How ready are we for the last episode of Game of Thrones ever?
I’m still processing my feelings about last week’s episode, so I’m a bit conflicted. Like, I’m wearing my Lady Olenna T-shirt and I made lemoncakes, but I’m also thinking about fear of female power, corrupt rulers, and men who fail upward. It was really hard not to dwell on these aspects of the show, over the course of this very long week.
On a scale of Dexter (the worst) to Six Feet Under (still the gold standard,) where will Game of Thrones rank on the series finale continuum?
I’m predicting this episode will fall somewhere above Lost but far below Breaking Bad. Maybe somewhere around Battlestar Galactica, where I can still stand rewatching the show, but stop before seeing the final season again.
I’m less about hating the Mad Queen development for Dany, but still don’t feel it was earned. Dany, like Stannis Baratheon before her, has always had her fanatical streak and has done a lot of ruthless things on her journey to “break the wheel” of unjust rule. But her story was always set up as an underdog’s. When we first meet her, she isn’t some simple farm boy living on Tattooine or the put-upon bastard of a noble house. She is a woman, with no choice in her own destiny, so she is sold to a stranger and raped. This codes her as a powerless person who becomes determined to fight for other powerless people in a terrible system. Of course we sympathize with her and it’s disappointing to see her turn bad, but if you sell me on it, I’ll follow.
But there are people arguing that you can tell that Dany was a “mad” person all along because she didn’t cry enough when her dangerously delusional brother—the one who sold her to that stranger, threatened to have her gang-raped by men and horse alike, beat her, and (in the books) groped her—disobeyed Dothraki law and got himself executed. Boo-fucking-hoo. Hope no one broke their arm with that reach.
And I say this also knowing the show, more than the books I think, has never been self-aware when it comes to discussions of colonialism, weapons of mass destruction, and Dany’s conquering habit, but seems to want to address these issues all at once now, in the last two hours of the series. To use Dany as a symbol of feminine rage and power—a foil to Cersei’s corrosive abuses—feels disingenuous when the writers have her flipping her shit after suffering some very big and forced setbacks, the last straw being getting dumped by her dull nephew-boyfriend.
They needed to corner this dragon.
And that’s the real issue for me—it’s so obvious that they wanted Jon to back into the Iron Throne, so they had to turn Dany evil to make it happen. But they had two shortened seasons to do it, and thus had no time for real character development, and not just for Dany. Why could we not see Sansa and Arya react to the news of Jon’s parentage? Just because we know what his sisters are likely to say, that scene doesn’t matter—we have battle scenes to show instead? Is anyone deflated after seven seasons of Jaime turning away from his unhealthy relationship with his sister and his dishonorable reputation, only to have him rush back to Cersei’s side? Cersei, who had nothing to do but stare out the window all year? (Also, wouldn’t it have been fun to see her react to the news that Jon is the son of her childhood crush and an heir to the throne?) Or Arya, who denounced revenge before she ever set foot back in Winterfell, heading all the way into the crumbling Red Keep to denounce revenge again, just so we’d have eyes on the ground as King’s Landing burned?
In the Game of Thrones, you win or you die as one pawn on a chessboard controlled by showrunners who can’t have their lemoncakes and eat them, too. Heading into this final episode, are you holding out hope, just hoping for a mercy killing of a formerly great show, or are you weeping defiantly into a tankard of Game of Thrones-themed beer wearing a “Not Today” T-shirt?
Updated post-watch:
GHOST GETTING PETS WAS ALL THE CLOSURE I NEEDED.
Ahem. Well, that was a few less ending than Return of the King, anyways. Samwell writes There and Back Again: A Dragon’s Tale, Arya sails to Valinor, and Sansa gets a less opulent coronation.
I didn’t totally hate it to the point of never wanting to watch this show again, but I didn’t love it either.
“Rushed” is my first thought. Some nice little jokes, which I’d missed in these last few episodes, and a decent central problem of deciding who is truly fit to rule. I’m real glad it wasn’t Jon, after all—way too predictable and not worth the cost. But then it kinda swung so far the opposite way that Jon’s whole story seemed not to matter much at all.
Did Bran really have a better story than Dany or Jon?
Bran is nothing if not impartial, and he knows all of history and can see the future. But did Bran see all of this? Why couldn’t he do anything about it? And while Bran may be wise, there’s not much in this development that packs an emotional wallop, is there? No one was out there cheerleading for Bran all these years. I mean, he wasn’t even in the show for a whole season! He had no great stakes in anything once the Night King was defeated. Ehhh.
It was better than Lost and Dexter, less insulting than BSG. I’ll give it that.
Jon killing Dany was needed, I guess, after being telegraphed from space as soon as she started talking about “liberating” the entire world. I mean, I loved the callback to Maester Aemon’s “Love is the death of duty.” And yet, Dany’s death felt like it was more about Jon’s tragedy than Dany’s. She deserved better in the last two seasons. Like Cersei, a cool character whose story ends with as little fanfare as possible.
Game of Thrones wants to have Dany set fire to everything in as epic and entertaining a way as possible and sympathize with her in her victimhood, on one hand, but also wants to castigate the audience for cheering for her. That’s kinda bullshit. No one sings songs for spiders. No one eulogizes dragons. Um, except dragons, I guess?
But… why? Why did Drogon melt the throne and not turn his wrath on Jon Snow? Do dragons understand politics and metaphors n’ shit? I feel we should’ve seen something to set this scene up earlier in the show. It was ridiculous. I really thought we’d get one more beat with Drogon flying around Valyria or something. But what do I know? I am no dragon.
Tyrion was really the MVP of the finale, and that’s fitting, even as he’s written out of the great story by its in-world author. That’s fitting, too. I enjoyed his moments on the evening after the battle, finding Jaime and Cersei’s bodies, quitting as Hand of the King and then later, straightening all those damn chairs in the Small Council room, and going out telling anecdotes about brothels. I think Tyrion grew enough as a character to be satisfying for me, overall. At least he recognizes when he fails upward.
It’s a better ending than Jon Snow’s. All of that death and rebirth and war to end up condemned to the Night’s Watch. I guess the lesson is that ultimately names don’t matter. It’s simplistic but true. However, when he left to go north of the wall with Tormund, I assumed that taking the black was just a cover story for the Unsullied, right? I like that better. He always liked the wildlings and he could be happy there. And free. But I was left unsure if he was just going on a mission to escort the wildings or if he was deserting his post. Because when he said goodbye to his sisters, it seemed like he intended to see them again…but his last look behind seemed rather meaningful.
As for the Stark sisters?
Sansa gets to go out as a queen and that’s completely just. No one works harder for the North. It’s a good thing no one else at that big pow-wow had an issue with Brexit one less kingdom in the realm. Also, I want to see more details on her dress. That weirwood embroidery was gorgeous.
Arya sailing west of Westeros fits if you basically just replace her with Frodo Baggins. She’s seen shit; she doesn’t fit into this new world anymore. She wants an adventure and peace (we assume). But what if she does find people west of Westeros? Will she colonize them for the North? Will she become a new Dany? Will HBO give her a spin-off if they become too desperate for subscribers?
What stories are we ready to tell post-Thrones? It’ll be interesting to analyze the story George R.R. Martin has told and the ones told for television. I will still always wish for the books to wrap up the saga, but the television show has given me a lot of think about, too. And when, if ever, will we ever be ready for a post-Thrones story set in this world?
Final thoughts:
- Brienne’s a LOT nicer than I would be writing about my ex in The White Book: “P.S. Jaime Lannister had a small dick.” I’m glad this wasn’t the last scene she was in. She has a seat at the most important table in the land. I did wish she stayed in the North with Sansa, who seems awfully alone now. Good night, good knight.
- Grown-up Robin Arryn proves that too much milk does not do a body good. It was nice to see Edmure Tully again, too, useless as he remains.
- Bronn as Master of Coin? Really? Really?! This is how you battle corruption?
- Love Maester Samwell. Love that Davos is still fighting for proper grammar.
- GHOST PETS.
- Grey Worm made it! I’m shocked, but glad.
- That laugh at the suggestion of democracy made my heart hurt a bit. Baby steps, I guess.
- That Westworld trailer had my viewing party screaming. That was so unexpected! I’m just glad I don’t have to think about that show until 2020.
Next week: I plan to open up a can of peaches and binge Deadwood ahead of the upcoming movie. But I will miss all of the conversation here, truly. These threads have blown up so fast, especially this season, that I don’t always join in the comments, but I read them all. I’m so thankful that I’ve been able to help Tor.com provide a place for people to dive deep into this exciting, gut-wrenching, frustrating, problematic, beautiful, triumphant, epic show. Eight years!
And now our watch has ended.
Theresa DeLucci is a regular contributor to Tor.com. Her fiction is forthcoming from Strange Horizons. She’s also gotten enthusiastic about television for Boing Boing, Wired.com’s Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast and Den of Geek. Send her a raven via Twitter.
Lost, Dexter… and now Game of Thrones.
Worst finales ever.
OK, so Bran sees the future… and he does nothing to prevent all the atrocities so he can be made a king?! Who’s the evil mastermind now?
Tidy. Not terrible. Arya should get her own show. Where’s Drogon? Jon’s a Wildling?
Overall: FINISH THE BOOKS.
So Sansa can just say the North will be independent and none of the other lords there have anything to say about it? Seriously? These are the same guys who just laughed at the idea of “everyone” having a choice for king.
And who makes Bronn the master of coin? Hack writers, that’s who.
Sloppy. The Big Bang Theory ending was better.
Parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.
It was fun.
I’m not talking about the episode itself, since I’ve written this before I watched it. I suppose it doesn’t really matter how it ends.
No, I’m talking about the experience. This collective consciousness that has formed after every Sunday, since the premiere of the first episode of season one, way back in 2011.
We had the rare opportunity to share our love (or hate, as it happened more often in later seasons) with millions of people all over the world. We crafted theories, we wrote thousand-word essays, we created countless hours of videos, just to express how much this simple TV show had affected our lives.
No other form of entertainment has penetrated so deeply into every facet of our culture. Presidents followed this show. It was a worldwide event. It basically cemented the word spoiler in our vernacular. It was so critical to keep up, that HBO (eventually) decided to release each episode (mostly) at the same time all over the world. Which was probably the best measure against piracy, in retrospect. Access is everything.
Sadly, it’s hard to imagine any way to recreate this. People don’t watch TV this way anymore. One can only hope something else will fill the void.
But it was fun while it lasted.
PS: A huge THANK YOU to the people responsible for this site. Theresa is always a great read. And the moderators, well… I’ve been a member of many other forums since 2011, and this was by far my favorite experience. It’s a thankless job, and nobody remembers your names, but you are the shields that guard the realms of Tor.com
PPS: Now the watch for The Winds of Winter begins… Come on, George!
I … didn’t hate it. I’m still unhappy with Dany’s turn in episode 5, but given situation they’d created for themselves, I thought it was a pretty decent conclusion to the series as a whole.
I had forgotten that Edmure Tully was still alive.
I thought it was absolute dreck.
Oh, and Sansa, that crown is hideous. Love the dress, though.
(and oh, who is going to be Bran’s heir?)
Some of the endings feel unearned if not illogical, that being said that has been true for much of this season and some of the holes they have from earlier in the season can’t be discarded. But since that has been talked to death let’s move on to the good.
Jon Snow’s sentence from Tyrion made me laugh myself sick in the best way.
I largely hate following Sam but his pitch for Democracy (and the response it got) was an A+.
Brienne’s ending, however, was the one that got me the most. It felt earned, it was powerful, and it felt perfect.
I still cannot believe it is finished :(
I’m also looking forward to watching it again when it comes out on disc, if for no other reason than the streaming version was kind of garbage-looking — lots of banding and pixilation, not just in the dark scenes but when they’d, e.g., have a brightly lit but out-of-focus wall on one edge of the screen.
A Song of Camomile Tea & Skim Milk is what that was
Loved it. Loved how they gave Dany enough lines to hang herself. Loved the Small Council scene. Ghost got his pats. Arya didn’t cave to noble culture. Sansa earned her crown and country. Jon can at least live in peace. I’m not sure we could have hoped for a happier ending.
Would have loved a post credits scene with Drogon landing somewhere far away and finding a mate.
Honestly, I liked it quite fine. I 100% was not expecting Jon to be the one who got Dany (since he generally just stands around looking vaguely sad) and I actually called him getting sent back to the Night’s Watch (the irony! But at least he got to pet Ghost). And while I know some people had guesed this, Bran was NOT who I guessed would be on the throne at all.
And I like that, in a way, they only made marginal steps towards breaking the wheel. It’s not quite believable they’d go to full scale democracy, so even just going to a kind of semi-elected non-primogeniture monarchy is a jump. And I’m cool with that. And I kind of love how Arya is going to go off exploring (I was kind of worried they’d marry her off to Gendry after all), how Sansa got to be Queen of the North, and Brienne is going to be in the Kingsguard.
Honestly, I found it pretty satisfying all around.
I was hoping that Jaime and Cersei would still be alive (simply so we could get more development on Jaime) – in part because I was surprised that Beautiful Death did NOT cover them, and then I saw them in the credits, so I wondered if they would be alive. That said, I also knew it could very well just be a flashback/death scene, and I thought Tryion uncovering them was a really poignant scene.
I do wonder what is up with Sam and Gilly/his kids if he’s the Archmaester now.
Looking forward to discussion, but I just realized today is The Phantom Menace’s 20th anniversary and we are totally watching that now!!!!!
Kneejerk thoughts
1) Annoyed by how little Jon tried to talk Grey Worm out of those prisoner executions. Yes, there were spears. Still.
2) Nice visuals with the city of ash
3) nice scene with Tyrion discovering his brother and sister
4) So apparently when Dany was indiscriminately flaming the entire city (including unplanned side and backsplashes of flame), despite her troops randomly pillaging those same streets she didn’t kill any of them at all. Or if she did, none of them cared.
5) Hated the scene with Jon and Tyrion. Absolutely hated it. Jon was incredibly, unbelievably obtuse, stupid, and lacking in integrity. Yelled-at-the-TV-hated-it.
6) Good scene with Jon and Dany—wish we’d just skipped from her speech to that scene. And good bit of dragon tension. And again, nice visuals
7) Didn’t think hardly any of the “who is gonna be king” made much sense beyond Sansa and the reaction to Sam’s suggestion. Why would the others not also claim independence? Especially the Ironborn? What do any of them gain? Why would a Stark on the throne still not cause problems? Why would they think a succession fight after an heir-less throne wouldn’t occur? Why not be independent and make joint decisions with that same group—if they can meet regularly to pick a king, why not meet more regularly and deal with big issues while separately dealing with individual kingdom issues? If you’re going to choose, why not Davos? Someone not from a Great House and thus not involved in civil war or past atrocities etc. Does Tyrion really think Dany’s breaking of the wheel was just birthright inheritance but she’d be fine with the same handful of aristocracy picking a ruler? Really? When Sansa said no, I wanted Dorne to go, “Wait, we can do that? I take it back . . . “ Why would they take Tyrion’s advice? Why would they not at least ask for time to think about it? And more questions.
8) Bran should be king because he “has the best story?” Killing the Night King is a pretty good f-ing story. Not to mention all the other parts of that story. Becoming Queen of the North from where she began and what she went through is a pretty damn good story. And if he saw himself being king, isn’t part of his story knowing Dany would slaughter women and children and not mentioning it? Is that a great story? Didn’t he just say he “lives in the past mostly” or something akin to that? How does that fit? And what a great start—I can do this “because I’m king.” Would have been nice to at least have gotten a cringe from Tyrion at that, if not a snide comment about “maybe not lead with that. At least not so early in your reign . . . “
9) so the only people who want Jon punished are the Unsullied and they’re all leaving? Why is Jon going again?
10) good endings for Arya and Sansa. And for Jon, though over-dramatized and somber. But nice inter-cutting between the Stark children. Ned is smiling.
11) lovely ending with Jamie’s knightly summary
12) funny scene with the advisors. Silly and implausible in parts, but funny
Not as bad a finale as it could have been (really, not even close given the level of bad we’ve been given). Not as good as it could have been. A disappointing and at times maddening season though for sure.
I thought about the most appropriate way to express my complete and utter disgust with the pathetic plotting of this episode and season 8 as well. Would have actually been better if they had just done a Soprano’s and faded to black.
Not another penny will HBO receive from me or anyone I can influence.
I’m also not going to see anything (including Star Wars) produced by these terrible hacks.
It was one of the worse wrap-ups I’ve ever seen happen to a series. It rivals the terrible loss of story threads that was the conclusion of Lost. A complete waist of 7 seasons worth of storylines. I mean …
1. Who are The First Men and what is the power of the God-woods? No one knows and it doesn’t matter.
2. Who are The Children? Where did they come from? No one knows and it doesn’t matter.
3. Why must there always be a Stark in Winterfell?
No one knows and it doesn’t matter
4. Why did the Three-eyed Raven show Bran who Jon is? No one knows, and it doesn’t matter.
5. How will Jon prove he is Rhaegar’s heir? No one knows, it doesn’t matter.
6. Who is the green-eyed person Arya is suppose to kill?
No one knows and it doesn’t matter.
7. What about Nymeria?
No one knows and it doesn’t matter.
No one knows and it doesn’t matter, seems to be the theme of the entire 8th season.
WORST POSSIBLE ENDING EVER!
All I ask, is PLEASE, PLEASE, just stay the heck away from Wheel of Time!
I was very satisfied, but everyone I cared about made it out alive and had pretty good endings, so. Sansa as Queen in the North, Arya getting to explore the world on her own terms, Ghost getting his well-deserved pets, Jon — uh, alive, since I wasn’t sure if that was going to happen, Brienne in a position of importance and feeling like she’s done her duty…
I know others will hate it, and opinions will be divided, but all in all, I feel pretty pleased.
(I’m not optimistic GRRM will finish the series, but if he does, I look forward to seeing how he gets to a similar ending.)
Oh, and I totally didn’t recognize Robin Arryn at the Council of Elrond scene there until I saw it pointed out on Twitter.
John wanted a lawful feudal monarchy.
But Dany threatened a bloody French Revolution and she was already Napoleon.
So John (lawful monarchy) killed the Revolution/Napoleon.
The Lords met at essentially the Concert of Vienna (post-Napoleon)
Sam offered a democratic (American-ish) revolution and got laughed at.
They settled for Bran and a constitutional monarchy in which the Lords choose the king.
Except in the North where Sansa re-establishes a lawful feudal monarchy (because her brother is King, and the North’s leaders chose her/it instead).
That works.
Why send John to defend the wall. What is there to defend against?
Why send Jon to defend the wall? There is nothing to defend against.
@19
1) We’ll get better conversations without insulting people. But to the substance of your post . . .
2) “He can’t see the future”
He does, I think, say I came all the way down here to be king, which if I remember it right seems to strongly imply he knew he was going to be king. My own understanding (despite some hints otherwise) was he did not see the future, but this response seems to muddy that to say the least
3) I’m curious where you see them “aiming at democracy” given that the response to Sam’s suggestion of actual democracy wasn’t “Whoa, that’s a little too fast . . . ” but simply complete scorn and ridicule as if they can’t even comprehend the idea. And given that they are picking a “king” who will rule with full power, it is a monarchy, just not a hereditary one. But non-hereditary monarchies, or monarchies without clear lines of succession often have issues with battles to, well, succeed. Which is why heirs are so important (in hereditary ones) because they most times pre-empt those battles. So yes, Bran being childless solves the hereditary monarchies suck problem. But it at the same time raises the question of why would there be a peaceful transfer of power when Bran dies? Because Tyrion says so? Because none of these people were involved in any arguments over who should lead? Because none of the surviving aristocracy or common people or merchant class have any sense of vengeance? Because we’ve never seen a battle for power in Westeros? The Ironborn choose a leader rather than by birth–how did that go? The problem when you invest full power in one person is it incentivizes a lot of people to seek that power. As we’ve just seen over the past several years.
4) while I get your point re what is important to know, and agree with some it, it’s also true the show portrayed some of those questions as vital or invested them with a lot of portentous import and then just dropped them, which makes the prior seriousness seem a bit cheap and artificial. Personally, I’m not bothered by most of those, but I can see the criticism.
Overall I was happy with it. I wish we had two seasons [one for the dead, and one with Cersei]. I still don’t see Dany as a villain.
Only thing more I wanted from the finale was a post credits scene of Drogon arriving at Valantis with the red priests to bring Daenerys back.
If it makes you feel any better, Bran fell downward before he failed upward.
I liked it overall but I have a small quibble that’s bothering me –
They made such a point of now calling it “The Six Kingdoms” because the North left. However, Yara/Asha was at the council and voted Bran in as king, which suggests she concedes that Pyke fall under his rule. (You notice Sansa didn’t actually vote him in, in lieu of her request that the North secede.) So if you add Pyke into the mix, doesn’t it make it seven kingdoms after all? I understand that Pyke and the Riverlands were one kingdom back when Aegon conquered the continent, and thus it wasn’t counted separately, but it’s clearly two separate regions now, with two separate leaders. So…couldn’t they go on calling it the Seven Kingdoms anyway?
I’m sure I’ll have more thoughts later, but this is just bugging me :P
You can tell the showrunners and writers don’t really get what they have in their hands in the little details. Instead of “just” having Sam go “why not democracy” out of the blue, wouldn’t it have made much more sense (especially for a schollar like him) to have explained where he was comming from with the idea? He could have said something in the lines of “I’ve served in the Noght’s Watch and have the experience of collective desicion making, therefore why not…” (and I know, the NW isn’t democratic, but at least they have the ground ideas of equality and voting, etc.); it would have made more sense, I think. And don’t get me wrong, I think the reaction of the aristocrats should have been more or less the same (maybe including some kind of “we can’t rule a kingdom as if it was a bunch of convicts”, showing their hypocresy) given that there isn’t really a solid sociological and political foundation for democracy in Westeros. That little detail would have rescued Sam from being a well meaning pseudo-comic relief, and made his idea a good contrast medium to the real expectations of a political reform and it’s current limmits. He would have been ridiculed by others, but the joke would have been on them. I felt it wasted the character and the whole scenario.
Another thing that makes little sense (for me) in the context of the characters is Arya’s sudden desicion to go west… First, and from a character point of view,… why? I get it that Arya is sort of supposed to be “homeless” and “rootless” (even though that is more due to the contradictions of this seasons clusterhell) and in that context it could be reasonable for her to want to “go into the world”; but wouldn’t it have made much more sense for her to go east? Arya is probably the character that gets subtelty and the importance of the long-term the best. I would have accepted without hesitation if she had raised the question of “did we really defeat the dead?” and “what was all that about”, etc. (since she killed the NK it would made sense for her to even be haunted by the doubt). It would made sense to go east, to places srouded in magic and mistery like Ashai to look for anwsers and she would be the perfect candidate for that. Not only has she the motivations and character, but she’s already familiar with lots of the things that lead there. She’s been a servant of the many-faced-god, for starters. Instead we get this weird journey… and here comes my second issue with the whole journey: it makes no sense in the context of the current worldbuilding. Why would anyone sail into the unknown? Especially now! The kingdoms are bled out and recovering from years of war, KL is burnt to the ground, the recently reformed crown has evidently a tight budget, etc. If we do historic parallels (which is, I remind you, what GRRM uses as one of his favourite ingredients) we sould have to look towards great expeditions like the Leif Erikson’s or Culumbus’. Both of them made sense in the context of their world; Erikson could see the chance of finding profitable land given the viking’s knowledge of the proximiti of Iceland and Greenland. Columbus operated under the promisse of econimic profit from not depending on Venetian-Ottoman trade routes anymore. In this last case a huge part of the story actually goes around the issue of funding and finding a powerful patron to support the expedition. The newly unified crown of Spain saw this a chance to establish itself as a powerhouse in Europe and the general zeitgeist in the Iberic Peninsula was positive towards success (unless you were a Jew o Muslim, that is). Westeros seems to me to be at the polar opposite of this. The 7 los a kingdom, the capital is ashes, everyone most be fed up with war and loss, there’s no money and wev’e never been shown any sign that anyone suspects there could be land or a route or anything over west (a big part of Columbus’ pitch was that there was land for shure… he had the wrong size for his globe though). Why would anyone invest in an expedition like that right now? And from the sails the hint is that this is a Stark enterprise (pun intended)… seriously? The North? The one where probably half of its population is dead? And Arya seems to be the leader? She might be a kick-ass assassin, but a sailor? And an explorer on top of that?
Like I said before, this reinforces to me the idea that the people behind the show don’t really know their characters and world. To me they seam to be more interested in generating flashy immagery and hitting the “cool” factor, instead of weaving an organic tapestry from the threads they have.
@26: I should have added to my previous post how out of character Yara/Asha felt too. She basically was into the whole Danny-League because 1-Euron wanted to kill the other Greyjoys and take the Iron Isles, and 2-Because Dannysmatic leader. So… as she even pointed out, SHE was her Queen. Why would she fold into the new 6K instead of going “Pykeanda Forever” (as she clearly wanted to do before the whole Danny-League thing)?
Very weak character consistency, the name of the game for this season.
@Billcap, yes, your 4th point. I accept the “world building for context” point, my problem with the final episode is that it is, for the most part, completely disconnected from the story that the writers built. The series made sense for the first 7 seasons because the characters and storylines followed the narrative. Everything flowed from one event to the next, even the shocking ones like the red wedding or Ned Stark’s death, or Sansa giving Ramsey to his dogs. Those conclusions followed. I just don’t think the final conclusion did, not in the same, natural, seamless way we had come to expect from these storytellers.
1. Did anyone else catch the bit in Daenerys’ speech that seemed to indicate that the word “Valyria” is cognate with “master” and “war”? Chilling.
2. Um, is Sam stealing a page from Egwene at the end? How is he Grand Maester when he clearly hasn’t had time to become a maester? I don’t think it’s an oversight–he’s visibly wearing a chain with only one “link” worn like a necklace.
Dany knowing about Jaime’s betrayal means that, after the battle, before she even talked to any of her advisors, she came to execute him. She definitely had her priorities straight…
Here lies Jon Snow, burned to death by the heat surrounding Drogon’s breath. I guess writers will never learn how convection works. It’s interesting that for some reason, the throne room was completely empty, so there was no witness to Daenerys’ murder, and Drogon conveniently got rid of the body: Jon could perfectly have used the burned room to justify that what happened was that Drogon went mad and killed his mother. But of course, he wouldn’t be Jon Snow if he could lie to save his life.
During Bran’s election, everyone is saying “aye” one at a time, because as powerful as he is, he can’t warg into everybody at once. “From now one rulers will be chosen on this spot by the Lords and Ladies of Wasteros, [and the previous ruler will warg into their body].” They didn’t break the wheel, but they definitely stopped it. After a few kings, Bloodraven will literally have had a thousand eyes and one! But that’s the only way the power structure can be changed anyway: whoever gets elected as king becomes so powerful that he can often buy the lords’ votes for his heir, until hereditary rule becomes the norm (that’s what happened with Hugues Capet, who sired the line of all the French kings who came after him).
The mention of the Imp killing Joffrey in the Book of Brothers is interesting: there were no corrections in the book, despite the pages covering Targaryen and Baratheon/Lannister rulers alike. The knights of the Kingsguard have served on all sides, against the rulers they will later protect. Yet not only these fights are not forgotten, they are saved for posterity as a badge of honour, even if it later appears they weren’t true (as with the current Hand who didn’t kill his nephew, no matter how much he wanted it). So although the Kingsguard is aware of the power of stories, they refuse to use it in any way.
I wonder where Arya found a crew for her insane endeavour?
“And now our watch has ended”… how did I not see that one coming?
@3,14: Sansa is the most powerful person in her family, and about half of the lords there are close acquaintances. The only surprising non-reaction was Yara Greyjoy’s, but I guess she thinks it will be easier to keep her power if she has the support of the king than having to fight the Ironborn patriarchy all over again.
@31: Given how Jon tend to be defeated by his own honesty, it wouldn’t surprise me if he handed himself over. I don’t think the “Drogon burnt her mama” ruse would have worked at all… Danny’s people know sh’es called “the one who doesn’t burn” for a reason. There are probably one or two Dothraki left who even saw her step out of the flames at one point. As for convection… I guess the writers would answer “he’s a Targaryen after all!” and completely ignore that his clothes aren’t Targaryen ahahhaha.
@29 Tammy
“my problem with the final episode is that it is, for the most part, completely disconnected from the story that the writers built”
Oh, no disagreement from me on that. Sometimes it felt disconnected from what had happened literally five minutes ago (as when Jon tells Tyrion “the war is over” ten minutes or so after Dany tells everyone “the war is not over.” I think that’s one reason my favorite parts of this season (and almost the only good parts for me) were the quiet moments between 2 or 3 characters just talking to each other because you could enjoy the acting and the dialog and the emotions even in a vacuum (i.e. ignoring whether or not it made “story sense”)
@33 Jon has no idea what she said to the army and Tyrion probably only understood half of it.
Jon! You do surprise me at last. It was definitely needed for a character who had developed to a whimpering sod with no will of his own.
As a whole I was delighted over this final episode. Partially due to my expectations being at the rock bottom after the previous episodes. All characters (maybe with the exception of Tyrion) was in serious need of better developed arcs in the previous episodes but I am no worse than I can fill in the gaps myself now in hindsight.
Dany! Oh you lovely Queen! Your demise was perfect. It definitely surprised me, but was still both logical and epic. I can agree with all that found your turn into the mad ruler was very abrupt, but that was clearly a product of the generally rushed plot during this season. With some better handling and more time it could have been a great arc.
Jon! You had been turned into an idiot with no will of your own. Theresa was oh so sure you were meant for the throne and I was pretty sure you would be killed by Dany. We were both wrong and the Night Guard and the Wildlings was a fitting end. And I am glad you finally DID something (other than look sad and brooding).
Tyrion! Well you were always the best handled character of the show, and this episode also let you shine. And you really have a great actor.
Arya! I was sure that you were the one to kill Dany, but this was better. To go west were no man has gone before … yeah, why not!
Sansa, Queen of the North! Yeah, and what a regal Queen you are. Almost as good as Cersei (and she was really good at being regal). I was a bit surprised that nobody complained when she declared the independence of the North, but there certainly was no time to dwell on that in this last episode. I like to think that the others never really regarded the North as part of the realm anyway, being too far away and sparsely populated.
Bran! You were perhaps the one most maltreated by the script writers. You really didn’t get much chance to show yourself. I guess they simply didn’t know what to do with you. I can feel the potential in your history and destiny but the show really failed in doing anything out of it. Good that you have your own chair, now that the throne in destroyed …
All in all I really liked this episode.
@34
You’re right. I’d forgotten it wasn’t in Jon’s language. Though I think the tone and respond was pretty telling, and he’d certainly recognize some of the place names, and probably wasn’t thinking she was saying, “And who wouldn’t want to vacation in Dorne?!” given the spear pounding, javelin waving, and dragon roaring. Though “the war’s over” is still pretty obtuse on his part. But yeah, bad example by me of the many examples of plotting and characterization gone awry–good catch.
Ghost gets petted.
Jon gets released to a nice farm up north where he’ll have lots of room to run and play.
Of all the endings they could have gone for, I don’t think I imagined they’d go for one as boring as that. Everything was smoothed over to such a degree that it felt weird. I was desperately hoping for something interesting to happen, and then it didn’t.
The tonal shift of the last part of the episode was bizarre too. Finishing on a freeze frame of Jon and Tormund skipping off into the distance would have been more in keeping by that stage.
Thanks Theresa!
There was a lot that could have been done better in this season, and the seventh – plenty of ridiculous plots contrivances for the sake of drama, Dany’s too swift descent, not enough for Bran and Cersei to do, Euron. It really could have done with at least one more episode to tell the story.
But I loved the ending and, despite its stumbles, really liked the final season as a whole. So I’m not going to nitpick.
Dany’s end was well done, event if she became the Slaughterer of Cities too quickly. I wanted to see a bit more doubt in her about what she did, but it does feel right that her ego wouldn’t allow that. There was that flicker of regret when Jon talked about the children. Not a monster, but someone like Stannis or many a real-world figure (Lenin comes to mind) who did monstrous things in the name of a better world. Hers is such a tragic story. Really hope we get to see what GRRM does with it.
Tyrion. Loved everything, except the line about stories and how Bran’s is as good as anyone’s – which really didn’t make much sense as qualification for rule in a medieval kingdom. Whatever, so good to see him being influential at last. And I could happily spend an episode watching Peter Dinklage rearrange chairs.
Breathtaking visually. Tyrion’s walk through the city, the North Korean rally, Drogon rising from the ash, the ruined throne room, iron dripping down steps.
Satisfying endings for the main characters all round. Bran as king of stories doesn’t make sense, but as the least threatening leader to other leaders, does.
Baby steps to a better world feels right. Yes, it could go wrong, but progress is progress.
Happy Grey Worm didn’t get killed off and leaves to protect Missandei’s home. Had more than enough bleakness in the last few episodes.
Really moved by Brienne writing Jaime’s story in the book. Jamie’s writing in it is one of my favourite scenes in the books.
Teared up when Jon hugged Ghost. Oh, you bastards, that’s why you denied us the petting in episode 4.
Over all, well done to the showrunners. Some of your plotting was lazy, there was plenty of gratuitous sex and violence, but you gave us an enthralling, spectacular, moving and immensely entertaining show.
Now I just want to read the final two books.
Like everything else this season, the finale’s problem seems to be fitting too much plot into too little space. After all the machinations, the question of the Iron Throne is settled in one meeting where everyone just accepts a completely random idea from a dude who’s been in jail for a few months? At least give us an episode of Tyrion manipulating the other lords into it by convincing them Bran will be a puppet they can control or something. Similarly, can we not have more than two minutes of Jon Snow making a sad face before he decides to kill the woman he loves? Can we get a more fleshed out conclusion to Dany’s story than “she went crazy and her boyfriend killed her an hour later?” No, no, and no, apparently.
I enjoyed plenty of what came before, even this season, but I definitely don’t feel that they stuck the landing. I’m really curious to see how the books turn out now, knowing that GRRM is heading for roughly the same destination but has an even more tangled web to unravel over the final two volumes.
Overall the series ended better than I thought it might after last week’s episode. I still wish the season had been 10 episodes so the plot could have been developed a bit more slowly and fully. And I wish the writers had done a better job with Bran over the last few seasons instead of just having him be a lump most of the time.
i am glad Arya did not kill Dany as many fans predicted. I am also glad Jon did not end up as King. Because if the story truly wants to upend the traditional epic fantasy idea of a “right” or “destiny” to rule than neither Dany or Jon should rule. I’m sorry for both of their fates. Dany did do good in her life and without her and her troops the undead may have gone undefeated. And she did break the wheel. And Although it looks like Jon will get to live free beyond the wall with Ghost and the wildlings, I don’t really see a carefree life ahead of him; not after what he’s been through.
I do wonder about what happens when the next king needs to be chosen —probably a lot of political intrigue
Wonderful ending to GoT! A rushed final six episodes where everything was compressed.
However, GoT easily one of the best 3-4 TV dramas of all time. Easily worth the time invested.
Jon is the new King of the North with his ally, Sansa, Queen of the South.
Cheers! Thanks a TON Theresa D. for all these years of recaps.
This ending would have been lovely if the show had been different. It gave everyone a satisfying end. It felt like the ending Tolkien would have given it. However, the ending didn’t match the tone of the entire show. I felt like after watching seven seasons of Hamlet in the final season Hamlet gave mom roses, Ophelia kills Claudius and then is killed by Hamlet and then Polonius is given the throne. Hamlet happily goes to live in the country with his pet. That would be a fine ending to Hamlet but it doesn’t match the rest of the play. Similarly, this ending just didn’t fit. Jon being a Targaryen was completely irrelevant. Dothraki we watched being annihilated in The Battle for Winterfell have regenerated. A girl who two episodes earlier was willing to die for the common people of Westeros is suddenly willing to kill hundreds of thousands of common people because people don’t like her as much as Jon. Dany definitely had it in her to go crazy and murder ever noble in Westeros with great cruelty but no part of the character arc made it believable that she would kill women and children who had already surrendered. All prophecies about the prince who was promised were forgotten and Arya goes on an adventure. Again, the ending would have been fine, but it just felt like the ending to a completely different show.
At first I thought the elective monarchy solution wouldn’t last at all. Give three generations then the new kings will try to install their kids on the throne, not to mention trying to unify the 7-8 kingdoms again. It’s what I try to do in Crusader Kings, and it’s what happened in history, in the HRE, Poland-Lithuania, the Roman Empire, etc.
But then I remembered Bran is also Bloodraven. The guy probably warged into all the electors then and will do so in the future. And probably will transfer his counsciousness to his successors. The nobles will be OK with it, because he probably will hop from one dynasty to the other (everyone gets a chance of being king, every 200 years, it’s Spanish turnismo, but Westeros style).
Eh. I was kind of waiting to see Jon take a full dragon blast in the face to prove he’s a Targaryen then warg the dragon. Instead he probably just admitted what he did even though there’s no evidence. Any of us would have just walked away whistling – maybe along the way ask a few people if they’ve seen Dany.
Ye gods and little fishes.
Anybody notice the water bottle behind Sam’s leg at the warging of the lords?
Holy god was the dialogue in that scene and the follow-up in the magically instantly repaired Small Council Chamber terrible. I felt like I was watching a high school theater troupe attempt to do a Monty Python style GoT parody.
I know what’s west of Westeros. It’s the east coast of Essos.
“Sorry Jon we have to send you back to the Night’s Watch to appease the Unsullied who have left these shores never to return.” Seriously what the fuck.
Speaking of which, why in the hell is there still a Night’s Watch? How in the hell is there still a Night’s Watch, and who the hell were those two rando escorts for Jon?
Brienne taking the Lord Commander spot is all well and good, but it is an unspeakable tragedy that Podrick Payne, greatest lover in the history of Westeros, has been condemned to a life of celibacy. He and Brienne better be bumping uglies.
But the worst part is this: their non-hereditary system is doomed to failure within a single generation. Look no further than Edmure the Buffoon Tully actually thinking he could talk everyone else into making him king. Once Bran dies, the next conclave of Lords and Ladies is going to end in war, guaranteed.
You know what would have actually made narrative sense? Don’t kill Missandei just to jolt Dany into nutassery. Instead show us Dany’s gradual descent, culminating in the burning of King’s Landing, then have Missandei kill her. Force Grey Worm to choose Missandei or his nominal duty.
@44 – It was a mixed bag for Poland-Lithuania. Jan Sobieski was brilliant, most of his successors were terrible – but as you note – none of them were three-eyed-ravens.
I didn’t like the final season because it felt a bit rushed, and plotty instead of character driven, but I think that is just because I had gotten used to a more lyrical pace in prior seasons. Compared to a movie in the cinema, there was quite a lot of room for things to play out.
This was the best episode of the season, and I like the way they wrapped things up. Poor Dani sadly had to have a tragic end after what she had done, although I can see how all the people who identified with her for years will be deeply disappointed by that turn. I suppose Drogon couldn’t flame Jon because he had Targarean blood, and took his frustration out on the throne, which was a great image that set up the final meeting of nobles. Jon couldn’t be king because he murdered Dani, but got to go North where he was happy and got to pet Ghost. Bran wouldn’t have been my first pick to lead, but that speech of Tyrion’s convinced me, and probably pulled at the heartstrings of everyone who has ever tried to write. In fact, Tyrion was brilliantly presented throughout the episode, and ended up where he should have. My one complaint was that the final Small Council meeting was a bit fan-servicey, with the advisors picked more to give them a curtain call than because they were the best people for that organization.
My prediction for a long time has been that everyone would get sick of kings, and Tyrion would be first President of Westeros. I just felt that GRRM, who likes to flip tropes, would end up destroying the monarchy rather than showing us who the new ruler would be. And, while direct representation was laughed down, they did take a solid step in the direction of democracy. More a ‘King of the North’ picking by acclamation of the nobles democracy than a one-man-one-vote democracy, but still, a form of government where new leaders aren’t born into ruling.
All in all, while there are always things that could have been done differently, I thought the series came to a satisfying conclusion. I am content, and look forward to the new books when they come out. I want a good long article on Tor.com to explain the differences between books and the show, though, because without some help, it is going to be difficult to pick up where I left off.
And now my watch is ended.
Even if George R, R. “I’m Not Your B” Martin finishes the books. (Ha!) If this lamefeast is where the story was going all along, why bother?
@27: People on line have been speculating for years now that Arya would sail west at the end. It’s a natural for her.
I find myself satisfied with the ending, though getting there was a bit problematic. Jon, yes — going north is the right solution for him. Arya, fine. Tyrion getting named Hand seems dubious after all the mistakes he’s made, but he has it in him to do better. I don’t like Sansa as a Queen and never did. Lady of the North, sure, once Jon and Bran are out of the picture. So, eh. I assume that Bran was the ending GRRM gave to the showrunners and I’m not sure it makes much sense for reasons others have already articulated. I’ll just add that Kings aren’t chosen for their wisdom, but for their charisma (or their parents). That makes me wonder about GRRM’s ideals. But I’m not angry about it, just dubious.
As for S8 overall, I’d say it’s the best since S4. E1 was solid, E2,3,5 were terrific, among the best the show has produced. E4 and 6 both got off to very good starts and then petered out. That makes roughly 5 of 6 very well done, which is a fine percentage.
Really one of the best shows I’ve seen, though I wouldn’t put it #1 (that’s still reserved for Buffy). But here’s a short list of GoT’s greatest features, not necessarily in order:
1. The actors. Best cast series ever. And when they had to gamble on child actors they either got lucky or had Bran as an advisor. Maisie was always terrific, Sophie got much better.
2. The music. Again, among the best of all time.
3. The ability to pull off great scenes remained amazing throughout the show. Too many memorable ones to list. Yeah, the plot was sometimes a bit thin in-between the set-piece scenes, but it’s a fantasy series and I’m pretty forgiving of that.
4. The cinematography, including special effects, was often great. In fact, when I look back at the Battle of the Blackwater, which received so much praise at the time, I think about similar scenes in later seasons and how much better they got from that great start.
5. The sets were great.
Not a perfect adaptation, but a hell of a good one.
So basically Starks for the win. Bran is King in the South, Sansa Queen in the North, and Arya is Prince Henry the Navigator/Columbus.
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@@.-@: Thanks very much for the kind words :) Much appreciated.
@52 – Arya to die of scurvy or drowning in a storm trying to get to Asshai by the Shadow the hard way because there is nothing but scattered island in the Planetos version of the Pacific. At least that is the implication given in Fire and Blood.
All hail Leto II Atreid…, er, Brandon Stark. God Emp…, uh, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men.
Frankly, Sansa demanding independence for the North should have broken up their convention into acrimony. The person running the meeting not wanting to live under the decision does not make for a strong treaty for anyone to abide by.
Bran becoming King makes no sense. What’s he done to earn the job? How does he impress a warrior elite to offer it to him? I suspect he’s been given somebody else’s ending. Like Sansa was given Jeyne Poole’s storyline.
Now that the show has gotten the Hollywood ending out of the way, George can give us the ending these rulers deserve: a zombie victory. Either that, or a complete fracturing back to individual kingdoms as it was pre-conquest.
It’s official: the Night King really did go out that easily. Lame.
Let’s send Jon to the Wall! Never mind that it’s partially destroyed or that it no longer serves a purpose…
I’m typing this before reading any comments, though after reading the post, so if I’m repeating things already said or not addressing them, that’s why.
I actually liked this a lot more than I expected to. I’m one of those who really hated episode 5 because they didn’t bother explaining the actions adequately, and what led up to them. But to my surprise they offered up ideas that made what had happened before make sense to me, I think by accident because the show writers said that they hadn’t planned to explain Dany except with “Ooh she snapped”.
And she did of course. But they also (inadvertently?) explained that what led up to it were NOT signs of madness, but rather signs of a girl being worshiped as she grew up and grew into power, such that she started believing herself to be infallible and then godlike. That led to the final moment in the throne room where she clearly thought she and Jon could be the new gods of the nation she wanted to build. Was that madness? Partly, perhaps, but it’s also what happens every day when people surround themselves with fans and worshipers and hear no criticism. It’s something I see online in communities with those they follow. It’s not “ooh she snapped” but something that had been building, and it’s in large part our fault (our being her followers, not the audience). I think this is what GRRM wanted us to see, not some stupid genetic madness.
And while I could not previously understand Jon killing her (from the spoilers I’d heard I knew this was happening), when I saw that he understood not only the above but what that meant to his family, the destruction of the Starks, I saw the proper motivation in place for stopping her.
I cried when she died, because I now understood the terrible journey she’d been on and how the people who loved her without reservation were in large part responsible for that she was.
One thing I didn’t cry about was the aftermath. Bran was a crappy character in the show, and a bad choice as king. Did they really want some king who isn’t even there mentally most of the time? Well, maybe they did. But I have to think most would support Gendry, the now legit son of Robert, the last king. They’d have more control of the throne with a new, unsure king who wanted people to teach him. And he did have a good amount of charisma, unlike Bran.
But really that was the only thing that really bothered me much, aside from the sitcom-like feel of the second half. And hey, Ghost got his pets.
More detail on my valuable opinion: I never thought Dany deserved to rule from her birthright, rather that she was the only one who had a shot at holding the Seven Kingdoms together. The Baratheon dynasty was doomed, because all the other lords of the realm considered themselves equal to the Stormlands. The only reason it didn’t happen before the start of the first book is that Ned and What’s HisFace the 1st happened to be best buds. The shadow of Aegon was long, and the Seven Kingdoms could all acknowledge a Targaryen as a breed apart. Once that was broken, there was no going back. In the books I thought we’d see Dany learn that when she arrived, and have to choose between a second conquest with dragons and Dothraki, or fighting the White Walkers. She’d be risking seven separate kingdoms to prevent there being no kingdoms at all.
Come to think of it, having the kingdom ruled by an immortal, amoral, psychic tree-person would be an awesome fantasy plot. Unfortunately, TV-Bran is nowhere near that interesting.
Also, am I the only one who was flashing on:
To fill the time and the gaps, remember, this all started as comic books. GRRM tried to relay his stories and intrigue and plot with pictures to describe family relations and country vistas/locations of strongholds with maps. So there is visual eye candy and pre-lannister ruling days in the comic books. Other conclusions can be had by going outside the immediate reactions and seeing into the future. The way the story ended, Bran can call back Jon, as he most likely will. Apparently, the fact that Jon is a Tarrgaryen may have been successfully kept secret. Most likely, Tyrion, Sansa, arya, and bran are still the only ones who know, since Varys was killed for trying to spread the rumor. A raven or two got away, which will grow the rumor and Jon will be back when people “everyone” finds out there is still a tarrgaryen out there, loose in the woods. He’ll be back. And Bran is the one to allow it and concede. He did not use it as his defense nor did he admit/claim to kill her because he wanted the job. So most likely he didn’t tell. Speaking to that….Ned kept it a secret to his grave literally at the expense of a happy marriage or not, with his wife believing Jon was his, his entire life! And Jon’s thanks to Ned’s sacrifice and the lesson to be learned from keeping a life-long secret, is to tell the SECOND he found out he was a Tarrgaryen? Couldn’t keep it to himself for 24 hours. He also couldn’t let Dany revel in her glory for 24 hours? 8 seasons of watching Danerys Stormborn attempt to acquire an army to take King’s Landing and she finally achieves it last night, and in the same hour, dies. Killed at the hand of Ned’s ward. Ned, who risked his life and championed hers. Ned pitched the effort to keep her alive, and Jon kills her in the hour of victory? ned kept her alive, so jon could kill her? Jon could have given-it-a-go for a while, for a year or two, unitl there was a child etc. And the NEXT TIME she went off to conquer some kingdom, he could have killed her to avoid the outcome he now knows would be inevitable if she ever takes over another town.
The final straw for me, was that Tyrion watched in shock and awe, and said, no, this is unacceptable, and advised Jon to not let her rule, because she was a cruel leader. He never had anyone try to kill his sister, but he just marched in there and had danerys killed the same day she won AND got to lead the campaign to hire a new guy?
I am not a dragon queen fan. I did not see her winning. But 8 seasons of watching her try, knowing someone have to take Cercie out, it was gonna be her. And they both basically died the same day in the same battle.
A chess move. queen takes queen. But really King took queen, which can only be done a standing next to her; a square away.
Bronn as Master of Coin is one of Tyrion’s master-strokes. It satisfies Bronn’s greed and keeps him bought for the current administration, keeping him too busy to plot.
@62, Why on earth would the people of King’s Landing want a Targaryen ruling over them after what the last one did? And the one before! I’d think they’d want him dead. I know I would in their shoes.
Not entirely caught up reading the comments here, so forgive me if I’m repeating someone else’s point, but I just wanted to address Bran being “king of stories.” I felt like the writing in that scene was a little clunky, because it definitely came across as Tyrion electing Bran “because he had the best story.” But he also went on to say that Bran is the keeper of their memory and history, and I think the point he was trying to make is that because of all he’s known and seen of the world, he had incredible wisdom and perspective, mire than any of them could ever hope to have. It’s interesting, because it goes back to Tywin’s idea that the best kings are wise. He’s not wrong. It’s just that Tywin used that point to convince Tommen he knows nothing and needs to do whatever his advisors tell him to do, and while that’s not necessarily a bad thing, advisors can have their own agenda. Tywin certainly did; he put his family’s name and power over the realm every time. Anyway, all this is to say, Bran, with all he knows as the Three-Eyed Raven, is wise enough on his own, and wise enough to pick good advisors he can delegate to.
@61 No but Jason Conception from The Ringer had a great line last night calling Dany’s speech her General Hux speech.
I’m looking forward to the spinoff series in which Arya travels the world solving mysteries.
”I would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for that meddling kid!”
@62 – Comic books?
Exactly, comic books?
George RR Martin first published in Asimov’s magazine, July 1996 with Dany on the cover “Blood of the Dragon” as an excerpt from his upcoming novel.
Cheers to a WONDERFUL adaptation of his stories on HBO. We fans are Spoiled Rotten.
A friend of mine posted (on FaceBook) the following quote of C. S. Lewis that seems very apropos of the way the series ended:
I guess Jon will now, even if he doesn’t really want to, end up being the new King-Beyond-the-Wall for the Wildlings, since the Night’s Watch is officially useless now that the Night King is gone and the Wildlings are no longer enemies of the Southron folk. Plus his sister is now Queen in the North, so they can all keep on being chummy for the next two or three decades.
Good on Ser Podrick Payne, Kingsguard. His character arc in the show reminded me of Ser Duncan the Tall in the “Dunk and Egg” short-stories. He deserves a happy ending, and hopefully not a life of celibacy and chastity.
Truth be told, I was kind of expecting the showrunners to pull a crappy 80’s horror movie ending and have blue-eyed undead Night-Queen Daenerys jump-scare the audience at the last second before the credits rolled.
Not a great episode, much less a great finale for the show, but I feel it could’ve been so much worse given the kind of stuff they did this season, so I’ll take it.
Plus, Ghost got his pets, which is the most important plot hole that needed to be fixed.
The last Three Eyed Raven Claimed he’d lived for a thousand years. He didn’t die of natural causes.
In case anyone missed it, in Westeros’ patriarchal society, Sansa’s children (and Arya’s, if she so chooses) won’t be Stark’s. Hence Bran being the last Stark.
So… did Tyrion know? I can see the nobles accepting Bran as King – he can sure no heirs of his blood, and rather than armed conflict, the can engage in intrigue for a generation over who gets named heir while they rebuild. I can see Tyrion suggesting Bran because someone who will live for at least 40 generations kind of renders meaningless any threat of wars of succession.
Then there’s democracy. America had a kind of democracy from the start, but England (and other nations) stumbled to it (with some backsliding) in small steps. In a gross and terrible oversimplification: First a council of high nobles ratified the heir, then selected the guy running the show, then nobles in general, then landowners, then men in general, then women. We saw the first step, and I wouldn’t be surprised if (over the next millennia) Bran manipulates Westeros into a Constitutional Monarchy, offloading the boring day to day admin on an elected Prime Minister.
plus is Sansa dies without an heir to her body (either by choice or nature), then the throne of the North could revert to Bran, and the 6 become 7 once more.
Putting aside the issue that I didn’t buy Dany’s descent into madness – I hadn’t realized that Bitches be Crazy replaced Winter is Coming as the show’s motto – I thought the finale was good – B or B+. Some nice thematic beats, marred by a few logical issues that should have been cleared up over the past season or two (such as having Bran explain that prior ravens have lots of managerial experience, so he can handle it or WTF was Bran even doing over the past few episodes to pay off his magical skills, but whatever). Assuming the event of Ep 5, Dany had to die and it is better for Jon to do it – the Things we do for love brought to its logical conclusion. Good that Jon didn’t take the throne either.
I chuckled at the Seven Kingdoms to Six Kingdoms change because Seven Kingdoms is a misnomer anyway – North/Stark, Riverlands/Tully, West/Lannisters, Reach/Tyrell, Stormlands/Baratheon, Dorne/Martell, East (Arryn) – that’s Seven. If you add the Iron Islands as a separate unit, rather than combining it with the Riverlands, that makes Eight. And if you add Kings Landing and the Crowlands around it, that would make Nine.
@72 – the last three eyed Raven was Bryden Rivers, a Targaryen bastard who was rumored to be a sorcerer and served as both Hand of the King and Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch – who was born about 100 years before the events in question.
Oh noes! My TLDR text disappeared into thin air. Sob!
Well, to take a small part of it.
@sophist wrote “I’ll just add that Kings aren’t chosen for their wisdom, but for their charisma (or their parents). That makes me wonder about GRRM’s ideals. But I’m not angry about it, just dubious.”
What did that mean? That GRRM did let Bran be King for unworthy reasons? How is his personal ideals involved? I don’t you can or should write an epos like this letting neither your personal ideals nor the current ideals in the society decide every turn of the story. You build a world with its own inner mechanisms, ideals and peoples and then let the inner logic of that setup decide what happens.
Besides, no I do not think Kings were elected for their charisma in those times and places where Kings were elected (though it of course helped). I don’t think we can be really sure about the intricacies of King elections, but it is pretty safe to assume that those with best connections got elected – and good connections you can get in a lot of ways. Unless some compromise candidate did it.
At the risk of introducing a total non sequitur into the ongoing discussion — actually, there’s this.
All in all, I liked the finale. Sansa gets the kingdom she fought for. (But she has to find someone suitable to sire a child). Arya is not forced to marry. (I don’t know why fans thought that was a good idea). I am not positive that Jon will remain as celibate as he promised. It didn’t work last time. A future child may still find a dragon egg. The Stark kids did well. Unfortunately, the wheel is not truly broken. Bran will be a more efficient king than Robert; he’ll actually attend council meetings. But the slavers will probably retake their slaves. It will take an event like the Black Death to loosen the grip of the feudal state.
I’m happy even though my idea of breaking the wheel would have forced the viewer to accept Dany as ruler. She was destructive as every colonial ruler in our world. If you like Elizabeth I, Andrew Jackson, or Alexander the Great—what’s your issue with Dany ?
And I am still not going with “mad” Dany. Power hungry but not mad. Ambition is not the same as mad. She was right. You don’t leave rivals standing to come back at you later
I thought the ending made perfect sense, but it would have been nice to see the 4 missing episodes that built it up.
The reaction to Sam’s suggestion of democracy was exactly as it should have been – we hear the same reactions to same-sex marriage in the real world. The real problem is that there is no basis for Sam having been exposed to the idea, other than his extensive time in the library. We know little of the intellectual history of the world, this would have been a good point for some exposition – even a single sentence naming a philosopher responsible for the idea would have sufficed.
As far as Dany’s snap goes – the moment she turned was well done. But despite Targaryen insanity being a long-standing Chekhov’s Gun, the writers violated the principle of “show, don’t tell.” We saw a laundry list of triggers, but our only hint that she was responding to these was Varys expressing his concerns that she was going mad. Unless hallucinating a Starbucks cup is a sign of madness, that is.
Does anyone besides me really, REALLY want to hear the rest of Tyrion’s story about the brothel, jackass, and honeycomb
@77 – She had more of a Mao Zedong vibe. Sure he cleared out the old order, then as C. S. Lewis describes above, he became far worse than any of them. Everyone talks about killing baby Hitler. Stabbing a young Mao before his purges and Cultural Revolution would probably save more lives.
She had lots of “Kneel Before Zod” moments in earlier seasons. I knew where it was going when she told Sam how she roasted his younger brother alive because he wouldn’t properly kiss her ass.
@80 – some website asked a bunch of comedians to tell the end of the story about a month or two ago. Best to try to find it through the power of google.
@80: There’s a post on reddit which explains the joke.
@79: Sam did have experience with a form of democracy — the Night’s Watch chose its leaders. It’s not clear how instructive that would, though, since (a) Sam cheated the system to get Jon elected; and (b) members of the electorate then assassinated Jon.
Did anyone else get Buffy and Angel vibes when Jon stabbed Dany?
Also, I guess Varys never sent any of his messages out with his little birds, because no one else seems to know that Jon is actually Aegon?
I found the full joke – thanks everyone! I know it’s unconfirmed, but that is TOTALLY a joke Tyrion would make. :D .
@84: Definitely. Some of the Buffy sites picked up on it too.
So, uh, none of the Dothraki were upset that their Khaleesi was murdered? Fickle bunch, I guess.
Seeing all these lords here, some of whom we hadn’t seen in long while… I wonder who gets Harrenhal? Is its reputation as a cursed keep sufficiently well-known that nobody wants it? It used to be quite the prize, yet nobody has tried to gift it to Bronn…
Drogon could take her to be brought back to life that’s a cool twist. Or all the way to the North for the white walker magic. She’d come back pissed. She wasn’t really “crazy” just hurt. Her looks were that of being betrayed and being betrayed makes you a little crazy. Also draws attention to mental disorders being hereditary and her “losing it” was unavoidable, inevitable. But she was a little young…. I mean, she just got here (To King’s Landing – to rule the 7 kingdoms) and she couldn’t take one of her closest advisors being beheaded? That’s been happening all six seasons to all the rulers.
@80 you know how it goes…. what would you do with a little (or lot) of honey.
Sad too that Podrick Payne is King’s guard, greatest lover in the seven kingdoms.
“Things we do for love” is peppered throughout. That was nice, that that phrase came to mind the entire episode with all the turns and dialogues.
@69, @68 https://www.amazon.com/Game-Thrones-Comic-Book-Issue-ebook/dp/B007WU3D7I
https://www.amazon.com/Game-Thrones-Comic-Book-Issue-ebook/dp/B007WU3EDG
87, I think the Dothraki are all dead…
@92 — No, at least some survived (although I’m not entirely sure how) — they were milling around behind the Unsullied during Dany’s General Hux speech.
I think I saw them being loaded onto ships at the same time the Unsullied were getting ready to sail away. Not sure if they’re also going to Naath or if they’re just packing it in and going home.
My guess is after the Battle of the North they can’t wait to get home to the Sea of Grass. Serious conquest is NOT the same as raiding and looting. Ask the Mongols.
The Mongols were very serious conquerors.
Exactly, Sophist. Serious conquerors who know how govern as well as lay waste. Unlike the Dothraki.
I thought Drogon melting down the Iron Throne was the most poignant moment of the entire season. Jon killed her, but maybe Drogon knew what drove his mother to ruin, and took out his tortured grief on the ornate chair that symbolized it.
@76 You made my day
PrincessRoxana @@@@@ 55
Bran becoming King makes no sense. What’s he done to earn the job? How does he impress a warrior elite to offer it to him? I suspect he’s been given somebody else’s ending. Like Sansa was given Jeyne Poole’s storyline.
I have long harbored a suspicion that is supposed to be Rickon’s fate, and it is supposed to have something to do with him either becoming a rallying point for the North, or leading a vast horde of united Wilding/People Beyond the Wall tribes or possibly both. Sansa is supposed to claim the Vale and the Riverlands, Bran becomes a wizard and Arya becomes the Night Wolf.
I remember a few years back when GRRM complained greatly about the endings of Battlestar Galactica and Lost.
In hindsight, I find this . . . amusing.
2 mediocre bros plot to murder a visionary woman they both claim to “love” and the world applauds. rich fat fucks laugh off the idea of political self-determination and re-assert a neoliberal order. f**k you HBO and everyone that called Dany crazy. The finale proves she was right about everything.
Okay, on another note (and I already mentioned this on another thread here at Tor):
I DO NOT LIKE Danys suddenly becoming the “mad queen” kind of out of nowhere. For personal reasons, including having a mental illness myself (clinical depression) and a history of some very severe mental illness on both sides of my family, it really upset me.)
(And no, I am NOT NEW to the internet and I have read a lot of the analyses of that moment in “The Bells” and deconstructions of the narrative foreshadowing. But it DID NOT have to happen in a way that demonized her so badly.)
I will freely admit that I know the novels MUCH better than the HBO show. And yes, Danys has done some pretty terrible and violent things during her journey to Westeros and the Iron Throne. This includes crucifying slavers and violently executing rapists. But IMHO she was always TRYING to do what she thought was right. This includes when she “hired” the Unsullied (whom she really bought as slaves) but then encouraged them to name themselves because they were men, not objects.
A lot of her actions were ill-advised and terrible, but I still cannot believe that she would burn unarmed women and children to death BECAUSE REASONS.
She wanted to burn the Red Keep to the ground? Fine. I get it. I could even understand if she wanted to kill every member of Cersei’s army, even after they surrendered (she would be worried they would never “bend the knee”). But killing children and babies in flames? NOOP.
I don’t think this would have been too difficult to work into the episode (and of course this is all my head-canon). Have Danys burn the Red Keep (maybe creating a wee bit more tension with Jaime trying to get Cersei out) and then announce that any unarmed women and children who can escape are free to do so. (Heck, maybe have her say something about how she expects them to be waiting outside King’s Landing somewhere to swear fealty to her.) And then she could announce that she planned to burn every soldier who was loyal to Cersei and who took up arms against herself.
Still super-violent? Of course. But IMHO, that would have been more understandable and could have lent a deeper dimension to the final conversation between Danys and Jon. Instead of him focusing on her OOC act of killing women and children, they *actually* could have had a conversation about that “liberation” means and mabe Danys could have chosen to sacrifice herself, or to fly away on Drogon forever, in a moment of epiphany during which she realizes that her way is not right, as much as she wants it to be.
*head-canon over*
Sorry – I obviously have thoughts and this is already too long. I am just waiting (without much hope) to find out how the books will address this. …
Do we know who the ‘new’ lords were at the council? Arryn and the Prince of Done, but what about the other four?
They must be the most powerful remaining houses, so I would guess: Redwyne, Mallister, Manderley and maybe Crakehall.
Also, anyone know where they filmed the Dragonpit and if it’s real ruins or CGI? I do love me some good ruins.
Theresa, you have been hard on the show and the showrunners for sexism and racism. After the end, what do you think?
I’m a white straight male, so perhaps not best placed to judge, but it seems they did well by diversity to me.
The ruler of the North is a woman.
The saviour of the world is a woman.
The Iron Islands are ruled by a lesbian.
The king is disabled.
The Hand is a dwarf.
The best knight in the land is a woman.
Not bad for a warrior patriarchy.
And, despite the flaws with telling their story this season, I thought Dany and Cersei’a endings were poignant and appropriate. They certainly didn’t feel like bit parts in men’s stories to me.
Yes, you could argue people of color get short shift, but this is a story set in fantasy medieval Western Europe. And we see the Unsullied leave to help the people if Naath, so Missandei left a positive legacy.
Thoughts?
I couldn’t help but think of various other scenes during this. Jon and Tyrion got all Shakespearean. Dany reminded me of the Mitchell and Webb Nazi sketch (our uniforms have skulls on them, do you think we’re the bad guys?) and Life of Brian when no one can hear Jesus. Then suddenly the winter of discontent was made glorious summer by Tyrion at the chat. Why didn’t they have bloody name badges like a proper conference? What happened to all the blood thirsty Dothraki (im glad the unsullied are off for cocktails and beach volley ball)? Why didn’t Jon give a motivational speech on his return (look, I know it ended badly last time but I’m literally reborn and will consult more this time). Is he the 99th and 101st lord commander or whatever? Better than Lost anyway …
“re-assert a neoliberal order”
‘Neoliberal’ is truly meaningless if we’re applying it to explicitly feudal societies now.
“@27: People on line have been speculating for years now that Arya would sail west at the end. It’s a natural for her.”
How is it natural? She’s been separated from her family for years, shouldn’t she hang around at home and help out for a while? Or go north with Jon, if she wants more adventure after all this. How is sailing into an empty ocean no one’s returned from a natural? And who’s funding such an expedition in a time of privation, anyway?
When Arya asked way back, “What’s west of Westeros?”, I correctly predicted that is exactly what she would do (if she survived to the end). There might have been some whooping, fist pumps and shouts of “YES!!” in my house…..
I like that Jon is going north with the Wildlings. The Stark/Targaryan line may yet continue, as he’s not bound by the Night Watch vows up there. He’s free and he has the chance to be happy.
Sansa as Queen in the North = She’s totally earned it.
Good try Sam, but Westeros isn’t quite ready for full democracy yet.
@107: The Night Watch vows are clearly mean nothing now south of the Wall either, as Sam is in Kings Landing as maester of the king, and Gilly is pregnant with his child.
Also there is no point of the Night Watch. The White Walkers are gone, and the Freefolk is in good terms with Winterfell. Anybody sent to the wall has nothing to do at all.
I watched the last episode with some of my friends and we laughed almost constantly so we had some fun at least. Overall it fits right into season 8, with the last episode being as inconsistent and illogical as most of the season.
@99, I thought of Rickon too. The producers were obviously into killing off characters and switching their stories to the few selected survivors.
@107: That conversation was with Lady Crane in S6:
Arya: What’s west of Westeros?
LC: Nobody knows. Perhaps the end of the world.
Arya: I’d like to see that.
Fans have been speculating on line ever since that this would be how Arya’s story ends.
@108: Do you really think the Free Folk aren’t going to resume raiding? Raiding past the wall has been part of their culture for millenia and having fought alongside Winterfall against a common foe doesn’t mean they will stay friendly now that the common foe is gone. (Just consider how quickly the US and Soviets fell out after having worked together to defeat the Nazis.)
@97 You have to wonder if Drogon knew Jon’s intentions when he entered the Throne Room and let him pass anyways.
@112: Considering how many Freefolk left at the end of the show, no I do not think they will go back raiding. At least not for a long-long while. And I want to say that while Jon is with them, he would strongly disagree with any raiding plan, but considering how inconsistent was his personality this season, he may just as well join them for the lolz.
Also if there is so few resources are north of the wall that they need raiding, why they gone back? There is a lot of empty land between Winterfell and the Wall now. I don’t think Sansa would have any problem with them settling down there.
I’ve got to feel sorry for Naath, which peaceful region is about to get an uninvited shipload of warriors with no farming or mercantile skills eager to “defend” it because their leader’s dead ex was kidnapped from there 15-20 years ago.
(Even worse if the Dothraki are coming with them, but hopefully they’ll hare off back to the Sea of Grass.)
1) The democracy thing was funny because we expect “oh, we’ve had a run of bad kings, let’s try, I don’t know, democracy?” as the trope in a story like this and after a moment they laughed. I thought it was great.
2) Bran The Broken, First Of His Name: His first decree: Any one who refers to me as “the Broken” gets a valued body part chopped off.
3) Perhaps Jon will meet a wight with red hair who hisses “you knowww nothinggggg, Jon Ssssnowwww” as she bites his face off.
The whole thing people are saying about Arya being expected to go west due to one thowaway line in S6 illustrates very well the showrunners’ modus operandi wherby cheap casual foreshadowing replaces character building and contextual logic. As I said in @27, it makes little sense overall; at least in the context of the show. In the books at least we have some legends about the west and some people who alegedly have been over there (offering no proof whatshowever though)… but that still feels flimsy a motivation for anyone under the current economic, political, and social state of Westeros to head over there.
Ending was awful. Lost too. Dexter too. Could never get through all those episodes of BSG to make it to the ending – and I think I am glad I didnt. Fringe had a decent ending – I recommend to people who liked Lost. This felt so unsatisfying.
Danys’ death, like Cersei’s was boring, why not have her pitted against Jon and have the revelation made public to the masses that he is a Targaryan. I was actually surprised that it wasn’t brought up at the meeting of the Lords. They had so much room for a great ending. Imagine if Jon never told Dany his true heritage and at the end they battled and she commanded Drogon to burn him and Jon walked out of the flames unharmed or similarly have her try to execute Tyrion who was also rumored to have secret Targaryan heritage – I doubt he is a true Lanister
Is Jon leaving the wall with the wildlings to live and ignore the sentence or just taking a stroll north of the wall ?
I didn’t read all the comments; there are just so many. But reflecting on the ones I did read, as well as the many complaints therein, I think all the problems of both season 7 and 8 can be traced back to the one issue: everything was simply too rushed. Both seasons should have had ten full episodes, just like all the others; character development particularly suffered, and the shortened seasons made tying up all the loose ends impossible (yes I understand that the original plan was to have a ten episode wrap up in season 7, but they decided to split it into two and gift us three extra episodes; it was a stupid plan! it was just too much material for thirteen episodes!). Perhaps the most telling problem was with Dany. So many people are having trouble with the fact that she goes completely Targaryen at the end of season 8; yet, this is foreshadowed throughout the show, beginning as early as when her brother is forced to walk behind the Dothraki horsemen because he attacks her. We are all so glad to see him get his comeuppance, though, perhaps we fail to note Dany’s total lack of empathy. This continues throughout season one, and by the time her brother is “crowned,” she is completely without feeling for him. Yes, he is an evil person, but no one deserves to have molten gold poured over his/her head (I might remind viewers at this moment of Arya’s surprising show of empathy for Cersei as a group of actors reenact Joffrey’s death – despite Arya’s utter hatred for Cersei, she still has compassion for the grieving mother.) Right then and there, Dany demonstrates a coldness, an all or nothing attitude that continues once she gets to the slave cities and starts crucifying people, and, at least in the show, begins feeding people to her dragons. Such actions are not representative of justice, despite Dany’s exhortations to the contrary. Still, between these moments and that decisive instant when she decides to incinerate King’s Landing, there are fewer “in your face” reminders of her ruthless nature.Instead, the reminders are more subtle – the many times she has to be talked out of torching everything, Tyrion’s reminder that she doesn’t want to be the “Queen of Ashes,” and Jon’s statement that should destruction be her course, she is not different, “just more of the same.” Viewers might miss these clues because they are not as blatant as what has come before, but it’s right there – staring us all in the face. Her behavior should not come as a surprise. And if that is misogynistic, then oh well…that’s how she is written from the beginning.
Back to my original assertion, though, I truly believe that if they had just slowed down the pace, viewers would not have felt so blind-sighted. For me personally, however, it’s all the loose ends that remain untied!; that’s what bothers me the most. Between the books and the show, I have invested countless hours in this series. I have read and contemplated the many fan theories out there, reread the text, and engaged in innumerable discussions – and I really wanted some answers! But answers were just not forthcoming, and, considering Martin’s continued procrastination, I, and everyone else, may never get those answers. I really fear he will not live long enough to finish the novels; I was relying on HBO to solve some of the riddles!
Nevertheless, I thought season 8 was vastly superior to season 7 (particularly the writing), and while there were many moments of this season’s finale that were highly dissatisfying, I found season 8 to have been very entertaining overall. The Long Night was absolutely gut-wrenching to watch; I was on pins and needles throughout, so afraid for all those in jeopardy!! I also very much enjoyed the fireside chat that preceded the battle in episode two. No series is perfect, and Martin proved early on that this was not going to be a that left his audience feeling good. This is a show where bad things happen to good people, and good people do really bad things. I’m guessing that no matter how it had ended, there would still be detractors clamoring to change it!
I think 119 is very fair, though I personally enjoyed both S7 and S8 and totally saw Dany coming. Some of the blame B&B are getting does belong to GRRM. Overall, B&B took a meandering story involving hundreds of characters, mostly told through internal monologue and POV, and adapted it to an entirely different medium. Along the way we got phenomenal acting from the best-cast series ever; incredible music; an outstanding job with set-piece scenes; and the best cinematography (loosely defined to include everything from directing to special effects) ever. For all it’s weaknesses, that’s a heck of an accomplishment.
Disapointed as well, but that wasn’t a new feeling with this series. Unlike others (it seems) I have felt disapointed time to time all the way this series has aired. Yes I felt too that Dany’s turn was a litlle bit odd.
But with that said you are wrong with few points. There is a song about spiders. There are many many who eulogizes dragons. Why shouln’t they. Also in the series it has been said that dragons are smart, clever beings, maybe sometimes smarter than people. So why it wouldn’t be possible for a dragon to understand reasons. There has been a lot more stupid logic with things in this series than this.
Somehow I don’t understand that people were so angry how Ghost was treated earlier, but no one seems to be that angry with how Drogon was treated in this. Drogon deserved better. And just to say, he didn’t made decision to burn what he burned. The decisions were Dany’s. But Drogon definately deserved better. All his siblings are killed and now his mother is killed too and he is alone and presumably hunted by people too, if the small council meeting is to be believed.
Pro Drogon and a better ending for him!
Yikes, the comments blew up!
I had some more thoughts to expand, but I suppose in short:
1)I assume that Jon/the Night’s Watch will serve as a kind of diplomatic outreach to the Free Folk now. There’s still a reason to have at least a presence at the border. And I figure Jon will always have ‘reasons’ to take trips out there as part of his role.
2)I couldn’t help but hope that they’d just say, ‘what do we need a king for at all’ at the council. While I think democracy would have been a jump, would have been interesting if – now that even the Iron Throne is gone – they just decided to be a loose association of Kingdoms.
3)One thing that hasn’t gotten enough love – that shot of Dany in the beginning coming to make her speech as Drogon alights behind her. Dragon queen indeed :)
4)I hope Drogon just flew back to Valyria and is chilling. I can see why Bran et al might at least want to know where he is.
5)To me Arya sailing off Into The West made perfect sense.
6)Hopefully Naath doesn’t have the deadly butterflies they do in the books, or Grey Worm/the Unsullied/Dothraki will not be long for this world.
7)Whatever happened to Daaaaario and Essos? Did the slavers take over again?
8)Was also hoping for a bit more with the Drogon/Jon interaction – was his burning the throne intended to be some kind of symbolic commentery? Did Drogon know what he was doing? Was Jon’s Targaryen-ness related to this? Did Drogon sense in some ways what his mother was becoming (and would he have cared? Do dragons care about ends and means?)
Tyrion told us early in Book 1 that dragons were very intelligent, so your questions in #8 might all be answered yes. That’s how I like to see it.
Right, but then I guess the question is – why wouldn’t these dragons have had any problems with Aegon the Conqueror or whoever else?
Maybe Drogon is the true revolutionary we needed ;)
I guess Balerion didn’t appreciate metaphor the way Drogon did. :)
Remember when the wizards of Quarth sent Dany on her magical mystery tour? She saw a ruined throne room and the Iron Throne covered in snow. But it wasn’t snow – it was ash. That’s some nice foreshadowing right there.
Also, Dany should have arrived to find the Throne already melted by her reckless rage. That would have been very apt. Ah well.
Like many I am basically fine with where it all ended up, but the shortened seasons meant a lot of the steps along the way were shortchanged.
I dont understand why nobody is concerned with Mellisandre’s necklace, you know the one that grants eternal life and youth. And Danerys neck was completely covered when John stabbed her, it was more covered than I have ever seen. Drogon just flies off with her body, and the 3 eyed raven wants now King Bronn asks about Drogon the last minute of the show, then rolls off to go find him. Something feels off, 2 years for just 6 episodes. Hmmmmmm
@127 Interesting theory regarding the necklace… if only there was another season to see it play out
Still massively disappointed with the finale, cannot believe they made Bran king, Cersei was killed off so easily…. Dany not trying to execute Jon or Tyrion with Drogon’s flame only to have them survive – that would have been awesome! Do these “finale” writers have any story writing skills or do they just figure HBO made its money anyway, lets just be lazy???
I mostly put the necklace theory out there as a way to say it could continue that was different than being resurrected by a red priestess. Another one I thought of was her becoming a white walker some how, but it would have to be very well thought out. I wanted to cry when certain people died, but some of the deaths were just for the dramatic twist to play out. Cersei only died the way she did because they rushed and tried to wrap up too many loose ends in a very short time. They would have needed to make the 6th episode all about Cersei, her capture, her having to account for everything she has done and her execution. Now as for Dany becoming this so called mad queen. Those of us who have watched for years have spent a chunk of our lives falling in live with Danerys. We watch her struggle, make mistakes and grow. But here is the thing, I dont believe she was at that breaking point yet when she torched kings landing. Seeing her go through so much and still not kill children. That’s the biggest thing to me, her killing children. If she would have been strategically targeting just the armies in the streets I would have bought it. But just zig zagging through the city was nonsense. But that’s because we hadn’t seen a valid reason for her to change so dramatically. Even John being her nephew, if he had wanted to be king and pursued his birth rite of sitting on the iron throne, then I could see that making her mad, but remember how many times he said SHE IS MY QUEEN. Sansa had a good ending and so did Arya. But come one, John, Danerys, Jamie, Cersei, Brienne,Drogon and Grey Worms endings were wrong.
@will
“But come one, John, Danerys, Jamie, Cersei, Brienne,Drogon and Grey Worms endings were wrong.”
Not sure what was wrong with Brienne or Grey Worm ending. Besides uneventful. I would insert Tyrion in there. Well, I guess hand of the king is ok. But still for Bran, kind of boring.
Just thought of something. How can the six kingdoms sentence Jon to the Nights Watch when the Nights Watch isn’t even a part of those Kingdoms anymore? Geographically it’s a Northern institution at this point. I would entertain the notion that it is it’s own entity not subject to Northern rule either but find it hard to believe it remains part of the six kingdoms.
(I don’t think the books will end with northern independence or with Sansa as Queen, so I think this is a show only quandary.)
@130, Personally I would love to see Jamie and Brienne go home to Tarth and raise a large family of tall, strong daughters and sons, all with golden hair and beautiful blue eyes. But I know that’s not going to happen.
@129: I agree that Daenerys actions would have seemed much less egregious if she had not been so indiscriminate in targeting the innocent residents of Kings Landing. But that was the point. Her conversion to the dark side had to be complete to justify the dagger from her lover.
I still say my favorite moment in season 8 is when drogon melted down the iron throne. I think he knew his mother was beyond redemption, and that what caused her fall was lust for that throne. So in grief and anguish, he let Jon do what he had to do, then burned it down.
@@@@@ 84: “Did anyone else get Buffy and Angel vibes when Jon stabbed Dany?”
YES. Personally, that’s my favorite Buffy episode of all time, and Sarah Michelle Gellar sold the hell out of it. And I didn’t like the way the show creators cheapened it having Angel vomited out of hell in the very first episode of the next season.
131: I think the southern kingdoms sent people to the Wall long before Aegon. One wiki says, citing _World of Ice and Fire_:
‘Six kings were sent to the Wall after Nymeria’s War and the unification of Dorne by House Martell.[36]’
And the Watch was considered neutral, under its own elected commanders, not under the command of the Kings of the North.
So even if the southerners didn’t really believe in the Others and didn’t fear the Wildlings (with the North as buffer kingdom), they still viewed the Watch as a convenient place to dump people.