Watching GOT S8

At long last our respective watches have ended...

SERIES FINALE (because nothing needs to be said about Ep 5)

Well, here we are, after 10 years 5 books and 1 throne. These last 2 episodes have been the most lacklustre bunch of shots ever to follow the GOT opening sequence. Seeing it was directed by D&D left me with no hope and it seems the sweet part of the bitter sweet ending was that Jon finally petted Ghost and they rode off into the sunrise.



1. As with everyone else in the world and clearly D&D themselves, I am also wondering why there is still a Night's Watch? yes, we need a place for bastards and broken men pending the development of the prison-industrial complex but...really, why? and where was Jon going with the wildlings? ranging? or running away? I am so confused

2. You don't look for dragons, dragons look for you. Why are they looking for Drogon? and why didn't Drogon burn Jon while taking shots at the throne room? Yes, the throne had to go, but it would have been the PERFECT ending between a fire breathing mythical beast and the un-dead Queen-Kin-slayer heir to the iron throne. Jon could plausibly be an impervious to fire Targ and survived, and unspoken truce settled on and everything else that could have transpired as written-with more sense.

3. Why are the Iron Islanders and Dorne are OK with the North being independent? Didn't the Vale also join in both the battle of the bastards and the battle of Winterfell? After NEVER joining a battle in a generation? 

after all this

and this

4. Where was Bronn during the burning of Kingslanding? Of all the people who should be dead and of all the people who shouldn't be mater of coin. Unless he strong armed the team into agreeing to keep him on till the end, in exchange for only having to appear in 1 scene with Cersei, there is absolutely no reason why he should still be here with irrelevant dialogue to make a bad situation worse.

5. We're not going to talk about the regenerating Dothraki and/or unsullied but...it kinda looks like...hear me out...in short,  Dany the Andal 'freed' some slaves who fought loyally for her to bring about a new world order.Things changed mightily for a few and only marginally for most and in the end the freed slaves decide to resettle in a tropical paradise.



6. We couldn't let Dany sit on the chair could we? How would we sleep at night? Her speech scenes were the best out of the whole episode (in addition to Tyrion mourning his dead siblings) but are we really going to condemn someone to death because they don't sound like they're done fighting? Remember, Tyrion only spoke restaurant Valyrian as of episode 5 and no one really gave her a chance to map out what a broken wheel would actually look like.



7. In the end, Samwell suggests democracy and we laugh (the one joke of the episode, besides the whole episode), some rando kid who barely used his gift of foresight, hindsight and all around sight to help anyone is made Prime Minister, allows his sister to secede, allows his murdering brother to walk and barely attends a small council meeting just like his predecessors. Basically the only difference between New and Old Westeros is the the pseudo-abolition of the monarchy.

On a lighter note, the best Easter Egg of all, is the mention of good sewerage and health on a show with a guy called Jon Snow. 

                                                   


EPISODE 4

If you think this is a fairy-tale, you really really haven’t been paying attention

1. The fairy tale ending ended with Margery-Tommen’s end. Neither Jon nor Dany nor Cersei would make good rulers of Westeros. Varys of all people should know this. Tyrion x Sansa looked promising for 5 minutes but given his gaffes over the past 3 seasons, it’s a ‘no’.  All of the drama in S8e4 is warranted, the conflicts have been set up over many seasons and they appear to have come to a head in this episode (albeit a heavy handed one). Dany’s rule was always going to be threatened and her acceptance by Westerosi lords, ladies and common folk was always going to be an uphill battle. There are no chains to break here and no un-burnt theatrics to sway non-believers. The sheer irony of Varys not being in favour of a strategic marriage this time, claims of Dany being too strong for Jon etc are warranted, annoying and necessary for the story to be what it is-not a fairy tale- yet coming from him? It sounds out of character, personality and precedence. But given the very narrow relevant character list, who else would have said it? It’s becoming difficult to tell writing errors/biases from character errors/biases that are intentionally written for ‘close-to-real-life, fallible characters. Making Jon’s riding of a dragon that one time a bigger deal that Dany’s whole hatching, rearing, taming and ‘been riding’ of dragons is just the kind of double standard we face today. Was Dany being aloof because she’s bitter or was she keeping her distance because a drunk queen isn’t as cool as a drunk king and she needs to do more (read; over and above) to maintain some semblance of authority? 

starbucksgate

2. Why doesn’t anyone ever listen to Sansa when she says ‘wait’? If your enemies are getting stronger then, so will you with time? Dany? What’s the hurry? Me thinks shoring up the North is in your best interest? You haven’t even settled the question of Northern Independence.
Sansa Sidebar: Did the one minute convo with the Hound had to happen? Many think the misogynistic condescending dialogue was out of place, and it was, but mostly on his part. Sansa has long made peace with her trauma, and the Starks are all about ‘everything happened for a reason, that’s why we’re all here etc’ However talking about being broken in rough is for the old Clegane, not the ranging beyond the wall, Arya saving, priest avenging, rando burying Cleagane. Again, it seems like something needed to be said and the writers couldn’t think of a better set up.

#flashbackfriday

3. And yes until this point the Night King was the only person “alive” to kill a Dragon, but they’ve been wounded by projectiles many a time. You would think they would make it a point to fly beyond the range of anti-aircraft missiles. 




4. I’ve played a lot of awkward ‘never have I ever’ drinking games, but this one takes the cake, and makes no sense whatsoever. I know we’ve shipped them since season 4 and there are only 3 episodes left but Weiss and Benioff could have orchestrated a MUCH more plausible hook up. Why would she be upset by this question? This isn’t the first time it’s come up and she’s a grown ass Knight who survived the Long Night. Much has been said about the fem-deaf writing on this show and this is yet another glaring example. And somehow, a storming off, chasing sequence ought to look a little different from a come-hither-pursue me sequence. #shrugs Doesn’t Tormund have 2 daughters somewhere? Double #shrugs
And there are so many way this could have gone:
Tyrion: You’re a virgin
Brienne: *drinks*
Everyone moves on
            OR
Tyrion: You’re a virgin
Brienne: Yes, it would seem a dead, gay would-be king isn’t in the cards for me
Everyone moves on
            OR
Tyrion: You’re a virgin
Brienne: *drinks*  
Brienne to Tyrion: minus the times you paid for it, you’re also a virgin
Brienne to Jaime: minus your sister, you’re also a virgin
Podrick: *leaves the chat*
Sidebar, did he drink cos he’s a virgin?


5. Jon ghosted Ghost, and this is why he will die. You’re sending him off beyond the wall with one ear and a janky leg?




6. #spoilerlaert If you’re Euron and you’re not wondering how Ty-ty already knows about a baby you just found out about then…. 

Tyrion gots da tea

7. “If 8 people know, its no longer a secret, its information”. Let that be a lesson to all of us. Jon thought it important to tell his fam, but Dany couldn’t tell her advisors? None of this is surprising (family>defectors) but perhaps the best solution would have been to get ahead of this and use it to your advantage rather than attempt to suppress it. Besides the obvious, did legitimizing Gendry and granting him Storm’s End legitimize his father’s usurping of your father? Doesn’t that de-legitimize your claim? 




Season 8 Episode 1

1. As expected, S7E1 begins the end with how it all started in the beginning: the line up and introduction at Winterfell and arrival of the foreigners. Now we know what Arya was staring at into the distance. Does anything apart from a dragon inspire such a mix of awe+fear? There's so much to be uncomfortable about and I just have a sinking feeling that the 2 year hiatus will be their undoing. Rather than pleasing a couple thousand book readers, GOT must please millions with sever single minute detail. It's a tall order for the team. We've had more than enough time to debate and run through a myriad of scenarios that have somehow become the way things should play out in our minds.

a. Euron can get it on a Friday

psychobae

b. Jon being the rightful heir isn't even really that big of a deal. Both inheritance and conquest have been recognised in Westeros so regardless of her claim...Dany is gong to usurp the usurper's widow.Robert had no claim (even though he's distantly related to the Targaryens) and Jon can abdicate like many before him. The lead up of the reveal of R+L=J was interesting however I'd rather all of Jon's reactions be captured in one episode rather than spreading them out. The development of the emotions will ofcourse take time, but what's the value of postponing the incest convo till later?
c. I too wanted elephants. Is it b'cos 90% of the CGI budget went towards rehashing scenes from the never ending story?

d. Secret Targs is one of the main 'mysteries' of GOT so Jon's super casual riding of Rhaegal should have been more than just a joy ride to a sexy rendezvous. Why was Drogon flaring his nostrils at him?
e. Sansa's out here gifting burns
f. If the preview of E2 is anything to go by, then we're in for yet another sham trial that we really don't have time for #Bran. Are the Lannister bros going to pull a Scofield and prison break each other out? Will Dany sentence Tyrion to death by burning and will he survive? Is that how his Targiness will be revealed?
g. Dolorous Ed should be the last person making jokes in this economy
h. Let's all agree that the White Walker's artistry is clearly more than just taking a scenic route towards death and destruction. As many have said, this is all possibly because of the humans failing to hold up their end of a deal and I can't think of a better reason for these 'messages' to have been sent repeatedly all the way from S1E1. This is probably the symbol of the pact. Sidebar, the internet did well to recognise Ned Umber, cos all I saw was a creepy undead kid
i. FYI, the opening credits have changed

 Episode 2

1. Well...we've always known about Gendrya haven't we? Also, is this why the Baratheon sigil is still trending? He's the Smith and all but I'm really hoping for more from Gendry

2. Brienne can't decide between the wild wild thoughts of a wildling, the Backstreet boy of all our dreams and Clegane (yes he's an option)...and Pod the singing sex god?


3. Jon Snow stay on the dramatic tip!
4. So...are the Northerners racist? Asking for myself
5. Someone taller eh? These short jokes Dany...

6. How does one sneak around a horde of undead? Also, quick question, can the NK only reanimate folks that died at the hand of wights/walkers? if not, should all the dead from the beginning of time be in his army by now?
7. Lyanna needs to make peace with her cousin, Winter is here and we don't have time for all this

Episode 3
This was the Longest Night Ever. As someone who makes it a point to avoid pointless horror flicks...I wasn't ready for the insomnia. The noise and lighting gave me a headache and the QUESTIONS! kept me up at night

why couldn't we see anything?

1. What are we going to do over the next 3 episodes? Yes yes the last war is coming, but think it's safe to say we're all suspensed out. The biggest baddest bad guy is history is dead. It seems Cersei is, and had been positioning for the role and will have to fill it...there has to be and will be another big battle sequence. This won't take more than 1 episode so what happens with the remaining two? I mean they can't just revert to good old 'talking in rooms' now!?
2. We need a flashback to the WW origins. The guy smiled and he and Bran looked like they communicated via telepathy. NK can't just die like that


3. After Lyanna's bad ass Giant take down, I wasn't surprised by Arya's kill move. It's almost cliched that she was the one to do it but TBH, even though this was part of the plan (luring NK into the godswood with Bran) I'm not clear on how Jon was going to kill him. He was lingering on the wall for a bit but what happened afterwards? You would think Bran would have more than Theon to protect him. What was Arry doing in the library anyway? Was she trying to get to the crypts?



4. IDK how well-fortified the crypts are, besides being underground. We know wights can break through doors, so perhaps there really was nowhere to hide, but in retrospect and should have been seen in prospect...a crypt is a terrible hiding place when you're hiding from the dead.

5. Melisandre had to come back, yes. Light some fires, yes. Was her taking of Beric Donadarrion's innovation to scale and glorious tool of suspense? yes, was it a great was to start the battle? yes, Did the Demise of the Dothraki make for iconic cinematography? hell yes! Was that whole thing stupid? yes. Why ride into the unknown, into darkness? why did Theon charge NK? why catapault balls of fire into nothing? How was fighting an ever-replenishing army a plan to begin with? why meet them on the battlefield in the first place? Why not fortify the castle and set up some Thai Cave type situation? Why not simply light the trench from the jump off and have the dragons continuously circling to keep the fire burning? Why not incorporate dragon glass into armor? Why not create dragon glass bombs? Am I straying into the realm of the Maesters? I wonder who has a crazy as Maester? then again, some experts beg to differ.


6. Pour some ale for Lyanna and Arya though

7. To crown it all off I will say that the POCs did die first and the age old horror movie trope lives on. Strangely we all have this uneasy feeling of...not enough top billed characters dying and the crew deserve all the awards and accolades. They might want to release the Long Night as a standalone movie so we can actually appreciate it on a large screen with appropriate compression (or lack thereof)

Re-watching GOT S7

At long last, we've made it through the trauma of Hodoring (yes, we're all crying); reaving, raiding and raping; gratuitous nudity and fierce costumes. We are now upon the season of finally: Finally Dany returns to Westeros, Finally Greyworm and Missandei link up, Finally J+D=screensaver, Finally the wall comes down, Finally Baelish gets fingered and it sticks (while being stuck with the pointy end), Finally the Stark kids reunite.

1. Cersei is literally the only person unimpressed by a wight, dragons & Dany's lacefront.

2. The Ed Sheeran cameo is less annoying the second time around, despite the international outcry


3. Much has been said about the writing/storytelling of Season 7, hard to tell if they're actually that much worse than GRRM- yes, GRRM is a genuis, but anyone who's read the books will admit that a Dance with Dragons was a tad repetitive and dare I say boring. Are we biased against Weiss and Benioff because we know they don't have the rich source material of the books to cull from? Possibly. But all the jokes about teleportation are founded. S5&6 just dragged on as though they were giving GRRM time to complete the Winds of Winter and by the time they realised he wouldn't they need to close the gap between where they left off and where they needed to get to. the Series finale could have easily been 13 episodes long and perhaps spending time to potentially craft a better story could be why they opted for the 7+6. In the end, the ridiculous plots, illogical and out of character decisions, cliched cliffhangers just seem like the work of writers who know full well who lives till the end, who lives and who dies in the end, the actual end but not how everyone gets to the series finale across 10 episodes. Cases in point: the whole proof - steal a wight-plot, the ice dragon (theses Dragons have been ducking and weaving for a while now and for some reason they're surprisingly susceptible to spears), the whole Dornish story, Arya being unnecessarily creepy and smug (dare I say Baelish?), Littlefinger's death, Jon being Jon.
  
  

4. Why did Lyanna name her son Aegon? Are all first born Targ males supposed to be called Aegon? Didn't she know her new hubby's other son's name? I really really don't get it. Yes, Rhaegar was really into the prophesy and perhaps he over enthusiastically tried to bring it to pass but marrying 'Ice' and perhaps Aegon was the name of the TPWWP? If Elia died postpartum as the maesters said she would, she would have been Nissa Nissa. Lyanna died anyway...She was Nissa Nissa.


 and side bar...the tower of Joy was in Dorne...Your ex wife is from Dorne...and you decide to get that marriage annulled and then re-marry your Northern bride in Dorne and THEN hide your pregnant new wife in Dorne?



5. Jon sounds like Idris Elba trying to do Mandela...this kid can talk! we were all swooning the first time but the second time hearing these speeches...I'm not so into it.

  


6. GOT has always been about the dialogue, statecraft and political intrigue more than the magic and even though the past few season's have leaned heavily on the latter, the book's premise of being GRRM's commentary on the world and our lot as humans is probably going to be the summary of it all. Neither our oral histories nor written histories are reliable- turns out everything Old Nan said was true but no one cared. The citadel is filled with accounts that no one reads and the very purpose of the greatest structure of the known world is long forgotten. Humans don't always believe what their eyes tell them, let along what others tell them and we have VERY short memories, ever destined to repeat the actions of  ancestors in a never ending cycle.



7. So here's my prediction: Everyone dies. S8 starts with a flashback because there's so much that's yet to be shown that's relevant to the plot. Mayhaps a journey back to Stonehenge? Jaime kills Cersei, fulfilling the prophecy, Jon kills Dany [(while pregnant) and she is reunited with Khal Drogo fulfilling the curse ] and he becomes the Last Hero/Azor Ahai/The Prince(ss) that was Promised because his is the song of Ice and Fire, he kills the Night King but becomes the Night King, because that's the part of the prophecy no one talks about- and banishes himself to the lands of Always Winter. Sansa lives to rule alongside Tyrion and a third person.Varys and Mellisandre die as she foresaw. Arya and Gendry sail off to WestAmerica. Sam lives on to write all about it. We spend the next millennia rebuilding the world, forgetting what happened and the cycle begins again. We zoom out, Macumba closes his eyes, goes to bed...

Rewatching GOT S6

The season of underage murderers, the male full frontal, Cersei's revenge and more smouldering looks from #Brieame

1. Ah yes, #oldladygate...So, in S4E7, Melisandre takes a bath without her necklace...was taking it off this time purely symbolic?  Also...what if each of the main characters becomes the 7 gods? You know in keeping with the whole circular story telling time lapse prophesy theory?
a. Mother- Daenerys? Cersei?
b. Crone- Melisandre
c. Maiden- Brienne? Missandei?
d. Stranger- Arya?
e. Warrior- Jaime? Brienne? Greyworm? Jon? The Hound? Tormund?
f. Smith- Gendry? (a bit on the nose innit?)
g. Father- Jaime? Ned?

That leaves only a bunch of folks to sit on the throne...if a throne remains. maybe Westeros will be managed like Qaarth, with Tyrion, Bran, Tormund, Sansa and Varys forming the council. Jon is too big a character to just be a council member, so it's more likely he will become the Night King. Bran is the three-eyed raven. It is known.



2. Bran again! don't warg you warg, don't stay too long, you stay and WALK INTO A CROWD OF ZOMBIES! W.T.A F?! and then he tried to lie about being touched by the Night freaking King?...I blame his parents. I won't go in the whole Hodor debacle because many of us shed tears and then put it out of our memories. I'm actually surprised it was way back in the middle of S6! But staying on the topic of the weirwood campout, and the general illogical behaviour of a man who knows everything and then decides to use a USB 1.0 port up until the last minute and then pulls out the 3.0 cable-mayhaps the children of the forest could have been schooling Meera on ...everything? something? while she was there doing nothing. Sidebar...one of the children tried to kill a White Walker with a spear and nothing happened, but when Meera threw it he disintegrated. What does that mean? Also, why can ice monsters walk through fire? hardly seems fair and actually makes the theory about Craster being Aemon Targaryen's bastard plausible (they need Targaryen babies since that's what the pact covers).  The CoF created the NK to kill men, but it's not clear whether it's the Andals or the First Men. Most experts :) say it's the Andals...they're the one's who brought the religion of the 7 to Westeros and cut the trees right?

chilling like all this ain't his fault

3. So who is advising Tommen? I want to know. Uncle Kevan is a bigger wanker than I remember. Margery was one of my favourite characters and unlike Ned, she knew she was going to die...a whole 5 mins before she did. Pour some Dornish Red.

wanker

bae

4. Think this is the last episode where Dany has to strip down and burn something. For all they've said about nudity being part of the contract, all the headliners haven't actually been naked for a while. Additionally, sexposition aside anyone who's going to be a fan, is already hooked and they don't need to rely on the 'theatrics'  
Please take my word for it...a quick search of nude emilia clarke will yield things that can't be unseen.


5. Big up Lyanna Mormont's stank face



6. Oh yes, the black Red Priestess with the weave! up until this moment every woman of colour has rocked...no actually the Dothraki dancers had weaves...ah well. For more on why this is relevant, read this blog and or any other article on 'othering' or a good history book.


7. Arya is that person who bugs you for an job even though she's in no way qualified, when you give in and say she can come on as an unpaid intern to shadow actual serious people, she appears to be taking all seriously and then one day you ask her to take minutes in a meeting and she spends the whole time on her phone writing a blog post about work and shows up the next day like...

Re-watching GOT S5

The season where things got very dark, very quickly, and I don't just mean Jaime Lannister's locks
The massacre at Hardhome, Shireen's demise, Jon's dance with the many faced god, Sansa's capture, Cersei's fall from grace and the most senseless death of all in the warm waters of Dorne. In retrospect, I expected this to be 'the boring season' only to realise that many of the cliffhangers and 'oh no they didn't' moments were all in this season. 



1. So if Ser Alliser Thorne was the one they sent with the un-dead hand to beg for more men in Kings Landing, why is he unconvinced that they need to do more than business as usual? If Melisandre has seen death marching on the wall and Stannis believes this...why are they still working on other projects? And jumping the gun a bit, but why were they hell bent on convincing Cersei when there are millions of others with armies and less animosity? What can we learn from John's blunders? Clearly singing to the choir (yes getting a band of trusted men for your mission is key, but convincing the naysayers was critical) wasn't the best choice. Perhaps taking Thorne would have been a tough decision-leaving the wall leaderless but...we're talking about the White Walkers and folks are still out here, on and on about 'we've been fighting the wildlings for thousands of years'. Also, let's not forget the many wights they could have captured at Hardhome as proof and forestalling the need to return with dragons.

2. Tyrion had to do a dumb thing for character development, and also so Ser Jorah could get greyscale. I get it now. [spoiler alert] Sam Tarly needed to practice extreme debridement on someone right?


3. I want to know the waif's story? Why doesn't she like Arya? Was her path to assasindom more noble? How did she come to understudy the faceless men. Why was Jaqen H'ghar in Westeros anyway?


4. Can we talk about the ease of travel, inter-connectedness, free trade and borderlessness that seems to be operating between Westeros and Essos? This is what you get when you ask someone with mediocre geography skills to draw Europe...and this person knows quite a lot.  Could Westeros look more like England+Scotland? Could the shadowlands look anymore like India? Is the Rhoyne exactly where the Rhine is? Greenland, is pratically in the same location and is already conveniently called "the land of always winter" It is known that no one has ever returned from the Sunset Sea. Perhaps Azor Ahai will Columbus it after winter comes and perhaps, the Song of Summer will be sang in the New (Water) World.

customs union anyone?

the original Jorah Mormont

5. Maester Aemon was dancing with death for many moons, why hadn't they sent Sam to the Citadel already? oh wait...cos that's what happened in the books and it makes too much sense. Guess it wouldn't have fit into the newly truncated timeline



6. So this is why Myrcella didn't attend the wedding?


Sidebar, what the hell is Ellaria's deal? Is her plan really to go to war with the Lannisters? Oberyn did die in a trail by combat, ironically because he sought to avenge his sister. Now, you want to also do something dumb to avenge him? A lot of this storyline leaves much to be desired. It doesn't advance the story overall and the critical parts were greatly changed from the books. As depicted in the show, we ought to be concerned about Prince Doran's seeming indifference. Is there a plan underfoot? sadly we never get to find out, and the seemingly undefeatable sand snakes all die a horrible lacklustre death. Why did he decide to send Myr back...with Trystane? He's supposed to have 2 other children, but in the show it seems as though he's sending off the heir to Dorne as well as their/betrothed/ward/captive/bargaining chip. I guess they feel bad about never having sent those ships!

7. Melisandre...after all that, you defect at showtime and run to Castle Black which is quickly becoming a wintery Bed and Breakfast? Can we talk about how killing your own children is easily more evil than stealing others' and turning them into your soldiers? On second thoughts...doesn't this make him more likely to be the Prince(ess) who was promised?  Maybe it's all the same but any time you see this and shiver:

Remember this and cry: