Quote:
Originally Posted by Hammock Parties
Well...I'm fine with the ending, even if I don't like how they got there. I think Dany's character would have been better served sacrificing herself with Drogon to win the battle at King's Landing.
But I don't think I've ever cried and laughed so hard at the same time with Jon petted Ghost.
So...I'll allow it.
Good finale.
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Yeah, that's where I am.
I got a genuine chill for the first time in a looooong time watching this show when Tyrion dropped "you are the shield that guards the realm of men..." on Jon.
The Bran thing I could definitely have lived without. Like, literally anyone else would've been preferable to me, but I think it's also ultimately irrelevant to my enjoyment of the show/ending. The only real impact it had was setting up that hokey council meeting with some forced jokes for the sake of levity. I mean all that needed was an 80's sitcom 'freeze ending' with them all laughing over a brothel joke. Do I really care that this is setting Westeros up for a cycle of ineffective leaders or open warfare over the next century+? No, not really. That's for a different story.
But the first 40 minutes were absolutely riveting and where the remaining characters ended up (Bran excluded) was incredibly satisfying. The Stark sail was especially awesome as Arya headed west. I do take some umbrage to Bran's sudden ability to kinda see the future. His line to Tyrion "why do you think I came all this way?" and Jon "You were right where you needed to be" suggest that he knew this was all pre-ordained, which diminishes what came before it a little bit. But I'll get over it.
Some people have a problem with Tyrion finding Jaime/Cersei but I think I just read it a little different trying to watch it through Tyrion's frame of reference. All he knows is that the bells rang and he found them dead under rubble. He doesn't know that Jaime hadn't talked her into leaving (and that it took Dany's ass whupin' to do it). As far as Tyrion knows, he was right. He got Jaime in there, Jaime got Cersei to surrender and leave but
because Dany flipped shit and brought the keep down, they died. To me that was the hammer blow for Tyrion because now Dany has, for all intents and purposes, killed his family when they were leaving for a new life in Essos. And Dinklage killed the scene.
I won't say they 'stuck the landing' because the pacing took the impact out of several key developments down the stretch. If we're talking in landing terms, it's one of those where you maybe need to take the plane for servicing because you put some stress on the landing gears when you hit a little harder than you'd like but ultimately no real damage was done.
I re-watched Episode 3 with nuked settings and some diminished contrast to soften some of the pixelated edges due to HBO's streaming app and it helped me appreciate the visuals a lot more - the story was still poor, though; still forced to effectuate an end-game. But otherwise I thought this was a good season. I wish to hell they had another 4 hours or so (2 episodes/season in seasons 7 and 8) to be more meticulous in their plotting, but if I'm willing to insert some details myself, the story makes a lot of sense. If I don't have to have it spoonfed to me, I can make every decision they made make perfect sense.
I think they did a fine job when all was said and done.