Board 8 > Game of Thrones Season 8: Final Topic [spoilers]

(+) Yeah! (+)

Bran has been shown to be able to go back in time and drive people insane.

I still want to think that he's behind the madness of the mad king Aerys and maybe the psychic fragility of Lysa Arryn as well.
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PerfectChaosZ posted...

Im tentatively coming to accept the ending with Bran as King. Its not amazing but its a compromise like Tyrion said. What makes it easier is the Evil Bran memes which make so much sense. How much did Bran have to set up to end up where he was at the end? I wish wed got to see a glimpse of it but it pretty much completely stopped telling us what Bran was thinking and stopped showing us any of his dream walking visions anymore which just feeds into the Bran is evil theory that he was up to no good.

If we make Bran is evil cannon, can we speculate on the true motivation of the Night King? Maybe he was only trying to help, to stop Bran before it was too late, in his own way and considered anyone who died collateral damage to saving the realm as a whole. The only clue we get is from Bran and the other raven- he wants to kill them. But after he succeeded what if he had just stopped?

I mean, I think its way more reasonable to think that Bran is evil only in the sense that he was willing to do whatever it took to take the throne. Maybe even that he actually agreed with Dany that lives needed to be sacrificed to bring peace to Westros. But I dont think theres anything remotely suggesting that hes evil in the sense that hes some mustache twirling villain that the Night King, of all prople, was trying to save Westros from.
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I think Bran as king is fine, but personally I've never cared much who actually ended up king/queen at the end. The fun of the series was about seeing how the cast's desire for the throne made them turn Westeros into a shitshow. Plus I like the idea of all the 'real' candidates self-destructing so badly that the best choice at the end - excepting Jon, but he doesn't want it in the slightest - is someone who didn't do anything to get the throne.
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https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/amp/live-feed/game-thrones-sequel-is-not-an-option-hbo-series-finale-1212749

Looks like they are ruling out any Arya spinoff.

I was pretty sure GRRM had already said all the spinoffs currently written were prequels of some level or other, with the one furthest along being the Long Night.
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Maybe not but God-King Bran who will live for a thousand years and has a thousand eyes who watches the lives of those in his kingdom for any who might speak out or displease him, who controls a dragon with his mind, who can take you over and force you to do anything, who will rule eternally as a tyrant in vengeance for the raw hand he got early.

I think the 3 eyed raven would probably think he'd be the best king, given he is above mortal pursuits and has nigh-omnipotence.
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Humans that think like that tend to be evil

But he is beyond humanity!

Or so he's led us to believe
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foolm0r0n posted...

Did people want the Cleganes to like quip at each other in between sword swings, or have some big flashback to their childhood or something? And these are the same people who complain that the show is TOO anime already.

They literally fought to the death in a crumbling tower surrounded by a dragon, what more could you want?

an emotional climax for their relationship?

The Hound came with something to resolve, but he may as well have been fighting a robot, or 100 normal soldiers, or a wight, for how relevant this opponent was to his inferiority complex. Not resolving his issues because the Mountain just isn't capable of giving him what he wants or needs actually is a reasonable way to frame the situation, too, but they didn't even really do that either.

Cleganebowl definitely happened, and provided an ending. But is that good enough? Did it provide a satisfying resolution to a series long plotline, matching the quality of that plotline? Does wrapping up a plotline with a scene like this really mean it's resolved?

Compare this to the scene where The Hound fights Brienne and Arya leaves him to die slowly. Was that a satisfying end for the Hound? Does this scene make bringing the Hound back from that end worth it?

"That's all you ever were" is probably the best thing about the scene, but IMO it's not enough to call it a success. It hints at their relationship, and that's it.
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The fact that the mountain was a zombie already for years, and before that a total sociopath brute always made me wonder why people wanted cleganebowl so badly to begin with. As the hound noted, the mountain had no humanity in him to begin with. The only emotional satisfaction would ever be in knowing you stopped him from harming anyone else again. And of course the fight between a giant zombie man and another giant but not quite as giant brute would suck. The oberyn fight was great because of the contrast between them, an emotional and clever man with a quick and fluid fighting style going against pure brute force. Cleganebowl was always going to be that the hound is shittier at the same kind of fighting, so obviously he will just get his ass kicked until he pulls something out of it.

Unsurprisingly, it seems that AOC and Elizabeth Warren were "Yas queen" Dany stans who were disappointed that "a woman isn't running the world."

What awful people.
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Nrrr posted...

The fact that the mountain was a zombie already for years, and before that a total sociopath brute always made me wonder why people wanted cleganebowl so badly to begin with. As the hound noted, the mountain had no humanity in him to begin with. The only emotional satisfaction would ever be in knowing you stopped him from harming anyone else again. And of course the fight between a giant zombie man and another giant but not quite as giant brute would suck. The oberyn fight was great because of the contrast between them, an emotional and clever man with a quick and fluid fighting style going against pure brute force. Cleganebowl was always going to be that the hound is shittier at the same kind of fighting, so obviously he will just get his ass kicked until he pulls something out of it.

This is why I've never really cared for the whole Cleganebowl concept much despite the Hound being probably my favourite character. Gregor isn't a fleshed out enough character for us to even know what he thinks of his younger brother besides that he burned his face once, but the Mountain has a hair trigger temper at the best of times so no one knows if that was a sign of genuine hatred or just him snapping as he tends to do. And even if he was, he's been dead for ages. Gregor Clegane died from injuries suffered against Oberyn and having his corpse walking around doesn't make him the person Sandor has a lifelong grudge against. That guy is long gone. It's hard to feel much emotion about it with that in mind
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CoolCly posted...

Compare this to the scene where The Hound fights Brienne and Arya leaves him to die slowly. Was that a satisfying end for the Hound? Does this scene make bringing the Hound back from that end worth it?

Uh yeah, Cleganebowl was 10/10 and the best part of the season easy

Whether or not Gregor was still 'all there' doesn't matter - the fact that he still existed in any capacity (and he did still exist to an extent, which is why he ignored Qyburn's orders in favor of fighting Sandor) was enough for Sandor to want to continue his obsessive revenge. If anything, it gave what he said to Arya even that much more weight - don't end up like Sandor did, so consumed by revenge that the only thing left in his life is the burning desire to kill a ghost.

Also him killing Gregor by burning them both to ashes is the best, most fitting death in the series.
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Nelson_Mandela posted...

Unsurprisingly, it seems that AOC and Elizabeth Warren were "Yas queen" Dany stans who were disappointed that "a woman isn't running the world."

What awful people.

Wow. What was their take on Avengers?
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Imagine being disappointed about how your favorite character ended up and complaining about it on the internet. Who among us would even contemplate such a thing?
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PerfectChaosZ posted...

Maybe not but God-King Bran who will live for a thousand years and has a thousand eyes who watches the lives of those in his kingdom for any who might speak out or displease him, who controls a dragon with his mind, who can take you over and force you to do anything, who will rule eternally as a tyrant in vengeance for the raw hand he got early.

Sure, thats one possible future. Sounds like a good start to some fan fiction!
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Yea
More I think about it the more totally on board I am with that finale

Felt like it definitively ended and despite previous episodes feeling rushed, this didn't to me. I know a lot of stuff happened but whereas previously teleporting Varys/Littlefinger/Daenerys was a weird thing, it made sense to timeskip to the Dragonpit meeting, to the first small council meeting, to the montage of the Starks/Jon, so that wasn't an issue to me (if timeskips were even still an issue at this point) and the meaty non-wrapup stuff got enough time to breathe (possibly too much, could have done with less Tyrion walking through the street). More and more on board with the first Tyrion/Jon scene every time I watch it, I think that may go down as one of the show's better dialogue scenes. And the Jon/Daenerys scene which is great considering it's two actors who I wouldn't say were among the best in the show, but I think they did a really great job with that scene. And the score, obviously, particularly when Drogon carries her away. The slower notes towards the end as Drogon disappears are really beautiful and tragic to me.

Sure it's not without complaints, but I liked it when I first watched it and giving it further thought has made me like it even more, not less.
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One thing I'll kind of give them credit for is that there weren't really any major loose ends. Drogon was the biggest one, but at least Bran alluded to that being something he was going to look into.

I guess the only outstanding unknowns/mysteries left unexplained were maybe the supernatural/lore/gods stuff? But that wasn't necessarily a major plot point beyond conjecture.
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Nelson_Mandela posted...

One thing I'll kind of give them credit for is that there weren't really any major loose ends. Drogon was the biggest one, but at least Bran alluded to that being something he was going to look into.

I guess the only outstanding unknowns/mysteries left unexplained were maybe the supernatural/lore/gods stuff? But that wasn't necessarily a major plot point beyond conjecture.

that's hardly something to credit the showrunners with, but it's true!
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I still wish we got a whole season with Evil Dany in power being the new Cersei with them having to scramble at the 11th hour to whisper and scheme and look nervous in front of her while they know theyre plotting.

And I still dont think a recently rapidly supportive of the Faith Militant populace and the Septons and the entire non-North/Islands people who are all Faith of the Seven adamantly would accept an Old Gods worshipping Northman wizard as their King, at all. An uprising is imminent. There has never been an Old Gods religion king. But we stopped showing what the average citizen thought back a few seasons ago.

PerfectChaosZ posted...

I still wish we got a whole season with Evil Dany in power being the new Cersei with them having to scramble at the 11th hour to whisper and scheme and look nervous in front of her while they know theyre plotting.

And I still dont think a recently rapidly supportive of the Faith Militant populace and the Septons and the entire non-North/Islands people who are all Faith of the Seven adamantly would accept an Old Gods worshipping Northman wizard as their King, at all. An uprising is imminent. There has never been an Old Gods religion king. But we stopped showing what the average citizen thought back a few seasons ago.

Yeah, but magic has now been shown to be powerfully real and present. The Faith of the Seven is the one religion shown with basically no feats of magic.
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To the main characters maybe

The Faith Militant was popular because it basically advocated socialism to the poor. With the Faith back in the hands of the regular clergy it will be back to fancy cathedrals and rich septons and all that excitement will be gone.
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PerfectChaosZ posted...

And I still dont think a recently rapidly supportive of the Faith Militant populace and the Septons and the entire non-North/Islands people who are all Faith of the Seven adamantly would accept an Old Gods worshipping Northman wizard as their King, at all. An uprising is imminent. There has never been an Old Gods religion king. But we stopped showing what the average citizen thought back a few seasons ago.

I mean by this logic they shouldn't have accepted Cersei either. The High Sparrow won over the citizens, ran an impressive smear campaign on her, and then she blew him up. I know the commoners don't really care about the game of thrones but this is an IMPRESSIVE level of apathy.
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Cersei and Dany would use fear to keep them down and were both at least the right religion

In my opinion that is a problem they created by choosing to ignore the faegon storyline, who I believe at some point takes king's landing, and the Cersei storyline, however it ends, ends sooner than in the TV series. I believe faegon winning is to set up another Dance with Dragons, and the anger and alienation she feels makes even more sense when a "fake" Targaryen is on her throne. just speculation though

https://twitter.com/ThePixelFactor/status/1131287228104232960?s=19
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I like that theory the more I hear it and it isn't really something I thought would be a credible outcome on my initial read of the books. But seeing more pieces and the ending gives it a lot of appeal.
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Nrrr posted...

In my opinion that is a problem they created by choosing to ignore the faegon storyline, who I believe at some point takes king's landing, and the Cersei storyline, however it ends, ends sooner than in the TV series. I believe faegon winning is to set up another Dance with Dragons, and the anger and alienation she feels makes even more sense when a "fake" Targaryen is on her throne. just speculation though

This kind of touches on why I disagree with people blaming Martin not releasing the books for the writing woes of the final season or two. If he released The Winds of Winter around the time of season 5 or 6 and it focused heavily on a plotline that they had already decided to not include in their show, it wouldn't have done the show any good. They committed to how they wanted to set up the ending a long time ago.
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It just came into my attention that Dany did not, in fact, use Jorah as a human shield

What the fuck, that was the only thing I liked about Episode 3 and even that didn't happen
Seven hells
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Cant believe theres like nothing much left to say now. Its over and its just like whelp.

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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Should have been a full ten. So dumb it wasnt.

It was actually the length of 8, right?
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scarletspeed7 posted...

It was actually the length of 8, right?

True, but perception is different
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Step 1:

Tyrion: The iron fleet is ahead Your Grace.
Dany: Excellent, we'll crush them in open water with my dragons.

A few of the North's ships are lost during the fight and missandei is pulled from the water and captured by one of the handful of the Iron Fleet ships that escape back to King's Landing. Dany lets them go, not knowing Missandei was on board to "tell the tale of what happened today to the people of King's Landing and Cersei so they will know the power of my dragons."

Step 2:

Rhaegal dies to a ballista after the bells have been rung. Dany sees it happen and burns down the city in her rage.

No-one complains about the godawful ship ambush.
No-one complains about Dany burning down the city.
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You could also have just hid the ballista in the forested hills around the city and have it be an ambush.
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So many ways they could have done it better but it felt so rushed. I think she should have set off the wildfire and that was what destroyed the city while chasing Cersei but she chalks it up to collateral damage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91B-X82GIcQ" data-time="

Reminder that this is still the best music track in the show
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Expected Light of the Seven.

was disappointed =(
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XIII_rocks posted...

scarletspeed7 posted...

It was actually the length of 8, right?

True, but perception is different

More like 7 1/2
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The problem is that we miss 7 episodes. I mean every season except 7 and 8 had 10 episodes.
And the strange thing is that HBO wanted more episodes too! Don't understand why they didn't do that.
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GildedFool posted...

No-one complains about Dany burning down the city.

No one should be complaining about that now. They seriously just don't get it, and they shouldn't be rewarded for it.

Dany needed her turn to be completely non-impulsive. It's the only way it would carry weight and not be seen as blind rage.
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If you want her turn to be non-impulsive then it has to have room to build and breathe and we weren't given the episode time to allow that.
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It was implicitly built over 7 seasons and explicitly built since the beginning of the season as her main storyline every single time she was on the screen. The party was not the first time she noticed Jon might be a threat.
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foolm0r0n posted...

They seriously just don't get it,

Elite level argumentative skills. Debate team president material.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAhKOV3nImQ" data-time="
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GildedFool posted...

If you want her turn to be non-impulsive then it has to have room to build and breathe and we weren't given the episode time to allow that.

You're articulating the exact problem. Changing it from "dany suddenly goes crazy" to "dany can't control her emotions after losing a dragon" doesn't change her arc, it just justifies an in-the-moment decision. That's not really any more satisfying imo.
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Is there a good GOT video game? Of a fan game? Or a mod based on a video game?
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