Spoilers Game of Thrones: The Final Season

[The Nth Doctor]

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.

I didn't like the shorter seasons announcement two years ago but I had clung onto hope that it would work out well, especially with many of the episodes longer than the usual hour.

Unfortunately, I think it's clear to even those who have largely enjoyed the last two seasons that shortening them was a mistake. The supposed reason for shortening them was that the show was drawing to a natural conclusion and they didn't have much more to do. But now it's clear that they've cut a lot of corners to get to that endpoint. Character development is rushed, travel time has become magical, and the story certainly does not reach a natural conclusion.

Todd VanDerWerff's review (which mirrors a lot of the reactions in this thread) notes that it's possible that Martin's storytelling may help explain Daenerys' descent through the use of POV chapters. That would certainly be true for Jaimie as well, if that is indeed the direction Martin intends for the character (which I'm not convinced of). I would never expect this show (or any other) to cover the subtle intricacies of inner monologues but I do think having 20 episodes instead of 13 would helped the character development flow a lot better than what we got.

 

[dahj]

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.

We had a male Dany.

He was called Stannis.

 

[eschaton]

We had a male Dany.

He was called Stannis.

Stannis only burned a single child.

 

[stj]

Oh, yes, nearly forgot about how Varys’ was sending a child to poison Daenerys. (There is a reason he is a fan favorite!) It’s a Chekhov’s gun, but the plotting and characterization is so incomplete it’s hard to know whether the simplest thing can be done right.

 

[KennyB]

I think it's clear to even those who have largely enjoyed the last two seasons that shortening them was a mistake. The supposed reason for shortening them was that the show was drawing to a natural conclusion and they didn't have much more to do. But now it's clear that they've cut a lot of corners to get to that endpoint. Character development is rushed, travel time has become magical, and the story certainly does not reach a natural conclusion.
.

I agree with this 100%.......they could have even extended the season after they started editing and realized they had too much for 6 huge episodes........I don't think HBO or fans would have been upset with an extra episode.

 

[KennyB]

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.

Sometimes I think you have to be already looking for it to see it...........

 

[BlueStuff]

I really hope she doesn't survive.........have hated the character since she sided with Geoffrey against Arya in season 1. But if the "little birds" on reddit continue to be accurate........

Could we just stop referencing the apparent leaked spoilers in any way?

 

[The Nth Doctor]

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?

While I understand your criticism to this modern means of consuming media, I would argue that it's still a valid one from a basic image perspective. Most entertainment, whether it's film, television, stage, novel, or song, are often told through the lens of the culture when that media was created. Analogies are often developed within the stories deliberately so and, even on an occasion, accidentally so. With that in mind, I find it hard not to judge in such a manner.

Let's be frank here: This isn't the first time the show has had an optics problem: Whether it was the way Sansa's rape was handled (and subsequently referred to as recently as two episodes ago), the depiction of people of color, Daenerys’ appearance as a white saviour, and now the events of the last episode (and I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting). Myles McNutt's review sums up the problematic issues that the last episode created better than I would:

Let’s put the consequences of this decision on the table upfront. The show has taken its most powerful female character, whose arc was framed by questions about whether or not women can lead, and turned her into a war criminal placed in opposition with a boring white dude who is positioned as the savior of Westeros. It took the remnants of her foreign armies, the only representation of people of color in the series, and turned them into the savages that Westeros imagined them to be. Regardless of the thematic value of these stories, or how much they were or were not justified by the story, I would argue the episode barrels forward without fully reckoning with how the choices being made echo the series’ longstanding issues in these areas.​

My point is that the writers need to be aware of how things could be perceived in light of modern cultural politics, especially on a show that's seen by millions.

 

[Jax]

Game of Thrones is doing one good thing for sure...

It's showing the true horror of war. We all like to think the good guys send their army in and beat the bad army and everything works out. The real story is the biggest cost of life is always the innocent Civilian population. There are NO heroes in Human warfare, we like to build up these great fighters and leaders but we skip on what they have to do to win. Look at real life and how Churchill is celebrated in my own country of the UK but he committed atrocities during his Military and Political life that makes him no better than the people he fought.

I think they should of kept the 10 episode structure (certainly both S7 & S8 could of done with 1 episode extra minimum) because Dany's motivations that lead her dark side taking control of her makes perfect sense but they have accelerated her fall due to the 6 episode length of season 8. I have no doubt nobody is coming out of the series finale without great cost and my money is on Ayra killing Dany and Jon refusing the throne leaving the Seven Kingdoms to break up and go at it alone with their own separate power structures with Kings Landing abandoned leaving 6 kingdoms essentially. Jon will go North of the wall and live out his last days with the Wildings a broken man in many ways. Sansa will rule the North, Ayra will leave Westeros and never return. Tyrion will die in the finale at the hands of Dany to complete her dark side arc.

Game of Thrones is a bloody, evil world where if you live long enough you have a good chance of becoming the very thing you sought to destroy. It's a message worth telling and a message as old as time but it happens over and over again. There are no happy endings in life.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

I agree with this 100%.......they could have even extended the season after they started editing and realized they had too much for 6 huge episodes........I don't think HBO or fans would have been upset with an extra episode.

I don't think this is a problem that editing could've fixed, rather it's a larger, more basic issue of writing. They structured these two seasons as 13 episodes and the stories and characters suffered from it. I'm not saying everything would've been fixed if they had structured the seasons as 20 episodes, but they would've avoided a lot of the issues they created if they hadn't truncaed the storytelling down to 13 episodes.

 

[Jax]

Best review I saw...

If you were expecting a fairy tale ending from Game of Thrones then you never understood the show.

 

[KennyB]

Could we just stop referencing the apparent leaked spoilers in any way?

Ignoring them doesn't make them go away.......I did not mention what they contain or link to them.

 

[Forbin]

Worse than the X Files revival?

That was pretty bad too.

HUH???
What's that got to do with anything? I'm taking about the battle in this episode and Dani's rampage.

 

[Mr Awe]

It was premeditated. She said so to Jon, he just didn't get it.

Using fear was premeditated. But the extent she used it was not premeditated. There was clearly a moment during the battle when she switched from attacking the opposing forces and weaponry to attacking civilians who were fleeing.

 

[Q2UnME]

While I don't have any real problems with the plot points or where the story ultimately is headed, my biggest rub is that all the corners that have been cut to get here has everything feeling EXTREMELY RUSHED. Season 7 and 8 would have BENEFITED from showing all the narrative corners that they cut to get here. Dany's fall to madness felt hollow because the buildup was super rushed. Yes, all the sign posts were there, but they warped by them at hyper speed.

Season 8 overall = 7.5/10
This episode = 6/10

 

[Mr Awe]

I get what you're saying. However, I still believe it would have remained in character for her to "snap" and take out The Red Keep only (which would have still incurred collateral damage). It's the fact she intentionally targeted civilians in what amounts to a terror attack and murdered thousands in cold blood. She wanted fear, and by god she'll have all of Westeros terrified now.

I guess it works if we are accepting the logic that she really has gone "mad". Has the unhinged Dany always been on the verge of breaking out? And with no one to reign her in or keep her within the boundaries of sanity, she lets loose. The question is, does this logic work within the context of the series?

For me, it does. She had those tendencies throughout the series. And they were made worse with recent events. The loss of trusted advisors, sense of isolation and betrayal, etc. No one available to walk her back from the edge. Then the battle itself and the scenario where she was out of reach and untouchable on her flying WMD. All contributed. YMMV of course!

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I would agree that it’s hard not to read fiction through a modern cultural perspective, whether it be feminism, race politics, mental health, etc. It’s not unreasonable to make the observation and write about it from that point of view.

What’s unreasonable is treating that perspective like the only valid one and chaining the writers to your own worldview. Let the writers tell THEIR story and don’t castigate them when they don’t tell yours.

And applying the feminist perspective is much more reasonable than everyone suddenly making amateur mental health diagnoses of fictional characters. If somebody behaves outside the mainstream whether it be something like Dany it just having unusual ways to relate socially, it’s not always a mental health disorder. It’s just who that person is.

And by making those diagnoses what you’re really doing is painting a picture of a mentally healthy person as someone who fits snugly into a cultural mold, and defining anyone outside the circle as having a disease.

 

[137th Gebirg]

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.

My first thought was, "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death..."

Stannis only burned a single child.

"A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic."
- Joseph Stalin

 

[Mr Awe]

I get what they are doing and it has been coming for years.........the thing is with only 6 episodes in this season it happened too quickly. I do not know why they decided to go with 6 instead of 8 or even 10 with the amount of things they had to cover, but that's what happened. AND when they decided to finally make her break, they had to make it irredeemable so that when someone kills her crazy ass next week, it seems just and righteous. I still enjoy the show, but after episode 3 there was just too much stuff to wrap up in 3 episodes.........and way too quick to turn everyone's darling into the Mad Queen burning children in the streets. Should have sewn a few more Evil Dany breadcrumbs last season.......IMHO.

I'd agree with that. It seems like they had way too much to wrap up. The army of the dead the big threat for the series. Wrapped up in one episode. Then, two episodes later, Cersei, the big living threat they've built up for awhile, taken care of in one episode. Then, the next big threat, Dany, also presumably taken care of next episode--unless she keeps the Throne. Although I'm sure it was melted and buried in ruble.

And, how do they wrap up everything that's left in just the one remaining episode? Doesn't seem possible. It's possible the showrunners didn't have control over the number of episodes though.

Edit to add: I also thought it wasn't a good use of Jon just having him run around looking confused like he was just thinking "HOLY SHIT".......I was hoping he'd at least take out Greyworm for disobeying his commands and to try to restore HIS authority. I did really enjoy the Arya/Hound moment.....best part of this week for me.

I think we see the fallout from the two witness characters (Jon and Arya) next week. I'm guessing but they saw what happened and both were repulsed by it.

 

[Mr Awe]

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 don't know. I had issues with how dumb they presented Cersei at the end. When she didn't seem to understand what was happening. Clueless about her side losing. Maybe, denial? But, it just didn't ring true to her character. So, maybe they tried salvaging hers at the end, but earlier they through it under the bus!

Didn't ruin the episode for me. I just expected more fight and intelligence out of her!