Can we just stop and talk about the best moment of this episode for a minute - where right as Clegane Bowl is about to start and the Mountain has killed Qyburn, Cersei is just like, "Well clearly this is none of my business," and just peaces out? LMAO!!! Somehow this scene was both hilarious and exactly fitting for Cersei, and for the Hound and the Mountain to just ignore her because they are so focused on each other.
That was my favorite. It was like "ope, lemme just squeeze past ya to get some mayo" at the grocery store 🤣
I'm sad that all these wonderful tv shows choke in the final seasons. It's almost like they overestimate their cleverness. So many plot points could have more layers added to them. We don't need a watered down version of the story.
For example, when killing the NK, they could have had a stark alliance take him down. While Bran sat as bait, Jon on Rhaegal(RIP) rain fire and while the NK aims his spear to take him, Arya could have stabbed him.
Euron who is possibly the most useless character on TV has so much history with Yara. And it has no payoff. Why did Theon rescue Yara? I thought it was for a rival Greyjoy fleet to show up. Why did Euron kill Jaime? They have no history together and their fight was so pointless. Why did Cersei tell Euron she is pregnant with his child? why did Euron never mention that after Tyrion outs it?
IDK, there are so many amazing possibilities and the current story is so monotonous and simplistic.
euron - with their fight, i expected at least a “the queen is pregnant with my child” and the Jamie just starts laughing at him and tells him that no, it’s not his kid.
There was “nothing”’about that scene and it was pointless, especially as Jamie goes on to find Cersei and they both die. Um.... ok.
I actually loved that Jaime was the one who killed Euron and got to confront him I do wish the writers would have done a bit more with Jaime's arc as far as him seeing the writing on the wall about Dany wanting to burn the city down and him noping the hell out of there since that was why he killed the Mad king but I also agree with the premise of the article that i posted last night, that he couldn't escape his nature in the end and he was born with Cersei and knew he would die with her as well.
I feel like the writers don’t know what they’re doing with Arya. She’s been hellbent on killing Cersei since season 1. The idea that she’d get all the way to the Red Keep and turn around because the Hound tells her to is...odd.
I 100% believe that since we didn’t literally see Jaime and Cersei get crushed, they’re still alive. They’ll come back.
They will come back with Stannis and Lady Stoneheart by their side.
(i can't tell if you are joking or not, BTW)
I’m kinda 50/50 on joking. I can definitely see them climbing out of the rumble. Whether or not they’ll do it in the very last episode with so much to wrap up idk. But I feel like someone literally killing Cersei would have been the way they’d go vs her getting crushed. And boo on Jaime. I thought he went to kill her.
I feel like the writers don’t know what they’re doing with Arya. She’s been hellbent on killing Cersei since season 1. The idea that she’d get all the way to the Red Keep and turn around because the Hound tells her to is...odd.
She didn't kill half the people on her list. Sandor, Beric and Melisandre all helped her during the Battle of Winterfell and she helped bury Beric.
Really the only people she has killed from her list are Meryn Trant and Walder Frey.
I feel like the writers don’t know what they’re doing with Arya. She’s been hellbent on killing Cersei since season 1. The idea that she’d get all the way to the Red Keep and turn around because the Hound tells her to is...odd.
I agree with this 10000% As soon as I saw her get on that horse and ride away. That was never Arya's character to give up like that. I kept thinking that she made it look like she was going back after he talks to her and then she shows up and kills Cercei or something....anything. But this whole episode was a disaster.
I also don't think they know what to do with Jon's character. Two major episodes and battles and he was irrelevant. They better have him make up for it this last episode by actually killing Dany.
The real tragedy is that Robert Baratheon was right.
Noble Ned Stark could take-up war but would not abide the murder of Targaryen children. We now understand that he was desperately shielding his own nephew from being targeted for murder. But Robert said Dany and her brother should be killed and even ordered it in season 1.
Dany lived. Look what happened.
She came back on a dragon and burned the city and everyone who lives there.
This is a little, "a stopped clock is right twice a day." No one REALLY could have predicted exactly that. Robert was just trying to legitimize his power, not save innocent people in KL.
I feel like the writers don’t know what they’re doing with Arya. She’s been hellbent on killing Cersei since season 1. The idea that she’d get all the way to the Red Keep and turn around because the Hound tells her to is...odd.
I agree with this 10000% As soon as I saw her get on that horse and ride away. That was never Arya's character to give up like that. I kept thinking that she made it look like she was going back after he talks to her and then she shows up and kills Cercei or something....anything. But this whole episode was a disaster.
I also don't think they know what to do with Jon's character. Two major episodes and battles and he was irrelevant. They better have him make up for it this last episode by actually killing Dany.
I really thought she'd go back to help our the Hound, since he wouldn't be able to defeat the undead Mountain (or the living Mountain, come to that) in hand to hand combat.
My initial reaction to Dany burning the whole city was anger. I honestly never imagined her doing that for no reason. To win the throne - perhaps. But she won and she still destroyed everything and killed so many innocents? Why? What does she hope to do with the aftermath? How can she even take the throne when she's destroyed it and the majority of the people who she would have ruled? It just makes no sense to me, unless the explanation really is just "bitches be crazy". But that's a disappointing end to her story. She was so much more than just being insane.
After some thought, I think the pacing is really what killed it for me. I think the arc of the hero becoming the villain is an interesting one, actually, but I felt like it was really abrupt. Sure, Dany showed some signs of cruelty in the past and was ruthless when it came to enforcing her power. But she lives in a world where people are constantly being executed for failure to obey and for betraying. Many/most of our other favorite characters have also shown little mercy when punishing those who have crossed them (I guess burning and crucifying people is worse than beheading or slitting throats, but only marginally IMO since they all end up dead). Nothing about Dany stood out, to me, as indicating that she was going to go nuts and just kill a ton of people who had done nothing to deserve it. If anything I felt like most of her story talked about freeing people from tyranny, breaking the cycle of abuse by those in power, and creating a better world and being better than her father. This is a huge departure from who she thought she was. Maybe I just missed all the signs and maybe I'm too much of an optimist, but I think there should have been more deliberate character development toward this than just some foreshadowing.
I am not surprised at all that Jaime went back for Cersei - I posted that last week. He can try to be a good guy all he wants, but he was never going to be a good guy and was never going to quit Cersei. I actually thought their ending was very fitting and well done.
I don't know what I want to happen now. I want Dany to be killed, and I think dragons should also not exist anymore. They are too dangerous. I was shocked and sad last week when one was shot out of the sky, but the devastation this week changed my feelings on that. I don't honestly know how Jon would kill her. She doesn't trust him anymore and I don't know how he's going to get near her. I wonder if Arya will kill someone in her guard and take their face. I feel like that would be a really good payoff for all the face stealing plot that we had to sit through to get to this point, but I also feel doubtful that Arya is going to save the world again (too convenient). So I have no idea. After this episode, I am doubting we get a satisfying ending. But I also guess I never truly believed that we WOULD get an ending that seemed satisfying. I don't mean due to poor writing/planning (though that appears to be an issue) but because I don't think the good guys are going to win and it turns out maybe all humans are shit if they are given power. That's not satisfying at all but I guess it's also probably realistic.
I don't think this episode is really that rewatchable. The battle of winterfell was, but maybe because it was so strictly good vs. evil (which people criticized as not being consistent with the point of the show). But this was just, "everyone is awful again" and Drogon dracarys-ing Kings Landing for like 45 minutes. It was beautifully filmed, especially the Arya and Cleganebowl parts, but much more difficult to watch than Winterfell, IMO.
I don’t know how people didn’t see Dany get to this point. Yes this season was rushed but there were hints throughout the series. One can be good and also have a bad side. Throughout the whole series it was always repeated that she was not like her father. from that alone, I knew that she would become him at one point.
I also don’t understand this whole appropriate ending for Cersei. What?! After all the shit she has done?! Why the fuck give her a nice way to go out?? If Anyone deserved a ruthless death it sure as hell was her. This was a cop out and what has me the most angry. The audience deserved a better demise than this.
I don’t know how people didn’t see Dany get to this point. Yes this season was rushed but there were hints throughout the series. One can be good and also have a bad side. Throughout the whole series it was always repeated that she was not like her father. from that alone, I knew that she would become him at one point.
I also don’t understand this whole appropriate ending for Cersei. What?! After all the shit she has done?! Why the fuck give her a nice way to go out?? If Anyone deserved a ruthless death it sure as hell was her. This was a cop out and what has me the most angry. The audience deserved a better demise than this.
YES! I agree. I get it - the symbolism of her and Jamie dying together. But really??? Why does she get a death where she's "loved"
If Jamie cant escape his nature and that's believable, then why is it so hard to believe Dany cant escape hers? If you didn't see this coming, you havent been paying attention to the patterns of characters. There were some unnecessary scenes (fuck off, Euron), but I think they nailed it.
Can we all agree that the issue is the pacing/compression/whatever?
I don’t know how people didn’t see Dany get to this point. Yes this season was rushed but there were hints throughout the series. One can be good and also have a bad side. Throughout the whole series it was always repeated that she was not like her father. from that alone, I knew that she would become him at one point.
I also don’t understand this whole appropriate ending for Cersei. What?! After all the shit she has done?! Why the fuck give her a nice way to go out?? If Anyone deserved a ruthless death it sure as hell was her. This was a cop out and what has me the most angry. The audience deserved a better demise than this.
I don't think getting crushed to death under a huge pile of rock is a nice death though? I think if she and Dany did have a face to face moment where she got blasted by fire, people would be mad at how contrived it was.
I know i sound like a broken record here, but I really think that the writers were in a no-win situation. GRRM set up this huge story with tons of characters and backgrounds and dynamics, with no hint on how he would wrap it up, the showrunners are trying to navigate all of it while dealing with budget and time constraints, filming with a huge number of cast members, settings, CGI, etc. GRRM is in a great position now because IF he ever finishes the books, he already knows how people have reacted to the TV show and can change his storyline accordingly. And in fairness, GRRM wrote a lot of really crazy stuff in the earlier books that audiences were totally okay with suspending disbelief over.
She made an example of the Capitol. When she told jon I will have love or fear and she said...fear it is then. She made her decision. They will burn. It's not suprised. She torched those dothraki widows shes crucified people I have slowly watched her become paranoid the closer she gets to the throne. She is the mother of dragons and a survivor but she also an inbred Targaryen with madness in her DNA. You push and push and take and take from her you betray her she suffers losses she is not unbreakable. I was expecting this. In fact I've known she would go mad early on. I'm here for it. I watched her rise and I'll see her fall.
I don’t know how people didn’t see Dany get to this point. Yes this season was rushed but there were hints throughout the series. One can be good and also have a bad side. Throughout the whole series it was always repeated that she was not like her father. from that alone, I knew that she would become him at one point.
I also don’t understand this whole appropriate ending for Cersei. What?! After all the shit she has done?! Why the fuck give her a nice way to go out?? If Anyone deserved a ruthless death it sure as hell was her. This was a cop out and what has me the most angry. The audience deserved a better demise than this.
I don't think getting crushed to death under a huge pile of rock is a nice death though? I think if she and Dany did have a face to face moment where she got blasted by fire, people would be mad at how contrived it was.
I know i sound like a broken record here, but I really think that the writers were in a no-win situation. GRRM set up this huge story with tons of characters and backgrounds and dynamics, with no hint on how he would wrap it up, the showrunners are trying to navigate all of it while dealing with budget and time constraints, filming with a huge number of cast members, settings, CGI, etc. GRRM is in a great position now because IF he ever finishes the books, he already knows how people have reacted to the TV show and can change his storyline accordingly. And in fairness, GRRM wrote a lot of really crazy stuff in the earlier books that audiences were totally okay with suspending disbelief over.
Yea but who got their justice? The rocks? Ok. I feel like she got away without having to face the people she hurt, in the arms of the person she loved. No one would even know for sure if she died. What a let down.
Olenna Tyrell had a more cruel death and she was a supreme bad ass (a good one).
If Jamie cant escape his nature and that's believable, then why is it so hard to believe Dany cant escape hers? If you didn't see this coming, you havent been paying attention to the patterns of characters. There were some unnecessary scenes (fuck off, Euron), but I think they nailed it.
Can we all agree that the issue is the pacing/compression/whatever?
I agree. I think it was always headed for Jon to live and be the hero and Dany to die by the end. I think they're trying to get the pieces in place and if they had another season it would have come together a little better.
One of the pods keeps saying they wonder if this is the crumbling of the existing system in Westeros and maybe they will set up a democracy or some other kind of government and I feel like it's kind of set up nicely for that if it goes in that direction. Most of the major families are wiped out, the seat of power for the monarchy is destroyed etc. Maybe they do a democracy and Jon is the George Washington of Westeros lol
I overall liked the episode, and was glad Dany burned the city because that's the kind of awful act that GRRM would write. Her arc has been too rushed, but it's no surprise that she is where she is now - Mad Queen, ruling over fear, unstable, and irrational. Dh reminded me of her prophecy vision at the HotU when she sees the Iron Throne with falling ashes and rubble all around. Watch here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=gulVUWrADCM
While I am glad Arya was not the one to kill Cersei, I'm pissed and disappointed that she didn't at least try. It was uncharacteristic of her (IMO) to suddenly listen to reason (Hound), become afraid of dying, and pivot to leave. I would have liked to see her set out to find Cersei even after Hound's warning, but fail. Like maybe she goes to follow him up the stairs but gets blocked by a pile of rubble, or her path is on fire and she begrudgingly has to abort mission. I know she respected the Hound but A Girl would not so easily abandon her goal like that.
Cersei scooting past Cleganebowl was fabulous. "Oh hai, I'd love to stay and chat but I think I left my straightener plugged in, so.... yep, 'scuse me, I'mma just squeeze...."
I HATE that Jaime took legit kill shots TWICE by Euron and then walked outta there. NO. The stabs were too good for that nonsense. I do not like that he and Cersei get buried. She should have died by Scorpion or Wildfyre if not by a little brother. Although I guess you could say she did die by a little brother since Tyrion directed the escape and Jaime physically got her there. And I guess you could say his hands were "around" her neck at the end? Meh.
My ultimate ending (not a happy one, but a worthy one), I think, would be something like this: - Mad Queen Dany - Arya will try to kill Dany but Dany kills her instead - Dany kills Sansa for treason - Dany kills Jon for any number of reasons - Dany thinks she has wiped out the Starks, but she forgets about Bran. - Cut scene to Bran staring at the tree. Bran wargs into a new Night King and hopes to erase history of these events, bring peace, avenge his family, etc. - Some ambiguous ending scene that leads you to believe it's starting all over with BranNightKing bringing a Long Night / Winter to end Targaryan rule, a heroic plan that will be misunderstood hundreds of years from now when everyone fears him instead of her.
I don't think getting crushed to death under a huge pile of rock is a nice death though? I think if she and Dany did have a face to face moment where she got blasted by fire, people would be mad at how contrived it was.
I know i sound like a broken record here, but I really think that the writers were in a no-win situation. GRRM set up this huge story with tons of characters and backgrounds and dynamics, with no hint on how he would wrap it up, the showrunners are trying to navigate all of it while dealing with budget and time constraints, filming with a huge number of cast members, settings, CGI, etc. GRRM is in a great position now because IF he ever finishes the books, he already knows how people have reacted to the TV show and can change his storyline accordingly. And in fairness, GRRM wrote a lot of really crazy stuff in the earlier books that audiences were totally okay with suspending disbelief over.
Yea but who got their justice? The rocks? Ok. I feel like she got away without having to face the people she hurt, in the arms of the person she loved. No one would even know for sure if she died. What a let down.
Olenna Tyrell had a more cruel death and she was a supreme bad ass (a good one).
She did die begging for the life of her unborn child...on mothers day.
Yea but who got their justice? The rocks? Ok. I feel like she got away without having to face the people she hurt, in the arms of the person she loved. No one would even know for sure if she died. What a let down.
Olenna Tyrell had a more cruel death and she was a supreme bad ass (a good one).
She did die begging for the life of her unborn child...on mothers day.
And that's the thing about life, not everyone gets what they deserve or 'justice' and sometimes people are complicated and make stupid decisions (see: jaime). Certainly Dany knew that Cersei would die in her seige on King's Landing and that was what she wanted anyway.
And though the writing was terrible, I loved the way the episode was directed. It truly captured the horrors of war and made it clear that Dany needs to go. I loved Qyburn's death. I loved Emilia's acting right before Dany went mad. I loved the shock on Jon's face while he killed a fellow Northman. I like that they took the perspective of Arya, a hardened killer who was completely shaken by the horror. But also, why didn't Arya fight with Sandor and then leave after they fell? Why just waste Arya as a witness?? idk
Even though Arya was an assassin, she's not really a soldier. She failed assassin school because she didn't want to kill people who she didn't think deserved it. In those scenes in KL she was seeing innocent people being burnt alive, and I'm not surprised that it was difficult for her, based on what we know about her character.
I also liked that Sandor talked her out of killing Cersei. I mean, people talked about how she shouldn't have been the one to kill the NK, but there were definitely so many other people who had a reason to kill Cersei. I like that she realized that her drive for revenge was going to destroy her, and she was able to pull back.
I don’t know how people didn’t see Dany get to this point. Yes this season was rushed but there were hints throughout the series. One can be good and also have a bad side. Throughout the whole series it was always repeated that she was not like her father. from that alone, I knew that she would become him at one point.
I also don’t understand this whole appropriate ending for Cersei. What?! After all the shit she has done?! Why the fuck give her a nice way to go out?? If Anyone deserved a ruthless death it sure as hell was her. This was a cop out and what has me the most angry. The audience deserved a better demise than this.
I really agree with this. And I think that the final break has a lot to do with the enormity of her recent losses -- Jorah, Missandei, two of her three dragons -- and her realization that no matter what she was told all her life about how people in the Seven Kingdoms secretly loved and honored her family (which I think part of her wanted to believe she could earn even if she knew it wasn't actually true), no matter how she was received on the other side of the ocean (as the breaker of chains, Mother, etc.), no matter that she put aside politics to fight against the NK before Cersei, she is never going to find the love and respect that she wants so badly. Not on this side of the ocean.
I think if Jorah and Missandei were still alive, she would not have burned the city. Or if she felt that the people of KL/the kingdoms would accept her as a benevolent hero-savior like other places had and felt secure that she would be preferred as queen even if Jon was a known option -- I don't think she would have burned the city then, either. But with both those things not happening, having the city surrender didn't give her the satisfaction that she wanted, and so she took it out on the city both for being robbed of people she loved, and for the city not loving her.
Dany has been ruthless for a long time. She burned all the horse lords so she could take over the Dothraki, she crucified the masters against the advice of Ser Barristan -- those seemed reasonable to us as an audience because we felt she was on the side of right and her opponents weren't innocents. But if you're up for mass murder of the people who oppose you, it doesn't take much for anyone who isn't gung-ho for you to feel like an opponent -- and we've been seeing that build all season, where nearly everyone around her feels like an opponent now. I think that's what we got, this episode. But even though it's worse in Westeros than it has been before, she has a long record of not knowing how to earn the loyalty, or at least the cooperation, of people who disagree with her without threatening to kill them or killing others as an example of what happens to people who oppose her.
I think she's going to die, but there's a part of me that ponders the possibility that she might peace out back to Mereen with Drogon, shack up with Daario and basically say "go fuck yourselves, you won't have Dany Targaryen to kick around anymore" to the Seven Kingdoms and let them sort it out amongst themselves. It would be an option, if she wasn't so obsessed with the Iron Throne. Which she probably destroyed when she took out so much of the keep.
I’m super pissed right now. Flying up to destroy Cersei? Yes. But destroying the entire kingdom? That’s not what she would do. We haven’t seen her character change THAT much.
Now Jon is definitely going to have to kill her.
But we have seen glimpses of it - burning the Tarly's, burning the people in Mereen, etc. It's all been leading up to this and the repeating of the phrase that when a Targaryen is born, the Gods flip a coin. It's all been leading to this. And it's not like GRRM didn't give D&D his outline for the plot lines. I seriously doubt that if/when GRRM finishes the series it'll have an entirely different ending.
I totally am convinced the white walkers arent over.
This is where I am too. I feel like Jon will do what has to be done, he'll head for the north to be with Tormund and the free folk and find evidence they're still around. I have zero proof nor have I looked at spoilers, but watching his face last night made me feel like he'll want to be done with all of this.