Spoiler Some have speculated that Cersei’s goal is to provoke Dany into attacking King’s Landing with her dragon. It would legitimize Cersei’s claim if she defended the city against a crazy lady trying to burn down the city with a dragon. Slaughtering an army that is there to negotiate, an army that word must have spread just saved life as they know it, would not be a good look. Of course, if everyone thinks Cersei already burned down the Sept then it weakens this idea. But I feel like that’s never been addressed and I’m operating under the assumption that the Sept explosion was brushed off as an accident.
Right. An accident that her own trial was blown up by wildfire...and she was not there. What are the odds?
I didn't dislike the episode as much as some here, and I could even say I enjoyed it, but I do think it was kind of a weak episodes because of some "convenient" events happening. Spoiler The thing that actually bothered me the most was Rhaegal's death. To be honest, I did imagine that sooner rather than later one of the dragons was going to die because the series was going to want to even things out (and of course, chances were that Rhaegal was going to be the one to day). I even understand not having him killed on the Winterfell battle and having Euron kill him just to show that Cersei's group can effectively kill a dragon now. My biggest complain here was the "ambush" done by Euron's fleet. I mean, Daenerys and the dragons were flying and all so they had the best view in all of freaking Westeros, yet, an enormous fleet somehow made an ambush, a fleet big enough to take down one dragon and pretty much decimate all of Daenerys' ships. I have a hard time buying that. I'm all in for Missandei's death in this episode. GoT needs deaths here and there, and I do kinda understand that they won't be killing the real main characters at this point. My complaint here would be that it makes very little sense that they managed to somehow kidnap Missandei during the commotion. Euron's attack was a very long ranged attack with heavy bolts capable of killing a dragon and destroying a ship. But that means they were pretty far away. I don't see how they managed to get their hands on Missandei. Of course, there's also the thing that during the "negotiations", Cersei could've just killed Daenerys, Tyrion and company and be done with it. I guess I can let this slide for drama purposes, but the other points bother me a bit. Lots of teleportation magic around this episode. Oh, almost forgot. Pretty stupid that they didn't follow Sansa's counsel on resting a bit before. You don't need to be a master tactician to understand that. Daenerys, her men, Jon and pretty much everyone who fought in EP3 should understand the exhaustion of pretty much everyone at that point in time. All of them were there after all. Daenerys is not the most patient woman or even the best tactic, but she's not supposed to be stupid, and at that point she shouldn't really be blinded either (I would understand some horrible decisions from this point forward because Rhaegal and Missandei's death are a fairly good reason to have Daenerys go "mad"). I did enjoy seeing that celebration after the battle with all the little things that happened during that time, and you could say I started minding the whole Ghost thing after reading the excuse of the CGI. I expect a couple twists and turns during the remaining episodes. I do think some of the main characters may still die... and I just hope whatever happens makes sense and its entertaining, even if it doesnt' get to the level of the first four seasons.
Spoiler Rhaegal’s death was also my biggest problem with the episode. I thought he would die eventually but maybe in a more climactic way. Not randomly shot down by Euron out of nowhere. And yeah, being ambushed by the fleet was stupid as hell. But not as stupid as the show runner’s excuse for it ... they literally said that Dany just forgot about the Iron Fleet. That’s such terrible writing. They could have easily tweaked a few things such that the scene made some semblance of sense with the same outcome, but they were flat out lazy with it.
LOL, even the actors know their characters were ruined. On a serious note, would DO both Natalie and Emilia
Thank god Avengers Endgame was great or else 3 of the things I'm currently into would have all been absolute s***. Spoiler We have two episodes left and there's time we can be won over, they might somehow end up amazing, but man did this show fall off a cliff. The drop in quality was noticeable once they ran out of source material, when the show went past the books. I'm not down on season 7 as some are, I was able to look past the teleporting. But man did season 7 and 8 need those extra episodes. A lot of story arcs are getting wrapped up in the simplest ways. They way the characters get to those points are idiotic. Take the battle of Winterfell for instance, who the hell came up with that battle plan? It was atrocious! Season 7 should have been 3 episodes longer. Episode 8 should have been battle preparations. Episode 9 start of battle, end where NK raises the newly dead. Episode 10 NK/Bran lore and end of battle. Season 8 starts with funeral and celebration. And then take as many episodes needed for the actual game of thrones. That little bit of Tyrion and Varys last episode was awesome and we need more of that! This is HBO's cash cow right now, they would have forked over as much money as needed to tell a quality story and have a fitting ending to a great show. They had a chance of joining (IMO) Spartacus and Breaking Bad but its looking a lot like they are joining Lost and Dexter.
Predictable, Mad Queen vs. Jon, Tyrion and Davos. I hope Arya takes Sandor's words seriously, Gendry is waiting LOL.
Spoiler Yes, predictable. And I don’t think that decision was earned. Dany had the battle won and had no reason to slaughter innocents. At first, I thought she decided to hell with their surrender, I’m going to destroy Cersei. I thought she was only going to destroy the Red Keep. But then she laid waste to the rest of the city for no reason. That was my main point of frustration with the episode. Everything else was pretty great. Simply put, it was exciting TV. Cleganebowl has been hyped by book readers forever, and the way it played out in the context of that scene was great. I’m also let down by Jon being minimalized. The episode just emphasized him being dumb and the focus being on Arya truly caring after the Stark legacy. She’s gonna wreck Dany hopefully. I think this is going to be a negative reaction too, but I think Jamie and Cersei was handled so well. I think Jamie went there without really knowing what he’d do. I think overall he wanted to kill her. But then right when he gets there, Dany has revealed her true colors and when he finally gets to the Red Keep he’s in the middle of the city being destroyed and he finds his pregnant lover facing inevitable death. It’s not the fan service ending, but it would have been a disservice for him to kill Cersei there for no reason.
I don’t even want to talk about this one. Do the writers of this show even know these characters? 7 seasons of buildup and development for them to change on a dime
Yeah this season has been a major let down for sure. They thought they could just blow all the budget on a short season with some extended episodes, but this show deserved and could have been done over two 10 episode season EASILY. There have been so many plot holes and cop outs that has dragged this series down horribly. You shouldn’t need an explanation after the show to need to understand what you’re writing. That itself shows the writers didn’t even put much thought into this season.
Just re-watched the episode and ready to double down. This was brilliant TV. One of the best episodes of the series. The execution of the plot is rushed. The actual plot points themselves have all been laid out through the entire series and I’m glad it’s going in this direction. Let me put it this way. I am now much more interested in seeing how the book series concludes. But not because I want GRRM to do things differently. But because I want him to add detail to the plot we’re seeing unfold right now. I don’t see abandoning of character development. I see a natural and nuanced progression of the character development we’ve seen that has made for entertaining episodes.
I can’t stand this dude, and yet I agree with everything he said here. Spoiler I was thinking the entire friggin time Dany was murdering innocent people why she kept looking at the tower Cersei is in, yet she never goes near it to burn her alive. The one person she needs to kill above all and just murdered her best friend last episode, and she doesn’t even kill her. I guess she wanted her to sit up there and watch all the horror, I dunno, just didn’t like it. Cersei goes out hugging her brother-lover in an almost touching moment, a moment that character did not earn. She earned being run through with a blade or something much worse. Bleh.
Spoiler In one episode, Dany somehow became a worse villain than Cersei ever was. We are now living in a world where we wish Cersei was still on the Iron Throne.
Spoiler Can you elaborate on that? I may be biased as a book fan first, but Danny tuning into the potentially biggest tirant of all the "players" in the game of thrones certainly did not cross my mind before this season. What signs of that coming did you see "Over the course of 8 seasons"?
Spoiler I think the pace of her turn this season was rushed. But still makes sense. Her closest confidants have died. One of her right hand men has betrayed her and was attempting to poison her, and so she hasn’t ate. She realizes she has no love in Westeros. She knows Jon has a greater claim to the throne and the word has gotten out. So she feels Jon has betrayed her and no longer loves her because of the whole aunt thing. Two of her “children” have died. The list goes on. And she sees Cersei as a tyrant responsible for a lot of this. Dany WANTED revenge, an excuse to follow through with Misandei’s last words. So when she’s there and the bells start ringing for surrender, it’s a disappointment. Cersei gets to give up and now they have to comply with a peaceful takeover? Cersei likely seen as the queen who deferred her ego to save the city from the dragon queen who was prepared to burn the city? Dany wasn’t going to have that. It infuriated her, and it wouldn’t have worked. She wouldn’t have been able to pull the loveable breaker of chains card for a populace that already has no love for her, especially when everyone saw what she was prepared to do. No half measures. Her only choice was to rule by fear. I think overall, she literally just snapped and went insane, but that was her thought process. Now going to your question of how this was built up through the entire series. I don’t think it was built in a way that this was the obvious conclusion, but the seeds have always been there. I don’t think I’m saying anything controversial here in this regards. Book readers and show watchers alike have long speculated whether Dany might follow in her father’s foot steps. I think characters in the show have mentioned this as well. Her obsession with fire. Her literal declarations that she will burn her enemies and cities to the ground. The fact that there could have likely been a genetic mental health component to what affected the Mad King. As the series progresses, she gets more and more power hungry. For the sake of power. The slave freeing almost seems like an effective political persona to gain more support at times. I think she wanted to burn down some of the rebelling cities from Slaver’s Bay until Tyrion warned her against it. Burning the Khals at Vaes Dothrak. Burning the Tarley’s. Again, the list goes on. To be clear, it’s not black and white. She had/has a lot of good to her character and in many of these situations her intentions were good. So none of this indicated that she was definitely going to turn. But in my opinion it laid the groundwork for her to snap, in a moment of trauma and realization of the futility of everything she’s been building towards.
My take on s8e05: Spoiler For starters, I enjoyed this episode quite a lot. Definitely more than last episode, if anything, because it was fun seeing the whole massacre going on, watching the fire spread through the cities, building crumbling down, etc but petting the good boy was too expensive!. Let's go by parts: Tyrion: This is one of the negative aspects for me. There's one episode left to change my mind, but one of the most cunning and beloved characters in Game of Thrones has become quite useless for quite a while, and I really feel, like a lot of people, that this kinda makes no sense. It's not like everything has to go as he plans, he can make grave mistakes, but he really hasn't done anything very useful for quite a while. The whole thing with Varys ended quite badly, and with each passing episode, I lose my faith of a grand scheme or something behind. All of that said, I do think the scene between Jaime and Tyrion was great. Jaime: Ok, I will agree I didn't really like this part. I think he had way too many seasons of development to just go back to Cersei at the very end. The whole fight with Euron (this guy really must have a special teleportation technique) came outta nowhere... but okay, if I accept Jaime's decision, the ending was alright. That said, I think Jaime had like 7 seasons of development to get away from Cersei and all the bad things he did and get with Brienne, act with honor and for the greater good. Having Jaime leave Cersei to go to fight the Night King was something really good, but kinda wasted with Jaime going back. Sandor Clegane: He was fantastic. A great character with a great ending. It was fun seeing him fight his brother and ending it by throwing himself along Gregor into the fire. The whole relationship with Arya was great, the way he made her go back, having Arya calling him by his name and saying thank you. I loved pretty much everything here, even Qyburn's random death, which was hilarious. Jon: Come on boy, do something. Be useful. Arya: Ok, she had some plot armor I guess. But her scenes were my favorites in this episodes, since we saw most of the destruction through her. I also liked how the were going from Arya to Sandor in the scenes. She saw all the massacre first hand and I can't imagine her being too happy about it. Cersei: Lots of people complaining she just died because of the rubble. I don't care about that. Game of Thrones is not really a series that gives us what we ask, and I don't really care about the way Cersei dies. It would've been nice to see Cersei close to escaping and Jaime killing her or something of the sort, but that's more part of my complain with Jaime. It was nice seeing that moment she realized she had lost. Daenerys: Like Helljumper said. I feel her character was not ruined, but her development was probably rushed. I think there's been a lot of signs that pointed to Daenerys getting to this point. I even think the books will end up with a mad Daenerys. Starting from the moment Vaserys was "given" his crown of gold, Daenerys showed a lot of signs that I felt could lead to this. She did some pretty extreme things in previous seasons, lost composure quite a lot (and this time without people she could trust next to her) and did talk quite a few times about burning cities, enemies and such. She's never been a political schemer, she really had some good intentions. But let's start with her being quite hungry for power she considers hers, even though she didn't even remember Westeros. Even knowing Jon has a better claim, she was not going to just decide to help Jon. There's also stuff like that Bran vision in season 4 of a dragon flying over King's Landing or that dream of Daenerys next to the Iron Throne in a destroyed red keep with what we though was snow but we can now say it's ashes. So I'm actually quite fine with the way Daenerys turned out. That was something I did expect, and it was actually the shortened season what at some point gave me doubts about it. So in the end, rushing the series can be the biggest problem Game of Thrones is having right now. Things are happening way too quickly in this season more than ever. They most definitely won against the White Walkers way too quickly and it feels like the next morning they were burning King's Landing. There should've been more time in Winterfell after the war. I think having one dragon die was fine, but a random ambush with a perfect shot to a dragon that should've seen them from miles away was not the correct way (this should've been something more elaborated) -especially when in episode 5 they felt like Star Wars stormtroopers shooting Drogon-, there should've been more time of tension before Daenerys decided to attack King's Landing (and probably since the point Missandei was taken prisioner and then executed), long etc. Things are happening too quickly right now and that's the biggest problem Game of Thrones is having right now, which is stupid because I'm sure HBO would've been delighted to have Game of Thrones S8 being longer. But there's that. I'm still enjoying the series. I do think this is the weakest season, but I actually do think Daenerys was headed to this point, but I do think things are happening a bit too fast.
