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.