Sam’s character evolved tremendously throughout the show:
1. Very wise
2. Killed a Whitewalker
3. Fiercely loyal
4. Instrumental in getting dragonglass
5. Surrounds himself with good people
6. Extremely compassionate
I will stop there. Had they gone there (to Sam), I certainly would have changed my 3 of 10 to probably a 6 of 10 IMDB rating. Bran the Broken was pretty bad imo.
But it was obvious to me....the finale was mostly about the STARK family, so Sam loses out there.
RE: Would have been nice to see the scene after Jon kills Dany Â
I mean, she's not there. Did he confess to her murder? I guess he did because he's a fucking moron.
Hi guys. Guess what. Daenerys got on her dragon and flew away. Just flew away.
She didn't say when she's be back but she said I'm totally in charge while she's gone.
I wondered that as well. How did anyone know Jon drove a dagger into Daenerys?
Jon is an honest guy carrying a lot of guilt as it was.....he would not deceive anyone. Besides, What would the audience think of his character had he done that? It was never the writers intention to cast Jon in a negative light. He has always been a favorite with the people.....that really would have had people in an uproar had they made him change like that so suddenly. Dany was bad enough don’t you think?
RE: I have yet to read the books, bay I am aware of the Â
differences in the story between the series, and the books. I believe that if they followed the books closer, (assuming the books get finished) and included more detail, and paced the show as in the first 4 seasons, GOT could have ran for 15 seasons. We all know it was that good. It was so good it drew us into 2 shortened seasons over 3 years, of what many thought was subpar television.
As for the ending, the title tells all Game Of Thrones. It was all a game to get to power. Bran played the game better than everyone else, with the runners up being Tyrion, Sansa. Outstanding achievement awards going to Bron, and Davos.
That "Bran played the game better" sounds like the line from "War Games" where the only way to win is not to play at all. Which he truly did not.
Jon has Ned's honor. He likely confessed. Now how he did it without getting killed on the spot is a wonder. I assume he gathered some northmen before confessing. Greyworm has never shown to be a calm, calculating individual so it wouldn't believable to have Jon tell him he just made Dany more aerodynamic for Drogon
I thought was among the best of the series, with perhaps the single greatest episode, the Winds of Winter finale. And that was beyond the books. I believe with that they showed they could still produce a great story, even beyond the source material.
They just gave themselves an impossible task to wrap up in 13 episodes. There were some successes and failures, but I don't see any way they could have done this to make everyone happy with the time frame they gave themselves. It is what it is
+ 1
RE: I don't understand the purpose of re-animating the Mountain. Â
All he ended up being for the rest of the series was a mute bodyguard for Cersei. The dull fan-service "Clegane Bowl" thing was not a good enough justification for not just leaving him dead after dueling the Red Viper. They were on the third actor anyway.
I think there were several purposes:
1. to introduce qyburn as the "mad scientist" doing shit that got him kicked out of the Citadel. And carrying this point past book material to the show if the first real introduction you had to Qbyurn was creating a rotating harpoon that could kill a dragon you might wonder who the F is this guy? IOW you might expect someone as resourceful as Qbyburn to come up with a plan to combat a dragon.
2. the Mountain provided to be a formidable and loyal body guard for Cersei
3. To keep The Hound's story and motivation alive. He lived for and was motivated by revenge vs his brother.
Without too many spoliers, my pet peeves: Once Jon does his thing its all downhill. Dothroaki don't rape and pillage in Westeros? Nope we're going home all happy after that long journey and seeing half our army get wiped out. Grey Worm doesn't immediately execute Jon - he waits for the Lords of Westeros, to whom he has no allegiance, to decide the fates of main characters? Then he makes demands on what to do with Snow? Why would they listen to him? Why not crush his foreign army? Who summons the Lords and boy were there some B level Lords there. So sansa gets her things but the Iron Born, who want the same thing, they stay silent. Just poorly written wrap up. All the intrigue and twists and back stabbing and violence that defined the show were tossed aside for a happy ending.
Executing Jon for murdering the queen just wasn’t going to happen. So, they had to come up with an alternative they thought we the audience could better accept. Moving in with the wildings and being reunited with Ghost was the compromise they hoped would satisfy. I think it worked better than Greyworm killing Jon.
Making Bran the King was another stretch, but again, they had to compromise. Sure, it was made evident that Bran up until now only wanted to be part of that tree. But, the writers had to find a ruler who would not make the audience and the characters THAT upset:
Jon- no way, Unsullied wouldn’t have it
Sansa- she never wanted to leave WF
Tyrion- like he said, all the people hated him
Sam- probably would have worked better than Sam but I guess they didn’t go that way. I agree, making Bran it was somewhat comical and came out of nowhere, but they were in a hurry to go home.
Those two decisions were probably the most important ( everyone could see Dany was a goner so that decision was already made).
I hope this explanation helps you a bit.
There's just logic problems all over the place. Almost everyone on the high council came from ingrained generational power. In fact, they reinforced that when they laughed at Sam's democracy suggestion. It's ludicrous to think that some or most of them did not have ruling ambitions of their own.
Unlike all the other lords, Bran had no standing. He had already rejected Winterfell. His "story" would sound ridiculous to nearly every other Lord. In fact, the 3-eyed raven part is grounded in religion; a religion that only the old time Northerners held to. All of the other Lords believed in the Seven. There was no reason on earth for them to agree to having Bran be king, even as a compromise candidate. In fact, as soon as Sansa took Winterfell out of the Westeros equation,Bran himself became a foreigner in Westeros. And we're talking about mainly Southerners here.
The logic of the Night's Watch continued existence has been discussed here, but there is another element that makes it illogical. That is, once Sansa made the North a different country, the Wall (and the people who guard it) are no longer part of Westeros. So, there was no legitimacy in the Westeros punishment from that perspective.
One nit, or question...what voting right did the Iron Islands have on the question of king? My recollection is that they were a conquered protectorate and not one of the 7 kingdoms. Theon was a hostage taken after an invasion (not rebellion) by the Iron Born.
Ultimately...the showrunners decided they needed to end the show and this is what we got. Dany going COMPLETELY bonkers sealed her fate by Jon which took him out of the running for the throne as well. Bran is such an undeserving character for the throne. He was nothing but a conduit to move the story forward with his access to backstory. I can't imagine why the Lords of the 6 kingdoms would submit to rule by Bran anyway especially after his sister would not (for good reasons)
And a rant....why were there any Dothraki alive after the Battle of Winterfell? Seems like an awful lot of Unsullied survived as well. And why did Grey Worm not lop off Jon's head after finding out he killed Dany? He certainly had no qualms about killing anyone else who opposed Dany.
If it was my show I have Dany kill Jon after finding out his claim to the throne. Setting up a struggle between Sansa/Arya and Dany. It would have been more interesting. I would also have dived a little deeper into the whole White Walker/Night King story line. For such an overriding threat they really did a horrible job with that whole part of the show.
I thought was among the best of the series, with perhaps the single greatest episode, the Winds of Winter finale. And that was beyond the books. I believe with that they showed they could still produce a great story, even beyond the source material.
They just gave themselves an impossible task to wrap up in 13 episodes. There were some successes and failures, but I don't see any way they could have done this to make everyone happy with the time frame they gave themselves. It is what it is
I don't think the story choices are what made me unhappy. It was the decision to ditch so much hard work with fantastic story telling that was formerly given to us. Building 7+ seasons of Winter to have that ending with the Night King and then to have Dany turn on a dime (this has been argued ad nauseam but I still think it was horribly done) to then wrap everything up like nothing really happened at all was beyond a let down.
I've got a group chat of 12 of us, all watch the show. No one liked it, and it consists of people who've defended it pretty hard over the years. Just felt like a giant waste of time in the end.
RE: RE: I don't understand the purpose of re-animating the Mountain. Â
All he ended up being for the rest of the series was a mute bodyguard for Cersei. The dull fan-service "Clegane Bowl" thing was not a good enough justification for not just leaving him dead after dueling the Red Viper. They were on the third actor anyway.
I think there were several purposes:
1. to introduce qyburn as the "mad scientist" doing shit that got him kicked out of the Citadel. And carrying this point past book material to the show if the first real introduction you had to Qbyurn was creating a rotating harpoon that could kill a dragon you might wonder who the F is this guy? IOW you might expect someone as resourceful as Qbyburn to come up with a plan to combat a dragon.
2. the Mountain provided to be a formidable and loyal body guard for Cersei
3. To keep The Hound's story and motivation alive. He lived for and was motivated by revenge vs his brother.
just a few off the top of my head.
1. Qyburn wasn't an important character. So putting resources into his story was a waste.
2. Cersei would have had a bodyguard had the Mountain stayed dead. It wasn't necessary to re-animate him for that simple purpose.
3. Why keep the Hound alive? What was left in his story?
I keep hearing that the poor showrunners were in an impossible situation because they had so much to resolve. The truth is, they should have been working on that the last two seasons by reducing the number of characters. The Mountain, Qyburn, and the Hound (as well as others) could have been gone and forgotten 10+ episodes ago. They didn't need to stick around until the very end.
even go to the wall with the Unsullied fully leaving the realm? Why did they let the Unsullied leave to go rampage somewhere else? How are there so many damn Dothraki, haha?
Jon had no interest in being King. He never wanted to rule anything much like Ned. Robert didn't want to be King either. Jon Arryn may have led the rebellion, but Robert was the one people rallied behind and Baratheon's have Targaryen blood so after the war it was kinda forced upon him for the sake of the realm.
Stannis probably would have been the best king, imo. I'm curious how his fate plays out in the books
after killing the Mad King. Why is it a problem for Jon?
Jaime killed the Mad King.
and it wasn't a problem for him either, though it should be noted Ned Stark wanted Jaime to take the black and be sent to the wall for being a king slayer, but Tywin refused to allow it and Robert, sided with his wife/father-in-law over his hand and pardoned Jaime.
maybe semi-ironic in what comes full circle. Jaime kills the king is pushed to go to the wall, but his family stands up for him, Jon kills the queen, and get sent to the wall.
I thought was among the best of the series, with perhaps the single greatest episode, the Winds of Winter finale. And that was beyond the books. I believe with that they showed they could still produce a great story, even beyond the source material.
They just gave themselves an impossible task to wrap up in 13 episodes. There were some successes and failures, but I don't see any way they could have done this to make everyone happy with the time frame they gave themselves. It is what it is
I don't think the story choices are what made me unhappy. It was the decision to ditch so much hard work with fantastic story telling that was formerly given to us. Building 7+ seasons of Winter to have that ending with the Night King and then to have Dany turn on a dime (this has been argued ad nauseam but I still think it was horribly done) to then wrap everything up like nothing really happened at all was beyond a let down.
I've got a group chat of 12 of us, all watch the show. No one liked it, and it consists of people who've defended it pretty hard over the years. Just felt like a giant waste of time in the end.
But don't you think that meticulous story building going by the wayside is an effect of just not giving themselves enough time to end it properly? Yeah even though it was foreshadowed, Dany did turn on a dime. Normally that would play out over a full season, but that wasn't possible. The Long Night had to last one episode because there was no time to let it go beyond one episode.
It's just tough to do this show in 6 episode seasons. It requires a lot of leaps and gaps in logic. I left last night's finale feeling pretty good about it all things considered. I've been a bit surprised the reaction has been so one-sided against it.
Without too many spoliers, my pet peeves: Once Jon does his thing its all downhill. Dothroaki don't rape and pillage in Westeros? Nope we're going home all happy after that long journey and seeing half our army get wiped out. Grey Worm doesn't immediately execute Jon - he waits for the Lords of Westeros, to whom he has no allegiance, to decide the fates of main characters? Then he makes demands on what to do with Snow? Why would they listen to him? Why not crush his foreign army? Who summons the Lords and boy were there some B level Lords there. So sansa gets her things but the Iron Born, who want the same thing, they stay silent. Just poorly written wrap up. All the intrigue and twists and back stabbing and violence that defined the show were tossed aside for a happy ending.
Executing Jon for murdering the queen just wasn’t going to happen. So, they had to come up with an alternative they thought we the audience could better accept. Moving in with the wildings and being reunited with Ghost was the compromise they hoped would satisfy. I think it worked better than Greyworm killing Jon.
Making Bran the King was another stretch, but again, they had to compromise. Sure, it was made evident that Bran up until now only wanted to be part of that tree. But, the writers had to find a ruler who would not make the audience and the characters THAT upset:
Jon- no way, Unsullied wouldn’t have it
Sansa- she never wanted to leave WF
Tyrion- like he said, all the people hated him
Sam- probably would have worked better than Sam but I guess they didn’t go that way. I agree, making Bran it was somewhat comical and came out of nowhere, but they were in a hurry to go home.
Those two decisions were probably the most important ( everyone could see Dany was a goner so that decision was already made).
I hope this explanation helps you a bit.
I didn't have a problem with Bran, just the transition from Dannys death to the crowning of Bran. The confrontation with grey Worm was building for episodes, and then nothing but a dirty look at the very end? No payoff - Jon should have killed him mano a mano.
As for Jon riding off into the sunset, great ending but he should have faked his death and fled North to avoid ruling, which he never wanted. North of the wall was the only place he could be free. Banishing him there as punishment for saving the world just to make Grey Worm happy was silly.
Very ho hum way to finish thngs off.
RE: I don't understand the purpose of re-animating the Mountain. Â
All he ended up being for the rest of the series was a mute bodyguard for Cersei. The dull fan-service "Clegane Bowl" thing was not a good enough justification for not just leaving him dead after dueling the Red Viper. They were on the third actor anyway.
It probably stemmed from the books. Qyburn is allowed to do all sorts of twisted experiments and decides to re-animate the mountain as Ser Robert Strong. While it appears he was gonna re-animate him anyway, his main purpose is to serve as Cersei's champion during the trial by combat. They dropped that in the show so they decided to use him for the improbable Clegane bowl
and I have basically read nothing of this thread or anywhere else as I wanted to have an opinion unvarnished by outside influences is that I don't understand how Bran from the North from the House of Stark gets to rule the Six Kingdoms he and his family just seceded from. That's like the North and South having a peace agreement to end the civil war where the South secedes but Jefferson Davis rules the North. It makes no logical sense to me, even if you think that he would be a wise king because of the information he has stored in his head and his ability to see the future. My minor problem was that everything happened too fast again. Tyrion just popping out of jail a few weeks later. How did they get assembled. What happened to Jon Snow? The unsullied just murdered soldiers who they thought were loyal to the Lannister's but they took Jon Snow to a cell and let him live? Seems odd and not very congruous in terms of plot planning.
that's been my beef for years. These shortened seasons are a joke. Its funny how this was Tyrion's best showing since season 6. They actually wrote him well for the first time in years. I don't think him walking through the city took too long either, if anything that's an example of what they needed to do this entire time. To those saying that "they needed to end it" I say, "bullshit, they just showed you why they shouldn't have taken short cuts."
This story was too intricate, too massive to devote such little time to in closing it out. I really just didn't enjoy the speedrun, i'm thoroughly unsatisfied with the ending.
Ohh Dany's dead? Ok cool, speed run to picking a new king and that's wrap! Awful.
Absolutely awful. I thought everything was executed atrociously. They could have had the same major plot points and succeeded if they didn't bungle the last season or two.
Bran has been entirely useless the entire show. Worse yet, didn't he cause the war with the White Walkers by being touched? There's been no evidence he's useful, wise, thoughtful.
and I have basically read nothing of this thread or anywhere else as I wanted to have an opinion unvarnished by outside influences is that I don't understand how Bran from the North from the House of Stark gets to rule the Six Kingdoms he and his family just seceded from. That's like the North and South having a peace agreement to end the civil war where the South secedes but Jefferson Davis rules the North. It makes no logical sense to me, even if you think that he would be a wise king because of the information he has stored in his head and his ability to see the future. My minor problem was that everything happened too fast again. Tyrion just popping out of jail a few weeks later. How did they get assembled. What happened to Jon Snow? The unsullied just murdered soldiers who they thought were loyal to the Lannister's but they took Jon Snow to a cell and let him live? Seems odd and not very congruous in terms of plot planning.
You hit on the major plot hole that trumps all the others IMO.
Upon finding out Jon killed Dany (however it was revealed), we're to believe the Unsullied and Dothraki agreed to chill out peacefully for a month or so until the lords of Westeros gathered to come up with a political solution to the power vacuum?
I thought Jon was going to hop on Drogon, which would somehow show Dany's armies that he was now the one to follow.
But that would have prevented the plot twist of Jon getting sent to the Night's Watch in the end - which was a reach too.
IMO a better result is Jon's ancestry is revealed, he claims power, secures peace, then abdicates the throne, allowing for Dany's oft-mentioned 'breaking the wheel'.
Then the lords of Westeros gather to decide how to elect a new ruler - no issue with choosing Bran at that point.
Then Jon could have traveled North of the wall by his own choice at the end, not bc he'd been banished there.
Really this season needed to be 9-10 episodes. Really hard to make all this work when it was so rushed.
The finale could have been 4 episodes itself...
1 Episode: Dany's death / Jon's surrender / Sansa arrives
2 Episode: Formation of the council / negotiations / Bran
3 Episode: Negotiations: dothraki/unsullied exits, snow plea
4 Episode: Kings council discussion, Sansa, Jon, Arya, Tarley, Bron in their new settings
The only concept that really bugged me was that there should have been a ceremonial pact obligating each of the houses to the king succession plans.
I thought was among the best of the series, with perhaps the single greatest episode, the Winds of Winter finale. And that was beyond the books. I believe with that they showed they could still produce a great story, even beyond the source material.
They just gave themselves an impossible task to wrap up in 13 episodes. There were some successes and failures, but I don't see any way they could have done this to make everyone happy with the time frame they gave themselves. It is what it is
Agree with this post completely. Reducing the number of episodes was the start of their writing mistakes, and I think the second mistake was further complicating things for themselves by intermingling the 2 big events into 6 episodes. Hard to resolve 2 long running plotlines driven towards the biggest battles in show history within 3 episodes of each other (especially when they also occur on 2 sides of the continent).
Yes we knew these were abbreviated seasons going in - but we obviously didn't know exactly how they were planning to pace the story. It could have just been that there wasn't enough material for full seasons. Turns out there was probably a lot more to conclude than typical 10 episode seasons (at least in s8) and the rushed timeframe impacted the writing substantially.
I also believe Winds of Winter was probably among the best episodes they ever did. Yes it was beyond the books, but all the emotional setup to that episode was done by entire character arcs built up over time. S6 started in a set place established by the books and those 10 episodes carried those stories forward at a slightly accelerate pace from what we were all accustomed to (jon not dead, cersei trial, dany struggle against the masters + winning over the dothraki again). But everything that happened in that final was earned over years - not some random spontaneous decision. Cersei + revenge + wildfire has been at her core since S1. The reunion of the North around Jon (and his lineage reveal). The masters overplaying their hand and underestimating Dany. Etc.
The start of S7 reset everything on the equivalent of a blank page and everything that played out from that point felt more to serve the purpose of ending the show as quickly as possible vs. establishing deeper motivations. Character decisions/endings felt more like justifications than natural conclusions. S7 baked in some plot events that were illogical (expedition North, Tyrion trusting Cersei) and then S8 leveraged those events as key story aspects for what came after.
I thought it was good. It got me emotional in several places. It mostly made sense.
Were seasons 7 and 8 the same quality as the previous seasons? No. Am I still happy I got to see them? F*** yes.
There are some very valid criticisms on here and some that miss the mark. For example, someone offered the last season of the Wire as an example of a good last season of television. That does not make sense to me.
This ending is GRRM's ending, more or less. If you don't like the pacing, writing, etc., that's on the showrunners. If you don't like the substance of the ending, take it up with George.
the unsullied need a leader, they literally live to follow directions. I guess there's a chance they act out of vengeance because they can show emotion, but if they killed Grey Worm not out in the open, say with poison (not unheard of in this show) I think the Unsullied lose their edge and order.
there were not enough Dothraki left to mount a challenge IMO.
I just came to accept the show for what it was over the past two seasons. It was changed, but ultimately still entertaining to watch. An incredible spectacle, effects and direction we may never see on television ever again. Along with tremendous acting
I really can't argue anybody's objections. The plotting and storytelling was not on par with the first six seasons. I'm not sure how it could have been in such a compressed time period. If that was too much to overcome for some viewers, believe me I completely understand that. I tried to still appreciate what I could. I'll be interested to see how history ends up viewing it once its rewatched down the line.
I thought it was good. It got me emotional in several places. It mostly made sense.
Were seasons 7 and 8 the same quality as the previous seasons? No. Am I still happy I got to see them? F*** yes.
There are some very valid criticisms on here and some that miss the mark. For example, someone offered the last season of the Wire as an example of a good last season of television. That does not make sense to me.
This ending is GRRM's ending, more or less. If you don't like the pacing, writing, etc., that's on the showrunners. If you don't like the substance of the ending, take it up with George.
That's all fair and I agree, though I do think the last season of the wire was closer to the first 4 than this was. I also thought the Wire did a better job wrapping everything up in the finale montage as we saw how so many characters had come full circle and informed how they'd become what they were in S1 in the first place.
To your last point I agree that this is probably very close to GRRM's ending and a lot of it has parallels to the way LOTR ended, which he'd always alluded to admiring. The end points for many of the characters were ok, just unsatisfying in how they got there due to the rushed writing. We are left filling in the blanks ourselves to get to make sense of some of the bigger decisions they made (the past 3 episodes especially). Why did the NK care about Bran so much? Why didn't Dany fly straight to kill Cersei - who had literally lied/betrayed her more than any other character? Why did everyone just accept Bran as the new king and the North as its' own kingdom? Would Yara especially have done the same? And probably whoever that guy from Dorne was too.
I just came to accept the show for what it was over the past two seasons. It was changed, but ultimately still entertaining to watch. An incredible spectacle, effects and direction we may never see on television ever again. Along with tremendous acting
I really can't argue anybody's objections. The plotting and storytelling was not on par with the first six seasons. I'm not sure how it could have been in such a compressed time period. If that was too much to overcome for some viewers, believe me I completely understand that. I tried to still appreciate what I could. I'll be interested to see how history ends up viewing it once its rewatched down the line.
Agreed I'm in the same exact place. There were things I liked about this season and in particular I thought the 2 action episodes were as good or better than anything I've seen in a movie the last decade. The fact that the show runners took an extra year between s7 and s8, and explicitly chose to do less episodes is just salt in fresh wounds of seeing the rapid degradation of a story that many of us have followed for over a decade and also happens to be probably the last major network TV show.
the unsullied need a leader, they literally live to follow directions. I guess there's a chance they act out of vengeance because they can show emotion, but if they killed Grey Worm not out in the open, say with poison (not unheard of in this show) I think the Unsullied lose their edge and order.
there were not enough Dothraki left to mount a challenge IMO.
Save Jon from what? His absolute freedom and all he wanted at that point?
I just came to accept the show for what it was over the past two seasons. It was changed, but ultimately still entertaining to watch. An incredible spectacle, effects and direction we may never see on television ever again. Along with tremendous acting
I really can't argue anybody's objections. The plotting and storytelling was not on par with the first six seasons. I'm not sure how it could have been in such a compressed time period. If that was too much to overcome for some viewers, believe me I completely understand that. I tried to still appreciate what I could. I'll be interested to see how history ends up viewing it once its rewatched down the line.
Agreed I'm in the same exact place. There were things I liked about this season and in particular I thought the 2 action episodes were as good or better than anything I've seen in a movie the last decade. The fact that the show runners took an extra year between s7 and s8, and explicitly chose to do less episodes is just salt in fresh wounds of seeing the rapid degradation of a story that many of us have followed for over a decade and also happens to be probably the last major network TV show.
It's very easy for me to say sitting on my couch, you watch these inside the episode features and the work, time, and dedication that has to go into producing these episodes is truly incredible. I can understand how maybe some fatigue would set in and they wanted to wrap it up. But it's always be tough for me to accept, and I'll wonder what could have been if they just committed to two more full seasons.
It's very easy for me to say sitting on my couch, you watch these inside the episode features and the work, time, and dedication that has to go into producing these episodes is truly incredible. I can understand how maybe some fatigue would set in and they wanted to wrap it up. But it's always be tough for me to accept, and I'll wonder what could have been if they just committed to two more full seasons.
Exactly. Especially since fans were pretty understanding with the extra time in between seasons and the complicated battles that took forever to shoot were done great. It was literally just extra writing/talking/character moments that probably could have even saved the exact same general plot. Though I do think they made some plot mistakes too that made their version of the story a more difficult sell than it needed to be. Reverse engineering doesn't always result in the exact result you're looking for.
Hi guys. Guess what. Daenerys got on her dragon and flew away. Just flew away.
She didn't say when she's be back but she said I'm totally in charge while she's gone.
1. Very wise
2. Killed a Whitewalker
3. Fiercely loyal
4. Instrumental in getting dragonglass
5. Surrounds himself with good people
6. Extremely compassionate
I will stop there. Had they gone there (to Sam), I certainly would have changed my 3 of 10 to probably a 6 of 10 IMDB rating. Bran the Broken was pretty bad imo.
But it was obvious to me....the finale was mostly about the STARK family, so Sam loses out there.
Hi guys. Guess what. Daenerys got on her dragon and flew away. Just flew away.
She didn't say when she's be back but she said I'm totally in charge while she's gone.
I wondered that as well. How did anyone know Jon drove a dagger into Daenerys?
Quote:
I mean, she's not there. Did he confess to her murder? I guess he did because he's a fucking moron.
Hi guys. Guess what. Daenerys got on her dragon and flew away. Just flew away.
She didn't say when she's be back but she said I'm totally in charge while she's gone.
I wondered that as well. How did anyone know Jon drove a dagger into Daenerys?
Jon is an honest guy carrying a lot of guilt as it was.....he would not deceive anyone. Besides, What would the audience think of his character had he done that? It was never the writers intention to cast Jon in a negative light. He has always been a favorite with the people.....that really would have had people in an uproar had they made him change like that so suddenly. Dany was bad enough don’t you think?
As for the ending, the title tells all Game Of Thrones. It was all a game to get to power. Bran played the game better than everyone else, with the runners up being Tyrion, Sansa. Outstanding achievement awards going to Bron, and Davos.
That "Bran played the game better" sounds like the line from "War Games" where the only way to win is not to play at all. Which he truly did not.
They just gave themselves an impossible task to wrap up in 13 episodes. There were some successes and failures, but I don't see any way they could have done this to make everyone happy with the time frame they gave themselves. It is what it is
+ 1
I think there were several purposes:
1. to introduce qyburn as the "mad scientist" doing shit that got him kicked out of the Citadel. And carrying this point past book material to the show if the first real introduction you had to Qbyurn was creating a rotating harpoon that could kill a dragon you might wonder who the F is this guy? IOW you might expect someone as resourceful as Qbyburn to come up with a plan to combat a dragon.
2. the Mountain provided to be a formidable and loyal body guard for Cersei
3. To keep The Hound's story and motivation alive. He lived for and was motivated by revenge vs his brother.
just a few off the top of my head.
2) Jon Snow can't marry due to his sentence, can he have another "wilding" red headed girlfriend?
Seeing as how Jon is not a member of the Night's Watch I think he can do whatever the fuck he wants. He's among the free folk now.
the sentence was a ruse.
It's not. Jon didn't want to be King.
He didn't want to be king. Robert's rebellion was about taking the throne in an act of revenge, Jon Snow was about saving the realm.
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Without too many spoliers, my pet peeves: Once Jon does his thing its all downhill. Dothroaki don't rape and pillage in Westeros? Nope we're going home all happy after that long journey and seeing half our army get wiped out. Grey Worm doesn't immediately execute Jon - he waits for the Lords of Westeros, to whom he has no allegiance, to decide the fates of main characters? Then he makes demands on what to do with Snow? Why would they listen to him? Why not crush his foreign army? Who summons the Lords and boy were there some B level Lords there. So sansa gets her things but the Iron Born, who want the same thing, they stay silent. Just poorly written wrap up. All the intrigue and twists and back stabbing and violence that defined the show were tossed aside for a happy ending.
Executing Jon for murdering the queen just wasn’t going to happen. So, they had to come up with an alternative they thought we the audience could better accept. Moving in with the wildings and being reunited with Ghost was the compromise they hoped would satisfy. I think it worked better than Greyworm killing Jon.
Making Bran the King was another stretch, but again, they had to compromise. Sure, it was made evident that Bran up until now only wanted to be part of that tree. But, the writers had to find a ruler who would not make the audience and the characters THAT upset:
Jon- no way, Unsullied wouldn’t have it
Sansa- she never wanted to leave WF
Tyrion- like he said, all the people hated him
Sam- probably would have worked better than Sam but I guess they didn’t go that way. I agree, making Bran it was somewhat comical and came out of nowhere, but they were in a hurry to go home.
Those two decisions were probably the most important ( everyone could see Dany was a goner so that decision was already made).
I hope this explanation helps you a bit.
There's just logic problems all over the place. Almost everyone on the high council came from ingrained generational power. In fact, they reinforced that when they laughed at Sam's democracy suggestion. It's ludicrous to think that some or most of them did not have ruling ambitions of their own.
Unlike all the other lords, Bran had no standing. He had already rejected Winterfell. His "story" would sound ridiculous to nearly every other Lord. In fact, the 3-eyed raven part is grounded in religion; a religion that only the old time Northerners held to. All of the other Lords believed in the Seven. There was no reason on earth for them to agree to having Bran be king, even as a compromise candidate. In fact, as soon as Sansa took Winterfell out of the Westeros equation,Bran himself became a foreigner in Westeros. And we're talking about mainly Southerners here.
The logic of the Night's Watch continued existence has been discussed here, but there is another element that makes it illogical. That is, once Sansa made the North a different country, the Wall (and the people who guard it) are no longer part of Westeros. So, there was no legitimacy in the Westeros punishment from that perspective.
One nit, or question...what voting right did the Iron Islands have on the question of king? My recollection is that they were a conquered protectorate and not one of the 7 kingdoms. Theon was a hostage taken after an invasion (not rebellion) by the Iron Born.
Jaime killed the Mad King.
And a rant....why were there any Dothraki alive after the Battle of Winterfell? Seems like an awful lot of Unsullied survived as well. And why did Grey Worm not lop off Jon's head after finding out he killed Dany? He certainly had no qualms about killing anyone else who opposed Dany.
If it was my show I have Dany kill Jon after finding out his claim to the throne. Setting up a struggle between Sansa/Arya and Dany. It would have been more interesting. I would also have dived a little deeper into the whole White Walker/Night King story line. For such an overriding threat they really did a horrible job with that whole part of the show.
They just gave themselves an impossible task to wrap up in 13 episodes. There were some successes and failures, but I don't see any way they could have done this to make everyone happy with the time frame they gave themselves. It is what it is
I don't think the story choices are what made me unhappy. It was the decision to ditch so much hard work with fantastic story telling that was formerly given to us. Building 7+ seasons of Winter to have that ending with the Night King and then to have Dany turn on a dime (this has been argued ad nauseam but I still think it was horribly done) to then wrap everything up like nothing really happened at all was beyond a let down.
I've got a group chat of 12 of us, all watch the show. No one liked it, and it consists of people who've defended it pretty hard over the years. Just felt like a giant waste of time in the end.
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All he ended up being for the rest of the series was a mute bodyguard for Cersei. The dull fan-service "Clegane Bowl" thing was not a good enough justification for not just leaving him dead after dueling the Red Viper. They were on the third actor anyway.
I think there were several purposes:
1. to introduce qyburn as the "mad scientist" doing shit that got him kicked out of the Citadel. And carrying this point past book material to the show if the first real introduction you had to Qbyurn was creating a rotating harpoon that could kill a dragon you might wonder who the F is this guy? IOW you might expect someone as resourceful as Qbyburn to come up with a plan to combat a dragon.
2. the Mountain provided to be a formidable and loyal body guard for Cersei
3. To keep The Hound's story and motivation alive. He lived for and was motivated by revenge vs his brother.
just a few off the top of my head.
1. Qyburn wasn't an important character. So putting resources into his story was a waste.
2. Cersei would have had a bodyguard had the Mountain stayed dead. It wasn't necessary to re-animate him for that simple purpose.
3. Why keep the Hound alive? What was left in his story?
I keep hearing that the poor showrunners were in an impossible situation because they had so much to resolve. The truth is, they should have been working on that the last two seasons by reducing the number of characters. The Mountain, Qyburn, and the Hound (as well as others) could have been gone and forgotten 10+ episodes ago. They didn't need to stick around until the very end.
Brutal.
Stannis probably would have been the best king, imo. I'm curious how his fate plays out in the books
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after killing the Mad King. Why is it a problem for Jon?
Jaime killed the Mad King.
and it wasn't a problem for him either, though it should be noted Ned Stark wanted Jaime to take the black and be sent to the wall for being a king slayer, but Tywin refused to allow it and Robert, sided with his wife/father-in-law over his hand and pardoned Jaime.
maybe semi-ironic in what comes full circle. Jaime kills the king is pushed to go to the wall, but his family stands up for him, Jon kills the queen, and get sent to the wall.
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I thought was among the best of the series, with perhaps the single greatest episode, the Winds of Winter finale. And that was beyond the books. I believe with that they showed they could still produce a great story, even beyond the source material.
They just gave themselves an impossible task to wrap up in 13 episodes. There were some successes and failures, but I don't see any way they could have done this to make everyone happy with the time frame they gave themselves. It is what it is
I don't think the story choices are what made me unhappy. It was the decision to ditch so much hard work with fantastic story telling that was formerly given to us. Building 7+ seasons of Winter to have that ending with the Night King and then to have Dany turn on a dime (this has been argued ad nauseam but I still think it was horribly done) to then wrap everything up like nothing really happened at all was beyond a let down.
I've got a group chat of 12 of us, all watch the show. No one liked it, and it consists of people who've defended it pretty hard over the years. Just felt like a giant waste of time in the end.
But don't you think that meticulous story building going by the wayside is an effect of just not giving themselves enough time to end it properly? Yeah even though it was foreshadowed, Dany did turn on a dime. Normally that would play out over a full season, but that wasn't possible. The Long Night had to last one episode because there was no time to let it go beyond one episode.
It's just tough to do this show in 6 episode seasons. It requires a lot of leaps and gaps in logic. I left last night's finale feeling pretty good about it all things considered. I've been a bit surprised the reaction has been so one-sided against it.
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Without too many spoliers, my pet peeves: Once Jon does his thing its all downhill. Dothroaki don't rape and pillage in Westeros? Nope we're going home all happy after that long journey and seeing half our army get wiped out. Grey Worm doesn't immediately execute Jon - he waits for the Lords of Westeros, to whom he has no allegiance, to decide the fates of main characters? Then he makes demands on what to do with Snow? Why would they listen to him? Why not crush his foreign army? Who summons the Lords and boy were there some B level Lords there. So sansa gets her things but the Iron Born, who want the same thing, they stay silent. Just poorly written wrap up. All the intrigue and twists and back stabbing and violence that defined the show were tossed aside for a happy ending.
Executing Jon for murdering the queen just wasn’t going to happen. So, they had to come up with an alternative they thought we the audience could better accept. Moving in with the wildings and being reunited with Ghost was the compromise they hoped would satisfy. I think it worked better than Greyworm killing Jon.
Making Bran the King was another stretch, but again, they had to compromise. Sure, it was made evident that Bran up until now only wanted to be part of that tree. But, the writers had to find a ruler who would not make the audience and the characters THAT upset:
Jon- no way, Unsullied wouldn’t have it
Sansa- she never wanted to leave WF
Tyrion- like he said, all the people hated him
Sam- probably would have worked better than Sam but I guess they didn’t go that way. I agree, making Bran it was somewhat comical and came out of nowhere, but they were in a hurry to go home.
Those two decisions were probably the most important ( everyone could see Dany was a goner so that decision was already made).
I hope this explanation helps you a bit.
I didn't have a problem with Bran, just the transition from Dannys death to the crowning of Bran. The confrontation with grey Worm was building for episodes, and then nothing but a dirty look at the very end? No payoff - Jon should have killed him mano a mano.
As for Jon riding off into the sunset, great ending but he should have faked his death and fled North to avoid ruling, which he never wanted. North of the wall was the only place he could be free. Banishing him there as punishment for saving the world just to make Grey Worm happy was silly.
Very ho hum way to finish thngs off.
It probably stemmed from the books. Qyburn is allowed to do all sorts of twisted experiments and decides to re-animate the mountain as Ser Robert Strong. While it appears he was gonna re-animate him anyway, his main purpose is to serve as Cersei's champion during the trial by combat. They dropped that in the show so they decided to use him for the improbable Clegane bowl
At least then the prophecy would have come true.
if you can't believe in a prophecy from fortune teller Maggy the Frog, what can you believe anymore?
This story was too intricate, too massive to devote such little time to in closing it out. I really just didn't enjoy the speedrun, i'm thoroughly unsatisfied with the ending.
Ohh Dany's dead? Ok cool, speed run to picking a new king and that's wrap! Awful.
Bran has been entirely useless the entire show. Worse yet, didn't he cause the war with the White Walkers by being touched? There's been no evidence he's useful, wise, thoughtful.
The Dany death scene sucked. Totally boring.
You hit on the major plot hole that trumps all the others IMO.
Upon finding out Jon killed Dany (however it was revealed), we're to believe the Unsullied and Dothraki agreed to chill out peacefully for a month or so until the lords of Westeros gathered to come up with a political solution to the power vacuum?
I thought Jon was going to hop on Drogon, which would somehow show Dany's armies that he was now the one to follow.
But that would have prevented the plot twist of Jon getting sent to the Night's Watch in the end - which was a reach too.
IMO a better result is Jon's ancestry is revealed, he claims power, secures peace, then abdicates the throne, allowing for Dany's oft-mentioned 'breaking the wheel'.
Then the lords of Westeros gather to decide how to elect a new ruler - no issue with choosing Bran at that point.
Then Jon could have traveled North of the wall by his own choice at the end, not bc he'd been banished there.
Link - ( New Window )
The finale could have been 4 episodes itself...
1 Episode: Dany's death / Jon's surrender / Sansa arrives
2 Episode: Formation of the council / negotiations / Bran
3 Episode: Negotiations: dothraki/unsullied exits, snow plea
4 Episode: Kings council discussion, Sansa, Jon, Arya, Tarley, Bron in their new settings
The only concept that really bugged me was that there should have been a ceremonial pact obligating each of the houses to the king succession plans.
I didn't care for Twilight
They just gave themselves an impossible task to wrap up in 13 episodes. There were some successes and failures, but I don't see any way they could have done this to make everyone happy with the time frame they gave themselves. It is what it is
Agree with this post completely. Reducing the number of episodes was the start of their writing mistakes, and I think the second mistake was further complicating things for themselves by intermingling the 2 big events into 6 episodes. Hard to resolve 2 long running plotlines driven towards the biggest battles in show history within 3 episodes of each other (especially when they also occur on 2 sides of the continent).
Yes we knew these were abbreviated seasons going in - but we obviously didn't know exactly how they were planning to pace the story. It could have just been that there wasn't enough material for full seasons. Turns out there was probably a lot more to conclude than typical 10 episode seasons (at least in s8) and the rushed timeframe impacted the writing substantially.
I also believe Winds of Winter was probably among the best episodes they ever did. Yes it was beyond the books, but all the emotional setup to that episode was done by entire character arcs built up over time. S6 started in a set place established by the books and those 10 episodes carried those stories forward at a slightly accelerate pace from what we were all accustomed to (jon not dead, cersei trial, dany struggle against the masters + winning over the dothraki again). But everything that happened in that final was earned over years - not some random spontaneous decision. Cersei + revenge + wildfire has been at her core since S1. The reunion of the North around Jon (and his lineage reveal). The masters overplaying their hand and underestimating Dany. Etc.
The start of S7 reset everything on the equivalent of a blank page and everything that played out from that point felt more to serve the purpose of ending the show as quickly as possible vs. establishing deeper motivations. Character decisions/endings felt more like justifications than natural conclusions. S7 baked in some plot events that were illogical (expedition North, Tyrion trusting Cersei) and then S8 leveraged those events as key story aspects for what came after.
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And I'm still pissed. It honestly felt like they tailor made the whole episode to appease the same demographic that watches Twilight.
I didn't care for Twilight
Last I checked you weren't a teenage girl
Were seasons 7 and 8 the same quality as the previous seasons? No. Am I still happy I got to see them? F*** yes.
There are some very valid criticisms on here and some that miss the mark. For example, someone offered the last season of the Wire as an example of a good last season of television. That does not make sense to me.
This ending is GRRM's ending, more or less. If you don't like the pacing, writing, etc., that's on the showrunners. If you don't like the substance of the ending, take it up with George.
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In comment 14449676 Anakim said:
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And I'm still pissed. It honestly felt like they tailor made the whole episode to appease the same demographic that watches Twilight.
I didn't care for Twilight
Last I checked you weren't a teenage girl
Well I liked the episode enough. So I don't follow your logic
the unsullied need a leader, they literally live to follow directions. I guess there's a chance they act out of vengeance because they can show emotion, but if they killed Grey Worm not out in the open, say with poison (not unheard of in this show) I think the Unsullied lose their edge and order.
there were not enough Dothraki left to mount a challenge IMO.
At least then the prophecy would have come true.
if you can't believe in a prophecy from fortune teller Maggy the Frog, what can you believe anymore?
Book prophecy not show prophecy
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In comment 14449679 Kyle in NY said:
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In comment 14449676 Anakim said:
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And I'm still pissed. It honestly felt like they tailor made the whole episode to appease the same demographic that watches Twilight.
I didn't care for Twilight
Last I checked you weren't a teenage girl
Well I liked the episode enough. So I don't follow your logic
Read what I wrote again
I really can't argue anybody's objections. The plotting and storytelling was not on par with the first six seasons. I'm not sure how it could have been in such a compressed time period. If that was too much to overcome for some viewers, believe me I completely understand that. I tried to still appreciate what I could. I'll be interested to see how history ends up viewing it once its rewatched down the line.
Were seasons 7 and 8 the same quality as the previous seasons? No. Am I still happy I got to see them? F*** yes.
There are some very valid criticisms on here and some that miss the mark. For example, someone offered the last season of the Wire as an example of a good last season of television. That does not make sense to me.
This ending is GRRM's ending, more or less. If you don't like the pacing, writing, etc., that's on the showrunners. If you don't like the substance of the ending, take it up with George.
That's all fair and I agree, though I do think the last season of the wire was closer to the first 4 than this was. I also thought the Wire did a better job wrapping everything up in the finale montage as we saw how so many characters had come full circle and informed how they'd become what they were in S1 in the first place.
To your last point I agree that this is probably very close to GRRM's ending and a lot of it has parallels to the way LOTR ended, which he'd always alluded to admiring. The end points for many of the characters were ok, just unsatisfying in how they got there due to the rushed writing. We are left filling in the blanks ourselves to get to make sense of some of the bigger decisions they made (the past 3 episodes especially). Why did the NK care about Bran so much? Why didn't Dany fly straight to kill Cersei - who had literally lied/betrayed her more than any other character? Why did everyone just accept Bran as the new king and the North as its' own kingdom? Would Yara especially have done the same? And probably whoever that guy from Dorne was too.
I liked the show. No complaints.
I really can't argue anybody's objections. The plotting and storytelling was not on par with the first six seasons. I'm not sure how it could have been in such a compressed time period. If that was too much to overcome for some viewers, believe me I completely understand that. I tried to still appreciate what I could. I'll be interested to see how history ends up viewing it once its rewatched down the line.
Agreed I'm in the same exact place. There were things I liked about this season and in particular I thought the 2 action episodes were as good or better than anything I've seen in a movie the last decade. The fact that the show runners took an extra year between s7 and s8, and explicitly chose to do less episodes is just salt in fresh wounds of seeing the rapid degradation of a story that many of us have followed for over a decade and also happens to be probably the last major network TV show.
Second this. Even with the leaks, I thought the story was plausible. The camera work, in some scenes, was spectacular.
the unsullied need a leader, they literally live to follow directions. I guess there's a chance they act out of vengeance because they can show emotion, but if they killed Grey Worm not out in the open, say with poison (not unheard of in this show) I think the Unsullied lose their edge and order.
there were not enough Dothraki left to mount a challenge IMO.
Save Jon from what? His absolute freedom and all he wanted at that point?
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I just came to accept the show for what it was over the past two seasons. It was changed, but ultimately still entertaining to watch. An incredible spectacle, effects and direction we may never see on television ever again. Along with tremendous acting
I really can't argue anybody's objections. The plotting and storytelling was not on par with the first six seasons. I'm not sure how it could have been in such a compressed time period. If that was too much to overcome for some viewers, believe me I completely understand that. I tried to still appreciate what I could. I'll be interested to see how history ends up viewing it once its rewatched down the line.
Agreed I'm in the same exact place. There were things I liked about this season and in particular I thought the 2 action episodes were as good or better than anything I've seen in a movie the last decade. The fact that the show runners took an extra year between s7 and s8, and explicitly chose to do less episodes is just salt in fresh wounds of seeing the rapid degradation of a story that many of us have followed for over a decade and also happens to be probably the last major network TV show.
It's very easy for me to say sitting on my couch, you watch these inside the episode features and the work, time, and dedication that has to go into producing these episodes is truly incredible. I can understand how maybe some fatigue would set in and they wanted to wrap it up. But it's always be tough for me to accept, and I'll wonder what could have been if they just committed to two more full seasons.
It's very easy for me to say sitting on my couch, you watch these inside the episode features and the work, time, and dedication that has to go into producing these episodes is truly incredible. I can understand how maybe some fatigue would set in and they wanted to wrap it up. But it's always be tough for me to accept, and I'll wonder what could have been if they just committed to two more full seasons.
Exactly. Especially since fans were pretty understanding with the extra time in between seasons and the complicated battles that took forever to shoot were done great. It was literally just extra writing/talking/character moments that probably could have even saved the exact same general plot. Though I do think they made some plot mistakes too that made their version of the story a more difficult sell than it needed to be. Reverse engineering doesn't always result in the exact result you're looking for.