Game of Thrones Final Season Discussion Thread. (SPOILERS ABOUND, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED)

[jademunky]

How she got her dragons in the first place? By burning a woman who made her infertile and turned her husband into a vegetable. Dany is no stranger to burnings, but innocents are hardly her cup of tea. Remember how she locked up all her three dragons due to them having burned one innocent child alive?

A woman who was kinda upset that everything she knew and loved were now either dead, razed or made into rape-slaves by her Attila-the-Khal-husband.

Yeah I do remember the dead child thing and I do think her horror was genuine but her decision to imprison them had more to do with her tenuous political position in Meereen. It also made her look weak to admit to people she had gathered to protect that she could not control her "children."

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

I'm probably already forgetting something despite having finished the show less than 40 minutes ago. Honestly I'm starting to gain a kind of respect for this season. Like, this is reaching The Room levels of badness. A perfect case study of what not to do. A once in a generation culmination of fuck-up, incompetence and boredom that should be shown in film classes to show how not to make an ending.

The ending. Oh, am I excited to see just how fucking bad this can get!

1. Eh. I found Episode 3 more fun then this.

2. So far Film Classes in America are doing dick all if we are still getting badly handled movies and tv? America's Education System has long since been down the shitter.

 

[Abomination]

I really feel that those who are claiming that this is out-of-character for Dany must be newcomers to the series.

Does nobody remember the first season? How she got her dragons in the first place? (granted it was a long time ago)

Burning innocents on the altar of her ego and sense of entitlement is, and has (almost) always been, her main defining characteristic.

How she got her dragons in the first place? By burning a woman who made her infertile and turned her husband into a vegetable. Dany is no stranger to burnings, but innocents are hardly her cup of tea. Remember how she locked up all her three dragons due to them having burned one innocent child alive?

I've always viewed Dany as a person who does the right thing for the wrong reasons and also does the wrong thing for the right reasons.

Burning King's Landing is her finally doing the wrong thing for the wrong reason.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Just letting everyone know that I have been fucking calling it since I first fully understood the plot, premise, and stacks of this show that it would have a Mass Effect 3 level of bad finale.

Especially with the Knowledge that the books were not finished yet.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

okay so apparently the production fuck ups continue. In his final scene, hugging his bitchy incest sister girlfriend, Jaime, seconds before death, regrows his lost hand and is totally fine!

At this point its just funny

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

okay so apparently the production fuck ups continue. In his final scene, hugging his bitchy incest sister girlfriend, Jaime, seconds before death, regrows his lost hand and is totally fine!

At this point its just funny

That image was apparently from an episode stills gallery, and not in the actual episode itself. At least many people on Reddit have claimed so.

But when I think about it, that could actually have been a really cool storytelling detail if presented right. Maybe show things from Cersei's perspective, delirious and jumbled from the ruin of her rule. With a pinch of magical realism to convey that what's shown may not be entirely literal it could have been a great metaphor for both Jaime's character regression, and a representation of Cersei's melancholy that at least she got to die with her brother, and the version of her brother she always loved. Hence Jaime "regrowing" his hand.

I'm probably already forgetting something despite having finished the show less than 40 minutes ago. Honestly I'm starting to gain a kind of respect for this season. Like, this is reaching The Room levels of badness. A perfect case study of what not to do. A once in a generation culmination of fuck-up, incompetence and boredom that should be shown in film classes to show how not to make an ending.

The ending. Oh, am I excited to see just how fucking bad this can get!

1. Eh. I found Episode 3 more fun then this.

2. So far Film Classes in America are doing dick all if we are still getting badly handled movies and tv? America's Education System has long since been down the shitter.

Humans have been studying history for 5000 years and we still see the same mistakes repeated. I meant that GoT S8 warrants study in the same way how great famines or disasters in history are studied: not necessarily to learn something new or to prevent future ones, but to just marvel at the extent, depth, scope and scale of the calamity and wonder how such a thing ever came to being.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Man to think they held out this long overdue fight right to the very end...

 

[jademunky]

Man to think they held out this long overdue fight right to the very end...

Am I the only one that felt a Dark Souls vibe to that whole fight? Especially since Gregor is basically a hollow and the dragon overhead combined with the spire was essentially the Aerie from DS2.

 

[Trunkage]

Arya is going to kill Danny.

Jon and Danny are going to come to blows, Jon will have his moment to kill her, not take it, then Danny will get her opportunity, take too long to take it, then Arya is going to kill her.

Soldiers are terrible. Doesn't matter where from. They all turn to murdering rapists when left to it.

Tyrion's plan was dumb, like really really dumb. And I mean, wasn't the plan for Jamie to convince Cersei to surrender, then ring the bell and leave with Davos? He was staring at that bell for no good reason, and Jaime just like, rings it without even getting to her?

And why didn't Danny just destroy the Red Keep and Cersei? Originally it was because she was defended, but she made short work of that, so why not instead of going full evil, cause she is supposed to become the real villain, not just blow up Cersei and the Red Keep and be done with it? And no, I am not going to pass blame onto the show for that one. I do not doubt that the books are going to go similar.

I could see It going another way, Dany killing everyone who knows about Jon and that will be the end of the Starks.

Also, why didn't Varys just keeping trying to poison Dany. Coming out in the open was very Un-Varys

 

[MrCalavera_v1legacy]

Man to think they held out this long overdue fight right to the very end...

Am I the only one that felt a Dark Souls vibe to that whole fight? Especially since Gregor is basically a hollow and the dragon overhead combined with the spire was essentially the Aerie from DS2.

I felt a Metal Gear Rising/Devil May Cry vibe. You know, "we're not so different", two brothers etc. All it needed was some buttrock soundtrack.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

So....your move Amazon's Lord of the Rings.

You fuck up its all over for Fantasy in Film and Television.

There's also gonna be a show based on The Witcher. Plus, two or three spinoffs of Game of Thrones. Once it's over there'll be no shortage of shows trying to fill the void. If any of them are gonna be any good? Who knows?

 

[Agema]

I think what I struggle with is that Dany has undergone a series of horrors, scheming and abuses right from the start, and she took the courage to try to learn be a just and strong ruler building up and up.

Then she arrives at Westeros, her BFF gets beheaded and suddenly she's burning cities down. It is really credible, after all she's experienced and dealt with all these seven seasons and grown from, this suddenly tips her into mass murderer? I just think it's all terribly weak. It's not that it's impossible, but that it needs a lot of character development to plan the fall, not two episodes and killing off a character.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

I really feel that those who are claiming that this is out-of-character for Dany must be newcomers to the series.

Does nobody remember the first season? How she got her dragons in the first place? (granted it was a long time ago)

Burning innocents on the altar of her ego and sense of entitlement is, and has (almost) always been, her main defining characteristic.

The show has always shown that Dany is not averse, sometimes even quick, to deal out harsh punishments to those who act against her or who hurt innocent people. The healer in the first season betrayed her trust, killed her husband and made her infertile. Xaro Xhan tried to steal her dragons. The masters were punished for being slavers. The Khals were killed for humiliating her and trying to break her. The Tyrell's fought for an usurper and would not swear alleigance to Dany. Dany's justice is harsh, but it is not unduly harsh if you look at real ancient or medieval justice (and yes, I know this comparison no longer works for GoT even if it originally did). At the same time, she could also forgive Jorah for actively betraying her for most of her life and she spent all of Season 7 telling us how she would not hurt the innocent people of King's Landing just to get her due.

The problem is not that her harshness isn't seeded. The problem is that the show has spent seven seasons prior to season eight on showing us how she develops into a capable and fair ruler. That has literally been her arc up to and including season 7. And now she is lonely at a party, Sansa isn't completely on her team and Missandei dies so Dany turns into a monster. It is incredibly rushed character development that flies in the face of her major arc for most of the show. The irony of it is also that it could have felt much more natural if Dany had been the one to push for razing King's Landing with dragons in season 7, but since she was the one who adamantly refused to hurt innocents, it makes S8E5 feel less like character development and more like an ass pull.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

I was legitimately enjoying the first half an hour, Varys' extremely ungrateful end not withstanding; the super dour atmosphere, the interaction between Tyrion and Jaime, the genuinely great sense of impending doom the show managed to build.

Oh yes, the show is really good at those 'calm before the storm' moments when it wants to.

- Euron's armada of 360 noscoping overpowered scorpions apparently got massively nerfed in the latest patch, and pose no resistance whatsoever.

They're as effective as the plot demands. Of course, establishing them as extremely deadly in one episode, then completely useless in the very next is still bad storytelling, but that should not come as a surprise anymore. Still, they got a few near-misses which is probably a good deal better than real life ballistae would've done.

- Stone buildings literally explode from dragonfire like they're pi?atas stuffed with firecrackers and TNT. Hey, didn't we have like, a line about what can melt stone in the second season? The one that was kind of a big bit of worldbuilding? Eh, whatever, let's just have enough EXPLOSIOOOOOOOONS to make Michael Bay say "Stop, I can only get so erect!".

Michael Bay presents ... EXPLOSIONS!!!!!!! But yeh, seems dragon fire = air-fuel explosive. Weird thing is Drogon can apparently turn that off, cuz the audience to Varys' execution did not end up extra crispy.

- So apparently all it took anyway for Arya to be shaken out of her bloodlust was a pep talk from the Hound that they literally already had several seasons ago!

Yeah, her characterization kind of flip-flops a lot.

The ending. Oh, am I excited to see just how fucking bad this can get!

Hell yeah, boi. I'm going to get tons of booze, ludicrous amounts of snack and I'm inviting all my friends to watch with me, because I fully expect the ending to be something amazing. If not, well, tons of booze.

 

[Terminal Blue]

I'm genuinely bemused by anyone who thinks villain Dany is out of character. It's like.. the first good example of actual payoff the show has done in SEASONS.

Dany has the highest indirect bodycount of ANY character in ASOIAF save arguably littlefinger. Even in the books, where her character is a lot more sympathetic, she has destroyed an entire region of the world, destroyed entire civilizations and left multiple cities as plague-ridden ruins. Dany is pretty much set up as an object lesson in the fact that "breaking the wheel" requires a lot of blood to be spilt.

Like, when is she ever characterised as a fair and just ruler? She is pretty consistently shown to be an arbitrary conqueror whose "benevolence" is motivated purely by emotional sympathy for people she identifies with (slaves, children, women). She has also been consistently characterised (particularly in the TV show) as requiring the people around her to restrain her more eccentric impulses. Her first response to almost any problem she has encountered in the show is to want to kill people or destroy something, and to not understand why she can't until someone sits her down and explains it. The point, really crudely hammered home this season, is that noone is left to do that.

Show Dany is not book Dany, although book Dany will probably go the same way if Martin ever finishes the series because the foreshadowing is still there. She was never a nice character, she was framed as a nice character because the show made you feel bad for the people she "saved" and indifferent to the people she killed. But everything was there, in fact this is the first time in a really long time that the show has actually set something up and paid it off properly.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Stop the presses everyone. I found something that proves who will end up on the Iron Throne next episode.
MASSIVE spoiler, obviously.

Spoiler: Behold

From left to right: young GRRM, Kit Harrington.

Pretty conclusive evidence if you ask me.

 

[Nickolai77]

It's been suggested to me that the white horse Arya finds could be Bran warging it, coming to help his sister. Also, death rides a white horse, so it's a nice symbolic touch there and a bit of an obvious clue about what Arya's going to do next.

The problem is not that her harshness isn't seeded. The problem is that the show has spent seven seasons prior to season eight on showing us how she develops into a capable and fair ruler. That has literally been her arc up to and including season 7. And now she is lonely at a party, Sansa isn't completely on her team and Missandei dies so Dany turns into a monster. It is incredibly rushed character development that flies in the face of her major arc for most of the show. The irony of it is also that it could have felt much more natural if Dany had been the one to push for razing King's Landing with dragons in season 7, but since she was the one who adamantly refused to hurt innocents, it makes S8E5 feel less like character development and more like an ass pull.

Whilst I don't find Dani's actions especially out of character, I agree with the problem that her harshness isn't "seeded" enough in the series. This is a general problem for the whole season, they needed more episodes and the as a result the whole thing has been rushed, making it too much style over substance.

My main annoyance is with how they ended the plot arc for Jaime, aside from that it was a good episode.

 

[Silvanus]

Dany has the highest indirect bodycount of ANY character in ASOIAF save arguably littlefinger. Even in the books, where her character is a lot more sympathetic, she has destroyed an entire region of the world, destroyed entire civilizations and left multiple cities as plague-ridden ruins. Dany is pretty much set up as an object lesson in the fact that "breaking the wheel" requires a lot of blood to be spilt.

The key word there is "requires".

She has not destroyed civilisations in the books. She has sacked cities and left them in the hands of inappropriate caretakers, only for the cities to fall once again (Astapor, Yunkai); these cities were not left as ruins, and the civilisations of Slaver's Bay are very much alive and well.

Even so, the destruction that she has brought has served some purpose, though arguably quite poorly thought out. Freeing the slaves, defending Meereen, "breaking the wheel" as you say. It was not indiscriminate, and nor was it entirely pointless, though it was frequently cruel or unwise.

This is entirely different. Entirely pointless, serving no purpose, completely indiscriminate.

I don't think it's unthinkable that the book-Daenerys could end up doing such a thing... but bloody hell, there'll be a lot more work to get there. This was 0-to-60. This was Anakin Skywalker-levels of botched descent-into-evil.

 

[Silvanus]

EDIT: Oops, double-post.

 

[Saelune]

Arya is going to kill Danny.

Jon and Danny are going to come to blows, Jon will have his moment to kill her, not take it, then Danny will get her opportunity, take too long to take it, then Arya is going to kill her.

Soldiers are terrible. Doesn't matter where from. They all turn to murdering rapists when left to it.

Tyrion's plan was dumb, like really really dumb. And I mean, wasn't the plan for Jamie to convince Cersei to surrender, then ring the bell and leave with Davos? He was staring at that bell for no good reason, and Jaime just like, rings it without even getting to her?

And why didn't Danny just destroy the Red Keep and Cersei? Originally it was because she was defended, but she made short work of that, so why not instead of going full evil, cause she is supposed to become the real villain, not just blow up Cersei and the Red Keep and be done with it? And no, I am not going to pass blame onto the show for that one. I do not doubt that the books are going to go similar.

I could see It going another way, Dany killing everyone who knows about Jon and that will be the end of the Starks.

Also, why didn't Varys just keeping trying to poison Dany. Coming out in the open was very Un-Varys

I don't forsee any more Starks dying, unless they are going for an ending where no one gets the throne, in which case Jon will die.

Danny confronted Varys about his constant allegiance jumping, and he said he is 'loyal to no king, but the people'. Danny then demands he be upfront if he feels she is turning bad. Later he reminds her of that and says she is turning into a bad ruler, and she ignores his warning.