max Game of Thrones, The Final Season

Innula Zenovka

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Yeah, Bran doesn't make sense. He'd certainly be a very valuable member of the small council if Jon sits on the throne however.
Would he? I mean, given his virtual omniscience about everything that happens in Westeros, or at least everything that happened in the past (which presumably includes the recent past, like half an hour ago) and his ability to warg out and take over animals (and maybe humans, unless that worked only on Hodor), he should make a fine Master of Whispers, except for the fact he's been sod-all use to the House of Stark and its allies as an intelligence resource.

For example, how about a bit of a warning like "Don't go all Charge of the Light Brigade with the Dothraki and the Army of the Dead"? or "The Golden Company have some astonishing high velocity Scorpion catapults that can probably take out dragons, and they've mounted some on Euron's fleet, so keep a look out for them"?
(Not that I know anything at all about the maths behind it, but I've seen some convincing calculations about how fast the first bolt that hit Dany's spare dragon last week must have been travelling, given the distance from which it was fired, that projectiles travel in a parabola and it can't have dropped much more than a couple of metres over what must have been about a kilometer, and that chap must have been going really fast. )
I’m just a lowly medievalist here, folks, but I’m calculating that Euron’s bolt, if it hadn’t hit the dragon, would have reached a maximum elevation of around 14 miles above sea level before it nosed back down to earth. That’s, um, around twice the cruising altitude of most commercial airliners.

And sure, there’s some wiggle room to my calculations. Atmospheric conditions are one of those major variables, after all, and while the weather was great when Euron pulled the trigger, if his bolt hadn’t hit the dragon a lot could’ve happened to it during the—checks notes—more than two minutes it would’ve been airborne after he released it, during which time—checks notes again—it would’ve traveled about 163 miles. A missed shot would’ve passed through weather systems.

Probably this is all academic. It doesn’t matter how many damn torsion arms you put on one, no medieval or quasi-medieval ballistics engine can manage to launch a projectile at hypersonic speeds. Alas.
[...snip...]
Can you believe HBO actually offered D&D more episodes or an extra season and they turned HBO down??!! Absolute madness....
If they think we're going to give a standing ovation as the credits roll after Sunday they're completely deluded.
The problem, to my mind, with this series and the last, starting with Dany's arrival in Westeros, is that the pace has changed completely. What used to be very much character-driven drama, with events unfolding according to the logic of the individual characters and their motivations and reactions, turned into plot-led drama, with events driven by the necessity of completing the various plot arcs in time.

While it can easily be argued that the Dany's progress from breaker of chains and liberator of slaves to war criminal and butcher of King's Landing was wholly logical -- the signs of the sinister side of her character, and the effect on her of the abuse that she'd suffered as a child and young adult (effectively being sold off as a sex slave to Khal Drogo in return his possible support for her brother's claim to the Iron Throne) were there from very early on, and her rule in Mereen was not without its problems -- the extraordinary pace of this final season in particular has pretty much reduced characters to cyphers.

Why does so-and-so behave that way? Because the plot requires it if all the story arcs are to be completed in six extended episodes. So episode 1 was pretty much catching up and a scene-setter. Episodes 2 and 3 disposed of the Night King, the Army of the Dead and the threat from beyond the wall. Episodes 4 and 5 wrapped up the results of the Night King's defeat and disposed of Cersei, Jaime, Euron and King's Landing, leaving one episode to wrap up the fall-out from that.

Presented over two or three seasons, I can see how season 8's plotline could have worked pretty well if they'd played out over two or three seasons, giving time for characters' motivations and reactions to become clear. Cramming them all into one very eventful season, though, has speeded things up to an impossible rate, so people's motivations get lost and things just seem silly.

As an example, how many weeks pregnant was Cersei supposed to be at the end? Remember how long people took to travel around Westeros by foot or on horseback in earlier seasons, and then consider how far both the Army of the Dead and then, after defeating them at Winterfell, Jon Snow and the Stark bannermen travelled to Kings Landing, both in the middle of winter. Compare and contrast Arya and the Hound's travels, or Brienne and Jaime's, in earlier seasons with how soon they arrived at King's Landing from Winterfell this time.

Maybe the reason Cersei still didn't look pregnant in her final episode is that she'd already had the child and no one mentioned it in all the rush, a bit like the way Varys' attempt to poison Daenerys (if that's what it was) was pretty easy to miss in the mad scramble.

As I say, spread over two or three seasons, the events of Season 8 could have worked very well. As it is, we're left with some great scenes and events but a somewhat dissatisfying narrative.
 
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A huge problem with this season, which I expect is related to the way everything is rushed, is that there are no books. The writers have an outline provided by Martin, but not the amount of detail that is available to draw from in earlier seasons. Those sudden turns may well be because the breadcrumbs that point to the fates of major characters never got fully developed before the final acts in the series.
 
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Eunoli

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Has this theory been posted?
This goes with the theory I posted a couple of pages ago, but to be truthful - I thought I was way out on a limb. But, so far - with the exception of Stannis, we've pretty much seen all the dead bodies if they are really dead. Theoretically, Stannis could show up and take the throne if that theory holds true .

I do think that Dany is likely to try to fry herself a Lannister and a couple Starks tomorrow.

I've decided to watch it as fan-fiction so that I don't end up throwing things at the tv.
 
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Ava Glasgow

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Last night YouTube kept suggesting a GoT commentary video, something like "Top 10 WTF Moments in the GoT Finale". Did it play yesterday somewhere? Even in New Zealand it would have been ~6pm Sunday.

I haven't seen early commentary vids before, so I suspect this may be a clickbait or placeholder.
 

Innula Zenovka

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Last night YouTube kept suggesting a GoT commentary video, something like "Top 10 WTF Moments in the GoT Finale". Did it play yesterday somewhere? Even in New Zealand it would have been ~6pm Sunday.

I haven't seen early commentary vids before, so I suspect this may be a clickbait or placeholder.
When I looked for "Top 10 WTF Moments in the GoT Finale", DuckDuckGo took me to this, about last season's finale: Game Of Thrones Season 7 Episode 7 Finale - TOP 10 WTF and Easter Eggs

Did you maybe misread the title when you glanced at it last night?
 

Innula Zenovka

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Probably my last suggestion about tonight's finale:

Daenerys decides that she'd better put an end to dissent both with her tactics and her rule of the whole of Westeros south of The Wall by telling the Unsullied and the Dothraki to take out the northerners, and Tyrion at the same time.

This they do.

Dany flies north, now crazed with grief at having had to (as she sees it) kill Jon, and attacks Winterfell from the air.

Winterfell is trashed, and Dany is eventually killed by Arya -- all that practicing with the longbow while the others were feastring has paid off. No idea what Drogon does. Whatever young dragons do when they find themselves bereft of their siblings, their mother, and their pet Targaryen human, I suppose. Being a reptile, he'll probably eventually want to head off somewhere warmer -- back to Mereem maybe?

And that's it. Seven Kingdoms now without a monarch, crippled with debt, and with a large standing army, now leaderless. General mayhem ensues. Probably Yara and whoever the new ruler of Dorne is will try to reach some sort of accommodation with the Dothraki and the Unsullied left stranded and leaderless, far from home. Maybe whatshisname from the Golden Company survived last week and offers them all jobs.

History continues.
 

EmpressOfCommunism

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I wonder if Arya is "The prince who was promised" since now that Jon is still kind of king in the north, she fulfills an actual 'princely' (technically princess but she'd definitely prefer to be thought of as a female prince) role and is the one who actually killed the night king
 
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Beebo Brink

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Honestly at this point all I give a whit about is Tyrion surviving. I think he's earned it.
Tyrion has always felt like one of the core characters. Even though he's not in every scene, far from it, his voice and perspective are so strong that I feel like this is his story. Losing him would really end the story for me.
 

Ava Glasgow

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When I looked for "Top 10 WTF Moments in the GoT Finale", DuckDuckGo took me to this, about last season's finale: Game Of Thrones Season 7 Episode 7 Finale - TOP 10 WTF and Easter Eggs

Did you maybe misread the title when you glanced at it last night?

No, definitely a new one posted yesterday. Pretty sure it was this one, but the last word in the title ("questions") didn't show on my FireTV. I suspect that was on purpose to make it clickbait by looking like a major spoiler.

 
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Ann Launay

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I wonder if Arya is "The prince who was promised" since now that Jon is still kind of king in the north, she fulfills an actual 'princely' (technically princess but she'd definitely prefer to be thought of as a female prince) role and is the one who actually killed the night king
I still think it's Jon and, in the way that prophecies are frequently misunderstood, Dany is the "darkness" he's actually meant to defeat, not the Night King. Arya doesn't meet any of the criteria in the prophecy, although Jon and Dany both do.

There's also something in the books about the dragon having three heads, which could mean that the prophecy actually refers to multiple people working in concert.
 
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Romana

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Bloody hell, they did it.
I came across some potential spoilers from episode 6, provided by someone who apparently also spoiled 4&5 quite accurately. Some of it was reasonable, some of it was dumb.

Sansa rules in the North. (yay)
Tyrion is put on trial and either dies or lives to become part of the King's council (two script versions).
Dany kills more people and expresses her intention to continue razing Westeros and the rest of the world.
Jon kills Dany to protect the people, and especially his family. (expected)
Jon takes the Black again. (seems like a Jon thing to do, but why would the Night's Watch even be necessary anymore?)
The remaining Unsullied return to Essos to preserve Dany's legacy there.
Arya leaves King's Landing. (all it says)
Motherfucking Bran become KIng with Sam, Davos, Bronn (?), and possibly Tyrion as his council.

Bran, who has all of the knowledge or everything ever locked up in his head, but has repeatedly proven to be entirely useless all the same. I'm OK with the rest, but that will be the dumbest fucking thing ever if it turns out to be true.
 

Ann Launay

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I'm OK with everything except Bran.

And clearly they were loading from the map in and about KIng's Landing too. How did Tyrion get to the Red Keep so quickly? And that bit where Jon left Grey Worm to go find Dany and when he got to where she was about to arrive, Grey Worm was already there and waiting? I feel like the scene with the Lannister soldiers was actually supposed to be after his convo with Tyrion and just before he found Dany at the Iron Throne, but someone made a weird choice during editing.

Did Jon abandon the Night's Watch to become a wildling?
I think so. They sort of foreshadowed it when he did his farewell to Tormund at Winterfell.
 
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