@Warma-Sheen said in Game of Thrones:
I was pretty harsh about the show, but since last week, I think I've changed my opinion a little.
***=Having had some time removed from the episode that really pissed people off...***
click to show... I think people are being overly harsh because they didn't get the happy ending they wanted. A lot of people wanted a Disney ending. All the heroes die as saviors or live to glorious admiration and respect. Well, GoT isn't Disney. And it never has been.
No, I don't think this is it.
I mean, maybe some of it is, but
***=More Spoilery Goodness***
I'm one of the people that was defending last week's Big Twist because, yes, 'burn people I don't like to death' has been Dany's solution to every problem since S1E10. But while Dany as conquering queen was beautifully done, they needed a lot more set-up to get to 'ranting delusional lunatic' where she goes full 'we needed to destroy King's Landing to save it! And next we're going to save the whole world!'
That the context was how a woman with power has gone cookoo for cocoa puffs from being in charge does not help.
So then we have her letting Jon walk right up to her without guards when the same scenes that we're supposed to be reading as her descent into madness also involved her losing trust with Jon, but I guess we forgot about that now. So he loves her, but he has to kill her, because there's nothing toxic about a man tearfully doing violence to the woman he loves because she drove him to it...
ANyway, then Drogon slags the Iron Throne instead of turning Jon into a crispy critter, which is an effective bit of SYMBOLISM but doesn't really make a lot of sense? Anyway, Dany's fanatically loyal soldiers and the murder-rapist barbarians then stick Jon into a cell offscreen; I guess touching Grey Worm's arm is a killing offense but regicide is something that needs to be talked out.
Anyway, then we get to the trial/council, which seems like it could be a neat return to the grimy politiking that made the first few seasons shine. Instead, we have Tyrion just dictating how the monarchy of Westros is going to go. While he's in shackles. And at least three of the people there wanted to just kill him. And then he picks... king Bran? Fucking what? And everyone just goes along with that.
("Who has a better story than Bran the Broken?" I mean, the guy in the cell was born the secret child of the heir to the throne, raised a bastard of the Starks, joined the Night's Watch, joined the Wildlings, joined the Night's Watch again, became Lord Commander, died, came back to life, was named King in the North, became the Consort to the invading Queen, and betrayed her for love of the Realm. Bran, meanwhile, got tossed out of a tower, then took a trip north, and has been cryptic and useless for two seasons. Which is kinda cool. I guess.)
And then Sansa declares she's going Nexit, and everyone kinda goes along with that too, and Dorne and the Iron Isles don't start voicing opinions on how they want to change their votes if that's apparently an option now and everything's just so... flat and lifeless and pat, there's no character motivation behind the decisions, it's just how the writers decided the series would end and all the characters know it so that's just what we're doing. And then there's the last scenes, where all the characters are in powerful positions because being a named part that survived to the end is all the qualification they're looking for at this point. (How does killing people for money and being handed a lordship qualify you for Master of Coin?) And Jon gets sent to the Night's Watch, even though there's nothing to Watch against, it's now literally what Ygrette always said it was: a bunch of asshole incels whose job it is to be assholes to anyone north of a random point on the map.
It wasn't all bad. The visuals were goddamn beautiful, there were some excellent callbacks to earlier seasons. Martin's author avatar inventing democracy and getting laughed at was great, as was Edmire's go at nominating himself as King and Sansa being all "honey, no." Brienne and Pod as Kingsguard at the end was great, as was the bit where she chronicled Jamie Lannister's service. Dinklage, as ever, does a superlative job with what he's given. I would absolutely watch the Nautical Adventures of Arya Stark, Murder Badass. And I, at least, interpreted Jon's finale as "fuck all y'all, Imma Mance Rayder this shiz." And Sansa Stark, Queen in the North feels earned, however awkwardly they handled the council scene.
But it was a shitshow overall. I was trying to like it, I really was, but the whole episode was just checking off boxes in a 'reach the end of the series' column. They flubbed everything that made the show shine--the ambiguity, the politics, the messiness--and just rushed the whole thing to an awkward conclusion of load-bearing bosses and twists that subverted expectations because they made no goddamn sense.
And did it bother anyone else that Jon Snow's mystery parentage made no goddamn difference to the conclusion?