IdleRich

IdleRich
There was a kinda mirroring between Cersei and Dany, again defeated expectations in that you thought there was gonna be a huge battle, one final trick from Cersei/Qyburn... but really it was just a massacre and Cersei lost it, though they haven't caught her yet have they?
What happens in the last episode? Something like they have to hunt Cersei down and maybe they have to regretfully depose Dany for John.
And what about Varys? I don't understand how he got caught in his plots so easily after a lifetime of survival, or had he just given up?
 

version

Well-known member
Cersei's dead, isn't she? They showed the whole building collapsing on her and Jaime, and Varys got caught because Tyrion ratted him out.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Total fucking mess of an episode. It really depressed me, for all the wrong reasons.

- Hound smuggling himself into Kings Landing in his hood disguise was outrageously lazy.
- Scorpion guns are totally shit now. Of course.
- Jamie smuggling himself in was also lazy. And the stupid fight with the fucking pirate. Possibly the worst character in the whole series?
- Cersei getting absolutely nothing interesting to say or do.
- Corny Cleganebowl zombie fight. Worst of all was Qyburn remained a cipher to the end.

It's a real shame cos I liked the "turn" of her going mad and murdering everyone but I didn't buy it at all, it seemed totally unmotivated. But I suppose AGAIN they had no time at all to build up her madness. I also liked Jon realising he's fighting on the savages side. But yeah... Very sad.

I guess next episode they have to tie in the night king stuff or that was a total waste of time.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
The dialogue has been woeful at times these last few seasons but I still would rather have plotting over spectacle. They've done spectacle well in the past but all the big set pieces this season have been well done, spectacular and (this episode particularly) savage but also massively incoherent.

Some of the stuff that happened this episode I'd have been excited to learn about but during the episode I just really felt like I didn't give a shit.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Jamie smuggling himself in was also lazy. And the stupid fight with the fucking pirate. Possibly the worst character in the whole series?
Yeah I was thinking that myself. Just terrible in every way. Also that fight was one of the worst scenes. Again, GOT used to not do that, set up improbable meetings just for resolution I mean. As someone said earlier, Joffrey gets killed but not by Sansa or Stark or whoever, just by the remorseless grinding attrition of life in Westeros. But here you have J an E thrown together just because... they're supposed to be. Except it's worse than that cos I can't imagine there is anyone going "Oh I hope to God Jamie finally gets to settle things man to man with that monster Euron". Cos it's impossible to care about Euron and that just drags J down to his level. And the fight itself was rubbish, loads of rubbish lines and stupid action and then just when Euron is about to deliver the Coup de Grace the one-armed and mortally wounded hero somehow does something (i couldn't work out what) and Euron dies. Except that as Jamie is walkig away Euron is weirdly (and totally out-of-characterly) happy cos he guesses that he's got Jamie too - what?

- Cersei getting absolutely nothing interesting to say or do.
Yeah, terrible shame. Did we go through all that with her just for her to limply give in off screen (that's assuming this is right "Cersei's dead, isn't she?" - you never know now, it seems to be the sort of programme where unless you actually see someone die they can turn up again at exactly the right place a few episodes later)?

Varys got caught because Tyrion ratted him out.
Yeah, I understand the mechanism of how it happened. What I mean is, Varys survived all kinds of mad regimes and back-stabbers and what not for decades without ever leaving himself in a position to be ratted out. There were loads of manifestly insane leaders and so on and yet he managed to stick with them and play the very loooooooooong game - yet when it's Dany he can't pretend for one more minute and gives himself to Tyrion instantly. Don't make no sense.

So what happens now? Is the bittersweet ending that George RR Martin promised cos the real goodies are gonna have to depose Dany and probably kill her cos she's gone totally hatstand at the end? If so that's not a bad ending (it's certainly a brave one since we were pretty much invited to see Dany as the ultimate hero from maybe the second scene) but the way it's been done....

On that note, I'll leave it for tonight on the South Park episode where they claimed that Martin was totally obsessed by cocks. Kinda unfair cos as far as I can tell all the actual graphic nudity was added for the shows and wasn't in the books. But whatever...

 
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muser

Well-known member
Qyburn's death was probably the best of the series.

It's a real shame cos I liked the "turn" of her going mad and murdering everyone but I didn't buy it at all, it seemed totally unmotivated. But I suppose AGAIN they had no time at all to build up her madness.

Was thinking the same, liked her going psycho, would've been great over a longer time and more foreshadowing (executing a few people with dragons wasnt really enough) but this just seemed over the top and silly.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Hadn't really thought about studio interference - everyone's blaming the showrunners but I suppose the commercial pressures must be quite significant given the budgets they're now being given.

Martin revealed one of his greatest frustrations: "You get totally extraneous things like the studio or the network weighing in, and they have some particular thing that has nothing to do with story, but relates to 'Well this character has a very high Q Rating so let's give him a lot more stuff to do.'"

The author had previously said he would have liked the show to run across more series, to give all his complex storylines room. Instead, the HBO team entirely removed some characters or reassigned storylines.

Martin said: “The series has been... not completely faithful. Otherwise, it would have to run another five seasons.”

In the new interview he added: "You know, it’s complex. I’m a little sad, actually. I wish we had a few more seasons."
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Reading a lot of stuff about this today, of course, and more and more liking the idea of Dany (and her forces) turning evil - and particularly having a massacre instead of a battle - but the explanations of why she did it are more stirring and convincing than its portrayal in the show.
 

mrfaucet

The Ideas Train
Presumably Arya, having come to King's Landing and then witnessed all the suffering up close, now kills Dany, or at least tries to, otherwise there is basically no reason for her to have featured in that episode at all, especially so extensively.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Yeah I think people are saying that the red witch told her she would close "green" eyes and that might mean Dany.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
One thing I liked - but should I? - was Arya being shaken out of her insouciant killer mode by all those people suffering around her. It took that to reconnect her with her humanity. Perhaps that was unbelievable, but it reconnected *me* with that character in a way I haven't been for a few seasons.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I've seen the frame of Emilia Clarke's face when Dany goes mad a lot today and it's really quite haunting. I actually think she's improved a lot over the course of the show and is pretty good now, despite the shit writing.

Kit Harrington is quite likeable but his accent continues to torture me to the bitter end.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I guess it's a tribute to how much people love the show that it's provoked such a strong reaction but I did roll my eyes reading about that petition. And I hate all that "character arc" "hero's journey" stuff. A lot of American podcasts I listen to talk about this stuff like it's a law - film studies majors. The undermining of that stuff is one of the reasons Game of Thrones has stood out in the landscape of TV. There is no hero's journey for Rob Stark. Perhaps there's ultimately been one for Jon Snow. Fair enough, but I did like Cersei not dying at the hand of the avenging angel.

Like I said, the ends I'm quite content with (except maybe the Night King stuff), but the means has been rushed and garbled.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Like imagine Jamie and Cersei reuniting at that point, having an intense, long dialogue scene, then dying. Another sort of convention, maybe, but could have made much more of it if they had more time.

The Hound fighting his zombie brother was what the fans wanted but there was really no point to it. The mountain would have presumably died anyway by dragon fire, so what did The Hound achieve? Perhaps nothing, perhaps that was the point, he was condemned to die taking revenge on a zombie. Except the zombie clearly was his brother cos he defied Cersei.

It was one of those "that would be cool" scenes. But it's taking time away from fleshing out Cersei's demise (someone pointed out to me today that she had no backup plan at all... because she thought the scorpions were really good? US TOO!), from helping us understand Danaerys's reasoning (if there was any).
 

version

Well-known member
The Hound fighting his zombie brother was what the fans wanted but there was really no point to it. The mountain would have presumably died anyway by dragon fire, so what did The Hound achieve? Perhaps nothing, perhaps that was the point, he was condemned to die taking revenge on a zombie.

That's the way I saw it. The point was that the only thing sustaining him was the prospect of confronting his brother.
 
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