Monday, May 20, 2019

Game of Thrones Season 8 Episode 6: THE IRON THRONE. And now our watch is ended.

So. That's it then, is it...GRRM+D&D? The only character I can hope to see again is, happily, my fave Melisandre--because prequels are promised. But no sequels.

Well, depressingly...stunningly...I cannot say that the finale is truly satisfying or that I love it. I liked parts of it, mostly from the latter half. Because in the first, once again, fans have vastly outdone the actual plot. And tragically, these last four episodes are light-years from fulfilling the series' promise and potential. It would have made infinite sense for Bran to have warged Drogon and caused Dany to lose control--explaining why she suddenly changed course once we saw the dragon shadow from Bran's vision passing over the rooftops, and why we never saw any closeups of her attacking the city. Folks were suspicious of him from the first episode ("why did he choose that moment to have Sam tell Jon of his parentage...?") Instead, what goes down is more straightforward. Dany thanks her two foreign armies specifically (what about the northerners?), and claims that their continuing mission will be warring to liberate all oppressed peoples everywhere. Oh, okay. Where else exactly now? That's a bit new. (And except she started here by oppressing/eliminating a population for no reason. XD The conquering armies slayed her enemies, yes, and then some...the people she wanted to free and rule...suddenly she thinks she wants to just kill everyone in the world?? This fuckery, what even is it?)

Disappointed Tyrion chucks his HotQ pin and is taken prisoner. "Ho boi, errybuddy in Westeros gon' hate me now..." It still makes no sense. The whole thing hinges on something unbelievable. Of all the ways the story could've gone...this? The Daenerys of two fucking episodes ago was still rational. Losing Rhaegal and Missandei and whatnot really drove her to this kind of paranoia about Cersei--she used the innocence of the KL residents as a weapon against you? Kiiinda, n'really? Her attempt to was dumb because you're on a fuckin' DRAGON and she didn't actually surround herself with a big ball of citizens. The bottom line is that all you needed to do was go roast her specifically. That was it. Precision strike. She'd lost. Of course there was no making peace with her. No getting past this. The rampage was a narrator's excuse to wreck KL and create an ending where neither she nor Jon sits on the throne. The person razing KL and from then on wasn't her. And the fact that I do not believe in her heel turn tarnishes this conclusion. They didn't make me believe it. I guess I just have to accept that the genetic predisposition combined with extreme trauma resulted in a psychological break. Still seems a cheap, shitty trick to pull on this awesome character. A few of her past choices might have been questionable, but nothing represented a fraction of this loss of logic. Trying to push that she was on a slippery slope to it is bull.

So now they're all traipsing through the ruins of the stupidass city ("I kinda forgot I wasn't going to be queen of the ashes and give myself a shit-ton of rebuilding to do!") That wasn't part of her plan for KL, it was unnecessary. But she seems fixated on the throne...which, momentarily will no longer exist. Her death is appropriately tragic. She is Jon's queen, now and always. Drogon melts not his last-Targ cousin or whatever the fuck Jon is to him, but the throne itself, then flies off eastward with his mother's body lying in a hind claw. ;-; If she can't have it, ain't nobody gon' have it. He sensed it was at the center of all this mayhem, like the One Ring or the money Lucy tried to return to the Monte Carlo casino...'cause he damn sure wasn't stupid enough to think the chair killed his mum.
Still no mention from any of these imbeciles that they should have considered just assassinating Cersei. Or telling KL to evacuate.

PAUSING TO ASK: WHO were the actors that surprised EW's Hibberd on set for the finale? There was literally nobody surprising here. Unless maybe it was Nikolaj & Lena, playing their characters' corpses. I was on the lookout for people we thought dead reappearing in some form, or people from way back in the series no one would've anticipated seeing again, or flashbacks, or SOMETHING. Shouldn't have read all those damn hyping articles; so much setup to be let down.
Pausing again: Fuck kind of lame-ass title is this? "The Iron Throne," really???? Not "A Dream of Spring?" None of the other better suggestions I've seen, just that?!?! Well, it was one of the casualties, anyway. Why were so many of the writing decisions phoned in this season? Looks like Bran's bloody wheelchair is the new Iron Throne! All came down to...that. And the whole "#ForTheThrone" campaign was supposed to be a distraction from the...oh, fuck it, I'm done being a broken record.

Backtracking a bit...
Tyrion painfully asked Jon to end Dany's reign. It apparently wasn't going to create the better world she'd had her sights on for so goddamn long after all...siiiiigh. They both love her and believed in her (same, boys. Same.) Jon tried to be understanding of why she made such an unwise decision. When Tyrion went and found Jaime's & Cersei's bodies, I'd thought HE was gonna find Dany and ask her to explain. Funny how the Imp ends up a Hand again. Even though he did a massively shit job last time and was on freakin' trial.
He concludes that Dany must have become high on power and ceased to be a killer only of the evil--that she's entirely lost sight of herself and everything, and her understanding of "break the wheel" and "liberate" and "better world" have become deluded. It's so fuckin' tragic. She became a senseless psychopath in ten seconds. You wanted to see her see it through, or die trying. Not becoming what she was determined not to be. Honestly, it would've been so much more acceptable to THINK she's gonna snap, then have her at the last minute pull back & NOT snap, and die somehow in pursuit of her goal. This was such a shitty end to the journey of someone who deserved A throne, if not the iron one. She could've returned to rule in Essos, if sailing to Westeros wasn't gonna work out so hot in the end. I'd be infinitely less sour if something had happened to Dany besides "went bonkers." Looking back over the series, it's just so...wrong...;; She was one of my fave POVs in the books. She and Jon did both know what good was and could have built a good world together. Mondo suckage. Dreaded it. I hate that it turns out Robert was right to want to kill her way back in S1, and Cersei was right to warn her people of the dangerous "foreign" invader with her savage foreign armies.

If the city were absolutely refusing to surrender...if Rhaegal and/or Missandei were still around and she lost them during/after this battle...if she saw citizens demonstrating that they saw her as an evil invader and actually somehow supported their cruel and tyrannical Cersei (shouldn't be the case especially since she has folks on her team who could/should've spread the truth about her to the smallfolk)...MAYBE THEN I could have bought what she did. Driving her to become the monster they thought she was.
However, the Dany we know wouldn’t randomly mass-murder a population of subjects who were posing no problem to her, who’d given her no reason to suspect them as guilty of anything worthy of execution. There was simply no reason, no motive if she was in her right mind. It wasn't vengeance or punishment for anything. Moments ago she wanted to rule over these people. Suddenly she’s nuts and only wants to liberate them from life itself (a perspective, okay, but not one she’s previously explored. I mean, it kinda eliminates or vastly reduces the "future generation" anyway, huh? xD) What they reduced Dany to was either "Blonde Targs be cray" or "She had headphones on and people in the streets were flipping her off." Damned shame.

Jon carries out prisoner-Tyrion's sad, terrible request when he realizes poor Dany's too far off the deep end to call back to reason (plus fucking Tyr's gonna be executed otherwise & tbh is probably just trying to save his own ass again more than anything...and I guess there's Sansa to consider too, eew. Plus Jon himself, Arya, etc.) This brand-new Dany is not our Dany; she's lost it and speaking totally uncharacteristic nonsense, save for wanting to rule side by side with Jon. As they should've wound up deciding to do in the first fucking place. But yeah, Jon has to Old Yeller her. And so he's 'banished' to Ye Olde Night Swatch for it, which ain't too shabby. (He'll be the only member? xD Have to retake them ol' vows? No biggie.) He didn't want to be king, and nobody could have forced him to accept it regardless of how big a stink they put up. Living up north with Tormund, Ghost, and the Wildlings--that's a pretty damn sweet ending for him, actually. Yanno, unless the dead rise again (watch out for Gilly's baby? WW relatives? Bran's still marked? What about Arya? Just spitballin' here. Wildlings can always act up again too, I guess.) Brienne should've at least gone and apologized to Tormund for making the wrong choice though. ;p There could still be a relationship there...
PETS FOR THE GOODEST OF DOGGOS, YES YES YES FINALLY. Pupper smoochings. Nymeria's pack never showed up to help, though, which was a definite downer. Only had the budget for a few pats, no more wolves? (It's one thing to subvert expectations, and another to straight-up let people down on countless counts. -.-)

Missandei's death has made poor Grey Worm ruthless against his queen's (perceived) enemies. He wants to execute the surrendered Lannister soldiers since 'the new world they want to build won't be built by those loyal to the old.' Course, your new world has a better shot at taking if you at least give them a chance to choose it, and you, instead. Truly say, "I'm here to break the wheel of tyranny and tit-for-tat violence. Embrace my radicalness. You'll dig it." In the end, GW sails the Unsullied to Naath, presumably to protect Missy's people. Just gotta avoid those butterflies, guys.

The council of lords and ladies and such gets kinda into Sam's suggestion of democracy after laughing it off (hey now let's not dismiss the idea of dogs & horses voting out of hand)--but stops short of collecting votes from everybody. They themselves settle pretty swiftly on silver-tongued Tyrion's suggestion. He explains the seemingly out-of-left-field choice of "King Bran." (Good story, lol--cool story bro. What a story, Mark. Did D&D kinda forget how to write one? ;p) You'd think Tyrion of all people could put forth a better case, at any rate. Maybe once upon a time. `-` And of course Sansa thinks it should be her. Bran's happy enough to accept, because apparently THAT was his destiny. Not living in some tree (so the prior 3ER didn't HAVE to do that?), or being Lord of Winterfell. This explains his uselessness all season? He refused to help anyone because this was all just destined? (When did he learn that? Sometime between season 7 & 8, by all accounts. How much tragedy could have been averted? How long's he gonna live?) Whatever. At this point I was still counting on his eyes turning blue at the end, our Little Shop of Horrors-esque hint that a reinstated Night's Watch is gonna have to be heavily restocked.

What's Bran done to earn this? Still feels a little random when he was never a contender, but could've been a logical advisor/Master of Whisperers or even Hand if he's ever actually willing to be useful on his own. :/ (What do you do with a character to whom you've granted nearly unlimited potential knowledge? Have him sit around doing nothing for anyone and then crown him king, naturally!) He just seems to sit back and do nothing, volunteering little useful information unless prodded--and I couldn't believe nobody was prodding him!
As Jon's cousin and the one-time Lil' Lord o' Winterfell, at least he is related to the "rightful" king; if they opened it up to everybody there'd be lots more choices to work through, just among people we know of. But was anyone gunning for him? And at least we can reason that Hodor, Jojen, Summer, Leaf, etc., died for the sake of a possibly-decent or unbiased ruler who miiiiight start breaking the wheel for poor mad Dany? You might as well have considered nominating Sam or somebody, too, though, if you're deciding that the bloodline thing sucks and merit is where it's at. What good have Bran's powers done? He had to be prodded into helping take down Littlefinger. We're called back to the episode-2 moment where Tyrion sits down to hear Bran's tale. Maybe something in that helped convince him that of everybody left, he was the best candidate. Maybe his dispassionate raven-ness makes him more impartial and less prone to human stupidity. There's also the information access factor. Idk. Yay for the establishment of democracy, I suppose...? Or a step toward, anyway.
I’d feel better if more people had died and Bran was the clear best choice left. (And obviously if Dany had gotten a realistic end.) But tbh he and Sansa shouldn’t have been among the survivors. You want a king who can be a Peeping Tom whenever and on whomever he wants? 0_o “You looked beautiful [insert private situation...]” Bit Big Brotherish for my taste. Wild when leaks that sound like crack fanfic turn out to be for real.

...oh, fuck this. SAM OF ALL PEOPLE, AT THE VERY LEAST, SHOULD HAVE THE BRAINS TO PUT TWO AND TWO TOGETHER AND SEE THAT BRAN IS THE ULTIMATE VILLAIN. Little scumbucket got the outcome he wanted. All this omniscient POS did was tell Sam to reveal Jon’s parentage at a hella shitty time, leading ultimately to this shituation wherein he’s king and Tyrion is back in the position he most enjoyed. He then sat back like a worthless bump on a log, declining the lordship of Winterfell and awaiting this rubbish. Bran was interested solely in sowing discord. Yes, ultimately if they were intelligent they would’ve resolved things by simply announcing “Yes the crown would rightfully be mine, but seeing as how I DON’T WANT IT, I’m passing it to her.” “Kthx.” “Swell. I’ll help ya in some capacity.” “Cool beans.” Fucking bullfuck garbage... 

-Davos is such a good mediator, lol.
-Whoa, let's not be threatenin' Yara, Arya. Your names are anagrams of one another. (And why'd you abandon your dream horse?)
-I think Bronn may have been wrong; not even death will shut Tyrion up.
-"You will be my Hand." *faux-fluster* "Oh, no, Your Grace, ME? Why, I never...oh, I couldn't...oh, well if you insist!"  
["I'll get food by pretending that I don't want food." "That's stupid." "I'll prove it!" "Oh, you don't have to prove it; I believe you're stupid."]
Tyrion's such a true Lannister through & through, right to the end. B-| And he's got the real power now. The Small Council will probably run most things while creepy-possibly-evil-possibly-entirely-disinterested-in-people-will-we-ever-really-know Bran snoozes...
-So Bran didn't attempt to tell Aerys to burn all the walkers, thereby accidentally driving him to "burn them all" madness? That would've been coolio, and called back to the Hodor thing...Hodor never even showed up as a wight, WTFH...

The happy little council of Sam, Davos, Brienne, Pod (?), & Bronn (lawwwwwl, love every one of his lines and the fact that this dude finally got everything he ever wanted xD) feels a bit pat. Throw together the surviving folks to aid and advise Bran, whom I guess still needs advising despite being an all-seeing birdman. x-p
That scene was almost straight comedy to lighten the mood. Right slap in the face for Tyrion not to even be mentioned in the book. xD But at least there we have a completed Song of Ice & Fire, teehee (and who hadn't seen that coming?) And oh, my outrage at not getting the honeycomb-and-jackass brothel joke punchline. Bet they only wrote the first line. -.- And Bran wants to find Drogon? Hunh. Interesting. To offer condolences? ;; }:-/ (Sam's mum is Lady of Horn Hill? Davos' wife is...dead because he couldn't give less of a shit about her?)

Teared up a bit when Brienne filled in Jaime's pages, as I'd been counting on. (Should've written "Saved Brienne of Tarth from a bear, knighted her, and then took her virginity" or something. Notes about his performance. ;) AND WAS THAT INK DRY??? Again when Arya did what so many expected: decided to travel west of Westeros, to the edge of the maps, to find what's there. Chills when she said "That's where I'm going." It's probably just the eastern coast of Essos anyway. Be nice if she had a travel companion (or spin-off potential), but I'm sure she'll pick up at least one along the way. Maybe she'll destroy somebody's bike and they'll follow her around forever demanding she replace it...catching all the Pokemon along the edge of Planetos before falling off (what, we don't know their planet isn't flat...or what size it is...) Actually, she should take Hot Pie and operate a traveling food wagon!
"You were exactly where you were supposed to be." (Does that mean him yelling at undead-Viserion DID distract the WWs for Arya? Well, that makes sense...don't ask me to believe she got in there without assistance.)

In one of the most foreseeably dismaying results, fucking Sansa gets to be Queen in the North. Because of course her brother's got no problem turning "the Seven Kingdoms" into the less cool-sounding "Six Kingdoms." (And evidently no one else is interested in self-governance any longer?) So undeserved. Talk about unearned. That girl never did anything to change my view of her. She remained a selfish, lame, dumb, devious, untrustworthy, useless, whinging brat the entire way. Ew. "Uncle, please sit." Ugh, fuck her. The dragons should've eaten "ther quern irn ther nerth." The North could ask for better. She didn't give a single shit about the potential consequences of her oathbreaking. Being Ned's daughter is the best thing she's got going for her.
Disgusting that she gets a happy ending and Dany doesn't. Quick, fetch an assassin. The Starks really wound up doing pretty well for themselves after seasons of us pitying them, though. (Maybe a little too well...) Separated again, but fairly contentedly this time (way more so than last time xD), and they don't have to remain apart forever.
My my, how Sweetrobin's grown though, eh? Didn't recognize him the first time! Honestly his glo-up might be the most surprising thing in the whole finale.
Eeyup. Unsatisfactory. 

Well then. Bring on the deleted scenes (please?), the 2-hour documentary, the prequels...Comic-Con...milk of the puppy (yes puppy)...

Other notable points:

-How long is Jon going to live up yonder, now that he's apparently fulfilled his purpose in resurrection (i.e., to protect the world from devastation and to unite all peoples within their nation? Perhaps he still needs to denounce the evils of truth and love, extend their reach to the stars above, etc.)
-No Jonerys babe after all that motherfucking foreshadowing, what the ever-loving unholy fuck. I was afraid of them letting things just fall by the wayside. Cersei's last baby may as well not have existed. "Mad Queen Dany" should've been the red herring, not Jonerys tot.
-Dany: *describes the book version of the Iron Throne from her naive vision*
-Tyrion: *helps my OCD by fixing the chairs but leaves one on the right side too far forward, making it even worse*
-"Not that I've seen." Well, the LoL was holding you for resurrection, boyo.
-"Lord of Lofty Titles"--oh, the legendary Davos/Bronn banter we'll never get to see! Even my dad laughed out loud at that. (Shouldn’t Bronn be master of WAR rather than coin tho??)
-STANNIS THE MANNIS LIVES ON!!! 8'D #OneTrueKingOfGrammar #MasterOfGrammar #AintGoneBeNoMoCoin
-Brothels>ships?
-Did I miss what happened to the Dothraki? Did they sail back home? (Oh wait, they went with the Unsullied to Naath? Or got dropped off where they came from? They just became tools for Dany's use?)
-Epic music at the end ;.; Thank you, Ramin.

And what else is MISSING that would have improved the final season/episode?

-Meera, Jaqen, Daario+Second Sons: How are they all? Guess they're just gonna keep doing their things, holding down their forts? Why no part in the final proceedings? Jaqen ought to be pretty proud. Guess he probably knew what he was actually training Arya for, even though he wasn't even. The new king wouldn't be here if not for Meera; she deserved one hell of a better sendoff, & where's Howland? How come no other Dany supporters from the east ever showed up to fight the dead or take KL even more easily--just the extra Dothraki and Unsullied she Amazon-Primed??
-HOT PIE, where is mah boi? Still bakin' dat bread, makin' dat dough??
-For the millionth time, all the red priest(esse)s of Essos, the Lord of Light's presence...I just wanted to feel that in the latter half of the season...wanted my girl to come back into it somehow (yeah Davos was pondering those mysteries at the feast, but not only should we have seen a special tribute to her, we NEED that damn prequel!) What did Varys hear in the flames--"Dracarys?" Was he suddenly a psychic in episodes 4+5 because the voice had predicted an inferno caused by a friend, and his own death by fire?
-Generally everything here: the Long Night should've been longer and intertwined with the Cersei/KL storyline rather than dividing the season into two awkwardly handled halves. That wasn't just another battle. It deserved at least a couple of 1v1 face-offs with the NK. Let's say TLN was the end of the series? Last shot=Mel? I'm for it.

21 comments:

  1. Saw someone mention that Brienne could've added herself to the book as well...hmmm. Maybe in the future after she's accomplished some more as a knight? Then again, she fought in the frickin' battle against the dead as a knight, so you can't do much more than that. x-p Although isn't the book for Kingsguard members? So she couldn't even add herself until she's been LC of it for a while...

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  2. Also: Theory about Drogon taking Dany to Kinvara for resurrection? GOLD. Confirm it, George. She returns as her actual SELF and not the nutbag they made her in two episodes. Brilliance. Bran can peacefully hand the “throne” back to her and all shall be well. :D

    Also also: Dropping things that should have come back into play and leaving too much to the imagination is sheer laziness. Most of the criticism of Season 7 I could deflect, because at that point it didn’t seem that the fans had many better answers or ideas. Yes, there should have been a mention of Sansa’s & Arya’s conversation with Bran about Littlefinger after his execution. Jon & Dany falling in love seemed maybe a little forced and cliche, but you knew it would come crashing down as soon as his parentage was revealed. Most of the rest was like, “Well what do you want them to do? That’s forgivable. That’s not impossible. Well, they don’t NEED to show all that unnecessarily, it’d be a waste of time at this point...” But when it came to S8, you could have cobbled together a 10000000/10 script from fan theories.

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  3. Omg, the brilliance of this!: https://youtu.be/2mlNyqhnc1M
    EXCELLENT. YES. This is what I've been saying. Very, very well laid-out and truly inarguable. They f*cked her over again and again, plain and simple. The writers destroyed King's Landing for no good reason, not her. In the end it's just, "Sorry, this beautifully developed character has to go nuts because her daddy went batty and you can't avoid becoming your parent no matter how hard you try and how strong you are." I wouldn't have flinched carrying out any of those justified take-downs of evil people and enemies either, wtfh?! They pulled some last-minute BS because the plot outline demanded that certain things happen, and happen quickly. -_- And they made it impossible for her to win regardless of what she did.
    I didn't want a happy sunshine-and-rainbows, Jon-and-Dany-rule-over-a-perfect-little-Westeros conclusion. I wanted something that made more sense and didn't butcher one of the most excellent characters.

    I'll always adore my Dragon Queen.
    D&D done her wrong.

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  4. WOW, THIS GUY'S THE MAN, THIS GUY GETS IT!!!
    Bran's evil...Westeros is doomed...should've bowed to Dany, ya shits...
    https://youtu.be/JqcP2CGFUiU

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  5. Okay, uuggghhhh, I love what I said at the link below. (Also: Can we hope that Dany consumed a LITTLE of Varys' poison--not enough to kill, but enough to mentally derange? Which would essentially make everything his fault. Idk. I'd hate to have to hate him so much in the end. Both were strong favorites of mine since S1. But he was so hasty in his betrayal, and the fact that they made him turn out to be psychically right is so effing annoying.)

    https://disqus.com/home/discussion/winter-is-coming/hbo_isnt_planning_any_game_of_thrones_sequel_series/#comment-4474808912

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  6. Coupla random points:

    -My distaste for Jon killing Dany has nothing to do with her death being at the hands of her lover. I mean, yeah, I do hate it, and how it happened as she was kissing him and trusting him and begging him to join her. I'd like to think that in her very final moment the real Dany returned to her body and understood why he had to do this. But I'm not all "Oh no we shouldn't have men kill women or intimate partner violence"--like, anything goes. Male killing female and vice versa, lovers can kill one another...yeah. Violence against one sex is no worse than violence against the other.

    -Going back in time: I don't blame Tyrion for killing Shae. He truly loved her and thought she truly loved him, the kind where you wouldn't betray one another even to save your own skin...

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  7. "I think of her sacking Astapor in season 3, her voice a whip, her eyes lowered, unperturbed by the destruction exploding around her. This scene is one of the most iconic examples of the signature Daenerys look, her face eerily calm as she exact righteous vengeance on her enemies. It was awesome, but it was scary too. Daenerys was a force of nature, one that Clarke gave focus and direction."
    ...Don't even try to give me this kind of garbage. You want to look back now and call moments of righteous awesomeness "scary" to try and justify a horseshit ending for her. How the hell was she supposed to look? She looked precisely as she should have, doing precisely as she should have. "Eerily" my ass. No, she's not flawless. Yes, she's had missteps. But she was all along certainly one of the better people.

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  8. Fuck me, I just saw a GoT tarot deck with Sansa as the "Strength" card. Sansa's a joke. My path with her was "Hate her, she's a selfish little cvnt...eh, I don't hate her as much as I used to...oh goddammit, I hate her more than ever!! Started and ended a selfish cvnt!" She ain't smart. She's just picked up some qualities of the worst people around (Cersei, Baelish...) She survived not because she's "strong" but because she's lucky others protected her worthless ass. "Cares for her people?" What? Dany was the one shown to be a good, patient, caring listener who wanted to make everybody happy. This bitch let them die in the crypts while keeping the fucking dragonglass dagger to herself, hiding. And don't you dare give me the nonsense about "Oh well she didn't know how to use a knife for defense because she's never had to do that/wasn't taught to"--BALDERDASH. Anybody with two functional brain cells would instinctively figure out how to STAB at whatever's attacking. Sansa may have been involved with the downfalls of Ramsay & Littlefinger, but neither is attributable to some actual merit on her part. And Jon would've killed Ramsay anyhow; he just let her take revenge by feeding him to the dogs. The best things she did were just "the only things to do in these situations"--nothing particularly commendable.

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  9. So George doesn't intend to change the books' ending despite S8's reception. Well. EVEN IF he ever finishes the books, and EVEN IF the ending is elaborated upon and makes sense coming from him, I'm having a tough time imagining being happy and satisfied by it. Maybe. Maybe it'll never happen. Maybe I'll continue to think of "The Long Night" as the series finale (while mentally expanding on it and filling in a conclusion.)
    I did just buy the Oathbreaker board game, but should've looked at the number of players, because I could have four tops (and it calls for five to eight.) The two people with whom I watched and obsessed over the show (the ones who got me into it around S3) were also disappointed in S8, one more so than the other, but I figured they'd still be willing to play the game...darnit. Perhaps we can make it kinda work with four.
    The two largest issues are, of course, the two primary wars/plots/opponents of the season: the Night King, and Cersei. With the first...I needed more to happen before the AotD was dispatched in one episode after everybody finally came together to face him as one. Felt like such a cheat. If Arya's the one to deliver the final stab, fine, but I needed more NK interaction with other characters...more (named) victims of the Long Night...to see Old Nan's account of winter sweeping down over the land (guess they're saving that for the prequel?)...and for the two main plots to intertwine. Cersei shouldn't have been able to get away with holing up and pretending it wasn't her problem. Especially if you want to draw any figurative parallels between the WWs and, say, climate change or whatever. Hype this shit for eight fucking years, and then hurry it out of the way in a single episode...WHAT were they thinking? And then yay, Cersei dies...except it's a footnote in the process of Dany being utterly assassinated and getting herself killed for no reason other than that she's the Mad King's daughter, so, big clever twist? Me no think so, Georgie.

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  10. Re: The fuckin' script..."Her Satanic Majesty." *grits teeth and struggles not to hurl* Not that I wouldn't be delighted with that nickname!
    Read some stuff recently that couldn't have been more spot-on regarding Dany, Tyrion, the pointlessly absurd destruction of KL, what Dany should've done in the first place, etc. Listening to his malarkey was one of her biggest errors.

    A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms was so the best episode of the season...I'd give it to The Long Night IF that had been "The Battle of Winterfell," and #4 "The Long Night"--an expanded battle against the dead, rather than the beginning of Dany's ruination.
    I remember losing all my enthusiasm after ep 3, and liking the fourth more than I therefore expected to (particularly the first half, with the funeral speech being very touching)...until 5 & 6 happened. Then I kind of packaged the final three episodes together as that three-act play they were touted as, easily marking them my least favorites of the series (especially The Bells), and deciding on #3 as my finale.

    Anyways, on a whole other note...I didn't realize the actors got to choose one episode each for the Emmys. That's kinda neat. Although again, in this case the consideration is guaranteed to be of their entire performances from the first few seasons through the last. Which is lovely and just as it ought to be.

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  11. Voting for top 5 deaths of S8:

    "Oooooh, getting to choose 5 actually makes it tough. I can automatically eliminate Daenerys, Cersei/Jaime, the Night King, Varys, Rhaegal. The female wight–LOL! That WAS great, but I guess I’ll take her out. Theon? That one’s in-between…sad, but I couldn’t help finding it so…pointless and quick and unnecessary. ;; Qyburn, I actually felt badly for. And talk about quick!

    My #1 is undoubtedly Melisandre. Probably my fave of the entire series. Such a poignant, dignified, elegant, beautiful final scene, returning in the morning light to her beloved lord at long last, after having fulfilled her destiny. The weight of the world lifting from her shoulders so she can finally sleep, following a long lifetime spent fighting with the darkness–no more need to fear dreams. She beautifully bookended the battle and was such a highlight of the season.

    -Beric’s was noble and tragic…if that’s what he ultimately needed to do, he did a bang-up job of it, spending his final life and moving on for good, as he was also ready to.
    -Jorah’s got me misty. I wanted Dany to give him a kiss before he passed, though!
    -Almost forgot about Ned, whoops! Yeah, that made for a good jump-scare horror bit…
    -Sandor & the Mountain…yeah, that could be another contender.
    -Lyanna went down fighting too, that’s another choice…
    -Missandei’s was effective. Dreadful, although if I were her I’d have grabbed Cersei and hurled her to the ground. 8D

    So which additional four do I pick? Hmm. I guess Beric, Jorah, the Cleganes (twofer), aaannd…Ned, because I’m sure he’s not gonna win. {:3"

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  12. For all the intended “subversion of expectations,” S8 was pretty darn predictable. People were hypothesizing  left and right that “Varys will betray Dany for Jon, Arya won’t take to Dany, Sansa and others will remain petty in the face of humanity’s doom, Dany will go mad, Arya will become an explorer in the end...” I sank years ago when I read that people had accurately predicted Snape’s love interest, (could it have been a more boring one?), and I sank further when all the GoT horseshit that shouldn’t have occurred according to these predictions did.

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  13. More I think about S8 the angrier I get. Sacrificing potential further epic battles with the Night King and the dead for faux Daenerys-crazy-making...goddamn cheapass copout. Just kill him with one stupid stab from Ninjarya at the end of one fucking episode. Yeah, that's great. Only been waiting for this shit since the first scene of the first episode of the first season. Three eps to deal with Cersei, not forcing her to face the apocalypse/humanity's doom, not having a defeat at Winterfell with survivors fleeing south...that would have been perfect. Up the stakes, ffs. Show us the actual Long Night. Make us truly feel that all could be lost. Don't pretend to (extremely unconvincingly) drive Dany insane. Or let that putrid cunt Sansa be a queen. And Bran as king? What an ominous ending. That little fuck used his incredible powers to do exactly zilch to help the side of the living. No spying on Cersei or anything. The NK could've killed him, who cares? The world doesn't need him. Humanity's survival doesn't rest on his. The creepy shitbird tells Sam to tell Mr. Honest Jon the truth of his parentage at the worst possible time...now Dany thinks some may favor him for the throne even though he most clearly and vocally does not want it...then Bran just sits back and allows everything to unfold, in essence sacrificing millions of lives just so he can wind up king. And allow his rotten sister to secede. The only thing he sort of influenced was Dany's madness, even though the bullshit R+L=J thing was a lame-af "reason" to purport for it anyway. They could have married as a strategy. Jon was going to gladly pass the crown to her. It was a non-issue. And fuck all the blatant foreshadowing of a Jonerys baby, I guess, no time for that. Or anything else desirable. We gotta pack in as much horseshit as we can fit in six episodes, specifically in the last three.

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  14. P.S. Fuck those King's Landing motherfuckers. Those brainless sheep cheered for Ned's beheading, for Euron, for anything.

    But just imagine if S8 had been longer. Two more episodes of Winter and Walkers, two more for chronicling Dany's downfall...trying to make at least some sense of the KL massacre and her subsequent psychosis and "euthanasia."
    Primary factors in the prequel cancellation+greenlighting probably included disappointment with the WW storyline (although that's why I'd like to see the first Long Night, the long one, to really show people what would have been if S8 had gone longer), an attempt to appease Daenerys fans, and of course, the existence of source material.

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  15. Although ep 3 contains my favorite material of Season 8 (the Mel stuff ofc), my overall episode ranking would be: 2, 3, 1 [big gap], 4, 6, 5.

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  16. The final season could have been SO magnificent. Instead we get the barely-an-hour-and-a-half "Long Night" wherein the Night King and White Walkers just do fuck-all before getting taken out by friggin' Arya of all people. She was a) not what most wanted to see (i.e Jon) and b) not even that stunning (since she's gotten a ton of kills already and would have probably been one of your next guesses if not Jon.) So neither the fulfillment of most viewers' wish nor a wonderful subversion. Now why couldn't Mel have told someone else to do it, or better yet, do it herself?! Dx

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  17. Ffs, Dany could have been tragically framed by wildfire from Cersei, leaving you to pray that her memory will be vindicated. There's a humongous laundry list of things that would have bolstered the season but were bafflingly ignored, forgotten, omitted, not thought of, whatever...I'll never be over the rage and am still waiting for the actual S8. Because there's just no way...no way...

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  18. Fookin' Bran. Like to punt that smug little mf clean across the Narrow Sea...-_- Srsly.

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  19. For real though, Bran is incredibly worthless and really just downright evil. Knew enough to spook Baelish with "chaos is a ladder," but waited for Sansa to question him about Arya before digging into and/or revealing all his misdeeds? Just kicking back and doing nothing to help "his" side in the war (SO WHAT FUCKING GOOD ARE YOUR RIDICULOUS POWERS THEN MATE IF YOU'RE UNWILLING TO USE THEM FOR GOOD)...actively sowing/encouraging discord ("Yes Sam, NOW is totally the time to drop the 'Jon's a Targaryen' bomb!")...pretending not to want power only to snatch up that crown in the end ("I'll get food by pretending I don't want food" "That's stupid" "I'll prove it!" "Oh you don't have to prove it, I believe you're stupid")...I'm onto you, fucker. You WERE controlling Drogon instead of Dany, weren't you? And the insanity of it is what drove her mad, her sudden powerlessness. Her mind breaks and starts making shit up bc now that it's happened, she HAS to accept that 100%-pointless willy-nilly murder was the ultimate goal of her noble, mostly sensible and forward-thinking, people-protecting life. And Theon died pointlessly, didn't he, Bran? Meera dragged your smug, useless ass around for HOW long so you could be all "wHy Do YoU tHiNk I cAmE aLl ThIs WaY?" and never even MENTION her (or Jojen or Hodor or Leaf or Summer or...) GODDAMMIT I'M MAKING MYSELF HATE HIM AS MUCH AS CERSEI, SANSA, ETC. One minute he's the 3ER, beyond all this human shit, and the next he's "King Brandon Stark."

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  20. Still. Having. Thoughts (and these're just 0.01%.) Would that I could end the self-torment.

    --Among the most sickening of the show's ultimate messages is "A queen is made not by doing good works and winning the affections of the people...but by learning to mimic scheming backstabbers and bloodsuckers whilst trying to avoid their pitfalls." Realistic, perhaps, you could say...but it's just too cynical of a place to leave the story even for me!
    --Come to think of it, any Faceless Man could've done the winter-ending deed as well. Nothing's special about Arya outside of being in the right place at the right time. I'd been hoping to see Jaqen again; he wasn't interesting solely in relation to his miserable pupil, and her surpassing him in that amount of time would be quintessential Mary Sue territory. And while I adore her, and while I know George started coming up with the story in the 90s at the latest..."master trains heroic youngster for starring role in saving of world" just sounds like too stale of a cliche for him.
    --Boy, if the story were real, being Daenerys' defense attorney (and/or just suing for defamation on behalf of almost every character) would've been the easiest, most lucrative gig ever. xD

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  21. Old Yellering=euthanasia for reason of madness (e.g. Jon & Dany in the season of which we do not speak)
    White Fanging=driving somebody away from you for their own good (e.g. Arya & Nymeria, Shae & Tyrion when we still thought she actually loved him, Tricia & Steven because she's moving to the farm...)

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