LogFAQs > #922327175

More I think about it the more I think the real problems here (apart from in general the last two seasons needing to be the full 20 episodes) stemmed from episodes 4 and the first half of 5.

In that, like, 110-minute period of TV, Daenerys:

-Had a funeral for Jorah, her oldest/closest friend who died in front of her
-Watched Jon be infinitely more beloved by like everyone in Westeros while she was completely alone in that celebration scene
-Had Jon reject her at Winterfell
-Saw Rhaegal die
-Saw Missandei die
-Had Jon reject her again at Dragonstone, and realized once and for all that she didn't have any love in Westeros, only fear, with nobody around to tell her how to fix that/with her totally unwilling to listen
-Found out that Jon told Sansa despite begging him not to
-Found out that Tyrion told Varys without consulting her about it
-Killed Varys, leaving her with only a conflicted Tyrion and a murderous Grey Worm as advisers.

That's a lot of stuff to happen to a character in less than an episode and a half. This season wasn't anywhere near as hated up to The Long Night, which was divisive but I wouldn't say particularly loathed, but episode 4 particularly is the real perpetrator here. You can have her massacre in episode 5 go down exactly the way it did with very few problems if the stuff in the previous episode and a half is given room to breathe and build. That would solve so many of the problems.

Instead the finale - which I genuinely think was well-made and had excellent scenes and moments and tied everything off pretty well - suffered on the back of a "rushed" character development and was left in a position impossible to fix.

So really the problems with this season, once you accept that it's only 6 episodes (which was a dumb choice) boil down to that episode-and-a-half period imo.
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Not to be confused with XIII_Stones.