Etc etc etc . Whatever . I'm glad you guys liked it, but I thought it was ridiculous on many levels
The action was good but I’m with you. There were several moments where I yelled at the tv ”Oh come on!”
Last episode two dragons and a fleet of ships got their asses kicked but if you only make the Queen mad then she can singlehandedly take out the armada, the anti-dragon castle fortifications and then the entire city all by herself with one dragon. Why did she bother to bring anyone else!
Can’t wait til next week. It will be nice to see the Dothraki and Unsullied armies again after they were wiped out in the battle of Winterfell.
When we watch fantasy shows, as one of you alluded to we suspend our disbelief about dragons and such. We accept that this is a different reality with different rules. It's the changing of those rules or the presence of such alternate rules of reality without sufficient explanation that jars us.
They happened many times in yesterday's episode. When you stab a man, he bleeds out. When you kill a dragon last time with a small number of crossbows... and you proceed to build many more, and the dragon tosses them aside like nothing, you're left wanting an explanation. When the early episodes mention wildfire in mass quantities under the city, you want that incorporated as something other than a few green blips that don't seem to hurt anyone, when you have prophecies throughout the story, you expect resolution.
A good fantasy story is completely ridiculous and yet makes perfect sense. That did not make perfect sense in the slightest. They were more concerned with how the episodes looked than what was actually happening. We don’t need a white horse and dramatic music so that someone can stroke their ego about being an artist. It’s saccharine , it’s unnecessary, it’s self indulgent. And it’s not what this show was about for years and years. It’s not what drew me and people like me to it.
and you are still doubling down on that take bronty? lolololol. cmon man.
Its a tv show.
Ofcourse Buyatari isnt happy, hes had negativity the whole season. He wont let the show be good for himself at this point.
You got it wrong. I want this to be what it once was very badly.
I don’t watch any other shows at all. Yet every Sunday I’m there waiting for it to start only to be let down time and time again.
You would think I was watching the Browns from two seasons ago when they went 0-16.
Sure it was a fantasy show and now it is pure fantasy.
We once had shocking moments and brilliant calculated moves that became clear in the end. Now we have characters making decision after decision that just don’t make any sense , strange things that happen for no reason and are never explained and back to back moments that shatter the suspension of disbelief.
Gloves, I could buy that explanation, or almost any explanation with sufficient incorporation into the story. But there were so many inconsistencies and unresolved and poorly resolved threads that I am left thinking that castles melting was not some reference to Harrenhal but rather an "explosions, cool!" brand of storytelling
The thing for me is that it feels rushed. I'm sure many would agree here.
Am I enjoying it? Well enough, yeah.
Could it be better? Absolutely, and by far.
The reason many of the early episodes work so well isn't even necessarily because of the superior writing; it's still a show adaptation. But I believe quite firmly that it was because each season was treated as an arc, similar to how you'd see in anime. The time was given to the story that it needed so badly. Everything this season feels like a wrap-up; a Cole's Notes.
I fear that it may simply be a case of that the cast and crew were ready to move on, and that's a big unfortunate reality with real human people portraying a few years in the show over the course of a decade IRL. To make something as epic and huge as ASOIAF work on-screen I feel that it would actually require an insane amount of dedication from everyone involved. No significant breaks between making seasons etc., just work work work until it's done.
I get that the episodes are longer, but only by about 20-30 minutes. Not knowing what will happen in the next episode (or how on earth they could resolve all of this in a mere 1:20), I'll say that I believe we needed another season, maybe even two.
Early seasons were simply more fleshed out. Now we keep hearing from the producers stuff like "We didn't feel that Jon saying goodbye to Ghost was a good use of the screen time". Fuck off.
I've gotta watch this one again. I've got mixed feelings.
For two of Bronty's points though; 1. The dragon easily taking out the crossbows. In epiaode three the dragons were jusy hanging out, flying around, enjoying the sun and they were surprised by the crossbows. One took a bunch of arrows and died. In this episode, Danerys went in expecting the crossbow defenses and the crossbows were set up in one direction. She dove in quick and went low evade the main defense, She then attacked the ships from the sides, while the crossbows were pointed forward. She then
came in from behind the castle defenses, The epiaode did a good job of showing how slow it is to reposition the crossbows in a different direction.
2. Jamie Lanster, won the fight, but Euron should have been tired evading getting killed by a dragon and swimming back from the middle of the bay.
That being said Jamie did way too much after getting stabbed twice. That was silly.
I'm not sure about the fight between the houmd and the mountain, iy just felt under whelming.
I've gotta watch this one again. I've got mixed feelings.
For two of Bronty's points though; 1. The dragon easily taking out the crossbows. In epiaode three the dragons were jusy hanging out, flying around, enjoying the sun and they were surprised by the crossbows. One took a bunch of arrows and died. In this episode, Danerys went in expecting the crossbow defenses and the crossbows were set up in one direction. She dove in quick and went low evade the main defense, She then attacked the ships from the sides, while the crossbows were pointed forward. She then
came in from behind the castle defenses, The epiaode did a good job of showing how slow it is to reposition the crossbows in a different direction.
2. Jamie Lanster, won the fight, but Euron should have been tired evading getting killed by a dragon and swimming back from the middle of the bay.
That being said Jamie did way too much after getting stabbed twice. That was silly.
I'm not sure about the fight between the houmd and the mountain, iy just felt under whelming.
Of course "Cleganebowl" is gonna feel underwhelming after years of being hyped up by fans.
I've gotta watch this one again. I've got mixed feelings.
For two of Bronty's points though; 1. The dragon easily taking out the crossbows. In epiaode three the dragons were jusy hanging out, flying around, enjoying the sun and they were surprised by the crossbows. One took a bunch of arrows and died. In this episode, Danerys went in expecting the crossbow defenses and the crossbows were set up in one direction. She dove in quick and went low evade the main defense, She then attacked the ships from the sides, while the crossbows were pointed forward. She then
came in from behind the castle defenses, The epiaode did a good job of showing how slow it is to reposition the crossbows in a different direction.
2. Jamie Lanster, won the fight, but Euron should have been tired evading getting killed by a dragon and swimming back from the middle of the bay.
That being said Jamie did way too much after getting stabbed twice. That was silly.
I'm not sure about the fight between the houmd and the mountain, iy just felt under whelming.
I hear you about the dragon (or rather the rider) taking a different approach to the crossbows.
However, you will recall that the last time, the dragons were flying merrily along in the air, when all of a sudden there's a break in the clouds and the crossbow bolts (spears?) erupt through the sky and shred one dragon apart.
Two things:
1) It was way too easy the first time. Imagine you're on a ship, and its rocking left to right with the waves. Your crossbow is never still. Your target is moving. Your target is at long range. At long range the distance by which you miss unless your aim is PERFECT is amplified. You're not hitting that fucking dragon that easily. Have you ever shot a gun? You can hit something from 10 feet just fine. 20 feet gets harder? 500, 1000, 2000 feet are impossible? Now try hitting something with that gun from 1000 feet while on a boat that's moving under you as you're aiming? Good fucking luck. It would be like aiming at and hitting a bird 300 yards away with your tee shot while playing golf.
2) if you DO hit that dragon that easily, then you've represented that those crossbows are instant death to the dragons. Until they're not. Even though you've built many more of them. I don't care if you do take a different approach, fly low and from the sides, whatever. Are we suppose to believe that they were all pointed one way? You have this perfect anti dragon gun, and you're going to point them all the same way initially so that the dragon can roast you?
Just not believable. Inconsistent on more than one level.
Haha I really enjoyed reading the last 2 pages of comments on last night's episode. I also have mixed feelings, extremely. Bronty/Buyatari have great points as to many others - this season is spiraling downhill fast from a writing perspective - no questioning that honestly. We've been following these character arcs for years, to end most of them like this?!?!?
The visuals were top notch, I cannot get over the blood splatter (not sure if 4K was supported but it sure looked like it), the dragon scenes/fire - all top notch, however it doesn't really go with the story nearly as well as it should have. It's like being starved, craving a chicken sandwich, being force fed a double whopper and feeling bloated and confused afterwards.
I have no problems with her avoiding the scorpions, they were slow, she came in from above and got a jump on them and then ran the loops - she was like an olympic level dragon rider though steering the dragon around them lol.
My problems are more with...is that really how Jaime/Cersei go out? How did Arya survive...does Dany have Green Eyes going back to Melisandre. There are very few people left, shit is the Iron Throne even still standing?
I don't see why she went mad exactly...she essentially won the battle and then just snapped. Because Jon didn't go down on her wtf?!? Yes, she's aware that word is spreading about Jon but really?
I agree with the Wildfire buildup with a few poofs of green smoke that was a great explanation/let down. I think many people were expecting Cersei to trigger the wildfire once the scorpions went down and she would be the evil Queen...but wow that was just insane to watch.
I still don't understand why Tyrion felt obligated to share Jon's secret with Varys, and for Dany to not really reprimand him AT ALL. That part I need to rewatch that or something. I get why Sansa told Tyrion but not beyond that, other than the "Legend of Whisperers should know" or whatever he said.
One thing I think we can all agree on, is that Aaron Rodgers performance was amazing and he might earn a nomination .
I hear you about the dragon (or rather the rider) taking a different approach to the crossbows.
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For me, there is enough there to make it reasonably possible, so it's not going to super bother me. It did cross my mind while I was watching though.
I am more bothered by the abrupt story line change. We went into this episode expecting Daenery's army to be weakened and Cirsy having the upper hand. Instead of playing that out, the writers had the dragon destroy everything and the army didn't really need to be there.
And the plot is hanging everything on the point that Daenerys is killing a lot of people so she might be unfit, but I don't really care. They boxed her into a corner, and she killed a bunch of people, she also saved them from the white walkers and lost two of her dragons.
When we watch fantasy shows, as one of you alluded to we suspend our disbelief about dragons and such. We accept that this is a different reality with different rules. It's the changing of those rules or the presence of such alternate rules of reality without sufficient explanation that jars us.
They happened many times in yesterday's episode. When you stab a man, he bleeds out. When you kill a dragon last time with a small number of crossbows... and you proceed to build many more, and the dragon tosses them aside like nothing, you're left wanting an explanation. When the early episodes mention wildfire in mass quantities under the city, you want that incorporated as something other than a few green blips that don't seem to hurt anyone, when you have prophecies throughout the story, you expect resolution.
A good fantasy story is completely ridiculous and yet makes perfect sense. That did not make perfect sense in the slightest. They were more concerned with how the episodes looked than what was actually happening. We don’t need a white horse and dramatic music so that someone can stroke their ego about being an artist. It’s saccharine , it’s unnecessary, it’s self indulgent. And it’s not what this show was about for years and years. It’s not what drew me and people like me to it.
They hit the dragon when it wasnt expected. Once the dragon was aware didnt they miss? They didnt know she was coming and got bombarded.
Jamie got stabbed in the side. He stayed alive to get to cersei. He was dying. People get stabbed and survive all the time in this show.
The episode was actually good so now people are nitpicking. This is hilarious.
I don't see why she went mad exactly...she essentially won the battle and then just snapped. Because Jon didn't go down on her wtf?!? Yes, she's aware that word is spreading about Jon but really?
She lost everything. She wanted revenge. Shes lost her closest friends, Jorah, Messandei. She lost her dragons, shes lost half her army. The man she loves betrayed her, all her closest advisors left betrayed her. She has nothing and no one. I can clearly see why she saught revenge and wasnt going to let them off for what theyve done to her.
I've gotta watch this one again. I've got mixed feelings.
For two of Bronty's points though; 1. The dragon easily taking out the crossbows. In epiaode three the dragons were jusy hanging out, flying around, enjoying the sun and they were surprised by the crossbows. One took a bunch of arrows and died. In this episode, Danerys went in expecting the crossbow defenses and the crossbows were set up in one direction. She dove in quick and went low evade the main defense, She then attacked the ships from the sides, while the crossbows were pointed forward. She then
came in from behind the castle defenses, The epiaode did a good job of showing how slow it is to reposition the crossbows in a different direction.
2. Jamie Lanster, won the fight, but Euron should have been tired evading getting killed by a dragon and swimming back from the middle of the bay.
That being said Jamie did way too much after getting stabbed twice. That was silly.
I'm not sure about the fight between the houmd and the mountain, iy just felt under whelming.
Of course "Cleganebowl" is gonna feel underwhelming after years of being hyped up by fans.
I thought cleganebowl was great. I dont know what people were expecting with that one. Im just going to stay out of this thread. I guess I dont take this as seriously as some of you. I have had fun this season just watching a good show. Nitpicking a fantasy story is freaking lame. People start not liking something and lock themselves into a hating opinion and just keep on nitpicking.
ive enjoyed the show so far. Last few episodes have been captivating and fun.
I don't see why she went mad exactly...she essentially won the battle and then just snapped. Because Jon didn't go down on her wtf?!? Yes, she's aware that word is spreading about Jon but really?
She lost everything. She wanted revenge. Shes lost her closest friends, Jorah, Messandei. She lost her dragons, shes lost half her army. The man she loves betrayed her, all her closest advisors left betrayed her. She has nothing and no one. I can clearly see why she saught revenge and wasnt going to let them off for what theyve done to her.
Quest I get all that, but what is her purpose of doing so? Revenge on who exactly? I understand burning the opposition and what not, but all the innocents...there is no going back from that and now she has cemented the awful Targaryen "mad" reputation. Are you saying she is now trying to be the Queen of the lands, purely by fear from here on out?
I don't get it because she had KL in her shopping cart, she approached the self-checkout to basically wrap up her victory, but then decided to turn around and murder all the other innocent people around her. I guess it's a "if I don't get to be Queen, noone does" mentality? (with respect to Jon's right to the throne)
EDIT - and btw it is not nitpicking if the writing is suffering...we've all invested a lot of time into these characters, their arcs, and it's like a semi truck just ran over the show so they could wrap it up.
The thing for me is that it feels rushed. I'm sure many would agree here.
Am I enjoying it? Well enough, yeah.
Could it be better? Absolutely, and by far.
The reason many of the early episodes work so well isn't even necessarily because of the superior writing; it's still a show adaptation. But I believe quite firmly that it was because each season was treated as an arc, similar to how you'd see in anime. The time was given to the story that it needed so badly. Everything this season feels like a wrap-up; a Cole's Notes.
I fear that it may simply be a case of that the cast and crew were ready to move on, and that's a big unfortunate reality with real human people portraying a few years in the show over the course of a decade IRL. To make something as epic and huge as ASOIAF work on-screen I feel that it would actually require an insane amount of dedication from everyone involved. No significant breaks between making seasons etc., just work work work until it's done.
I get that the episodes are longer, but only by about 20-30 minutes. Not knowing what will happen in the next episode (or how on earth they could resolve all of this in a mere 1:20), I'll say that I believe we needed another season, maybe even two.
Early seasons were simply more fleshed out. Now we keep hearing from the producers stuff like "We didn't feel that Jon saying goodbye to Ghost was a good use of the screen time". Fuck off.
I will add that storytelling in a huge world like this as it comes to a conclusion always get simpler because locations and characters will condense and there is a central goal. Its not going to feel as complicated.
When we watch fantasy shows, as one of you alluded to we suspend our disbelief about dragons and such. We accept that this is a different reality with different rules. It's the changing of those rules or the presence of such alternate rules of reality without sufficient explanation that jars us.
They happened many times in yesterday's episode. When you stab a man, he bleeds out. When you kill a dragon last time with a small number of crossbows... and you proceed to build many more, and the dragon tosses them aside like nothing, you're left wanting an explanation. When the early episodes mention wildfire in mass quantities under the city, you want that incorporated as something other than a few green blips that don't seem to hurt anyone, when you have prophecies throughout the story, you expect resolution.
A good fantasy story is completely ridiculous and yet makes perfect sense. That did not make perfect sense in the slightest. They were more concerned with how the episodes looked than what was actually happening. We don’t need a white horse and dramatic music so that someone can stroke their ego about being an artist. It’s saccharine , it’s unnecessary, it’s self indulgent. And it’s not what this show was about for years and years. It’s not what drew me and people like me to it.
They hit the dragon when it wasnt expected. Once the dragon was aware didnt they miss? They didnt know she was coming and got bombarded.
Jamie got stabbed in the side. He stayed alive to get to cersei. He was dying. People get stabbed and survive all the time in this show.
The episode was actually good so now people are nitpicking. This is hilarious.
You seem to want to defend it at all costs and to explain away plot holes ('its a fantasy show!'. That was not a good episode. It was a big disappointment. A friend emailed me this USA today article just now that articulates things a little further. Apparently buyatari and I aren't the only negative nancy's. My opinion? The plot sucked. Vapid, insipid, insulting to the intelligence of the viewer. I could have just watched explosions if I wanted that. The visuals were good.
'Game of Thrones' recap: The series just burned itself to the ground
What is left for "Game of Thrones"?
Nothing, really. For viewers who have stuck around for eight seasons of the HBO fantasy series, all that's left after the penultimate episode is ash and a bad taste. When Daenerys Targaryen lived up to her terrible family's reputation and burned King's Landing to the ground, she incinerated the last hope for "Thrones" along with it.
Where to begin with "The Bells," an absolute disaster of an episode that exhibited every bad habit the series' writers have ever had? They threw out their own rule book (suddenly the scorpions don't work and Drogon can burn everything?) to pursue gross spectacle.
Character and substance were left by the wayside so that the plot could go where the writers wanted. The pace was rushed in the beginning, painfully lagging by the end. The --script created plot devices and conflicts out of thin air (no really, when were the bells ever so important?), relished in violence and let a main character survive beyond any reasonable odds. (How many buildings have to fall on Arya before she stays down?) "Bells" is somehow both fan service and indulgence in all the tropes that fans hate.
Had this episode taken place just before the finale of Season 4 or 5, it might be forgivable, but with just over an hour left in the series, it's far too late to make a mistake of this magnitude. There's no time to switch gears, because Mad Queen Dany (and, apparently Arya's inexplicable survival and possible revenge) is what "Thrones" will always have been about. This disappointment is what we've all been waiting for.
The bigger they are, the harder they fall, and few TV shows have gotten quite as big as "Thrones." Even fewer have failed so spectacularly for so many viewers.
Theoretically, the series has one last hour to redeem itself. And maybe some fans hold out hope that the finale can wrap things up in a way that makes emotional and logical sense. But betting on "Thrones" to fix itself is really just doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result. Just like Cersei, Tyrion and the rest, we should know better by now.
One last little bird
The latest member of the “suddenly I’m very dumb” club is Varys, whose campaign to supplant Dany with Jon goes comically wrong in the blink of an eye. We barely have time to register that he has a little bird spy again and is writing letters about Jon’s true parentage before he is found out.
Dany has figured out that Jon told Sansa who told Tyrion who told Varys about Jon's parentage, and is angry at both Jon and Tyrion. (How did she find out? How much time has even passed since Missandei's death? Who knows or cares, apparently?!)
Dany burns Varys alive for his betrayal, and it's rather underwhelming. Varys survived so many monarchs, only to be finally killed because he was, what, writing too loudly? It was a poor end for one of the series’ best characters.
I have a bad feeling about this
Dany and Grey Worm share a brief moment mourning over Missandei's slave collar (though why she would bring that to Westeros is baffling), before Jon arrives for an "I told you so" from his aunt. Dany complains that she doesn't have love from the people of the Seven Kingdoms, only fear, and even though Jon says he loves her, he recoils from her kiss. (Finally Emilia Clarke and Kit Harington's lack of chemistry is useful).
frameborder="0" height="3" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" style="box-sizing: border-box; border-width: 0px; border-style: initial; vertical-align: bottom;" title="3rd party ad content" width="3">>Tyrion begs for the lives of the people of King's Landing, and gets Dany to agree to spare them if they surrender by ringing the city bells. His obsession with saving commoners doesn't make much sense, but I suppose someone needed to foreshadow Dany's reign of terror. Dany also mentions that Jaime was captured trying to sneak into the city, and tells Tyrion if he fails her again, it will be the last time.
Instead of, say, following the orders of the queen he's so intent on supporting, Tyrion frees Jaime in the hope that he'll convince Cersei to flee the city. The brothers hug before leaving each other for good.
Unlike Jaime, Arya and the Hound manage to sneak into the city easily, perhaps the last time she has to declare herself Arya Stark to get past a guard.
What kind of fire burns stone?
The morning of the battle dawns and everyone's holding their breath and their positions: Jon and the allied troops outside the front gates staring down the Golden Company, while Euron and the Iron Fleet are in the Blackwater with their scorpions pointed at the sky. Cersei's troops look menacing and more impressive than the raggedy band of northerners and surviving Unsullied and Dothraki that Dany has assembled.
At this point the episode spends copious time showing us all the innocent civilians Dany is about to murder, including a mother and daughter who are given enough screen time for us to know that they will be this episode's symbolic sufferers.
And then Dany and Drogon fly down.
After being ineffectual at the Battle of Winterfell and against the Iron Fleet, Drogon has suddenly become a weapon of mass destruction that no scorpion crossbow can hit. Like every other plot device on "Thrones" the past few seasons, the dragons were useless, until they were needed.
Drogon lights up the Iron Fleet with ease, before moving to the King's Landing battlements, eventually burning the Golden Company from behind before Dany's army charges.
As Dany's forces attack, Cersei watched from the Red Keep, but loses her trademark sneer. Qyburn informs her that all the scorpions have been destroyed (truly how does he know that?), the Iron Fleet is burning and the Golden Company has been slaughtered. Cersei claims that the Red Keep has never fallen, but her confidence is failing.
At this point the battle is basically won. Jon, Davos and Grey Worm's battalion comes across a group of Lannister soldiers who lay down their weapons. The soldiers and the civilians all start shouting for someone to ring the bells in surrender, and after a comical amount of buildup they ring, much to Jon and Tyrion's relief.
But that doesn't last long. Dany looks at the Red Keep in the distance, and then lets loose fire and blood.
Not the mad queen we need, but the one we deserve
In an alternate timeline, George R.R. Martin would have finished writing "A Song of Ice and Fire" before it was ever adapted to series. His seventh and final book would have been hundreds of pages that offered copious explanation for its hero's descent into madness and cruelty. And that long, complex and thoughtful book would be adapted into far more than six episodes of television.
The problem with Dany going full Mad Queen isn't that she used to be a hero or that the show never foreshadowed it. There have been seeds, all the way back to Season 1 when she burned Mirri Maz Duur alive as vengeance for Khal Drogo's death. She has long been vain, ruthless and completely convinced of her own brilliance.
But the show spent far more time making Dany a hero, if a rather boring one. Making her Mad Queen Dany now is rushed, unearned and emotionless.
In the moment, it's also not clear what made her snap. Missandei? Rhaegal? Not getting her way? Being bored because she won the battle too quickly? Why did she destroy the whole city instead of going straight to Cersei? Where does she expect to live after destroying the castle her ancestors built?
More pressingly, what does Dany's turn even say about the show, thematically? That we're doomed to repeat the mistakes of our families? Dany's "madness" or whatever we want to call it is nothing like Aerys, who heard voices and acted out of fear and paranoia. Viserys was cruel but also petty and weak. Rhaegar wasn't mad or vicious at all. Hewas short-sighted but noble. Dany is just lamely sadistic.
Have you ever seen a city sacked?
As Dany burns down King's Landing, the allied forces unleash their inner monsters, too. In a far more flagrant breach of character than Dany's rushed madness, Grey Worm, the most restrained man in Essos or Westeros, kills unarmed men in a rage. The allied forces begin to sack the city.
Jon tries and fails to pull his soldiers back. Davos, too, tries to save the civilians, but Drogon's fire starts bringing down all the buildings, and the city is increasingly a pile of ash and bodies.
Jaime, meanwhile, is trying desperately to get inside the Red Keep, and runs into Euron, who somehow made it to shore. Instead of trying to save himself, Euron challenges Jaime to a duel. Jaime kills him, but not before Euron stabs Jaime twice, wounds that really should have been fatal.
The Hound and Arya make it into the castle, but the structure is starting to crumble. The Hound pleads with Arya to save herself, and not be as consumed by vengeance and rage as he is. For once, she listens, and gives him the gift of calling him Sandor before they part.
The Hound finds his brother with Cersei, Qyburn and Cersei's remaining guard as they're trying to escape. Gregor kills Qyburn before dueling with the Hound, while Cersei slips away.
The Hound and the Mountain fight, and the former is wildly outmatched by his big brother. Their duel is intercut with Arya trying to escape the city as buildings crumble. The Hound eventually kills the Mountain by pulling him out a window into a burning abyss, while Arya is rescued from being trampled by the woman we saw earlier.
Things fall apart
Jaime finds Cersei as she's alone and crying. They embrace and he takes her through the secret passage a young Arya once got lost in and Varys and Illyrio (remember him?) once schemed in.
But the tunnel has caved in, and they're stuck. Cersei breaks down, screaming that she doesn't want to die. Jaime reaffirms his love and holds her as they're crushed by the crumbling castle.
Outside, Arya is barely standing. Stones fall on her a handful of times but she somehow survives, eventually finding a group of people, including the woman who helped her earlier. Arya tries to help them, but just as they're running away from the rubble, Drogon flies overhead and lights up the street. Arya, somehow, is the only person left standing, while the woman and her daughter are burned down to their skeletons.
Arya is helped out of the city by deus ex white horse, who is conveniently hanging out on the street where she ended up. It's clear that, although she swore off vengeance a few minutes ago to the Hound, Arya is going to make Dany pay for what she did to the city. And that, apparently, is how "Thrones" is going to end.
When we watch fantasy shows, as one of you alluded to we suspend our disbelief about dragons and such. We accept that this is a different reality with different rules. It's the changing of those rules or the presence of such alternate rules of reality without sufficient explanation that jars us.
They happened many times in yesterday's episode. When you stab a man, he bleeds out. When you kill a dragon last time with a small number of crossbows... and you proceed to build many more, and the dragon tosses them aside like nothing, you're left wanting an explanation. When the early episodes mention wildfire in mass quantities under the city, you want that incorporated as something other than a few green blips that don't seem to hurt anyone, when you have prophecies throughout the story, you expect resolution.
A good fantasy story is completely ridiculous and yet makes perfect sense. That did not make perfect sense in the slightest. They were more concerned with how the episodes looked than what was actually happening. We don’t need a white horse and dramatic music so that someone can stroke their ego about being an artist. It’s saccharine , it’s unnecessary, it’s self indulgent. And it’s not what this show was about for years and years. It’s not what drew me and people like me to it.
They hit the dragon when it wasnt expected. Once the dragon was aware didnt they miss? They didnt know she was coming and got bombarded.
Jamie got stabbed in the side. He stayed alive to get to cersei. He was dying. People get stabbed and survive all the time in this show.
The episode was actually good so now people are nitpicking. This is hilarious.
You seem to want to defend it at all costs and to explain away plot holes ('its a fantasy show!'. That was not a good episode. It was a big disappointment. A friend emailed me this USA today article just now that articulates things a little further.
'Game of Thrones' recap: The series just burned itself to the ground
What is left for "Game of Thrones"?
Nothing, really. For viewers who have stuck around for eight seasons of the HBO fantasy series, all that's left after the penultimate episode is ash and a bad taste. When Daenerys Targaryen lived up to her terrible family's reputation and burned King's Landing to the ground, she incinerated the last hope for "Thrones" along with it.
Where to begin with "The Bells," an absolute disaster of an episode that exhibited every bad habit the series' writers have ever had? They threw out their own rule book (suddenly the scorpions don't work and Drogon can burn everything?) to pursue gross spectacle.
Character and substance were left by the wayside so that the plot could go where the writers wanted. The pace was rushed in the beginning, painfully lagging by the end. The --script created plot devices and conflicts out of thin air (no really, when were the bells ever so important?), relished in violence and let a main character survive beyond any reasonable odds. (How many buildings have to fall on Arya before she stays down?) "Bells" is somehow both fan service and indulgence in all the tropes that fans hate.
Had this episode taken place just before the finale of Season 4 or 5, it might be forgivable, but with just over an hour left in the series, it's far too late to make a mistake of this magnitude. There's no time to switch gears, because Mad Queen Dany (and, apparently Arya's inexplicable survival and possible revenge) is what "Thrones" will always have been about. This disappointment is what we've all been waiting for.
The bigger they are, the harder they fall, and few TV shows have gotten quite as big as "Thrones." Even fewer have failed so spectacularly for so many viewers.
Theoretically, the series has one last hour to redeem itself. And maybe some fans hold out hope that the finale can wrap things up in a way that makes emotional and logical sense. But betting on "Thrones" to fix itself is really just doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result. Just like Cersei, Tyrion and the rest, we should know better by now.
One last little bird
The latest member of the “suddenly I’m very dumb” club is Varys, whose campaign to supplant Dany with Jon goes comically wrong in the blink of an eye. We barely have time to register that he has a little bird spy again and is writing letters about Jon’s true parentage before he is found out.
Dany has figured out that Jon told Sansa who told Tyrion who told Varys about Jon's parentage, and is angry at both Jon and Tyrion. (How did she find out? How much time has even passed since Missandei's death? Who knows or cares, apparently?!)
Dany burns Varys alive for his betrayal, and it's rather underwhelming. Varys survived so many monarchs, only to be finally killed because he was, what, writing too loudly? It was a poor end for one of the series’ best characters.
I have a bad feeling about this
Dany and Grey Worm share a brief moment mourning over Missandei's slave collar (though why she would bring that to Westeros is baffling), before Jon arrives for an "I told you so" from his aunt. Dany complains that she doesn't have love from the people of the Seven Kingdoms, only fear, and even though Jon says he loves her, he recoils from her kiss. (Finally Emilia Clarke and Kit Harington's lack of chemistry is useful).
frameborder="0" height="3" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" style="box-sizing: border-box; border-width: 0px; border-style: initial; vertical-align: bottom;" title="3rd party ad content" width="3">>Tyrion begs for the lives of the people of King's Landing, and gets Dany to agree to spare them if they surrender by ringing the city bells. His obsession with saving commoners doesn't make much sense, but I suppose someone needed to foreshadow Dany's reign of terror. Dany also mentions that Jaime was captured trying to sneak into the city, and tells Tyrion if he fails her again, it will be the last time.
Instead of, say, following the orders of the queen he's so intent on supporting, Tyrion frees Jaime in the hope that he'll convince Cersei to flee the city. The brothers hug before leaving each other for good.
Unlike Jaime, Arya and the Hound manage to sneak into the city easily, perhaps the last time she has to declare herself Arya Stark to get past a guard.
What kind of fire burns stone?
The morning of the battle dawns and everyone's holding their breath and their positions: Jon and the allied troops outside the front gates staring down the Golden Company, while Euron and the Iron Fleet are in the Blackwater with their scorpions pointed at the sky. Cersei's troops look menacing and more impressive than the raggedy band of northerners and surviving Unsullied and Dothraki that Dany has assembled.
At this point the episode spends copious time showing us all the innocent civilians Dany is about to murder, including a mother and daughter who are given enough screen time for us to know that they will be this episode's symbolic sufferers.
And then Dany and Drogon fly down.
After being ineffectual at the Battle of Winterfell and against the Iron Fleet, Drogon has suddenly become a weapon of mass destruction that no scorpion crossbow can hit. Like every other plot device on "Thrones" the past few seasons, the dragons were useless, until they were needed.
Drogon lights up the Iron Fleet with ease, before moving to the King's Landing battlements, eventually burning the Golden Company from behind before Dany's army charges.
As Dany's forces attack, Cersei watched from the Red Keep, but loses her trademark sneer. Qyburn informs her that all the scorpions have been destroyed (truly how does he know that?), the Iron Fleet is burning and the Golden Company has been slaughtered. Cersei claims that the Red Keep has never fallen, but her confidence is failing.
At this point the battle is basically won. Jon, Davos and Grey Worm's battalion comes across a group of Lannister soldiers who lay down their weapons. The soldiers and the civilians all start shouting for someone to ring the bells in surrender, and after a comical amount of buildup they ring, much to Jon and Tyrion's relief.
But that doesn't last long. Dany looks at the Red Keep in the distance, and then lets loose fire and blood.
Not the mad queen we need, but the one we deserve
In an alternate timeline, George R.R. Martin would have finished writing "A Song of Ice and Fire" before it was ever adapted to series. His seventh and final book would have been hundreds of pages that offered copious explanation for its hero's descent into madness and cruelty. And that long, complex and thoughtful book would be adapted into far more than six episodes of television.
The problem with Dany going full Mad Queen isn't that she used to be a hero or that the show never foreshadowed it. There have been seeds, all the way back to Season 1 when she burned Mirri Maz Duur alive as vengeance for Khal Drogo's death. She has long been vain, ruthless and completely convinced of her own brilliance.
But the show spent far more time making Dany a hero, if a rather boring one. Making her Mad Queen Dany now is rushed, unearned and emotionless.
In the moment, it's also not clear what made her snap. Missandei? Rhaegal? Not getting her way? Being bored because she won the battle too quickly? Why did she destroy the whole city instead of going straight to Cersei? Where does she expect to live after destroying the castle her ancestors built?
More pressingly, what does Dany's turn even say about the show, thematically? That we're doomed to repeat the mistakes of our families? Dany's "madness" or whatever we want to call it is nothing like Aerys, who heard voices and acted out of fear and paranoia. Viserys was cruel but also petty and weak. Rhaegar wasn't mad or vicious at all. Hewas short-sighted but noble. Dany is just lamely sadistic.
Have you ever seen a city sacked?
As Dany burns down King's Landing, the allied forces unleash their inner monsters, too. In a far more flagrant breach of character than Dany's rushed madness, Grey Worm, the most restrained man in Essos or Westeros, kills unarmed men in a rage. The allied forces begin to sack the city.
Jon tries and fails to pull his soldiers back. Davos, too, tries to save the civilians, but Drogon's fire starts bringing down all the buildings, and the city is increasingly a pile of ash and bodies.
Jaime, meanwhile, is trying desperately to get inside the Red Keep, and runs into Euron, who somehow made it to shore. Instead of trying to save himself, Euron challenges Jaime to a duel. Jaime kills him, but not before Euron stabs Jaime twice, wounds that really should have been fatal.
The Hound and Arya make it into the castle, but the structure is starting to crumble. The Hound pleads with Arya to save herself, and not be as consumed by vengeance and rage as he is. For once, she listens, and gives him the gift of calling him Sandor before they part.
The Hound finds his brother with Cersei, Qyburn and Cersei's remaining guard as they're trying to escape. Gregor kills Qyburn before dueling with the Hound, while Cersei slips away.
The Hound and the Mountain fight, and the former is wildly outmatched by his big brother. Their duel is intercut with Arya trying to escape the city as buildings crumble. The Hound eventually kills the Mountain by pulling him out a window into a burning abyss, while Arya is rescued from being trampled by the woman we saw earlier.
Things fall apart
Jaime finds Cersei as she's alone and crying. They embrace and he takes her through the secret passage a young Arya once got lost in and Varys and Illyrio (remember him?) once schemed in.
But the tunnel has caved in, and they're stuck. Cersei breaks down, screaming that she doesn't want to die. Jaime reaffirms his love and holds her as they're crushed by the crumbling castle.
Outside, Arya is barely standing. Stones fall on her a handful of times but she somehow survives, eventually finding a group of people, including the woman who helped her earlier. Arya tries to help them, but just as they're running away from the rubble, Drogon flies overhead and lights up the street. Arya, somehow, is the only person left standing, while the woman and her daughter are burned down to their skeletons.
Arya is helped out of the city by deus ex white horse, who is conveniently hanging out on the street where she ended up. It's clear that, although she swore off vengeance a few minutes ago to the Hound, Arya is going to make Dany pay for what she did to the city. And that, apparently, is how "Thrones" is going to end.
I already saw the USA Today article. Their writer have been negative every episode this season. Always pops into my facebook feed. On this episode and last most comments were positive about the show calling out the article.
Everything has to be the greatest or suck completely now in this social media era of the internet. Its just ridiculous to me. Has the shown done things I wish went different? Absolutely. But people always complain no matter what now. Its just lame. The show is good. Its fun. Its TV. The rules established have had consistency to me. Nothing has really taken me out of the show and people that say that I really dont believe. People get in this negativity group think about this season, and then as they watch instead of just watching the show they are looking for everything to complain about. Watching the show through a negativity lens. Its what makes the internet culture suck nowadays. Cant just be a solid tv show. It doesnt do what you would have done so its a "trainwreck" "disaster" "insert hyperbolic statement here"
When we watch fantasy shows, as one of you alluded to we suspend our disbelief about dragons and such. We accept that this is a different reality with different rules. It's the changing of those rules or the presence of such alternate rules of reality without sufficient explanation that jars us.
They happened many times in yesterday's episode. When you stab a man, he bleeds out. When you kill a dragon last time with a small number of crossbows... and you proceed to build many more, and the dragon tosses them aside like nothing, you're left wanting an explanation. When the early episodes mention wildfire in mass quantities under the city, you want that incorporated as something other than a few green blips that don't seem to hurt anyone, when you have prophecies throughout the story, you expect resolution.
A good fantasy story is completely ridiculous and yet makes perfect sense. That did not make perfect sense in the slightest. They were more concerned with how the episodes looked than what was actually happening. We don’t need a white horse and dramatic music so that someone can stroke their ego about being an artist. It’s saccharine , it’s unnecessary, it’s self indulgent. And it’s not what this show was about for years and years. It’s not what drew me and people like me to it.
They hit the dragon when it wasnt expected. Once the dragon was aware didnt they miss? They didnt know she was coming and got bombarded.
Jamie got stabbed in the side. He stayed alive to get to cersei. He was dying. People get stabbed and survive all the time in this show.
The episode was actually good so now people are nitpicking. This is hilarious.
You seem to want to defend it at all costs and to explain away plot holes ('its a fantasy show!'. That was not a good episode. It was a big disappointment. A friend emailed me this USA today article just now that articulates things a little further.
'Game of Thrones' recap: The series just burned itself to the ground
Look was it the worst episode of a television show of all time? Of course not.
Its precisely because the show has been so brilliant until this season however that this season and especially this episode have been major, major letdowns. I may have spent more time on Game of Thrones than any other TV show I've ever watched because it was so incredibly good. Its hard to watch it be a shadow of its former self.
As the article said, the bigger they are the harder they fall, and that's why this episode, and season, have been like a swandive from a 5m springboard into a pool that somebody let all the water out of.
SPLAT.
We went from compelling foreshadowing and richly nuanced motives and dialogue to.... whatever that was last night. In a previous post I called it horseshit.
I'll admit that I miss the deep intertwined plot lines, but the sad reality is the show is over and the directors just want to get to their new job at Disney Star Wars.
The final season was rushed (after two years somehow?)
George RR Martin claims to not even know the ending
And there are so many unanswered questions that need answers.
I loved last nights episode, but I still miss the shows plot.
Comments
Etc etc etc . Whatever . I'm glad you guys liked it, but I thought it was ridiculous on many levels
The action was good but I’m with you. There were several moments where I yelled at the tv ”Oh come on!”
Last episode two dragons and a fleet of ships got their asses kicked but if you only make the Queen mad then she can singlehandedly take out the armada, the anti-dragon castle fortifications and then the entire city all by herself with one dragon. Why did she bother to bring anyone else!
Can’t wait til next week. It will be nice to see the Dothraki and Unsullied armies again after they were wiped out in the battle of Winterfell.
and you are still doubling down on that take bronty? lolololol. cmon man.
Its a tv show.
Ofcourse Buyatari isnt happy, hes had negativity the whole season. He wont let the show be good for himself at this point.
They happened many times in yesterday's episode. When you stab a man, he bleeds out. When you kill a dragon last time with a small number of crossbows... and you proceed to build many more, and the dragon tosses them aside like nothing, you're left wanting an explanation. When the early episodes mention wildfire in mass quantities under the city, you want that incorporated as something other than a few green blips that don't seem to hurt anyone, when you have prophecies throughout the story, you expect resolution.
A good fantasy story is completely ridiculous and yet makes perfect sense. That did not make perfect sense in the slightest. They were more concerned with how the episodes looked than what was actually happening. We don’t need a white horse and dramatic music so that someone can stroke their ego about being an artist. It’s saccharine , it’s unnecessary, it’s self indulgent. And it’s not what this show was about for years and years. It’s not what drew me and people like me to it.
LMAO ITS A FANTASY SHOW!!!!!
and you are still doubling down on that take bronty? lolololol. cmon man.
Its a tv show.
Ofcourse Buyatari isnt happy, hes had negativity the whole season. He wont let the show be good for himself at this point.
You got it wrong. I want this to be what it once was very badly.
I don’t watch any other shows at all. Yet every Sunday I’m there waiting for it to start only to be let down time and time again.
You would think I was watching the Browns from two seasons ago when they went 0-16.
Sure it was a fantasy show and now it is pure fantasy.
We once had shocking moments and brilliant calculated moves that became clear in the end. Now we have characters making decision after decision that just don’t make any sense , strange things that happen for no reason and are never explained and back to back moments that shatter the suspension of disbelief.
LMAO ITS A FANTASY SHOW!!!!!
and you are still doubling down on that take bronty? lolololol. cmon man.
Its a tv show.
Ofcourse Buyatari isnt happy, hes had negativity the whole season. He wont let the show be good for himself at this point.
That’s soft minded thinking. Any show, fantasy or otherwise has to have internal consistency or you have chaos in the storytelling.
LMAO ITS A FANTASY SHOW!!!!!
and you are still doubling down on that take bronty? lolololol. cmon man.
Its a tv show.
Ofcourse Buyatari isnt happy, hes had negativity the whole season. He wont let the show be good for himself at this point.
That’s soft minded thinking. Any show, fantasy or otherwise has to have internal consistency or you have chaos in the storytelling.
Yes you can have different rules in your universe but once you set those rules you have to remain true to them.
There is no shortcut for quality storytelling by changing a long-standing and accepted rule in order make it work when it otherwise would not.
You leave the audience feeling jilted.
Harrenhal. They made it explicitly clear that the spires "melted", and even showed as much in the show.
Am I enjoying it? Well enough, yeah.
Could it be better? Absolutely, and by far.
The reason many of the early episodes work so well isn't even necessarily because of the superior writing; it's still a show adaptation. But I believe quite firmly that it was because each season was treated as an arc, similar to how you'd see in anime. The time was given to the story that it needed so badly. Everything this season feels like a wrap-up; a Cole's Notes.
I fear that it may simply be a case of that the cast and crew were ready to move on, and that's a big unfortunate reality with real human people portraying a few years in the show over the course of a decade IRL. To make something as epic and huge as ASOIAF work on-screen I feel that it would actually require an insane amount of dedication from everyone involved. No significant breaks between making seasons etc., just work work work until it's done.
I get that the episodes are longer, but only by about 20-30 minutes. Not knowing what will happen in the next episode (or how on earth they could resolve all of this in a mere 1:20), I'll say that I believe we needed another season, maybe even two.
Early seasons were simply more fleshed out. Now we keep hearing from the producers stuff like "We didn't feel that Jon saying goodbye to Ghost was a good use of the screen time". Fuck off.
For two of Bronty's points though; 1. The dragon easily taking out the crossbows. In epiaode three the dragons were jusy hanging out, flying around, enjoying the sun and they were surprised by the crossbows. One took a bunch of arrows and died. In this episode, Danerys went in expecting the crossbow defenses and the crossbows were set up in one direction. She dove in quick and went low evade the main defense, She then attacked the ships from the sides, while the crossbows were pointed forward. She then
came in from behind the castle defenses, The epiaode did a good job of showing how slow it is to reposition the crossbows in a different direction.
2. Jamie Lanster, won the fight, but Euron should have been tired evading getting killed by a dragon and swimming back from the middle of the bay.
That being said Jamie did way too much after getting stabbed twice. That was silly.
I'm not sure about the fight between the houmd and the mountain, iy just felt under whelming.
I've gotta watch this one again. I've got mixed feelings.
For two of Bronty's points though; 1. The dragon easily taking out the crossbows. In epiaode three the dragons were jusy hanging out, flying around, enjoying the sun and they were surprised by the crossbows. One took a bunch of arrows and died. In this episode, Danerys went in expecting the crossbow defenses and the crossbows were set up in one direction. She dove in quick and went low evade the main defense, She then attacked the ships from the sides, while the crossbows were pointed forward. She then
came in from behind the castle defenses, The epiaode did a good job of showing how slow it is to reposition the crossbows in a different direction.
2. Jamie Lanster, won the fight, but Euron should have been tired evading getting killed by a dragon and swimming back from the middle of the bay.
That being said Jamie did way too much after getting stabbed twice. That was silly.
I'm not sure about the fight between the houmd and the mountain, iy just felt under whelming.
Of course "Cleganebowl" is gonna feel underwhelming after years of being hyped up by fans.
I didn't know what Cleganebowl was until last week.
I've gotta watch this one again. I've got mixed feelings.
For two of Bronty's points though; 1. The dragon easily taking out the crossbows. In epiaode three the dragons were jusy hanging out, flying around, enjoying the sun and they were surprised by the crossbows. One took a bunch of arrows and died. In this episode, Danerys went in expecting the crossbow defenses and the crossbows were set up in one direction. She dove in quick and went low evade the main defense, She then attacked the ships from the sides, while the crossbows were pointed forward. She then
came in from behind the castle defenses, The epiaode did a good job of showing how slow it is to reposition the crossbows in a different direction.
2. Jamie Lanster, won the fight, but Euron should have been tired evading getting killed by a dragon and swimming back from the middle of the bay.
That being said Jamie did way too much after getting stabbed twice. That was silly.
I'm not sure about the fight between the houmd and the mountain, iy just felt under whelming.
I hear you about the dragon (or rather the rider) taking a different approach to the crossbows.
However, you will recall that the last time, the dragons were flying merrily along in the air, when all of a sudden there's a break in the clouds and the crossbow bolts (spears?) erupt through the sky and shred one dragon apart.
Two things:
1) It was way too easy the first time. Imagine you're on a ship, and its rocking left to right with the waves. Your crossbow is never still. Your target is moving. Your target is at long range. At long range the distance by which you miss unless your aim is PERFECT is amplified. You're not hitting that fucking dragon that easily. Have you ever shot a gun? You can hit something from 10 feet just fine. 20 feet gets harder? 500, 1000, 2000 feet are impossible? Now try hitting something with that gun from 1000 feet while on a boat that's moving under you as you're aiming? Good fucking luck. It would be like aiming at and hitting a bird 300 yards away with your tee shot while playing golf.
2) if you DO hit that dragon that easily, then you've represented that those crossbows are instant death to the dragons. Until they're not. Even though you've built many more of them. I don't care if you do take a different approach, fly low and from the sides, whatever. Are we suppose to believe that they were all pointed one way? You have this perfect anti dragon gun, and you're going to point them all the same way initially so that the dragon can roast you?
Just not believable. Inconsistent on more than one level.
The visuals were top notch, I cannot get over the blood splatter (not sure if 4K was supported but it sure looked like it), the dragon scenes/fire - all top notch, however it doesn't really go with the story nearly as well as it should have. It's like being starved, craving a chicken sandwich, being force fed a double whopper and feeling bloated and confused afterwards.
I have no problems with her avoiding the scorpions, they were slow, she came in from above and got a jump on them and then ran the loops - she was like an olympic level dragon rider though steering the dragon around them lol.
My problems are more with...is that really how Jaime/Cersei go out? How did Arya survive...does Dany have Green Eyes going back to Melisandre. There are very few people left, shit is the Iron Throne even still standing?
I don't see why she went mad exactly...she essentially won the battle and then just snapped. Because Jon didn't go down on her wtf?!? Yes, she's aware that word is spreading about Jon but really?
I agree with the Wildfire buildup with a few poofs of green smoke that was a great explanation/let down. I think many people were expecting Cersei to trigger the wildfire once the scorpions went down and she would be the evil Queen...but wow that was just insane to watch.
I still don't understand why Tyrion felt obligated to share Jon's secret with Varys, and for Dany to not really reprimand him AT ALL. That part I need to rewatch that or something. I get why Sansa told Tyrion but not beyond that, other than the "Legend of Whisperers should know" or whatever he said.
One thing I think we can all agree on, is that Aaron Rodgers performance was amazing and he might earn a nomination .
I hear you about the dragon (or rather the rider) taking a different approach to the crossbows.
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For me, there is enough there to make it reasonably possible, so it's not going to super bother me. It did cross my mind while I was watching though.
I am more bothered by the abrupt story line change. We went into this episode expecting Daenery's army to be weakened and Cirsy having the upper hand. Instead of playing that out, the writers had the dragon destroy everything and the army didn't really need to be there.
And the plot is hanging everything on the point that Daenerys is killing a lot of people so she might be unfit, but I don't really care. They boxed her into a corner, and she killed a bunch of people, she also saved them from the white walkers and lost two of her dragons.
When we watch fantasy shows, as one of you alluded to we suspend our disbelief about dragons and such. We accept that this is a different reality with different rules. It's the changing of those rules or the presence of such alternate rules of reality without sufficient explanation that jars us.
They happened many times in yesterday's episode. When you stab a man, he bleeds out. When you kill a dragon last time with a small number of crossbows... and you proceed to build many more, and the dragon tosses them aside like nothing, you're left wanting an explanation. When the early episodes mention wildfire in mass quantities under the city, you want that incorporated as something other than a few green blips that don't seem to hurt anyone, when you have prophecies throughout the story, you expect resolution.
A good fantasy story is completely ridiculous and yet makes perfect sense. That did not make perfect sense in the slightest. They were more concerned with how the episodes looked than what was actually happening. We don’t need a white horse and dramatic music so that someone can stroke their ego about being an artist. It’s saccharine , it’s unnecessary, it’s self indulgent. And it’s not what this show was about for years and years. It’s not what drew me and people like me to it.
They hit the dragon when it wasnt expected. Once the dragon was aware didnt they miss? They didnt know she was coming and got bombarded.
Jamie got stabbed in the side. He stayed alive to get to cersei. He was dying. People get stabbed and survive all the time in this show.
The episode was actually good so now people are nitpicking. This is hilarious.
I don't see why she went mad exactly...she essentially won the battle and then just snapped. Because Jon didn't go down on her wtf?!? Yes, she's aware that word is spreading about Jon but really?
She lost everything. She wanted revenge. Shes lost her closest friends, Jorah, Messandei. She lost her dragons, shes lost half her army. The man she loves betrayed her, all her closest advisors left betrayed her. She has nothing and no one. I can clearly see why she saught revenge and wasnt going to let them off for what theyve done to her.
I've gotta watch this one again. I've got mixed feelings.
For two of Bronty's points though; 1. The dragon easily taking out the crossbows. In epiaode three the dragons were jusy hanging out, flying around, enjoying the sun and they were surprised by the crossbows. One took a bunch of arrows and died. In this episode, Danerys went in expecting the crossbow defenses and the crossbows were set up in one direction. She dove in quick and went low evade the main defense, She then attacked the ships from the sides, while the crossbows were pointed forward. She then
came in from behind the castle defenses, The epiaode did a good job of showing how slow it is to reposition the crossbows in a different direction.
2. Jamie Lanster, won the fight, but Euron should have been tired evading getting killed by a dragon and swimming back from the middle of the bay.
That being said Jamie did way too much after getting stabbed twice. That was silly.
I'm not sure about the fight between the houmd and the mountain, iy just felt under whelming.
Of course "Cleganebowl" is gonna feel underwhelming after years of being hyped up by fans.
I thought cleganebowl was great. I dont know what people were expecting with that one. Im just going to stay out of this thread. I guess I dont take this as seriously as some of you. I have had fun this season just watching a good show. Nitpicking a fantasy story is freaking lame. People start not liking something and lock themselves into a hating opinion and just keep on nitpicking.
ive enjoyed the show so far. Last few episodes have been captivating and fun.
I don't see why she went mad exactly...she essentially won the battle and then just snapped. Because Jon didn't go down on her wtf?!? Yes, she's aware that word is spreading about Jon but really?
She lost everything. She wanted revenge. Shes lost her closest friends, Jorah, Messandei. She lost her dragons, shes lost half her army. The man she loves betrayed her, all her closest advisors left betrayed her. She has nothing and no one. I can clearly see why she saught revenge and wasnt going to let them off for what theyve done to her.
Quest I get all that, but what is her purpose of doing so? Revenge on who exactly? I understand burning the opposition and what not, but all the innocents...there is no going back from that and now she has cemented the awful Targaryen "mad" reputation. Are you saying she is now trying to be the Queen of the lands, purely by fear from here on out?
I don't get it because she had KL in her shopping cart, she approached the self-checkout to basically wrap up her victory, but then decided to turn around and murder all the other innocent people around her. I guess it's a "if I don't get to be Queen, noone does" mentality? (with respect to Jon's right to the throne)
EDIT - and btw it is not nitpicking if the writing is suffering...we've all invested a lot of time into these characters, their arcs, and it's like a semi truck just ran over the show so they could wrap it up.
The thing for me is that it feels rushed. I'm sure many would agree here.
Am I enjoying it? Well enough, yeah.
Could it be better? Absolutely, and by far.
The reason many of the early episodes work so well isn't even necessarily because of the superior writing; it's still a show adaptation. But I believe quite firmly that it was because each season was treated as an arc, similar to how you'd see in anime. The time was given to the story that it needed so badly. Everything this season feels like a wrap-up; a Cole's Notes.
I fear that it may simply be a case of that the cast and crew were ready to move on, and that's a big unfortunate reality with real human people portraying a few years in the show over the course of a decade IRL. To make something as epic and huge as ASOIAF work on-screen I feel that it would actually require an insane amount of dedication from everyone involved. No significant breaks between making seasons etc., just work work work until it's done.
I get that the episodes are longer, but only by about 20-30 minutes. Not knowing what will happen in the next episode (or how on earth they could resolve all of this in a mere 1:20), I'll say that I believe we needed another season, maybe even two.
Early seasons were simply more fleshed out. Now we keep hearing from the producers stuff like "We didn't feel that Jon saying goodbye to Ghost was a good use of the screen time". Fuck off.
I will add that storytelling in a huge world like this as it comes to a conclusion always get simpler because locations and characters will condense and there is a central goal. Its not going to feel as complicated.
When we watch fantasy shows, as one of you alluded to we suspend our disbelief about dragons and such. We accept that this is a different reality with different rules. It's the changing of those rules or the presence of such alternate rules of reality without sufficient explanation that jars us.
They happened many times in yesterday's episode. When you stab a man, he bleeds out. When you kill a dragon last time with a small number of crossbows... and you proceed to build many more, and the dragon tosses them aside like nothing, you're left wanting an explanation. When the early episodes mention wildfire in mass quantities under the city, you want that incorporated as something other than a few green blips that don't seem to hurt anyone, when you have prophecies throughout the story, you expect resolution.
A good fantasy story is completely ridiculous and yet makes perfect sense. That did not make perfect sense in the slightest. They were more concerned with how the episodes looked than what was actually happening. We don’t need a white horse and dramatic music so that someone can stroke their ego about being an artist. It’s saccharine , it’s unnecessary, it’s self indulgent. And it’s not what this show was about for years and years. It’s not what drew me and people like me to it.
They hit the dragon when it wasnt expected. Once the dragon was aware didnt they miss? They didnt know she was coming and got bombarded.
Jamie got stabbed in the side. He stayed alive to get to cersei. He was dying. People get stabbed and survive all the time in this show.
The episode was actually good so now people are nitpicking. This is hilarious.
You seem to want to defend it at all costs and to explain away plot holes ('its a fantasy show!' . That was not a good episode. It was a big disappointment. A friend emailed me this USA today article just now that articulates things a little further. Apparently buyatari and I aren't the only negative nancy's. My opinion? The plot sucked. Vapid, insipid, insulting to the intelligence of the viewer. I could have just watched explosions if I wanted that. The visuals were good.
'Game of Thrones' recap: The series just burned itself to the ground
What is left for "Game of Thrones"?
Nothing, really. For viewers who have stuck around for eight seasons of the HBO fantasy series, all that's left after the penultimate episode is ash and a bad taste. When Daenerys Targaryen lived up to her terrible family's reputation and burned King's Landing to the ground, she incinerated the last hope for "Thrones" along with it.
Where to begin with "The Bells," an absolute disaster of an episode that exhibited every bad habit the series' writers have ever had? They threw out their own rule book (suddenly the scorpions don't work and Drogon can burn everything?) to pursue gross spectacle.
Character and substance were left by the wayside so that the plot could go where the writers wanted. The pace was rushed in the beginning, painfully lagging by the end. The --script created plot devices and conflicts out of thin air (no really, when were the bells ever so important?), relished in violence and let a main character survive beyond any reasonable odds. (How many buildings have to fall on Arya before she stays down?) "Bells" is somehow both fan service and indulgence in all the tropes that fans hate.
Had this episode taken place just before the finale of Season 4 or 5, it might be forgivable, but with just over an hour left in the series, it's far too late to make a mistake of this magnitude. There's no time to switch gears, because Mad Queen Dany (and, apparently Arya's inexplicable survival and possible revenge) is what "Thrones" will always have been about. This disappointment is what we've all been waiting for.
The bigger they are, the harder they fall, and few TV shows have gotten quite as big as "Thrones." Even fewer have failed so spectacularly for so many viewers.
Theoretically, the series has one last hour to redeem itself. And maybe some fans hold out hope that the finale can wrap things up in a way that makes emotional and logical sense. But betting on "Thrones" to fix itself is really just doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result. Just like Cersei, Tyrion and the rest, we should know better by now.
One last little bird
The latest member of the “suddenly I’m very dumb” club is Varys, whose campaign to supplant Dany with Jon goes comically wrong in the blink of an eye. We barely have time to register that he has a little bird spy again and is writing letters about Jon’s true parentage before he is found out.
Dany has figured out that Jon told Sansa who told Tyrion who told Varys about Jon's parentage, and is angry at both Jon and Tyrion. (How did she find out? How much time has even passed since Missandei's death? Who knows or cares, apparently?!)
Dany burns Varys alive for his betrayal, and it's rather underwhelming. Varys survived so many monarchs, only to be finally killed because he was, what, writing too loudly? It was a poor end for one of the series’ best characters.
I have a bad feeling about this
Dany and Grey Worm share a brief moment mourning over Missandei's slave collar (though why she would bring that to Westeros is baffling), before Jon arrives for an "I told you so" from his aunt. Dany complains that she doesn't have love from the people of the Seven Kingdoms, only fear, and even though Jon says he loves her, he recoils from her kiss. (Finally Emilia Clarke and Kit Harington's lack of chemistry is useful).
Instead of, say, following the orders of the queen he's so intent on supporting, Tyrion frees Jaime in the hope that he'll convince Cersei to flee the city. The brothers hug before leaving each other for good.
Unlike Jaime, Arya and the Hound manage to sneak into the city easily, perhaps the last time she has to declare herself Arya Stark to get past a guard.
What kind of fire burns stone?
The morning of the battle dawns and everyone's holding their breath and their positions: Jon and the allied troops outside the front gates staring down the Golden Company, while Euron and the Iron Fleet are in the Blackwater with their scorpions pointed at the sky. Cersei's troops look menacing and more impressive than the raggedy band of northerners and surviving Unsullied and Dothraki that Dany has assembled.
At this point the episode spends copious time showing us all the innocent civilians Dany is about to murder, including a mother and daughter who are given enough screen time for us to know that they will be this episode's symbolic sufferers.
And then Dany and Drogon fly down.
After being ineffectual at the Battle of Winterfell and against the Iron Fleet, Drogon has suddenly become a weapon of mass destruction that no scorpion crossbow can hit. Like every other plot device on "Thrones" the past few seasons, the dragons were useless, until they were needed.
Drogon lights up the Iron Fleet with ease, before moving to the King's Landing battlements, eventually burning the Golden Company from behind before Dany's army charges.
As Dany's forces attack, Cersei watched from the Red Keep, but loses her trademark sneer. Qyburn informs her that all the scorpions have been destroyed (truly how does he know that?), the Iron Fleet is burning and the Golden Company has been slaughtered. Cersei claims that the Red Keep has never fallen, but her confidence is failing.
At this point the battle is basically won. Jon, Davos and Grey Worm's battalion comes across a group of Lannister soldiers who lay down their weapons. The soldiers and the civilians all start shouting for someone to ring the bells in surrender, and after a comical amount of buildup they ring, much to Jon and Tyrion's relief.
But that doesn't last long. Dany looks at the Red Keep in the distance, and then lets loose fire and blood.
Not the mad queen we need, but the one we deserve
In an alternate timeline, George R.R. Martin would have finished writing "A Song of Ice and Fire" before it was ever adapted to series. His seventh and final book would have been hundreds of pages that offered copious explanation for its hero's descent into madness and cruelty. And that long, complex and thoughtful book would be adapted into far more than six episodes of television.
The problem with Dany going full Mad Queen isn't that she used to be a hero or that the show never foreshadowed it. There have been seeds, all the way back to Season 1 when she burned Mirri Maz Duur alive as vengeance for Khal Drogo's death. She has long been vain, ruthless and completely convinced of her own brilliance.
But the show spent far more time making Dany a hero, if a rather boring one. Making her Mad Queen Dany now is rushed, unearned and emotionless.
In the moment, it's also not clear what made her snap. Missandei? Rhaegal? Not getting her way? Being bored because she won the battle too quickly? Why did she destroy the whole city instead of going straight to Cersei? Where does she expect to live after destroying the castle her ancestors built?
More pressingly, what does Dany's turn even say about the show, thematically? That we're doomed to repeat the mistakes of our families? Dany's "madness" or whatever we want to call it is nothing like Aerys, who heard voices and acted out of fear and paranoia. Viserys was cruel but also petty and weak. Rhaegar wasn't mad or vicious at all. Hewas short-sighted but noble. Dany is just lamely sadistic.
Have you ever seen a city sacked?
As Dany burns down King's Landing, the allied forces unleash their inner monsters, too. In a far more flagrant breach of character than Dany's rushed madness, Grey Worm, the most restrained man in Essos or Westeros, kills unarmed men in a rage. The allied forces begin to sack the city.
Jon tries and fails to pull his soldiers back. Davos, too, tries to save the civilians, but Drogon's fire starts bringing down all the buildings, and the city is increasingly a pile of ash and bodies.
Jaime, meanwhile, is trying desperately to get inside the Red Keep, and runs into Euron, who somehow made it to shore. Instead of trying to save himself, Euron challenges Jaime to a duel. Jaime kills him, but not before Euron stabs Jaime twice, wounds that really should have been fatal.
The Hound and Arya make it into the castle, but the structure is starting to crumble. The Hound pleads with Arya to save herself, and not be as consumed by vengeance and rage as he is. For once, she listens, and gives him the gift of calling him Sandor before they part.
The Hound finds his brother with Cersei, Qyburn and Cersei's remaining guard as they're trying to escape. Gregor kills Qyburn before dueling with the Hound, while Cersei slips away.
The Hound and the Mountain fight, and the former is wildly outmatched by his big brother. Their duel is intercut with Arya trying to escape the city as buildings crumble. The Hound eventually kills the Mountain by pulling him out a window into a burning abyss, while Arya is rescued from being trampled by the woman we saw earlier.
Things fall apart
Jaime finds Cersei as she's alone and crying. They embrace and he takes her through the secret passage a young Arya once got lost in and Varys and Illyrio (remember him?) once schemed in.
But the tunnel has caved in, and they're stuck. Cersei breaks down, screaming that she doesn't want to die. Jaime reaffirms his love and holds her as they're crushed by the crumbling castle.
Outside, Arya is barely standing. Stones fall on her a handful of times but she somehow survives, eventually finding a group of people, including the woman who helped her earlier. Arya tries to help them, but just as they're running away from the rubble, Drogon flies overhead and lights up the street. Arya, somehow, is the only person left standing, while the woman and her daughter are burned down to their skeletons.
Arya is helped out of the city by deus ex white horse, who is conveniently hanging out on the street where she ended up. It's clear that, although she swore off vengeance a few minutes ago to the Hound, Arya is going to make Dany pay for what she did to the city. And that, apparently, is how "Thrones" is going to end.
When we watch fantasy shows, as one of you alluded to we suspend our disbelief about dragons and such. We accept that this is a different reality with different rules. It's the changing of those rules or the presence of such alternate rules of reality without sufficient explanation that jars us.
They happened many times in yesterday's episode. When you stab a man, he bleeds out. When you kill a dragon last time with a small number of crossbows... and you proceed to build many more, and the dragon tosses them aside like nothing, you're left wanting an explanation. When the early episodes mention wildfire in mass quantities under the city, you want that incorporated as something other than a few green blips that don't seem to hurt anyone, when you have prophecies throughout the story, you expect resolution.
A good fantasy story is completely ridiculous and yet makes perfect sense. That did not make perfect sense in the slightest. They were more concerned with how the episodes looked than what was actually happening. We don’t need a white horse and dramatic music so that someone can stroke their ego about being an artist. It’s saccharine , it’s unnecessary, it’s self indulgent. And it’s not what this show was about for years and years. It’s not what drew me and people like me to it.
They hit the dragon when it wasnt expected. Once the dragon was aware didnt they miss? They didnt know she was coming and got bombarded.
Jamie got stabbed in the side. He stayed alive to get to cersei. He was dying. People get stabbed and survive all the time in this show.
The episode was actually good so now people are nitpicking. This is hilarious.
You seem to want to defend it at all costs and to explain away plot holes ('its a fantasy show!' . That was not a good episode. It was a big disappointment. A friend emailed me this USA today article just now that articulates things a little further.
'Game of Thrones' recap: The series just burned itself to the ground
What is left for "Game of Thrones"?
Nothing, really. For viewers who have stuck around for eight seasons of the HBO fantasy series, all that's left after the penultimate episode is ash and a bad taste. When Daenerys Targaryen lived up to her terrible family's reputation and burned King's Landing to the ground, she incinerated the last hope for "Thrones" along with it.
Where to begin with "The Bells," an absolute disaster of an episode that exhibited every bad habit the series' writers have ever had? They threw out their own rule book (suddenly the scorpions don't work and Drogon can burn everything?) to pursue gross spectacle.
Character and substance were left by the wayside so that the plot could go where the writers wanted. The pace was rushed in the beginning, painfully lagging by the end. The --script created plot devices and conflicts out of thin air (no really, when were the bells ever so important?), relished in violence and let a main character survive beyond any reasonable odds. (How many buildings have to fall on Arya before she stays down?) "Bells" is somehow both fan service and indulgence in all the tropes that fans hate.
Had this episode taken place just before the finale of Season 4 or 5, it might be forgivable, but with just over an hour left in the series, it's far too late to make a mistake of this magnitude. There's no time to switch gears, because Mad Queen Dany (and, apparently Arya's inexplicable survival and possible revenge) is what "Thrones" will always have been about. This disappointment is what we've all been waiting for.
The bigger they are, the harder they fall, and few TV shows have gotten quite as big as "Thrones." Even fewer have failed so spectacularly for so many viewers.
Theoretically, the series has one last hour to redeem itself. And maybe some fans hold out hope that the finale can wrap things up in a way that makes emotional and logical sense. But betting on "Thrones" to fix itself is really just doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result. Just like Cersei, Tyrion and the rest, we should know better by now.
One last little bird
The latest member of the “suddenly I’m very dumb” club is Varys, whose campaign to supplant Dany with Jon goes comically wrong in the blink of an eye. We barely have time to register that he has a little bird spy again and is writing letters about Jon’s true parentage before he is found out.
Dany has figured out that Jon told Sansa who told Tyrion who told Varys about Jon's parentage, and is angry at both Jon and Tyrion. (How did she find out? How much time has even passed since Missandei's death? Who knows or cares, apparently?!)
Dany burns Varys alive for his betrayal, and it's rather underwhelming. Varys survived so many monarchs, only to be finally killed because he was, what, writing too loudly? It was a poor end for one of the series’ best characters.
I have a bad feeling about this
Dany and Grey Worm share a brief moment mourning over Missandei's slave collar (though why she would bring that to Westeros is baffling), before Jon arrives for an "I told you so" from his aunt. Dany complains that she doesn't have love from the people of the Seven Kingdoms, only fear, and even though Jon says he loves her, he recoils from her kiss. (Finally Emilia Clarke and Kit Harington's lack of chemistry is useful).
Instead of, say, following the orders of the queen he's so intent on supporting, Tyrion frees Jaime in the hope that he'll convince Cersei to flee the city. The brothers hug before leaving each other for good.
Unlike Jaime, Arya and the Hound manage to sneak into the city easily, perhaps the last time she has to declare herself Arya Stark to get past a guard.
What kind of fire burns stone?
The morning of the battle dawns and everyone's holding their breath and their positions: Jon and the allied troops outside the front gates staring down the Golden Company, while Euron and the Iron Fleet are in the Blackwater with their scorpions pointed at the sky. Cersei's troops look menacing and more impressive than the raggedy band of northerners and surviving Unsullied and Dothraki that Dany has assembled.
At this point the episode spends copious time showing us all the innocent civilians Dany is about to murder, including a mother and daughter who are given enough screen time for us to know that they will be this episode's symbolic sufferers.
And then Dany and Drogon fly down.
After being ineffectual at the Battle of Winterfell and against the Iron Fleet, Drogon has suddenly become a weapon of mass destruction that no scorpion crossbow can hit. Like every other plot device on "Thrones" the past few seasons, the dragons were useless, until they were needed.
Drogon lights up the Iron Fleet with ease, before moving to the King's Landing battlements, eventually burning the Golden Company from behind before Dany's army charges.
As Dany's forces attack, Cersei watched from the Red Keep, but loses her trademark sneer. Qyburn informs her that all the scorpions have been destroyed (truly how does he know that?), the Iron Fleet is burning and the Golden Company has been slaughtered. Cersei claims that the Red Keep has never fallen, but her confidence is failing.
At this point the battle is basically won. Jon, Davos and Grey Worm's battalion comes across a group of Lannister soldiers who lay down their weapons. The soldiers and the civilians all start shouting for someone to ring the bells in surrender, and after a comical amount of buildup they ring, much to Jon and Tyrion's relief.
But that doesn't last long. Dany looks at the Red Keep in the distance, and then lets loose fire and blood.
Not the mad queen we need, but the one we deserve
In an alternate timeline, George R.R. Martin would have finished writing "A Song of Ice and Fire" before it was ever adapted to series. His seventh and final book would have been hundreds of pages that offered copious explanation for its hero's descent into madness and cruelty. And that long, complex and thoughtful book would be adapted into far more than six episodes of television.
The problem with Dany going full Mad Queen isn't that she used to be a hero or that the show never foreshadowed it. There have been seeds, all the way back to Season 1 when she burned Mirri Maz Duur alive as vengeance for Khal Drogo's death. She has long been vain, ruthless and completely convinced of her own brilliance.
But the show spent far more time making Dany a hero, if a rather boring one. Making her Mad Queen Dany now is rushed, unearned and emotionless.
In the moment, it's also not clear what made her snap. Missandei? Rhaegal? Not getting her way? Being bored because she won the battle too quickly? Why did she destroy the whole city instead of going straight to Cersei? Where does she expect to live after destroying the castle her ancestors built?
More pressingly, what does Dany's turn even say about the show, thematically? That we're doomed to repeat the mistakes of our families? Dany's "madness" or whatever we want to call it is nothing like Aerys, who heard voices and acted out of fear and paranoia. Viserys was cruel but also petty and weak. Rhaegar wasn't mad or vicious at all. Hewas short-sighted but noble. Dany is just lamely sadistic.
Have you ever seen a city sacked?
As Dany burns down King's Landing, the allied forces unleash their inner monsters, too. In a far more flagrant breach of character than Dany's rushed madness, Grey Worm, the most restrained man in Essos or Westeros, kills unarmed men in a rage. The allied forces begin to sack the city.
Jon tries and fails to pull his soldiers back. Davos, too, tries to save the civilians, but Drogon's fire starts bringing down all the buildings, and the city is increasingly a pile of ash and bodies.
Jaime, meanwhile, is trying desperately to get inside the Red Keep, and runs into Euron, who somehow made it to shore. Instead of trying to save himself, Euron challenges Jaime to a duel. Jaime kills him, but not before Euron stabs Jaime twice, wounds that really should have been fatal.
The Hound and Arya make it into the castle, but the structure is starting to crumble. The Hound pleads with Arya to save herself, and not be as consumed by vengeance and rage as he is. For once, she listens, and gives him the gift of calling him Sandor before they part.
The Hound finds his brother with Cersei, Qyburn and Cersei's remaining guard as they're trying to escape. Gregor kills Qyburn before dueling with the Hound, while Cersei slips away.
The Hound and the Mountain fight, and the former is wildly outmatched by his big brother. Their duel is intercut with Arya trying to escape the city as buildings crumble. The Hound eventually kills the Mountain by pulling him out a window into a burning abyss, while Arya is rescued from being trampled by the woman we saw earlier.
Things fall apart
Jaime finds Cersei as she's alone and crying. They embrace and he takes her through the secret passage a young Arya once got lost in and Varys and Illyrio (remember him?) once schemed in.
But the tunnel has caved in, and they're stuck. Cersei breaks down, screaming that she doesn't want to die. Jaime reaffirms his love and holds her as they're crushed by the crumbling castle.
Outside, Arya is barely standing. Stones fall on her a handful of times but she somehow survives, eventually finding a group of people, including the woman who helped her earlier. Arya tries to help them, but just as they're running away from the rubble, Drogon flies overhead and lights up the street. Arya, somehow, is the only person left standing, while the woman and her daughter are burned down to their skeletons.
Arya is helped out of the city by deus ex white horse, who is conveniently hanging out on the street where she ended up. It's clear that, although she swore off vengeance a few minutes ago to the Hound, Arya is going to make Dany pay for what she did to the city. And that, apparently, is how "Thrones" is going to end.
I already saw the USA Today article. Their writer have been negative every episode this season. Always pops into my facebook feed. On this episode and last most comments were positive about the show calling out the article.
Everything has to be the greatest or suck completely now in this social media era of the internet. Its just ridiculous to me. Has the shown done things I wish went different? Absolutely. But people always complain no matter what now. Its just lame. The show is good. Its fun. Its TV. The rules established have had consistency to me. Nothing has really taken me out of the show and people that say that I really dont believe. People get in this negativity group think about this season, and then as they watch instead of just watching the show they are looking for everything to complain about. Watching the show through a negativity lens. Its what makes the internet culture suck nowadays. Cant just be a solid tv show. It doesnt do what you would have done so its a "trainwreck" "disaster" "insert hyperbolic statement here"
When we watch fantasy shows, as one of you alluded to we suspend our disbelief about dragons and such. We accept that this is a different reality with different rules. It's the changing of those rules or the presence of such alternate rules of reality without sufficient explanation that jars us.
They happened many times in yesterday's episode. When you stab a man, he bleeds out. When you kill a dragon last time with a small number of crossbows... and you proceed to build many more, and the dragon tosses them aside like nothing, you're left wanting an explanation. When the early episodes mention wildfire in mass quantities under the city, you want that incorporated as something other than a few green blips that don't seem to hurt anyone, when you have prophecies throughout the story, you expect resolution.
A good fantasy story is completely ridiculous and yet makes perfect sense. That did not make perfect sense in the slightest. They were more concerned with how the episodes looked than what was actually happening. We don’t need a white horse and dramatic music so that someone can stroke their ego about being an artist. It’s saccharine , it’s unnecessary, it’s self indulgent. And it’s not what this show was about for years and years. It’s not what drew me and people like me to it.
They hit the dragon when it wasnt expected. Once the dragon was aware didnt they miss? They didnt know she was coming and got bombarded.
Jamie got stabbed in the side. He stayed alive to get to cersei. He was dying. People get stabbed and survive all the time in this show.
The episode was actually good so now people are nitpicking. This is hilarious.
You seem to want to defend it at all costs and to explain away plot holes ('its a fantasy show!' . That was not a good episode. It was a big disappointment. A friend emailed me this USA today article just now that articulates things a little further.
'Game of Thrones' recap: The series just burned itself to the ground
Look was it the worst episode of a television show of all time? Of course not.
Its precisely because the show has been so brilliant until this season however that this season and especially this episode have been major, major letdowns. I may have spent more time on Game of Thrones than any other TV show I've ever watched because it was so incredibly good. Its hard to watch it be a shadow of its former self.
As the article said, the bigger they are the harder they fall, and that's why this episode, and season, have been like a swandive from a 5m springboard into a pool that somebody let all the water out of.
SPLAT.
We went from compelling foreshadowing and richly nuanced motives and dialogue to.... whatever that was last night. In a previous post I called it horseshit.
I'll admit that I miss the deep intertwined plot lines, but the sad reality is the show is over and the directors just want to get to their new job at Disney Star Wars.
The final season was rushed (after two years somehow?)
George RR Martin claims to not even know the ending
And there are so many unanswered questions that need answers.
I loved last nights episode, but I still miss the shows plot.