Game of Thrones Seasons 7-8

[keg in kc]

About to hit the 5000 post mark on the old thread, the first season 7 trailer today seems like the right time to start the final Game of Thones thread.

I'm going back to the original rules pre-2015. I don't think we need supervision or bannings. Just don't be a dick. Post anything you find online that hasn't aired yet inside of spoiler tags. That's pretty much it. I think we can all handle that...





For future us, 2015 thread is here: Link

[Amnorix]

Originally Posted by Superturtle

That's fine. Don't show Varys and friends going over their little board of toys explaining who has what forces left, including explicitly mentioning Euron and his fleet. Don't have her forces get blindsided by the same fleet twice beforehand. I know you don't think much of Daenerys, but thats just ridiculous plot induced stupidity.

It's also unnecessary, apparently in an attempt to build up how scary the Scorpions were. Just have Rhaegar die in the fight with under Viserys, and skip that stupid-ass "ambush" which made no sense in multiple ways.

It's the stuff like that which is driving me crazy, not the larger plot arcs by and large.

[Sassy Squatch]

Never heard the term 'pig pile' before. That's hilarious.

[Amnorix]

Originally Posted by Superturtle

Never heard the term 'pig pile' before. That's hilarious.

Really? It goes way back, though now that you mention it, I haven't heard it in a while. Might be more of a regional thing, or maybe it's become obsolete now and I'm just showing my age?

[Chiefspants]

Originally Posted by Amnorix

Agree with ALOT of this. Nearly all of it. Dany turning heel hasn't phased me a bit, for all the reasons others have said. It's some of the other nonsense that has irritated me far more.

Still -- this season and the ending of the show isn't CRUSHINGLY AWFUL or anything. People are irritated at different things, and start to pig pile on to the point of ridiculous.

Spoiler!

But I really don't want King Bran. It just makes absolutely no sense at all

Spoiler!

People have said GRRM took a lot of influence from Dune, turns out he's taken even more than people gave him credit for

[lawrenceRaider]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Man - episode 3 really soured some folks.

And to be fair, I hated episode 3 as well - hated it more and more as I thought on it. But episode 1 was fine. Episodes 2 and 4 I thought were quite good and this episode was the best of the season so far, IMO.

The Dany thing has been a long-time coming. And yeah, maybe that's more 'book insight' bleeding into show viewing, but Dany has always been an entitled, impulsive, violent trainwreck and a wholly unfit leader. I've said this for literally years - she's a spoiled tween with an air force when nobody else has one. She's narrow-minded and overly emotional. Her losing her shit and burning a bunch of stuff to the ground is easy to call and surely nobody would've argued with it had she torched the massed Lannister army and then burned down the red keep.

The only real curious event here is that she torched everything. But there are several historical analogues for it. And frankly, for all the shit B&W have (justifiably) taken for making character motivations non-existent, they did give you some insight here when they mentioned the contrast between Kings Landing and Mereen. When she was upset that they didn't rise up in support of her, she clearly put 'torch 'em all' on the table. The historical example that springs immediately to mind for me is the Armenian Genocide. The Ottomans decided that the Armenians didn't do enough to defend the region from the Christian invaders and if they weren't going to rise up against the enemy, then clearly they're no better than the enemy. The Turks then went on to effectively wholesale slaughter people who were ostensibly part of their own empire.

In the end I'm not sure Dany actively hoped to slaughter innocents - I think she simply didn't care much if she did, especially as she saw them as quasi-enemies anyway.

Apart from that, the Jaime/Tyrion meeting was fantastic. Euron v. Jaime was unnecessary but entertaining. Cleganebowl was everything we could've hoped it to be.

And in the end I think so much of this show has been demonstrating how little the rank and file care or benefit from these power struggles. They'll take peace under a bad ruler over a war to install a good ruler every time. Because in the end, the definition of a 'good' ruler is pretty damn fluid. I mean heck, in the recent history of Westoros it appears Robert Baratheon was actually pretty damn good at it by simply staying out of the way. And from a commoners perspective, Dany and her army is simply a foreign invasion. Which again makes what happened more 'to type'. Dany has no ties to King's Landing - she never knew the place. The Unsullied just see it as someplace else to conquer and the Dothraki just do what they do. Even the northmen are historically antagonistic towards anything south of the Riverlands (if they'll even tolerate that far).

I just don't understand the rage here. The soldiers acted as damn near every invading force in the history of warfare has acted (look at what the Germans did in Leningrad and the staggering barbarism from the Russians in Berlin that came about as a result). Most of the characters acted as you'd expect them to - even Jaime the Cersei Junkie.

This all comes down to just how much of Kings Landing Dany would've reasonably set ablaze. And I think the writers, over the course of several seasons and in her final conversation with Tyrion specifically, gave ample indication that she may just snap. When the Bells were ringing, it wasn't the bells that set her off. It was sitting there having wrecked creation but lost every person close to her on account of Cersei simply not capitulating when it was clearly the smart decision the first time they met, and thinking "wait...NOW you surrender? Get ****ed with that shit!" It was petulant, frustrated rage from a person who'd demonstrated a pretty decent track record of being petulant and wrathful.

I just don't see the problem here. I thought the episode was very good

Rolling back to Book Dani, yes, this was perfectly in character. Even looking back to some of the more brutal things she did to those she found lacking, Masters, etc, burning everything fits.

I just hoped she wouldn't. There was that bit of hope, and I think had Jon just boned his aunt one more time the night before, it wouldn't have happened.

Now Jon is going to be forced by his Ned Morals to take her out, or die trying.

[Sassy Squatch]

Originally Posted by Amnorix

Really? It goes way back, though now that you mention it, I haven't heard it in a while. Might be more of a regional thing, or maybe it's become obsolete now and I'm just showing my age?

I thought it was dog pile, not pig pile

[Chiefspants]

Originally Posted by Jerm

LOL true but I think you get what I'm saying...

Just being a wiseass.

I think they built up this Dany from Seasons 1-6, I just wish they kept their foot on the pedal for Season 7.

I was captivated by this episode and happy that a show removed all the BS chivalry and honor that is often portrayed when the "good guys" defeat the "evil bad guys" in conflict.

Is it too much to ask that they just kept Dany on the pedal demanding Jon to bend the knee and showcasing her ruthlessness over her vulnerability due to the precious time they had left in Season 7?

Ah well. It is what it is. I'm actually much happier with this end than a Targ restoration (Dany, Jon, plus boatbaby and happily evah after) that much of r/freefolk was hoping for - I just wish, as do many, that we had a few more episodes to help with the pacing of the last two seasons. It is what it is.

[FAX]

Originally Posted by Jerm

The biggest problem with the Dany turn for me was that they totally contradicted themselves in the episode itself.

She talks about "fear it is" or whatever....SHE HAD IT. The citizens of King's Landing were scurrying and scared shitless at the sight of Drogon.

The Lannister Army, who has fought no matter the circumstances, laid down their weapons because they were scared hearing the dragon and seeing the opposition. (We won't bring up the fact that they fought against the same army and dragon in Season 7, another contradiction but eh I'll let it go).

Dany had won...there was ZERO reason to go batshit insane and raze KL and kill all the innocents...totally goes against the character they had been building with her. But eh that's their MO for this season so I'm not shocked.

I read somewhere else last night that it was the fictional equivalent of Hiroshima being nuked and then the Allied powers being like nahhhh do it again...

My advice is that you read a book about WW2 and not derive your knowledge of history from social media.

FAX

[Frazod]

Originally Posted by Bowser

Game of Thrones fans coming back next week...

Perfect.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Amnorix

It's also unnecessary, apparently in an attempt to build up how scary the Scorpions were. Just have Rhaegar die in the fight with under Viserys, and skip that stupid-ass "ambush" which made no sense in multiple ways.

It's the stuff like that which is driving me crazy, not the larger plot arcs by and large.

That I completely agree with.

B&W tried to ramp up the threat of the scorpions to heighten the impact of 'Shock and Awe Drogon' and in so doing they overplayed their hand something awful. I think they were also trying to have a more visceral death play out in front of Dany to give her all the more reason to flip shit.

Just another sacrifice at the alter of making Dany's heel turn more understandable - none of which would've been necessary had we been able to see in her own head.

But like you, I think this is just becoming an unnecessary pile-on born of being unwilling to view episodes for their own merit. We have people doubling back on decisions they hated and citing them as reasons not to do things in the story that, on their face, should be LIKED.

[BlackOp]

Originally Posted by Amnorix

Yes. Especially that ONLY Euron arrives on that particular shore at just the right time to fight Jaime. One more Ironborn shows up and it's not much of a fight.

Meh, whatever. Wasnt' a bad fight. It's a TV show. Lots more that's stupider to bitch about.

Maybe someone raised this earlier, but WHERE THE ACTUAL **** did all those Dothraki and Unsullied come from?! Was there another set of armies that weren't at Winterfell that we were ever mentioned?

I would've thought a more logical explanation would be that the men of the North that were south of Winterfell had been heading south to get away from the Army of the Dead and they formed up with men from the Riverlands, the Vale, Dorne, the Reach and maybe even Highgarden to form a new army. Instead, it appears to be the same freaking army that I thought had been wiped out at Wintefell.

Did I miss something somewhere along the way explaining this?

With another couple of episodes...the could have explained these things in greater detail.

One twist they could have developed was Varys covert plot to poison her...and would have explained her growing paranoia. She could have started to distrust Jon and her inner circle in a realistic way...and used her dragon to try to "accidentally" burn him in the streets.

Why did the Hound want to "kill" his brother...who was already dead? Letting Cersei just waltz by...when she is the very reason there is even still a war? Could have been written different...just that 10 second scene. Just have her walk the other way?

Could have had the Dragon burn Arya in the streets...would have given Jon justification for turning on dragon mother. Should have just had Arya walk alone through the destruction...no need for a "girl and her pony" ending...should have just put a unicorn horn on it.

A LOT of the bad writing could have fixed...and rather cheaply too.

[BucEyedPea]

Originally Posted by Chiefspants

However, I truly wish they used what little of the time code they had at the end of a truncated Season 7 to giving Dany more development in this regard if this was her outcome.

Then it would not be a surprise and there'd be no drama. It would be too expected. This series has been full of such twists and surprises.
There were always some seeds. I saw them more becoming more obvious at the start of this season and I wondered that she just might burn the place down but was never certain. That uncertainty created the tension of would she, or won't she for me. This hasn't been one of those happily ever after fairy tales.

[Jerm]

Originally Posted by FAX

My advice is that you read a book about WW2 and not derive your knowledge of history from social media.

FAX

Again, I think you get what I mean.

I'm not saying they're 1:1 or anything and I understand what happened in Japan...Jesus I shouldn't have even included it lol.

[Chiefspants]

Originally Posted by BucEyedPea

Then it would not be a surprise and there'd be no drama. It would be too expected. This series has been full of such twists and surprises.
There were always some seeds. I saw them more becoming more obvious at the start of this season and I wondered that she just might burn the place down but was never certain. That uncertainty created the tension of would she, or won't she for me. This hasn't been one of those happily ever after fairy tales.

Totally fair take.

[BucEyedPea]

Originally Posted by Jerm

I read somewhere else last night that it was the fictional equivalent of Hiroshima being nuked and then the Allied powers being like nahhhh do it again...

I said while watching it that it was like a nuclear holocaust or bombing and total war we had in WWII. Not surprised others took that view as well.