is also a secret way in (as stupidest Lannister Jaime eventually figures out). Why not send an assassin that way to kill/kidnap Cersei and prevent the apocalypse?
There is so much to love about GoT, but why rush all of this having spent 9 years getting here?
6
Did anyone wonder about what Lorda Varys was plotting with Martha, the girl who works in the kitchen, who reported to him that Daenerys had not eaten for two days. Finally he says something like "With great risk comes great rewards." Was he plotting to poison Daenery's food? Might that plot angle still unfold?
5
@Bob S.
I absolutely do think he was trying to poison her. I watched that scene again, and Martha was afraid of more than just reporting that Daenerys wasn't eating.
2
There have been many strong women characters in positions of leadership on GOT, but in the end, unless Sansa ends up being the last...er... man standing, than it will be the usual "women can't handle or be trusted with power, give it to a man" story.
BTW, Next episode I expect Daenerys to be poisoned or at least a poisoning attempt by the girl who worked in the kitchen, which is why Varys said to the girl "We'll try again at supper." Likely with some final moment of contrition by Daenerys as she lay dying.
Final prediction. Cersei and Jaime were not seen dying, though it was assumed because the ceiling was falling in, but the show forshadows a lot... and Cersei was supposed to die at her brothers hands. Soooo, she may yet be alive, until next episode. Tyrion may yet ... ahhh ... have a hand in her death.
1
I for one don’t believe that Dany acted out of character. She’s always been volatile and ruthless when people refuse to bow to her. Does anyone remember Sam’s father and brother? Couple that with her being pushed beyond her breaking point and there ya go.
4
Remember the pretty but meanest girl in high school and imagine her getting her hands on a dragon and then deciding that it's just too much effort playing nice and gaining only baby steps to the undisputed crown of Queen of all.
Oh yeah, hell hath no fury like a disappointed woman who can scorch...
2
I love Dany, but I need Arya to kill her so Jon can take his rightful place.
An unsatisfying end to Cersei (if, in fact she is actually dead and not just temporarily covered by rubble). She deserved a truly grisly end.
2
Though surely not as "exciting" as it could have been- I thought it very fitting. As someone here pointed out, in the end she was just a person. And nothing special when the ceiling crashed down on them. A product of her own making.
I’m sorry but c’mon, how could we not understand why Daenerys was all in? I think she was the ultimate breaker of chains by laying siege to complicity on every level. I just wish she could have looked Cersei in the eye to feel the satisfaction of evil finally feeling the fear Cersei was so completely happy to disperse. Prior to this, The Battle of the Bastards was still my champion episode but last night surpassed it shockingly by a landslide. The Battle of the Hound vs The Mountain was even more than I had envisioned but I wish Arya was there and then played a role in delivering justice to Cersei. Jamie skewering Euron was up there as well! Other than that, it was the greatest moment in television history, minus our landing on the moon.
1
The decision to burn Kings Landing to the ground was abhorrent, but you absolutely understand how rage and power led her to make that decision . . . I dont. Fantasy, reality, that thought process eludes me. Some one very close to me, closest to me get violently taken from me . . . So I’ll kill hundreds of thousands who had nothing to do with it. My dragon got killed . . . So I’ll kill hundreds of thousands who had nothing to do with it. Nope, dont get it.
1
My wife and I had the theory for a while that Arya would get close to the last contender standing in this Who wants to rule reality show, and kill them in the name of the many faced god.
So far I think that is where we are headed.
Bet Jorah and Lyana of Bear Island are rolling in their ashes right now watching what they helped to have happened. Can you imagine laying it all on the line then watching your leader go Terminator?
I still think is all an allegory on the weather. what happens when winter ends? things get hot. No, really, I think that is what the show is based on.
1
I feel like the Daenerys transformation was not developed enough. It kind of felt like to poor job the Star Wars franchise did in turning Anakin to Vader. In both cases it happened too suddenly and without enough development.
1
Yes, surely not enough development in either this OR Star Wars. But if you did, you'd get the usual complaints by a huge part of the audience - "Hey, what's with all the ... TALKING" ? "Where's all the Splosions'"? "We want Action, not more talk". Yo get the picture. It's what always happens. Folks always claim they want more plot, more development, but when they get it,they usually reject it as Slow / Talky / etc.
Jaime's return to Cersei didn't work for me. He seemed to have changed too much since their full-on romance, they parted on such poor terms (she even sent an assassin for him), he engaged with Brienne in such a touching and heartfelt way, etc, etc. Then he just up and decides to support his bloodthirsty and evil sister because...why? I think they could have achieved the same ends by having him go back to try to get her to surrender, NOT out of love of her, but to use her love for him to save lives. But then when he gets there, their weird twin-love re-ignites and he comforts her as they die together. That could have worked for me. I can see him being pulled over to her side when they are together, but not when they are separated, and he's presumably thinking more rationally.
3
Jaime's return to Cersei didn't work for me. He seemed to have changed too much since their full-on romance, they parted on such poor terms (she even sent an assassin for him), he engaged with Brienne in such a touching and heartfelt way, etc, etc. Then he just up and decides to support his bloodthirsty and evil sister because...why? I think they could have achieved the same ends by having him go back to try to get her to surrender, NOT out of love of her, but to use her love for him to save lives. But then when he gets there, their weird twin-love re-ignites and he comforts her as they die together. That could have worked for me. I can see him being pulled over to her side when they are together, but not when they are separated, and he's presumably thinking more rationally.
1
Really thought you nailed this. Much of this season does seem to have been aimed at giving the fans what they want, like the Cleganebowl.
Khaleesi burning innocents really was a stretch, as we've seen her save so many other victims. She seemed to have genuine empathy for the poor and former slaves. To have her all of a sudden become "mad" in just a few episodes didn't mesh very well at all.
Overall, this season catered to what fans wanted on too many occasions. For a show that has dragons and zombies, it's disappointing that parts of the plot is what seems far fetched.
2
This reminds me of an old interview of Walter Matthau regarding him not playing Oscar in the television version of the Odd Couple. As I recall he said something likening television to "making sausage". Here is the latest example of his sentiment. They had to fit the finale in these limited number of episodes and they "made it fit", rather inartfully. They had the opportunity to make this show much more enjoyable, first by reversing the order of the battles to make the anger of "nature" in the form of the dead army transcend the futile struggles of worldly man. Secondly they could have reserved the participation of one of the only previously redeeming characters, the Dragon Queen, until the very end. The writing here, whether influenced by Martin or (hopefully) not was typical of TV, great for individual episodes but failing in plot coherence overall. This was such an appealing story when the writers had the books to reign in their TV impulses, but alas, it succumbed to the pressures of "making it fit" in the time they had left. What a shame. Hopefully Martin will do a better job when he finally gets around to finishing his own story.
To quote Ramsay Snow: "If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention." Also, to anyone who thinks Dany's descent is against character or implausible, we witnessed the prediction of the destruction of King's Landing all the way back in Qarth. When looking for her kidnapped dragons, she saw the vision of the throne room burnt to a crisp and snow falling, reaching out for the throne only to turn away when she heard the dragons call. This ending has been part of the show/books since the beginning.
24
Thank you, Josh.
I do think it would have made more sense -- character wise if Jaime had returned to kill Cercei and then had not been able to do it when actually confronted with her desperately trying to survive for the sake of her baby, and then have the rest play out as it did.
But I also think this was the only way it was ever going to go for Dany. There is only one way to win a war with a Dragon -- and she was right, the people would call for Jon Snow, not her and if he wasn't going to be in her bed, he was going to be on her throne. This was her only choice.
I agree with posters who are forwarding Brienne for the next ruler of the 7 Kingdoms. It's not just because of her strength and all-around goodness, but perhaps Brienne is also the only major character that even remotely has the chance of providing an heir... Jamie's kid?
Think about it, there are no other potential rulers with an heir. Dany can't extend her family dynasty, Jon is playing solo, Sansa is not even dating, and Arya doesn't want to be a bride.
3
I have mixed feelings about this episode. The whole “every time a Targaryen is born, the gods toss a coin thing” has been set up, and I liked that it wasn’t so much chance that brought about the result, but rather betrayals around her:
1) Cersei lying about helping her defeat the Night King
2) The North not being won over by her defeat of the Night King’s army
3) Jon not being into her anymore after learning of their incest
4) Sansa and Varys (and Jon) spilling her secret
5) Tormund lauding Jon Snow as a hero for riding a dragon and ignoring Daenerys doing the same thing (which felt weird for Tormund, as the wildlings don’t seem to have the same gender hangups as Westeros denizens - he seemed surprised that Brienne wasn’t a real knight, for instance)
6) Cersei’s execution and war crime against Missandei
7) Jared Let-Himself-Go’s killing of her “baby” dragon.
It just felt that after building her up for seven seasons, this change of character happened too fast. We always got the sense that Daenerys empathized with slaves because she was sold to the Dothraki and railed against this injustice. She positioned herself as a destroyer of tyrants and protector of innocents. If she’s going to betray her character, built up for seven seasons, it needed to happen in more than two episodes. They crammed all of the reasons in, but none had the impact they should have because the pacing was off.
10
It didn’t work for me at all. I could have bought it if she’d flown straight for Cersei and incinerated her, but not the way it happened.
9
I was horrified but not surprised at Dany's descent into madness. I think the crux was when she hovered over the city as the bells rang, but the populace didn't come out to rejoice at her win. She grew up hearing from her brother and her patrons that the citizens would rise up in joy to meet her, but that wasn't the case. Also, she had intimated that was her expectation when she stated that the slaves in the slave cities rose up to fight their masters when she appeared. Add her underwhelming reception to all the losses she'd experienced and snapping was inevitable.
8
We got 'Stuck with the Pointless End'.
As the review says there was no logic to Daenerys being so destructive.
No good explanation why catapults that were deadly against dragons in the last episode suddenly failing.
A touch of logic when she came in high, since the catapults seem unable to shoot at a high angle. But most of the time she should have been vulnerable
7
Indeed humans are complicated creatures, and their instability is more times than not catastrophic. This is well depicted by Game of Thrones
So I truly hope Drogon gets to survive, along with a few eggs, and can fly off into the sunset and do whatever dragons do far from the wars of humans!
5
I was disappointed in Cersei's death. I think it would have been much better if Daenerys had flown Drogon straight towards her in the tower and burned her there. Jaimie could have died with her there too. It would have been a more fitting ending especially since that is the tower where she watched the city explode when she orchestrated the green wildfire explosion.
4
Dany’s arc doesn’t have to be a one-dimensional descent to madness.
She’s always used public deaths as a means to an end—a warning to former slavers or to enemies who won’t bend the knee, etc. There was some measure to it—a few deaths to further the larger goal of saving a city, nation, etc. And she previews this view of King’s Landing—that even if she kills thousands and thousands in this battle it will benefit millions and millions in future generations. There’s a certain McNamara-type heartless calculation of war, but still with the glint of a noble (or noble-enough) goal. And maybe that’s the calculations she’s making as the bell tolls—will this win be enough, or does she need total destruction of her enemies now to ensure unchallenged rule (which is what she needs to help all those future generations)
The twin thread of her going from loved liberator surrounded by literal hoards of admirers and a wealth of counselors and friends, to isolated foreign pariah with no trusted confidants (other than the fairly mute grey worm) and spurned lover (why can’t Jon be her Jaime?) informs this cold-calculation, but doesn’t necessarily make her “mad” in the sense of losing her capacity to make intentional choices. It helps to bring out the cold calculation that was always part of her.
Maybe revenge becomes the tie-breaker as she weighs her choices? But she doesn’t have to be a raving lunatic as a plot connivance, and maybe the writers did more subtle buildup than appreciated?
14
This.
I was also hoping Dany would either just sit there on her dragon after destroying all the scorpions or at most torch the red keep, but this didn’t surprise me and I don’t think it was a u-turn from who we thought she was. I’ve been suspicious of and a bit put off by her will to power and messianic drive for a while now. I think this turn was set up sufficiently.
4
Obviously this writer has no understanding of History of Westeros....when Messandi was executed it was all over....How does fire melt walls (I guess you did not see how Ice Fire destroyed Winterfell. Fire and Blood read the book of the
Targaryens. It's set up now for a battle between Jon an Danny one will live and one will die. Remember this is the War of the Roses People Die. Every negative was a positive..... the Hound vs the Mountain was spectacular. This was what was going to happy... if you thought that Tyrion 's plan was going to work everything he did back home failed. This was ment to be, and will end with Fire and Blood.
1
The only thing that made logical sense was the execution of traitor Varys. So why wouldn’t Dany also execute traitor Jon, as well as traitor Tyrion, in the same cool burn-‘em-all streak? What’s with that flaming double standard?
I was VERY disappointed that Arya couldn’t fulfill her list wish to be the one to do Cersei in. I really thought the “hate” that Jamie mentioned to Brienne was his newfound hate he developed for Cersei and was codifying his intent to kill her, not console her, and that Arya would somehow have a role in that.
Was Brienne’s climax really just her knighting to Lady?
Will Sansa get the thrown with Jon as her Hand after he nukes his former lover, perhaps while riding her only remaining dragonchild?
And of course, what of Bran?! With all that’s between Bran’s ears now, he’s hardly as sidebar as Bronn and Yara.
I was very disappointed in the lackluster death of Cersei, Jamie, Hound, and Qyburn (not to mention Genry).
1
Still stuck in that same old male/female paradigm. Women too emotional, men rational and honorable. Maybe in order to break the wheel, the whole city of King's Landing, where it started, needs to be destroyed. Personally, I hope Dany fries the lot, including Jon and Sansa. And Tyrion with his "harsh language" theory of warfare, might make a tasty morsel too. Have you no awareness of what it feels like to loose your two best friends, Jorah and Messandie. To sacrifice a large part of your army, and receive only suspicion and contempt. Because you are hurt and angry doesn't mean you're mad, unless you are a woman. Fry on Drogon, fry on.
2
The writing's been on the wall some time now about Dany's true nature. We even got to see glimpses of it in the first season, (and it's been growing steadily since then) it was just carefully masked behind a sense of righteousness that bad things should befall anyone who does horrible things to others.
Jon, as the hero throughout almost the entire show, has now had to take a back seat to his youngest "sister", who has done some walking in his shoes and now refuses to give them back. However, in this episode I think we saw a change in her. She stopped being the Terminator and regained some of her human qualities along the way. She might have one more name on her list but will she want to erase it, or will she ride off back north and relative peace and quiet?
Back to Jon, and he has some thinking to do. He is the rightful heir to Westeros, he says he doesn't want it, that Dany is queen and that's that, but now that Dany's gone ballistic will he want her on the throne? He may not want it, at least that's what he says, but clearly crazy dragon lady can't be trusted to rule. This sets up an intriguing final episode as all is finally laid bare.
I already miss Varys. He was one of my favourite characters in the books and in the series. Seeing him being immolated within the first minute made me sense that fire was going to be the reigning theme of this episode. And it looks like Tyrion will be feeling all kinds of guilty for dropping him in it.
4
Was anyone else taken aback by the differences with fighting the Night King and his ice, zombie army versus the humans fighting each other? As I sat and watched I was shocked, as horrible as the War with The Night King was …. this seemed so much more carnage filled.
Regardless, I also sat wondering, is this ethical? What is wrong with us humans? I am sitting here being so, so, so terribly entertained by such death and destruction.
It was truly fantastic filming … and I still want a dragon.
3
What the heck happened to Tyrion? The cleverest man in the kingdom has made mistake after mistake. The only way he can redeem himself to me at this point is if he becomes the Queenslayer, to follow in Jaime's footsteps...
4
Okay, so the Hound goes to kill Cersei, and then she just skips right by him and he doesn't even look. Couldn't he have just given a little stabby-stab as she ran by?
6
@Carrie
He didn't go to kill Cersei. He went to kill his brother.
3
The Hound wanted to kill his brother, not Cersei, who had been Arya's target until dissuaded by Clegane.
1
Just look at Dany's face when the bells sound. Surrendering with minimal actual damage made her really REALLY mad because she sees all the people of King's Landing as spoiled entitled brats. The other cities rose up to overthrow their tyrants but the people here, the same ones who let her father's rule be usurped, are gonna be left mostly unscathed? Nope, she's gonna teach them all a lesson about the price of freedom.
3
Hell hath no fury...
Daenerys had seen the writing on the wall. Betrayed by all those around her with power and influence (Jon, Varys, Tyrion, Sansa), like a petulant child with a deadly weapon, she ultimately decides that if she cannot have the Iron Throne, no one will.
I think that is why Daenerys destroys Kings Landing. Now she'll return to Dragonstone, her family's ancestral home, and attempt to make it the new seat of power.
Regrettably, there was no other way for this to play out after Jon's true lineage was revealed. It's a little sad because I think viewers instinctively root for a happy ending. Alas, there are rarely any happy endings when the power hungry are corrupted by the very power they wield ostensibly for the good of all.
The only question that remains is who will take down Daenerys, if anyone? Or will the series end with a new cycle comprising a chosen leader (Jon) seeking to take his rightful place on the throne and raising a rebel army to depose the evil Daenerys?
As far as all the continuity nitpicking about army sizes and such, sometimes you just have to play along for the sake of the story.
3
Just throwing this out there, but are we entirely, 100% certain that Jamie and Cersi are dead?
5
For dramatic - you had coming - effect, I would have liked to have seen Dany go straight after Cersi in the tower. Torch her as she has she has so many others in her way. Then, as the madness takes hold, continue to torch the rest of the city. She's ticked at Cersi for beheading here best friend. Letting Cersi and Jamie die cute seemed to contradict the nasty reality of bad choices the show has demonstrated for most of its run.
I had oped Arya rode off to something better but sh'es in the previews still in Kings Landing.
In Episode 4, we were shown Cersei and Dany's green eyes looking at each other, so we kinda knew it wouldn't go our way. I'm still Team Dany - she had little choice but to burn it all down. I mean, she is Dany and she has Drogon. BTW - Let's hear it for our boy Drogon - Drogon is THE MAN. I'm sad to say he will probably die next week,..... and BY THE WAY - where are the flippin wolves? Nymeria may end up coming back to help Arya with Dany and Drogon, but the unceremonious disappearance of the Direwolves is one of my biggest frustrations. I would have no qualms naming my next dog Khaleesi ... I would never have named a child that, after all, what kind a name is it for a kid?
Dany's decent into the depths of her personality dissapointed me but did not surprise me. She has experienced terrible personal loss, two of her "babies" killed, Misandei killed, the loss of the physical love of Jon, and the loss of the love of the common folk which was always the source of her strength. It all went downhill for her once she arrived in Westeros. She was consumed with revenge, as futilely and unfairly as it was rendered. I doubt she will feel very good about herself in the morning.
Madness certainly runs deep within her family so that is a factor as well.
5
One of the core themes of the books and the series has been the inevitable corruption of everything. “All men must die” Valor Morghulis. John Snow is the undead, Arya the faceless, Sansa ruthless and Dany insane. If the runners are true to the themes we wont like the ending at all. Nothing says they will be because that’s so dark but the Sopranos did it successfully. I hope they don’t choose the “Hollywood” ending but I don’t blame them if they do.
3
Since the show moved into the future of Martin's books, the writers of the TV show have relentlessly chosen the most obvious solutions to any narrative problems. The subtlety of the early seasons is gone. I have confidence that if there had been books to base these past few season on, instead of outlines, we viewers would have been much, much happier with last night's episode. Perhaps Dany would still have gone mad, but we would have had a clearer sense of why, and the path to that madness would not have been both so obvious, so unbelievable, and so heavy-handed.
In other words, the show's writers are more interested in visual spectacle than anything else, and the plot now drives the characters, instead of the other way around. I only hope that in years to come, the early, wonderful seasons of this show will still keep their reputation.
5
For all those commenting on GoT sabotaging Dany’s character as “the crazy woman” need to watch again the build up of her character to last night’s terrific episode. Her goal has been the Iron Throne no exceptions because of her perceived birth right and according to her and quoting Osha, a character I really liked, “she’s owed”. When one of the former slaves kills the Master she beheads him, even when he pleads for his life she says, “the law is the law”, but she is the law!
I think Dany’s inhumanity was piece-meal, and to the audience somewhat acceptable. I started to see her differently by the time Jon meets her at dragonstone, she appears desperate and cold and all she could say was “bend the knee or die, also, I’m really different in a good way” and by the time she goes completely “HAM” it’s not so shocking to me. She’s hurt, somewhat paranoid - for good reason- everyone that she treasured is dead, and the man she loves is repulsed by her being his Aunt.
Lastly, everyone that thought Dany was the savior of Westeros has been sleeping on Sansa, she has fought this fight in her mind and looked at it from every side as her ultimate professor taught her to do - Baylish. I’ve been quite happy at the role women have played in this series. And they have behaved similarly to all who wish to attain power - imperfect! GRRM once said of his books he never meant to have magic be the ultimate boogeyman in his books, it wasn’t needed, it’s always been mankind.
6
Does anyone else think Tyrion might have a shot at the throne as possibly the third Targaryen?
This was a rough episode and YES I cried a few times - Tyrion and Jamie's exchange, the death of Cersei and Jamie...
5
Fun review as always. One disagreement: I think the hound has always been driven by revenge, just that until recently he has taken it out on the world instead of focusing it directly at his brother.
16
GOT reminds us that nobody is purely good or evil, and those who expect things to wrap up neatly are usually disappointed.
As we knew along along in this morality tale, it comes down to House Stark holding on against the forces of power-driven madness. It took 7 seasons, but they finally dispatched supernatural evil last week and distanced themselves from the everyday tyrants this week.
They will clean up the mess next week, and then retreat to the north where there’s less temptation to stray from the path of righteousness, and fewer consequences when they act on their human instincts.
5
@Wyatt Walker beautifully put!!
1