Spoilers Game of Thrones: The Final Season

They might as well just make Hot Pie the new ruler of westeros. At least he'd feed everyone with pies and not burn them to death because the don't love him or whatever Dany's bullshit excuse was.

 

When I saw that my first reaction was that Arya was taking the spirit horse to the afterlife like Chavez in Young Guns 2. Then I saw next week's preview and that theory went down the toilet.

 

I wonder how many people are like me and just want the series to end with Arya alive. Of all the characters, she's the one I want to live the most. All during that episode I was thinking, "just let Arya live." And when she went up to the guard and said, "I'm Arya Stark, and I'm going to kill Cersei," I kept thinking, "no chance."

I never really thought Arya would kill Cersei, because it would kind of make Arya too strong. Why have any other characters if Arya is just going to kill all the main villains? What she did with the Night King was beyond awesome. It was the culmination of her arc. I loved it.

But I think if Arya killed Cersei, she would lose the love of the audience and eyes would roll en masse.

I expected that if Arya attempted to kill Cersei, she would have pulled a similar move that she did with the Night King, but be stopped by the Mountain, perhaps setting off the Clegane Bowl.

I'm so glad that's not how it went down. When the Hound convinced Arya to leave, I began to have hope she would survive the episode.

I'm really glad that she did. Will she kill Dany? Maybe. I do think she could have one major kill left in her. Killing Dany wouldn't bother me nearly as much as Arya killing Cersei.

 

Wow. That was brutal.

After the slow buildup of Mad Queen Daenerys,I was expecting some sort of hellish retribution where she would burn the populace only up to a point. The way she just carried on, even though she had long passed the point where she could have won; it was all so visceral. I was pretty sure that Arya wouldn't be taking out Cersei, but after that showing, Daeny willy be top of the list now, surely?

I'm not sure how I feel about Jamie and Cersei's death together. It was a sweet moment under the collapse of the building, but it seemed to fall short of Jamie's trajectory this past couple of seasons. He seemed to be hammered on to take her away, or even take her out himself, but Daeny's destruction of King's Landing seemed to end redemption arc in a strange way.

I think we knew the Hound was dust going into this, but at least he took his brother with him, literally. A wonderful death for a wonderful character.

Looking forward to the fallout of all of this next week. Will Daenerys find out about Tyrion's second betrayal before someone is able to stop her? Will she continue to rage against the populace?

 

I just seen the episode. The destruction of King's Landing was horrific. I was thinking of Dresden in 1945 as I watched the episode, when that German city was obliterated by the Allies. I have seen pictures of the dead. One thing they didn't show was firestorms, which sucked the oxygen out of the atmosphere suffocating the people where they stand.

I remember reading about POWs, who were housed in Dresden, being sent out to help with rescue efforts. One group descended into a subway, finding as they probed deeper a green-brown liquid with bones sticking out. This 'soup' was what was left of the many souls who had sought shelter there. They had been melted by the heat.

 

The melded and charred corpses of the mother and daughter Arya tried to save reminded me of Pompeii (even if what we see at Pompeii are casts from the hollow remains) but Dresden is an even better allusion. Either way, it was truly horrifying to watch it unfold on screen.

 

The poetic ending for Jaime and Cersei was surprisingly fitting. They both lasted in the game a lot longer than they had any merit to last. They had plenty of opportunities to quit while they were ahead. Cersei was intent to cling to power by any means necessary. She clung to power for the sake of having it. Jaime spurned Brienne and his redemption arc to go back to Cersei. Not to kill her, like we all thought, but to be with her. SMH

Poetic to see the walls close in on them, literally and figuratively.


Still disturbed by Dany's lack of restraint and unhinged fury. Why didn't she just target the Red Keep first? Instead she brought Fire and Blood to an entire city.

 

Some of my Facebook friends have a different reason they dislike it. They see it as a feminist problem and an issue of representation of mental illness. "Men telling women's stories".

Like it or not, can't we ever just have a story be about individuals without trying to read modern cultural narratives into it, and demanding it meet our own modern cultural narrative?

 

I don't see how a King Aegon Targaryen(Jon Snow) can happen in the last episode realistically.

Westeros had the Mad King burning people alive and planning to destroy Kings Landing. His daughter comes back and destroys it with her dragon slaughtering innocent civilians and a surrendered army.

Why would the rest of Westeros accept another Targaryen at this point? There are still other large armies out there like Dorne (Who would have even more reason to oppose the son of the man who divorced their Princess).

 

Having slept on it (all of four hours - had a hard time last night), I think I enjoy last night's episode even more. My main issue with the season is their decision to rush through this season and the last, because I think if both were 10 episodes similar to the first six, this could have been a fantastic penultimate episode, with things like Jamie's apparent change of heart and Dany's heel turn given more time to play out. Episode 4 in particular should really have been broken into 2-3 separate episodes, allowing a slow burn into last night.

Some stuff is still unrepentantly stupid though. Like the scorpions suddenly being useless, and Euron deciding to die on a beach rather than just scuttling off in that rowboat and leaving Jamie stranded.

I'm still mildly miffed by the ending they gave Jamie, but at the same time I understand why they did it. They didn't want to give Cersei a cathartic "revenge" ending like Ramsay being fed to his own hounds. The only way to have her behave as something other than a two-dimensional Cruella DeVille stereotype is to get someone in a room with her at the end who she actually cares for. With all her children dead, it had to be Jamie. So they kinda sabotaged Jamie's character in order to salvage Cersei's.

 

I was thinking she'd do that too, but it's all about her having "Only fear, not love" in Westeros. She thought a display of fire and fury was the only way to make the other Kingdoms fall in line.

 

They weren't useless, they just required surprise.

 

This is something I brought up on another forum. If Dany had the same plot arc, more or less (couldn't work with a marriage to Khal Drogo of course) but was a male, people would have seen him as a much more morally gray character than they red into Dany. Because we're in this weird cultural time where if a female character subverts traditional female gender roles by assuming power, even if they engage in great acts of brutality in the process, then a lot of people laud them for it and enjoy their acts in a way they wouldn't otherwise (also see Arya for an example which was actually intended to be this way).

Basically, a lot of people read into this "rah girl power" just because of the gender of Dany. But that was never GRRM's intent, and possibly never D&D's intent either.

 

Yeah, as I said, Jon is not ruling now. He didn't want to anyway, and now the Targeryan name is basically similar to Hitler in 1946. He will find some way to walk away from the throne after Dany is gone.

 

Two reminders about things the show says but can't possibly be true, even in the fictional universe: First, bells are not a valid surrender technique. Even an unconditional surrender sets a time and describes the procedure. Second, again, Jon does not have the better claim. A secret annulment where one party is not even aware of the proceeding is simply nonsense.

 

The annulment isn't even needed. Some of the early Targaryens had multiple marriages. As long as his parents were married, he wasn't a bastard.

 

I want to respond, "Are you saying women CAN'T be brutal mass murdering warlords? GIRL POWER!" But I worry these particular people wouldn't see the humor.

 

If bells are the way they have been told they can surrender by the enemy, it's as valid as any other. As long as it's clear communication of intent.

Jon has the same claim as Dany. Nobody really *deserves* to be in power because of some hereditary line of succession. And the only people who benefit from the line care about the line. The ability to rule comes from controlling the power and the money.

 

Sansa dying would be a big surprise for me. It's not really set up so that her life is in danger. The only way I see it happening is if Dany turns the dragon on Winterfell and does the same thing.

Jon has the love of the people. He led the army against the Night King, and is the savior of the North. The North thinks of him as the oldest son of Ned Stark. When they find out he's half Stark and half Targaryen, and that he has the claim to the Iron Throne, I think they would be more likely to accept him, not less.

Think of what he accomplished as a bastard. When it comes to light that he's the real king, and united people by action rather than fear, he might get the support. Plus, I would also argue that because he doesn't want to rule, he might have no issue with any of the seven kingdoms becoming independent.

Interesting--I didn't see any of this on this show. I'm not shy about calling out the "rah rah girl power" thing at all, but in Dany's case, her gender was not relevant at all. She is someone who had a strong case as the last Targaryen to the Iron Throne. It was only later that we learned she wasn't the last of her line after all and someone else had a stronger claim. I never felt she was pushed on the audience due to her gender. Until recent events, she was fairly honorable and surrounded herself with pretty good people. Her actions, if she were male, at least by me, were not thought of any differently.

But over time, you look back at her actions and see things that were overshadowed by the results she got, and you realize, yes, this was there the whole time. Nothing about my opinions of Dany's actions were affected by her gender at all.

Based on rules of succession in monarchies, Jon has the stronger claim. You're thinking like a normal person in today's world, where the idea of ruling by inheriting being head of state is ludicrous.