Baaahaahahaha!

No idea why I think that's so funny, but I'll be damned if it isn't...

Then she burned the tarleys because they wouldn't bend the knee. Burned the khals and encourages the dothraki to brutally go after cities in her name. Her ace has always been to burn cities to the ground. If not for her advisors she would have done it already.

She's a Walter white character. A character so well liked that people ignore when they do terrible things.

What? He went 1 on 1 with Daenerys.

Yeah that's my problem. Basically breaking the 4th wall and disregarding Westerosi folklore and religions and substituting it for christian symbols.

Just dumb, all of it. Can't ****ing believe Arya has done more in the last season of this show than Jon. Dudes been relegated into a parrot at this point that shouts 'YOU'RE MY QUEEN'!!!11

LMAO
Don't even think that happened. Each time she tried he went full NOPE mode because of the aunt shit

It literally blows my mind that people are acting like Dany shouldn't go bad. It's literally been hinted at many times. People are ****ing whiners.

But I think it's kinda been established that he's the best swordsman in Westeros, or at least that's the legend. So who exactly would you have him go up against? At least in a way that isn't blatantly fan-servicy.

Sure, Jon v. Bronn would be incredibly badass, it just wouldn't make any sense. So if you're gonna build the guy up as the king shit fighter, you have to have him fighting a dozen guys to make the fight interesting.

Look at it this way - if Arthur Dayne had just whipped Howland Reed's ass, we'd have never seen how good he is, right? He needed to go 4 v 1 for the filmmakers to be able to emphasize how awesome his skills are. Well that's kinda the spot they found themselves in with Jon - he needed to fight all of creation (which he did several times) or he needed to fight something mythical, which he did when he battled one of the Walkers at Hardhomme.

I don't see a real issue there at all.

It was the act of her joy turning to ashes in her mouth playing out...

She loses her power but Jaime comes back to save her after swearing her off. And then they die. Alone, ignobly, like commoners.


I wouldn’t be surprised by a Grey Worm/Aegon 1x1 in the finale.


Maybe that was everyone’s favorite warg helping out his baby sis because she still has work to do...

Tyrion was sacrificing everything to save his sister. Why would he do that?

I thought the logic was he was trying to save the citizens.

He let Jamie go to sneak her out.

That's easy, the NK? That's who he SHOULD have faced this season. In fact if you give Jon one meaningful 1v1 that's the one it should have been period. His entire arc, story, purpose was stopping the walkers. Yet instead some faceless bitch jumps from mid air to do it while we watch Jon yell at a ****ing dragon.

And if we are talking just this episode? Euron, Golden Company's commander or some shit? Just something so the dude has something to ****ing do. They could have at least given Jon Arya's part of saving the people of King's Landing and it would have been 100x more meaningful. This shit sucks.

With the idea that she would want to save her child. It was a way out for cersei only to save the citizens from crazy bitch riding a napalm rocket. Although that was a miscalculation as well.

JMO though.

Hmmm....that'd be good to watch.

Or perhaps that's Ayra using her Faceless Man training. Those episodes had to be in there for some reason.

Earlier seasons had Jon and the NK making eye contact at multiple occasions. They knew each other. We all assumed they would meet in the end.

So when the battle is about to commence and Bran says the NK will come for him AND they think killing the NK will destroy his army they decide......to let Reek defend Bran.

Yes feeling gyped is allowed.

Tyrion would have loved to have seen Cersei's head on a stick. He simply cared more about the people than his desire though. He simply sent Jaime to see if he could end the battle before it began.

It's strange to me that people liked her so much. She's done enough selfish and annoyingly self-righteous things that I've been rooting for her ultimate demise since long before she sailed across the ocean to the seven kingdoms.

I think that's what happens when the fanbase starts creating narratives of their own. Something similar happened with S1 of True Detective, where fans got so obsessed with the mythos and theorized beyond what the show-runners ever intended - and then were livid when they didn't see their theorized outcomes.

I watched the series with my wife and our tenant (who lives in our sort of granny pod). They are both liberal and all about women's empowerment. They breezed through all 7 seasons in the span of 2 months.

Their main prediction?

"Dany's going Mad Queen in Season 8."

They were convinced of that more than anything else in the series. Dating as far back as Season 4. The seeds have been planted the entire time. Do I wish they set that up more in the tail end of Season 7? Yep. But, it's been there, it really has. The show even went out of its way to have Dany go to more cruel means of justice than the books (probably due to the lack of internal monologue). I'm as disappointed as can be about the pacing, because it prevented Game of Thrones from reaching that sort of legendary status achieved by Lord of the Rings and Breaking Bad - but pretending that they came out of nowhere with this just isn't true - in fact, they were practically broadcasting this turn for Dany throughout the first 6 seasons of the series.

has to be a reason? Taking out House Frey, avenging the Red Wedding and killing the Night King and his army of the dead isn’t enough reason for those episodes?

Perhaps not. I forgot about the Red Wedding. But she appears to be the Avenger in the family.

Dany's madness is the direction I expect the books to go as well, but the lead up to her turn has to be laid out better.

In fact, when she executed Varys, I thought they were trying to show her as a reasonable and mature leader, as looking into his eyes and giving the order to Drogon is essentially her version of Ned's "swing the sword yourself".

But when you talk about things you're forcing just to make for compelling viewing, isn't Jon v. The NK exactly that?

Seriously, in what world does it make any sense at all for a dude that can raise a zombie army to lock swords with a trained swordsman? The only reasonable way to kill him was surprise and the person most equipped to deliver that surprise was very clearly Arya.

TNK turning and going 1v1 vs. Jon would've been grounds for complaint along the lines of anything that's happened thus far. It simply wouldn't have made a damn bit of sense. You don't have Eisenhower out there dueling with some random German champion during a lull in the fighting on D-Day...

By that logic he shouldn't have ever come into the godswood.

:clap:

Ramsey?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8UqmUQ3g9M

But if you believe the narrative, his ultimate goal was in the Godswood; he was of the mind that killing the three eyed raven was central to everything he wanted to accomplish. Jon was simply an impediment to achieving his ultimate goal. There's a pretty significant distinction that's even more clear IF you believe the fan theory that perhaps the NK had taken stock of Jon and believed him to be the Azor Ahai (so he was intentionally dodging him to avoid having a prophecy fulfilled).

Now what he did there was still questionable, but he WAS surrounded by his lieutenants (as opposed to the potential conflict with Jon outside the gates), and had a seemingly helpless opponent he was able to dispatch after the rest of his crew had done the heavy lifting of killing off the Iron Born.

Again, using my strained Eisenhower narrative, it would be like if Ike found Hitler in a grove and strolled up to him with a pistol in hand while surrounded by a dozen of his top fighting men. Would it have been advisable? Well...no. But it would've been more sensible than fighting some random schmoe on the beach.

And then there is this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5o2ZlJP9K3o

Yeah, I agree that Jon used to be really important to the Long Night story, but apparently isn't anymore.

This is true of so many shows/series/trilogies, etc. etc.
1) Story becomes insanely popular
2) Episodes come slower than fan theories
3) Conclusion doesn't match millions of different fan theories
4) Fans feel like the show creators raped their childhood

Jon's best fights were against the wildlings (maybe the Thenns?). But mostly we got to see a ton of him just kicking ass in melee combat and I feel like that's the best demonstration of just how capable he is.

The interesting wrinkle is the fan theory, though. And it's a reasonable one.

What if TNK thought he was just as critical as we did? Was he critically important precisely because TNK let his guard down thinking the prophecy had been neutralized? Did he simply think the battle was won and that's why he sauntered into the Godswood?

By that viewing, Jon was huge even if it was via a misunderstanding from TNK.

agreed. I also agree that Jon v TNK would have resulted in thousands of pages of how fan-servicey it was. When these big blockbuster stories reach this level, I don't think it's possible to create a "non-controversial" conclusion. Everyone has their own ideas on how it should have gone down, and anything else is just stupid.

But I guess I do the same thing to my daughter as she is watching an episode of the Bachelor - I bash the shit out of that crap. "Seriously, she thinks she's special to him! Bullshit." ROFL

ROFLROFLROFLROFLROFL

The Arya vs NK instead of Jon vs NK argument is just a symptom that the show has gotten so big in terms of a following that you're not gonna find consensus on which choice was the correct one.

Except that Jackson changed many plot points, especially in The Two Towers.

For example:
--Eomer was never exiled from Edoras. He was imprisoned and released after Gandalf released Theoden from Saruman's spell.

--Eowyn, the women, and children, never went to Helm's Deep. They went to Dunharrow and stayed there. The folks in the Glittering Caves were the resident's of Helm's Deep, which was Erkenbrand's fortress.

--It was Erkenbrand and his 1000 foot soldiers, not Eomer that saved the day at Helm's Deep

--Helm's Dike was left out altogether

--The warg atttack and the non-sense with Aragorn falling off of a cliff NEVER happened in the book

--There were no elves other than Legolas at Helm's Deep.

--There were around 2000 men (or more) defending Helm's Deep, not 300 as shown in the movie.

These are just the big changes. Yes, it caught the spirit of the story, but that is not what I'd call a "good adaptation." I can understand leaving things out like Bombadil and the Barrow Wights, and the Scouring of the Shire...but Jackson manufactured some parts of the movie out of whole cloth (like the Dead going to Minas Tirith--Aragorn dismissed them after the Battle for Pelargir).

Nailed it.

It was Bran's decision to let Theon defend him. Everyone on the council already knew about Bran's visions. It was part of the bigger plan to lure the NK into a more vulnerable position. Unfortunately, things did not work as planned so Arya ended up saving the day. Something Bran may have seen in a vision when he gifted her the dagger.

Angry Joe just said DD was offered 10 episodes by HBO, and they turned it down.


WHAT THE ****!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!????????????????????????????????

I get feeling that way but, honestly, think it would have been lazy storytelling to have the Night King show up for a showdown 1x1 with Jon.

The Night King revealed himself because he thought he had won and it was safe.

If the defenders of Winterfell put up a masterful, classic siege defense: He doesn’t reveal himself

If Jon and his dragon (R.I.P.) are waiting in the godswood with Bran, the NK would have sent in his forces to obliterate.

The only way, really, to win the war was to let the NK think he had won.

In my mind, Bran had foreseen that. He’s playing the role of Dr. Strange in Endgame here.

We didn’t see much of the battle preparation or planning. No council discussing the plan. That leaves what they’re ultimately trying to do open to interpretation.

I saw that. They apparently said they were confident they would finish it in 6. ROFLROFLROFL

Even bigger plot points and points of irritation:

1. Aragorn was NEVER in doubt as to his heritage or claiming the throne. The mincing ranger reluctant to claim his birthright, and hiding from his heritage, as portrayed by Jackson DID NOT EXIST.

2. In the extended edition, the Witch King breaks Gandalf's staff and throws him off his horse. THAT'S ****ING BULLSHIT. The witch king did NOT do that in the books, and was NOT more powerful than Gandalf in that manner. In fact, Gandalf holds off AT LEAST four -- but more probably all nine -- at Weathertop by himself. And that was Gandalf the Grey, not Gandalf the White.

3. Frodo NEVER doubts Sam's loyalty, and does not "pick" Gollum over Sam at any point in time. Sam does want to ditch Gollum, and Frodo refuses, but that's quite a difference from what happens in the movie.

4. Frodo and Sam are more of a master and utterly loyal servant in the books. Frodo is older by quite a bit -- 50 to 30, which is barely past legal age in Hobbit years, and they are not "pals" in the way that they are in the movies, but their friendship certainly grows as they go through their trials.

5. Faramir never agrees to take Frodo and the ring to Minas Tirith in the books. Rather, he immediately lets them go, knowing the risk and consequences.

6. Minor point - Wizards don't have telekenesis, as shown in the battle between Gandalf and Saruman. I don't even much care about that, EXCEPT that it makes the "Aragorn and Frodo on the wobbling stone thing" in Moria even stupider than it already is.

7. The ents did NOT decide AGAINST fighting Saruman, and then suddenly change their mind. They do that for dramatic tension, I guess, but it's stupid in the context of the ents. They do NOT suddenly do anything, including change their minds. It sort of betrays their nature to suggest otherwise.


For the most part, I think Jackson did a great job. I do dislike some of the revisions that they made to -- I guess -- increase the dramatic tension. I think many of these revisions go against how Tolkien -- who saw things in very black/white terms -- envisioned these characters.

I dislike the -- CHANGED OUR MIND!! -- approach especially. Aragorn as to claiming his birthright. The ents as to attacking Saruman. Faramir as to releasing Frodo. It weakens the characters. Makes them stupider and/or more reluctant heroes, or even afraid to do what must be done when they know it is right. No thanks.

It's universally agreed that this is rushed. 4 episodes more would have made a HUGE difference, even for guys like me that like these episodes but still see the problems.


Besides, HBO could have had another month of subscriptions.......

That's assuming the cast and crew were willing to shoot 4 more after what sounds like an exhausting experience. Or that anyone would have been excited to shoot another season. I remember How I Met Your Mother when Jason Segel flat out checked out of the last season. Another season or 2 maybe would have done the trick, but people would still claim it was rushed and too soon and point out plot holes. For as much as people think this was rushed, I don't think there's enough appreciation for why this probably needed to end sooner rather than later.

Faramir bringing Frodo and the ring to Osgiliath is especially stupid in my mind. In the books, it's reasonably clear that Frodo and Sam's terrible march through the dead marshes and approach through Cirith Ungol results in Sauron and the Nine having no idea where they are at any point in time after he takes off the ring at Amon Hen.

As Gandalf explains, Sauron cannot conceive of the leaders of the free peoples not taking the ring up in their defense. It never occurs ot him that they are heading to Mordor to dunk the ring. In the books, the last time Frodo wears the ring is at Amon Hen, which is NorthWEST of Minas Tirith. In the movies, a Nazgul SEES him with the ring (though he doesn't wear it) at Osgiliath. That change never made any damn sense to me.

But putting them in the middle of a war zone in Osgiliath, directly EAST of Minas Tirith, where a rider SEES them, undermines the entire angle of sneaking into Mordor. He would KNOW that the ring was EAST of Minas Tirith. He would have all of his armies scouring for it, and they are already in that damn area.


Though I fully recognize only a full blown LOTR book geek could possibly care about such things.

Honestly, Kit Harrington seems done to me. He’s seemed exhausted since Season 7.

However, 8 episodes in Season 7 and 7 in Season 8 with Breaking Bad’s writing staff, and they could have swung it.

Literally? Like, literally?

We don’t really explore Sauron as a strategic player in Peter Jackson’s adaptation, for better or worse.

I have no problem with that at all. It would be good to have 2-4 more episodes, but whatever. To me, they are rushing it to end it, and it's causing detriment to the story and the characters.

Why not have Dany decide to wipe out the city for a clear reason other than Jon not kissing her back? Yes, I know, they've been foreshadowing the Mad Queen stuff, but it would have been better if there was a "tragic misunderstanding" or something. Like say, instead of the Golden Company being quite useless, how about they retreat into the city. The citizens of the city, having been sold a bill of goods by Cersei that the invaders were coming to rape them all and their kids (they DID have Dothraki in there after all) rise up and actually fight the invaders. As a result, Jon and his forces are in the fight of their lives and start getting their asses kicked...forcing Dany to go berserk and maybe she goes too far and wipes out the city worse than she really needed to. And THAT causes her victorious allies to look at her funny. It seems all the wasted time on the battle (battles...) could have been paired down so that you see what Cersei is planning and how the city will be defended.

How about a few more minutes devoted to Euron, making him a bad guy that we actually give a shit about seeing die instead of just some wanker who nobody cares about? I understand that they didn't have time to build him up to like Bolton status, but damn, make him more than meh. Then when Dany rides in to wipe out his fleet, have him get wiped out with them in some awesome display from an armored Drogon maybe. Don't have to show them making the armor, hell, just say they are going to do it after the other dragon bit it. It could be a suggestion by Tyrion. Whatever.

How about Arya killing Cersei, who is joined by a dying Jaime and they both die in each other's arms kinda Shakesperian tradgedy style? It wouldn't have taken that much time to tweak it to make it interesting instead of nothing...

And on and on. It's just lazy writing. I have no problem with where they are going, it's just how they are getting there is lazy and empty. I find myself giving a shit only because I'm supposed to, not because of what they are showing me.

It is what it is, but there is no way anyone can say with a straight face that this is anywhere near the "best" season of GoT. I would say it's really the worst, because of how important it is and how they are rushing through it.

Cersie is dead.

Jon has never been labeled the best fighter, it was well known Robb was a much better fighter than him and not even Robb was ever labeled the best fighter in Westeros... that was Jaime, after Sir Arthur Dayne.

The Mad Queen has always been about fire and blood but their advisors talked her down. They failed her the last two seasons, she found out there was a better heir that people loved more, and she knew she had to make people fear her.

(Barristan Selmy, then the rest)

This.

Not at this stage of the game. Robb, Dayne, Selmy - all dead. Jaime is missing a hand. Nobody said best EVER, but he's developed the reputation as the best around. Moreover, I think the show has taken great pains to actually show his development as hes become among the most experienced soldiers around. Hes clearly progressed a great deal since Book 1 when he and Robb were kids. Nearly a decade of fighting/training will do that.

I believe it was Ramsay that said to him immediately prior to the Battle of the Bastards that hes heard Jon is the best fighter in Westeros. It stands to reason that his skills have come a long way as hes been through more and more battles.

Anyone else weirded out about how different Zombie Mountain Clegane looked? Like maybe he should be at a pie eating contest instead?

He kind of looked like Blaster from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome

My first thought was Baron Harkonnen...

There's no issue at all.

Jon's fought tons of people, including Qorin Halfhand, Ramsay and a literal White ****ing Walker. He's more of a reluctant leader than a fighter anyway, although he's clearly capable of both just like his father.

Ramsay straight up refused to fight him prior to the Battle of the Bastards because Jon's swordsmanship has basically reached legendary levels in the North.

I love how even Sandor seemed apprehensive about possibly having to fight him.

It's become apparent that half the bitching in this thread isn't even about particularly bad writing, though there has been tons of it; instead it's about the story not unfolding the way you want it to.

Jon didn't 1v1 the Night King LMAO dawg...

It's not surprising in the least that Daenerys went crazy. They've been dropping little crazy crumbs all throughout the story.

It's not surprising that Jaime ran back to Cersei. It's what he's done every chance he's gotten.

Ultimately, no matter how people get there, I think all of this has to do with everyone just feeling a little ripped off that we clearly didn't get enough episodes to send this show off properly, nothing more. This last season HAS been rushed, even if it has had some amazing visuals and sequences.

That, and people just don't want it to end. JMO

To me, it's mainly a matter of lacking nuance, and that goes pretty broadly. As a couple of obvious examples:

"Stay in the crypts. You'll be safe there." (repeat multiple times)
"When the bells ring, you'll spare the innocent, right?" (repeat multiple times)

Both of those are foreshadowing, but would anyone really say that it was done WELL? Similarly, Dany's turn has been "foreshadowed" thoroughly if you're satisfied with all the times she's said "I'll burn the city to the ground." Sure, that's technically foreshadowing, but it would have been much more effective if we'd seen her progressively getting angrier in small outbursts over the past few seasons or something.

Another example would be Arya offing the NK. Do I hate the fact that she's the one to do it? Nope. But I'm not a fan of her just disappearing from the screen for 20+ minutes and then just randomly showing up flying through the air out of nowhere. Where are the logical set of steps that led to the outcome?

Some would call it nitpicking, but it's the difference in OK storytelling and great storytelling. And until we ran out of book material, we were pretty spoiled. Do I blame D&D for not being as good as GRRM? Absolutely not. That's not what they were hired for. But I don't think it's unreasonable for people to be disappointed nonetheless.

IF they wanted to subvert expectations about who killed the Night King, I would of went with Theon and he dies afterwards. Jon the big hero doesn't get to do it but it complete Theon's story arc and leaves the audience feeling good instead of a kinda WTF.

Looked more like Zombie Varys, but I could see how Varys Bowl would be less exciting to watch.

<iframe src="https://giphy.com/embed/lstg1vM8MGTF6" width="480" height="289" frameBorder="0" class="giphy-embed" allowFullScreen></iframe><p><a href="https://giphy.com/gifs/lstg1vM8MGTF6">via GIPHY</a></p>

(not flipping you off with the gif, KCU. lol)

He looked a bit better and slightly less bloated than Artie Lange in 2016.

Gregor looked like a younger and less garish version of King Kong Bundy

I read somewhere that the characters used to drive the plot and since they've seemingly just gotten tired of the show the plot now drives the characters.

I'm currently rewatching the series, somewhere in season 4 and it's just a totally different ****ing experience.

The bells things was soooooo heavy handed lol can't even deny it.

I have no problem with people having issues with the show. Shit, I have problems with the show. Just certain critiques really rub me the wrong way.

lol imagine if Theon Greyjoy had killed the Night King

Looked like my brother's girlfriend after a bender

And some clearasil

And Visine

this has been known for a long time. HBO talked about it publicly when the times and number of episodes was announced. They had a $100 million budget and offered to fund the additional episodes at the same rate. All the actors were onboard. D&D are soley to blame for only 6 episodes. They said publicly at the time that they were tried and it was time to move on.

It actually makes some thematic sense. The place where he made his greatest mistake is also the place he did his greatest deed.

They've been doing this for 10+ years. My guess is that they are all ready to move along. Star Wars is waitin' bitches! :)

How ****ing stupid are they?

Turn away work that everyone on the planet is watching. ****ing idiots.

Star Wars money. But if this season gets really bad reviews then those movies might be in development limbo till the contract runs out.

This. Said better than i did above.

in real life the dude still holds the strongest man in the world title. You ever seen the dudes workout videos? Makes you tired just watching.