max Game of Thrones, The Final Season

[Innula Zenovka]

Okay, I assumed exactly that -- he was trying to assassinate Dany thru poison. I didn't realize it was considered speculation. (Just checked with the wife, and she also interpreted that scene as thwarted poisoning plans.)

The question I have about Varys is who was getting all the notes he wrote?

Maybe we'll find out next week. He could have been in contact with Sansa, or maybe Yara. Whoever is the new ruler of Dorne?

My problem is this ... if Varys was trying to poison Dany, then it puts his summary execution in a very different context, since it's a quite understandable punishment for someone trying to assassinate his monarch. Otherwise, for what what specifically did Dany execute him and Tyrion denounce him? "Thinking disloyal thoughts"? Also, if he was doing this in cahoots with Sansa (or the Iron Bank, who may be taking an interest in their loan to Cersei) then it makes a big plot difference. Or had he simply decided that he was unilaterally going to remove Dany so Jon had to take the throne and be, as Varys thought he would be, a far better ruler than his aunt?

It puts so many of the episode's events in an entirely different context, yet no one actually mentioned it out loud. That's really odd.

 

[Cristalle]

I don't think he was trying to execute her. I think he was just trying to keep up with where she was mentally, if she was ready to burn the city.

 

[Jolene Benoir]

Maybe we'll find out next week. He could have been in contact with Sansa, or maybe Yara. Whoever is the new ruler of Dorne?

My problem is this ... if Varys was trying to poison Dany, then it puts his summary execution in a very different context, since it's a quite understandable punishment for someone trying to assassinate his monarch. Otherwise, for what what specifically did Dany execute him and Tyrion denounce him? "Thinking disloyal thoughts"? Also, if he was doing this in cahoots with Sansa (or the Iron Bank, who may be taking an interest in their loan to Cersei) then it makes a big plot difference. Or had he simply decided that he was unilaterally going to remove Dany so Jon had to take the throne and be, as Varys thought he would be, a far better ruler than his aunt?

It puts so many of the episode's events in an entirely different context, yet no one actually mentioned it out loud. That's really odd.

Interesting. If that indeed was what he had planned, it sailed right past me, as well. It certainly would put his execution in a new light. If that is what the writers intended, they may have pulled the reveal due to time constraints or the like. I was also wondering why Tyrion was busy ratting him out given that the last we saw of the two of them together, they were both having doubts about her ability, with Tyrion in general defending her, but we didn't see Varys out and out planning any sort of action during that conversation. How would Tyrion have known about his letter writing or even the child worker in the kitchen?

They left a number of things unexplained.

 

[Lianne Marten]

 

[Free]

Interesting video on one aspect of the show that's maintain its quality throughout the entire run.

 

[Ava Glasgow]

My preferred ending at this point:

The Mountain doesn't die, because Qyburn made him a magical zombie. And hey, he has Night King powers and raises the crispy critters of Kings Landing! Crazy Dany sits on the Iron Throne in the burnt out throne room, ruling over a population of animated ashes.

Everyone left alive skedaddles back up to the north, and Bran the Builder v.2 builds a new magical giant wall at the Neck to keep out the fire zombies (and this wall is fireproof, so fuck you dragon!). Sansa slaps the shit out of Jon for being a stupid emo twat and is declared Queen of the North. She remarries Tyrion because he amuses her, but doesn't take his advice beyond basic kingdom management and the occasional dinner wine selection.

Jon goes beyond the wall to find Ghost, but Ghost ghosts him. Good boy Ghost!

Jaime and Cersei escape the collapsing castle and move to Essos. They keep it low key and make a simple homestead in the now empty Dothraki sea, living off the land and making a little extra coin by selling dreamcatchers and grass dolls on Etsy.

Their baby grows up to be an honorable fair-minded woman who gets those darn elephants and takes them to Westeros, where they stamp out the ash people and shoot water from their trunks to extinguish the dragon's fire. She deposits Dany on Dragonstone without a boat, then heads back home after turning Westeros from the riverlands to Dorne into a nature preserve where the Children of the Forest can once again live in peace.

THE END!

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Interesting post in his new blog by David Allen Green, English law and policy expert who normally blogs about Brexit (and must have been greatly relieved to have found a new topic for once!): In defence of Game of Thrones, episode 8:5

 

[Innula Zenovka]

 

[OrinB]

Interesting post in his new blog by David Allen Green, English law and policy expert who normally blogs about Brexit (and must have been greatly relieved to have found a new topic for once!): In defence of Game of Thrones, episode 8:5

My beef isn't with the way the battle played out, or that Dany used her dragon in the way she did. It's still with the lack of character insight and dialogue. I actually enjoyed Cersei's final realisations. she was at her most vulnerable. I was annoyed by Jamie, Arya, Euron and Varys. Jon was trying to be holier than thou, but that's his character and it went down ok with me.

 

[Zaida Gearbox]

Okay, I assumed exactly that -- he was trying to assassinate Dany thru poison. I didn't realize it was considered speculation. (Just checked with the wife, and she also interpreted that scene as thwarted poisoning plans.)

The question I have about Varys is who was getting all the notes he wrote?

I would imagine lots of someones were getting the notes.

 

[Beebo Brink]

The rushed nature of Season 8 is most glaring in sketchy plotlines of extreme important (at least to us, as we watch our favorite characters die).

Wow, Everyone Missed [SPOILER] Fully Trying to Poison Daenerys

O! M! G!

www.cosmopolitan.com

The "everyone missed this" is hyperbole, but it does highlight that this important plot point should have been unambiguous.

To my mind it was clear that Varys was trying to poison Dany, but what is completely obscured is how Tyrion found out. The very vague "Varys betrayed you" appears to be short-hand for "I discovered that Varys tried to poison you, so I'm obliged to turn him in." And what happened to Martha? This poisoning attempt had the potential to be quite dramatic, but there wasn't time so it was just glossed over in the stampede to reach the destruction of King's Landing.

 

[Myficals]

Interesting post in his new blog by David Allen Green, English law and policy expert who normally blogs about Brexit (and must have been greatly relieved to have found a new topic for once!): In defence of Game of Thrones, episode 8:5

Storytelling is more beholden to rules than reality. We're taught from an early age that stories have internal consistency. Things have to happen for reasons, people don't just go mad because they have a bad hair day. In reality, they might and they do, but not in stories. At least not in stories that work. GRRM, despite all the claims that he's some sort of groundbreaking iconoclast of storytelling, understands this. As shocking and upsetting as some of his twists are (Red Wedding, Ned's Head) they still happen for well defined, clear and sensical reasons. If I ever get to read Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring, I fully expect Dany's downward spiral (yes, I believe this is going to happen in the books) will be much better plotted and will be fully consistent with her characterisation in all the preceding books. Benioff and Weiss by contrast, are on record admitting that they've made plot choices on the basis that the moments "subvert expectations." This is not a good writing.

 

[Halo Minoptra]

I'm pretty sure I know how it's going to go: First, Dany is going to flip the hell out and burn everyone who has been at her side up to now. Then she's going to fly around Westeros and burn pretty much everything that moves. Then she settles down to brood somewhere with her dragon. That will be the end of the show. Ashes floating in the wind, little angry blonde girl flying around on her dragon. The end.

Then there will be a sequel, which starts off with Meera Reed fed up with the way everything has gone, especially after all the time she put in dragging Bran around on a sled in the cold. She seeks out Sansa, who is hiding way up North with Bran and Sam and others. Sam is all excited because he's found a way to travel back in time, and he proposes going back to fix everything. Bran reluctantly agrees that it's possible, but there is no way to land in the precise time and place you intend. Tormund gets very excited about the idea (because he wants to go back and visit the wife of the giant he killed), so he helps Sam test the idea. He ends up turning Sam into a little boy, an old man, then a baby, and on a final try (luckily) gets the correct Sam back.

Meera puts together a team consisting of Arya, Bronn, Brienne and Podrick, Salladhor Saan, the Mountain (who is now ugly as hell but full of good intentions because of the guilt he feels over killing his brother), and some others based on the hope of Sam's idea.

Then Bran rolls up, carrying an set of enchanted bracelets. He wasn't able to stop thinking about the Sam's idea, and one day when his eyes were rolled back in his head he "remembered" that some magician long ago had created exactly the thing that they're looking for. It turns out there are just enough bracelets for everyone, but Bran says he can't go in the past because his brain would explode and collapse on itself. So there's an extra bracelet. Jaqen H'ghar mysteriously appears, just in time to go with the team. And the extra bracelet fits him perfectly. After much discussion, they decide the most efficient way to fix everything is to steal the dragon eggs before Daenerys even knows about them, and drop the eggs in the middle of the sea.

I could go on, but SPOILERS!

 

[Romana]

My preferred ending at this point:

The Mountain doesn't die, because Qyburn made him a magical zombie. And hey, he has Night King powers and raises the crispy critters of Kings Landing! Crazy Dany sits on the Iron Throne in the burnt out throne room, ruling over a population of animated ashes.

Everyone left alive skedaddles back up to the north, and Bran the Builder v.2 builds a new magical giant wall at the Neck to keep out the fire zombies (and this wall is fireproof, so fuck you dragon!). Sansa slaps the shit out of Jon for being a stupid emo twat and is declared Queen of the North. She remarries Tyrion because he amuses her, but doesn't take his advice beyond basic kingdom management and the occasional dinner wine selection.

Jon goes beyond the wall to find Ghost, but Ghost ghosts him. Good boy Ghost!

Jaime and Cersei escape the collapsing castle and move to Essos. They keep it low key and make a simple homestead in the now empty Dothraki sea, living off the land and making a little extra coin by selling dreamcatchers and grass dolls on Etsy.

Their baby grows up to be an honorable fair-minded woman who gets those darn elephants and takes them to Westeros, where they stamp out the ash people and shoot water from their trunks to extinguish the dragon's fire. She deposits Dany on Dragonstone without a boat, then heads back home after turning Westeros from the riverlands to Dorne into a nature preserve where the Children of the Forest can once again live in peace.

THE END!

Also: Brienne realizes her mistake and reuinites with Tormund, returning his affections this time. They may have a large (literally) family, and Ghost let's all the kids take turns riding him.

 

[Arilynn]

I didn’t understand why the King’s Landing defenses didn’t rain down arrows on the Dany forces that were right beneath their walls. Why weren’t the archers who were ready to shoot Tyrion called? They also must have had all those droppable stuff to defend their walls that they knew would be attacked, like hot oil or pitch...or whatever people with actual history knowledge would use.

I still don’t accept Jamie’s actions. I thought he went to Cersei to kill her. If they are still alive and he doesn’t kill her, it trashes all the growth he experienced as a character. It also puts the chances of overly large blonde children with Brienne at zero.

 

[Beebo Brink]

I still don’t accept Jamie’s actions. I thought he went to Cersei to kill her. If they are still alive and he doesn’t kill her, it trashes all the growth he experienced as a character. It also puts the chances of overly large blonde children with Brienne at zero.

I also thought for sure that he was the one man who could get close enough to Cersei to kill her, in an attempt to save the lives of everyone in King's Landing. Also a vague possessiveness of "No one gets to kill my sister except for me."

I also expected Cersei to go out fighting: scheming, lying, enraged. She was Tywin Lannister's daughter for 7 and 1/2 seasons, and then in Episode 5 she turned into a sobbing girl clinging to her guy. Bleah, bleah. It was appalling.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Meanwhile some parents are getting desparate... (the whole news article is as badly written as it sounds, and even more so):

Latest Game of Thrones episode sends curveball to children named Khaleesi

WARNING: contains spoilers from season eight, episode five. Sharp change of fortune for dragon queen leaves many wondering about the thousands named after her

www.theguardian.com

 

[Romana]

But Jaime knows she's pregnant, and on top of that, the child is his.
He thought nothing of pushing young Bran to his likely death in season 1, but if he is the "redeemed knight", could be kill a child now, especially his own?

 

[Beebo Brink]

But Jaime knows she's pregnant, and on top of that, the child is his.
He thought nothing of pushing young Bran to his likely death in season 1, but if he is the "redeemed knight", could be kill a child now, especially his own?

On the other hand, look at the odds:

33.3% of his kids were normal and sweet, but 33.3% of his kids turned out to be sociopathic maniacs, and another 33.3% turned out to be soft-brained suicidal idiots.

That fourth try is probably a child that the universe can do without.

 

[Eunoli]

They didn't actually show us dead Cersei and Jaime. They might come crawling out from the rubble (I doubt it, but stupider things have happened this season and not showing the body has always meant they are still alive until now). I know that there's theories that the way Jaime was holding her at the end made him the Valonqar, but damn I would really prefer to see him or Tyrion strangle her.