FTA-TV Game of Thrones - season 8

Feb 6, 2013
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Ok, no theorising on what may happen here. Purely looking back at what has occurred...

Why would Dany expect the people of KL to rise up against Cersei as the slaves of Mereen did? Was it meant to be public knowledge that she blew up the Sept of Baelor (I think that’s what it was). It didn’t seem to me that the population were overly oppressed under Cersei, I guess maybe she was broke because of having to fund the Golden Company so there wasn’t a lot of money around for food, etc?

The thing is, I just don’t buy the transition from feeling alone, betrayed by individuals etc. to genocide and complete violation of Dany’s moral code. Those whom she burned because ostensibly they had been treasonous she could rationalize as the cost of war, even Jon admitted he’d executed traitors when defending the Wall etc. There was no reason to expect that Westeros, KL in particular would welcome her after her father tried to kill the entire population who were then saved by an (admittedly lambasted) Lannister. She was always going to have to take the Iron Throne by force, and then win the people over over the course of time as a fair and just ruler.

If anyone has seen the movie Se7en, then I would hold it up as an excellent example of
a character wrestling with the cognitive dissonance of potentially violating his moral code
in the finale. We saw none of that with Dany, just some resting bitchface. I feel like we needed to have Dany stretch her rationalisations over several increments, not just go from hella angry with individuals and feeling isolated to murdering innocents.
IIRC Hot Pie says Cersei blew up the Sept to Arya in their reunion scene, and the guy from the Iron Bank obviously knows Cersei did it (although he's obviously better connected).
 
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In itself, Dany going "Mad Targ" is kind of believable. The big issue is the speed with which it happened.

This would have been far more believable if it happend over 2 seasons, rather than the course of 3 episodes. Rushing her descent meant that it was more like the flicking of a switch, than an evolution of her character as she descended into madness.

Then you would get posters complaining about how obvious it was that it was going to happen :rolleyes:
 
Mar 1, 2007
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I think a lot of the problems with the writing this season are the result of D&D making a conscious decision to come up with endings which haven't been predicted via internet fan theories. They seem determined to come up with surprises, and they've run into a lot of problems as a result.

The fan theories were written by people who have become deeply enmeshed in Westerosi lore and mythology. These people are intimately familiar with the characters, their histories, the events which have shaped them, their motivations, and their story arcs. These people have taken what they know, and have projected forward. We'd gotten to know these characters over the course of 7 seasons, and they were really well defined (thanks to the work of GRRM).

With so many fans, writing many theories, almost all of the plausible forward projections have been covered. Thus, in order to come up with something different and surprising, D&D have had to resort to the implausible...

In order to arrive at their implausible endings, they've thus had to ignore or abandon much which went before. In order to reach the end in just 6 episodes, they've had to make characters behave out of character, or rushed their motivational changes (primarily Dany's) to the extent that it just doesn't make a lot of sense.

Examples:
  • They spent whole season building the Azor Ahai mythology, only to ignore it completely when they finally killed the NK.
  • Arya's whole story arc has been about avenging the death of her father, only to abandon her quest at the last minute when The Hound gave his Sun Tzu speech.
  • Tyrion has transformed from the smartest man in Westeros to the dumbest, all in the name of moving the plot in implausible directions.
  • Jamie spends 5 seasons moving towards redemption, only to factory reset back to his S1 settings in the last 2 episodes for no reason.
  • Varys went from being a machiavellian plotter of the highest order, to a one dimensional bumbler who got roasted.
  • Dany has always had a cruel streak when it came to punishing her enemies, but she has always been about making life better for the common people she aimed to rule. Burning the city and its inhabitants, after the city had surrendered, just wasn't in her character - even allowing for her increasing sense of despair after losing or being betrayed by so many of her closest friends.
None of these make sense, other than the fact that D&D needed them to happen in order to achieve their "unexpected surprise" endings.

Why would you assume they'd focus on making endings that haven't been predicted, as opposed to following the outline GRRM gave them?
 
Would have saved a lot of complaining if they just killed Viserion this episode IMO.

Dont kill Viseron in the last episode with that bulldust, kill him in the exact same way this episode in the middle of the battle, not that appear out of nowhere bolt from the blue nonsense (and "forgetting about Euron" crap), have him fall into the middle of the city. (Removes complaints)

Dany sees this, and anger builds. This also provides a trigger for Dany, which i think is missing from her flipping out, really needed an event for that straw that broke the camels back moment, then we can all justify it so much easier, you could even have a few civilians trying to attack dying Viserion just lying there doing nothing. Dany sees the city is against her and its game on.

Hearing bells is just no where near a good enough trigger. It ended up being her easiest siege of the entire series.


(Im not saying i could do any better, i am just enjoying the discussion so dont flame on for no reason)
Not a bad idea. Especially if a wounded Viserion and people on the ground attacked and killed it within the city walls and she witnessed it is a good idea.
 
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In itself, Dany going "Mad Targ" is kind of believable. The big issue is the speed with which it happened.

In ep #1 she's playing happy families with Jon, her support crew are all alive & kicking, and everything is good in her little world (albeit with the threat of the NK on the horizon). Jon has a truth bomb dropped on him at the end of the episode, but has no further interaction with Dany before the end of the episode.

In ep #2 Jon is starting to give her the cold shoulder, as he tries to figure out what to do with Sam's truth bomb. His true identity is revealed to Dany in the last seconds of the episode.

In ep #3 she loses Ser Friendzone, killed defending her from the wights.

In ep #4 she's starting to feel isolated. Jon is part of the north, and is at the heart of the post-battle celebrations. She feels sidelined. Jon then gives her the cold shoulder in the bedroom afterwards, further increasing her sense of isolation. Missandei gets all dramatic and loses her head, this visibly affects Dany's emotional state.

In ep #5 she discovers that she's been betrayed by Varys, after Tyrion shared a secret. They in turn found out because Jon told Sansa (OK - Bran told her). Dany had previously asked Jon not to tell them, but to his credit Jon didn't go behind her back - he openly told Dany that he was going to do this. She still sees it as a betrayal by the man she loves.

The combination of betrayal, cold shoulders from her lover, and the deaths of her closest friends, sent her over the edge. That's kind of believable, though it's debatable given that her desire to defend the innocent has been at the core of her character from the very beginning. The real issue is the speed with which she went over the edge. This would have been far more believable if it happend over 2 seasons, rather than the course of 3 episodes. Rushing her descent meant that it was more like the flicking of a switch, than an evolution of her character as she descended into madness.

You're right, it could have been setup better. But it didn't come out of nowhere, which is why I don't have a massive problem with it. King Elvis said it very succintly a few pages back;

I agree it could've been fleshed out better, but I think the fundamentals were there.

Biggest factor over the last 2 seasons is clearly the condensed nature of it all, IMO vast majority of the issues come back to that. After season 6, how they thought they only needed another 13 eps to wrap it up is mind boggling :drunk:
 
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Looking at some of the reaction videos....all the women are mortified with Dany going Mad Queen.

''You were the breaker of chains!!!!''

''We looked up to you, you inspired us!!!"

''You gave us female empowerment''

''Writers have destroyed her character....we couldn't have one good woman character for us''

It's Obi Wan ''You were the chosen one'' all over again with these angry feminists. Can't deal with the fact that their girl-power saviour turned into a pyromanic :drunk::drunk::drunk::drunk::drunk:

As I said in my previous post the writers have written it that the strongest characters remaining in the show are women. But it's not they are expounding some gentler modern feminist way. Dany, Sansa, Arya, Yarra (Cercei) have all achieved their ends by brutally violent means.
 
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If they hadn't killed Viserion last episode, Jon would have been on him for the battle this season and raised its own issues.
Dragons have worked without being ridden before though, Jon could just argue after winterfell he knew his place was on the ground with his men, not a hundred metres above them, hes a leader afterall.
 
Would have saved a lot of complaining if they just killed Viserion this episode IMO.

Dont kill Viseron in the last episode with that bulldust, kill him in the exact same way this episode in the middle of the battle, not that appear out of nowhere bolt from the blue nonsense (and "forgetting about Euron" crap), have him fall into the middle of the city. (Removes complaints)

Dany sees this, and anger builds. This also provides a trigger for Dany, which i think is missing from her flipping out, really needed an event for that straw that broke the camels back moment, then we can all justify it so much easier, you could even have a few civilians trying to attack dying Viserion just lying there doing nothing. Dany sees the city is against her and its game on.

Hearing bells is just no where near a good enough trigger. It ended up being her easiest siege of the entire series.


(Im not saying i could do any better, i am just enjoying the discussion so dont flame on for no reason)

I'm coming around to the idea that Dany hasn't gone mad, she's made a rational decision that this is the outcome that she wants. We see it in the choosing fear comment she makes to Jon. If Viserion falls in the battle and then she wigs out, it gives her a sympathetic out in the eyes of the audience, that she was acting in the heat of the moment. We are not meant to sympathise with Dany and her choices in this episode.
 
Oct 14, 2005
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I think you're underplaying the sense she had of being an outsider in the first couple of episodes in Winterfell though. The people of the North are well-established of not trusting anyone outside themselves and it was pretty clear that Daenerys felt that quite keenly. Then, of course, knowing that the Lords were frustrated at Jon for bending the knee, when they'd all previously sworn allegiance to Jon himself, and Sansa's outright hostility towards her. It wasn't all happy families even at that point.
That may be true... but then she went back to Dragonstone, and finally went mad during the attack on Kings Landing.
 
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I'm coming around to the idea that Dany hasn't gone mad, she's made a rational decision that this is the outcome that she wants. We see it in the choosing fear comment she makes to Jon. If Viserion falls in the battle and then she wigs out, it gives her a sympathetic out in the eyes of the audience, that she was acting in the heat of the moment. We are not meant to sympathise with Dany and her choices in this episode.
Possibly but this is why we needed a proper build up, there shouldn't be this much conjecture. Guess we will find out next episode but Dany just looked too triggered for me in expression when sitting on the building for that to have been calculated.
 
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Why would you assume they'd focus on making endings that haven't been predicted, as opposed to following the outline GRRM gave them?
Because they've said as much, and it's pretty evident given that they've abandoned everything which happened in S1-7 in order to make the events of S8 happen.
 
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You're right, it could have been setup better. But it didn't come out of nowhere, which is why I don't have a massive problem with it. King Elvis said it very succintly a few pages back;



Biggest factor over the last 2 seasons is clearly the condensed nature of it all, IMO vast majority of the issues come back to that. After season 6, how they thought they only needed another 13 eps to wrap it up is mind boggling :drunk:
Pacing has been a major problem this season - and that issue lies fairly & squarely at the feet of D&D. HBO told them to take as long as they wanted. They chose to wrap it up with 7 & 6 episode seasons.
 
Possibly but this is why we needed a proper build up, there shouldn't be this much conjecture. Guess we will find out next episode but Dany just looked too triggered for me in expression when sitting on the building for that to have been calculated.

You could make the argument that the expression on her face is about her coming to terms with what she's about to do and letting go of her last pieces of restraint.
 
I get thats what they said. Its wrong and its a cop out.

The show has copped out of showing characters in extreme emotional situations this season that would of been quite rewarding to the viewer. We saw none of the immediate reactions and celebrations to defeating the white walkers or finding out Arya had won the day. Nor the reactions of arya and sansa to finding out who Jon is. Now we dont get to see how dany reacts to burning innocents. Ps. If they made us sympathisize with her even slightly whilst we watch her murder innocents then that would be an incredible piece of writng and directing. It would be oscar worthy. They have ridiculously high expectations of themselves if they think they could pull that off when they werent even trying to.

The red wedding and ned starks death were powerful because we saw the full emotional intensity of what happened. They didnt show that here. It wasnt just Danys reaction we missed. We didnt see jon snow or tyrion properly comprehending what Dany had done either. Jon was just focussed on the situation in front of him. I dont even remember seeing tyrion after she started burning people. Instead we saw the horror through Arya who has no emotional connection to Dany and would of felt no major sense of betrayal.

I would almost guarantee it (and this is a guess not spoiler) that next episode doesnt start where we just finished and starts a day or more later after emotions have died down. Just like after the fall of winterfell.
You just put up a proposition of what you say the writers should do in showing the aftermath and then use examples (i.e. Red Wedding and Ned's beheading), yet both of those episodes from my memory ended immediately. Ned's head was lopped off -- cut to black. Katelyn Starks throat gets cut -- cut to black.

At the start of both episodes after they don't return to the immediate aftermath. They move on to different scenes.

This happens all the time in television as there is typically a week's break between episodes so the immediate aftermath would lose its emotional punch.

Btw, we saw plenty of what Jon thought about Dany's actions. He was trying to pull his troops out as soon as she went bananas, which is quite possibly treason. He looked horrified. Plenty was seen of Tyrion looking horrified right from the start of the attack.
 
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Would have saved a lot of complaining if they just killed Viserion this episode IMO.
Pretty sure it was Viserion that the NK brought down. Rhaegal was taken down by Euron.

I quite liked the idea put forth earlier by Baldur; have Dany/Drogon take down the scorpions and some low level burning of enemy troops on the ground. Cersei rings the bells, then Dany/Drogon, sitting and watching things percolate, take flight and head straight for the Red Keep, incinerating Cersei (and Jaime) and sending it crashing to the earth... inadvertently setting off a cascade of wildfire from Aerys’ reign which results in the deaths of a great many innocent civilians. Show the response on the ground and not from Dany.

You could enter the last episode with Dany having overstepped the mark and having been responsible for, a) the deaths of Cersei and Jaime despite their surrender, and b) by extension the massive loss of life of the people of KL. It wouldn’t be clear whether she knew about the wildfire (you could even have had Tyrion warn her about it earlier) and whether this was part of her design... and there would be more reason to question which side the coin had fallen on leading into the finale. Plus, if she must go that way, the hatred of the people she would now have earnt would be added justification.
 
Aug 13, 2006
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You just put up a proposition of what you say the writers should do and then use examples i.e. Red Wedding and Ned's beheading of not showing the aftermath, yet both of those episodes from my memory ended immediately. Ned's head was lopped off -- cut to black. Katelyn Starks throat gets cut -- cut to black.

At the start of both episodes after they don't return to the immediate aftermath. They move on to different scenes.

This happens all the time in television as there is typically a week's break between episodes so the immediate aftermath would lose its emotional punch.

Btw, we saw plenty of what Jon thought about Dany's actions. He was trying to pull his troops out as soon as she went bananas, which is quite possibly treason. He looked horrified. Plenty was seen of Tyrion looking horrified right from the start of the attack.

Red Wedding we saw Robb paraded around with his Wolf's head on his shoulders.

Would have saved a lot of complaining if they just killed Viserion this episode IMO.

Dont kill Viseron in the last episode with that bulldust, kill him in the exact same way this episode in the middle of the battle, not that appear out of nowhere bolt from the blue nonsense (and "forgetting about Euron" crap), have him fall into the middle of the city. (Removes complaints)

Dany sees this, and anger builds. This also provides a trigger for Dany, which i think is missing from her flipping out, really needed an event for that straw that broke the camels back moment, then we can all justify it so much easier, you could even have a few civilians trying to attack dying Viserion just lying there doing nothing. Dany sees the city is against her and its game on.

Hearing bells is just no where near a good enough trigger. It ended up being her easiest siege of the entire series.


(Im not saying i could do any better, i am just enjoying the discussion so dont flame on for no reason)

This is great - and exactly what should've happened.
 
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