Dark and Full Of Spoilers (GOT Season 8 Spoiler Thread Part 2)

[GloatingSwine]

Well, at least it's been consistent.

Both major arcs have been solved by a character with no internal character motivation within or narrative connection to the arc.

Yay?

[BlacKnight]

Well, it seems that in the end they actually established democracy. Bronn became lord of HighGarden promising free brothels for everyone. Not sure how to justify that otherwise.
They also opened the Kingsguard to women and somehow defeated climate change, which convinced the Free Folk to go back to their frozen home.

Also the lords elected a foreigner as their king, after bitching for 2 seasons that Daenerys was a foreigner.

[deuterio12]

There's also the generally oblivious oversights. They show Sam as Grandmaester at the end, but Maesters can't marry. So he chose to put Gilly aside and disinherit his son(s) for a Maester's chain? Yeah, no, Sam's not that much of a jerk.

Actually Sam is not wearing any visible chain (and would kinda need years to forge enough links for even a starting one) thus he's not a maester so probably just finds the robes comfy, dress code of Brand's council pretty relaxed.

[GloatingSwine]

Well, it seems that in the end they actually established democracy.

They changed the succession laws to Elective, at least.


On the other hand, there's a (fantasy) mongol horde and two mercenary companies not getting paid in and around the capital, so who knows how long all this is going to last.

[Dr.Samurai]

Sam is still sworn to the Night’s Watch though.

[Malifice]

Sam is still sworn to the Night’s Watch though.

The King can release him from his vows.

[deuterio12]

Sam is still sworn to the Night’s Watch though.

So was Jon (again) and he just rides right past it to go party with the wyldlings.

[Chen]

This ending is almost certainly the same reason we havent had a book in 8 years and counting. GRRM clearly gave SOME direction of where certain people have to be at the end. And he frankly has no idea how to get them all there. He can take his time with the books but the show must go on here so they just threw it all together and ended up with this illogical nonesense.

[Mechalich]

They changed the succession laws to Elective, at least.

Quite, this represents a change from a unified monarchy to something more like the Holy Roman Empire. Historical evidence would suggest that such a system is actually less stable than having a single ruler because it fosters competition rather than unity between the sub-states. This is particularly likely because Bran the Broken is not going to be a strong or forceful king, as he proved when he allowed Sansa to proclaim independence for the North.

In particular, Bran's reign is likely to be quite long - he's only seventeen he might reign for fifty years - and since most of the Great Houses of Westeros have been overturned the leadership that greets a potential succession is more likely than anything to completely disregard the wishes of the not-especially-noteworthy (seriously the majority of the lords in that council were barely nameable by the viewers) council that put Bran on the throne in the first place and the likely outcome following his death is a massive free-for-all between new and hungry leaders.

Ultimately, I do get how we could have gotten to this point. If the Night King was the finally enemy and the rule of Westeros was presented as a mere coda to the overall tale as it should have been, then following the death of Daenerys and after a suitable demonstration of magic-mojo by the Three-Eyed Raven then I could see the remaining lords proclaiming him King as their savior, but that's what we got.

Watching this episode I discovered a new reason why Dany's sudden heel turn was so dissatisfying. It was that, absent her taking the throne there simply was no good way to put anyone in the position. Jon won't do it, and absent Jon there's...no one. All the great houses have been lobotomized. The only person with any sort of lineage-based claim is Gendry, who is unsuitable but honestly would probably make a better king than Bran, and there's no one who can claim the throne by deed. Honestly, when they finally got to the council scene, I would have liked for the council to deadlock and the unified Seven Kingdoms to be dissolved. Now that would have been actually bittersweet and it would have fit with the overall nature of the show. I assume this doesn't happen in the books (and therefore didn't happen in the show) because in the (hypothetical) books everyone actually does unite to fight the Night King rather than only a portion of Westeros.

On the other hand, there's a (fantasy) mongol horde and two mercenary companies not getting paid in and around the capital, so who knows how long all this is going to last.

Honestly, I'm starting to wonder if one of the showrunners turned out to be allergic to horses or something midway through filming, because the show's complete inability to handle the Dothraki as an element somehow got worse in this episode. There desperately needed to be a Dothraki member of Daenerys council - someone who could speak the common tongue - from the moment she took control of the khalasar in season six. The failure for that character to exist, and thereby to give the Dothraki - the most powerful single military force in Westeros - a voice resulted in a complete failure to even address this critically important element.

[Dr.Samurai]

This ending is almost certainly the same reason we havent had a book in 8 years and counting. GRRM clearly gave SOME direction of where certain people have to be at the end. And he frankly has no idea how to get them all there. He can take his time with the books but the show must go on here so they just threw it all together and ended up with this illogical nonesense.

For starters, Bran will need to be much more involved in the books, and especially with other houses. If he's to end up on the throne, they have to know what his power is *and* they have to give a sh*t about stories and memories and whatever. As of now... that council of lords were very amenable to Dany's desires to break the wheel and Tyrion's suggestion for what makes a good king, and this just seems extremely unlikely.

Tyrion here is at once wise enough to choose the King, and so mistaken he must atone for his follies. Bran too has been mostly useless since returning to Winterfell, but now will heal the Six Kingdoms. These characters are all over the place.

I would have liked to see a conversation about the North remaining independent. As is, everyone took this very well (all of these lords are so agreeable) but I'm not sure that would be the case. Sansa has a point that she made, but I'm not sure it wouldn't start a conversation rather than simply end one.

Also, I think this image is spot on:

[GloatingSwine]

This ending is almost certainly the same reason we havent had a book in 8 years and counting. GRRM clearly gave SOME direction of where certain people have to be at the end. And he frankly has no idea how to get them all there. He can take his time with the books but the show must go on here so they just threw it all together and ended up with this illogical nonesense.

The other thing is that if GRRM has an idea of where certain people have to be, and can't think of a natural progression to get them there whilst staying true to their established character, the character wins over the plot.

That's why he ripped up 600 pages of completed book and wrote Feast for Crows and Dance with Dragons to fill what would have been a five year timeskip.

Honestly, when they finally got to the council scene, I would have liked for the council to deadlock and the unified Seven Kingdoms to be dissolved

The Empire, long united, must divide; long divided, must unite. Thus has it ever been.

[Saintheart]

Quite, this represents a change from a unified monarchy to something more like the Holy Roman Empire. Historical evidence would suggest that such a system is actually less stable than having a single ruler because it fosters competition rather than unity between the sub-states. This is particularly likely because Bran the Broken is not going to be a strong or forceful king, as he proved when he allowed Sansa to proclaim independence for the North.

In particular, Bran's reign is likely to be quite long - he's only seventeen he might reign for fifty years - and since most of the Great Houses of Westeros have been overturned the leadership that greets a potential succession is more likely than anything to completely disregard the wishes of the not-especially-noteworthy (seriously the majority of the lords in that council were barely nameable by the viewers) council that put Bran on the throne in the first place and the likely outcome following his death is a massive free-for-all between new and hungry leaders.

For what it's worth, historical evidence probably doesn't well predict what happens when a realm is being ruled by a Perfect-Accuracy Information Source. Even Frank Herbert had to come up with plot contrivances to get around that problem of complete information.

The only thing keeping him from being a Class One Kwisatz Haderach is the fact he doesn't have Mentat training allowing him to extrapolate all futures from all present data, and even then the showrunners say Bran's able to tell when certain stuff is important, i.e. he has enough prescience to know when to keep his mouth shut and allow events to play out, and when it's safe to influence events (e.g. handing over the dagger to Arya ... sigh ... ) On top of that, he's promised to do his best to defend and support the realm, which would suggest bending all his outright magical power to the benefit of the Six Kingdoms. That is one hell of an advantage to have over every other realm on the planet, or at least it will be if Bran gets rid of that semi-useless maester with him right now and starts hiring some of the more flexible minds at the Citadel.

But otherwise, yeah. In a supreme ironic twists, the showrunners of a fantasy show failed for lack of imaginative capacity.

[Dr.Samurai]

That's why he ripped up 600 pages of completed book and wrote Feast for Crows and Dance with Dragons to fill what would have been a five year timeskip.

What's the story here? I don't follow GRRM news but this sounds interesting.

[Mechalich]

For what it's worth, historical evidence probably doesn't well predict what happens when a realm is being ruled by a Perfect-Accuracy Information Source. Even Frank Herbert had to come up with plot contrivances to get around that problem of complete information.

The only thing keeping him from being a Class One Kwisatz Haderach is the fact he doesn't have Mentat training allowing him to extrapolate all futures from all present data, and even then the showrunners say Bran's able to tell when certain stuff is important, i.e. he has enough prescience to know when to keep his mouth shut and allow events to play out, and when it's safe to influence events (e.g. handing over the dagger to Arya ... sigh ... ) On top of that, he's promised to do his best to defend and support the realm, which would suggest bending all his outright magical power to the benefit of the Six Kingdoms. That is one hell of an advantage to have over every other realm on the planet, or at least it will be if Bran gets rid of that semi-useless maester with him right now and starts hiring some of the more flexible minds at the Citadel.

All of this would be true, if the show had actually shown Bran using his powers to do anything whatsoever since 'the door.' It's really quite pathetic how unclear Bran's abilities actually are at the conclusion. In particular, nothing in Tyrion's big appeal stresses that 'hey we should make the guy with the awesome magic powers king' as he instead gives a plea about the power of stories. Heck, the show's concluding moment actually implies a significant limitation to Bran's powers when he says 'perhaps I can find him' with regard to Drogon. Not that he will find him, but that maybe he'll be able to if he gets lucky. Those are not the words of an all-knowing seer.

[GloatingSwine]

What's the story here? I don't follow GRRM news but this sounds interesting.

Basically after the third book he originally intended to have a timeskip of five years and pick up from there.

He had written a considerable portion of what would then have been book 4, and realised that rather a lot of what he had written was flashbacks and he couldn't remain true to who the characters were whilst consistently putting them in the places they were supposed to be after the timeskip.

So he tore it all up and started again.

Except the events that would have gone into those five years have swelled in the telling so that A Feast for Crows, A Dance with Dragons, and about the first 800 mansucript pages of The Winds of Winter all happen at about the same time.

What would have been book 4 is now going to start partway through book 6.

You know how I said anyone who said any of what happened in the show of late was "planned all along" was just wrong?

That's what GRRM's planned all along looks like. Utter unmanageable chaos where even he doesn't really know what's going to happen but it's going to take him two decades and four thousand pages to find out.

[Narkis]

So it ends, not with a bang but with a whimper.

I really doubt Bran is supposed to end up king of the six kingdoms in the books. Just like I really doubt Arya will defeat the White Walkers. It's the two monkeys on the typewriter, picking the most surprising outcome just so they can "outsmart" the audience and high-five each other for a job well done.

I'll admit the scenes with Evil Queen Daenerys looked cool. Episode 5 might have made more sense if we'd gotten that earlier. But that would have ruined the surprise and we can't have that.

[Devonix]

Episode was just ok. The other episodes this season seemed fine, but this one, this is the one that to me felt rushed. I'm ok with Killing Danny off early, but the choosing of a king and aftermath needed at least another episode.

[Devonix]

So it ends, not with a bang but with a whimper.

I really doubt Bran is supposed to end up king of the six kingdoms in the books. Just like I really doubt Arya will defeat the White Walkers. It's the two monkeys on the typewriter, picking the most surprising outcome just so they can "outsmart" the audience and high-five each other for a job well done.

I'll admit the scenes with Evil Queen Daenerys looked cool. Episode 5 might have made more sense if we'd gotten that earlier. But that would have ruined the surprise and we can't have that.

It's possible no one will defeat the White Walkers, because it's possible that there will be no war with them. They could strike a treaty or actually end up living in peace.

[ImperiousLeader]

Given the previous events of the show, this was as about as good an ending as we could get. There were some great visuals, that shot of Dany in front of Drogon as he spread his wings so that she looks to be winged was gorgeous. I ... liked? ... the scene in the throne room, it was beautiful.

But despite Tyrion breaking the fourth wall to explain why Dany sucks and this was all going to happen, it still feels like an incredible disservice to, well, both of them. And frankly, the fact that Tyrion and Jon get away with treason here is quite ridiculous.

Oh well, I'm glad that Sansa and Arya made it out okay, and where they deserve to be, as Queen of the North and bold explorer. But overall, I'm kinda numb. My watch has ended.

[Alabenson]

I think a large part of the problem with this season boils down to the fact that they were stuffing two seasons worth of plot into a half seasons worth of episodes. That meant that a lot of what should have been gradual character development wound up being truncated into very jarring changes.

[Dr.Samurai]

Basically after the third book he originally intended to have a timeskip of five years and pick up from there.

He had written a considerable portion of what would then have been book 4, and realised that rather a lot of what he had written was flashbacks and he couldn't remain true to who the characters were whilst consistently putting them in the places they were supposed to be after the timeskip.

So he tore it all up and started again.

Except the events that would have gone into those five years have swelled in the telling so that A Feast for Crows, A Dance with Dragons, and about the first 800 mansucript pages of The Winds of Winter all happen at about the same time.

What would have been book 4 is now going to start partway through book 6.

Wow. Well, kudos to the author for trying to stay true to the characters.

But at some point, the characters exist for the sake of the story and plot. I mean, if it means not finishing... I don't know. Well, I say that as someone that only aspires to be a writer, so I'm sure it's difficult to figure this out and navigate through your own story/potential with these characters remaining as intact as possible.

I have to say, and I don't think this is a popular opinion because when I use the word "logistics" or something similar mostly the responses are negative, but I find myself missing all of the political drama and turmoil from the previous seasons, and the attention to logistics given. With all that has happened with the Night King and the Throne, it seems hollow. Like it doesn't really matter or like everything that happened before didn't matter. Maybe that's the point, but I find the former intrigue much more interesting and exciting than the latter spectacle.

You know how I said anyone who said any of what happened in the show of late was "planned all along" was just wrong?

That's what GRRM's planned all along looks like. Utter unmanageable chaos where even he doesn't really know what's going to happen but it's going to take him two decades and four thousand pages to find out.

Yeah well, once the leaks are out, you get all of these theory videos and articles coming out essentially spoiling the show under the veil of "theory". I agree they likely didn't know all this time.


On a more general note: For me, Dany's death came and went with little notice. As soon as it happened, I was just more interested in how everything was going to shake out. I don't know, her death didn't have a lot of impact for me. They made her go totally insane, and her death leaves so many questions that I didn't really have a chance to ruminate on her passing.

[napoleon_in_rag]

Also, I think this image is spot on:

I like this image. Especially the slice of photo quality image at the end of season 6.

[Skyblaze]

So this is just a quick thought process for season 8...what did any of the main characters do this season that affected the story?

Cersei - Nothing. I cannot think of any decision she made that changed how the story played out in the end. Would you count agreeing to sleep with dollar store jack sparrow?

Jon - Nothing other than the consequenceless/unquestionably justified murder at the very end (side note, after that how much screen time did he have?).

Tyrion - Uhhh, convincing everyone at Winterfell to get their **** together and fight undead? Even though everyone already knew that...I guess he made rich white people democracy at the end? Sure that won't be corrupted in a few years...

Dany - Burned KL...I think thats it? Would one even count killing Varys as affecting the story at this point?

Arya - Night King KO...thats it.

Sansa - Hosted Long Night Watch Party (does that count as an action...?). Got the stamp of approval on having the North be independent...to no ones objections (not even the Kingdoms who actively fought for independence in the past...iron islands...Dorne...)

Bran - Ha (Unless you get into "way too clever for these writers" theories of Bran subtley shaping everyones thoughts and actions)

Discount Jack Sparrow - Killed Dragon #2. Captured Missandei.

[Saintheart]

I have to say, and I don't think this is a popular opinion because when I use the word "logistics" or something similar mostly the responses are negative, but I find myself missing all of the political drama and turmoil from the previous seasons, and the attention to logistics given. With all that has happened with the Night King and the Throne, it seems hollow. Like it doesn't really matter or like everything that happened before didn't matter. Maybe that's the point, but I find the former intrigue much more interesting and exciting than the latter spectacle.

You're not alone. On one hand there is the approach of "All these petty machinations to sit on a steel chair are insignificant next to the existential threat of the White Walkers", which on its face is a pretty potent message to deliver. But on the other hand, I think there's just as potent a message in having the characters adjust the types of machinations they engage in as a response to the same circumstances, and indeed how those responses are different from "normal" backstabbing, chaos-is-a-ladder Westeros could have been intriguing.

For example, assume a relatively similar season 6/7 to the one we got at Winterfell. Ramsay Bolton loses Winterfell. Sansa and Littlefinger are more or less in charge. Littlefinger, oddly, is the first guy to figure out and acknowledge how serious the threat of the dead army actually is. Littlefinger then starts ruthlessly cutting down or undermining any party or effort to stay and hold Winterfell, because he concludes - rightly or not - that the wretched old barrack can't be held against an army of steadily-increasing undead, that if the old legends are true the snowdrifts were a hundred feet high and the White Walkers will indeed walk right over the walls. He plays into the role of saviour - the role he had right up until Bran decided to lolnope his schemes - pulling women and children back into the south and issuing propaganda putting himself at the head of the effort to save Westeros. How do you kill such a man, who has a literal army behind him and the Vale in his pocket? Imagine more meaningful debates, conscience questions centred around military strategy: do we pull people off their land wholesale just to avoid a few more soldiers in the undead army, knowing those people will be starving weeks or months from now as our own supplies are too limited?

The main problem with the show was that all conflicting motives within characters were dispensed with. Everyone lined up either against the Starks or against the Lannisters, with no nuances or conflicted loyalties permitted. If characters didn't like what Daenerys did, they usually conveyed it by constipated expressions and long stares just off camera.

The last gasp we got of any audacity, any subtlety, to the series was the brief, and once again, wrong, fan theory that at the end of season 7 Tyrion made a deal with Cersei when he found out she was pregnant: Daenerys can't have children, so if you surrender I will guarantee your child inherits the Iron Throne. Imagine how the story would've turned out if that had been adeptly pursued in the final season, maybe over a few episodes? As it was even the damn pregnancy subplot seemed to be thrown aside in an all-out sprint for the end of the show.

[Dr.Samurai]

You're not alone. On one hand there is the approach of "All these petty machinations to sit on a steel chair are insignificant next to the existential threat of the White Walkers", which on its face is a pretty potent message to deliver. But on the other hand, I think there's just as potent a message in having the characters adjust the types of machinations they engage in as a response to the same circumstances, and indeed how those responses are different from "normal" backstabbing, chaos-is-a-ladder Westeros could have been intriguing.

For example, assume a relatively similar season 6/7 to the one we got at Winterfell. Ramsay Bolton loses Winterfell. Sansa and Littlefinger are more or less in charge. Littlefinger, oddly, is the first guy to figure out and acknowledge how serious the threat of the dead army actually is. Littlefinger then starts ruthlessly cutting down or undermining any party or effort to stay and hold Winterfell, because he concludes - rightly or not - that the wretched old barrack can't be held against an army of steadily-increasing undead, that if the old legends are true the snowdrifts were a hundred feet high and the White Walkers will indeed walk right over the walls. He plays into the role of saviour - the role he had right up until Bran decided to lolnope his schemes - pulling women and children back into the south and issuing propaganda putting himself at the head of the effort to save Westeros. How do you kill such a man, who has a literal army behind him and the Vale in his pocket? Imagine more meaningful debates, conscience questions centred around military strategy: do we pull people off their land wholesale just to avoid a few more soldiers in the undead army, knowing those people will be starving weeks or months from now as our own supplies are too limited?

So for those that remember, my original theory starting back when Sansa and Littlefinger were in the Eyrie was that Sansa and Littlefinger would wind up on the throne.

What you propose is precisely the type of thing that I was expecting/hoping Littlefinger would pull off. When I complained that he was just standing around in Winterfell doing absolutely nothing, people basically said the show had transitioned to spectacle and there was no room for intrigue when the white walkers were coming. I didn't agree at the time and still don't. Chaos is exactly what Littlefinger uses to advance, and there's little more chaotic than an army of winter people and zombies coming to kill everyone. But alas, the show went in a different direction.

That said... if spectacle is what we're going to get, I like to imagine that Jon and Tormund are going to explore the most northern reaches of the Lands of Always Winter, and uncover ancient strongholds of the White Walkers and CotF, and Jon will find and tame an Ice Dragon, and something will require that he return to protect the realms of men once more...

[Malifice]

Im still running with the theory Bran (like the NK) is a product of the CoTF magic, and was created for the same purpose.

To fix the mistake of the NK, and then when that's done, to take out the Humans.

He's been pulling the strings all along and orchestrating things to become the King.

He's like an improved version of Sidious.

[Dr.Samurai]

That would be pretty crazy if the Children were still trying to take out humans, and Bran is a trojan horse.

But that would be so long before someone could cop onto him and do something to stop him. He'd be pretty unbeatable no?

[Requizen]

Im still running with the theory Bran (like the NK) is a product of the CoTF magic, and was created for the same purpose.

To fix the mistake of the NK, and then when that's done, to take out the Humans.

He's been pulling the strings all along and orchestrating things to become the King.

He's like an improved version of Sidious.

That would be pretty crazy if the Children were still trying to take out humans, and Bran is a trojan horse.

But that would be so long before someone could cop onto him and do something to stop him. He'd be pretty unbeatable no?

What great theories!

They mean nothing. Nothing means anything. The ending was pointless and forgettable. This won't go down as something long raged about like Dexter or Lost or the Sopranos. No, the biggest shared television event in recent memory will be completely forgotten within a couple years, and everyone will look back and think "man, how did I get so invested in such a mediocre show?"

[Dr.Samurai]

Hey, just musing lol.

[pendell]

Thinking some more , there's a bit of callback to Tywin's lecture to Tommen on what made a good king. "Wisdom", he concluded, is the magic ingredient.

And Bran has plenty of wisdom.

In a way, Bran and Danerys are two sides of a coin: Bran has wisdom but very little physical power. He can't even walk. Danerys has overwhelming power through her dragons, but they gave her no wisdom to go with that power.

A pity they could not combine their gifts; Bran's wisdom and Danerys' power would have been a combination to remember.

The show seems to tell us that Bran's gift is better. Through wisdom, he was able to leverage what little power he had into winning the war against the dead and kingship of the six kingdoms. By contrast, Danerys' power was mostly squandered, and a lot more people got killed than was necessary.

Somewhere in the depths of hell, Tywin is smiling.

Respectfully,

Brian P.