Originally Posted by Chiefspants
(Post 14242531)
I'll go on the record with this.
I wanted the NK to win. I wanted Dany to take out a handful of survivors on Drogon and Jon on Rheagal. I wanted them to be separated, with all hope feeling lost, and I wanted them to converge on King's Landing when the NK began to wreck the city, Cersei, and shit-eating ShowEuron.
But, the more I look into GRRM's quotes - I just don't that that's where he's going with this thing. The show NK isn't really even in the books. The show just made him as a personification of the WW threat. The problem, I think, is that while George chooses to eschew writing POV accounts of Hardhome and instead gives subtle hints of the horror there, the show chose to actually go there. At the time, this was praised as a wonderful deviation. However, it was done so ****ing well that the NK antagonist altered the show's center. The politics that made the show (and there are good moments of those politics in S6) immediately took a backseat to the WW - so much so that that WW threat became prioritized above all else to the viewer (for better or for worse). I’d also argue that this is where the show exploded from a super successful HBO show to the global phenomenon that it is now. Season 5 actually had been declining ratings wise from Season 4 - then Hardhome happened. The NK became embedded in the show’s lore, when he was never a true character in the books. On a personal note, this is how I’ve hooked two of my friends who gave up on the show after being “bored” with Season 1 - but they LOVED Hardhome with zero context to Jon’s development and multiple characters who were featured in it.
I've accepted last night's WW fate the more I read into GRRM. He just loves the idea of politics and ruling and how the elite class will always be a factor in our world, always, even in the face of extinction.
However, my opinion of this episode will likely forever hinge on the next three. If there is a Hodor level twist coming (possibly something to do with the foreshadowed burning of King's Landing we've seen in Bran and Dany's plots) and stick the landing (meaning a satisfying enough ending that doesn't betray the arcs of the main characters), I'll be happy with the episode.
But if I just don't care after this, if we just get a 4 hour Scouring of the Shire like epilogue to the series that honors GRRM's planned ending after last night, then D&D will have failed and needed to realize that the Game of Thrones show ultimately went a different direction than the ASOIAF. That's what the HIMYM showrunners couldn't accept. The characters in the show went a radically different direction in 9 seasons of development than when they filmed the original ending in S2 (when they thought it was a 3 season series). However, all of the GOT showrunners seem confident with the ending, and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms was so good for the characters that it's keeping me hopeful that they're going to stay true to them in the ending - especially since these characters are what make up the fabric of the series.
We'll see. Valar Morghulis and what not.
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