Game of Thrones begins....

[Barrister]

Any chance Dany wins in the end?  After all "If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention".

[crazy canuck]

Any chance Dany wins in the end?  After all "If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention".

The not paying attention can be said for most of what the writers have written this season.    At this point I would not be surprised at all to see such a lame ending which runs counter to all the character development over the shows history.

[grumbler]

Tamas' weird fixation aside, if you have to debate and do a 10 minutes video after each episode explaining shit instead of actually showing it during the episode, it makes for a shitty show. Sorry.

If you really think that GoT is the first show to have the showrunners commenting on it, you've missed pretty much every DVD and half the shows released in the last 10 years.  This is a different age than the one that seems to have set your TV expectations.

I'm the biggest fanboi, but seasons 7 and 8 are weak sauce. Show, don't tell, and let characters develop organically. Why do you think half of viewers are disappointed? Why are the critics relatively bad? Are we all dumb?

My problem isn't that the showrunners cannot "let characters develop organically" (because I know that they cannot - the showrunners need to finish the show and the characters do not).  The problem is this "hurry up and wait" pacing.  Did the showrunners really need to waste 70 minutes of last week's 80-minute show so that they could have Dani go from the queen we loved to the monster we loathe in twenty seconds or so?  It's not bad TV because of the sudden plot developments so much as it is bad TV because of the unexplained sudden plot developments.

Remember, Dani's actions here are not rational choices that show that she just disagrees with her advisers; they are insane actions against the very people she started out wanting to serve.  She is causing hundreds of millions in damages while killing the people that could afford to pay the taxes needed to repair the damage.  It is a stupid plot device intended to create a tension between the players that did not have to be half so crudely set up, given that the last episode was just marking time until they could show this one.  with two episodes devoted to the falling out, things could have been done with touch.

[Barrister]

Remember, Dani's actions here are not rational choices that show that she just disagrees with her advisers; they are insane actions against the very people she started out wanting to serve.  She is causing hundreds of millions in damages while killing the people that could afford to pay the taxes needed to repair the damage.  It is a stupid plot device intended to create a tension between the players that did not have to be half so crudely set up, given that the last episode was just marking time until they could show this one.  with two episodes devoted to the falling out, things could have been done with touch.

Dany's actions are evil to be sure, but they're not irrational.  Fear is a powerful weapon, and there are six other kingdoms to bring under her control.

[Syt]

If you really think that GoT is the first show to have the showrunners commenting on it, you've missed pretty much every DVD and half the shows released in the last 10 years.  This is a different age than the one that seems to have set your TV expectations.

I suppose JMS was one of the forerunners, discussing B5 with fans on the net during the original run.

[crazy canuck]

Remember, Dani's actions here are not rational choices that show that she just disagrees with her advisers; they are insane actions against the very people she started out wanting to serve.  She is causing hundreds of millions in damages while killing the people that could afford to pay the taxes needed to repair the damage.  It is a stupid plot device intended to create a tension between the players that did not have to be half so crudely set up, given that the last episode was just marking time until they could show this one.  with two episodes devoted to the falling out, things could have been done with touch.

Dany's actions are evil to be sure, but they're not irrational.  Fear is a powerful weapon, and there are six other kingdoms to bring under her control.

Already answered by either JR or Grumbler, or both above.  I won't repeat what they already said.

[Josephus]

Turning her into a straight up nut that finally snapped blows it all up.  It can't be justified.

hmm, I see it in another light.

Everytime, she had people advising her restraint, she relanted, and used restraint.  Everytime she was alone, she burned people alive.  She forgave Jorah, a long time advisor, because he was a dying man.

Jorah is dead, Missandei is dead.  Half of her forces are depleted.  Tyrion told her once the battle was lost, people would rebel against Cersei.  They did not rebel, they did not cheer her up either.

She freed the unsullied and incited the slaves to kill their masters, no matter how cruel or compassionate they had been.

On more than one occasion she wanted to burn a city, but her advisors urged her restraint.

Now, she is alone, she is angry about many things, and she decides if she isn't loved immediatly, she will be feared.

Plus the very advisors who advised restraints have utterly failed/betrayed her, from her point of view.

Her snapping makes perfect sense. The details of the snapping were poorly done because, duh, its the same writers like the previous episodes, but the fact of her snapping and becoming the ruiner of Zoupa's modern feminist idol he was building in his own head, makes perfect sense.

Right.

Her going to the darkside should not be a surprise. She always had a mean streak.
The problem was the writers tried to rush it up and find that pivotal moment.

[crazy canuck]

Her snapping should have been a surprise to anyone that was following the show.  As JR has already taken pains to explain, everything she did in the past had a reason.  Here she just snapped and her destruction of the city was utter madness.

[grumbler]

Dany's actions are evil to be sure, but they're not irrational.  Fear is a powerful weapon, and there are six other kingdoms to bring under her control.

Muredering a bunch of common people on the streets of King's Landing only terrifies the common people elsewhere, and those people don't vote.  If she was annihilating nobles in the Red Keep, her actions would be "rational" by your standards.

[grumbler]

Right.

Her going to the darkside should not be a surprise. She always had a mean streak.
The problem was the writers tried to rush it up and find that pivotal moment.

Worse, the writers decided to "shock" us with her madness, but that just made the whole thing worse.

[celedhring]

Not the biggest problem this season, but I got a good laugh from the fact that nearly none of the recipients of the "don't tell anybody! ever! never! Promise it!" Jon/Aegon secret makes even a token attempt at actually keeping it a secret.

[katmai]

BTW those commenting that this is an "of course she goes mad she is a woman" moment need to look into themselves, because it has nothing to do with it, and if THEY had those thoughts, well, that's own them.

Bitches be crazy yo.

[grumbler]

Not the biggest problem this season, but I got a good laugh from the fact that nearly none of the recipients of the "don't tell anybody! ever! never! Promise it!" Jon/Aegon secret makes even a token attempt at actually keeping it a secret.

Sansa is the only one that instantly backstabs Jon, as far as I know.  Jon should have realized that she is just Littlefinger with boobs, and that trusting her word as folly, but Jon Is Dumb.  He's pretty much shown that he is not fit for the throne, either.

[saskganesh]

 

Ending is supposed to be bittersweet. The only big thing left to resolve is wtf will happen to Dani? Will she be assassinated, or  thwart all the leftovers, or ride off into the sun with her last dragon after delivering a satisfying soliloquy.

Or will it be ambiguous? The table is set for all three scenarios and  WE DON'T FIND OUT.

[Zoupa]

Betraying the Slaver's Bay merchants and burning them alive, crucifying hundreds of Masters, feeding the heads of Mereenese great houses to her dragons, burning all of the khals alive, demanding that the heads of the Slaver's Bay armies pick one of their number to die and then killing the two who didn't volunteer, burning the Tarlys alive, etc. Her solutions are always violent and often wantonly so.

Ned Stark beheaded a kid in one of the first scenes. Cersei blows up the Sept. Little angel Tyrion used wildfire like crazy against Stannis but is appalled by the use of dragonfire against the Lannister army last season. Sansa fed Ramsay to his dogs, then smiled about it. Jon hanged a child without a trial. Badass Arya fed a father his sons and mass-murdered an entire family. Did she bother to find out if those guys were even present at the red wedding?

Their solutions are always violent and often wantonly so... right?

Lots of foreshadowing about them going mad... right?

No? Oh only for Dany. Because genes. Laaaaaaaaaaaame.