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Game of Thrones S8 |OT3| Best season evar. (FULL SPOILERS) (See Staff Post)
- Thread starter Deleted member 2802
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Aegon the Conqueror failed to conquer Dorne even with dragons. Dorne officially joined the seven kingdoms much later on with marriage to the targ kings and until then targaryens were actually just ruling six kingdoms. The idea of them still wanting to be under King Bran is ridiculous especially when the North can get out that easily.
Dorne: So how did it go, you gave those losers our signature line of 'Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken' and told them to fuck off right? Lol
Prince No Name of Dorne: Well, I sort of voted to have this cripple kid I never heard of be our King, after this Lannister prisoner told us how not having a working penis made him the best possible candidate.
Dorne: Wait, did you just say a Lannister convinced you?!
Prince Generic Store Label: Yeah why?
Dorne: ...
Dorne: I guess with a Stark as king at least it means all 7 kingdoms are back together then right?
Prince Generic Store Label: About that...
Haha he's so dead. Like there's no one else in that whole episode who is more certifiably dead than him (yes even Dany).
Lmfao.Dorne: So how did it go, you gave those losers our signature line of 'Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken' and told them to fuck off right? Lol
Prince No Name of Dorne: Well, I sort of voted to have this cripple kid I never heard of be our King, after this Lannister prisoner told us how not having a working penis made him the best possible candidate.
Dorne: Wait, did you just say a Lannister convinced you?!
Prince Generic Store Label: Yeah why?
Dorne: ...
Did they mention what his name was? Or is he just an unnamed Prince of Dorne? Why were there so many unnamed people?
That coronation scene should've been filmed with inspiration from the Great Council of 101 AC. An evolution of the monarchy, with many lords, ladies, maestars and knights present to witness it. A grand affair.
We had a lot of effort put into the weddings of the show, the tourneys, the army camps, Robb/Jon's coronations etc.
Instead of having something of that quality, we got the equivalent of a backyard get together for arguably one of the most important moments of the series...
Just..what?
I have to stop dreaming of what could've been, it only brings me sadness.
Given the direction they wanted to go in, I think the one single thing they could have changed to make it work better would have been to give Dany a true dilemma during the battle of KL by having it actually be a battle. After Drogon destroys the scorpions on the walls, and he blows open the front gate, her forces run through and fighting inside the city begins. The GC and Lannister soldiers are holding their own, and even the citizens of KL are throwing rocks and burning pitch down at Dany's forces from high points. She's sitting on a high perch watching the battle unfold, but can't really participate because the city below is a tangled mess of her forces, Cersei's forces and civilians. The tide of the battle is starting to shift in Cersei's favor, and Dany, seeing the Red Keep in the distance, is left facing the very real possibility that she is about to lose not only the battle, but her last chance to take the throne and fulfill her destiny. It's at that point that she snaps and just starts destroying everything- killing civilians, GC/Lannister forces, and even some of her own. Basically, you're forcing her to choose between using the nuclear option, or losing altogether. You can basically end everything the same way afterwards, just minus the Grey Worm nonsense (just kill him off during the battle).
I know D&D wanted to make her actions seem as 'evil' as possible, but I think it works better if it's more of a grey area. Feels more GRRM-ish, IMO. And it also doesn't invalidate everything that's come before it. The way they depicted the battle this season, it's quite clear that Dany's forces at full strength and with 3 dragons at the beginning of S7 could have taken KL in two minutes with nary a civilian casualty. Cersei didn't even have the GC or scorpions yet. It would have been the most one-sided engagement in history.
I know D&D wanted to make her actions seem as 'evil' as possible, but I think it works better if it's more of a grey area. Feels more GRRM-ish, IMO. And it also doesn't invalidate everything that's come before it. The way they depicted the battle this season, it's quite clear that Dany's forces at full strength and with 3 dragons at the beginning of S7 could have taken KL in two minutes with nary a civilian casualty. Cersei didn't even have the GC or scorpions yet. It would have been the most one-sided engagement in history.
The coronation scene also feels like something where the characters read the script ahead of time and just had to be where they knew they had to be.
Like, who called them all there to begin with? Why'd they all agree to be there? What did they think they were going to do there? Did they bring armies or did they all just agree to go unprotected into the middle of a foreign leaderless army? Tyrion presents the election of a king as a new idea, so that clearly wasn't what they were there for.
Like, who called them all there to begin with? Why'd they all agree to be there? What did they think they were going to do there? Did they bring armies or did they all just agree to go unprotected into the middle of a foreign leaderless army? Tyrion presents the election of a king as a new idea, so that clearly wasn't what they were there for.
It seems like a pretty natural time for a diplomatic meeting, honestly. The queen is dead. Her claim was dubious. All of her heirs are dead. Dragon Lady burned down a giant chunk of the city and was then murdered by the other potential heir on her lineage, and the murderer is being held hostage/prisoner by the invading army. It is a genuine no win situation if any faction resorts to violence.
They simply referred to him as "the new Prince of Dorne" in episode 4. I don't even recall if he had even one line of dialogue outside of saying "aye".
For all they know Grey Worm could murder them all and declare himself king.
And I'm just wondering who sent it out. What were they going to talk about? Why agree to meet in the middle of their army? The middle of an army that was part of the brutal taking of King's Landing. That's incredibly risky. Like, what does Dorne win by agreeing to go meet at all? Dany's dead. Fuck it, we're independent now.
Yeah makes sense for all the leaders to meet in the most hostile area in Westeros with a leaderless and rageful army that just sacked a city and lost their queen. lol
They dropped the ball hard here. You'd think they'd be more angered after having their queen killed.
Should've established this Prince before this council, maybe name him Quentyn even.
The Northern army is still there. It's basically a stalemate that would end in total bloodshed if fighting broke out.
Imagine everyone showing up with their armies, and you're Dorne seeing the pitiful gathering of forces arrayed in front of you doing some quick math in your head like...
"The Reach has no army, the North and the Vale barely have one, the Riverlands are a joke, and the Unsullied + Dothraki + Yara can be convinced to join us. We can totally roll on all of them right now if we wanted to!"
When was time out called on the Game of Thrones, and why would Dorne of all people not be thinking about getting one over on the people (North, Vale, Riverlands, and Lannister) whose rebellion caused the death of their beloved Princess? These are people that were perfectly fine with their Prince being murdered because he wasn't going fast enough for their revenge plot. Yeah, these guys would totally not take advantage of a gift horse this freaking good. All their armies and leaders in one place too? Damn.
Grey Worm doesn't care, though. He has no political or social ambitions, as far as they know he is a violent, murderous zealot who just lost the only person keeping him in check. He could have killed them all in a suicide attack.
Imagine everyone showing up with their armies, and you're Dorne seeing the pitiful gathering of forces arrayed in front of you doing some quick math in your head like...
"The Reach has no army, the North and the Vale barely have one, the Riverlands are a joke, and the Unsullied + Dothraki + Yara can be convinced to join us. We can totally roll on all of them right now if we wanted to!"
When was time out called on the Game of Thrones, and why would Dorne of all people not be thinking about getting one over on the people (North, Vale, Riverlands, and Lannister) whose rebellion caused the death of their beloved Princess? These are people that were perfectly fine with their Prince being murdered because he wasn't going fast enough for their revenge plot. Yeah, these guys would totally not take advantage of a gift horse this freaking good.
Even though I'm defending the setup for the Kingsmoot and think it generally gels with the setup in the show and extra details from the books, I did go into the finale expecting the dissolution of the Seven Kingdoms as a unified entity. Any area that really and truly wants independence can swing it after the the widespread devastation of the war of the five kings, because who is going to say no? The mainland (Reach?) is a shitshow ripe for conflict, but the North, Dorne, II, and Dragonstone could really all just say fuck y'all, and honestly it might still happen in the books. Dorne isn't significant enough in the show to justify spending minutes of the finale debating their political future, and only book readers really raise objections to it.
The counterpoint is the historical reference of the UN being founded in the aftermath of WW2, or to a lesser extent the EU. People are okay with a centralized entity if it isn't particularly powerful, as a way to help keep the peace after a decade of horrific bloodshed.
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Did we even see a scene with the Dornish army?Imagine everyone showing up with their armies, and you're Dorne seeing the pitiful gathering of forces arrayed in front of you doing some quick math in your head like...
"The Reach has no army, the North and the Vale barely have one, the Riverlands are a joke, and the Unsullied + Dothraki + Yara can be convinced to join us. We can totally roll on all of them right now if we wanted to!"
When was time out called on the Game of Thrones, and why would Dorne of all people not be thinking about getting one over on the people (North, Vale, Riverlands, and Lannister) whose rebellion caused the death of their beloved Princess? These are people that were perfectly fine with their Prince being murdered because he wasn't going fast enough for their revenge plot. Yeah, these guys would totally not take advantage of a gift horse this freaking good. All their armies and leaders in one place too? Damn.
I know we got guards.
Ah well.
What's confusing about that? Good character and plot progression has build up and payoff.
While we can watch seasons 1 - 4 and see foreshadowing of an evil Dany. We never see her develop a propensity to murder innocents. She was especially insistent on defending those who couldn't defend themselves, including women and children. So what she did in KL was never built up- it's a payoff w/o the work. I.E. It was unearned. She had a line she wouldn't cross... Then crossed it spontaneously.
The same could be said for Tyrion's decent from a reliable tactical mind, with an ability to anticipate his enemies actions and use them to his advantage... To a gullible moron. There's never an explanation given for how he'd become a person who would trust Cersei or betray his cause to save her, immediately after she nearly had him killed in an ambush, paid to have him assassinated, and smiled while beheading a Queens aid.... It just happened, spontaneously. Again its unearned.
The same could be said of John Snows sudden shift away from doing what's right, even if it's an inconvenience, to being a yes man.
The same could be said of Bran's "story" which largely took place off screen, being what qualifies him to be king in the eyes of the Lords of Westeros.
The same could be said about every Lord instantly agreeing to handing the crown to Bran at Tyrion's suggestion. Dorne? They fucking hate Lannisters. Now they are going to bend the knee to some guy they never heard of because a Lannister prisoner said its a good idea? Unearned outcome.
Its not that all of these things are inherently bad choices ( though that's debatable). But the writers did fuck all for building these traits and events such that the feel like natural progression. They just happened spontaneously.
And before you go on about how you figured Dany would go of the deep end, please understand that foreshadowing isn't character development.
I don't even understand how you can suggest someone might not know what they are talking about when you skipped 3 seasons...
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It's not just book Dorne though. Show Dorne is depicted as this nutso place where a good kind hearted Prince is allowed to be gutted all because he apparently wasn't moving fast enough to avenge his sister and family. The show's own version of Dorne would have absolutely taken advantage of the political situation in front of them. For them to suddenly not only not be of that mindset, but also seemingly forget thousands of years of Dornish independence (even in the face of dragons), is just too much.
It also highlights how this season isn't just let down by one or two story threads falling apart, but by a complete breakdown in in-universe logic and consistency. Dorne being at that meeting makes it even more nonsensical than Tyrion Lannister suggesting Bran as king and everyone but Sansa going along with it. Dorne shouldn't have been there at all. They never cared to partake in Robert's realm, why would they partake in this nonsense after the Queen they swore to was killed?
The northern army does not have anywhere near the size of the unsullied + dothraki. Tons of channels have pointed this out. Which is why Sansa making that threat was so hilarious. The fuck does she think 1000 men are going to do against the largest army in westeros?
Yeah the outrage about Dany in a way overshadows the fact that nearly everything doesn't make any goddamned sense. She's just the poster child for it.
Majority of the popular fan endings are in my opinion considerably better. For the ending, I'd have liked if D&D wasn't obessively trying to "outsmart" the audience, and simply concluded the storylines they've been nurturing for 8 years appropiately. I've said it before multiple times, but as "predictable" and "safe" Jon killing the Night King would have been, it would have still been considerably better, even if nothing else about the episode changed. Why? Because you can now go back, rewatch the series, and enjoy a well rounded character arc. His resurrection, the prophecies, his goal to unite people to fight a bigger threat than eachother, everything comes to a satisfying conclusion. And then, maybe the Night King getting offed with a single stab wouldn't have been so criticized. People WANTED the Night King to live because Arya jumping out of nowhere was simply underwhelming and unearned. Nothing really comes after it. It's practically forgotten 20 mins into the next episode. With Jon? See, now THAT would have been cause for celebration, and Dany getting jealous would've been even more justified.
As for Dany's turn, I think it was the right thing to do, BUT, it needed to happen way earlier. If you only have 2 episodes to go then making one of your main characters do a full 180 turn with paper thin reasoning "seeing the Red Keep set her off" is just.... what. Because, what have we got out of it? A single Hitler-esque speech, and a weird, out of character dialouge with Jon. And that's it. Was there any emotional payoff? Not really, the time skip made sure of that.
And Bran as king? If GRRM told them he'd be king, then I'm sorry, where was the bloody build up? Or did GRRM phone Dan and Dave like 30 mins before they had to submit the script? Because it's utter bullshit. I honestly think that they "hid" Bran on purpose to have a "GOTCHA!" moment in the finale. We stopped seeing Bran's flashbacks, visions after S6, and we've only gotten vague unrelated bullshit since. Sansa being beautiful on the night she was raped, the origins of his wheelchair etc etc. Oh, yeah, wow, great, 8 seasons of people backstabbing and scheming to take the iron throne, but the one to take is the guy that pretended not to care until the very last moment where he smirks and goes "WhY Do YoU tHiNK i CaME AlL tHiS wAY"
IDK- a large chunk of the Unsullied and Dothraki forces conveniently respawned after being all but wiped out after the battle of Winterfell, maybe the northern forces respawned after the battle of KL...
I've said multiple times but this was a massive fumble. After the battle Jon is supposed to be treated as a hero? That doesn't make sense. Sansa was already trying to keep everyone in line prior to the battle. With Arya stomping out the NK in one stab I just don't see everyone swaying to worshipping Jon. If he had beat the Night King then yeah that makes sense.
Jon being the hero for simply gathering the army is what the audience is supposed to think, but they portrayed it differently to the people. Same as Jon's actions with the Wildlings as Lord Commander. He gets killed for it, but the audience thinks he's the good guy.
Either they needed to drop the dumb "everyone loves Jon" shit or they needed him to do something more to earn it.
And, again, Tormund being the stand-in for the feelings of the north is also stupid, so they did that wrong anyway. He's a wildling and friend of Jon. It'd be like Jon getting all pissy that Missandei worshipped Dany.
Imagine everyone showing up with their armies, and you're Dorne seeing the pitiful gathering of forces arrayed in front of you doing some quick math in your head like...
"The Reach has no army, the North and the Vale barely have one, the Riverlands are a joke, and the Unsullied + Dothraki + Yara can be convinced to join us. We can totally roll on all of them right now if we wanted to!"
When was time out called on the Game of Thrones, and why would Dorne of all people not be thinking about getting one over on the people (North, Vale, Riverlands, and Lannister) whose rebellion caused the death of their beloved Princess? These are people that were perfectly fine with their Prince being murdered because he wasn't going fast enough for their revenge plot. Yeah, these guys would totally not take advantage of a gift horse this freaking good. All their armies and leaders in one place too? Damn.
I've been reading Fire and Blood and, after learning about how badly the Dornish effed up Aegon the Conqueror's efforts, I am inclined to agree with your position on this. But I guess that's just book stuff.
Because everyone found a better way! Now all the characters can hold hands and sing kumbayaImagine everyone showing up with their armies, and you're Dorne seeing the pitiful gathering of forces arrayed in front of you doing some quick math in your head like...
"The Reach has no army, the North and the Vale barely have one, the Riverlands are a joke, and the Unsullied + Dothraki + Yara can be convinced to join us. We can totally roll on all of them right now if we wanted to!"
When was time out called on the Game of Thrones, and why would Dorne of all people not be thinking about getting one over on the people (North, Vale, Riverlands, and Lannister) whose rebellion caused the death of their beloved Princess? These are people that were perfectly fine with their Prince being murdered because he wasn't going fast enough for their revenge plot. Yeah, these guys would totally not take advantage of a gift horse this freaking good. All their armies and leaders in one place too? Damn.
I haven't watched it, but they put out an animated history of Westeros blu ray with the last season. Did that not touch on Dorne at all?
When it came down to it Jon uniting the armies didn't matter. Arya and bran could have defeated the WW entirely on their own. So when I see posts that say that storyline was properly concluded I know not to take them seriously
Yeah it did, and Prince Oberyn narrates it. Talks about how they foiled Aegon and his sisters. How a hundred years later some hot headed Targ Prince managed to finally take Dorne, left a Tyrell governor in charge, and within a few weeks the Tyrell governor was dead, Dorne was free, and dumb ass Prince got himself killed lol.
My comment is a general criticism of the use of the term "unearned" in internet discussions of fiction. I'll simply observe that it's not a term I've encountered in literary criticism. From various responses here it seems to be essentially "it doesn't mesh with my complex fan theory of certain key characters' motivations and inner resources."
That's okay. Just bear in mind that the writer may have their own theory which will almost certainly clash with many fan theories. It seems ironic to me that some commentators here are even accusing the writers of raiding internet discussion forums for ideas. Even if they had done that, it couldn't have possibly made everybody happy.
And alas I keep having to come back to the exceptionally high viewing figures. If this season was really so awful, why has it proven so wildly popular? Why have the Nielsen numbers for this show had a monotonic season-on-season climb, if it's so poorly written? You can try to shrug this off, but clearly HBO is doing something right.
So using vague terms like "unearned" is not going to cut it. You have to try harder than that.
This isn't just fan theories man. Nearly every detail didn't make much sense when thought about and compared to show lore. I wasn't looking to be happy and have some favorite character win. I was looking for good writing. This is especially dumb for this series where they killed off fan-favorite characters quite a bit and people kept watching and loving it. People weren't knee jerk hating the show then. Why suddenly now? Because it's poorly written.
Most people can accept well written media that doesn't conform to what they want. It's when it doesn't make sense that the seems start to show, especially when a show becomes something completely different from where it started.
People that dislike it are likely still going to watch it. Even for a while. Seasons 1-4 are some of the absolute best television I've ever watched. I loved those seasons so much that they practically dissuaded me from writing anymore because if I did write something it would pale in comparison. Season 5-6 were acceptable enough to continue. I hated season 7 but had to actually watch it to know I hated the writing. At that point why would I skip out on Season 8? People watch train wrecks and car crashes all the time. In this case it was a massive budget car crash. Season 7 sucked writing-wise but there was a lot of effort from a lot of others in the show that made it worth it to see. And one more season of that I may as well watch. In addition it's snowballed into a social phenomenon. People want to talk to friends and be a part of the conversation. The ratings defense is such a dumb fucking cop-out. People watch bad things all the time even when they know they're bad. People spend time doing dumber things. Why do I have to sit completely out in order to display how bad I think something is. Why do I have to be clairvoyant and know ahead of time it'll be bad?
If there was a season 9 of this show, it would see a huge dropoff in ratings. People kept tuning in because it's the culmination of a story they've invested years in. It's very difficult to tear yourself away even if you find yourself watching a trainwreck. Previous seasons built up an enormous amount of goodwill which doesn't vanish instantly.
People invested almost a decade of their lives to follow this show. Even if its a terrible season, and it absolutely is, it is not difficult to understand how it had high ratings. It does not mean hbo is "doing something right" in terms of narrative, the horrible decision they made was keep d&d after it was clear they were not intereated in moving forward instalead of changing showrunners.
Not to mention the absolute beating this season took to both critical rating and fan reactions. If it was just the latter some people may have a point of fans maybe not liking what the show ended with. It's the equivalent of you're A+ student handing in C level assignments in the final semester of Uni. Sure their previous grades were so high that they can coast with a half decent GPA in the end, but god damn that kid could have finished magna cum laude had they nailed the final bit.
And there is alot of long term damage. I talked to 2 friends that watched only until season 3 and after this season I had to say "season eight sucked but its still worth it to watch". How many future viewers are thiking twice about starting knowing the ending sucked?
The funny thing is that Season Six's ending can realistically be a jumping off point for anyone that wants to watch the show but already knows how it ends and doesn't like it. Just pretend that the show was cancelled going into the sixth season, and that HBO was kind enough to let them end it without a massive cliffhanger. The NK stuff didn't matter in the end anyways lol. So let your imagination run wild from that ending. Pretty sure whatever you come up with would be more satisfying than what we got.
There was an HBO leak where executives talked about it. They talked to GRRM about killing Bran instead of Daenerys and GRRM insisted that Bran live and Dany die.
Potentially fake, potentially real.
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There was an HBO leaks where executives talked about it. They talked to GRRM about killing Bran instead of Daenerys and GRRM insisted that Bran live and Dany die.
Potentially fake, potentially real.
That just says that GRRM insisted that Bran live, and I'm guessing since they wanted a major character to die, they choose Dany. Probably fake either way 🤷♂️
But the fact (fake or not) that they were hoping for a Ned like reaction is...
I agree with you here. I think it's going to age even worse than it was disliked initially. When you start thinking about all the holes and shoddy storytelling. Season 8 is just going to look worse and worse.
I am actually amazed how evenly distributed the scores are
LOL! Question 10: Bran is now known as "Bran the Broken". If Jon Snow had become King, what would his title be? (Assume he'd use "Jon" as his name)
One of the choices is "Jon the Knower of Nothing". Now that's a title!!
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Thanks for sharing, cool survey. Will check the earlier episodes too.
Not really all that surprising. Among the people that really hates the episode...
- Some hated the show from the start.
- Some soured in the recent seasons.
- Some soured over this season.
- Some don't let 1 episode overly dictate their opinion of the entire multi-seasom show.