Game of Thrones

[WildBaboons]

@Arkandel i would be pleasantly surprised but I think you're giving the writers way too much credit

[Arkandel]

@WildBaboons If I'm right this is George Martin's twist as well. I agree there's no way in hell they'd divert enough from the intended plot (whatever it is) to introduce it.

[surreality]

@WildBaboons said in Game of Thrones:

@Arkandel i would be pleasantly surprised but I think you're giving the writers way too much credit

...I think that'd be giving the budget too much credit more than anything else!

[Kestrel]

@Arkandel

I like this theory.

***=Expounded thoughts on this possible ending.***

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1. It would explain why Daenerys has suddenly become an idiot, considering she has prophetic dreams and may have been listening to her instincts.
2. It would make an interesting and enjoyable twist to reveal that Fire (Daenerys) was the Big Bad all along, not Ice (the Night King) and it'd leave room for the Azor Ahai prophecy to still be fulfilled. NK's rather sudden and anticlimactic death would make a lot more sense in that context, considering the amount of build-up his villain arc has had — though I did enjoy Arya's badassery all the same.
3. The Season 8 teaser did sort of spoil the season's trajectory to begin with, and I'd be surprised if Kings' Landing didn't go up in flames in some form.

I've always thought the "Daenerys is Nyssa Nyssa" theory was idiotic, and would've been very disappointed if it'd turned out to be true — so I was glad it didn't. I'd like for her death to be somewhat more meaningful than "fridged by her loverboy in the most phallic of ways to save the world". Prophecy details here for the unfamiliar. Basically it was that in order to forge Lightbringer, Jon Snow, AKA Azor Ahai, would need to plunge his sword into her bewb, sacrificing her to defeat the Night King.

If it turns out she was actually the villain all along, though, and he murders her because she goes full Mad Queen with an army of dragons at her back, I'm OK with that.

I'll be honest, I was kind of hoping GoT would end with everyone dead due to Climate Change cough cough the Night King and if we get the same result just with Fire instead of Ice I'm equally OK with that.

Side note, not a spoiler, I really enjoy Euron Greyjoy's actor. I feel sort of bad for him. He picked the wrong Queen.

[Lotherio]

Well, I'm finally getting caught up so I should do a whacky prediction spoiler for the show and maybe the books too.

***=Here there be Mythical Spoilers***

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Okay, so when I first read Game of Thrones (the first book that is), I saw the map and the location of things on it. Its totally England during the time of Arthur. GRR Martin likes history and Arthur. I figure RhaegarTargaryen is Arthur in a manner, doing better than kooks before him. Then the affair early on which lead to all the R+L=J speculation. I bought that pretty quickly, it became basically a stolen/re-imagined telling of Arthur.

Instead of Genuivere doing the 'cheating', its Rhaegar himself, cheating on Elia Martell. Instead of Mordred, we end up with Jon. Jon will probably die (again but for good, unlike the books, there are no red priests left that I recall on GoT series).

They skipped Aegon in the series, the swapped out son of Rhaegar and Elia. Whether true or not is left for the books to let us know. But he holds Storms End, and has ties with the Martells still, again seemingly written out of the series. He holds it with the Golden Company, so all the books our out the windows here.

But, Gendry completes the circle, filling in for Aegon as the holder of Storm's End.

Storm's End is Camlann in Arthur. I imagine the Second Sons show up here (one of the other mercenary groups, one of Daeny's lovers is in charge of them), after the nonsense around King's Landing, they group. Second Sons and Golden Company make up more of the end fighting force.

Jon dies, Daeny probably dies, Cersei dies, the remaining Starks live but they have no interest in King's Landing, the north become an independent Kingdom again and, like after the fall of Arthur, the remaining seven kingdoms splinter and revert to 'darker' and less 'chivalorous' times. The 'glory' of Westeros dies with the last of its greatest hopes (whoever you like in the current books/tv series that dies in the final battle).

Gendry might become a parcel of authority after that battle, but understood he can't keep shit together. Or in the books its Aegon (impostor or not planted by Varys). They might bring in some of the forgotten realms (families of Dorne and Highgarden) to help with the battle of Camlann/Storm's End.

Or ... it just a big CGI feast over the last few episodes with all kinds of crazy happening and someone actually wins the iron throne.

[Lotherio]

Here, self follow up for some map comparisons

Westeros:

***=Map of Westeros***

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***=Arthurian Britain***

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Things line up pretty well, even with a few differences. Dorne is Spain in a manor from later portions of history and marriage to the English throne. Ironborn are Vikings, around the sacking of York, the isles west of Scotland there were common winter sites for Vikings to extend their raiding times (and where Amlaib and Ivar may have raided from before establishing Dublin in a manner).

[Rinel]

@Lotherio You got the geography right but the time period wrong. It was inspired by the Wars of the Roses.

[Sparks]

@Lotherio Martin has said in interviews many times that the Song of Ice and Fire books began as a fantasy retelling of the War of the Roses. So you're absolutely right about it being England, though not Arthurian.

ETA: Apparently Rinel also commented on this while I had the editor window open. Oops!

[Lotherio]

Oh no, I'm well aware he continually says its inspired by War of the Roses. He usually gets in inspired be War of the Roses and flippantly tacks on 'and other stuff' or 'other fantasies'. Every so often he does get in Arthurian references, sporadically. LIke he's mentioned starting out around Bran, he sees readers comparing him to a young Arthur, so he can surprise them with Jamie chucking him out the window.

He's had a lot of inspiration and influence, and I see Arthurian legend under the surface of the War of the Roses that he says is the main influence; those influence are pretty easy to see on the surface. But the correlatives I see leads me to what I think is gonna happen. I've not had many great surprises yet going off my hunch and most characters live up to the expectations I've had. I still leave my prediction on the tables, the final battle is closer to Storm's End or somewhere betwixt Storm's End and King's Landing and it ends in chaos. I see other correlations as well, such as the Prince That Was Promised (another of his inspirations, TH White, The Once and Future King - and like the Once and Future King, the Prince That Was Promised may never come) , and lets not forget Excalibur/Lightbringer.

[Apos]

[Roz]

Here's some text to appear first in the recent post blurbs so that people are not spoiled just from browsing okay is this good okay let's go

***=Spoilers ahoy***

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Honestly I just feel bad for the Dany stans at this point.

[ZombieGenesis]

Random text.
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***=NSFW content***

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Instead of complaining about the many(many) things I did not like about this episode I'll comment on the two things that I kinda liked.

The end of the Clegane feud. I thought that ended the only way it could and they did a good job with it.
Cersei and Jaime. I was fine with that ending. I'd also have been fine if they had managed to escape and they hinted that they lived the rest of their lives in secret on some island somewhere.

This was probably one of the more enjoyable episodes of the season but still. Jesus Christ.

[ZombieGenesis]

Warning for anyone who reads this and hasn't seen the episode, avoid Yahoo News. Huge spoiler right on the front page. Unbelievable.

[Quinn]

Is it a picture of Fonzie jumping a dragon?

[surreality]

Welp, the costume trend mentioned last week remains on point, I see.

[Ghost]

***=Spoilerish***

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While it's no surprise to me than fan base entitlement will probably scream about tonight, I'm gonna offer a perspective.

I think it was a great episode.

It's important to remember that while not every character may be getting your perfect ending, this episode held true to the characters in a way that I think was important.

1. Jaime's weakness has always been Cersei. They came into the world together. Disappointing, but true to the characters. Jaime was never strong.

2. Sandor always knew he couldn't beat his brother, but he wasn't about to let Gregor live.

3. Varys always sided with the people over crown.

4. Dany has ruled with fear and violence ever since the dragons hatched. The mother of dragons was a dragon; a Targaryen. She has rarely been merciful and the center of her own world. Did she really become a villain, or was she always a villain that the viewer simply had sympathy for?

Sadly, I worry that people who expected this or that from the show are going to rage and spray piss everywhere because the writers never consulted them on what they wanted. I think this episode was true to the story, but predict that like every show these days people are going to fail to realize that they set themselves up for disappointment and demand every...single...time.

Really, though, I liked it.

[Roz]

Here is some text for the post previews!! I don't want to spoil anyone!! La la la la la la

***Spoilers***

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@Ghost said in Game of Thrones:

4. Dany has ruled with fear and violence ever since the dragons hatched. The mother of dragons was a dragon; a Targaryen. She has rarely been merciful and the center of her own world. Did she really become a villain, or was she always a villain that the viewer simply had sympathy for?

Oh yeah, like, I don't think they're really doing a GOOD JOB of this final season in general, but the upswell of sentiment that this came totally out of left field for Daenerys is...not correct. You're absolutely right that she's been a conquerer ruling with fear and violence for seasons now. Generally it's just that it's been a bit more contained and directed at people we want to die. But she's been a "I will end all tyranny!" tyrant for a while now.

[Sparks]

SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER DIS-COURSE DIS-COURSE... (to the tune of the Badger Badger song, as always)

***=SPOILER SPOILER***

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@Roz said in Game of Thrones:

Honestly I just feel bad for the Dany stans at this point.

I feel bad for all those people who named their kids "Khaleesi" several seasons ago.

[Selira]

La la la la la I hate spoiling things for people so this is a buffer to keep that from happening la.

***Spoilers***

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@Roz said in Game of Thrones:

Here is some text for the post previews!! I don't want to spoil anyone!! La la la la la la

@Ghost said in Game of Thrones:

4. Dany has ruled with fear and violence ever since the dragons hatched. The mother of dragons was a dragon; a Targaryen. She has rarely been merciful and the center of her own world. Did she really become a villain, or was she always a villain that the viewer simply had sympathy for?

Oh yeah, like, I don't think they're really doing a GOOD JOB of this final season in general, but the upswell of sentiment that this came totally out of left field for Daenerys is...not correct. You're absolutely right that she's been a conquerer ruling with fear and violence for seasons now. Generally it's just that it's been a bit more contained and directed at people we want to die. But she's been a "I will end all tyranny!" tyrant for a while now.

It goes even beyond this, and it was a callback from Tyrion that I think really set in Dany what she needed to do in order to win. Fire and blood are the words of her House, and tonight we saw plenty of both - but the reminder about Meereen set her on this course. Yes, Meereen opened its gates to her and surrendered, and King's Landing did too. But think about how many problems she had actually ruling over and controlling the city after that point, thanks to the wealth, thanks to her mercy being seen as weakness.

She wasn't about to make that mistake again.

[Ghost]

***=Spoilz***

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@Roz said in Game of Thrones:

Oh yeah, like, I don't think they're really doing a GOOD JOB of this final season in general, but the upswell of sentiment that this came totally out of left field for Daenerys is...not correct. You're absolutely right that she's been a conquerer ruling with fear and violence for seasons now. Generally it's just that it's been a bit more contained and directed at people we want to die. But she's been a "I will end all tyranny!" tyrant for a while now.

Right. If you look back, it's been about 6.5 seasons of "If they struggle, murder them" Dany. If you look back and really think about it, she's basically the fable of the scorpion that asked for a ride across the river on the duck's back, then halfway across stung and killed the duck, claiming "what did you expect? I'm a scorpion."

What Dany did was 100% true to her character in both the books and the show. Sure, people sympathized for her treatment by the Dothraki and her brother, emotionally agreed with killing the slavers and freeing the slaves, and assumed she was a heroine for being alongside characters you loved like Tyrion, Barristan, Misandei, Grey Worm, and sometimes Jorah BUT...

...I think it was beautifully handled. Just like all of them, you were parallel to her interests, almost to the point of forgetting that she is a dragon with 3 dragons who has been melting her way through the story by flamefucking anyone who stood in her way.

In spirit, we always loved the Starks. We always knew they were the heroes of the story. For a brief time, we sought hope in Dany, and just like Jon Snow, tonight we remembered durr, right, she's been megalomaniacal in methodology all along. She threatened Tyrion with dragons. She promised to burn Varys alive if he ever betrayed her, and she did so because he sided with the people over her.

I think they did a great job on this episode.